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http://www.khouse.org/articles/2006/659/

Celebrating the 4th of July:
Our National Birth Certificate

by David Barton WallBuilders

This year marks 230 years since our Founding Fathers gave us our National Birth Certificate. We continue to be the longest on-going Constitutional Republic in the history of the world. Blessings such as these are not by chance or accidental. They are blessings of God.

On July 2, 1776, Congress voted to approve a complete separation from Great Britain. Two days afterwards - July 4th - the early draft of the Declaration of Independence was signed, albeit by only two individuals at that time: John Hancock, President of Congress, and Charles Thompson, Secretary of Congress.

Four days later, on July 8, members of Congress took that document and read it aloud from the steps of Independence Hall, proclaiming it to the city of Philadelphia, after which the Liberty Bell was rung. The inscription around the top of that bell, Leviticus 25:10, was most appropriate for the occasion: ''Proclaim liberty throughout the land and to all the inhabitants thereof.''

To see the turmoil in other nations, their struggles and multiple revolutions, and yet to see the stability and blessings that we have here in America, we may ask how has this been achieved? What was the basis of American Independence? John Adams said, ''The general principles on which the Fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity.''

John Adams

Perhaps the clearest identification of the spirit of the American Revolution was given by John Adams in a letter to Abigail the day after Congress approved the Declaration. He wrote her two letters on that day; the first was short and concise, jubilant that the Declaration had been approved. The second was much longer and more pensive, giving serious consideration to what had been done that day. Adams cautiously noted: ''This day will be the most memorable epic in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival.''

It is amazing that on the very day they approved the Declaration, Adams was already foreseeing that their actions would be celebrated by future generations. Adams contemplated whether it would be proper to hold such celebrations, but then concluded that the day should be commemorated - but in a particular manner and with a specific spirit. As he told Abigail: ''It ought to be commemorated as the day of de-liverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.''

John Adams believed that the Fourth of July should become a religious holiday - a day when we remembered God’s hand in deliverance and a day of religious activities when we committed ourselves to Him in ''solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty.''

An Eyewitness

Such was the spirit of the American Revolution as seen through the eyes of those who led it, evidenced even further in the words of John Quincy Adams, one who was deeply involved in the activities of the Revolution.

In 1837, when he was 69 years old, he delivered a Fourth of July speech at Newburyport, Massachusetts. He began that address with a question: ''Why is it, friends and fellow citizens, that you are here assembled? Why is it that entering on the 62nd year of our national existence you have honored [me] with an invitation to address you...?''

The answer was easy: they had asked him to address them because he was old enough to remember what went on; they wanted an eye-witness to tell them of it! He next asked them: ''Why is it that, next to the birthday of the Savior of the world, your most joyous and most venerated festival returns on this day [the Fourth of July]?''

An interesting question: Why is it that in America, the Fourth of July and Christmas were our two top holidays? Note his answer: ''Is it not that, in the chain of human events, the birthday of the nation is indissolubly linked with the birthday of the Savior? That it forms a leading event in the progress of the Gospel dispensation? Is it not that the Declaration of Independence first organized the social compact on the foundation of the Redeemer’s mission upon earth? That it laid the cornerstone of human government upon the first precepts of Christianity?''

According to John Quincy Adams, Christmas and the Fourth of July were intrinsically connected. On the Fourth of July, the Founders simply took the precepts of Christ which came into the world through His birth (Christmas) and incorporated those principles into civil government.

Have you ever considered what it meant for those 56 men - an eclectic group of ministers, businessmen, teachers, university professors, sailors, captains, and farmers - to sign the Declaration of Independence? This was a contract that began with the reasons for the separation from Great Britain and closed in the final paragraph, stating: ''And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.''

Dr. Benjamin Rush, the father of American Medicine and a signer, recorded that day in his diary. In 1781, he wrote to John Adams:

Do you recollect the pensive and awful silence which pervaded the House when we were called up, one after another, to the table of the President of Congress to subscribe to what was believed by many at that time to be our death warrants? The silence and gloom of the morning was interrupted, I well recollect, only for a moment by Colonel Harrison of Virginia (a big guy) who said to Mr. Gerry (small in stature) at the table: ''I shall have a great advantage over you, Mr. Gerry, when we are all hung for what we are now doing... From the size and weight of my body I shall die in a few minutes, but from the lightness of your body you will dance in the air an hour or two before you are dead.'' This speech procured a transient smile, but it was soon succeeded by the solemnity with which the whole business was conducted.

Robert Morris

These men took this pledge seriously. Robert Morris of Pennsylvania is an example of the highest level of integrity. He was chosen as the financier of the American Revolution. What an honor, except that there was no bank willing to give any loans to help fund the revolution. It was three years and the Battle of Saratoga before America got any kind of funding at all. After winning that battle, foreign nations like France, Holland, and others decided maybe we weren’t such a bad risk and began loaning us money.

So where did we get money for the first three years? Congress, at that time, could not have obtained a loan of one thousand dollars, yet Robert Morris effected loans upon his own credit, of tens of thousands. In 1781, George Washington conceived the expedition against Cornwallis, at Yorktown. He asked Judge Peters of Pennsylvania, ''What can you do for me?''

''With money, everything, without it, nothing,'' he replied, at the same time turning with anxious look toward Mr. Morris.

''Let me know the sum you desire,'' said Mr. Morris, and before noon Washington’s plan and estimates were complete. Robert Morris promised him the amount, and he raised it upon his own responsibility.

It has been justly remarked, that: ''If it were not demonstrable by official records, posterity would hardly be made to believe that the campaign of 1781, which resulted in the capture of Cornwallis and virtually closed the Revolutionary War, was sustained wholly on the credit of an individual merchant.'' America couldn’t repay him because there was no money, and yet Robert Morris never complained because he had given his word.

John Hart

You see the same thing in the life of John Hart. He was a strong Christian gentleman and Speaker of the House of Representatives in New Jersey. He promised to help provide them with guidance and leadership. There were three things that were important in his life; his Savior, his family and his farm. Because of his signature on the Declaration, the British were seeking him (and the rest of the signers) to execute as traitors. John Hart fled his home, after which his farm was ravaged, his timber destroyed, and his cattle and stock butchered for the use of the British army. He did not dare to remain two nights in the same location.

After Washington’s success at the battle of Trenton, he finally returned home to find that his wife had died and his children scattered. He lost almost everything that was important to him but kept his word.

John Hancock

John Hancock, a very wealthy individual, lived in a mansion reflecting his princely fortune - one of the largest in the Province of Massachusetts.

During the time the American army besieged Boston to rid it of the British, the American officers proposed the entire destruction of the city. ''By the execution of such a plan, the whole fortune of Mr. Hancock would have been sacrificed. Yet he readily acceded to the measure, declaring his willingness to surrender his all, whenever the liberties of his country should require it.'' A man of his word, he demonstrated his integrity.

The 16 Congressional proclamations for prayer and fasting throughout the Revolution were not bland (i.e., the acknowledgment of Jesus Christ, the quoting of Romans 14:17, etc.); however, this is not unusual considering the prominent role that many ministers played in the Revolution.

Ministers of the Revolution

One such example is John Peter Muhlenburg. In a sermon delivered to his Virginia congregation on January 21, 1776, he preached verse by verse from Ecclesiastes 3 - the passage which speaks of a season and a time to every purpose under heaven. Arriving at verse 8, which declares that there is a time of war and a time of peace, Muhlenburg noted that this surely was not the time of peace; this was the time of war. Concluding with a prayer, and while standing in full view of the congregation, he removed his clerical robes to reveal that beneath them he was wearing the uniform of an officer in the Continental army!

He marched to the back of the church, ordered the drum to beat for recruits and over three hundred men joined him, becoming the Eighth Virginia Brigade. John Peter Muhlenburg finished the Revolution as a Major-General, having been at Valley Forge and having participated in the battles of Brandywine, Germantown, Monmouth, Stonypoint, and Yorktown.

Another minister-leader in the Revolution was the Reverend James Caldwell. His actions during one battle inspired a painting showing him standing with a stack of hymn books in his arms while engaged in the midst of a fierce battle against the British outside a battered Presbyterian church.

During the battle, the Americans had developed a serious problem: they had run out of wadding for their guns, which was just as serious as having no ammunition. Reverend Caldwell recognized the perfect solution; he ran inside the church and returned with a stack of Watts Hymnals - one of the strongest doctrinal hymnals of the Christian faith (Isaac Watts authored ''O God Our Help In Ages Past,'' ''Joy to the World,'' ''Jesus Shall Reign,'' and several other classic hymns).

Distributing the Watts Hymnals among the soldiers served two purposes: first, its pages would provide the needed wadding; second, the use of the hymnal carried a symbolic message. Reverend Caldwell took that hymn book - the source of great doctrine and spiritual truth - raised it up in the air and shouted to the Americans, ''Give ‘em Watts, boys!''

The spiritual emphasis manifested so often by the Americans during the Revolution caused one Crown-appointed British governor to write to Great Britain complaining that: ''If you ask an American who is his master, he’ll tell you he has none. And he has no governor but Jesus Christ.''

Letters like this, and sermons like those preached by the Reverend Peter Powers titled ''Jesus Christ the King,'' gave rise to a sentiment that has been described as a motto of the American Revolution.

The ''Motto'' of the American Revolution

Most Americans are unaware that the Revolution might have had mottoes, but many wars do (e.g., in Texas’ war for independence, it was ''Remember the Alamo''; in the Union side in the Civil War, it was ''In God We Trust''; in World War I, it was ''Remember the Lusitania''; in World War II, it was ''Remember Pearl Harbor''; etc.).

A motto of the American Revolution directed against the tyrant King George III and the theologically discredited doctrine of the Divine Right of Kings (which asserted that when the king spoke, it was the voice of God speaking directly to the people) was simple and direct: ''No King but King Jesus!''

Another motto (first suggested by Benjamin Franklin and often repeated during the Revolution) was similar in tone: ''Rebellion to Tyrants is Obedience to God.''

Preserving American liberty depends first upon our understanding the foundations on which this great country was built and then preserving the principles on which it was founded. Let’s not let the purpose for which we were established be forgotten. The Founding Fathers have passed us a torch; let’s not let it go out.

* * *

© 2006 WallBuilders. Used by permission of the author. To learn more about the quest for our freedom, read WallBuilders resources at www.wallbuilders.com. To request a free catalog, call toll-free 800-873-2845; or you may write to WallBuilders at P.O. Box 397, Aledo, TX, 76008.






//


Election-Year Stewardship:
Our Dual Citizenship

by Chuck Missler

http://khouse.org/articles/2000/211/

One of the more perplexing areas for the Christian is our responsibilities as a citizen. Especially in an election year, it is a good time to review our obligations to the Throne of our King.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God: and they that resist shall receive to themselves condemnation.

For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same:

Romans 13:1-3

This is certainly a sound foundation from which to start. We are clearly admonished to lead a "quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty."1 Yet there are exceptions, of course, when the local ordinances are in conflict with God's laws.2 (It may come as a surprise to discover that God's moral laws preceded all other aspects of His creation.3 )

It is also instructive to notice how Paul knew the prevailing laws and his rights and didn't hesitate to exploit them.4 The Bible does not seem to deal directly with the responsibilities of a democracy in which officials are elected and in which laws are drafted by elected officials which have authority over those officials. Thus, we must make applications to our democratic context carefully.

Our Unique Heritage

In America we have a representative government; we are committed to the rule of law, not to a person or specific ruler. Submission in our Republic is primarily to laws and constitutional processes and not to persons. Our officials are actually our employees.

Biblical submission is a readiness to obey law and uphold the legal order, not an approval or endorsement of all lawmakers or even all laws absolutely. Christ's absolute supremacy over our lives qualifies the ostensible absoluteness of human law. The Christian recognizes Christ and his law as the final authority.

Our Paradoxical Stewardship

Our problem is, what is to be done when the "rulers are a terror to good works"? John the Baptist's preaching is an example of a proper indictment of present government authority. Jesus said of John the Baptist, "Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist!"5 Nevertheless, he was beheaded for indicting publicly the prevailing ruling authority.

For when Herod had John arrested, he bound him and put him in prison because of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip. For John had been saying to him, "It is not lawful for you to have her."

Matthew 14:3-4

Therefore, opposition to a leader's behavior—and public criticism of it—and the declaration of moral unfitness for office is not necessarily inconsistent with a submissive spirit to governing authorities.

We enjoy a unique mandate: we enjoy a "government of the people, by the people, and for the people." And I believe you and I will be held accountable for our stewardship of this mandate that has come to us at such a high price. Ask almost anyone, "What is the biggest problem in America? Is it ignorance or is it apathy?" They are likely to answer, "I don't know and I don't care!" Our first stewardship priority is:

Knowing the Truth About Our Leadership

It is an abomination for kings to commit wicked acts, for a throne is established on righteousness.

Proverbs 16:12

The abandonment of righteousness weakens the seat of government and the stability and security of the nation. Loyalty and truth preserve the king, and he upholds his throne by righteousness.

Proverbs 20:28

The abandonment of truth and loyalty to covenants undermines the leadership of a ruler. The king gives stability to the land by justice, but a man who takes bribes overthrows it.

Proverbs 29:4

The issue of bribery is, at root, the issue of private truthfulness and acting on principle as opposed to being driven by expediency. Thus, when integrity is forsaken, justice is overthrown.

If a ruler pays attention to falsehood, all his ministers become wicked.

Proverbs 29:12

The minimizing of truthfulness corrupts others so that the entire government becomes more corrupt. Thus, private morality has vast public implications. "Private" acts of rulers pervert public justice and good order. Paul warns that immorality and wickedness is not to be tolerated.

A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump. Galatians 5:9 1 Corinthians 5:6

[Leaven is an idiom for sin: it corrupts by puffing up.]

Ye shall put away leaven out of your houses... Neither shall there be leaven seen with thee in all thy quarters... Exodus 12:15; 13:7

It is time to get our house in order.

Our Forthcoming Election

This coming election will not be about political persuasions: it is about character; it is about morality; it is about keeping oaths before the Throne of God. It is about the mandate and commitment to preserve and defend God-given rights embodied in the Constitution.

The Congress and Senate take oaths. Are they relevant? Are they accountable? They are: before the Throne of God. That's a mandate they can't ignore or postpone. Is it party or principle?

We will face some fundamental questions: Are we going to embrace those who would murder children during delivery? Are we going to continue to subsidize sexual perversion and the promotion of incurable diseases, and destroy the very concept of the family which God has ordained?

Some will press for compromise in the name of political pragmatism and expediency. Yet, let us remember: The victory is the Lord's, should He choose to bless. Our only duty is to stand for what is right, and remain consistent with His laws.

The Ultimate Poll

There is a poll that can't be ignored, and it has only one vote! There is an election coming which has your name on the ballot. It will involve a "ballot box" which will receive only one relevant vote: God's. The results will not be determined by rhetoric but by performance. What has your voting record been?

Whatever your beliefs and values, make sure the candidates you support are committed to the same things you are committed to.

Your Call to Action

There is something far more powerful than even the ballot box: it is your prayer closet.

1. Pray for the President's repentance and renewal in faith and honesty and purity of heart and body. And pray for the Office of the Presidency, and that its moral leadership might be reinstated.
2. Pray for all of our leaders—for discernment and wisdom in their decisions; for courage in times of crisis; and, for repentance where their behavior so requires.
3. And pray for the exaltation of God in our land, whose ways and Word have been ignored and despised.
4. Inform those in governing positions of your views and values (email addresses may be found on the web at www.senate.gov or www.house.gov).
5. Actively support candidates of profound personal integrity.
6. Hold all elected representatives accountable.

If you care about your children and grandchildren, be sure you take these accountabilities— your representatives and your own—seriously.

* * *

When minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas State legislature, everyone was expecting the usual politically correct generalities, but what they heard instead was a stirring prayer, passionately calling our country to repentance and righteousness. (The response was immediate. A number of the Legislature walked out during the prayer in protest. In six short weeks, the Central Christian Church had logged more than 5,000 responding calls, with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of the prayer from India, Africa and Korea.)

The Prayer

Heavenly Father, we come before you today and ask Your forgiveness and to seek Your direction and guidance.

We know Your Word says, "Woe on those who call evil good," but that's exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that:

We have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it pluralism.

We have worshiped other gods and called it multiculturalism.

We have endorsed perversion and called it alternative life-style.

We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery.

We have neglected the needy and called it self-preservation.

We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare.

We have killed our unborn and called it choice.

We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable.

We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem.

We have abused power and called it political savvy.

We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition.

We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression.

We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment.

Search us, O God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free.

Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of your will.

I ask it in the name of Your Son, the Living Savior, Jesus Christ.

Amen.
This article was originally published in the
March 2000 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. 1 Timothy 2:2.
2. Acts 4:18-21; 5:29.
3. Proverbs 8:22-31.
4. Acts 23: 1-5; 11; 28:19.
5. Matthew 11:11; Luke 7:28.

//


Election-Year Stewardship
Republic v. Democracy

by David Barton Founder and president of WallBuilders

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2004/546/

We have grown accustomed to hearing that we are a democracy; such was never the intent. The form of government entrusted to us by our Founders was a republic, not a democracy.1 Our Founders had an opportunity to establish a democracy in America and chose not to. In fact, the Founders made it clear that we were not, and were never to become, a democracy:

[D]emocracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention; have ever been found incompatible with personal security, or the rights of property; and have, in general, been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.2

James Madison

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.3

John Adams

A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.4 The known propensity of a democracy is to licentiousness [excessive license] which the ambitious call, and ignorant believe to be liberty.5

Fisher Ames, Author of the House Language for the First Amendment

We have seen the tumult of democracy terminate . . . as [it has] everywhere terminated, in despotism. . . . Democracy! savage and wild. Thou who wouldst bring down the virtuous and wise to thy level of folly and guilt.6

Gouverneur Morris, Signer and Penman of the Constitution

[T]he experience of all former ages had shown that of all human governments, democracy was the most unstable, fluctuating and short-lived.

7 John Quincy Adams

A simple democracy . . . is one of the greatest of evils.8

Benjamin Rush, Signer of the Declaration

In democracy . . . there are commonly tumults and disorders. . . . Therefore a pure democracy is generally a very bad government. It is often the most tyrannical government on earth.9

Noah Webster

Pure democracy cannot subsist long nor be carried far into the departments of state, it is very subject to caprice and the madness of popular rage.10

John Witherspoon, Signer of the Declaration

It may generally be remarked that the more a government resembles a pure democracy the more they abound with disorder and confusion.11

Zephaniah Swift, Author of America's First Legal Text

Many Americans today seem to be unable to define the difference between the two, but there is a difference, a big difference. That difference rests in the source of authority.

A pure democracy operates by direct majority vote of the people. When an issue is to be decided, the entire population votes on it; the majority wins and rules. A republic differs in that the general population elects representatives who then pass laws to govern the nation. A democracy is the rule by majority feeling (what the Founders described as a "mobocracy" 12); a republic is rule by law. If the source of law for a democracy is the popular feeling of the people, then what is the source of law for the American republic? According to Founder Noah Webster:

[O]ur citizens should early understand that the genuine source of correct republican principles is the Bible, particularly the New Testament, or the Christian religion.13

The transcendent values of Biblical natural law were the foundation of the American republic. Consider the stability this provides: in our republic, murder will always be a crime, for it is always a crime according to the Word of God. however, in a democracy, if majority of the people decide that murder is no longer a crime, murder will no longer be a crime. America's immutable principles of right and wrong were not based on the rapidly fluctuating feelings and emotions of the people but rather on what Montesquieu identified as the "principles that do not change."14 Benjamin Rush similarly observed:

[W]here there is no law, there is no liberty; and nothing deserves the name of law but that which is certain and universal in its operation upon all the members of the community.15

In the American republic, the "principles which did not change" and which were "certain and universal in their operation upon all the members of the community" were the principles of Biblical natural law. In fact, so firmly were these principles ensconced in the American republic that early law books taught that government was free to set its own policy only if God had not ruled in an area. For example, Blackstone's Commentaries explained:

To instance in the case of murder: this is expressly forbidden by the Divine. . . . If any human law should allow or enjoin us to commit it we are bound to transgress that human law. . . . But, with regard to matters that are . . . not commanded or forbidden by those superior laws such, for instance, as exporting of wool into foreign countries; here the . . . legislature has scope and opportunity to interpose.16

The Founders echoed that theme:

All [laws], however, may be arranged in two different classes. 1) Divine. 2) Human. . . . But it should always be remembered that this law, natural or revealed, made for men or for nations, flows from the same Divine source: it is the law of God. . . . Human law must rest its authority ultimately upon the authority of that law which is Divine.17

James Wilson, Signer of the Constitution; U. S. Supreme Court Justice

[T]he law . . . dictated by God Himself is, of course, superior in obligation to any other. It is binding over all the globe, in all countries, and at all times. No human laws are of any validity if contrary to this.18

Alexander Hamilton, Signer of the Constitution

[T]he . . . law established by the Creator . . . extends over the whole globe, is everywhere and at all times binding upon mankind. . . . [This] is the law of God by which he makes his way known to man and is paramount to all human control.19

Rufus King, Signer of the Constitution

The Founders understood that Biblical values formed the basis of the republic and that the republic would be destroyed if the people's knowledge of those values should ever be lost.

A republic is the highest form of government devised by man, but it also requires the greatest amount of human care and maintenance. If neglected, it can deteriorate into a variety of lesser forms, including a democracy (a government conducted by popular feeling); anarchy (a system in which each person determines his own rules and standards); oligarchy (a government run by a small council or a group of elite individuals): or dictatorship (a government run by a single individual). As John Adams explained:

[D]emocracy will soon degenerate into an anarchy; such an anarchy that every man will do what is right in his own eyes and no man's life or property or reputation or liberty will be secure, and every one of these will soon mould itself into a system of subordination of all the moral virtues and intellectual abilities, all the powers of wealth, beauty, wit, and science, to the wanton pleasures, the capricious will, and the execrable [abominable] cruelty of one or a very few.20

Understanding the foundation of the American republic is a vital key toward protecting it.

Copyright © 2003 WallBuilders. Reprinted by permission. http://www.wallbuilders.com/.
This article was originally published in the
October 2004 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. An example of this is demonstrated in the anecdote where, having concluded their work on the Constitution, Benjamin Franklin walked outside and seated himself on a public bench. A woman approached him and inquired, "Well, Dr. Franklin, what have you done for us?" Franklin quickly responded, "My dear lady, we have given to you a republic-if you can keep it." Taken from "America's Bill of Rights at 200 Years," by former Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, printed in Presidential Studies Quarterly , Vol. XXI, No. 3, Summer 1991, p. 457. This anecdote appears in numerous other works as well.
2. Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, James Madison, The Federalist on the New Constitution (Philadelphia: Benjamin Warner, 1818), p. 53, #10, James Madison.
3. John Adams, The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States , Charles Francis Adams, editor (Boston: Charles C. Little and James Brown, 1850), Vol. VI, p. 484, to John Taylor on April 15, 1814.
4. Fisher Ames, Works of Fisher Ames (Boston: T. B. Wait & Co., 1809), p. 24, Speech on Biennial Elections, delivered January, 1788.
5. Ames, Works, p. 384, "The Dangers of American Liberty," February 1805.
6. Gouverneur Morris, An Oration Delivered on Wednesday, June 29, 1814, at the Request of a Number of Citizens of New-York, in Celebration of the Recent Deliverance of Europe from the Yoke of Military Despotism (New York: Van Winkle and Wiley, 1814), pp. 10, 22.
7. John Quincy Adams, The Jubilee of the Constitution. A Discourse Delivered at the Request of the New York Historical Society, in the City of New York on Tuesday, the 30th of April 1839; Being the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Inauguration of George Washington as President of the United States, on Thursday, the 30th of April, 1789 (New York: Samuel Colman, 1839), p. 53.
8. Benjamin Rush, The Letters of Benjamin Rush , L. H. Butterfield, editor (Princeton: Princeton University Press for the American Philosophical Society, 1951), Vol. I, p. 523, to John Adams on July 21, 1789.
9. Noah Webster, The American Spelling Book: Containing an Easy Standard of Pronunciation: Being the First Part of a Grammatical Institute of the English Language, To Which is Added, an Appendix, Containing a Moral Catechism and a Federal Catechism (Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer T. Andrews, 1801), pp. 103-104.
10. John Witherspoon, The Works of John Witherspoon (Edinburgh: J. Ogle, 1815), Vol. VII, p. 101, Lecture 12 on Civil Society.
11. Zephaniah Swift, A System of the Laws of the State of Connecticut (Windham: John Byrne, 1795), Vol. I, p. 19.
12. See, for example, Benjamin Rush, Letters , Vol. I, p. 498, to John Adams on January 22, 1789.
13. Noah Webster, History of the United States (New Haven: Durrie & Peck, 1832), p. 6.
14. George Bancroft, History of the United States from the Discovery of the American Continent (Boston: Little, Brown & Co., 1859), Vol. V, p. 24. See Baron Charles Secondat de Montesquieu, Spirit of the Laws (Philadelphia: Isaiah Thomas, 1802), Vol. I, pp. 17-23, and ad passim.
15. Rush, Letters , Vol. I, p. 454, to David Ramsay, March or April 1788.
16. Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), Vol. I, pp. 42-43.
17. James Wilson, The Works of the Honorable James Wilson , Bird Wilson, editor (Philadelphia: Lorenzo Press, 1804), Vol. I, pp. 103-105, "Of the General Principles of Law and Obligation."
18. Alexander Hamilton, The Papers of Alexander Hamilton , Harold C. Syrett, editor (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), Vol. I, p. 87, February 23, 1775, quoting William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England (Philadelphia: Robert Bell, 1771), Vol. I, p. 41.
19. Rufus King, The Life and Correspondence of Rufus King , Charles R. King, editor (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1900), Vol. VI, p. 276, to C. Gore on February 17, 1820.
20. John Adams, The Papers of John Adams, Robert J. Taylor, editor (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1977), Vol. I, p. 83, from "An Essay on Man's Lust for Power, with the Author's Comment in 1807," written on August 29, 1763, but first published by John Adams in 1807.

//

[solookup]

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1995/63/

The Federal Reserve:
The Engine of Power

by Chuck Missler

The Bible instructs us not to be ignorant of Satan's devices and it predicts that, as the Second Coming of Christ draws near, the world will be drawn into a One World Government, ultimately to be taken over by a Coming World Leader1. The forces setting the stage for this final climactic chapter may have proceeded farther than most people realize.

Few Americans know of the betrayal that was plotted on Jekyll Island, Georgia, which was destined to defraud Americans of their wealth and opportunity, and would eventually lead to the subjugation of our great democratic experiment to a centralized global dictatorship.2

The Betrayal

In November of 1910, after having consulted with Rothschild banks in England, France, and Germany, Senator Nelson Aldrich3 boarded a private train in Hoboken, New Jersey. His destination was Jekyll Island, Georgia, and a private hunting club owned by J.P. Morgan.4

Aboard the train were six other men: Benjamin Strong, President of Morgan's Bankers Trust Company; Charles Norton, President of Morgan's First National Bank of New York; Henry Davidson, senior partner of J. P. Morgan; Frank Vanderlip, President of Kuhn Loeb's National City Bank of New York; A. Piatt Andrew, Assistant Secretary of Treasury; and Paul Warburg.5 The secret meeting, as described by one its architects, Frank Vanderlip, went as follows:

"There was an occasion near the close of 1910 when I was as secretive, indeed as furtive, as any conspirator. I do not feel it is any exaggeration to speak of our secret expedition to Jekyll Island as the occasion of the actual conception of what eventually became the Federal Reserve System.

"We were told to leave our last names behind us. We were told further that we should avoid dining together on the night of our departure. We were instructed to come one at a time... where Senator Aldrich's private car would be in readiness, attached to the rear end of the train for the South.

"Once aboard the private car, we began to observe the taboo that had been fixed on last names. Discovery, we knew, simply must not happen, or else all our time and effort would be wasted..."6

The goal was to establish a private bank that would control the national currency. The challenge was to slip the scheme by the representatives of the American people. Earlier, it had been called the Aldrich Bill and received effective opposition.

The devious planners of the revised bill titled it "The Federal Reserve Act" to mask its real nature. It would create a system controlled by private individuals who would control the nation's issue of money. Furthermore, the Federal Reserve Board, composed of twelve districts and one director (The Federal Reserve Chairman) would control the nation's financial resources by controlling the money supply and available credit, all by mortgaging the government through borrowing.

Divide and Conquer

The conspirators had a problem, however. President William Howard Taft had made it clear he would veto such a bill if it was introduced. They had to make sure he would not win reelection.

They first supported ex-President Teddy Roosevelt in the Republican primaries, but he failed to get the nomination. Then the bankers supported the Democratic contender, Woodrow Wilson.

In exchange for their support, Wilson promised to sign their bill into law. But the polls indicated that Wilson would only draw about 45% of the votes. The bankers needed someone who could draw a sufficient number of Republican votes away from Taft without harming their Democratic candidate. They arranged for Teddy Roosevelt to run against both men by representing a newly invented third party: the "Bull Moose" party. (Doesn't this sound familiar? Using a Ross Perot to defeat George Bush and get Bill Clinton elected? Dividing the votes of the potential winner to elect a minority candidate is a tactic used more frequently than we realize.)

The plan worked. The Federal Reserve Bill was held until December 23 (two days before Christmas!) before it was presented to the House and Senate. Only those senators and congressmen who had not gone home for the holidays--those who owed favors to, or were on the payroll of, the bankers--were present to sign the legislation. (Involved behind the scenes in the elections of Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt was "Colonel" Edward Mandell House, son of the Civil War Rothschild agent Thomas W. House.7 "Col" Edward House represented the interests of the Rothschild banks, and was originally a member of the Institute of International Affairs, formed in Paris at the Majestic Hotel in a secret meeting on May 30, 1919. Its American branch, formed on July 29, 1921, became the Council on Foreign Relations.)

The Charade Begins

The Federal Reserve Act of 1913 was a deliberate charade to pacify the American voters. They'd been crying out for banking reform and had held scores of elections, alternating one set of politicians with another, only to find them selves with the same programs and deeper debt.

Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr.8 had complained at the time:

"It is a common practice of congressmen to make the title of acts promise aright, but in the body or text of the acts to rob the people of what is promised in the title."9

He pointed out that the government officeholders understood:

"...that by joining with the [banking] interests to exploit the people, their reelection is more certain than if they serve people who elect them. By joining the exploiters their campaign expenses are paid, the support of the 'machines' and the capital press is assured, and if by chance they should lose they are appointed to the same office that should suit them equally or better."10

The same phenomenon is visible today. The same cast of characters emerge in key positions whether the nation votes Democrat or Republican. Both sides appear to have sold out. (This tradition of betrayal has continued with the "North American Free Trade Agreement," and the GATT "Agreement," both of which were called "agreements" to avoid having to pass the 2/3 majority of the Senate. However, the White House Internet files labeled them "treaties" as soon as they were passed.) Even Woodrow Wilson felt he had made a terrible mistake in signing the bill. He later wrote:

"Some of the biggest men in the United States in the field of commerce and manufacture are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it..."11

The name "Federal Reserve Bank" was designed to deceive, and it still does. It is not federal, nor is it owned by the government. It is privately owned. It pays its own postage like any other corporation. Its employees are not civil service. Its physical property is held under private deeds and is subject to local taxation (government property is not).

It is an engine that has created private wealth that is unimaginable, even to the most financially sophisticated. It has enabled an imperial elite to manipulate our economy for its own agenda and enlisted the government itself as its enforcer. It "controls the times, dictates business, affects our homes and practically everything in which we are interested."12

How Does It Work?

The Federal Reserve System is nothing more than a group of private banks which charge interest on money that never existed.

The government prints a billion dollars' worth of interest-bearing U.S. Government bonds and takes them to the Federal Reserve; the Federal Reserve accepts them and places $1 billion in a checking account and the government writes checks to the total of $1 billion.

Where was that $1 billion before they touched the computer to make the entry? It didn't exist. We allow this private banking system to create money out of absolutely nothing (all of it a loan to our government) and charge interest on it forever. The bank collects interest on the government's own money. This summary of a highly complex system is oversimplified but accurate.

A communique sent from the Rothschild investment house in England to its associate in New York remarked:

"The few who understand the system...will either be so interested in its profits or so dependent on its favors that there will be no opposition from that class, while on the other hand, the great body of people, mentally incapable of comprehending...will bear its burdens without complaint."13

The Results

The principal shareholders of the Federal Reserve include: Rothschild Banks of England and Berlin; Warburg Banks of Hamburg and Amsterdam; Laz ard Brothers Banks of Paris; Israel Moses Seiff Banks of Italy; Chase Manhattan Bank of New York; Lehman Brothers of New York; Kuhn, Loeb of New York; and Goldman, Sachs of New York. This profitable charade has been going on for 81 years!

The power transfer created by the Federal Reserve System was further extended with the Monetary Control Act of 1980 which gave the Federal Reserve System control over all depository institutions, whether or not the banks were members of the system.

This act also, among other things, gave the Federal Reserve the power to use the debt of foreign nations as collateral for the printing of Federal Reserve notes. This now permits saddling the American tax payers with foreign debts!

The unseen ruling class enjoy an imperial wealth--the Rothschilds have over 76 palaces around the world--and they know what they want and how to obtain it. One of their ultimate luxuries is privacy. Great wealth can bring great privacy. Finance has always manipulated business, and it generally strangles all enterprise that attempts to compete with it. The private international bankers achieve their desires through legislation.

"The Federal Reserve Act gives a power to the Federal Reserve Banks that makes the government impotent to protect the interests of the people."14

Informed Outcries

On Tuesday, December 15, 1931, Louis T. McFadden, chairman of the House Banking and Currency Committee, proclaimed:

"The Federal Reserve Board and banks are the duly appointed agents of the foreign central banks of issue and they are more concerned with their foreign customer than they are with the people of the United States. The only thing that is American about the Federal Reserve Board and banks is the money they use..."15

On Friday, June 10, 1932, McFadden again pleaded his case with his fellow colleagues:

"Mr. Chairman, we have in this country one of the most corrupt institutions the world has ever known. I refer to the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks...

"Some people think that the Federal Reserve Banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers; foreign and domestic speculators and swindlers; and rich and predatory money lenders. In that dark crew of financial pirates there are those who would cut a man's throat to get a dollar out of his pocket; there are those who send money into the States to buy votes to control our legislation; and there are those who maintain an international propaganda for the purpose of deceiving us and wheedling us into granting of new concessions which will permit them to cover up their past misdeeds and set again in motion their gigantic train of crime."16

The twelve regional Federal Reserve banks are also members of this private cartel. Before the Senate Banking and Currency Committee, while the Federal Reserve Bill was under discussion, attorney Alfred Crozier from Ohio observed:

"...the imperial power of elasticity of the public currency is wielded exclusively by these central corporations owned by the banks. This is a life and death power over all local banks and all business. It can be used to create or destroy prosperity, to ward off or cause stringencies and panics. By making money artificially scarce, interest rates throughout the country can be arbitrarily raised and the bank tax on all business and cost of living increased for the profit of the banks owning these regional central banks, and without the slightest benefit to the people. These twelve corporations together cover the whole country and monopolize and use for private gain every dollar of the public currency and all public revenues of the United States. Not a dollar can be put into circulation among the people by their government without the consent of (and on terms fixed by) these twelve private money trusts."17

Thomas Jefferson said:

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. Already they have raised up a money aristocracy that has set the government at defiance. That issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the government to whom it properly belongs."

The Kennedy Plan

President John F. Kennedy planned to exterminate the Federal Reserve System and ultimately eliminate the national debt, as had Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln before him when they did the same to the two Rothschild-organized central banks. In 1963, by presidential order of John F. Kennedy (EO 11 and EO 110), the United States Treasury began printing over $4 billion worth of "United States Notes" to replace Federal Reserve Notes. When a sufficient supply of these notes entered circulation, the Federal Reserve Notes--and the System--could be declared obsolete. This would end the control of the international bankers over the U.S. government and the American people.

Some of these bills can still be found. They can be recognized by their distinctive red seal on the front of the bill instead of the green seal of Federal Reserve Notes. Above the portrait appears the words "United States Note." Printed were $2 and $5 notes,18 series 1963, and C. Douglas Dillon's signature appears as Secretary of Treasury. The reverse side of these bills is identical to the Federal Reserve Notes.

After putting this plan into effect, John F. Kennedy was professionally assassinated in Dealey Plaza. The subsequent coverup was so skillful that even to this day few Americans realize the coup d'etat that was engineered to save the System. (Otto von Habsburg's remarks still echo in my ears: "The concentration of power in America is frightening.")

Meyer Amschel Rothschild's original plan of two centuries ago for "a new order of a one world government" appears to be succeeding. No wonder the Great Seal of the United States, on the back side of the one dollar bill, bears the inscription Novus Ordo Seclorum: New World Order.19

Stay tuned and learn your Bible, or you'll have no idea what's going on.
This article was originally published in the
March 1995 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Daniel 8:25; 11:39,43; Rev 6:5,6; 13:18.
2. See the article in Personal UPDATE, February 1995.
3. Senator Nelson Aldrich's daughter married John D. Rockefeller, Jr., and his grandson, Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller, was Gerald Ford's Vice President in 1974.
4. J.P. Morgan's father was a gun runner for both sides in the Civil War and a Rothschild agent for the South.
5. He was sent by the House of Warburg in Germany, a branch of the Rothschild banks. Some believe that Warburg, in collusion with Jacob Schiff, head of the New York invest ment firm of Kuhn, Loeb & Co., engineered the panic of 1907 to set the stage for the schemes that followed.
6. Frank Vanderlip, "Farm Boy to Financier," Saturday Evening Post, February 8, 1935.
7. Thomas House may have been implicated in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln when President Lincoln threatened the banking interests. See the article in Personal UPDATE, February 1995.
8. Father of "Lucky Lindy" of the famed Spirit of St. Louis trans-Atlantic flight.
9. Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., Lindbergh on the Federal Reserve, Noontide Press, Costa Mesa, CA, 1923, p. 70.
10. ibid, p. 74.
11. Woodrow Wilson, The New Freedom (quoted in Roberts, p. 176).
12. Lindbergh, p. 85.
13. Roberts, Archibald E., Bulletin--Committee to Restore the Constitution, February 1989, p. 5.
14. Lindbergh, p. 88.
15. Louis T. McFadden, Collective Speeches as Compiled from the Congressional Record, Omni Publications, Hawthorne, CA, 1970, p. 239.
16. ibid, p. 298.
17. ibid, p. 309.
18. Of the $5 note, the U.S. Treasury printed 63,360,000 ($316,800,000).
19. See also our Audio Book, The Mystery of Babylon.

Bibliography

1. Abraham, Larry, Call it Conspiracy, Double A Publications, Seattle, WA, 1985.
2. Abraham, Larry, Insider Report, P.O. Box 84903, Phoenix, AZ, 84903 ($199/-yr).
3. Epperson, Ralph, The Unseen Hand, Publius Press, Tucson, AZ, 1985.
4. Griffin, G. Edward, The Creature of Jekyll Island, American Media, Westwood, CA, 1994. Outstanding; this is a "must read" for every thinking American.
5. Mullins, Eustace, The Secrets of the Federal Reserve, Bankers Research Institute, Staunton, VA, 1991.
6. Paul, Ron, The Ron Paul Survival Report, P.O. Box 602, Lake Jackson TX, 77566 ($99/yr).
7. Quigley, Carroll, Tragedy and Hope, The Macmillan Company, London, 1966. (Taken out of print by the Rockefellers.)
8. Roberts, Craig, Kill Zone, Consolidated Press International, 1994.
9. Warner, James W., The Planned Destruction of America, Longwood Communications, DeBary, FL.

//

An Alternate Scenario:
The Twilight’s Last Gleaming?

by voicefromzion.org http://www.voicefromzion.org

http://khouse.org/articles/2006/640/

Where Is America in Biblical Prophecy?

The Lord prophesied that before His return a Fourth Kingdom would arise, often referred to as ''the revived Roman Empire,'' that would crush and rule over all the other kingdoms of the earth (Daniel 7:23). In more common terms, this implies a global, one-world government will someday exercise total sovereignty over virtually all of the people and nations of the earth. This suggests that America will eventually surrender its own national sovereignty and submit to the power, authority, and dominion of the coming Fourth Kingdom. Furthermore, there are many who ask, ''Why hasn’t God judged America?''

Billy Graham’s memorable quip several decades ago pointed out, ''If God doesn’t judge America, He will have to apologize to Sodom and Gomorrah!''

Thomas Jefferson expressed the same idea in 1781 when he opined, ''I tremble for my country when I recall that God is just, and His justice will not sleep forever.''

There are, at present, at least four emerging challenges to America: 1) Ezekiel 39:6, which hints at a nuclear exchange; 2) Al Qaeda, with its ''American Hiroshima''; 3) Iran, and its EMP threat; and 4) The collapse of the U.S. economy. It is this last one that is not widely understood.

Bretton Woods and Its Betrayal

The U.S. had positioned itself with this in mind before the war because it was known that America would end up supplying its allies with provisions, weapons, and thousands of other items during WW II, with the only acceptable form of payment being gold. Thus, the U.S. had accumulated a significant portion of the world’s gold by the conclusion of the war.

The Bretton Woods agreement worked well until the guns-and-butter policy of the 1960s was instituted and the money supply was expanded as never before to finance the Vietnam War and Lyndon Johnson’s ''Great Society'' programs.

Crisis and Repudiation

A dollar crisis erupted in 1970-1971 when foreign central banks, who had been flooded with dollars funding U.S. deficits, began to demand payment for their dollars in gold according to the Bretton Woods agreement. The U.S. had printed so many dollars and borrowed so much money from foreign banks that U.S. gold reserves were rendered insufficient (by a ratio of over five to one!), making full payment in gold impossible. The crisis required an immediate solution to save America from default and bankruptcy.

The U.S. resorted to immediately severing the link between the dollar and gold, making it abundantly clear to all its creditors that America would never repay any of the billions of dollars it had borrowed with physical gold, so the depreciating paper dollars were then backed by nothing but the ''reputation'' of the U.S. Government.

The act of severing this link was functionally equivalent to an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. However, because of its economic, political, and military power, no government on earth could oppose this action as they had no viable alternative. They were literally forced to continue accepting depreciating dollars in payment for their goods and services sold to America.

In order to ensure that the world had an economic reason to continue holding dollars, America made an agreement with Saudi Arabia wherein the Saudis would accept only U.S. dollars as payment for their oil. With this move the dollar suddenly became backed by the one commodity every nation had to have to survive: OIL! In order to buy oil one would have to own dollars to pay for it. Even though the dollar could no longer be exchanged for gold, it was now exchangeable for Black Gold: oil.

In exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars, America agreed to support the power and position of the House of Saud and to protect them if they were ever attacked by one of their neighbors. This guarantee was fulfilled when Saddam attacked Kuwait and threatened to attack Saudi Arabia in 1991. In the ensuing years world demand for oil continued to increase, and so did the demand for dollars, forcing foreign governments all over the world to accumulate increasing amounts of dollars in order to purchase their oil. Over time, world markets evolved to the point where other commodities such as wheat, corn, soybeans, natural gas, gold, silver, and many others were all traded in dollars. Thus, the position of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency was firmly established, as was the requirement of foreign central banks to accumulate dollars to pay for all these commodities purchased on the world market.

With this system firmly in place the U.S. could then print and borrow as much money as was needed without regard to any budget discipline whatsoever. As long as the dollar was the only acceptable means of payment for oil, its dominant position as the world’s reserve currency was assured, and America could borrow and spend whatever it wanted without fear of flooding the globe with excess dollars. The supremacy of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency ensured that America could dominate the world economically and politically, and could raise the necessary amount of cash through borrowings to fund (among other things) the military, making it the most formidable military power on earth.

U.S. fiscal discipline during the ’80s and ’90s was lax, but it was nothing compared to what was to take place under the current administration, which has embarked on the largest borrowing spree in the nation’s history. America began to experience larger and larger current account deficits as it spent billions more every month on goods and services than it sold abroad. During 2005, the current trade deficit increased to an annualized $800 billion! Total U.S. outstanding debt now exceeds a staggering $8 trillion dollars, of which a large majority is owed to foreigners.

This staggering mountain of debt poses one of the greatest threats to the economic survival of the United States if circumstances were to arise wherein the dollar was not the only currency that nations could use to pay for their oil. If nations suddenly had a choice as to whether to pay for oil in euros rather than dollars, the supremacy of the American dollar would be seriously threatened, along with its economic viability.

The primary risk for America, should this option become available, would manifest itself in reduced demand for dollars on the global foreign exchange markets, as nations would require fewer and fewer dollars to pay for their oil. Reduced demand for any item implies a lower price down the road, and this dynamic would doubtless result in a depreciating dollar relative to other global currencies. Foreign central banks, needing more euros to buy oil, would seek to denominate ever increasing amounts of their foreign currency reserves in non-dollar currencies.

This in turn would mean that America would find it increasingly more difficult to borrow the $3 billion dollars a day it must have to keep the U.S. economy afloat, pay the interest on $8 trillion dollars in debt, as well as continue to fund its enormous continuing deficit.

Why Did America Really Invade Iraq?

The stated reason by the Bush Administration for invading Iraq was that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them against Israel, Iraq’s other neighbors, and possibly America.1 There are some that believe that the real reasons why America invaded Iraq are found in events and policy development that happened before the invasion but which were never revealed to the American public. There are two such reasons suggested:

First, to ensure that the dollar remained unchallenged as the world’s reserve currency, so that the U.S. could continue to fund its massive deficits and sustain its economy and its political and military supremacy. What does the dollar have to do with all of this and how does the invasion of Iraq fit into the picture?

It seems that Saddam sealed his fate in September 2000, when he demanded that all Iraqi oil sold under the U.N. Oil for Food Program must be paid for in euros rather than dollars. Saddam’s actions were a direct threat to the supremacy of the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency and the ability of the U.S. to continue to fund its massive deficits. This is born out by the fact that two months after the U.S. invaded Iraq, the Oil for Food program was terminated and all of the Iraqi euro accounts were switched back to dollars. No longer did the world have the option of buying oil from Iraq and paying for it in euros.

Forcing the Iraqi accounts to convert from euros to dollars cost the Iraqis a great deal of money because the dollar had fallen in value relative to the Euro by some 13%! Not surprisingly, this detail has never been prominently mentioned by the five U.S. major media conglomerates who control 90% of information flow in the U.S., but confirmation of this vital fact provides insight into one of the crucial - yet overlooked - rationales for the 2003 Iraq war.

The second possible reason for the Iraq war is hinted at in a 1999 speech given by Dick Cheney while he was still CEO of Halliburton:

By some estimates, there will be an average of two-percent annual growth in global oil demand over the years ahead, along with, conservatively, a three-percent natural decline in production from existing reserves. That means by 2010 we will need on the order of an additional 50 million barrels a day.2

If the Vice President of the United States truly believed, as he stated before becoming Vice President, that world oil production was about to peak and go into decline, would this be sufficient motivation for the U.S. to ensure its economic survival by sending its military to Iraq in order to secure control over the second-largest oil and gas reserves on earth?

Who Opposed the War and Why?

The nations who vehemently opposed the war in Iraq were Russia, Germany, France, and China. The real underlying reason was never spoken of by the press or by the Administration. The reason all these nations opposed the war was because they all had contracts to purchase and develop Iraq’s vast oil and gas reserves. American and British oil giants were excluded by Saddam and left out in the cold. It is significant that, after the U.S. conquered Iraq, most of these contracts and agreements with France, Germany, Russia, and China were cancelled and given to U.S. and British Oil companies. To the victor go the spoils.

Saddam had begun the process of excluding American and British oil and gas corporations from acquiring stakes in Iraq’s bountiful hydrocarbons in the spring of 1997. Relief to Iraqis and restored confidence in the durability of the Saddam regime by the international community had already begun to occur after the UN’s Oil for Food scheme was introduced the previous December.

A consortium of Russian companies, led by the state-owned Lukoil, took a 75 percent share (with the state-owned Iraq National Oil Company taking 25 percent) in a joint corporation to develop the West Qurna oil field in southern Iraq. This oil field holds 11 billion barrels of oil - a third of the total U.S. oil reserves. Then, China National Petroleum Corporation entered the scene and entered into an agreement to develop the Adhab oil field.

China’s lead was followed by Total Societe Anonyme of France (now TotalFinaElf), which agreed to develop Nahr Omar oil field in the south - almost as bountiful a field as the West Qurna. Then Ranger Oil of Canada secured a $250 million contract for field development and exploration in the Western Desert, followed by India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corporation and Reliance Petroleum’s signing of a deal to develop the Tuba oil field.3

Without exception, almost all of the above contracts to develop, transport, and purchase Iraq’s oil were cancelled and declared null and void by the Bush Administration after the war was over. These same contracts were then awarded to British and American oil giants. It is readily apparent that securing control over the development, sale, transportation, and distribution of these oil and gas reserves for America and Britain was undoubtedly one of the primary reasons for the war in Iraq. This was undoubtedly grounded in the recognition that world oil production would peak sometime between 2006 and 2010.

In July 2003, two major oil companies agreed to buy 10 million barrels of Iraqi oil under the first long-term contracts to be offered by Iraq since the end of the war. BP, PLC and Royal Dutch/Shell Group of Cos. each had announced that they expected to ship two million barrels of Basra Light crude per month, starting in August and ending in December. They would load the oil on tankers at Iraq’s Persian Gulf export terminal of Mina al-Bakr. This was a reward for British participation in the invasion and conquering of Iraq.

U.S. Executive Order #13303

The veracity of these actions appear confirmed by executive order. In May 2003, President George Bush issued Executive Order #13303, which stated:

...Any attachment, judgment, decree, lien, execution, garnishment, or other judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void with respect to... all Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products and interests therein....

With this executive order the President granted American oil companies, or individuals who are involved in the production, transportation, or distribution of Iraqi oil, a lifetime exemption from any kind of legal action against them in the United States.

''In other words, if Exxon-Mobil or Chevron-Texaco touch Iraqi oil, anything they or anyone else does with it is immune from legal proceedings in the U.S.,'' explained Jim Vallette, an analyst with the Sustainable Energy & Economy Network of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C.

This action made it impossible for any of the nations who had their contracts nullified by the President to sue to reinstate them because the oil companies to whom they were given are immune from any judicial proceeding against them in the United States! ''Effectively, Bush has unilaterally declared Iraqi oil to be the unassailable province of U.S. and British oil corporations,'' Vallette added.

We can more often judge the true motives of nations and leaders not by what they say, but by what they do. Their actions reveal their true motives, not what they say for public consumption.

The Lifeblood of the American Economy

Oil is the lifeblood of the American economy. The U.S. has approximately 5% of the world’s population but consumes over 20% or more of the world’s daily oil production. What will be the consequences if we are rapidly approaching the time when world oil production peaks and the price of oil continues to skyrocket, choking off economic activity and creating massive unemployment?

With nations like China and India growing exponentially, the demand for oil cannot go anywhere but up. Where will the oil production come from to meet the demand of two nations that possess 2.4 billion people, as they seek to purchase new cars, trucks, tractors, and all of the other products that are petroleum based? Continuously increasing oil prices could at some point cause the U.S. economy to shrink to unimaginable levels. Almost everything we use today in our modern life has petroleum as its base: from plastics to fertilizer to gas for your car - they all utilize petroleum as their base. Food production is almost totally dependent upon fuel and fertilizers that are petroleum based.

Is the world really approaching a time when the price of oil will force the price of food to levels unknown in modern history?

And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, ''A quart of wheat for a denarius (a days wages), and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.'' - Revelation 6:6

The IOB (Iranian Oil Bourse) could accelerate the already existent global trend of shifting foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros. ''Countries could begin the process of switching to euro reserves from dollar reserves and this could bring down the value of the U.S. currency. Imports would start to cost Americans a lot more. As countries and businesses convert their dollar assets into euro assets, the U.S. property bubble would, without doubt, burst.''4

If oil trades in euros, it is only a matter of time before wheat, soybeans, natural gas, gold, silver, copper, and all of the other major commodities will come to be traded in euros as well. Nations want to protect their own interests, and no nation wants to have its reserves denominated in a currency that is depreciating, but rather in one that is appreciating, or is at least stable.

As nations begin to choose the euro over the dollar, the U.S. Treasury’s ability to finance the U.S. deficit and pay the interest expense on $8 trillion dollars will become increasingly more difficult. We will be forced to make some very hard choices in order to preserve our economy. Among the possibilities are: substantially raising taxes, making major cuts in spending in all areas (including the military), raising interest rates to whatever levels it takes to enable the U.S. Treasury to continue to fund the deficit, or simply by just printing money to fund the deficit, leading to sustained and possible hyperinflation.

These coming events could portend horrific economic consequences for the U.S. economy and for the lifestyle we have come to know and expect.

If this scenario begins to unfold, individuals who have excessive mortgage and credit card debt, or who have loans - personal or business - that float with the prime rate, will have to pay ever increasing interest rates, which at some point leads to massive defaults and bankruptcies. It appears that there could be substantial economic dislocations in America, probably leading to unemployment levels unknown in modern times, which would undoubtedly bring on severe financial distress for millions of Americans. The lifestyle we have enjoyed and have become accustomed to could change dramatically in the coming years.

The Missing Report Card

There is a new Chairman of the Federal Reserve System - regarded by many as the most powerful non-elected official in the world: Ben Benanke. (Under Greenspan’s 18-year tenure, the U.S. dollar’s value was cut in half.) It will be important to watch how he deals with the forthcoming debt dilemmas.

Until 1971 the Federal Reserve System, also known as ''the Fed,'' defined the money supply as equal to the sum of currency in circulation (excluding bank vault cash) and demand deposits (checking accounts). This definition of the money supply ignored saving accounts and time deposits (accounts that earned interest but could not be withdrawn without penalty until they matured). Monetary authorities and economists became concerned that estimates of monetary growth could be misleading if those estimates ignored savings accounts and time deposits.

In 1971 the Federal Reserve began publishing measures of broader monetary supplies. The monetary aggregates were given the names M1, M2, and M3. M1 was comparable to the original money supply measure - that is, currency in circulation and demand deposits. M2 equaled M1 plus accounts such as savings accounts and small time deposits. M3 was an even broader measure, adding in larger time deposits. M3 is, in effect, a primary report card on the Fed and the control of inflation.

However, effective March 23, 2006, the M3 will now no longer be reported!

It is also significant to note that turnover has been continuing at the top posts of the Federal Reserve: Fed Vice Chairman, Roger Ferguson unexpectedly announced he was stepping down. This on the heels of the resignation of the Philadelphia Fed Regional Bank President Anthony Santomero, which followed resignations of two of the seven Fed Governor spots and six of the twelve Fed Regional Bank President posts over the preceding two years.

What do they see coming?

One World Currency

How could America, and the nations of the world, lose their sovereignty without a shot being fired? Can you imagine the panic that will take place in the markets of the world if the dollar crashes? With 70% of the worlds reserves held in dollars, nations may watch helplessly as their currency reserves evaporate as the value of the dollar plummets. Realize that the U.S. is now the world’s largest debtor. And the Bible cautions us, ''The borrower is servant to the lender.''5

One solution to the forthcoming ''dollar crisis'' could be the creation of a ''one world currency,'' prophesied in the Bible. The leaders of the world will seek to establish a one-world currency. (Already we hear talk, in the hallways of the Bank of International Settlements, of an ''Amero,'' a unified currency for North America.)

To move toward a one-world currency, the world leaders would create and empower a world governing body that would have control over the creation, supply, and distribution of money worldwide. When a nation gives up its control over the printing of its money to someone else, it gives up its sovereignty (e.g., to the Fourth Kingdom described in the book of Daniel?).

The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. - Daniel 7:23

There will be exciting times ahead! But we need to be diligent and very disciplined in regards to our personal stewardship. This topic is discussed in our recent briefing package, The Kings of the East, available this month on DVD as well as audio formats. See here for details.


**NOTES**

1. The lingering doubts about their existence is pretty much confined to the highly biased press and the liberal establishment. General Sada (the Iraqi general) has published his book on this subject, Saddam’s Secrets.
2. April 2004, Middle East Magazine. Where are we going to find all this oil? To gain a greater understanding of how serious this issue is, take time to read the following article. ''Life After the Oil Crash.''
3. The Nation, Oil, Iraq, and America, Dec 2002.
4. The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, Nov. 15, 2004.
5. Proverbs 22:7.

**ADDITIONAL RELATED RESOURCES**



//

The Attack on our Rights:
What Delicate Balance? Part 1

by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor

http://khouse.org/articles/2002/389/

"Freedom is under attack" has been the battle cry since 9/11. Freedom is indeed under attack, but our intelligence sources indicate Osama bin Laden is not the chief culprit. The attacks on 9/11 were on America, not freedom. In reality, freedom has long been under attack by those in the West who have sought to destroy the foundations upon which Western thought, culture and law rest. In its place a new global, pantheistic, and socialist paradigm is seeking hegemony, while its proponents must still give lip service (at least publicly for awhile) to the old one. This stealth attack, mounted steadily for almost a century, represents a far greater threat than any airplane or biological attack, because it is more insidious and many victims do not even recognize they are under assault.

The attack on Western culture began in the halls of academia and has now metastasized to politics, the media and even the Church. Western society has been shoved off a fact-based mode of thought (didactic), rooted in logic, reason and a belief in absolute truth, to a relative (dialectic), constantly-changing system, where there is no knowable truth, where feelings reign supreme and where the outcome justifies the means. Nowhere does this appear more blatantly than in the arena of politics.

The Delicate Balance

Since 9/11, politicians have been speaking of the need to preserve the "delicate balance" between civil rights and the need to respond to terrorism in a time of war. They say this without blinking an eye, oblivious of the fact that the Founding Fathers didn't foresee any kind of "delicate balance" when they wrote the Constitution and its Bill of Rights. They envisioned an impenetrable wall, beyond which government could not go under any circumstances, except as allowed in the Constitution itself.

They have been justified in their viewpoint, since history shows that a delicate balance rapidly becomes a slippery slope, always tipping in favor of ever-increasing government control and away from citizens' rights.

Rights not Privileges

A privilege is something which is granted by the state to its citizens and can be revoked by the state anytime the state sees fit. Rights, on the other hand, are irrevocable conditions possessed by the citizenry, which the state may not revoke for whatever reason. The difference between the two, thanks to leftist indoctrination, is now thoroughly blurred in the Western mind. But this blurring was not a first in the world's history. Satan used it in the Garden of Eden when he engaged Eve in a dialogue and encouraged her to think dialectically: "Did God say...?" God's position was much more didactic: What part of "thou shalt not" don't you understand?

The right to freedom of speech is important because no free society can exist without it. The chief target is the ability to criticize government and its policies, which government has a natural tendency to abhor. Equally, freedom of religion is important because governments have always sought to impose on their citizenry politically correct forms of belief and to oppose anything that would be a competitor. Christians have learned this firsthand through the centuries, since Christianity is always a scandal in any culture to which it goes.

The right to bear arms is essential for three reasons: 1) To protect the homeland from invasion; 2) to defend one's self against criminals or predators; and, 3) to preclude the possibility that government should ever again become tyrannical and attempt to abolish the other rights.

The right to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects is critical to a free society, because without it free commerce cannot proceed and government can seek to exercise control over its populace by threatening them with confiscation of their property. Added to this is the provision that warrants be issued for searches, because this prevents government from going on a fishing expedition, trying to find people who are committing crimes. Likewise, a person may not be deprived of property without due process and compensation. The right to trial by jury is important, because it divides responsibility for the outcome among a number of one's peers rather than a tribunal of judges, who could easily be influenced to certain outcomes, especially if their livelihood as judges is dependant on the outcome of various trials. Freedom from double jeopardy is essential, because it places a put-up-or-shut-up burden on government and prevents law enforcement from trying a person over and over and over again until something "sticks."

Rights such as these exist in most of the English-speaking countries today. However, these rights are under brutal assault both from the left and the right.

The Great Paradigm Shift

Currently the West is in an epic power struggle - away from traditional thought and a free society towards a totally socialized, planned society where government controls everything from womb to tomb, including how we believe and worship. Incumbent in this struggle is a move away from national sovereignty and into a "new order" that everyone from Henry Kissinger to Vladmir Putin keeps talking about but never defines publicly what it really means.

In order for the new womb-to-tomb paradigm to be implemented, the old collection of "rights" has to go. But proponents of the new vision face a dilemma, in that they must give lip service to the existing legal structure at the same time they gut these same institutions of their power. So a new process of end-running law has been instituted, which gives the appearance of leaving existing laws in place, while making it impossible to have the usufruct of such laws.

The Great International Blur

How do you abolish laws and rights without directly doing so?

1) Make so many laws regulating a guaranteed right that it is impossible to exercise the right. The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, for example, says that the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. However, there are so many gun laws in some places, it is impossible to carry a weapon without incurring the risk of being charged with a felony. If you're willing to risk years in jail or staggering legal costs, go ahead and exercise your right.

2) Turn over a large amount of "lawmaking" to unelected, unaccountable bureaucracies that generate "regulations," which have the force of law but are never voted upon by any accountable lawmaking body. Most of our lawmakers today never read the bills they are passing and there is much mischief in the details.

3) Reinterpret laws to "find" new things in them that were not intended by the original framers of the law. (Remember that under the new paradigm there are no absolutes, so law can be tortured to say whatever we want it to mean.) A chief example of this was the Supreme Court's "discovery" of a woman's right to privacy regarding abortion.

4) Expand a law far beyond what the lawmakers ever intended and what citizens were promised. Drug property forfeiture laws are a prime example, which allow property to be confiscated on the mere accusation (not conviction) that a crime has been committed. Originally, Americans were told that the law would only be used against drug dealers. But within a decade, forfeiture laws had exploded to over a hundred and most did not involve drugs at all. Another example was the use of RICO racketeering laws to prosecute abortion clinic protestors.

5) Stretch or blur jurisdiction or claim jurisdiction where the area is unclear. Courts in Belgium are claiming jurisdiction over what Ariel Sharon did in Lebanon. Spain wanted to try Agosto Pinochet for things he did in Chile. A kangaroo court in the Hague is trying accused war criminal Slobodan Milosevic, even though the court and the laws did not exist when the crimes were committed and the court has dubious jurisdiction granted by who knows whom?

6) Enforce laws selectively, especially for achieving particular political purposes. While much coverage has been made of the process against Slobodan Milosevic, so far no effort has been made to round up Fidel Castro or Idi Amin (alive and well in Saudi Arabia) for their "crimes against humanity."

7) Turn jurisdiction over to international bodies by means of treaties or other agreements. This process is being used to transfer sovereignty. Most Canadians or Americans would be hard pressed to name even one member on NAFTA's commissions and yet these people make effectively legal decisions affecting commerce and jobs for thousands of people.

8) Use executive orders (U.S.) or ministerial decrees (U.K.) to do end-runs around lawmaking bodies. This can be seen both in actions by Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair in shoving the U.K. deeper into the new "United States of Europe" (aka the European Union), where it will someday lose all of its sovereignty. President Clinton was prolific in his use of executive orders to end-run Congress, especially in the area of non-ratified environmental treaties, but President Bush is striving for next runner-up with his implementation of war tribunals and other things to end-run the civil courts and Congress in a time of so-called (but undeclared) war. As a matter of fact, unknown to most Americans, presidential executive orders have kept a healthy number of official "emergencies" going for years to enable end-runs around Congress in various areas.

This list of end-runs is anything but exhaustive. Frequently, the end-runs are executed in the name of some good or in handling a crisis, and there is invariably much debate among "experts" about each one. However, one pattern is becoming clear: we are systematically gutting the legal structure upon which Western civilization has stood for centuries, and the new proposed order would be unpalatable to most Westerners if they really understood what it meant.

A few years back, a bridge collapsed on a major U.S. highway while traffic was crossing. The structural rot that caused the collapse had been progressing for many years, if not decades. Right down to last second it looked like a bridge and it served a bridge's function. However, when the break finally came, it happened in just moments and swept away all that were relying on it. Caveat lector ! The same rot is occurring to the Western legal system. We'll show you where this is going in our next article, entitled "The Antichrist Doesn't Wear Tights."

* * *

[John Loeffler is host of the news/talk program, Steel on Steel, heard on the Information Radio Network at steelonsteel.com.]

[solookup]

Paradigms, Preaching and Politics:
Worldview Wars

by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor

http://khouse.org/articles/2001/365/

Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?

-1933, Charles Francis Potter, Humanism, A New Religion 1

Kaboom! A rousing first shot across the bow had been fired. Humanists declared their intention of transforming western culture and moving it from its Christian base into the enlightened religion of humanism. In 1933, when Humanist Manifesto I appeared, its co-author John Dewey was made honorary president of the National Education Association (US). The manifesto itself stated that:

There is no God and no soul. Hence there are no needs for the props of traditional religion. With dogma and creed excluded, the immutable truth is also dead and buried. There is no room for fixed, natural law or permanent moral absolutes. 2

In his book, A Common Faith, Dewey went on to say:

It is impossible to ignore the fact that historic Christianity has been committed to a separation of sheep and goats; the saved and the lost…I cannot understand how any realization of the democratic ideal as a vital moral and spiritual ideal in human affairs is possible without surrender of the conception of the basic division to which supernatural Christianity is committed . 3

In the early days of the Worldview Wars, humanists referred to their belief system as a "religion." That was until it became more advantageous to clamor about the "separation of church and state" in attempting to eject the Christian opposition from the marketplace of ideas. Suddenly humanism became de-religionized and rebaptized itself as secular science or philosophy. A dichotomous wedge was driven between faith and fact. Today, echoes of that shift are heard in the debates on evolution, when someone asserts that "this is science, that is faith" rather than the previously accepted idea that all are searching for truth.

In the early part of the battle, humanists did not meet a lot of resistance, since Christians for the most part remained oblivious to the fact that there even was a battle or that spiritual battles play out in the physical arena. As a group, Christians were more than happy to walk off the battlefield in the name of "just teaching the Bible" or doing the "work of the Kingdom," as if there would be no moral consequences to their dereliction of duty. The consequences, however, have been staggering - from abortion to the loss of faith in millions of children.

So humanists, meeting little organized opposition, quietly plodded onward toward their stated goal of transforming the worldview of western society, especially the field of education, where more and more like-minded future educators could be trained to indoctrinate new generations of students into the humanist worldview, while using government handouts - grants and subsidies - to do it. In 1932, William Z. Foster, head of the Communist Party USA, published a book entitled Toward Soviet America , where he predicted that:

Class ideologies of the past will give place to scientific materialist philosophy. Among the elementary measures the American Soviet government will adopt to further the cultural revolution are the following: the schools, colleges and universities will be coordinated and grouped under the National Department of Education and its state and local branches. The studies will be revolutionized, being cleansed of religious, patriotic and other features of the bourgeoisie ideology. The students will be taught on the basis of Marxian dialectical materialism [now the absolute basis of consensus use in all government procedures], internationalism [today called "globalism"] and the general ethics of the new socialist society [which virtually all English-speaking countries have become]…Freedom will be established for anti-religious propaganda…Science will become materialistic…God will be banished from the laboratories as well as from the schools. 4

Were he not probably occupying a place in the hell he didn't believe existed, Mr. Foster would be delighted that the humanist heirs of John Dewey had accomplished everything he wished to see. Indeed, the Communists endorsed the humanist enterprise because they believed in their common aspirations of a godless, socialist society ruled by the dialectical process of relative truths.5

By mid-century, humanists had gained a chokehold on most institutions of higher learning. By 1938, the New York Herald Tribune reported a speech by Dr. Goodwin Watson, professor of Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he "begged the teachers of the Nation to use their profession to indoctrinate children to overthrow 'conservative reactionaries' directing American government and industry."6 In his 1951 book, God and Man at Yale , William F. Buckley, Jr. commented that:

The teachings of John Dewey and his predecessors have borne fruit. And there is surely not a department at Yale that is uncontaminated with the absolute that there are no absolutes, on intrinsic rights, no ultimate truths. The acceptance of these notions, which emerge in courses in history and economics, in sociology and political science, in psychology and literature, make impossible an intelligible conception of an omnipotent, purposeful, and benign Supreme Being, who has laid down immutable laws, endowed his creatures with inalienable rights, and posited unchangeable rules of human conduct .7

The battle internationalized by means of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. That is why the curricula and worldview battles are essentially the same in all English-language countries. The departments of education in the various countries collaborate openly with UNESCO and its goals for a "new educational order…based on scientific and technological training, one of the essential components of scientific humanism… Relativity and dialectical thought would appear to be a fertile ground in which to cultivate the seeds of tolerance… an individual should avoid systematically setting up his beliefs… as a model of rules valid for all times." 8

And what of the Church during this time? There were a limited number of Protestant and Catholic voices fighting the war, but generally the Church droned on mechanically with its disconnected Biblical or catechistic studies as the humanist juggernaut rolled forward. History was rewritten and Christian contributions to history, especially freedom and self rule, were eliminated or denigrated. Other events were rewritten and Christian or other religious ideas were ridiculed and banned. Patriotism was banned. Marxist, socialist, and humanist ideas took solid root as Christianity was chased out of the marketplace of ideas with little resistance. Christian morals were publicly denigrated and rejected. The Church seemed oblivious that this radical change in public education was putting the faith of millions of its youth in dire peril. "Let's just have another Bible study" was the cry.

The second half of the 20th century bore witness to the danger, as humanism took over the major organs of education, media and politics, and the youth began to fall away from even Bible-believing churches in droves after receiving years of humanist indoctrination in government schools. Those who remained, while not totally abandoning their faith, began to have a belief system which was an admixture of conflicting worldviews.

Absolute truth was replaced by relative truth. Indeed, the belief in no absolutes has remained the greatest challenge to faith because it totally undermines any basis for belief in a God, His Word, His Law or His salvation. As a matter of fact, if there are no absolutes, how can we know anything absolutely? How is it possible to even say absolutely there are no absolutes if nothing can be known absolutely? It's an absurdity. Nevertheless, millions of Christians have adopted this into their belief systems.

New voices, like Dr. Francis Schaeffer, sounded the alarm and took up the banner but few took up the fight. Even today, few youth pastors have read Schaeffer or understand the nature of the battle in which they are engaged. Indeed, they are facing the challenge that today's students do not believe in absolute fact and consider it arrogant that anyone should claim to have an absolute truth. Unfortunately, they don't see the contradiction when they state that absolutely. Nevertheless, this belief alone makes evangelism difficult, because the worldview basis for discussion between Christians and non-believers has become so wide that bridging it is difficult.

The most urgent call for an attitude change in youth pastoring today is to begin training church youth to grapple with the worldviews, which they will encounter in schools and colleges, and to have a strong countering response using the Christian worldview. A number of ministries are attempting to achieve this, but until it becomes a top priority for all churches, several things will happen:

1) The Church will continue to lose large numbers of youth to other worldviews, despite all the Biblical training. Bible study must stop being taught in a vacuum and begin to have a functional objective in the world. This includes the basis for belief, the basis for believing why God's Word is His Word, etc.

2) Churches themselves will continue to grow in numbers but decline in believers because those churches will have adopted the prevailing worldviews, while calling it Christianity. As Francis Schaeffer predicted, many churches are beginning to look more and more like the world because they are unable to stand against the humanistic spirit of the age. Already many mainline churches have been knocked totally off a Biblical base and have wholeheartedly adopted the new humanist worldview while retaining only a patina of Christian language and belief in God. Their worldview systems are amalgams of atheism and Christianity, similar to some of the heresies the Church experienced in its infancy.

3) Because of having allowed itself to be chased out of the political arena in the name of separation of church and state or the "work of the Kingdom," the Church will find a new challenge from a totally "atheized" secular government, which is now poised to begin telling the Church what it will say and do and what it must not say and do; what it can believe and what it cannot believe. Moreover, the governments of the West will continue their deterioration towards increased authoritarianism as the chaos caused by the new relative values continues to unravel the bonds that held society together under the Christian paradigm.

We are simply following in the footsteps of those countries of the past, which embraced the humanist, socialist worldview; from Rousseau and the French Revolution to the Bolsheviks in Russia, to Nazi Germany, to Chairman Mao, to Castro's Cuba. In each case, the holders of the new worldview knew they had to co-opt or defeat the Church in order to put their value system in place in the hearts and minds of the people, especially the children. Typically, the churches of those countries never saw it coming and in many cases actually participated in their own demise. In essence, been there, done that - but few of the churches see the oncoming danger.

There is still time to meet the challenge in the West, but the window is closing rapidly. One thing is certain: western Christians in the first half of the 21st century will increasingly face a brave new world of unexpected pressures on their faith, mainly as a result of having abandoned the field of battle in education and politics almost 50 years ago. They are still having trouble remembering that the practice of one's faith is a battle, not a picnic.





//


Twilight's Last Gleaming:
Clinton's War on Hate Bans Christian Values

by John Loeffler and Berit Kjos

http://khouse.org/articles/1998/96/

"Hate speech" and "hate crime" as legal categories usher in the concept of political crime - as un-American a proposition as there can be. America's survival depends on the unequivocal rejection of political crime.

Balint Vazsonyi, who survived Nazi and Communist dictatorships in Hungary

Today's anti-hate rhetoric is the latest in a series of politically correct claimants to American morality that began when America abandoned its Biblical rootsin search for more tolerable moral substitutes.

On the face of it, the consensus that "hate" is bad seems "good"-and it's easy to rally people around the concept of "responding to hate," especially if your community is plagued by extremist groups with an overtly hateful, violent agenda. However, once the concept of hating hate has been legitimized as a public virtue, it triggers a process lethal to freedom of speech, thought and religion.

In order to "respond to hate," someone has to define who the haters are. This is done by publicly categorizing hateful beliefs and attitudes. From that point, the whole process degenerates into political correctness, which is often hostile to Christian beliefs.

Formalizing the War on Hate

"Under Attorney General Reno's leadership, the Justice Department has taken aim at hate crimes with more prosecutions and tougher punishments," announced President Clinton during the White House Conference on Hate Crimes on November 10, 1997. "The National Hate-Crimes Network will marshal the resources of federal, state and local enforcement, community groups, educators, and antiviolence advocates...."

To end the long-touted cultural division in the United States, every citizen would have to be brought into a "national dialogue" to build a new "consensus." Values that clashed with the new ethic of tolerance would be branded hateful and intolerant. The program would be marketed to the public by publicizing genuine hateful acts such as the murder of homosexuals,1 but in practice "hate" would include any attitude that opposes the new ideology.

To end cultural and religious division, President Clinton proposed starting "some sort of club or organization at the school-because if you think about it, your parents are still pretty well separated. Most neighborhoods are still fairly segregated. Most houses of worship are still fairly segregated... We have to find a disciplined, organized way out of this so that we reach every child before something bad happens...."

Could the President be suggesting that Christian parents be pressured to conform to the world's standards? Or that churches be forced to blend their worship with those who choose other gods and contrary life-styles?

Might our government mandate "voluntary"2 youth groups-as did Nazi and Communist rulers determined to mold compliant citizens - so that cultural "separation" won't cause "something bad to happen?" This idea would seem absurd if this administration's rhetoric didn't seem to support it.

The Sin of Separateness

"Seeing ourselves as separate is the central problem in our political thinking,"3 said then-Senator Al Gore at a 1991 Communitarian conference in Washington, D.C. He was quoted in the book, Spiritual Politics, co-authored by Corinne McLaughlin, a follower of Dhjwal Khul, the spirit-guide channeled by occultist Alice Bailey. McLaughlin was the first Task Force Coordinator for President Clinton's Council for Sustainable Development4 and taught occult meditation at the Department of Education, the Pentagon, and the EPA.5

"There really is only one sin-separateness," she states in her book. "War is more likely to spring from rampant nationalism, ethnocentrism, and intolerant religious fundamentalism - all extreme and separative attitudes."

Her solution matches President Clinton's message at the Hate-Crimes Conference: "What is needed as a cure for separateness is a deep sense of community-that we're all in this together."

Top-Down Morality

The blueprint for the new community comes straight from the United Nations, through countless UN-affiliated governmental and nongovernmental networks-all working together to turn your town into a 21st century "sustainable community."6 The "partners" implementing this vision include the school (that's the hub), government, media, business, NGOs (feminists, environmentalists), health centers, day-care centers, Chambers of Commerce, churches, and finally parents-but only those who conform to the process.

Training Politically Correct Parents

"Fundamental attitudes are formed during the first four or five years of life, states the 1983 UNESCO plan for Lifelong Learning. "Preschool educators have a special responsibility to ensure that a child's first experience outside the home is one in which he learns to share, cooperate, and function in a group. Parents and preschool educators should teach children to resolve their conflicts peacefully." Stereotyping may "reinforce rigid social attitudes."7

God's family is made up of people from "every tribe and nation." But Clinton's war on hate has also targeted Biblical Christianity for its refusal to "respect, accept and appreciate" gay life-styles. The "rigid attitudes" include Biblical absolutes.

As far back as 1946, this anti-Biblical bias was evident, reflected in a statement by Dr. Brock Chisholm, former head of the World Health Organization:

We have swallowed all manner of poisonous certainties fed us by our parents. The results are frustration, inferiority, neurosis and inability to...make the world fit to live in.

It has long been generally accepted that parents have a perfect right to impose any points of view, any lies or fears, superstitions, prejudices, hates, or faith on their defenseless children. [People with] guilts, fears, inferiorities, are certain to project their hates on to others...Such reaction now becomes a dangerous threat to the whole world....8

Two years later, the International Congress on Mental Health met in London, where it presented a report entitled Mental Health and World Citizenship.

It included this statement:

"Social institutions such as family and school impose their imprint early...Thus prejudice, hostility or excessive nationalism may become deeply embedded in the developing personality, often at great human cost. Change will be strongly resisted unless an attitude of acceptance has first been engendered.

Now, fifty years later, after an intense media blitz promoting state control over early childhood education, that "attitude of acceptance" has almost been engendered. During the April 1997 White House Conference on America's Future, movie star Tom Hanks moderated a film entitled "I Am Your Child." During his introduction he said:

"The emotional and intellectual environment [the child] is exposed to during those critical first three years will have a profound effect on what kind of person he will turn out to be. And the kind of person he turns out to be will impact, either positively or negatively, every other person in the world.

It's sobering that politically incorrect child-raising could be such a threat to the entire world. No wonder our government now claims a "compelling interest" in telling you how to train your child.

Echoing these sentiments during his Hate-Crimes Conference, President Clinton implied that traditional parents may teach innocent children to hate. "Children have to be taught to hate," he said. "We need to make sure that somebody is teaching them not to do so. The most important thing we can do is to reach these kids while they're young enough to learn...If we all do our part for that, we can make America one nation under God."

Countering Christian "Intolerance"

To enforce these unconstitutional ideals, President Clinton called on the Departments of Education and Justice to "distribute to every school district in the country a "hate crimes resource guide," which would "direct educators to the materials they can use to teach tolerance and mutual respect."

The word "tolerance" has recently been given a specific new meaning with global significance and authority. UNESCO's Declaration on Tolerance9 defines it as "respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures." It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. "Intolerance is a global threat." Therefore, it calls for:

* "...the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism." (Such as the Bible?)

* "...analysis of root causes and effective countermeasures, as well as monitoring."

* "...tolerance teaching methods that will address the cultural and religious sources of intolerance."

Addressing "religious sources of intolerance" must involve everyone. As President Clinton said last November, "All of us have to do more in our communities and in our homes and places of worship to teach all of our children about the dignity of every person."

That means that Christian parents and pastors must be trained in politically correct child-raising-a major reason for the 1996 contract between the U.S. Department of Education and the mainline denominations. Drawing church leaders into the process is key to their success.

Monitoring Compliance

Classroom discussion groups that prompt children to criticize their parents help monitor resistance. So does a profusion of intrusive surveys that tell children to report family attitudes, church attendance, and all kinds of other private matters.

Much of this data has already become part of the student's personal computerized file. And the new Career and School-to-Work legislation will intensify and nationalize the tracking process.10

Soon, when each child is linked to his or her individual computer program, the gathering of this private information can be accelerated and controlled. Then, as Dustin Heuston from the World Institute for Computer-Assisted Teaching predicted, "No one can get between that child and that computer."11

According to Clinton, this monitoring process would be linked to the federal government. "The Justice Department will make its own hate crimes training curriculum available," he said at the above conference. "Hate crimes still go unreported. If a crime is unreported, that gives people an excuse to ignore it." In other words, ignoring a neighbor's incorrect attitudes would not be an option.

The pressure to report resistance to the new solidarity fits the concept of "civil society" promoted by both President and Hillary Clinton. Also called "participatory democracy," it requires each person to serve the community, participate in group discussions, and take responsibility for establishing common values-especially social unity and equality.

To reinforce the process, Clinton invoked the authority of Attorney General Janet Reno. "The Justice Department is launching a web site," he announced, "where younger students can learn about prejudice and the harm it causes."

To access this web site, go to the "Department of Justice Kid's Page" at http://www.usdoj.gov/kidspage/bias-k-5/. There, Janet Reno invites you to "help stop hateful acts that hurt kids just like you" in the home, school, playground or neighborhood. If a relative in your home makes any derogatory comment, you are invited to correct the relative and/or discuss the problem with a trusted adult.

This kind of interrogation has become a daily ritual in elementary schools across the country. When children are linked to their personal computer programs, such intrusive questions will become interactive dialogues between students and computers programmed to choose the right questions, measure the degree of resistance, and monitor rates of change. The answers will be fed into the national/international data tracking system, already established.

If the educational establishment has its way, parents and all others will be included as well. No one will be free from the watchful eye of the state.

Yet, in the midst of this battle for freedom, our God reigns! While a spiritual war rages around us, He promises strength and wisdom to those who follow Him and refuse to compromise. "Blessed are all who put their trust in Him."

For more information about "lifelong" training in the new global values, read Brave New Schools and A Twist of Faith by Berit Kjos.
This article was originally published in the
June 1998 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. These crimes are already prosecuted under existing statues, so there is no need for additional legislation.
2. The word "voluntary" has become a euphemism to win support for all kinds of intrusive regulations that soon become mandatory.
3. Corinne McLaughlin and Gordon Davidson, Spiritual Politics, Ballantine Books, New York, 1994, p. 147.
4. See "Local Agenda 21" at Berit's web site.
5. McLaughlin listed her experiences while conducting a workshop attended by Berit Kjos during a 50th anniversary celebration for the United Nations titled "Celebrating the Spirit" at the University of California at Berkeley, June 19-21, 1995.
6. Ibid.
7. Education for International Cooperation and Peace at the Primary-School Level, UNESCO, 1983 (Printed in Switzerland).
8. G.B. Chisholm, "The Reestablishment of a Peacetime Society," Psychiatry, February 1946, pp. 7, 9-10, 16, 18.
9. Ibid.
10. Dustin H. Heuston, "Discussion-Developing the Potential of an Amazing Tool," Schooling and Technology, Vol. 3, Planning for the Future: A Collaborative Model (Southeastern Regional Council for Educational Improvement), p. 8.

//

Quo Vadis America:
Three Threats to Freedom

by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor
http://khouse.org/articles/1998/112/

"This is America. That can't happen here." It's a popular phrase among Christians who have been warned about the rapidly deteriorating protections in this country and the possibility of oncoming persecution. In Jeremiah's time, the Israelites chanted a similar mantra: "The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord."1 This was the narcotic which allowed them to ignore Jeremiah's warning of imminent destruction. After all, the Lord's temple was among them, therefore God would never allow Jerusalem to be destroyed. They gambled on that and lost. American Christians are gambling at the same table. Same game, different century.

Since the early 1960s, America has undergone a series of radical cultural changes. We experienced the civil rights movement and made great strides in overturning the history of racism in this country. Spurred on by that and the flower child revolution, which rejected the established order and sought its own brand of freedom, Americans began to imagine they had all sorts of rights and commenced a decades-long battle to obtain them, oftentimes warping the very fabric of the Constitution to do it. At the same time, America began its rejection of God and launched into a new hedonism. We began new discrimination by giving preferential treatment in public life to a plethora of groups, excluding others. We began a failed crusade to eliminate poverty by spending money. Schools began operating as psycho-centers, where personality would be shaped rather than minds educated. There was a pronounced shift to untested experimental programs, away from having schools represent parents to teaching children to think "independently" and replace the values of their parents with secular ones.

The product of that era is now evident in a soaring poverty rate, a national budget gone bankrupt, and an illiterate populace that is both ignorant of its history and atheistic, being controlled by a government no longer accountable to its people, circling the wagons to defend itself from its failing policies with a continual stream of lies.

The Christian Right, meanwhile, has spent the past few decades battling the sociological results of the 1960s worldview changes rather than the causes, arriving on the scene over two decades late, a dollar short and agreeing to play by the other side's rules, guaranteeing eventual failure.

There is now a more radical paradigm change to global pantheism underway. This movement is hostile to Christianity and, once again, the Church is ignoring it. Last time around the church was allowed to do its thing as long as it didn't get in the way. This time will be different. The new paradigm has all intents and purpose of forcing its pantheistic will on Christianity in the name of tolerance.

America's Challenge

For that to happen, the rights which protected our culture for 200 years have to be swept away. The new paradigm hates inalienable rights and insists on defining new ones, while appealing to popular consensus for their validation. If just a few more changes occur in the way laws are defined, enforced, and relate to each other, we will have very little freedom left. This loss will directly impact the American church, soft after 200 years of good living and incapable of envisioning itself under persecution.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech and religion. But now religion can't be practiced on many occasions. We now have freedom from religion. Speech may be technically free, but those who say politically incorrect things are ridiculed, called purveyors of hate, and excluded from public discourse. The chief no tolerance for free speech zone in America today is found in academia and government circles.

In creating the Second Amendment, the founding fathers recognized that as long as there was an armed populace, a government could not arbitrarily force its dictatorial will on the people. Although the right to bear arms was not to be infringed, there are now over 20,000 laws controlling or prohibiting arms.

The Fourth Amendment is for all purposes dead, and with it the property rights so essential to a stable society. Seizures of property due to a plethora of laws and regulations are commonplace. Now if the government wants it, charges can be trumped and the property taken, often without trial. Just imagine what will happen if "hate speech" laws ever link up with forfeiture statutes. People will be afraid to speak for fear of having their property seized.

The Fifth Amendment, with its protection against double jeopardy, is buckling badly. The reason for this provision was to prevent government from endless charging and recharging of a person until his resources were exhausted. But now we can be punished for the same crime in several ways, at both federal and state levels, and by having property seized or by means of other "civil" procedures.

The Tenth Amendment, wherein all powers not specifically designated to the federal government are reserved to the states and the people is worse than dead; it's rotting. The federal government has entered areas never specifically designated to it and the states, rather than asserting their legal rights, pant for handouts from the federal trough and are willing to prostitute themselves to obtain them.

Threat #1: International Treaties

There are several end-runs which are also endangering what remains of constitutional protections. The first great end-run is the signing and ratification of international treaties, which become the law of our land. Most of these treaties originate at United Nations conferences. The UN is a nondemocratic organization, which makes no secret about its love of socialism and its goal of bringing the planet under its "global governance." At the recent UN conference in Istanbul, Turkey, it was Fidel Castro who got a standing ovation after making a speech trouncing the U.S. Red flag waving, anyone?

The treaties have language which is intentionally broad and vague, having one meaning to the people drafting them but another to the public. They are debated in the public arena by means of clichés and face merit, rather than on the legalese they actually contain and how the language will be enforced. Much of the U.S.'s sovereignty is being deeded away to international organizations who have no understanding of rights or protections as we understand them. Current pending treaties will deed away control of our children, river beds, the oceans, and property rights, among other things.

Threat #2: Regulation

Congress has defaulted much of its responsibility for making laws to a fourth branch of government not sanctioned by the Constitution -the Bureaucratic Branch. Congress passes laws creating agencies and enables those agencies to create "regulations," which are then imposed on the populace with the force of law. As Congress defaults on its responsibilities, the agencies are now acting as unaccountable lawmakers, imposing more and more regulation. Enforcement of these regulations is becoming equally abusive and the process of redress along with it.

If the Senate doesn't ratify the Kyoto Treaty on Global Warming, President Clinton has already said he's going to instruct the EPA to implement regulations which would impose the treaty on Americans anyway. End-run and TOUCHDOWN! The Senate's participation is immaterial. Congress is rapidly becoming a useless debating society as it fails to assert its right as a branch of government.

Threat #3: Executive Orders

Executive order was the means by which Germany was converted from a Republic into a Nazi dictatorship in just three months. Executive Orders are issued by the president and appear in the Federal Register for 30 days. If there is no challenge by Congress, the order then becomes law. Similar to EOs are Presidential Decision Directives, such as the secret PDD25, which allows for the use of U.S. troops in UN operations without congressional approval-in violation of the Constitution.

There have been thousands of executive orders written by presidents since the 1940s. Most of these consist of administrative housekeeping. However, a few orders involve much more than the efficient management of the nation. They virtually suspend constitutional rights and provide dictatorial powers to the executive branch of the government in a time of real or contrived emergency. There is no provision for how long a state of emergency can last.

If the president were to declare an emergency, for whatever reason, Congress's consent isn't required. Executive orders give the government the power to act as an unaccountable dictatorship. In addition, authority does not flow from the president to the governors of the various states during the emergency, but rather through the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and his regional directors. The states are totally bypassed.

* Executive Order 10995 empowers the government to take over all communications media: radio, television, newspapers, magazines, CB, HAM, short wave, telephones, satellite and the Internet. The First Amendment would be suspended.

* Executive Order 10997 allows the government to control all electric power, petroleum, gas, fuel and minerals.

* Executive Order 10998 gives government control of food and farm production.

* Executive Orders 10999, 11003, and 11005 control transportation, including private automobiles, highways, waterways, rail lines, airports and public storage facilities. Government can seize any vehicle.

* Executive Order 11001 allows for the seizure of health, education, and welfare functions, including hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and schools.

* Executive Orders 11000, 11002 and 11004, perhaps most disturbing of all, provide for the registration and relocation of individuals as the government sees fit, including separation of families based on the perceived needs in dealing with a declared crisis. These orders also provide for the seizure of housing and the establishment of new public housing to accommodate this relocated work force.

Quo Vadis America?

Twenty years ago, evangelical philosopher Francis Schaeffer warned that America's turning from God and embracing relative truths could have no other result but to convert America into a dictatorship within a generation or so.

A free society depends on voluntary compliance with law. Christians comply because they believe in a God who watches our every move and holds us accountable, even when government does not. Those without belief in God and absolute truth have no motivation whatsoever to comply voluntarily and so an ever-increasing corpus of law must be imposed by violence on citizens by government to achieve order. In doing so, the government separates itself from morality and oftentimes can become the chief lawbreaker.

The tragedy is that the Church is so desperately slow to recognize this. Despite the decay of the very wall that protects them, she repeats over and over again, "This is America, it can't happen here." Same game. Different century.

**NOTES**

1. Schaeffer, Francis. How Should We Then Live?: Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 1976.
2. See "Executive Orders and Proclamations: A Study of a Use of Presidential Power," printed for the House Committee on Government Operations, 85th Congress, First Session, 37 (1957).
3. Executive Order 9066, 7 Fed. Reg. 1407 (1942).
4. Article I, Section 1, The Constitution of the United States of America.
5. Ibid, Article II, Section 1.
6. In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1 (1890).
7. See James Hirsen, The Coming Collision: Global Law vs. U.S. Liberties, Huntington House, Lafayette, LA, 1999.
8. Article II, Section 2, the Constitution of the United States of America.
9. American Heritage Rivers Initiative. http://www.amrivers.org.
10. UNESCO Man and Biosphere Program Home Page http://www.unesco.org/mab/themabnet.htm.
11. The Federal Register, 61 FR 1693; 22 January 1996.
12. Adam D. Thierer, "President Clinton's Sell-Out of Federalism," The Heritage Foundation, 25 June 1998.
13. United States Constitution, Bill of Rights, Tenth Amendment.
14. Adam D. Thierer, "President Clinton's Sell-Out of Federalism," The Heritage Foundation, 25 June 1998.
15. David S. Broder, "Executive Order Urged Consulting, But Didn't," Washington Post, 16 July 1998.
16. "Clinton Suspends Federalism Order," The Associated Press, 8/5/98.

//

Fighting Terrorism with Big Government:
The Second Great Watershed

by John and Carol Loeffler Steel on Steel
http://khouse.org/articles/2001/376/

n July we wrote an article, "The Oklahoma City Bombing: A Past and Future History", documenting how the tragic bombing of the Murrah Office Building in Oklahoma City was a watershed event that scuttled the Religious Right and short-circuited efforts to bring an ever-expanding and frequently abusive government back to its constitutional guidelines. September 11th's attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon will most likely prove to be "Watershed II" in the move toward greater and global government - and one that will reach beyond the boundaries of the U.S.

Political watersheds tend to break the deadlock holds of competing political ideologies - promoting some and extinguishing others. When times of undeniable crisis arise, politicians invariably make poor decisions and pass bad legislation. Opposing a crisis tide is something that lawmakers seem incapable of doing, and besides, many lawmakers see crisis as an excellent opportunity to forward laws, agendas and regulations which could not succeed under normal conditions, all in the name of protecting the public from a future crisis.

When the next crisis arrives, the fact that the promised protections failed to materialize is conveniently forgotten and more "protections" are subsequently offered for the future, which always involve the increase of big government, more tax money and a diminishing of rights for individual citizens. The Federal Reserve Act of 1913, which created the Federal Reserve Bank, was sold to the public as a means to forever protect the country from bank panics and depressions. It worked so well that the largest depression in U.S. history occurred just 16 years later, in 1929, caused by the very organization that was supposed to prevent it. But that was forgotten in the panic which followed, and big government once again was promoted as the solution to a government-caused problem.

Things We Never Thought We'd See

The weeks following the WTC-Pentagon attacks have witnessed many events that just months ago would have seemed impossible. Who could have imagined The Star Spangled Banner accompanying the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace or being sung on the front steps of Canada's Parliament? Even more impossible was the sight of people lighting candles in Iran, the signing of a condolence card by Sudanese leaders (complete with an offer of military aid), and condemnation of the terrorist attacks by Libya's dictator Gaddafi.

Pakistan has agreed to cooperate with the United States in its actions against Afghanistan, while Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates withdrew diplomatic relations with the Afghani Taliban regime, and Jordan agreed to join the coalition - something they refused to do in the Persian Gulf War.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has publicly declared the Cold War done with and Russia to be a friendly European nation. Putin plans an unprecedented visit to NATO headquarters and rumors are that Russia may consider joining NATO. As if that weren't enough, President Putin referred to the U.S. as "our partner" and said that he would not "become hysterical" if Bush violated the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty by deploying the controversial missile defense shield.1 Russia also agreed to let the U.S. use its air bases in the southern part of the country in its campaign against Afghanistan.

The European Union has almost forgotten its virulent criticism of the U.S. for abandoning such international issues like the Kyoto Treaty, the convention banning biological weapons, and the racism conference in South Africa. Internationally, UN sanctions originally imposed to curb nuclear weapons development have been dropped against Pakistan and India. The fuss over nuclear proliferation has now been "de-fussed" in order to gain Pakistan's cooperation in the war against bin Laden. The Pakistanis also received a restructuring of their debt and a $135 million loan from the IMF. Sudan benefited by having UN sanctions lifted in spite of its horrible human rights record and the persecution of Christians and animists by the Islamic government. To date, at least a million Christians are estimated to have been slaughtered. Even Jordan received a free-trade agreement with the United States, which would have been politically impossible before the September 11th attacks due to disagreements over trade details.

At What Cost?

It's all happening so fast that few are asking, "At what cost are we buying all of these favors?" It won't come cheaply! Part of the answer is already evident. Big Brother is on the prowl. Over the past few weeks, foreign diplomacy has changed radically, coupled with a wave of new terrorist-fighting legislation on the domestic front. Russia, China, and the European Union have agreed to share intelligence information regarding terrorists' activities, launching an unprecedented global spy network. One EU official commented that sharing intelligence among EU members was only on a bilateral basis, "This is uncharted territory. It's frankly difficult enough to get these services to talk to each other on their home ground or with their closest allies abroad, let alone to meet at EU level. It's quite a breakthrough."2 Bottom line: all these spy networks are beginning to spy on each other for each other to collect information about their own citizens and to do end-runs around domestic laws prohibiting these activities.

Big Brother to Pay?

In the U.S. the war against terrorism has resulted in legislation to "increase wiretapping of phones and the Internet, boost police authority to detain suspected terrorists, and rewrite immigration laws."3 Some of these measures will aid law enforcement agencies in pursuing terrorist suspects, such as allowing these agencies to obtain a single court order to trace communications across the country instead of requiring them to obtain a similar order for each court jurisdiction affected.

However, other provisions of the "Anti-Terrorism Act of 2001" will allow intelligence organizations to share any information gathered with non-law-enforcement officers - whatever that means. Under present law this information can only be shared with police entities to the extent that it assists in a criminal investigation.4 It is uncertain who these "non-law-enforcement officers" are and what kinds of intelligence would be open to them. It is clear that if the intelligence has the ability to share information with private or corporate officials, our cherished American rights to privacy will be essentially eliminated. Other provisions of this proposed legislation allow law enforcement officials to not only monitor e-mail and Internet communications, but also permit them to intercept and seize unopened mail before it reaches the intended recipient.5

Perhaps the most disturbing addition to government powers is a section codifying the use of foreign intelligence by U.S. prosecutors against American citizens even if it violates their Fourth Amendment rights regarding unwarranted searches. Even though U.S. law enforcement is not supposed to have participated in the gathering of such information, if they allow a foreign intelligence agency to gather incriminating evidence, our constitutional rights can be abridged.6

The "big government" agenda has been put on the fast track. The national ID card has been a pet project of big government for years. Hillary Clinton wanted it as a part of her national health care program in 1993. But privacy-loving Americans have resisted the measure. It now appears to be an inevitable piece of the anti-terrorism war, which in the name of unity will go unchallenged. The ID card will not help track down terrorists, who have already successfully forged various identity documents, but it will help Big Brother merge data collected on U.S. citizens from education, health, employment, banking, and criminal databases. There is a growing emphasis in law enforcement to snoop on everyone and try to find someone who is violating one of thousands of laws and regulations, which thousands break every day without knowing it.

The Never-Ending Story

Perhaps the chief concern is the fact that the war on terrorism has been declared to be a never-ending war for which we must give up an undefined number of our constitutional rights for an undefined period of time. Undefined armies and undefined wars have a habit of never being conquered or won. Exemplum primum: The War on Drugs, which escalated in the 1980s. We were told we had to fight this war in the name of saving us (from ourselves) and our children. A key weapon law enforcement had to have was the use of civil forfeiture to seize property from drug traffickers without having to obtain a prior criminal conviction. Well, here we are 20 years later in 2001 and the drug war is no closer to being won than it was in 1980. The drug war has taken a serious toll on the American people in terms of property seized from innocent citizens, not to mention the damage inflicted on the 4th and 5th Amendments to the Constitution. Under America's new civil forfeiture laws, "mere possession of a large amount of cash or a drug dog barking at your luggage is sufficient probable cause for police to legally seize everything you are carrying."7 Then you have to go to court to get it back. There is no presumption of innocence, since the property is charged with the crime and property has no constitutional rights. It sounds crazy but it's everyday business in the war on drugs, and now over 100 crimes - most of which are not drug related - allow use of civil forfeiture.

A Terrible Dilemma

The War on Terrorism is going to have to be fought. But as it is fought, it will be wise to remember that history shows the greatest potential source of terror is not small hate groups or religious fanatics, but uncontrolled, unaccountable government itself. Benjamin Franklin anticipated just such a situation when he warned us that those who give up any freedom in exchange for a little security will ultimately have neither.

* * *

[John & Carol Loeffler are career veterans in broadcast journalism. They produce the nationally syndicated newsradio program, Steel on Steel, heard weekly on the Information Radio Network, which can be heard at www.steelonsteel.com.]





//


http://www.khouse.org/articles/2001/360/print/

It Takes a Village to Snoop
by John Loeffler Steel on Steel

The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution establishes the right of the people to be secure in their papers, persons and possessions and to not be deprived of them without due process. There was a reason the Founding Fathers wrote this amendment into the Constitution: they recognized that privacy and property are essential foundations of a free society, and that freedom cannot exist without them. This amendment prevents our government from going on unwarranted "fishing expeditions," trying to find evidence that someone has committed a crime, even though there is no overt indication that a crime has been committed. The prohibition went hand-in-glove with the concept that an accused person must be considered innocent until proven guilty. It also prevents the government from blackmailing its citizens or threatening them with arbitrary deprivation of life, limb or property; all powerful political weapons in the hands of an abusive government.

The colonists understood this first-hand: they had seen what government abuse of privacy and property could do when they were subjects of the British crown. Ironically, it was the Fourth Amendment that the Supreme Court used when it found a "woman's right to privacy" entitled her to have an abortion. If only that High Court had been as diligent in guarding against all the other encroachments of that right.

Citizen Criminals: We Want to Know Who You Are

There has been a subtle shift in law enforcement philosophy from apprehending criminals suspected of having committed a crime to preventing crime by supervising what everyone is doing. Traditionally, it was easy to tell when a crime had been committed. A body with bullet wounds, for example, was a fairly good indication that a homicide had been committed. After an assault, someone was bruised. Missing money was a good indication of theft. But with new technology and modern civilization, a breathtaking panoply of crimes has been added to the books, including white collar and victimless crimes and thousands of regulations that carry criminal and civil penalties. Moreover, new crimes are emerging based on definition, such as new definitions of rape, child or spousal abuse, hate crimes, et al. For crimes such as these, guilt is a matter of whether or not the crime matches the definition, and juries are asked to pick between "he-saids" and "she-saids" with little or no hard evidence.

As laws multiply, people routinely break them every day without even knowing it, and eventually everyone becomes a "citizen criminal," whose activities must be monitored by the government in order to protect the public from itself.

Big Brother and His Elves are Watching You

From TV cameras at intersections to banking reporting requirements, Uncle Sam is on the prowl - and he wants you! Just recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that police cannot use heat-seeking devices to look inside a home without a warrant.1 This involved a case where police had used heat-sensing devices to detect plant growing lamps inside a home where a man was raising marijuana plants. The court ruled "such surveillance is legally a 'search'..." since it allows police to "explore details of the home that would previously have been unknowable without physical intrusion."2 But, while there was much cheering about this decision, it is only one case out of dozens where law enforcement is skating desperately close to the edge of the Fourth Amendment. A radar gun allows police to "see" through concrete walls by means of radio waves shot through walls with movements being displayed on a graph. Already millimeter wave scanners are in use at some airports, which allow for a clear imaging of the naked human body through clothes.3 An ion sniffer is capable of analyzing chemicals present in the air and detecting trace molecules of illegal drugs or other substances.4

Spy in the Sky

Personal surveillance has skyrocketed as well. Information from NASA spy satellites has been used by state governments in North Carolina, Georgia, and Arizona to search for unreported improvements that might increase property taxes, to check for water-use permits, and to find improper timber cutting. 5 At the Super Bowl this year in Tampa, Florida, every single fan attending had his or her face scanned by FBI digital cameras as they passed through the stadium's turnstiles. The faces were compared against the agency's database for matches with known criminals. There were no warnings posted and most of the people in attendance never knew about the security search.

The Echelon Satellite Surveillance System, the existence of which had been emphatically denied, is becoming practically undeniable. Last year, news reports indicated the European Union had discovered that a number of the world's English-speaking countries had used this system to snoop on EU telephone, fax and email transmissions. Currently, a special committee assigned by the EU to investigate Echelon is about to release its report. 6 Already some members of the European parliament are suggesting that emails should be routinely encrypted to avoid being snatched up by Echelon.

In the U.S., a previously secret FBI system called Carnivore was being used to trawl through thousands of email messages looking for criminal activity. Carnivore was finally "outed" when it was revealed that Internet Service Providers were being required to attach the systems to their servers. In addition, cell phone providers will now be required to allow tracking of a cell phone's whereabouts within a few feet when it is turned on.

Your Friendly Neighborhood Snoop

An army of official snoops are at work. The bank teller at your local bank is watching to make sure you don't make any suspicious transactions. He or she won't tell you if you break a federal regulation, but they'll report you. Many banks are under Know Your Customer programs, monitoring all their customers' financial habits and looking for abnormal or suspicious transactions. Postal clerks are also required to formally report out-of-ordinary transactions. Airline ticker counter clerks are looking for people who meet drug profiles or other suspicious activities. Obviously, many innocent citizens are being reported in these screening activities.

An array of computers tracks the data being collected about us. Several years ago President Clinton's Executive Order 13011 mandated the linking of the information systems of the CIA, EPA, FBI, FEMA, the Agency for International Development, the Departments of Labor, Education, Health and Human Services, Interior, and the Army. Just prior to leaving office in 2001, he issued a presidential directive establishing a counterintelligence board, called CI-21 (counterintelligence for the 21st century), to formalize information sharing between the FBI and the CIA.

These super-databases make it possible for government agencies to profile within seconds every man, woman, and child in the country. Other countries are capable of doing the same thing to their citizens. These databases track not only criminals or terrorists, but also the financial, education and work records of ordinary citizens. Moreover, to end run legal limitations, countries are spying for each other and turning over the data they collect, or governments are buying information from private sector databasing firms.

The recent debate in Congress over medical privacy was indicative of what is really happening. Despite all of the rhetoric about "protecting privacy," privacy protection is a cruel joke because the laws that are being written are full of loopholes and "weasel words" that allow government to collect what it wants while the politicians assure you that you're being protected. And how is it all tied together? By means of a unique identifying number.

Social Insecurity

In the U.S., the Social Security number has become the de facto key identifier being used to track people's activities. John G. Huse, Inspector General of the Social Security Administration, testified on May 22, 2001 before a House Ways and Means Subcommittee, that the misuse of the Social Security number was "a national crisis."7 SS numbers are being used for "everything from driver's licenses to marriage licenses to water and sewer bills."8

According to subcommittee Chairman Clay Shaw, "more and more people are being told their SSN is required for reasons that just don't make sense, like renting a video, making funeral arrangements, or even picking up Girl Scout cookies."9

With just a few readily obtainable bits of data, such as a person's date of birth, SSN, and mother's maiden name, it is possible for any trained criminal to steal someone's electronic identity and use it to fraudulently create credit accounts in someone else's name. "A thief can buy someone's SSN on the internet for $39.95 and use it within minutes to get a credit card, then buy big-ticket items such as cars and jewelry."10 The issue of identity theft will continue to mount until some method can be established of permanently linking the person to his or her identifying number. Funny the Bible should mention...

The Mark of [Your] Beast

Already, high-tech chips are being implanted in pets and other animals (usually by subcutaneous injections) so lost animals can be scanned when they are brought into shelters. The pet information is kept in a national database. What works for animals obviously works for humans.

Appearing under the dubious title of Digital AngelTM in June, a new implantable digital chip was announced in testing phase among humans. 11 Digital AngelTM combines advanced biosensor technology with "web-enabled wireless telecommunications with Global Positioning Satellite Systems (GPS)."12 Digital AngelTM is capable of monitoring key body functions, such as temperature and pulse, and transmitting that data, along with accurate location information, to a ground station or monitoring facility. Already the technology exists to store a person's entire data on a single chip. The Digital AngelTM chip is powered by muscle action in the host animal or person.

While such technology has great promise - monitoring the location and medical condition of high-risk patients, locating missing pets or people, managing livestock, etc. - the dark side of this technology is immediately clear to anyone who understands what totalitarian governments of the past have attempted to do: protect themselves from their own people by monitoring and controlling everything they do.

Inexorable Trends

The 1970s British television series, The Prisoner, which became popular abroad, featured secret agent Patrick McGoohan, who was called "Number 6." His famous line from the series was, "I am not a number. I am a man!" Likewise, all of the trends we have discussed are progressing and converging (see inset box). We're not quite there yet, but it is no coincidence that John envisioned just a situation in the book of Revelation, where no one can buy or sell without having a unique number permanently affixed to his or her body; one that is directly tied into the political and religious system of the day.
This article was originally published in the
August 2001 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Ramstack, Tom, "Justices Rule Heat-Sensing is 'Search,'" Washington Times, http://www.washtimes.com, June 12, 2001.
2. "Supreme Court Thermal Imaging Decision Is Just The Start of High-Tech Privacy Battle," Libertarian Party , http://www.lp.org, June 11, 2001.
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid.
6. "Europe Targets Echelon," Intelligence Digest from Intelligence International, June, 2001.
7. Schlafley, Phyllis, "Time to Start Over with Social Security Numbers," http://www.eagleforum.org, June 13, 2001.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. "Digital Angel Commences First Production Run," Business Wire , http://biz.yahoo.com/bw/

[solookup]

What’s Really Going On?
Executive Orders: Edicts from a Presidential Throne: Part 1

by James Hirsen

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/236/

The danger in regard to the rise of authoritarian government is that Christians will be still as long as their own religious activities, evangelism, and lifestyles are not disturbed. - Francis Schaeffer How Should We Then Live?1

What do we call a government where a single individual has the power to create laws merely by uttering a few words or issuing some sort of written decree? Most of us would respond that this describes a monarchy. The founders of our nation clearly wanted to depart from the kind of despotic control that can be imposed by a royal ruling class and established a republic to achieve that. Authority was divided among three branches of government to provide checks and balances and avoid an inordinate concentration of power in any one branch.

In light of this history, it is highly disturbing to discover that there is a readily available tool available to the president which could facilitate a form of dictatorial rule. This instrument of power is known as an executive order. Executive orders have a worthwhile purpose when correctly applied, but their use has been corrupted over time, often-times for political gain.

Precisely how many executive orders have been issued throughout our country's history remains unknown, since executive orders issued before 1907 were unnumbered. Beginning in that year, a number was assigned to each executive order, and the orders were filed chronologically by the State Department. Estimates of unnumbered executive orders range from 15,000 to as high as 50,000.2 Today executive orders contain up to five digits, and since 1907 over thirteen thousand have been issued.

But how did America get to the point where we have the potential for autocratic control by the executive branch of government masquerading as standard managerial procedure? This month and next, we will attempt to clarify some erroneously held notions about executive orders and set forth specific steps that should be taken to address this problem. It is our hope that conscientious citizens will become engaged in the reform process.

The Allure of Solitary Power

Our forefathers recognized the natural inclination of human beings to seek greater and greater concentrations of power, primarily because they held a Scriptural view of the nature of man consonant with the idea of original sin-that human beings are fallen creatures. And additional impetus was the fact that they and their ancestors had experienced the abusive results of such power in Europe.

Because of this, the founders retained a healthy suspicion of those who hold elective office and so they designed a system that would divide power between three branches of government. In this way, no one branch or single individual would ever be vested with unchecked authority. It is doubtful that the Founding Fathers ever envisioned a president having the ability to create law without even the semblance of representative government. Yet this is the level to which the modern use of executive orders has grown.

For those who would question the difficulty with this sort of governance, imagine for a moment that you are relaxing in your own home. Suddenly there is a knock on the door. Upon answering you are abruptly seized, ripped from your home, stripped of your private property, and carried away against your will to a concentration camp where you are held prisoner.

Where could something so awful like this happen? Nazi Germany? The Soviet Union? Cuba? Probably, but this happened in 1942 to some 100,000 citizens of our own country. The whole event occurred without public debate or approval from Congress. A simple signature was all that was needed to create such powerful and life-changing consequences for American citizens. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt provided his name. The instrument he used to unilaterally create law was Executive Order 9066.3

Abuse of Authority

Immediately following the Preamble of the Constitution, the first substantive provision of the original document states: "All legislative powers herein granted shall be vested in a Congress of the United States."4 The plain meaning of this clause is that there are no legislative powers vested in any other branch of government. This includes the executive branch. Therefore, the president should not be in the business of making laws. With this being the case, what does the Constitution prescribe as the president's role?

The Constitution bestows an exclusive grant to the president in what is designated as the "executive power."5 This is circumscribed further by language contained in Article II, Section 3 that states that presidents are "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

So, according to the Constitution, it is the job of the executive branch to faithfully carry out the laws that Congress has previously legislated. Consistent with this balance, executive orders and other forms of presidential directives should be used to transmit information between various divisions of the executive branch of the federal government, based upon existing authority under established law. Typical executive orders deal with government agencies and officials. They establish governmental bureaus, modify rules, change procedures, and enforce existing statutes. Examples of usage include establishing rules for executive branch employees, authorizing agency policies, granting presidential awards, and putting forth commands to cabinet officers.

However, this authority has been extended well beyond the original constitutional allowance to encompass a vast, ambiguous source of power, as some interpret the Constitution.

In In re Neagle (1890), the Supreme Court said that the president was not limited to laws that had been passed by Congress, but the president could administer laws based on those growing out of the Constitution itself, international relations, and "all the protection implied by the nature of the government under the Constitution."6

The potential for abuse through executive orders is contained within two primary spheres. First, these instruments may be used to illegitimately further the international agenda expressed in UN treaties.7 Secondly, executive orders may be used to increase presidential authority, thus enabling a president to legislate during periods of what he or she may deem to be a national emergency (which we'll cover in detail next month). The possibility for corruption within these realms cannot be overstated.

Illicit Implementation of Treaties

The Constitution requires that a treaty be ratified by two-thirds of the Senate in order to become the law of the land.8 However, this legal requirement has not deterred the Clinton administration. Astoundingly, President Clinton signed two executive orders during the impeachment process. E.O. 13107 was released while the proceedings in the House of Representatives were taking place in December, and E.O. 13112 was signed in the middle of the Senate trial in February. Interestingly enough, each of these executive orders promoted an aspect of the international agenda.

Executive Order 13107 is entitled "Implementation of Human Rights Treaties." This innocuous sounding name does not divulge the capacity for misuse that is inherent in the provisions of this executive order. E.O. 13107 speaks not only of ratified treaties, but "other relevant treaties," and sets up as the official policy of the U.S. government the implementation of unapproved international treaties.

It creates an Interagency Working Group chaired by a designee of the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs to conduct the following functions, among others: (a) oversee legislation proposed by the Administration to make certain that it is in conformity with UN human rights initiatives; (b) pursue public "education" slanted towards acceptance of UN initiatives; and (c) design new methods of monitoring for the purposes of human rights obligations.

It seems oddly coincidental that this executive order was signed at a time when the country was profoundly distracted, a new Congress was in transition, and the holidays were upon us. These factors made it less likely that Congress would disapprove the executive order during the customary thirty-day period in order to prevent it from becoming law. Tragically, Executive Order 13107 allows various unapproved and so-called human rights treaties to be implemented without Senate approval, further eroding our national sovereignty.

The current administration has provided us with another example of its guileful use of the piecemeal approach to implementing unrati-fied treaties-Executive Order 13112.

This executive order circumvents the established lawful processes by expanding the regulatory scope of federal agencies and continuing on what appears to be an unimpeded course toward the fulfillment of the provisions embodied in the UN document known as the Biodiversity Treaty. The Biodiversity Treaty was signed in 1993 and is crafted to appropriate an extraordinary percentage of our property rights through extensive land use regulation.

Executive Order 13112 refers to "invasive species" that are to be "controlled" by such means as "eradicating, suppressing, reducing, or managing" their respective populations. The problem is that the definition of invasive species is so sweeping and expansive, it could easily include domesticated livestock and pets, house plants, front lawns and neighborhood golf courses, food crops such as wheat, barley and rice, and yes, even that adaptable and resilient species known as Homo sapiens.

Under this executive order, federal agencies are not only directed to prevent the introduction of invasive alien species but also to control populations of such species. In addition, agencies must provide for restoration of native species and habitat conditions in those ecosystems that have been invaded. Predictably, a new bureaucracy, the Invasive Species Council, is established to accomplish these questionable tasks.

Executive Order 13112 opens the door for the most extreme elements of the environmental movement to extend their intrusive claws into the agricultural industry and beyond, to the potential detriment of our entire country. This order constitutes a clear misuse of presidential power and must be completely overhauled or revoked altogether. This stealth attack on property rights needs to be exposed and combated in order to restrain an overzealous government.

Confiscation with a Single Signature

In 1996 Congress attempted to enact the Heritage Areas Act, but there were not enough votes to pass it. Under this proposed bill, Congress would have had the authority to designate areas of land as "heritage zones." Not to be dissuaded by the bill's failed passage, the Clinton administration craftily repackaged the act and issued it as Executive Order 13061 on September 11, 1997. It "officially" established the American Heritage Rivers Initiative (AHRI)9 and essentially provided the means by which the federal government could take control over large parcels of land adjacent to U.S. rivers.

Prior to this time, the waters within the border of a state had been the exclusive province of state sovereignty. Initially, the program involved ten rivers, but the long-range plan is to add rivers on a continual basis. Eventually, over one hundred rivers will be added.

In 1971, the United Nations created the Man and Biosphere Program.10 This program was fashioned to ease the implementation of the goals of the Biodiversity Treaty.

In January 1996, President Clinton issued Executive Order 12986,11 which was designed to protect the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources from future lawsuits.

This is a privilege that is generally reserved for foreign diplomats. Since the group played a role in the creation and promotion of the Man and Biosphere Program, it received preferential treatment in return.

Stomping on State Sovereignty

On May 14, 1998, President Clinton's White House released a new executive order dealing with the scope and classification of power that resides in the states as opposed to the federal government. While in Birmingham, England, President Clinton signed Executive Order 13083. This order struck at the very constitutional foundations of the relationship of the federal government, state governments, and the people. It effectively voided the language of the Tenth Amendment of the Bill of Rights,12 which reads: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."13

This new executive order set forth nine overly broad guidelines to justify federal action that could directly interfere with state sovereignty. These criteria basically say that the federal government can interfere in the sovereignty of the states of the United States however and whenever it so wishes.

This executive order undermines everything for which the Constitution and the Bill of Rights stand. It literally removes any trace of state sovereignty that would present an obstacle to the international agenda. There is no legitimate justification under constitutional law, either historically or through precedence, for this kind of power grab.14

Diligence Pays Dividends

Only two months after Executive Order 13083 was signed, the chief of White House intergovernmental relations reluctantly met with representatives of state and local governments in a "stormy meeting."15 On August 5, 1998, President Clinton, under pressure from governors, mayors, and members of Congress, suspended Executive Order 13083 by issuing Executive Order 13095.

As an added bonus, the House voted to nullify the same executive order on the very same day.16 The primary reason this occurred was that individual citizens, with the assistance of the alternative media, communicated their outrage at the local, state, and federal level.

Recipe for Tyranny

The other primary use of executive orders involves the exercise of so-called emergency powers. This is perhaps the most dangerous possibility for the misuse of executive orders. The most obvious national emergency situation involves war, but other domestic and international crises, real (or perhaps even fabricated), have come into play to justify the use of executive orders. Next month we'll take a closer look at these specific executive orders, and also provide a plan of action we as individuals can take to address these problems and evoke the necessary changes. Stay tuned...

* * *

James Hirsen is a Professor of Law at Trinity Law School and an attorney in Orange County, California. His new book Government by Decree deals with the subject of executive orders.

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What's Really Going On?
Executive Orders - Edicts From a Presidential Throne: Part 2

by James Hirsen

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/235/

In Part One last month, we focused on the history of executive orders and the potential for abuse when these instruments are used to illegitimately further the international agenda expressed in UN treaties.

This month, we will look at how executive orders may be used to increase presidential authority, thus enabling a president to legislate during periods of what he or she may deem to be a national emergency. The possibility for corruption within this realm cannot be overstated.

Recipe for Tyranny

One of the primary uses of executive orders involves the exercise of so-called emergency powers. This is perhaps the most dangerous possibility for the misuse of executive orders.

The most obvious national emergency situation involves war, but other domestic and international crises (real or perhaps even fabricated) have come into play to justify the use of executive orders.

For example, in 1971 Richard Nixon declared an emergency because of the growing discrepancy in our federal balance of payments. He disconnected the value of the dollar from the gold standard, levied a surtax on imports, and froze domestic prices for 90 days.

Many people thought Nixon was overreacting, but even if he weren't, the situation clearly showed a president pushing the limits of Constitutional power.1

On June 3, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed an executive order that consolidated the powers set forth in a number of executive orders that were issued by his predecessors.2

Originally created in 1962 by President John F. Kennedy, this particular collection of executive orders allows a total subjugation of the fundamental freedoms that Americans often take for granted.

The first of the Kennedy-issued executive orders (E.O. 10995) allows the president to take control of all media, as long as a national emergency exists. Included as media are radio, television and, conceivably, telephone and Internet outlets.3 Other executive orders from this cluster (E.O. 10997, 10990, 11003 and 11005) allow the seizure of all facilities that produce energy, including electricity, gasoline, and solid fuels.4

All means of transportation, both public and private, including ground and air transportation, could be completely controlled by the executive branch as well.5

Another declares that our food resources could be taken over by the executive branch (E.O. 10998). This includes all agriculture, distribution, and retail facilities.6

Furthermore, reminiscent of the Japanese internment under E.O.9066, other executive orders allow for the involuntary registration and relocation of U.S. citizens into labor groups under government surveillance (E.O. 11000, 11002, 11004). The order also grants the executive branch authority to take over labor, services, and manpower resources.7

Under E.O. 11921, the government is empowered to take over health, education, welfare, mechanisms of production and distribution, energy sources, wages, salaries, credit and the flow of money.

There is very little of the economy and private life which hasn't been included under these orders.

A common but erroneous belief is that the above executive orders have either expired or been rescinded. We shall see in the next section that this is not true.

Also, what comprises a national emergency has not been clearly defined by the courts. Rather than setting forth specific criteria, the courts have given the President wholesale discretion to determine the boundaries of what constitutes a national emergency.

The familiar rationale is that extra latitude should be given to the President in this area due to the need for expediency.8

Layers of Legal Confusion

The current legal status of the emergency powers of the President involves so many statutes and executive orders that misconceptions abound. Since some of these legal instruments revoke prior ones, and some absorb the content of others, the confusion seems to multiply.

Executive orders tend to build upon each other, with previous orders justifying subsequent ones. It is not surprising that the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian, Arthur Schlesinger, has dubbed this subject "an uncoordinated, uncodified, crazy-quilt collection of powers."9

In 1933, at the request of President Roosevelt, the U.S. Congress passed the War and Emergency Powers Act, which has never been repealed. This legislation was an amendment to the Trading with the Enemies Act , which was originally passed by Congress in 1917.

Due to the circumstances surrounding World War I, the President was granted full authoritarian control of citizens of enemy countries, and their property, who were living or working in this country.10

This act expressly excluded domestic transactions; that is, those being conducted by American citizens. The amended 1933 version effectively reclassified U.S. citizens within the "enemy" category. At this point, U.S. citizens were made enemies of the federal government.

In 1971 Congress was astonished to discover that our nation had been in a continuous state of national emergency since Roosevelt's proclamations of 1933. Additionally, still binding were the emergencies proclaimed by Truman in 1950 and Nixon in 1970.

This revelation caused the Senate to issue a committee report in 1973, which disclosed that the 1933 War and Emergency Powers Act had engendered 470 provisions of federal law with various emergency powers and related provisions.

In 1976 Congress passed the National Emergencies Act , which terminated any existing declarations of national emergency effective September 14, 1978.11 Nevertheless, the 1976 Act did not affect the 1933 Act in any manner. Moreover, it did not stop subsequent presidents from declaring states of emergency.

In fact, as of this writing, President Clinton has issued executive orders for twelve of them,12 placing the country in a series of states of emergency.

Many of the executive orders in this area grant a significant degree of delegated emergency power to divisions of the executive branch. These powers are centered in an agency of the federal government known as the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). FEMA itself came into existence by means of an executive order.13

An emergency is defined by federal law as "...any occasion or instance for which, in the determination of the President, federal assistance is needed to supplement state and local efforts and capabilities to save lives and to protect property and public health and safety, or to lessen or avert the threat of a catastrophe in any part of the United States."14

What the War and Emergency Powers Act does, in conjunction with the above-mentioned executive orders, is enable the President to suspend the Constitution at will. All the President needs to justify this action is a national emergency.

Note that it is the President himself who declares the emergency; not Congress. Americans should never tolerate the suspension of their Constitutional rights under any circumstance, even when the situation is labeled with an "emergency" status.

A Plan of Action

On the optimistic side, there are several things that average, ordinary citizens can do to address the aforementioned problems and evoke the necessary changes.

Initially, we can obtain as much knowledge on the subject as we can and spread the word. This is one of the most important techniques we have at our disposal. We know that with the Almighty's guidance, a humble people can make a tremendous difference.

Executive orders can also be challenged formally in two ways:

1) A lawsuit could be brought if the order contradicts the original legislative intent of the law or has no underlying statutory authority, and

2) Congress could pass a bill repealing or modifying a specific executive order. That bill would, of course, be subject to a presidential veto and would then need an override vote.

Representative Jack Metcalf (R-WA) has taken a positive step. He is sponsoring House Concurrent Resolution 26. It expresses the sense of the Congress that any executive order which infringes on the powers and duties of the Congress under Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution, or requires the expenditure of federal funds not specifically appropriated for the purpose of the executive order, is advisory only.

This is a non-binding resolution, perhaps because a veto could be avoided. We urge you to call Representative Metcalf as well as your own representatives and express support for this bill and ask that your representative become a cosponsor.

You might also tell your representatives that:

1) They should make this measure binding; and

2) Congressional notice and review should be mandatory for all executive orders.

This bill is currently stranded in the Judiciary Committee. Therefore, a dual purpose telephone call to your favorite House Manager would be helpful. After telling one of these courageous gentlemen how proud we all were of their actions, bring up House Concurrent Resolution 26 and relate the above remarks concerning the bill.

We cannot stand by and let this precious endowment of liberty be undermined. As the famous jurist, Learned Hand once mused, "Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it."

* * *


James Hirsen is a Professor of Law at Trinity Law School and an attorney in Orange County, California. His new book Government by Decree deals with the subject of executive orders.
This article was originally published in the
May 1999 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Executive Order 11615. Proclamation No. 4074.
2. Executive Order 12919.
3. Executive Order 10995.
4. Executive Order 10997.
5. Executive Order 10999.
6. Executive Order 10998.
7. Executive Order 11000. Authority for this is reflected in Title 50 App. United States Code Sec. 2153 "War and National Defense."
8. Brown v. Burnstein, D.C. Pa.,49 F.Supp. 728, 732.
9. Arthur M. Schlesinger, The Imperial Presidency, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1973), 320.
10. The "Emergency in Banking Relief Act" passed March 9, 1933 (48 Stat 1) amended the "Trading with the Enemy Act" passed October 6, 1917 (40 Stat. 411). Codified in 12 USC Section 95a and 95b.
11. S.Rept. No. 549, 93rd Congress, 1st Session iii (1973).
12. These are: problems with Iran (every year since 1979), Libya (since 1986), Iraq (since 1990), Yugoslavia (since 1992), proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (since 1993), UNITA (Angolan anti-Communists, since 1993), Middle East terrorism (since 1995), Colombian drug dealers (since 1995), Cuba (since 1996), Burma (since 1997), and Sudan (since 1997). Even the expiration of a statute, the Export Administration Act of 1979, caused President Clinton to declare and renew a state of national emergency (since 1994).
13. Executive Order 12148, signed by President Jimmy Carter. Executive Order 11051 authorizes all of these executive orders into effect in times of national emergency.
14. Title 2 United States Code 5121 (Stafford Act).
**

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Global Governance:
International Justice?

by John Loeffler Steel on Steel

http://khouse.org/articles/2001/362/


The extradition in July of Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic to The Hague was a subtle shift in the march toward global "law." It was the first time a former head of state had been successfully extradited for trial as a war criminal. However, while some might consider the trial of a "war criminal" a positive event, it should be considered negative because the precedent it is setting in global law is dubious.

The Emerging Global Governance

In its push toward global governance, the UN has been striving for three key elements:

1) An independent, standing UN army to make it a power in its own right;

2) A global system of taxation collected independently of other nations, making it free from dependence on member nations' dues; and,

3) A global system of law complete with courts and enforcement. Thus we are hearing more and more the term "international law," even though what that is and who makes it is currently vague. Nevertheless, that hasn't prevented the globalists from making it up as they go along-with or without the approval of the world.

Crime Goes International

The 20th century saw some of the worst "crimes against humanity" in the history of the world. As movie newsreels portrayed the horrors of Nazi death camps, the natural concern was to bring them to justice. However, the question was, what justice?, since justice usually operates within a legal system of jurisdiction, such as a country. The problem that confronted the Allied prosecutors was that the Holocaust was a technically legal event, having been perpetrated and sanctioned by legitimate laws of a sovereign state. So how could the men and women who had perpetrated it and followed legitimate orders and the laws of Germany then be prosecuted when, technically, no law had been broken? Indeed, the defendants at Nuremberg made just such an argument in their defense. To circumvent this problem, the Allied prosecutors at Nuremberg created a new category of law out of thin air, called "crimes against humanity." They then proceeded to prosecute the Nazis ex post facto, on the basis of a crime which hadn't even existed when it was committed. Appeal was made to the philosophical ideal that all humans have rights and that these rights transcend borders.

While the Nazis did commit moral outrages that deserved punishment, the Nuremberg trials introduced legal leger de main, which will most likely prove to have opened the door to tremendous evil before it is done. This legal magic is blossoming in our day. It is wise to remember that evil frequently rides in on the back of a white horse - a solution to an evil problem, which becomes far more evil than the original problem.

A Dangerous Precedent

The most recent thrust to implement international justice is the International Criminal Court. Although it has yet to be ratified by the required 60 countries, the globalists have already begun legal proceedings against Slobodan Milosevic, a former head of state, who was successfully extradited from his home country to stand before an international tribunal. 1

Here's the catch. This precedent-setting action did not come as the result of a duly ratified treaty or by following some established international law, but by rather dubious international manipulation. First, the International Criminal Court does not technically exist yet, because the treaty creating it has not been ratified by the required 60 member states. So, to circumvent that problem, the tribunal charged with hearing Milosevic's case was convened at the request of the United Nations Security Council, consisting of 15 nations, rather than by the vote of the entire UN membership in the General Assembly.2

The charges against Milosevic - responsibility for the murder of more than 600 people and the displacement of 740,000 Albanians in Kosovo in 1999 3 - were originally initiated at the time of the NATO bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Since that time, Milosevic has been replaced by the legitimate election of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic. The new prime minister was eventually forced to extradite his predecessor when the extradition was made a condition for a desperately needed $1.3 billion aid package.4 Milosevic questioned the legitimacy of the tribunal when he was brought before the UN war crimes court at The Hague. He told the judge, "I consider this tribunal a false tribunal and the indictment a false indictment."5 Milosevic refused to appoint a lawyer for his defense and also refused to hear the indictment or enter a plea, because of his contention of the court's illegitimacy. Milosevic may be correct in his complaint, but without a formal court system, to whom will he appeal?

International Criminal Court

The International Court of Justice at The Hague was established to handle disputes between nations. It has no jurisdiction to indict individuals. It was with this in mind that the International Criminal Court (ICC) was conceived, to prosecute individuals accused of "crimes against humanity." If the ICC is eventually ratified by a minimum of 60 countries, it will come into existence and already claims jurisdiction even over those countries which don't ratify the treaty, which opens another legal can of worms. The ICC will not have the guarantees that English-speaking countries have come to take for granted. For example, there are no trials by jury, no presumption of innocence, no right to freedom from self incrimination, no right to a speedy trial, no protection against cruel or unusual punishments, and appeals will be handled internally by the court's appellate judges.6

Israel the Next Target

While Milosevic may have been a malevolent dictator, the precedent his case sets may be far worse than is immediately evident. There is no uniform standard for what constitutes an international criminal or what crimes are deemed serious enough to be addressed in the arena of international justice. For example, far worse crimes involving millions of innocent victims in Sudan, Indonesia, Iraq, and Cuba have seemingly gone unnoticed. The UN also has a well-established track record of showing partiality to socialist rulers and hostility toward capitalist ones, and its favorite whipping boy of late is Israel. The next candidate for indictment may be Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who is accused of allowing the massacre of 800 Palestinians by Lebanese "Phalangist" forces. While Sharon denied any part in the incident, his detractors labeled him the "butcher of Lebanon." Since that time, new revelations have surfaced suggesting that the killings were masterminded by another man, Elias Hobeika, who though operating at top levels of Lebanese intelligence was actually loyal to the Syrian dictator Hafez al-Assad. Some analysts now believe that Hobeika actually staged the massacre to further Syrian interests.7

Global Governance on the March

The ICC is only one part of the push to establish global governance. This trend toward globalism has tremendous significance for Christians for several reasons. First, we are witnessing the formation of what, it would seem, the Bible predicted 2,000 years ago: a (somewhat) unified, universal, political, financial and religious system.

Second, Christians have failed to note that the new global paradigm being implemented has moral, religious and political components that will not tolerate opposition or dissent by religious factions that do not agree with it. These paradigms are operating within the new definitions of "consensus," which itself is a dialectical, changing process of truths and rights and wrongs. Even the UN's definitions of "mental health" for its global programs see firm adherence to one's faith-to the exclusion of other faiths or the UN's global values-as a mental illness. This sounds hauntingly like the abuse of mental health in the former Soviet Union to persecute dissidents.

Ultimately, the new globalism will not leave the Christian Church alone,or any other religious groups that don't go along with it. It will use legal, economic and social pressures to co-opt, coerce, or eliminate religious groups - either force them into conformity to the new ideals or "out of business." No clearer warning can be sounded as to the dangers to faith on the road ahead.

* * *
This article was originally published in the
August 2001 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Knowles, Joe, "Milosevic's Reckoning," www.inthesetimes.com, 8/6/01.
2. "Some Common Misperceptions about the ICC," Human Rights Watch (Frontline: www.pbs.org), 1998.
3. "In High Spirits, Milosevic Tells the World: 'I am proud of what I did,'" The Scotsman Online , July 12, 2001.
4. Op. Cit., Knowles.
5. "Transcripts - Milosevic's Initial Appearance," www.un.org/icty/milosevic/mil-010703ia.htm, July 3, 2001.
6. Lamb, Henry, "The International Criminal Court: Summary Analysis," Ecologic , 7/21/98.
7. "Israel Turns to Sharon: A Veteran of War and Peace," International Christian Embassy Jerusalem News, February 5, 2001.


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Creating a New World Order:
The U.N. Millennium Forum: Reinvention of Global Government
by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor


http://www.khouse.org/articles/2000/264/print/


Over the last decade, the United Nations has unabashedly been reinventing itself into a global government, striving to obtain the legal teeth and financial resources to implement its policies. Government reinvention is frequently an effort to avoid the consequences of failed policies in the past, or to justify a government's continued expansion by posing solutions to the problems it has created.

Historically, government never downsizes voluntarily; it always increases its power and minimizes accountability to its citizens. This is one reason bloody and non-bloody revolutions have been fought throughout history.

In 1995, the United Nations Commission on Global Governance published a report entitled, Our Global Neighborhood, 1 which called for a World Conference on Global Governance, to have been originally held in 1998 but which never materialized. The Commission made a number of eye-opening recommendations for changes to the United Nations, including:2

o A system of global taxation;
o A standing U.N. army;
o A Court of Criminal Justice;
o Expanded authority for the Secretary General;
o An Economic Security Council;
o U.N. authority over the global commons (especially the oceans and all areas of sovereign territories that influence the oceans);
o An end to the veto power of permanent Security Council members;
o A new parliamentary body of "civil society" representatives (NGOs).3

The report denied it was supporting "global government," preferring the term "global governance," but its contents reveal all elements required for a genuine government. Besides, a little reflection yields the following question: How can one have global "governance" without global "government"?

It has been argued that the Commission was not an official body of the U.N. "It was, however, endorsed by the U.N. Secretary General and funded through two trust funds of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), nine national governments, and several foundations, including the MacArthur Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Carnegie Corporation."4

The foundations involved have been promoting globalism and socialism for years. Although no conference was ever held, implementation of the Commission's recommendations are well under way.

Global taxation, such as the proposed Tobin tax, will free the U.N. from relying on members' dues for financial income. A U.N. standing army, once made possible by global taxation, will establish the U.N. as a military power in its own right, not dependant on the armed forces of member countries.

The dream of an international court of criminal justice was accomplished two years ago in July of 1998 (in Rome) when the International Criminal Court was created. The court claims jurisdiction over all countries of the world, even those which do not ratify the implementation treaty. The Court believes its verdicts to be binding on all countries.

Expanded authority for the Secretary General will convert him to a global prime minister. The economic security council will manage international finances. Regulation of global trade is already under way through another nongovernmental organization, the World Trade Organization (WTO) via the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

Note that GATT was in reality a treaty, which should have been ratified by the U.S. Senate. However, public outcry would likely have prevented ratification so calling it an "agreement" executed an end-run on that necessity.

Eliminating the veto power of permanent Security Council members (the U.S., Great Britain, Russia, China, etc.) creates equity; thereafter it's one nation, one vote and no vetoes if you don't like the outcome of world opinion.

The Millennium Assembly: Formation of a World Parliament

The next big item on the U.N. agenda is a new parliamentary body of "civil society" representatives scheduled this September when the U.N. People's Millennium Assembly begins. The Assembly's purpose is to create a global parliament.

On May 25, 2000, a preliminary workshop on the forum was held, featuring Dr. Andrew Strauss, currently involved in hammering out the structure of the "people's parliament," along with Jim Garrison, President of the Gorbachev Foundation in San Francisco, California. In an interview with Joan Veon, Dr. Strauss said:

...we could think of this meeting symbolically, where civil society has been officially called in to have this meeting at the U.N. as the end of the "old paradigm." And what is the old paradigm of sovereignty? It says "citizens, if they are going to be represented at the international level, are going to be represented through their states"...I think perhaps if the very meaning is about anything, it is about the end of that order; that citizens want to be directly represented at the international order; that the old idea of sovereignty of politics for citizens within or between states is over. That leaves us with a very big question which we are far from resolving, and that is how citizens should be represented.5

According to Dr. Strauss, the old idea of national sovereignty is out. Local lawmaking bodies will be bypassed. The new parliament will begin as an advisory body, but the ultimate goal is to convert it into a global lawmaking body. Currently it is uncertain how members of the world body will be elected. Several proposals have been placed on the table:

o Establishing some kind of consultative assembly of parliamentarians to which parliaments all over the world would appoint representatives.

o Creating a consultative assembly consisting of nonelected NGO organizations, which already provide input to the U.N. major conferences.

o An assembly directly elected by all the people of the world.

o Direct democracy by way of the Internet, so that any "world citizen" could vote on any items they could so choose at any time.6 This would probably be an electronic form of the ancient Greek "mobocracy."

Global Government Rising

The issues driving the "need" for the global government are often genuine or over-hyped issues such as environment, war, children's issues, weapons of mass destruction, genocide, justice and equity, et al. However genuine the problems, 20th century history teaches that evil frequently rides on the back of a white horse: the solution to a real problem that becomes far worse and abusive than the original problem ever was.

Global government has been a long time in coming, supported by a wide panoply of luminaries over the years. Our Global Neighborhood said the surrender of sovereignty is "a principle that will yield only slowly and reluctantly to the imperatives of global environmental cooperation." 7

Sixty years ago, famed globalist H.G. Wells in his book, The New World Order, put it another way: "Countless people...will hate the New World Order [his words]...and will die protesting against it...we have to bear in mind the distress of a generation or so of malcontents..." 8 Bottom line: globalists recognize that the new order will have to be shoved down a lot of people's throats whether they like it or not.

According to Henry Lamb of EcoLogic, "the foundation of global governance is a set of core values, a belief system, which contains ideas that are foreign to the American experience and ignores other values and ideas that are precious to the American experience. The values and ideas articulated in the Commission's report are not new. They have been tried, under different names, in other societies. Often, the consequences have been devastating."9

These values, which we would label socialist at best and Marxist at worst, have consistently appeared in U.N. documents since the late 1980s. Appearing with repackaged names, they have dominated all international conferences, agreements, and treaties. Marxist transfer-of-wealth schemes, the demonization of capitalism, enforced equity among peoples, etc. are all part and parcel of the new globalist rhetoric.

As global government is locked into place, people should understand that the legal safeguards against government abuse do not exist at the international level nor are there plans to create them. The political bent of the U.N. has always been toward socialist ideology and the concept that government is all good, all knowing. The rights enshrined in the U.S. Bill of Rights - property and financial rights, freedom of speech and religion, the right to bear arms against invaders and abusive government, protection against double jeopardy, trial by a jury of one's peers, right to petition for redress of grievances, et al. - do not exist in the same form at the U.N. level.

Where the U.N. appears to guarantee rights, there are often "weasel words," which allow the so-called rights to be set aside at the will of government. As always, the devil is in the details - literally.

Article 19, Paragraph 1 and 2 of the U.N.'s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights states:

1. Everyone shall have the right to hold opinions without interference.

2. Everyone shall have the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art, or through any other media of his choice."10

So far, everything sounds good. But read Paragraph 3:

3. The exercise of the rights provided for in Paragraph 2 of this article carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions, but these shall only be such as are provided by law and are necessary (a) For respect of the rights or reputations of others; (b) For the protection of national security or of public order (ordre public), or of public health or morals."11

So the right to freedom of speech can be limited any time a state believes it to be in its own best interests or to protect its own corrupt politicians. The "weasel words" of Paragraph 3 destroy the guarantees of Paragraphs 1 and 2.

Another example: The U.N.'s Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) lays out what seems to be a wonderful series of rights, similar to the U.S. Bill of Rights. Article 18 of the UDHR upholds "the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion...." Article 19 affirms "the right to freedom of opinion and expression...and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

Sounds great! But then Article 29 states that "these rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations." In other words, these "rights" or "freedoms" don't apply to politically incorrect people who refuse to conform to U.N. policies. What is the purpose of freedom of speech if not to openly discuss and critique government? According to U.N. ideology, that won't be tolerated. The U.N. has a track record of showing zero tolerance toward those who oppose its goals.

Americans, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders are unaware of how radical the internationalist agendas really are, and how they are filtering through each of their governments with the full cooperation of many in them. Implementation is slow but inexorable everywhere. Some are becoming aware that something is going amiss, but few have a clue as to the origin of the changes that will shortly affect their lives and religious belief systems.

The entire push to globalism has tremendous significance for Christians for several reasons. First, we are witnessing the formation of what the Bible predicted 2,000 years ago: a (somewhat) unified universal political, financial and religious system. Christians note that the new global paradigm has a moral and religious component that will not tolerate opposition or dissent by religious factions that do not agree with it!

Let's say it again: the new globalism will not leave the Christian church alone. It will use legal and other pressures to co-opt, coerce, or eliminate religious groups to force them into conformity to the new ideals or go out of business. Unlike secular humanism, the new global pantheistic socialism will not leave the church alone! No clearer warning can be sounded as to the dangers to faith on the road ahead.

Thus our closing caveat: no matter how slow the implementation-given the current course-when the changes are all done, they will be binding on all by artifice of law, international treaty and internal regulation conforming to the dictates of the United Nations, against which citizens of the world will have little established methods of recourse or redress.

* * *



For more information on United Nations policies and how they will affect us, we recommend the following sites: http://www.crossroad.to/, http://www.freedom.org/, and http://www.un.org/.
This article was originally published in the
July 2000 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. "Our Global Neighborhood," Oxford University Press, 1995, ISBN 0-19-827998-3.
2. Lamb, Henry, "Report of the Commission on Global Governance: Our Global Neighborhood,", Jan/Feb, 1996.
3. Non-governmental organizations. These are private organizations, which are granted NGO status by the United Nations and which have tremendous influence at U.N. conferences for creating and implementing treaties and policy.
4. Op cit , Lamb, Henry.
5. Veon, Joan, Workshop on Civil Society and Partnerships with the U.N., Transcribed interview with Dr. Andrew Strauss, May 25, 2000.
6. Ibid.
7. Op Cit .
8. Buchanan, Pat, "The Millennium Conflict: America First of World Government," Speech to the Boston World Affairs Council, January 6, 2000. Citing H.G. Wells's book, The New World Order .
9. Op cit . Lamb, Henry.
10. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, U.N.T.S. No. 14668, vol 999 (1976), p. 171.
11. Ibid



//

[solookup]

A Chronological History:
The New World Order

by D.L. Cuddy, Ph.D

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/90/print/

In the mainline media, those who adhere to the position that there is some kind of "conspiracy" pushing us towards a world government are virulently ridiculed. The standard attack maintains that the so-called "New World Order" is the product of turn-of-the-century, right-wing, bigoted, anti-semitic racists acting in the tradition of the long-debunked Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, now promulgated by some Militias and other right-wing hate groups.

The historical record does not support that position to any large degree but it has become the mantra of the socialist left and their cronies, the media.

The term "New World Order" has been used thousands of times in this century by proponents in high places of federalized world government. Some of those involved in this collaboration to achieve world order have been Jewish. The preponderance are not, so it most definitely is not a Jewish agenda.

For years, leaders in education, industry, the media, banking, etc., have promoted those with the same Weltanschauung (world view) as theirs. Of course, someone might say that just because individuals promote their friends doesn't constitute a conspiracy. That's true in the usual sense. However, it does represent an "open conspiracy," as described by noted Fabian Socialist H.G. Wells in The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution (1928).

In 1913, prior to the passage of the Federal Reserve Act President Wilson's The New Freedom was published, in which he revealed:
"Since I entered politics, I have chiefly had men's views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the U. S., in the field of commerce and manufacturing, are afraid of somebody, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

On November 21, 1933, President Franklin Roosevelt wrote a letter to Col. Edward Mandell House, President Woodrow Wilson's close advisor:
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government every since the days of Andrew Jackson..."

That there is such a thing as a cabal of power brokers who control government behind the scenes has been detailed several times in this century by credible sources. Professor Carroll Quigley was Bill Clinton's mentor at Georgetown University. President Clinton has publicly paid homage to the influence Professor Quigley had on his life. In Quigley's magnum opus Tragedy and Hope (1966), he states:
"There does exist and has existed for a generation, an international...network which operates, to some extent, in the way the radical right believes the Communists act. In fact, this network, which we may identify as the Round Table Groups, has no aversion to cooperating with the Communists, or any other groups and frequently does so. I know of the operations of this network because I have studied it for twenty years and was permitted for two years, in the early 1960s, to examine its papers and secret records. I have no aversion to it or to most of its aims and have, for much of my life, been close to it and to many of its instruments. I have objected, both in the past and recently, to a few of its policies...but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known."

Even talk show host Rush Limbaugh, an outspoken critic of anyone claiming a push for global government, said on his February 7, 1995 program:

"You see, if you amount to anything in Washington these days, it is because you have been plucked or handpicked from an Ivy League school -- Harvard, Yale, Kennedy School of Government -- you've shown an aptitude to be a good Ivy League type, and so you're plucked so-to-speak, and you are assigned success. You are assigned a certain role in government somewhere, and then your success is monitored and tracked, and you go where the pluckers and the handpickers can put you."

On May 4, 1993, Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) president Leslie Gelb said on The Charlie Rose Show that:
"...you [Charlie Rose] had me on [before] to talk about the New World Order! I talk about it all the time. It's one world now. The Council [CFR] can find, nurture, and begin to put people in the kinds of jobs this country needs. And that's going to be one of the major enterprises of the Council under me."

Previous CFR chairman, John J. McCloy (1953-70), actually said they have been doing this since the 1940s (and before).

The thrust towards global government can be well-documented but at the end of the twentieth century it does not look like a traditional conspiracy in the usual sense of a secret cabal of evil men meeting clandestinely behind closed doors. Rather, it is a "networking" of like-minded individuals in high places to achieve a common goal, as described in Marilyn Ferguson's 1980 insider classic, The Aquarian Conspiracy.

Perhaps the best way to relate this would be a brief history of the New World Order, not in our words but in the words of those who have been striving to make it real.

1912 -- Colonel Edward M. House, a close advisor of President Woodrow Wilson, publishes Phillip Dru: Administrator in which he promotes "socialism as dreamed of by Karl Marx."

1913 -- The Federal Reserve (neither federal nor a reserve) is created. It was planned at a secret meeting in 1910 on Jekyl Island, Georgia by a group of bankers and politicians, including Col. House. This transferred the power to create money from the American government to a private group of bankers. It is probably the largest generator of debt in the world.

May 30, 1919 -- Prominent British and American personalities establish the Royal Institute of International Affairs in England and the Institute of International Affairs in the U.S. at a meeting arranged by Col. House attended by various Fabian socialists, including noted economist John Maynard Keynes. Two years later, Col. House reorganizes the Institute of International Affairs into the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

December 15, 1922 -- The CFR endorses World Government in its magazine Foreign Affairs. Author Philip Kerr, states:
"Obviously there is going to be no peace or prosperity for mankind as long as [the earth] remains divided into 50 or 60 independent states until some kind of international system is created...The real problem today is that of the world government."

1928 -- The Open Conspiracy: Blue Prints for a World Revolution by H.G. Well is published. A former Fabian Socialist, Wells writes:
"The political world of the into a Open Conspiracy must weaken, efface, incorporate and supersede existing governments...The Open Conspiracy is the natural inheritor of socialist and communist enthusiasms; it may be in control of Moscow before it is in control of New York...The character of the Open Conspiracy will now be plainly displayed...It will be a world religion."

1931 -- Students at the Lenin School of Political Warfare in Moscow are taught:

"One day we shall start to spread the most theatrical peace movement the world has ever seen. The capitalist countries, stupid and decadent...will fall into the trap offered by the possibility of making new friends. Our day will come in 30 years or so...The bourgeoisie must be lulled into a false sense of security.

1932 -- New books are published urging World Order:

Toward Soviet America by William Z. Foster. Head of the Communist Party USA, Foster indicates that a National Department of Education would be one of the means used to develop a new socialist society in the U.S.

The New World Order by F.S. Marvin, describing the League of Nations as the first attempt at a New World Order. Marvin says, "nationality must rank below the claims of mankind as a whole."

Dare the School Build a New Social Order? is published. Educator author George Counts asserts that:

"...the teachers should deliberately reach for power and then make the most of their conquest" in order to "influence the social attitudes, ideals and behavior of the coming generation...The growth of science and technology has carried us into a new age where ignorance must be replaced by knowledge, competition by cooperation, trust in Providence by careful planning and private capitalism by some form of social economy."

1933 -- The first Humanist Manifesto is published. Co-author John Dewey, the noted philosopher and educator, calls for a synthesizing of all religions and "a socialized and cooperative economic order."

Co-signer C.F. Potter said in 1930:
"Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism, and every American public school is a school of humanism. What can the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a five-day program of humanistic teaching?

1933 -- The Shape of Things to Come by H.G. Wells is published. Wells predicts a second world war around 1940, originating from a German-Polish dispute. After 1945 there would be an increasing lack of public safety in "criminally infected" areas. The plan for the "Modern World-State" would succeed on its third attempt (about 1980), and come out of something that occurred in Basra, Iraq.

The book also states,
"Although world government had been plainly coming for some years, although it had been endlessly feared and murmured against, it found no opposition prepared anywhere."

1934 -- The Externalization of the Hierarchy by Alice A. Bailey is published. Bailey is an occultist, whose works are channeled from a spirit guide, the Tibetan Master [demon spirit] Djwahl Kuhl. Bailey uses the phrase "points of light" in connection with a "New Group of World Servers" and claims that 1934 marks the beginning of "the organizing of the men and women...group work of a new order...[with] progress defined by service...the world of the Brotherhood...the Forces of Light...[and] out of the spoliation of all existing culture and civilization, the new world order must be built."

The book is published by the Lucis Trust, incorporated originally in New York as the Lucifer Publishing Company. Lucis Trust is a United Nations NGO and has been a major player at the recent U.N. summits. Later Assistant Secretary General of the U.N. Robert Mueller would credit the creation of his World Core Curriculum for education to the underlying teachings of Djwahl Kuhl via Alice Bailey's writings on the subject.

1932 -- Plan for Peace by American Birth Control League founder Margaret Sanger (1921) is published. She calls for coercive sterilization, mandatory segregation, and rehabilitative concentration camps for all "dysgenic stocks" including Blacks, Hispanics, American Indians and Catholics.

October 28, 1939 -- In an address by John Foster Dulles, later U.S. Secretary of State, he proposes that America lead the transition to a new order of less independent, semi-sovereign states bound together by a league or federal union.

1939 -- New World Order by H. G. Wells proposes a collectivist one-world state"' or "new world order" comprised of "socialist democracies." He advocates "universal conscription for service" and declares that "nationalist individualism...is the world's disease." He continues:
"The manifest necessity for some collective world control to eliminate warfare and the less generally admitted necessity for a collective control of the economic and biological life of mankind, are aspects of one and the same process." He proposes that this be accomplished through "universal law" and propaganda (or education)."

1940 -- The New World Order is published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and contains a select list of references on regional and world federation, together with some special plans for world order after the war.

December 12, 1940 -- In The Congressional Record an article entitled A New World Order John G. Alexander calls for a world federation.

1942 -- The leftist Institute of Pacific Relations publishes Post War Worlds by P.E. Corbett:
"World government is the ultimate aim...It must be recognized that the law of nations takes precedence over national law...The process will have to be assisted by the deletion of the nationalistic material employed in educational textbooks and its replacement by material explaining the benefits of wiser association."

June 28, 1945 -- President Truman endorses world government in a speech:
"It will be just as easy for nations to get along in a republic of the world as it is for us to get along in a republic of the United States."

October 24, 1945 -- The United Nations Charter becomes effective. Also on October 24, Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho) introduces Senate Resolution 183 calling upon the U.S. Senate to go on record as favoring creation of a world republic including an international police force.

1946 -- Alger Hiss is elected President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Hiss holds this office until 1949. Early in 1950, he is convicted of perjury and sentenced to prison after a sensational trial and Congressional hearing in which Whittaker Chambers, a former senior editor of Time, testifies that Hiss was a member of his Communist Party cell.

1946 -- The Teacher and World Government by former editor of the NEA Journal (National Education Association) Joy Elmer Morgan is published. He says:
"In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher...can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children for global understanding and cooperation...At the very heart of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession."

1947 -- The American Education Fellowship, formerly the Progressive Education Association, organized by John Dewey, calls for the:
"...establishment of a genuine world order, an order in which national sovereignty is subordinate to world authority..."

October, 1947 -- NEA Associate Secretary William Carr writes in the NEA Journal that teachers should:
"...teach about the various proposals that have been made for the strengthening of the United Nations and the establishment of a world citizenship and world government."

1948 -- Walden II by behavioral psychologist B.F. Skinner proposes "a perfect society or new and more perfect order" in which children are reared by the State, rather than by their parents and are trained from birth to demonstrate only desirable behavior and characteristics. Skinner's ideas would be widely implemented by educators in the 1960s, 70s, and 80s as Values Clarification and Outcome Based Education.

July, 1948 -- Britain's Sir Harold Butler, in the CFR's Foreign Affairs, sees "a New World Order" taking shape:
"How far can the life of nations, which for centuries have thought of themselves as distinct and unique, be merged with the life of other nations? How far are they prepared to sacrifice a part of their sovereignty without which there can be no effective economic or political union?...Out of the prevailing confusion a new world is taking shape... which may point the way toward the new order...That will be the beginning of a real United Nations, no longer crippled by a split personality, but held together by a common faith."

1948 -- UNESCO president and Fabian Socialist, Sir Julian Huxley, calls for a radical eugenic policy in UNESCO: Its Purpose and Its Philosophy. He states:
"Thus, even though it is quite true that any radical eugenic policy of controlled human breeding will be for many years politically and psychologically impossible, it will be important for UNESCO to see that the eugenic problem is examined with the greatest care and that the public mind is informed of the issues at stake that much that is now unthinkable may at least become thinkable."

1948 -- The preliminary draft of a World Constitution is published by U.S. educators advocating regional federation on the way toward world federation or government with England incorporated into a European federation.

The Constitution provides for a "World Council" along with a "Chamber of Guardians" to enforce world law. Also included is a "Preamble" calling upon nations to surrender their arms to the world government, and includes the right of this "Federal Republic of the World" to seize private property for federal use.

February 9, 1950 -- The Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee introduces Senate Concurrent Resolution 66 which begins:
"Whereas, in order to achieve universal peace and justice, the present Charter of the United Nations should be changed to provide a true world government constitution."

The resolution was first introduced in the Senate on September 13, 1949 by Senator Glen Taylor (D-Idaho). Senator Alexander Wiley (R-Wisconsin) called it "a consummation devoutly to be wished for" and said, "I understand your proposition is either change the United Nations, or change or create, by a separate convention, a world order." Senator Taylor later stated:
"We would have to sacrifice considerable sovereignty to the world organization to enable them to levy taxes in their own right to support themselves."

April 12, 1952 -- John Foster Dulles, later to become Secretary of State, says in a speech to the American Bar Association in Louisville, Kentucky, that "treaty laws can override the Constitution." He says treaties can take power away from Congress and give them to the President. They can take powers from the States and give them to the Federal Government or to some international body and they can cut across the rights given to the people by their constitutional Bill of Rights.

A Senate amendment, proposed by GOP Senator John Bricker, would have provided that no treaty could supersede the Constitution, but it fails to pass by one vote.

1954 -- Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands establishes the Bilderbergers, international politicians and bankers who meet secretly on an annual basis.

1958 -- World Peace through World Law is published, where authors Grenville Clark and Louis Sohn advocate using the U.N. as a governing body for the world, world disarmament, a world police force and legislature.

1959 -- The Council on Foreign Relations calls for a New International Order. Study Number 7, issued on November 25, advocated:
"...new international order [which] must be responsive to world aspirations for peace, for social and economic change...an international order...including states labeling themselves as 'socialist' [communist]."

1959 -- The World Constitution and Parliament Association is founded which later develops a Diagram of World Government under the Constitution for the Federation of Earth.

1959 -- The Mid-Century Challenge to U.S. Foreign Policy is published, sponsored by the Rockefeller Brothers' Fund. It explains that the U.S.:
"...cannot escape, and indeed should welcome...the task which history has imposed on us. This is the task of helping to shape a new world order in all its dimensions -- spiritual, economic, political, social."

September 9, 1960 -- President Eisenhower signs Senate Joint Resolution 170, promoting the concept of a federal Atlantic Union. Pollster and Atlantic Union Committee treasurer, Elmo Roper, later delivers an address titled, The Goal Is Government of All the World, in which he states:
"For it becomes clear that the first step toward World Government cannot be completed until we have advanced on the four fronts: the economic, the military, the political and the social."

1961 -- The U.S. State Department issues a plan to disarm all nations and arm the United Nations. State Department Document Number 7277 is entitled Freedom From War: The U.S. Program for General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World. It details a three-stage plan to disarm all nations and arm the U.N. with the final stage in which "no state would have the military power to challenge the progressively strengthened U.N. Peace Force."

1962 -- New Calls for World Federalism. In a study titled, A World Effectively Controlled by the United Nations, CFR member Lincoln Bloomfield states:
"...if the communist dynamic was greatly abated, the West might lose whatever incentive it has for world government."

The Future of Federalism by author Nelson Rockefeller is published. The one-time Governor of New York, claims that current events compellingly demand a "new world order," as the old order is crumbling, and there is "a new and free order struggling to be born." Rockefeller says there is:
"a fever of nationalism...[but] the nation-state is becoming less and less competent to perform its international political tasks....These are some of the reasons pressing us to lead vigorously toward the true building of a new world order...[with] voluntary service...and our dedicated faith in the brotherhood of all mankind....Sooner perhaps than we may realize...there will evolve the bases for a federal structure of the free world."

1963 -- J. William Fulbright, Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee speaks at a symposium sponsored by the Fund for the Republic, a left-wing project of the Ford Foundation:
"The case for government by elites is irrefutable...government by the people is possible but highly improbable."

1964 -- Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook II is published. Author Benjamin Bloom states:
"...a large part of what we call 'good teaching' is the teacher's ability to attain affective objectives through challenging the students' fixed beliefs."

His Outcome-Based Education (OBE) method of teaching would first be tried as Mastery Learning in Chicago schools. After five years, Chicago students' test scores had plummeted causing outrage among parents. OBE would leave a trail of wreckage wherever it would be tried and under whatever name it would be used. At the same time, it would become crucial to globalists for overhauling the education system to promote attitude changes among school students.

1964 -- Visions of Order by Richard Weaver is published. He describes:
"progressive educators as a 'revolutionary cabal' engaged in 'a systematic attempt to undermine society's traditions and beliefs.'"

1967 -- Richard Nixon calls for New World Order. In Asia after Vietnam, in the October issue of Foreign Affairs, Nixon writes of nations' dispositions to evolve regional approaches to development needs and to the evolution of a "new world order."

1968 -- Joy Elmer Morgan, former editor of the NEA Journal publishes The American Citizens Handbook in which he says:
"the coming of the United Nations and the urgent necessity that it evolve into a more comprehensive form of world government places upon the citizens of the United States an increased obligation to make the most of their citizenship which now widens into active world citizenship."

July 26, 1968 -- Nelson Rockefeller pledges support of the New World Order. In an Associated Press report, Rockefeller pledges that, "as President, he would work toward international creation of a new world order."

1970 -- Education and the mass media promote world order. In Thinking About A New World Order for the Decade 1990, author Ian Baldwin, Jr. asserts that:
"...the World Law Fund has begun a worldwide research and educational program that will introduce a new, emerging discipline -- world order -- into educational curricula throughout the world...and to concentrate some of its energies on bringing basic world order concepts into the mass media again on a worldwide level."

1972 -- President Nixon visits China. In his toast to Chinese Premier Chou En-lai, former CFR member and now President, Richard Nixon, expresses "the hope that each of us has to build a new world order."

May 18, 1972 -- In speaking of the coming of world government, Roy M. Ash, director of the Office of Management and Budget, declares that:
"within two decades the institutional framework for a world economic community will be in place...[and] aspects of individual sovereignty will be given over to a supernational authority."

1973 -- The Trilateral Commission is established. Banker David Rockefeller organizes this new private body and chooses Zbigniew Brzezinski, later National Security Advisor to President Carter, as the Commission's first director and invites Jimmy Carter to become a founding member.

1973 -- Humanist Manifesto II is published:
"The next century can be and should be the humanistic century...we stand at the dawn of a new age...a secular society on a planetary scale....As non-theists we begin with humans not God, nature not deity...we deplore the division of humankind on nationalistic grounds....Thus we look to the development of a system of world law and a world order based upon transnational federal government....The true revolution is occurring."

April, 1974 -- Former U. S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, Trilateralist and CFR member Richard Gardner's article The Hard Road to World Order is published in the CFR's Foreign Affairs where he states that:
"the 'house of world order' will have to be built from the bottom up rather than from the top down...but an end run around national sovereignty, eroding it piece by piece, will accomplish much more than the old-fashioned frontal assault."

1974 -- The World Conference of Religion for Peace, held in Louvain, Belgium is held. Douglas Roche presents a report entitled We Can Achieve a New World Order.

The U.N. calls for wealth redistribution: In a report entitled New International Economic Order, the U.N. General Assembly outlines a plan to redistribute the wealth from the rich to the poor nations.

1975 -- A study titled, A New World Order, is published by the Center of International Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Studies, Princeton University.

1975 -- In Congress, 32 Senators and 92 Representatives sign A Declaration of Interdependence, written by historian Henry Steele Commager. The Declaration states that:
"we must join with others to bring forth a new world order...Narrow notions of national sovereignty must not be permitted to curtail that obligation."

Congresswoman Marjorie Holt refuses to sign the Declaration saying:
"It calls for the surrender of our national sovereignty to international organizations. It declares that our economy should be regulated by international authorities. It proposes that we enter a 'new world order' that would redistribute the wealth created by the American people."

1975 -- Retired Navy Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the U.S. Navy and former CFR member, writes in a critique that the goal of the CFR is the "submergence of U. S. sovereignty and national independence into an all powerful one-world government..."

1975 -- Kissinger on the Couch is published. Authors Phyllis Schlafly and former CFR member Chester Ward state:
"Once the ruling members of the CFR have decided that the U.S. government should espouse a particular policy, the very substantial research facilities of the CFR are put to work to develop arguments, intellectual and emotional, to support the new policy and to confound, discredit, intellectually and politically, any opposition..."

1976 -- RIO: Reshaping the International Order is published by the globalist Club of Rome, calling for a new international order, including an economic redistribution of wealth.

1977 -- The Third Try at World Order is published. Author Harlan Cleveland of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies calls for:
"changing Americans' attitudes and institutions" for "complete disarmament (except for international soldiers)" and "for individual entitlement to food, health and education."

1977 -- Imperial Brain Trust by Laurence Shoup and William Minter is published. The book takes a critical look at the Council on Foreign Relations with chapters such as: Shaping a New World Order: The Council's Blueprint for Global Hegemony, 1939-1944 and Toward the 1980's: The Council's Plans for a New World Order.

1977 -- The Trilateral Connection appears in the July edition of Atlantic Monthly. Written by Jeremiah Novak, it says:
"For the third time in this century, a group of American schools, businessmen, and government officials is planning to fashion a New World Order..."

1977 -- Leading educator Mortimer Adler publishes Philosopher at Large in which he says:
"...if local civil government is necessary for local civil peace, then world civil government is necessary for world peace."

1979 -- Barry Goldwater, retiring Republican Senator from Arizona, publishes his autobiography With No Apologies. He writes:
"In my view The Trilateral Commission represents a skillful, coordinated effort to seize control and consolidate the four centers of power -- political, monetary, intellectual, and ecclesiastical. All this is to be done in the interest of creating a more peaceful, more productive world community. What the Trilateralists truly intend is the creation of a worldwide economic power superior to the political governments of the nation-states involved. They believe the abundant materialism they propose to create will overwhelm existing differences. As managers and creators of the system they will rule the future."

1984 -- The Power to Lead is published. Author James McGregor Burns admits:
"The framers of the U.S. constitution have simply been too shrewd for us. The have outwitted us. They designed separate institutions that cannot be unified by mechanical linkages, frail bridges, tinkering. If we are to 'turn the Founders upside down' -- we must directly confront the constitutional structure they erected."

1985 -- Norman Cousins, the honorary chairman of Planetary Citizens for the World We Chose, is quoted in Human Events:
"World government is coming, in fact, it is inevitable. No arguments for or against it can change that fact."

Cousins was also president of the World Federalist Association, an affiliate of the World Association for World Federation (WAWF), headquartered in Amsterdam. WAWF is a leading force for world federal government and is accredited by the U.N. as a Non-Governmental Organization.

1987 -- The Secret Constitution and the Need for Constitutional Change is sponsored in part by the Rockefeller Foundation. Some thoughts of author Arthur S. Miller are:
"...a pervasive system of thought control exists in the United States...the citizenry is indoctrinated by employment of the mass media and the system of public education...people are told what to think about...the old order is crumbling...Nationalism should be seen as a dangerous social disease...A new vision is required to plan and manage the future, a global vision that will transcend national boundaries and eliminate the poison of nationalistic solutions...a new Constitution is necessary."

1988 -- Former Under-secretary of State and CFR member George Ball in a January 24 interview in the New York Times says:
"The Cold War should no longer be the kind of obsessive concern that it is. Neither side is going to attack the other deliberately...If we could internationalize by using the U.N. in conjunction with the Soviet Union, because we now no longer have to fear, in most cases, a Soviet veto, then we could begin to transform the shape of the world and might get the U.N. back to doing something useful...Sooner or later we are going to have to face restructuring our institutions so that they are not confined merely to the nation-states. Start first on a regional and ultimately you could move to a world basis."

December 7, 1988 -- In an address to the U.N., Mikhail Gorbachev calls for mutual consensus:
"World progress is only possible through a search for universal human consensus as we move forward to a new world order."

May 12, 1989 --President Bush invites the Soviets to join World Order. Speaking to the graduating class at Texas A&M University, Mr. Bush states that the United States is ready to welcome the Soviet Union "back into the world order."

1989 -- Carl Bernstein's (Woodward and Bernstein of Watergate fame) book Loyalties: A Son's Memoir is published. His father and mother had been members of the Communist party. Bernstein's father tells his son about the book:
"You're going to prove [Sen. Joseph] McCarthy was right, because all he was saying is that the system was loaded with Communists. And he was right...I'm worried about the kind of book you're going to write and about cleaning up McCarthy. The problem is that everybody said he was a liar; you're saying he was right...I agree that the Party was a force in the country."

1990 -- The World Federalist Association faults the American press. Writing in their Summer/Fall newsletter, Deputy Director Eric Cox describes world events over the past year or two and declares:
"It's sad but true that the slow-witted American press has not grasped the significance of most of these developments. But most federalists know what is happening...And they are not frightened by the old bug-a-boo of sovereignty."

September 11, 1990 -- President Bush calls the Gulf War an opportunity for the New World Order. In an address to Congress entitled Toward a New World Order, Mr. Bush says:
"The crisis in the Persian Gulf offers a rare opportunity to move toward an historic period of cooperation. Out of these troubled times...a new world order can emerge in which the nations of the world, east and west, north and south, can prosper and live in harmony....Today the new world is struggling to be born."

September 25, 1990 -- In an address to the U.N., Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze describes Iraq's invasion of Kuwait as "an act of terrorism [that] has been perpetrated against the emerging New World Order." On December 31, Gorbachev declares that the New World Order would be ushered in by the Gulf Crisis.

October 1, 1990 -- In a U.N. address, President Bush speaks of the:
"...collective strength of the world community expressed by the U.N...an historic movement towards a new world order...a new partnership of nations...a time when humankind came into its own...to bring about a revolution of the spirit and the mind and begin a journey into a...new age."

1991 -- Author Linda MacRae-Campbell publishes How to Start a Revolution at Your School in In Context. She promotes the use of "change agents" as "self-acknowledged revolutionaries" and "co-conspirators."

1991 -- President Bush praises the New World Order in a State of Union Message:
"What is at stake is more than one small country, it is a big idea -- a new world order...to achieve the universal aspirations of mankind...based on shared principles and the rule of law....The illumination of a thousand points of light....The winds of change are with us now."

February 6, 1991 -- President Bush tells the Economic Club of New York:
"My vision of a new world order foresees a United Nations with a revitalized peacekeeping function."

June, 1991 -- The Council on Foreign Relations co-sponsors an assembly Rethinking America's Security: Beyond Cold War to New World Order which is attended by 65 prestigious members of government, labor, academia, the media, military, and the professions from nine countries. Later, several of the conference participants joined some 100 other world leaders for another closed door meeting of the Bilderberg Society in Baden Baden, Germany. The Bilderbergers also exert considerable clout in determining the foreign policies of their respective governments.

July, 1991 -- The Southeastern World Affairs Institute discusses the New World Order. In a program, topics include, Legal Structures for a New World Order and The United Nations: From its Conception to a New World Order. Participants include a former director of the U.N.'s General Legal Division, and a former Secretary General of International Planned Parenthood.

Late July, 1991 -- On a Cable News Network program, CFR member and former CIA director Stansfield Turner (Rhodes scholar), when asked about Iraq, responded:
"We have a much bigger objective. We've got to look at the long run here. This is an example -- the situation between the United Nations and Iraq -- where the United Nations is deliberately intruding into the sovereignty of a sovereign nation...Now this is a marvelous precedent (to be used in) all countries of the world..."

October 29, 1991 -- David Funderburk, former U. S. Ambassador to Romania, tells a North Carolina audience:
"George Bush has been surrounding himself with people who believe in one-world government. They believe that the Soviet system and the American system are converging."

The vehicle to bring this about, said Funderburk, is the United Nations, "the majority of whose 166 member states are socialist, atheist, and anti-American." Funderburk served as ambassador in Bucharest from 1981 to 1985, when he resigned in frustration over U.S. support of the oppressive regime of the late Rumanian dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu.

October 30, 1991: -- President Gorbachev at the Middle East Peace Talks in Madrid states:
"We are beginning to see practical support. And this is a very significant sign of the movement towards a new era, a new age...We see both in our country and elsewhere...ghosts of the old thinking...When we rid ourselves of their presence, we will be better able to move toward a new world order...relying on the relevant mechanisms of the United Nations."

Elsewhere, in Alexandria, Virginia, Elena Lenskaya, Counsellor to the Minister of Education of Russia, delivers the keynote address for a program titled, Education for a New World Order.

1992 -- The Twilight of Sovereignty by CFR member (and former Citicorp Chairman) Walter Wriston is published, in which he claims:
"A truly global economy will require ...compromises of national sovereignty...There is no escaping the system."

1992 -- The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) Earth Summit takes place in Rio de Janeiro this year, headed by Conference Secretary-General Maurice Strong. The main products of this summit are the Biodiversity Treaty and Agenda 21, which the U.S. hesitates to sign because of opposition at home due to the threat to sovereignty and economics. The summit says the first world's wealth must be transferred to the third world.

July 20, 1992 -- TIME magazine publishes The Birth of the Global Nation by Strobe Talbott, Rhodes Scholar, roommate of Bill Clinton at Oxford University, CFR Director, and Trilateralist, in which he writes:
"All countries are basically social arrangements...No matter how permanent or even sacred they may seem at any one time, in fact they are all artificial and temporary...Perhaps national sovereignty wasn't such a great idea after all...But it has taken the events in our own wondrous and terrible century to clinch the case for world government."

As an editor of Time, Talbott defended Clinton during his presidential campaign. He was appointed by President Clinton as the number two person at the State Department behind Secretary of State Warren Christopher, former Trilateralist and former CFR Vice-Chairman and Director. Talbott was confirmed by about two-thirds of the U.S. Senate despite his statement about the unimportance of national sovereignty.

September 29, 1992 -- At a town hall meeting in Los Angeles, Trilateralist and former CFR president Winston Lord delivers a speech titled Changing Our Ways: America and the New World, in which he remarks:
"To a certain extent, we are going to have to yield some of our sovereignty, which will be controversial at home...[Under] the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)...some Americans are going to be hurt as low-wage jobs are taken away."

Lord became an Assistant Secretary of State in the Clinton administration.

Winter, 1992-93 -- The CFR's Foreign Affairs publishes Empowering the United Nations by U.N. Secretary General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, who asserts:
"It is undeniable that the centuries-old doctrine of absolute and exclusive sovereignty no longer stands...Underlying the rights of the individual and the rights of peoples is a dimension of universal sovereignty that resides in all humanity...It is a sense that increasingly finds expression in the gradual expansion of international law...In this setting the significance of the United Nations should be evident and accepted."

1993 -- Strobe Talbott receives the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award for his 1992 TIME article, The Birth of the Global Nation and in appreciation for what he has done "for the cause of global governance." President Clinton writes a letter of congratulation which states:
"Norman Cousins worked for world peace and world government...Strobe Talbott's lifetime achievements as a voice for global harmony have earned him this recognition...He will be a worthy recipient of the Norman Cousins Global Governance Award. Best wishes...for future success."

Not only does President Clinton use the specific term, "world government," but he also expressly wishes the WFA "future success" in pursuing world federal government. Talbott proudly accepts the award, but says the WFA should have given it to the other nominee, Mikhail Gorbachev.

July 18, 1993 -- CFR member and Trilateralist Henry Kissinger writes in the Los Angeles Times concerning NAFTA:
"What Congress will have before it is not a conventional trade agreement but the architecture of a new international system...a first step toward a new world order."

August 23, 1993 -- Christopher Hitchens, Socialist friend of Bill Clinton when he was at Oxford University, says in a C-Span interview:
"...it is, of course the case that there is a ruling class in this country, and that it has allies internationally."

October 30, 1993 -- Washington Post ombudsman Richard Harwood does an op-ed piece about the role of the CFR's media members:
"Their membership is an acknowledgment of their ascension into the American ruling class [where] they do not merely analyze and interpret foreign policy for the United States; they help make it."

January/February, 1994 -- The CFR's Foreign Affairs prints an opening article by CFR Senior Fellow Michael Clough in which he writes that the "Wise Men" (e.g. Paul Nitze, Dean Acheson, George Kennan, and John J. McCloy) have:
"assiduously guarded it [American foreign policy] for the past 50 years...They ascended to power during World War II...This was as it should be. National security and the national interest, they argued must transcend the special interests and passions of the people who make up America...How was this small band of Atlantic-minded internationalists able to triumph?...Eastern internationalists were able to shape and staff the burgeoning foreign policy institutions...As long as the Cold War endured and nuclear Armageddon seemed only a missile away, the public was willing to tolerate such an undemocratic foreign policy making system."

1995 -- The State of the World Forum took place in the fall of this year, sponsored by the Gorbachev Foundation located at the Presidio in San Francisco. Foundation President Jim Garrison chairs the meeting of who's-whos from around the world including Margaret Thatcher, Maurice Strong, George Bush, Mikhail Gorbachev and others. Conversation centers around the oneness of mankind and the coming global government. However, the term "global governance" is now used in place of "new world order" since the latter has become a political liability, being a lightning rod for opponents of global government.

1996 -- The United Nations 420-page report Our Global Neighborhood is published. It outlines a plan for "global governance," calling for an international Conference on Global Governance in 1998 for the purpose of submitting to the world the necessary treaties and agreements for ratification by the year 2000.

1996 -- State of the World Forum II will take place again this fall in San Francisco. This time, many of the sessions are closed to the press.

There are hundreds more articles and speeches by those actively working to make global government a reality. We could not fit them all in here.
This article was originally published in the
March 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.

//












http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/91/

None Dare Call It Fascism:
Reflections on Our Republic

by Chuck Missler
As we take stock of our Republic on this 4th of July, I'm indebted to some recent discussions I enjoyed with Jack Wheeler, the well-known adventurer, columnist, and insightful commentator on the "District of Corruption" headquartered on the Potomac.

A Rose by Any Other Name

As Ludwig von Mises observed,1 Fascism, Nazism, and Socialism are varying versions of the same core conviction: that it is the sacred duty of popular government to prevent the emergence of profits by public control of production and distribution.

What distinguishes Fascism and Nazism from Socialism in economic theory is how they translate "public control" into reality.

For the socialist, it means outright nationalization-government ownership-of private business. In a socialist state, the government owns and operates the airlines, railroads, banks, phone companies, and any other business you can think of. Everyone is an employee of the State.

For the fascist, public or government control is just that-control, rather than nationalized ownership, via complete bureaucratic regulation of ostensibly private business.

As an ardent admirer of Marx, Mussolini coined the term "Fascism"2 for his brand of authoritarian, patriotic Marxism. Fascism operates under the principle of "might makes right," through the exercise of raw, naked governmental police power.

In America today, the increasingly rough-shod violation of constitutional rights by government agents in the name of "protecting the environment" or the "war on drugs" is an indication of how far we are proceeding in this direction.

Intellectually, fascism is far more dishonest than socialism, which at least has the courage to assert legal ownership of the economy and thus assume the legal responsibility for its functioning.

Fascism places the responsibility for the economy on business, which is rendered seemingly private, with the facade of private ownership. The result of both socialism and fascism is the same: the destruction of economic freedom, replacing the individual's choice of how to make a peaceful, honest living with state edicts. Fascism accomplishes this, however, more insidiously.

Instead of being a straightforward employee of the government, you and I are told that our lives and businesses are still private, while any attempt to act as such is proscribed by a myriad of regulations-until we are trapped and immobilized in Washington's web.

We become enmeshed in this web because it has been spun around us so slowly-strand by strand over many years-so slowly that we have barely noticed. We could call this slow spinning of the fascist web "Fabian Fascism."

(Advocacy of what became known as Fabian Socialism was in vogue in the early part of the 20th century, particularly among British socialists such as Sydney and Beatrice Webb and George Bernard Shaw. They argued that socialism could best be achieved by "not frightening the horses"; that is, not through immediate revolutionary action, but in small, incremental steps.)3 Since the gargantuan growth of governmental power in the United States has not been sudden, but slowly accumulative, we can accurately and aptly call the process "Fabian Fascism."

Manufactured Crises

Dictators have traditionally created external crises to consolidate internal power. People are then freely willing to trade freedom for security. The great discovery in recent times is that social crises can be just as effective as military ones. "Curing poverty," or a "war on drugs" has become the banner under which the government can increase budgets, create new bureaucracies, and obtain new powers over the people.

But there is a big difference between an excuse and a purpose. These excuses are simply convenient subterfuges to trick the American people into letting the Washington Oligarchy expand its power.

After Johnson's War on Poverty, Nixon's War on Drugs, and Carter's Energy Crisis, then came the premier liberal crisis of modern times, the Environmental Crisis. It was only thanks to Hillary Clinton's hubris that the latest fashion in crisis-mongering failed - the Clinton Health Care Crisis.

All of these crises offered one, and only one, type of solution to the alleged crisis: vast government programs at taxpayers' expense. None ever offered free market solutions, nor were they used to expand individual freedom rather than restrict it.

The media predictably plays an enthusiastic accomplice in these schemes, not just because its members are mostly liberal, but more importantly, crises generate more readers, viewers, and listeners. This is why the principal product American media sells to its customers is crisis, not information.

Certainly there are problems in our society, often severe, regarding poverty, drugs, the environment, et al. But the last thing these situations need is massive government intervention, which just makes them worse.

If these problems were actually solved, all these government programs and bureaucrats wouldn't be needed. Thus, the crises must be perpetual, never solved, always requiring another program, another intervention, more taxpayers' money, more authorities granted, etc.

The game is not to solve the problems but to use them to control people through regulations and subsidies, increasing their dependency upon the people writing and enforcing the regulations and providing the handouts. People who are dependent upon you are people who vote for you.

Democratic Fascism

The result is a form of fascist rule imposed upon a citizenry, not by a dictator who seized power by force, but by freely elected leaders. We could call it Democratic Fascism, whereby a people's freedom is not taken away from them by dictatorial force, but is voluntarily surrendered.

Americans have imposed the tyranny of Washington upon ourselves. By a patient Fabian strategy taking many years, the American people have been persuaded, unwittingly and almost unconsciously, to voluntarily chain themselves to their masters in Washington.

No longer innocently oppressed, America has become a nation of belligerent beggars, demanding with insufferable arrogance an endless cornucopia of government handouts, subsidies, and "entitlements," deferring the multi-trillion dollar tab upon our children and grandchildren.

This is, indeed, America's real drug crisis: the most addictive and destructive drug ever invented-welfare and special interest subsidies. Thus we have voluntarily taken upon ourselves the tyranny of our increasingly fascist state.

Who's accountable? We are, in our failure to hold our elected representatives accountable to us!

And much of the blame also needs to be laid on our silent pulpits. The same abrogation of responsibility that contributed to the Holocaust in Germany is evident in America.

God has blessed us with a unique heritage-and it is rarely declared or acknowledged from our pulpits. There is a deplorable lack of that God-given fiduciary responsibility-a sanctified form of patriotism-exhorted from our Christian pulpits.

I believe that our stewardship of our unique God-given heritage is one for which we will uniquely be held accountable.

Our Future

One of the most critical strategic assessments we each must make is regarding the feasibility of rolling back to a constitutional government.

If we have a government that doesn't obey the Constitution, we have an outlaw government-literally acting outside the law.

The Bright Spots

There are some bright spots, however. Exploiting treaties is one of the most serious threats to the erosion of our national sovereignty.

Larry Becraft, a bright constitutional lawyer, is compiling, among other things, a challenge to all implementing legislation that would be unconstitutional if it weren't for some treaty.

Larry is also compiling a history of Supreme Court rulings which clearly state that treaties cannot be used to supersede or amend the Constitution.4

John Shadegg of Arizona has cleverly inserted into the House Rules that any proposed bill has to specify just where in the Constitution such legislation is authorized.

Phyllis Schlafly is currently embarked on an effort to get Congress to use its Constitutional authority to restrict the jurisdiction of federal judges, and of federal courts in general.

There are also some surprising powers intended to reign in our over-reaching judiciary.5

Clinton's Next Job

Have you ever considered what Bill Clinton's next job will be? When he finishes his second term, he'll only be 54 years old.

Have you noticed the extent to which the Clintonistas have been enthusiastically transferring our sovereignty to the United Nations whenever they can get away with it-such as the "World Heritage" sites, over which the UN has jurisdiction?

There are speculations that Clinton's next goal is to be President of the World: Secretary General of the United Nations-but permanently.

Wouldn't that be exciting? He is just getting started with his life... and running yours.

(There is a way to stop this; See our article on impeachment.)

Your Personal Response

Are we going to bequeath to our children an outlaw government or a constitutional government?

Are we going to relinquish our "government of the people, by the people, and for the people" through the neglect of duties of citizenship?

Are we going to let this all continue? The answer is inside ourselves.
This article was originally published in the
July 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Ludwig von Mises, Socialism, Jonathan Cape, London, 1969, pp.578-9.
2. From fasces, or bundle of rods, which were the emblem of power and authority in ancient Rome.
3. The Fabian Society was founded in 1884, taking its name from the Roman General Fabius Maximus, who fought Hannibal's army in small debilitating skirmishes, rather than attempting one decisive battle.
4. He is among a group of investors who have just purchased Media By-Pass magazine. (800) 477-8670, if you want to follow their efforts.
5. David Barton, Impeachment: Restraining an Overactive Judiciary, Wallbuilders, Inc., Aledo TX, 1996.


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Wake Up Call

from the July 26, 2005 eNews issue

http://www.khouse.org/enews_article/2005/948/print/

"There is no use in giving concessions. The more you concede, the more generous you are, the more it is seen as weakness and they will attack you again to get more concessions." - former Muslim extremist "Tawfik Hamid"

The recent bombings in Egypt echoed the attacks that have taken place in the United States, Britain, Spain, Iraq, Israel and elsewhere at the hands of Islamic terrorists. With each new act of horror and destruction we are faced with a series of heart-wrenching questions: Why do terrorists target vacationing families and commuters on their way to work? What is their motivation? What can be done to stop them?

After September 11, 2001 a number of persons spoke out and blamed the terror attacks on America's foreign policy. America was attacked because of its support for Israel, they said. On July 7, 2005, four suicide bombers succeeded in killing dozens of people in London, and Britain's foreign policy was blamed. Britain was attacked because of its support of America in Iraq, they said. This weekend, hundreds of people were killed and injured in Egypt. Why Egypt? What did they do wrong?

The answer is simple, but nonetheless chilling. The 88 people who died in Sharm el-Sheikh were tourists and unwitting Egyptians, not politicians or soldiers. They were murdered by men who believed that blowing up Westerners would further their cause. It is a cause for which these men were willing to take the lives of hundreds of innocent Russian school children, to blow up unsuspecting Spanish commuters on their way to work, and to murder old men and nursing mothers.

We long to understand what motivates terrorists. We believe that if we understood their reasons, we could fix the problem and ensure peace. This logic argues that if September 11 was a direct result of America's foreign policy, then America should change its policy. The people of Spain used this logic after ten bombs ripped apart commuter trains in Madrid on March 11, 2004. The bombings, they reasoned, were due to their participation Operation Iraqi Freedom, and so they voted in a new Prime Minister who would pull Spanish troops from Iraq.

History has shown, however, that appeasement never satisfies terrorists. More often that not it encourages more terrorism, because the men behind the bombs see that terrorist tactics bring results. French President Francois Mitterrand offered a friendly hand to the leaders of terrorism in the 1980s, including Yasser Arafat, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, and Iran's Khomeini. Yet, for all Mitterrand's willingness to address the terrorists' alleged grievances, Paris department stores and restaurants were bombed by Iranian Lebanese extremists in 1986.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair stated recently that he would not allow terrorist tactics to dictate British policy: "Let us expose the obscenity of these people saying it is concern for Iraq that drives them to terrorism. If it is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them?"

To fight terror, Blair argued, the world would have to confront the very ideology of the terrorists. "11 September for me was a wake up call. Do you know what I think the problem is? That a lot of the world woke up for a short time and then turned over and went back to sleep again."

The cause of Islamic terrorism is not the quest for social justice. It is not freedom for a specific group of subjugated people. The goal of Islamic terrorism - ultimately - is to bring the whole world into subjection to their version of fundamentalist Islam. No amount of appeasement will stop them. They do not want peace unless it comes with the world's submission to Islam. That is why they hate Israel. It is a Jewish state in the middle of an otherwise Muslim-dominated part of the world. That is why they punish Muslim states that are moderately friendly to Westerners - like Egypt. They are at war with the non-Islamic world.

"Fight and slay the pagans (infidels) wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem of war." - Quran, Sura 9:5

Ultimately, the war with terror is a religious battle. More importantly, it is a spiritual battle. The souls of millions of people, Muslim and non-Muslim alike, are at stake. Only by prayer and reaching out in the love of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit will these people come to know the Prince of Peace. It is at the feet of the One True God that they may find the hope of eternal life.

//

[solookup]

The Case for Jerusalem
by John Loeffler World Affairs Editor

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1998/98/

"If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning..." Psalm 137:5

Intelligence experts are warning that 1999 is likely to be a year of serious upheaval in the Middle East. King Hussein of Jordan is suffering from lymph cancer, and a major conflict between Turkey and Cyprus over the issue of the delivery of S-300 missiles has been postponed only temporarily until the end of the year.

This conflict could well embroil Russia and the United States. Turkey is also dealing with serious internal problems with the rise of fundamentalist Islamists as well as a Kurdish insurrection in the south.

Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat's health is failing. Jordan faces destabilization from Syria, which is on poor terms with Amman, and Iraq, which has a score to settle over the King's support for opponents of Saddam Hussein.

Syria is making preparations for the next war and is also in conflict with Turkey, Israel's ally. Egypt - currently under a peace treaty with Israel - is preparing for some kind of war (with whom one could only imagine) and its newspapers publish rhetoric, which grows more nad more hostile to Israel. Egypt is also continuing its arms buildup, including setting up a Scud-C misslile brigade with covert Russian assistance.

Meanwhile, the Palestinians have been threatening to declare a Palestinian state in May 1999, but this seems to be abating in light of the latest efforts to jump start the peace process. As of this writing, Arafat was rounding up Palestinians opposed to the peace process and Netanyahu was already balking at whether or not the Palestinians could keep their peace guarantees, and it remains to be seen whether or not the Palestinians will keep their pledge to remove calls for Israel's destruction from their charter.

Regardless of the short-term outcome of the "peace process," one thing is almost certain: the fate of the peace process will hinge on the future of the city of Jerusalem. Israel has claimed Jerusalem as its capital and is tightening its grip on the city by extending its boundaries to increase the Jewish proportions. The Palestinians are making the claim that Al Quads (the Arabic name for Jerusalem) will also be the capital of a newly declared Palestinian state. So what are the candidates for a successful resolution of the fate of the city?

Redivide the City in Halves

In the 19 years between 1948 and 1967, the city was divided by barbed wire, walls, and armed troops separating the population, making it a difficult time for all living there. Jerusalem's development as an integrated community was severely inhibited. All of that changed after the city was reunited in 1967. Thus redividing the city again is not feasible.

Divide the City into Districts

This would assumably be based on whichever population had a marjority in a given sector, but this would unnaturally divide Jerusalem into enclaves splattered around the city, since neighborhoods cannot be uniformly linked to allow formation of exclusively Jewish and Arab areas'such a combination would also unravel the social and infrastructure nature of Jerusalem. This is not a feasible option either.

Control of Jerusalem by an International Authority

This proposal was given some serious consideration but now appears to be waning. In the late 1960s, Arab states outside Israel (Jordon excepted) preferred this solution, since it seemed most likely to put an end to Israeli control.

The Vatican's support for this has been an up-and-down roller coaster. It originally supported the concept of an internationalized Jerusalem but subsequently changed its views in favor of "international guarantees" for the holy places. Now, within a week of this writing, the Holy See once again stated that Jerusalem should be protected by "a special internationally guaranteed statute." This was announced by Monsignor Jean Louis Tauran, who is responsible for the Vatican's foreign policy.

The practical problems of internationalization are too numerous to make it feasible. Nothing would be more likely to disrupt the life of a city and its population than imposing a system divided, external government.

Control by a Single Nation

Recognizing the sovereignty of one nation (Israel or Palestine) over Jerusalem, while guaranteeing open access and the internal administration of religious places by their adherents is also a possibility, but not a probability.

Israel believes that Jerusalem must function as an increasingly tolerant, peaceful and prosperous city, where a diverse, multicultural population may live and work. Israelis are committed to ensuring that Jerusalem remains safe and attractive, and that the atmosphere of the city facilitates tourism and worship. The government of Israel has stated that it is ready to sign international commitments enshrining these principles. However, this option will be unpalatable to the Palestinians and will most likely be thrown on the trash heap of history.

Given the fighting which is occurring over it, what are the historical claims of both sides to this seemingly unimportant city?

Claims on Jerusalem

Known as Yerushalayim to the Jews and Al Quds to the Arabs, the future of Jerusalem is the future of the Middle East Peace Process. The city is holy to Judaism, Islam and Christianity, but only the Jewish people have a religious prescription to live there. All three main monotheistic faiths, Judaism, Christianity and Islam (Sikhism is likewise a monotheistic faith) all consider Jerusalem a holy city, with major events in each of their histories being linked to the city. However, it is only for Judaism that the city itself is uniquely holy, representing the hope and meaning of Jewish existence and continuity.

The Palestinian Case for Jerusalem

The Koran details how one night, the prophet Mohammed was miraculously transported from Mecca to Jerusalem and from there made his ascent to heaven on his winged horse, al-Buraq. But for Islam, Jerusalem has never been as sacred as Mecca and Medina. The Temple Mount, with its Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque (7th century), is considered by Muslims to be the third most important site in Islam after the Ka'aba in Mecca (in whose direction all Muslims pray, including Muslims in Jerusalem) and the Mosque of Mohammed in Medina.

Similarly, the claim to Jerusalem (or at least its eastern part) as the capital of a Palestinian state is unfounded. The Palestinians have failed to offer any legal grounds in support of their claim to the city. Jerusalem has never been the capital of an Arab state, and there has never been any state of Palestine.

When the Arabs first took control of the region in the Middle Ages, they established Ramle as their capital. Later Arab and Mamluk empires ruled from Baghdad and Damascus, respectively. Never Jerusalem. The Ottoman sultans resided in Constantinople (Istanbul). More recently, the Jordanians who held the eastern part of Jerusalem between 1948 and 1967 had Amman as their capital.

Prior to 1948, Palestinian Arabs refused to accept any of the proposed solutions to the Arab-Jewish conflict. They would not consent to anything short of establishing Arab rule in all of what was called the Palestine Mandate, expelling or killing all Jews living in that area. On November 29, 1947, the United Nations General Assembly voted to partition Mandatory Palestine into Jewish and Arab states, making Jerusalem a corpus separatum (separate body) under international control with guarantees for the holy places.

Between 1948 and 1967, there were only isolated calls for a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital. Arabs living in Judea, Samaria and eastern Jerusalem were Jordanian citizens and remain such to the present day. It was only after 1967, when Israel successfully defended itself against Arab aggression in the Six-Day War (after Jordan violated the armistice agreement and attacked Israel), that Palestinian Arabs begin to lay claim to Jerusalem as their political capital. There is no basis for a "historical" claim that Jerusalem was a Palestinian capital.

The Jewish Case for Jerusalem

The first archaeological evidence of Jerusalem's history dates back to the Early Bronze Age (circa 3000 b.c.). With very little exception, the Jewish People have had a continual presence in the city since King David made it his capital 3,000 years ago, a religious and historical connection which fueled the modern Jewish Zionist movement. Throughout the centuries, Jews have dreamed of returning to Jerusalem and have never ceased to mourn the destruction of the ancient city. Days of fasting, marking the destruction of the first and second Temples, are an integral part of the Jewish calendar.

Jerusalem is remembered at all Jewish weddings, when the groom breaks a glass to commemorate the destruction of the Temple - even at this most joyous of occasions. Indeed, the restoration of Jerusalem as the national and religious capital of the Jews is an oft-repeated theme. "Next year in Jerusalem" at the Passover seder is a motif that permeates all religious observances.

King David's son, Solomon, built the First Temple in Jerusalem. In 586 b.c. Judah's rulers were defeated by the Babylonians, when King Nebuchadnezzar occupied the city, destroyed the Temple and exiled the population to Babylon. When the Persians defeated Babylon in 536 b.c., Cyrus the Great allowed the Jewish exiles to return home and soon thereafter the Second Temple was built and dedicated under Nehemiah, whom the Persians had appointed governor in 445 b.c.

Alexander the Great conquered Jerusalem in 333 b.c., leading to the establishment of the Hellenistic monarchies. Antiochus IV, however, tried to make Jerusalem a Hellenic city, desiring to transform Jerusalem into a Greek metropolis. His desecration of the Temple provoked a Jewish insurrection headed by Judah Maccabee, who succeeded in liberating Jerusalem. In 165 b.c., the first Channukah ("dedication") was celebrated with Jews again able to worship at the Temple.

In 63 b.c., Roman General Pompey imposed Roman rule on Jerusalem and in 37 b.c., Herod was appointed King of Judea. One of Herod's fortification projects included construction of the still-standing Western (Wailing) Wall. After Herod's death, Judea became a Roman province (around 6 a.d.) and Jerusalem was governed by Roman procurators from Caesarea. It no longer was the capital of Judea.

There are several decades of sporadic riots, usually clashes with Roman troops. By the middle of the 1st century a.d., the Jews again fought to liberate Jerusalem from the Romans, but their war ended in 70 a.d., when the armies of Titus conquered the city and destroyed the Temple. Most of Jerusalem's residents were killed or perished during the Roman siege. Survivors were sold into slavery or executed. The entire city was virtually destroyed.

In 130 a.d., Emperor Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a pagan city, provoking another Jewish Revolt against the Romans. Jerusalem was once again liberated briefly, but ultimately, Rome crushed the revolt and renamed the city Aelia Capitolina.

In the 4th century, Christianity became the state religion and Emperor Constantine made Jerusalem into a Christian center. At this time, Jews began making their way back to the city. During 5th century Christian rule, Jews were more or less free to practice their religion. However, Emperor Theodosius II later deprived the Jews of autonomy, along with the ability to hold public office. Jews were forbidden to enter Jerusalem except on one day a year, to mourn the destruction of the Temple.

Under early Arab rule, a Jewish community was reestablished in Jerusalem and flourished from the 8th - 10th centuries, when harsh measures were imposed on the Jews by the Fatimids. The Crusader period in the 12th century saw terrible massacres by Christians along with a prohibition against Jews living in Jerusalem. From that time, there was continual Jewish presence in the city to the modern era.

Modern History

Following World War I, Britain occupied Palestine (including present-day Jordan), a situation endorsed by the international community. Britain was awarded the Mandate for Palestine by the League of Nations in 1922. Part of this mandate included fostering a Jewish National Home in the territory, as proposed by the Balfour Declaration.

Although the British demonstrated concern for Jerusalem, they pursued policies which promoted conflict between the various populations of Jerusalem. Between 1920 and 1940, Arab hostility to Jewish immigration and the majority Jewish presence in Jerusalem resulted in increasingly violent attacks against Jewish residents.

Continual Arab rioting, directed chiefly by the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, caused the British government to issue its White Paper of May 1939, severely restricting Jewish immigration to Palestine. Meanwhile, the Arabs continued to reject all attempts to partition Palestine into separate Jewish and Arab states, as well as any attempt to internationalize Jerusalem.

The British quit Palestine on May 15, 1948, leaving Jerusalem's status undetermined. The Jews declared the State of Israel and the Arabs declared war on the Jews. In ten months of fighting, many Jews and Arabs fled Jerusalem, and all Jewish residents of the Old City were driven from their homes by Jordanian forces. The end of the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli war left the western part of Jerusalem under Israeli control, with the Old City and eastern section controlled by Jordan. Israel and Jordan signed an armistice, dividing Jerusalem into two demarcated zones, seen by both sides as temporary until a peace treaty could be concluded. The cease-fire lines were never viewed as permanent borders. Jerusalem was divided for the first time in its millennia-old history, along the cease-fire lines of the Israeli and Jordanian forces.

Under the armistice, Jordan promised to allow free access to the holy places as well as use of the ancient Jewish cemetery on the Mount of Olives. It also provided free access guarantees to Hadassah Hospital and Hebrew University on Mount Scopus, agreements which were never fulfilled. No Jew was allowed to pray at the Western Wall. The Jewish Quarter of the Old City was systematically destroyed and tombstones from the Jewish cemetery were used to pave a path to a Jordanian military latrine. What had been intended as an interim period for working out a peace treaty became a 19-year period of mine fields and barbed wire along borders traversing the city.

East and West Jerusalem Under Israeli Rule

In June 1967, Jordan (ignoring Israel's diplomatic pleas to maintain the armistice cease-fire), joined several Arab countries in initiating a war against Israel. In defending itself, Israel gained control of the eastern part of Jerusalem on June 7 and the city was once again reunited. Jews were again able to pray at the Western Wall. The point that Jordan violated the armistice agreement by attacking Israel and in the process lost control of Jerusalem is critical in the light of today's negotiations.

Contrary to much media hysteria, the extension of Israeli law to eastern Jerusalem did not constitute a violation of international law, since that part of Jerusalem had no legal status under international law. That part of Jerusalem was part of the Palestine Mandate, whose ultimate status had never been determined.

The Future of The Holy City

The Bible warns that anyone who attempted to deal with the issue of Jerusalem in the end times would be grievously injured:

And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.

As the future of Jerusalem is played out along Biblical guidelines, it would seem that prophecy is being fulfilled before our eyes.
Zechariah 12:3

//

Winning the Cultural War

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1999/246/print/

by Charlton Heston President of the National Rifle Association

(A speech delivered to the Harvard Law School Forum)

I remember my son when he was five, explaining to his kindergarten class what his father did for a living. "My Daddy," he said, "pretends to be people."

There have been quite a few of them: prophets from the Old and New Testaments, a couple of Christian saints, generals of various nationalities and different centuries, several kings, three American presidents, a French cardinal and two geniuses, including Michelangelo.

If you want the ceiling repainted I'll do my best. There always seem to be a lot of different fellows up here [people Heston has portrayed]. I'm never sure which one of them gets to talk. Right now, I guess I'm the guy.

As I pondered our visit tonight it struck me: if my Creator gave me the gift to connect you with the hearts and minds of those great men, then I want to use that same gift now to reconnect you with your own sense of liberty ... your own freedom of thought ... your own compass for what is right.

Dedicating the memorial at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said of America, "We are now engaged in a great Civil War, testing whether this nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure."

Those words are true again. I believe that we are again engaged in a great civil war, a cultural war that's about to hijack your birthright to think and say what resides in your heart.

I fear you no longer trust the pulsing lifeblood of liberty inside you ... the stuff that made this country rise from wilderness into the miracle that it is.

Let me back up. About a year ago I became president of the National Rifle Association, which protects the right to keep and bear arms. I ran for office, I was elected, and now I serve ... I serve as a moving target for the media who've called me everything from "ridiculous" and "duped" to a "brain-injured, senile, crazy old man." I know ... I'm pretty old ... but I sure Lord ain't senile.

As I have stood in the crosshairs of those who target Second Amendment freedoms, I've realized that firearms are not the only issue. No, it's much, much bigger than that. I've come to understand that a cultural war is raging across our land, in which, with Orwellian fervor, certain acceptable thoughts and speech are mandated.

For example, I marched for civil rights with Dr. King in 1963 - long before Hollywood found it fashionable. But when I told an audience last year that white pride is just as valid as black pride or red pride or anyone else's pride, they called me a racist.

I've worked with brilliantly talented homosexuals all my life. But when I told an audience that gay rights should extend no further than your rights or my rights, I was called a homophobe.

I served in World War II against the Axis powers. But during a speech, when I drew an analogy between singling out innocent Jews and singling out innocent gun owners, I was called an anti-Semite.

Everyone I know knows I would never raise a closed fist against my country. But when I asked an audience to oppose this cultural persecution, I was compared to Timothy McVeigh.

From Time magazine to friends and colleagues, they're essentially saying, "Chuck, how dare you speak your mind. You are using language not authorized for public consumption!"

But I am not afraid. If Americans believed in political correctness, we'd still be King George's boys - subjects bound to the British crown.

In his book, The End of Sanity, Martin Gross writes that "blatantly irrational behavior is rapidly being established as the norm in almost every area of human endeavor. There seem to be new customs, new rules, new anti-intellectual theories regularly foisted on us from every direction.

"Underneath, the nation is roiling. Americans know something without a name is undermining the nation, turning the mind mushy when it comes to separating truth from falsehood and right from wrong. And they don't like it."

Let me read a few examples. At Antioch College in Ohio, young men seeking intimacy with a coed must get verbal permission at each step of the process from kissing to petting to final copulation ... all clearly spelled out in a printed college directive.

In New Jersey, despite the death of several patients nationwide who had been infected by dentists who had concealed their AIDS, the state commissioner announced that health providers who are HIV-positive need not ... need not ... tell their patients that they are infected.

At William and Mary, students tried to change the name of the school team, "The Tribe," because it was supposedly insulting to local Indians, only to learn that authentic Virginia chiefs truly like the name.

In San Francisco, city fathers passed an ordinance protecting the rights of transvestites to cross-dress on the job, and for transsexuals to have separate toilet facilities while undergoing sex change surgery.

In New York City, kids who don't speak a word of Spanish have been placed in bilingual classes to learn their three R's in Spanish solely because their last names sound Hispanic.

At the University of Pennsylvania, in a state where thousands died at Gettysburg opposing slavery, the president of that college officially set up segregated dormitory space for black students.

Yeah, I know ... that's out of bounds now. Dr. King said "Negroes." Jimmy Baldwin and most of us on the March said "black." But it's a no-no now.

For me, hyphenated identities are awkward ... particularly "Native-American." I'm a Native American, for God's sake. I also happen to be a blood-initiated brother of the Miniconjou Sioux. On my wife's side, my grandson is a thirteenth generation native American ... with a capital letter on "American."

Finally, just last month ... David Howard, head of the Washington D.C. Office of Public Advocate, used the word "niggardly" while talking to colleagues about budgetary matters. Of course, "niggardly" means stingy or scanty. But within days, Howard was forced to publicly apologize and resign.

As columnist Tony Snow wrote: "David Howard got fired because some people in public employ were morons who (a) didn't know the meaning of 'niggardly,' (b) didn't know how to use a dictionary to discover the meaning, and (c) actually demanded that he apologize for their ignorance."

What does all of this mean? It means that telling us what to think has evolved into telling us what to say, so telling us what to do can't be far behind.

Before you claim to be a champion of free thought, tell me: Why did political correctness originate on America's campuses? And why do you continue to tolerate it? Why do you, who are supposed to debate ideas, surrender to their suppression?

Let's be honest. Who here thinks your professors can say what they really believe? It scares me to death, and should scare you too, that the superstition of political correctness rules the halls of reason.

You are the best and the brightest. You, here in the fertile cradle of American academia, here in the castle of learning on the Charles River, you are the cream.

But I submit that you, and your counterparts across the land, are the most socially conformed and politically silenced generation since Concord Bridge.
And as long as you validate that ... and abide by it ... you are - by your grandfathers' standards - cowards.

Here's another example. Right now at more than one major university, Second Amendment scholars and researchers are being told to shut up about their findings or they'll lose their jobs. Why? Because their research findings would undermine big-city mayors' pending lawsuits that seek to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from firearm manufacturers.

I don't care what you think about guns. But if you are not shocked at that, I am shocked at you. Who will guard the raw material of unfettered ideas, if not you? Who will defend the core value of academia, if you supposed soldiers of free thought and expression lay down your arms and plead, "Don't shoot me"?

If you talk about race, it does not make you a racist. If you see distinctions between the genders, it does not make you a sexist. If you think critically about a denomination, it does not make you anti-religion. If you accept but don't celebrate homosexuality, it does not make you a homophobe.

Don't let America's universities continue to serve as incubators for this rampant epidemic of new McCarthyism. But what can you do? How can anyone prevail against such pervasive social subjugation? The answer's been here all along. I learned it 36 years ago, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., standing with Dr. Martin Luther King and two hundred thousand people.

You simply ... disobey. Peaceably, yes. Respectfully, of course. Nonviolently, absolutely. But when told how to think or what to say or how to behave, we don't. We disobey social protocol that stifles and stigmatizes personal freedom.

I learned the awesome power of disobedience from Dr. King, who learned it from Gandhi, and Thoreau, and Jesus, and every other great man who led those in the right against those with the might.

Disobedience is in our DNA. We feel innate kinship with that disobedient spirit that tossed tea into Boston Harbor, that sent Thoreau to jail, that refused to sit in the back of the bus, that protested a war in Viet Nam.

In that same spirit, I am asking you to disavow cultural correctness with massive disobedience of rogue authority, social directives and onerous law that weaken personal freedom.

But be careful ... it hurts. Disobedience demands that you put yourself at risk. Dr. King stood on lots of balconies. You must be willing to be humiliated ... to endure the modern-day equivalent of the police dogs at Montgomery and the water cannons at Selma. You must be willing to experience discomfort. I'm not complaining, but my own decades of social activism have taken their toll on me. Let me tell you a story.

A few years back I heard about a rapper named Ice-T who was selling a CD called "Cop Killer," celebrating ambushing and murdering police officers. It was being marketed by none other than Time/Warner, the biggest entertainment conglomerate in the world.

Police across the country were outraged. Rightfully so - at least one had been murdered. But Time/Warner was stonewalling because the CD was a cash cow for them, and the media were tiptoeing around it because the rapper was black. I heard Time/Warner had a stockholders meeting scheduled in Beverly Hills. I owned some shares at the time, so I decided to attend.

What I did there was against the advice of my family and colleagues. I asked for the floor. To a hushed room of a thousand average American stockholders, I simply read the full lyrics of "Cop Killer"-every vicious, vulgar, instructional word.

I GOT MY 12 GAUGE SAWED OFF. I GOT MY HEADLIGHTS TURNED OFF. I'M ABOUT TO BUST SOME SHOTS OFF. I'M ABOUT TO DUST SOME COPS OFF...

It got worse, a lot worse. I won't read the rest of it to you. But trust me, the room was a sea of shocked, frozen, blanched faces. The Time/Warner executives squirmed in their chairs and stared at their shoes. They hated me for that.

Then I delivered another volley of sick lyric brimming with racist filth, where Ice-T fantasizes about sodomizing two 12-year-old nieces of Al and Tipper Gore: "SHE..."

Well, I won't do to you here what I did to them. Let's just say I left the room in echoing silence. When I read the lyrics to the waiting press corps, one of them said "We can't print that."

"I know," I replied, "but Time/Warner is selling it."

Two months later, Time/Warner terminated Ice-T's contract. I'll never be offered another film by Warners, or get a good review from Time magazine. But disobedience means you must be willing to act, not just talk.

When a mugger sues his elderly victim for defending herself ... jam the switchboard of the district attorney's office.

When your university is pressured to lower standards until 80% of the students graduate with honors ... choke the halls of the board of regents.

When an 8-year-old boy pecks a girl's cheek on the playground and gets hauled into court for sexual harassment ... march on that school and block its doorways.

When someone you elected is seduced by political power and betrays you ... petition them, oust them, banish them.

When Time magazine's cover portrays millennium nuts as deranged, crazy Christians holding a cross as it did last month ... boycott their magazine and the products it advertises.

So that this nation may long endure, I urge you to follow in the hallowed footsteps of the great disobediences of history that freed exiles, founded religions, defeated tyrants, and yes, in the hands of an aroused rabble in arms and a few great men, by God's grace, built this country.

If Dr. King were here, I think he would agree.

Thank you.

* * *
[Ed. Note: This speech was delivered by Charlton Heston to the Harvard Law School Forum on February 16, 1999. Mr. Heston's opinions are his own. Reprinted with permission.]

//

Beyond Birth Control:
The Population Control Agenda

by Dr. Stan Monteith, M.D


http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/93/

Planned population control including genocide is a difficult concept for Americans to accept. Even though the U.S. government helps finance the Red Chinese program of forced abortion, sterilization and infanticide, and helps finance the United Nations "family planning program," most people find it impossible to believe that such programs are really part of a larger plan to kill off large segments of the world's population.

"How can you possibly believe that?" I am frequently asked. The answer is quite simple: I have read the writings of those who intend to depopulate large segments of the earth and I believe them. They have written of the necessity of reducing-by force if necessary-the world's population.

Margaret Sanger and Planned Parenthood

Our tax money finances Planned Parenthood, an organization founded by Margaret Sanger. In Planned Parenthood's 1985 Annual Report, its leaders proclaimed that they were, "Proud of our past, and planning for our future."1

How could anyone claim to be proud of an organization when history records that its founder wrote of the necessity of "the extermination of 'human weeds'...the 'cessation of charity'...the segregation of 'morons, misfits, and the maladjusted' and...the sterilization of 'genetically inferior races?'"2

During the 1930s Margaret Sanger published The Birth Control Review, in which she openly supported Nazi Germany's "infanticide program" in the 1930s, and publicly championed Adolf Hitler's goal of Aryan white supremacy. Prior to World War II she commissioned Nazi Ernst Rudin, director of the dreaded German medical experimentation programs, to serve as an advisor to her organization.

In Killer Angel, George Grant chronicled the life and writings of Margaret Sanger, including her plans for genetically engineering the human race. Margaret Sanger's The Pivot of Civilization called for "the elimination of human weeds," and the "cessation of charity" because it prolonged the lives of the unfit. She called for the segregation of the unfit and prohibiting them to reproduce.

In 1939, Margaret Sanger organized the Negro Project, designed to eliminate members of what she believed to be an "inferior race." She justified her proposal because "the masses of Negroes... particularly in the South, still breed carelessly and disastrously, with the result that the increase among Negroes, even more than among whites, is from that portion of the population least intelligent and fit..."3

She then went on to reveal that she intended to "hire three or four colored ministers to travel to various black enclaves to propagandize for birth control...The most successful educational approach to the Negro is through a religious appeal. We do not want word to go out that we want to exterminate the Negro population, and the minister is the man who can straighten out that idea if it ever occurs to any of their more rebellious members."4

As Margaret Sanger's organization grew, she wrote of the necessity of targeting religious groups for destruction as well, believing that the "dysgenic races" should include "fundamentalists and Catholics" in addition to "blacks, Hispanics, [and] American Indians."5 As the years passed, Sanger became increasingly obsessed with occult beliefs and hostile to Christianity and the American precept of individual freedom. Her distaste for America is evident in her writings:
"Birth control appeals to the advanced radical because it is calculated to undermine the authority of the Christian churches. I look forward to seeing humanity free someday of the tyranny of Christianity no less than Capitalism."6

Just like Adolf Hitler, Margaret Sanger was a disciple of Theosophy and its founder, Madame Blavatsky. Both Sanger and Hitler were involved in a religion that worshipped Lucifer and were energized by the same dark, spiritual forces.

Lucis Trust is a prominent modern day representative of Theosophy, an extension of the Lucifer Publishing Company, which is also a United Nations NGO. Lucis Trust was founded by Alice A. Bailey during the early 20th century. Bailey was a disciple of Madame Blavatsky and nominal leader of the Theosophical Society in the early 1900s.

Because the name "Lucifer" had such a bad connotation, Bailey changed the name of her organization from the Lucifer Publishing Company to Lucis Trust. The nature and beliefs of this organization, however, have always remained the same.

Lucis Trust is one of the major front groups through which Theosophy influences life in America. Publications from Lucis Trust regularly refer to "The Plan" for humanity that has been established by "The Hierarchy." Sanger's disciples are alive and functioning today, influencing national and international population control policy.

David Graber, a research biologist with the National Park Service, was quoted in the Los Angeles Times Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, as saying, "Human happiness and certainly human fecundity are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but it isn't true...We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth...Until such time as homosapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the
right virus to come along." 7

In The First Global Revolution, published by the Council of the Club of Rome, an international elitist organization, the authors note that, "In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention... The real enemy, then, is humanity itself."8

On April 5, 1994 the Los Angeles Times quoted Cornell University Professor David Pimentel, speaking to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, saying that, "The total world population should be no more than 2 billion rather than the current 5.6 billion."

In the UNESCO Courier of November 1991, Jacques Cousteau wrote, "The damage people cause to the planet is a function of demographics-it is equal to the degree of development. One American burdens the earth much more than twenty Bangladeshes... This is a terrible thing to say. In order to stabilize world population, we must eliminate 350,000 people per day. It is a horrible thing to say, but it's just as bad not to say it."9

In The Impact of Science on Society, Bertrand Russell said, "At present the population of the world is increasing...War so far has had no great effect on this increase... I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others...If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full...the state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? Really high-minded people are indifferent to suffering, especially that of others."

Negative Population Growth Inc. of Teaneck, New Jersey recently circulated a letter stating their long-range goal: "We believe that our goal for the United States should be no more than 150 million; our size in 1950. For the world, we believe our goal should be a population of not more than two billion, its size shortly after the turn of the century."10

This amount is impossible to achieve by means of normal attrition and birth control and there is sufficient evidence to indicate other plans are afoot.

More New Age Influence

Speaking at Gorbachev's State of the World Forum in San Francisco in 1996, New Age writer and philosopher Dr. Sam Keen stated that there was strong agreement that religious institutions have to take a primary responsibility for the population explosion.

He went on to say that, "We must speak far more clearly about sexuality, contraception, about abortion, about values that control the population, because the ecological crisis, in short, is the population crisis. Cut the population by 90% and there aren't enough people left to do a great deal of ecological damage."

Dr. Keen's remarks were met with applause from the assembled audience of New Age adherents, Socialists, Internationalists and occultists.

Next month, we'll explore some specific cases of covert as well as blatant population control, including the link between abortions and breast cancer and what really happened during the Rwanda massacres.
This article was originally published in the
September 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Killer Angel, George Grant, Reformer Press, p. 105, available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063.
2. Ibid, p. 65.
3. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, Linda Gordon, Penguin Press, New York, p. 332; see also Killer Angel, p. 73.
4. Killer Angel, p. 74: see also Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp. 229-334.
5. Woman's Body, Woman's Right, pp.229-334; see also Killer Angel, p.73.
6. Killer Angel, p. 104.
7. Los Angeles Times, Book Review Section, October 22, 1989, p. 9.
8. The First Global Revolution: Club of Rome, Alexander King and Bertrand Schneider, Pantheon Books, New York, 1991, p. 115.
9. "The Population Controllers," New American Magazine, 6/27/94, p. 7.
10. Material is available from Radio Liberty, P.O. Box 13, Santa Cruz, CA, 95063.

//

Beyond Birth Control:
The Population Control Agenda (Pt 2)


by Dr. Stan Monteith, M.D.

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1997/92/


The Infamous Tuskegee Study

The influence of population control advocates can be seen in the Tuskegee Study, a scientific research program in which 400 syphilis-infected black men were recruited by the U.S. Public Health Service in 1932. The participants were told that they would be treated for their infections but instead had all effective medicine withheld. The black men were actively prevented from obtaining treatment elsewhere as their bodies, and the bodies of their wives and children, were systematically ravaged by disease.

The men who conceived this Nazi-style study justified their atrocity by saying that scientists needed to learn how untreated syphilis progressed in the human body. For forty years-from 1932 until 1972-the genocidal Tuskegee Study continued. It was not until 1972, after one newspaper finally broke the story, that the study was finally terminated. By that time, only 125 of the original 400 men survived. According to Margaret Sanger's1 sense of morality, experiments on "human weeds" were fully justified in the name of "science."

To this day, 25 years after the end of that grotesque human experiment, none of the perpetrators of that atrocity has ever been accused or indicted of a crime. Do you honestly believe for one moment that such an experiment would have been tolerated here in America had the participants been white men?2

DDT Saved Lives

Another more effective method of reducing world population was devised in the early 1960s by environmentalists and population-control adherents: blocking the use of DDT for mosquito and malaria control, which had been found to be extremely effective in saving human lives.

In 1970 the National Academy of Sciences, in their book Life Sciences, stated that, "In little more than two decades DDT has prevented 500 million deaths due to malaria."

To population control advocates, this preservation of human life was intolerable, so they set out to outlaw further use of the pesticide. Up until 1970 all reliable scientific data had consistently demonstrated that DDT was safe for both humans and animals. Indeed, DDT was the safest pesticide ever known to mankind. Furthermore, it was inexpensive and could be widely used in third-world countries to control the spread of insect-borne diseases.

Accordingly, population control adherents set out to have DDT banned in the name of saving the environment. You probably remember the contrived stories declaring that DDT caused softening of eggshells, interfered with the balance of nature, and endangered humanity by entering the food chain. In truth, all of those stories were fabricated and part of a carefully coordinated program to block further use of the lifesaving pesticide.

William Ruckelshaus was a longtime member of the Environmental Defense Fund and Director of the EPA. He outlawed further use of DDT in 1972 despite the recommendation of the EPA Chairman Investigating Committee, which had heard six months of testimony on use of the pesticide, and had determined that DDT was completely safe. When Ruckelshaus outlawed further use of DDT, he signed the death warrant for hundreds of millions of helpless human beings living in third-world countries.

In Remembering Silent Spring and Its Consequences, 3 Professor J. Gordon Edwards quoted from a speech by Victor Yanconne, founder of the Environmental Defense Fund. In that talk, Mr. Yanconne related a story told to him by a reporter who had asked Dr. Charles Wurster, one of the major opponents of DDT, whether a ban on DDT wouldn't actually result in far greater use of more toxic pesticides. Dr. Wurster is reported to have replied, "So what? People are the cause of all the problems. We have too many of them. We need to get rid of some of them and this is as good a way as any."

When asked by the same reporter, "Doctor, how do you square the killing of people with the mere loss of some birds?" Dr. Wurster is reported to have replied, "It doesn't really make a lot of difference, because organophosphate acts locally and only kills farm workers and most of them are Mexicans and Negroes."4

If the National Academy of Sciences was correct in its 1970 assessment, we have probably lost over 600 million human lives during the past twenty-five years since advocates of population control succeeded in outlawing DDT.5

Abortion, Breast Cancer and Population Control

Many physicians are concerned about dramatic increases in breast carcinoma in women. Despite the fact that 18 scientific studies in domestic and foreign medical journals have demonstrated the direct relationship between first-trimester abortions and breast cancer, all efforts to disseminate that information here in the United States have been consistently blocked by those favoring abortion and population control.

In the fall of 1996 a new scientific paper consisting of a meta-analysis of 23 scientific studies on the relationship between first trimester abortions and breast cancer was published in a British medical journal. It demonstrated a higher incidence of breast cancer in women who had first-trimester abortions.

In response to that publication, the American Medical Association (AMA), the American Cancer Society (ACS), and pro-abortion/population control advocates joined together to attack the conclusions of the authors, and to block all efforts to disseminate that information to American physicians. The AMA, the ACS, and the pro-death lobby continue to insist that women must not be advised of the risk they incur when they destroy the life of their unborn child.

Current abortion policies in America are absolutely necessary to reduce our population. That is why a minor child can be taken from school to an abortion clinic without parental notification. Yet that same child cannot be given an aspirin without parental consent. It all has to do with population control.6

The Massacres in Africa

What really happened to Christians in Rwanda between April and July of 1994 is a shocking story. After the Christian Tutsis were disarmed by governmental decree in the early 1990s, Hutu-led military forces began to systematically massacre the defenseless Christians beginning in April 1994 and continuing until July 1994. Using machetes rather than bullets, the Hutu forces created a state of terror within the helpless Christian population as they systematically butchered thousands.

The United Nations immediately convened hearings on Rwanda, but Madeline Albright, American Ambassador to the United Nations, argued strenuously that neighboring African nations should not be allowed to intervene until the "civil war had come to an end." In reality, there was no civil war, since those being slaughtered had no weapons with which to defend themselves; it was simply a matter of mass murder.

In addition to blocking intervention by neighboring nations, Madeline Albright also insisted that the word "genocide" not be used, and that United Nations forces stationed in Rwanda were not to be allowed to intervene. In the three months that followed, between one-half and three-quarters of a million Christians were systematically dismembered, hacked to death, and slaughtered in the bloody carnage that ensued. Tens of thousands of Christians were murdered in churches; tens of thousands more were murdered in hospitals and schools. On several occasions, United Nations soldiers stationed in Rwanda actually handed helpless Christians over to members of the Hutu militia. They then stood by as their screaming charges were unceremoniously hacked to pieces.

At the end of the carnage in late July 1994, the American government rewarded the Hutu murderers with millions of dollars in foreign aid. The American press has been silent about the fact that almost all people slaughtered were Christians, and that it was our government's policy that was primarily responsible for blocking efforts by neighboring African countries to intervene.7

There are dozens of other examples of population control programs which have been implemented throughout our world by modern-day "Malthusians" in their effort to ensure that the world population is dramatically curtailed. To date it is estimated that far more than one billion human lives have been terminated as a result of the worldwide abortion programs financed by the United States. In addition, we are beginning to see the devastating effects of the AIDS epidemic as this plague begins to depopulate large areas of Asia and Africa. Rational efforts to address the HIV epidemic throughout the world continue to be blocked. Rather than utilizing proven public health methods, advocates of population control continue to promote both hedonistic sex education and condom distribution, which will only assure the disease will continue to spread.
This article was originally published in the
October 1997 Personal Update NewsJournal.
For a FREE 1-Year Subscription, click here.

**NOTES**

1. Margaret Sanger founded Planned Parenthood, and in The Pivot of Civilization she called for "the elimination of human weeds," and the "cessation of charity" because it prolonged the lives of the unfit. See Personal UPDATE, 9/97 p. 2-5 for more information on her writings.
2. AIDS and the Doctors of Death, Aries Rising Press, Los Angeles, pp. 168-170.
3. Remembering Silent Spring and Its Consequences, J. Gordon Edwards, a monograph, p. 7, available from Radio Liberty or from Dr. Edwards at San Jose State University.
4. Reported by Chairman John Rarick: House Hearings on the Federal Pesticide Control Act of 1971, pp. 266-267, in Serial No 92-A, quoted in a treatise by Dr. J. Gordon Edwards. A taped interview with Dr. Edwards is available from Radio Liberty, as is his treatise: see also Environmental Overkill, Dixy Lee Ray, Regnery, p. 77.
5. Environmental Overkill, op cited: pp. 76-77 and 192, see also my 2-hour interview with Dr. Dixy Lee Ray: see also Dr. Edwards' treatise on DDT, available from Radio Liberty.
6. "Strong Abortion-Breast Cancer Link Revealed," Washington Times, October 12, 1996, A1.
7. An audio-taped interview with Peter Hammond of Front Line Ministries is available from Radio Liberty: also see Holocaust in Rwanda, Peter Hammond, available from In Touch Mission Int'l (ITMI), P.O. Box 28240, Tempe AZ, 85285

//

From Our Private Modem:
Middle East Instability

by Chuck Missler

http://www.khouse.org/articles/1996/82/

In addition to the destabilizing "Peace Process" being forced upon Israel, there are other forces unsettling the volatile Middle East. Rulers who have ruled the Muslim world for decades are growing old, embattled, and in poor health--and the experts are unclear as to who the likely candidates are that will replace them.

The looming succession contests, from Morocco to Oman, are a growing threat to stability in the Middle East. Intelligence is difficult to obtain, since expression of speculations about a ruler's death is tantmount to treason in the world of Islam.

* Syria's Assad, 65, has had a history of diabetes and heart disease.
* Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, 73, is expected to convalesce for a considerable period from his stroke last November.
* Egypt's Mubarak, 67, who was nearly murdered in Ethiopia last summer, continues to dodge plots of the radical Muslims attempting to dislodge the existing government.
* Iraq's Saddam Hussein, 59, is reviled at home and abroad; his future is anyone's guess. But he is somewhat of a "balance wheel" between Iran and Syria, and attractive alternatives have not been identified.

In Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates and Oman, Candidate heirs lack the popular support of their long-serving elders.

Saudi Arabia

King Fahd decreed on New Year's Day that his half-brother Crown Prince Abdullah, 71 should take power. Their father, King Abdulaziz al-Saud (ibn Saud), had 44 sons from 22 wives and some 35 sons survived him when he died in 1953. The Saudi throne has passed to four of his 44 sons: King Saud (1953-1964); King Faisal (1964-1975); King Khaled (1975-1982); and King Fahd. While Crown Prince Abdullah is son number 13, in royal family terms he is an only child: his mother bore only one prince.

King Fahd's mother, in contrast, bore seven surviving sons, who now make up the dominant bloc of the royal family. To bolster his stature, Crown Prince Abdullah has courted the Bedouin tribes. But acrimony among the rivals continues. (Provactively, in Ezekiel 38, Saudi Arabia ["Sheba and Dedan"] is on the sidelines, neither attacking nor defending in the forthcoming invasion of Israel.)

Syria

Assad was Syria's defense minister in 1965, became president five years later, and has run one of the most effective police states in recent history. Utterly ruthless, he is respected for establishing stability and for his tough stance toward Israel. Assad's passing would expected to precipitate a blood bath in Syria, since his eldest son and heir apparent, Basel al-Assad, died in a car crash in 1993. Having failed to appoint a vice president in 14 years in power, Assad has created an ominous vacuum below him. His second son, Bashar, an opthalmologist-in- training in London, is not regarded as ruthless enough to succeed. Tensions continue.

Assad's most trusted chieftans are from the Alawite clan, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam prevalent in Syria's mountainous northwest. Though only 23% of Syria's 13 million are Alawites, they run the country. Although Sunni Muslims occupy the major posts (Minister of Defense, Foreign Affairs, Army Chief of Staff), they are but a front for the Alawites. Ethnic resentment is building.

Egypt

While adhering more closely then either Syria or Saudi Arabia to the rule of law, the question of succession in Egypt is equally unclear. If Mubarak dies without a vice president, the speaker of the parliament takes over for 60 days while the ruling party chooses a successor whose nomination is ratified in a public referendum. In reality, however, the senior military officers will decide who takes power--as they have for many years. The odds-on favorite would be Defense Minister Hussein Tantawi, now in his late 50's; however, his surgery last year has left some concerns about his health status.

Another potential condidate is former Defense Minister Abu Ghazala, who presided over their military's plushest years in the mid-1980s. He remains popular with western officials. Polished, informed, and no longer in the military, he would have the support of the army and the U.S.

While Egypt is the initiator in the scenario of Daniel 11 (the apparent "Armageddon Scenario" that climaxes the 70th Week [See our Briefing Package, Daniel's 70 Weeks), it is conspicuously absent in the Ezekiel 38 engagement, which, we believe, precedes the 70th Week.

For a complete briefing on the forthcoming Biblical unrest in the Middle East, see our audio briefing package, The Magog Invasion.

Sources:

1. Islamic Affairs Analyst, Intelligence Int'l Ltd., The Stoneyhill Centre, Brimpsfield, Gloucester, GL48LF, U.K.
2. The Wall Street Journal, January 9, 1996.
3. Chuck's private sources.


//

The Roots of War, Part 1:
The Islamic Conquests

by Chuck Missler

http://www.khouse.org/articles/2002/421/


As diligent Bible students, most of us are familiar with the emergence of the empires that were profiled, in advance, in Daniel 2 and Daniel 7: the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman Empires. However, many of us are probably a little hazy about the tide of events subsequent to that period. As Part 1 of a three-part article, we will attempt to briefly profile some of the historical events that are now impacting our near horizon.

The Rise of Islam

Many had assumed that Islam was simply the militant imposition of the culture of 7th century Arabia on illiterate Third World tribes, with little relevance to the developed nations of today. However, the events of September 11, 2001, certainly have punctured the comfort of those naïve presumptions. Islam has been, from its inception, a militant warrior code with an agenda of world conquest. Now, with its possession of nuclear weapons, its agenda can no longer be ignored.

Mohammed was born at Mecca, Arabia, in a.d. 570, and his Islam quickly spread beyond the borders of the tribal groups of Arabia. The 7th century was startled with the rapid advances of his militant religion: Syria fell in 634; Jerusalem in 637; Egypt in 638; Persia in 640; North Africa in 689; and Spain in 711. Both Christians and Jews throughout Europe were terrified until the Islamic troops were halted by Charles Martel at the Battle of Tours, France, in 732.

A Trifurcated Heritage

By 750, the Roman Empire in the West had already disintegrated into fragments, leaving two other primary protagonists: Byzantium, the Eastern remnants of the Roman Empire, and the emerging caliphates of Islam. Of these three heirs to an agrarian, rural-oriented world, the Islamic caliphates were the most prosperous, with thriving trade and a large merchant and professional class. Like the Byzantine emperors, the caliphs were strong, centralized rulers, with a well-organized civil service and efficient methods of collecting taxes. This centralization reached its height at the end of the 8th century under Harun al-Rashid, who was one of the most powerful of the caliphs. From his capital city at Baghdâd (today the capital of Iraq), he ruled over lands that stretched more than 3,600 miles from east to west (about 1,000 miles longer than the length of the United States). He was a successful military leader and was enormously wealthy.

Byzantium's economy was hurt by war and loss of territory but quickly revived. Constantinople remained an important center of trade, and the Byzantine countryside was productive. Its imperial administration was able to collect taxes from peasants without difficulty.

The West was the poorest heir of the former Roman Empire. While a wealthy landowning class lived well, many cities of the West had become depopulated and the land was relatively unproductive. There were so many continuing conflicts among the numerous fragmented fiefdoms that it is rather surprising that by the end of the Middle Ages Europe emerged as a collection of strong, prosperous, aggressive competitive states, with explorers and traders launching expeditions to China, Africa, and, eventually, the Americas.

The Decline of Byzantium

The Byzantine Empire was the wedge that separated the Islamic world from the West and was in a vulnerable middle position. Although the Byzantines managed to survive the initial attacks of the Muslims, which began early in the 7th century, they always had to worry about new invasions - and not just from farther east. Hostility with the West had roots that ranged from disputed territory to religion. The pope resented Byzantine rule over the parts of Italy he thought should be his own. The pope and the Byzantine church also had long-standing religious differences concerning the nature of God and the organization of the church. These came to a head in 1054, when the agents of the pope in Rome and the patriarch in Constantinople excommunicated one another.

Further enmities between Byzantium and the West developed at the end of the 11th century. At that time a new Islamic group, the Seljuk Turks, began to ravage the Byzantine Empire's eastern flank. The emperor asked for military help from the West, but he got more than he bargained for: The pope launched the First Crusade, a massive armed pilgrimage against the forces of Islam.

European fighters met with the emperor to coordinate strategy, but the two sides had very different interests. The Byzantines wanted to protect their own territory from Muslim invasion and saw the Crusaders only as reinforcements. The Crusaders, on the other hand, had a much larger goal - to recover from the Muslims Jerusalem and other cities Christians considered holy. The Europeans were interested in the Byzantines only if they could help the Crusaders achieve their goal. This conflict of interest increased hostility between the Byzantine Empire and the West.

On a later Crusade, in 1204, Crusaders from Europe invaded Constantinople itself, pillaging and destroying it. They set up one of their own leaders as emperor and divided up Byzantine territory among Europeans. Although the Byzantines recaptured the city in 1261, the empire never fully recovered. In 1453 it was taken over by the Ottoman Turks, another Muslim group that would prevail until World War I and which would set the stage for the cast of adversaries clouding our present horizon.

Islamic World

The fate of the Islamic world was much different than that of the Byzantine Empire. There remains a direct continuity between the state ruled by the caliphs in the 7th century and the Islamic states of today. Yet almost directly after Harun al-Rashid's death in 809, the caliphs began to lose power to local rulers. This loss was the result of religious as well as military developments. After Mohammed's death in 632, important men in two different family groups claimed to be the true successor. The supporters of the family group that won and gained the caliphate became known later as Sunnites. The other group would become known as Shiites. The followers of these two groups continue to be a source of tension in the Islamic world today.

In the 10th century a group of Shiites calling themselves Fatimids gained control of a region that included what is now northern Africa, Egypt, and Syria. They ruled independently of any caliph at Baghdâd and their hold was broken only with the arrival of the Seljuk Turks - the same Turks against whom the First Crusade was launched - who were Sunnites.

The caliphs also lost power because they could not control their armies. Most of the armies of the caliphs were made up of slaves who had been bought or captured and armed as soldiers. These slave armies had no loyalty to the caliphs. As a result, they soon became independent mercenaries, hiring themselves out to whichever ruler would pay them the most. Local governors in the Islamic world took advantage of this, collecting taxes and paying the armies what they asked in return for support. In this way, powerful local rulers carved out states for themselves.

The Seljuks

In the 12th century the Seljuk Turks put an end to this fragmentation by bringing order and stability to the various groups in power. They recognized the caliph but exercised influence over him. Similarly, they allowed independent kingdoms but expected them all to participate in an Islamic culture based on Sunnite beliefs and law and on the Arabic language.

The Seljuks also encouraged free and active trade throughout the Islamic world. Scholars and writers benefited from the resulting openness and prosperity, and important works of philosophy and literature were written in Arabic during this period. The works of the Greek philosopher Aristotle, long forgotten, were recovered and translated from Greek into Arabic. This revival of Aristotle marked a major intellectual change, with important consequences both for the Islamic world and for the West: by the end of the 12th century, both cultures shared a common body of logical thought that served as the basis for new achievements in philosophy and science.

However, the Islamic world was under constant pressure from outside forces. In the 13th century, Seljuk rule in the eastern half of the Islamic world gave way to invaders from China, known as the Mongols. Other parts of the Islamic world were being conquered by Europeans. Islamic Spain, which had broken from the caliphs in the 8th century, was almost entirely taken by Christian armies by 1212. Sicily, occupied by the Muslims in the 9th century, was reconquered by Europeans in the 11th. Meanwhile, independent Islamic rulers continued to create and strengthen their own states. This situation persisted until the invasions in the 15th century by the Ottoman Turks, who unified much of the Islamic world under their rule.

Russia

Although the Byzantine Empire disappeared long ago, a descendant of it still exists in the modern world: Russia. Russia was created by Vikings from Scandinavia, who sailed down the river valleys that connected the Baltic with the Black Sea and conquered the Slavs living along the rivers. The Russians both traded and fought with the Byzantines. Eventually the Russians accepted Christianity from the Byzantines and adopted many of the empire's customs and institutions. Yet, to put this in perspective we will need to explore the Mongol (Magog?) Invasions of the 12th – 14th centuries. [To be continued next month with Part 2.]

* * *

This article has been excerpted from our current video and briefing pack, Roots of War – Profiling the Middle East