1. Art and Diseño

Just for Your Consideration
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. ― 1 Corinthians 16:13
Compiled by Pastor Greg Wilson, Landmark Baptist Church, Archer, Florida  February 8, 2015
Ad The NFL Didn’t Want You To See!
By Kevin Michalowski
not have to hope for something like DeflateGate to take
the focus off all the other problems in the league.
Well, you have to hand it to the NFL. The league can
change the subject faster than a politician on a morning
talk show. Right now the whole world is talking about
DeflateGate and the league is apparently just fine with
that, since it means people are not talking about players
facing murder charges, investigations into domestic abuse,
drunk driving deaths, animal abuse, and any number of
other criminal acts allegedly committed by NFL players.
The NFL has an image problem and the league’s solution
is to hide, cover-up, deny, and ignore things.
I know I may be ranting, but quite frankly I’m sick and
tired of the hypocrisy and double standard applied by
mainstream media to firearms advocacy groups like the
USCCA. Think about this: Has any anti-gun group ever
done anything to effectively promote firearms safety and
the legal use of firearms? Yet those groups still wield
terrible control of what the message to the American
people concerning firearms should be.
So it should come as no surprise that the NFL flatly
refused to allow the USCCA to place this ad in the
Official Super Bowl Program.
What the USCCA advocates is the legal use of a legal
product to defend against illegal aggression. Then,
following a legal self-defense incident, the USCCA will
protect its members from overzealous prosecutors and
civil suits filed by family members of the criminals who
sought to take by force what they were not willing to work
for.
Take a close look at this ad. Despite the fact that there is
not a single mention of firearms…and despite the fact that
we “toned it down” twice at the request of NFL
representatives…and despite the fact that the USCCA
advocates situational awareness and CONFLICT
AVOIDANCE as the most effective means of selfdefense, the NFL would not allow us to advertise in their
Official Super Bowl Program!
Honest, law-abiding citizens have the right to defend
themselves! Yet, the NFL, which is riddled with criminals,
feels like it should censor a message that encourages
education, training, and insurance of the good people of
this country. If the media requires a sound bite here it is:
The USCCA is adamantly opposed to criminal behavior
and encourages only the legal and ethical use of firearms
for justifiable self-defense.
Apparently the NFL runs a family-friendly organization
and will only allow things like dogfighting, domestic
violence, and drug abuse to go unchecked within the
carefully crafted image the league wishes to portray.
Apparently, the legal and ethical use of a constitutionally
protected right in defense of innocent lives is something
the NFL just cannot abide. Apparently the NFL is more
afraid of backlash from Moms Demand BS Gun Laws (or
whatever their name is) than they are afraid of the DEA,
FBI, or local law enforcement.
Why the NFL would choose to censor that message is
beyond the scope of my understanding. So, I would ask
you to take a look at the ad the NFL refused to publish and
send it to all your friends with the message that the NFL
does not appreciate your rights and is taking active steps
to stop businesses from promoting firearms safety
training.
Think about this: Back in 2008, Plaxico Burress SHOT
HIMSELF in the leg while illegally carrying a pistol,
without a holster, into a New York City nightclub. If
Burress had taken some training offered by the USCCA,
he might not have ventilated his right leg (thus saving
himself pain and the league lots of embarrassment).
Perhaps if the NFL would take a page from the USCCA
playbook and stress conflict avoidance and responsible
activities within the bounds of the law, the league would
Why would they do that?
Oh and one more thing: The NHL and NASCAR both
loved our advertising. Seems those groups are more
interested in what is right than what is politically correct.
Kevin Michalowski is the Executive Editor of Concealed
Carry Magazine.
1
Gordon College and all Christian Colleges Must Jump Through the Hoops!
By Don Boys, Ph.D.
Can any Christian college president and Board of
Trustees permit an accrediting agency or the
Federal Government to interfere, supervise, and
mandate rules for them? Of course, the answer
should be “no,” however, that is a lost cause. The
fact is, those very school officials capitulated many
years ago when they decided they needed the
secular stamp of approval upon their schools. It is
called accreditation. Almost all Christian colleges have
sought and received government approval through
regional accreditation.
The Federal Government and the regional
accrediting associations are in control of education
and will enforce radical, immoral, unscriptural
regulations upon all religious educational
institutions. At this moment, Gordon College
which is near Boston is under the gun because
they are critical of fornication and homosexual
activities among staff and students. Can you
believe a Christian College would be so narrow-minded
and demanding?
A recent Gordon graduate stated “The current policy
creates a sense of fear for LGBTQ students and is
psychologically harmful to those in the community” and
added “Campus should be a safe place for all students.”
Of course, all students should be physically safe on all
campuses but the question that demands an answer is,
“Why are practicing homosexuals permitted to be students
in a Christian college?” Moreover, even if homosexuals
are permitted, is it prima facie evidence that a prohibition
against immorality (fornication or perversion) results in an
unsafe atmosphere?
Christian educators know that parents are uninformed and
have been brainwashed into believing that accreditation
and qualification are synonymous. So Christian educators
drank the grape Kool-Aid many years ago and some of
them said to me as they wiped their quivering lips, “We
will go along with accreditation as long as they don’t tell
us how to run our school, what to teach, and what
textbooks to use.” Of course, that is exactly what
happened. Those same people did respond to the iron fist
by wringing their hands, whining, and whimpering but
they adjusted to the surrender of their basic educational
and scriptural principles. They sold out to get handouts
from government such as grants, loans, and other benefits,
enabling students to receive government funds.
Gordon officials want to quell any rumors and concern
about the school’s status since that would have devastating
effects on enrollment and fundraising. If Gordon College
is now under the regulators’ gun it could lose its
organizational stamp of approval. Gordon must fix
whatever needs fixing before September. It is a fact that
the accrediting agency does not like Gordon (or any
college) prohibiting “homosexual practice” and the
banning of “sexual relations outside of marriage.” A
committee, during an 18-month “period of discernment”
has been looking for a way to fix the problem. A working
group includes students (one is homosexual), faculty,
staff, administrators, and trustees who will read books and
meet with experts to fix the problem.
Today, Christian college registrars cannot even inform the
tuition-paying parents the status of their children‘s
education unless the student signs a consent form! Parents
are fools to pay tuition without that signed consent form.
Required chapel attendance has been forsaken and,
generally, school officials are walking through a minefield
of government and accrediting association regulations.
Some of us in Christian education said many years ago
that what government (at any level) funds, it runs; and if
you take the government’s nickel, you will get their noose.
Christian educators took the chance and now operate with
a noose, loose in some cases, but a noose around their
necks while standing on a weak, wobbly, wormy, and
worthless scaffold called accreditation.
Just a minute. It won’t take 18 months since the “period of
discernment” can be accomplished in 18 seconds. I’m a
very simple person so I’m simplistic at times. A question
must be asked: Are homosexuality and fornication
forbidden by the Bible? Any third-rate Bible scholar
would admit that fact, although maybe without
enthusiasm. So, another question: Is it permissible for a
Christian institution to make flagrant decisions in
disobedience to His Word? Another question: Why does it
take 18 months or 18 minutes? Gordon’s answer to the
accrediting agency must be “Go pound sand.” Now, that is
not an academic reply but it is an audacious, admirable,
and accurate reply.
Now comes the next step when the Federal bureaucracy,
not just the state or an accreditation agency, can set the
guidelines for any school that awards a degree, diploma or
certificate. Federal educational thugs can determine what
courses must be taught for each degree, what constitutes a
credit hour, how many hours a professor may teach, and
what books will be used. And on and on and on.
Can any Christian college president justify permitting any
agency to interfere in the discipline of students (sounds
quaint, doesn’t it) and to set standards for those students?
2
How about a college’s stand on abortion, homosexuality,
fornication (very quaint), and other “sins”? Therefore,
those colleges that decide not to abide by new regulations
(that may not be too intrusive at the beginning) can expect
to lose tax exemption, all student loans, grants, and any
benefit from state and Federal Government.
jump through to satisfy state, federal, and regional
accrediting dictates. And note that dictates is not far from
dictators.
Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of
Representatives, author of 15 books, frequent guest on
television and radio talk shows, and wrote columns for
USA Today for 8 years. His shocking books, ISLAM:
America's Trojan Horse!; Christian Resistance: An Idea
Whose Time Has Come–Again!; and The God Haters are
all available at Amazon.com.
School officials will have to jump through government
hoops in order to satisfy the federal bureaucrats and even
fools know that federal bureaucrats are never satisfied.
All presidents of Christian colleges had better practice
jumping because there are numerous hoops they must
Moneynews
UK Hedge-Fund Star Odey: Coming Recession
Will Be 'Remembered in 100 Years'
By Dan Weil
U.K. hedge fund heavyweight Crispin Odey, founder of
Odey Asset Management, warns that current global
economic weakness will lead to a recession that will be
remembered for the next century.
dangerous point," the Daily Mail quoted him as saying. "If
economic activity far from picks up, but falters, then there
will be a
Meanwhile, Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at
Allianz, sees two risks to the global financial system.
Major economies are on the precipice of another financial
crisis, he wrote in a letter to shareholders obtained by the
(London) Daily Mail.
"One is you have companies that are unhedged" when it
comes to currency moves, he told CNBC. The dollar has
hit multi-year highs against multiple currencies in recent
weeks.
"‘This down-cycle is likely to be remembered in 100
years, when we hope it won’t be rated for ‘How good it
looks for its age!’"
U.S. companies already are suffering hits to their earnings.
"But that's nothing compared to emerging market
corporations that are unhedged." El-Erian said.
And that, of course, is bad news for stocks.
"Equity markets will get devastated," said Odey, who
added that this is the best time to short equities since the
2008 financial crisis — betting on shares in companies
slumping in value.
"The second issue is this notion of lower volatility, the
ability of central banks to repress volatility. They're
battling. Look at the Russian central bank today. Look at
the Swiss central bank today."
Turmoil in financial markets, including oil's plunge to 5
½-year lows, and China's "faltering economy" will help
spark the global downturn, said Odey, who made millions
after correctly predicting the 2008 global credit crunch.
Russia's central bank is toiling to buoy the ruble, which
has dropped by almost half over the past six months. And
the Swiss Central Bank dropped its ceiling for the franc
earlier this month.
But Odey doesn't expect the European Central Bank's
quantitative easing program to save the eurozone
economy.
"If we shake this low volatility paradigm, then we're
undermining a main element of policy," El-Erian said.
"My point is that we used all our monetary firepower to
avoid the first downturn in 2007, so we really are at a
3
What's Next – Composting Dead Babies?
Notes Seattle forbids tossing out orange peel, but not the unborn
By Patrice Lewis
you (and shame you) when your waste habits don’t
meet their rigid standards?
Out here on our farm, we have many methods of
waste disposal.
It seems to me that progressives spend their entire
lives fighting against freedom. The Constitution and
Bill of Rights were conceived with the notion of minimal
governmental intrusion into our personal lives, but liberals
hate personal responsibility and individual liberty. Instead
they prefer draconian laws and rigid regulations to bring
everyone into compliance with their vision of urban
Utopia – except for one thing: their sex lives. In that area,
not only do they want NO responsibility and NO
restrictions, but they also want the government (meaning,
you and me) to pay for every facet, fallout and stupid
decision that results from that lack of responsibility and
restraint.
Human waste, of course, is flushed into the septic
system. Barn waste gets heaped onto a giant compost
pile, where it eventually breaks down and is worked into
our half-acre garden or shared with neighbors. Burnable
waste gets tossed in our wood stove (during colder
months). Recyclables get recycled, which is a chore since
the nearest recycling center is an hour’s drive away. Food
waste is divvied into scraps for the chickens or dogs, or
composted along with garden waste (I’m also looking into
worm composting). And of course sometimes there’s plain
ol’ garbage, a lot less than the American norm since we
don’t buy a lot of prepackaged stuff.
And once, a couple of years ago, we had a calf born dead
– the first we’ve ever lost. Because we didn’t want it to
attract predators, we buried it.
Liberals are expected to have the self-control to compost
their banana peels, but not to keep their knees together or
their wick zipped until marriage. Apparently, it’s easier
(and more moral) to force someone to compost their
coffee grounds than to force someone to take
responsibility for their sexual behavior. In progressive
cities, you can’t toss away your apple core or you’ll get a
red tag … but you can walk into an abortion center and
toss away a living baby without a second thought.
But if there’s one thing we don’t have, it’s nosy
busybodies sniffing around our property, making sure we
comply with someone else’s rigid requirements of how we
should manage our waste stream.
The same cannot be said for certain progressive
municipalities such as Seattle, where sniffing through
strangers’ garbage is apparently an accepted part of life.
Not only that, but people can be shamed in front of their
neighbors by the use of bright red tags on garbage cans
announcing to the world that the evil people within that
house (gasp) threw away a rotting banana.
This is the kind of nanny state progressives long for, a
place where uncomposted coffee grounds or orange peels
are horrifying, but abortions are easy, encouraged, or even
celebrated.
Progressives like to claim a woman has the “right” to rip a
living fetus from her body – but not to toss a rotting
banana in the trash. Is it just me, or does anyone else think
this is twisted logic? And what do they do with thousands
of dead babies? Do they compost them? I mean, wouldn’t
that be the ecologically friendly thing to do?
You see, it’s now against the law to throw away food in
Seattle and certain other cities. Food waste cannot be put
into regular garbage cans – it must be composted. And to
make sure your waste doesn’t contain any forbidden
coffee grounds or rotting bananas, the city employs
garbage police.
The logic of liberals escapes me. It seems it’s the norm to
demonize the disposal of food waste while being utterly
uncaring to the fate of unborn children. People can be
shamed in front of their neighbors for throwing away
coffee grounds, but praised by all society for the
“courage” to abort a baby so it wouldn’t interfere with
their lifestyle. People can be humiliated for their lack of
self-control when it comes to waste, but praised and
encouraged for their lack of control when it comes to
hooking up or “expressing their sexuality.”
These waste watchers are called “recologists” and are
hired by urban bureaucrats to make sure you don’t commit
the unspeakable sin of tossing that rotting banana into the
trash. “You can see all the oranges and coffee grounds,”
said one recologist in Seattle as he lifted the lid of a
garbage can. “All that makes great compost. You can put
that in your compost bin and buy it back next year in a bag
and put it in your garden.”
Look, I don’t have any objection to composting, recycling
and sensible waste management. But doesn’t it creep you
out when strangers paw through your garbage and fine
It strikes me that if places like Seattle stopped being so
draconian about waste disposal and instead stopped
funding irresponsible and poor sexual choices, there might
4
conservatives are heartless cretins out to destroy women’s
“rights” by suggesting they bear any fruit
they willingly conceive.
be an increase in peoples’ personal restraint and selfcontrol. After all, one of the reasons people are
irresponsible with their sex lives in the first place is
because the government pays them to procreate out of
wedlock. Worse, it encourages people to abort unwanted
babies into the waste stream, with less regard than rotting
bananas and coffee grounds.
Read it again. If you don’t want a child, keep your legs
crossed or your wick zipped. Abstinence works 100
percent of the time. By taking personal responsibility for
your procreation, imagine how well you can minimize
your waste stream.
Seattle and other progressive cities do their best to retire
food waste with dignity. But what happens to wasted
fetuses? Are they treated to a dignified burial, or are they
tossed away like a dead calf or “composted” in
incinerators?
That way, you’ll have lots more time to compost your
kitchen scraps without bringing death into the equation.
Patrice Lewis is a freelance writer whose latest book
is "The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life more
Livable." She is co-founder (with her husband) of a home
woodcraft business. The Lewises live on 20 acres in north
Idaho with their two homeschooled children, assorted
livestock, and a shop that overflows into the house with
depressing regularity.
What a sad, twisted, mixed-up world where banana peels
are treated with more care than dead baby cows, and
certainly better than dead baby people. In such a world,
good is evil and evil is good.
I’m certain the progressives reading this column will miss
my point entirely. They’ll twist my words to infer how
Obama must finally end NSA phone record collection
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
The PCLOB, however, found in a January 2014
report that the bulk phone records collection had not
stopped terrorist attacks and had “limited value” in
combatting terrorism more broadly. Despite the
NSA effort’s repeated blessing by a secret
surveillance court, the PCLOB considered the
program illegal.
Obama, like every other Permanent Dictator of the US,
gives a smiley face to the Empire's skunk works. It's a tag
team endeavor, with "conservative" Republicans and
"liberal" Democrats taking turns to turning their
constituency to support big-government projects. So
Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush put a conservative
veneer on such liberal projects as amnesty for illegal
aliens. Obama's major focus has been to expand the power
of the national security state while silencing potential
liberal critics. Even when the (toothless) Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board (PCLOB) advises curtailing
citizen surveillance, the liberals remains eerily quiet. From
the Guardian:
Interesting, isn't it, that we have to look to the British
press to find out what DC's up to? Kind of sad.
So you can bet Obama's going to refuse to scale back
citizen surveillance. Why? Because government spying
has NOTHING to do with protecting "the Homeland"
from terror attacks, and everything to do with protecting
the government from its subjects. It's possible -- despite
the overwhelming evidence -- that the serfs might one day
discover their backbones and demand an end to illegal
spying, endless wars, demographic revolution, etc.
... the rise of the Islamic State (Isis), the terrorist
attack in Paris and a Republican-led Congress
increasingly willing to use those phenomena as a
cudgel against privacy advocates have complicated
congressional attitudes to mass surveillance.
It could happen.
5
And the Winner Is ... Government!
Describes how the State grows ... each time we breathe
By Craige McMillan
“Well, the world is more complex now, you
dunderhead.” Well, it sure is. And a big part of that
complexity is all the regulations promulgated by that
ever-growing army of government “promulgators”
here to help us. And God help the person stumbling
around in a swamp full of alligators trying to drain the
swamp, who inadvertently trips over one of those newly
promulgated babies. You will wish you’d just drowned or
been eaten by the alligators and had it over with instead!
One would think that with about 6,000 years of
recorded history to draw upon, someone,
somewhere, would have written down the various
scams governments have used throughout those ages
to grow themselves and diminish their citizens.
But maybe not. Current events seem to conspire with
history to make us think, “but this time it will be
different!”
Alas, it never is. Government, once instituted, seems to do
only one thing. It gets bigger. When times are good,
government grows faster. When times are bad,
government grows slower.
And speaking of promulgations, why is it that when times
are at their very worst, government grows at its very
fastest? Bush the younger, as he was skating out of the
White House at the end of his second term, just couldn’t
leave without spending that three-quarters of a trillion
dollars we didn’t have. And not to be outdone, the
incoming caretaker spent another seven-and-a-quarter
trillion during his time there. And he’s not gone yet!
When Democrats are elected, government grows bigger.
When Republicans are elected, government grows bigger.
When the nation is at peace, government grows. When the
nation goes to war, government grows.
At some point, the question has to be asked: Just how
much government does one person need to survive?
Whenever we breathe, it seems, government grows.
But why?
All of this is done, of course, to “help” us. But 6,000 years
of recorded human history plainly shows it never will
achieve that goal. The Founding Fathers studied this and
wisely limited the federal government by limiting its
income to a tariff on imported goods. State governments
they left to compete with one another for commerce,
thereby limiting state government growth potential.
It always makes me wonder how the generation before us
got along without all the government we have today. And
the generation before them – how did they make do
without as much government as their children ended up
with? And the one before them … and before them … and
before that one … If all those generations got along
without all that government, why do we need it?
Government, no matter how well-intentioned, how sweetsmelling, good looking and full of smiles and promises it
is, always metastasizes into an ugly cancer that grows
uncontrollably until the host is choked off and dies. It
seems simple enough: Money spent on government can’t
be spent on something else. So the more government you
have, the less of anything else there is. Pretty soon …
well, you get the picture. And it’s not just money; it’s
freedom, and eventually life. You become a slave to the
government. And when you are no longer useful for
adding to the coffers, well, it’s off to the coffin.
Are the streets safer, now that we have more government
than our parents and grandparents did?
Are children more polite and better educated than we
were?
Is there more economic opportunity for children today to
gain the skills needed in the workplace or in running a
business?
Are we more healthy? Wealthy? Wise? (Please do keep in
mind that a dollar in your pocket today is worth the same
as 2 cents before the government began “helping” to
preserve the buck’s purchasing power.)
The Native Americans, who were here well before us,
seemed to manage with just a few elders who met over
dinner now and then, booted out troublemakers and
adjudicated disputes. I guess if nothing else we’ve showed
them how to do it, huh?
Heck, are the streets even in better repair than they were
when our parents and grandparents were driving the
family on vacation on all those new interstate highways
that were being built?
Craige McMillan is a longtime commentator for WND.
6
The Christian Post
You Thought Conservatives Were Moralistic? Liberal Rules for Political
Correctness Are Repressive, Exhausting, Liberal Author Complains
By Napp Nazworth, Christian Post Reporter
While conservatives are often considered moralistic to a
fault, liberal moralism has become so repressive that some
liberals now fear everyday conversations.
college campus. The pro-life students were holding signs
in a designated "free-speech zone" on campus. Chait was
astounded at how many liberals came to the defense of the
professor. Merely expressing a conservative viewpoint is
considered a "threatening act" which justifies "vandalism,
battery, and robbery."
In a Tuesday article for New York Magazine, a liberal
publication, Jonathan Chait wrote about the new "political
correctness," which now comes in the form of phrases like
"trigger warnings," "microaggressions" or "mansplaining."
These new liberal rules, Chait wrote, is a "system of leftwing ideological repression." Those rules are so stifling,
any meaningful debate in liberal circles is cut off.
"By the logic of the p.c. movement, [the professor] was
the victim of a trigger and had acted in the righteous cause
of social justice," he wrote.
The p.c.-culture-liberals are not liberal at all, Chait wrote.
He made a distinction between "liberals" and "leftist" or
"the Marxist left." Liberals still believe in freedom of
speech and expression, while the Marxist left, which has
moved from academia to the mainstream of the American
Left, is dismissive of liberal's commitment to protecting
the freedom of political opponents.
"A community, virtual or real, that adheres to the rules is
deemed 'safe.' The extensive terminology plays a crucial
role, locking in shared ideological assumptions that make
meaningful disagreement impossible," he explained.
The victims of the new political correctness, Chait pointed
out, are not just conservatives; often, they are liberal. He
interviewed several liberals for the article and his thesis
was provided further confirmation when some asked not
to be identified for fear of retribution from their fellow
liberals.
Chait predicts (or maybe just hopes) that the new political
correctness will fade away, much like it did in the early
1990s. The "fatal drawback" of p.c. culture, he wrote, is
that the constant policing of the boundaries of what is
considered proper behavior, and keeping up with what
those rules are when everyone claims some form of
victimhood, requires too much time and energy. "It is
exhausting," he wrote.
An unidentified "professor at a prestigious university" told
Chait that she and her colleagues are so "terrified of facing
accusations of triggering trauma" that they avoid
"traditional academic work of intellectual exploration."
"This is an environment of fear," she said in explaining
her need for anonymity.
Chait's article has received much attention from both the
left and right of the political spectrum. Indeed, the
reactions have been so numerous that the whole episode
has been dubbed, "Chait vs. the Internet."
Chait also spoke to Hanna Rosin, a liberal feminist.
Rosin's book, The End of Men, which argues that women
are better positioned to succeed in our post-industrial
society than men, was mocked so much by her fellow
feminists (because it was insufficiently outraged at
sexism) that Rosin now says she avoids publicly making
arguments that are out-of-step with feminist norms.
Most of the conservatives said they agreed with Chait but
complained that he has been part of the problem he
describes. Many of the reactions from liberals, meanwhile,
appear to confirm Chait's argument.
Chait claimed that for modern liberals ideas themselves do
not matter as much as the race, gender or sexual
preference of the person putting forth the idea. Almost on
queue, Alex Pareen began his response for Gawker with:
"So, here is sad white man Jonathan Chait's essay about
the difficulty of being a white man in the second age of
'political correctness.'"
"The price is too high; you feel like there might be
banishment waiting for you," she told Chait.
Whenever one is accused of an offense in "p.c. culture,"
Chait explains, there is no use in trying to defend oneself.
Any attempt to do so is also considered an offense. And if
you ask your accusers to be less hostile in their
denouncements you will be accused of "tone policing."
Writing for Talking Points Memo, Amanda Marcotte
agreed that some of Chait's examples, such as the
professor who assaulted a pro-life activist and harassment
of conservatives, point to some serious problems among
liberals. But his other examples, such as the mocking of
"Political correctness makes debate irrelevant and
frequently impossible," Chait complained.
Chait also wrote about the pro-life activists who were
assaulted by a feminist studies professor on a California
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Rosin on Twitter, were innocent fun and examples of the
free speech Chait wants to protect.
mainly to what is being said, while fatuous children pay
attention mainly to who is saying it. Chait is hardly in a
position to complain about that, given his own heavy
reliance on that mode of discourse. Chait isn't arguing for
taking an argument on its own merits; he's arguing for a
liberals' exemption to the Left's general hostility toward
any unwelcome idea that comes from a speaker who
checks any unapproved demographic boxes, the number of
which — 'cisgendered,' etc. — is growing in an
appropriately cancerous fashion. "White males" is a
category that includes Jonathan Chait and Rush
Limbaugh, and Chait, naturally, doesn't like that much,"
Williamson concurred.
On the conservative side, Sean Davis at The
Federalist and Kevin Williamson at National Review both
argued that Chait is a flawed messenger because he has
engaged in the same type of behavior he has criticized. He
has only come to notice the left-wing's authoritarian
instincts after they were directed toward him.
"I'm glad Chait has suddenly decided that speech policing
is a terrible idea. He's only a couple hundred years behind
the times, but better late than never, I suppose.
Unfortunately, I don't think he's all that sincere about it. In
fact, I think he just opposes speech codes when they're
used against him or his fellow travelers. And the reason I
think that is because I've actually read what Jonathan
Chait has written about people on the right who disagree
with him," Davis wrote.
National Review colleague Jonah Goldberg urged
Williamson to show more leniency toward Chait: "If, for
the sake of argument, Chait was completely wrong until
now, this article demonstrates he's at least a little less
wrong. That's progress. Most intellectual awakenings
happen in pieces."
"Chait is stumbling, in his way, toward the realization that
in political arguments intelligent adults pay attention
Newsmax
UC Davis Students Vote to Boycott Israel, Shout 'Allahu Akhbar'
By Cathy Burke
Anti-Israel activists at the University of California, Davis,
heckled Jewish students with shouts of "Allahu Akhbar" at
a vote to endorse a boycott of the Jewish state, the
Washington Free Beacon reports.
Hamas has been designated as a terrorist organization by
the United States.
Last weeks’ vote "does not reflect the position of U.C.
Davis or the University of California system," U.C. Davis
Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi said in a statement, the Free
Beacon reports.
The Free Beacon reports the outburst came last Thursday
when pro-Israel students tried to counter a student
government resolution to divest from Israel; activists
waving Palestinian flags shouted at the pro-Israel students
as they walked out ahead of an 8-2 vote in favor of
divestment.
"The investment policy for the University of California
system, including U.C. Davis, is set by the U.C. Board of
Regents."
She added the Board and Office of the President issued a
statement on students resolutions urging divestiture from
companies doing business with Israel, noting it "reiterates
the Board’s position that this type of call to action will not
be entertained," the Free Beacon reports.
A video provided to the newspaper by pro-Israel student
group, Aggies for Israel, showed a group shouting "Allahu
Akhbar!" in unison as the pro-Israel students walked out.
The vote was supported by the pro-Hamas group Students
for Justice in Palestine, the Free Beacon reports.
After the rancorous student meeting, vandals spraypainted swastikas on the fraternity house of the Jewish
AEPi organization, the Free Beacon reports.
According to the anti-Islamic extremism group, the
Clarion Project, student senator Azka Fayyaz declared
afterward on her Facebook page "Hamas and Sharia law
have taken over UC Davis."adding she later posted: "Israel
will fall insha'Allah."
A campus spokesman told the Free Beacon Davis, Calif.,
police are investigating the incident as a hate crime.
8
How to Start a Nuclear War
By Eric Margolis
heavy rocket fire and salvos of anti-aircraft
missiles. Both sides will take heavy casualties and
rush in reinforcements.
The United States has just made an exceptionally
dangerous, even reckless decision over Ukraine.
Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet leader who ended
the Cold War, warns it may lead to a nuclear
confrontation with Russia.
Does anyone think the Russians, who lost close to
40 million soldiers and civilians in World War II,
won’t fight to defend their Motherland?
Rule number one of geopolitics: nuclear-armed
powers must never, ever fight.
Heavy conventional fighting could quickly lead to
commanders calling for tactical nuclear strikes delivered
by aircraft and missiles. This was a constant fear in nearly
all NATO v Warsaw Pact Cold War scenarios – and the
very good reason that both sides avoided direct
confrontation and confined themselves to using proxy
forces.
Yet Washington just announced that by spring, it will
deploy unspecified numbers of military “trainers” to
Ukraine to help build Kiev’s ramshackle national guard.
Also being sent are significant numbers of US special
heavy, mine resistant armored vehicles that have been
widely used in Afghanistan and Iraq. The US and Poland
are currently covertly supplying Ukraine with some
weapons.
Tactical nuclear strikes can lead to strategic strikes, then
intercontinental attacks. In a nuclear confrontation, as in
naval battles, he who fires first has a huge advantage.
The US soldiers will just be for training, and the number
of GI’s will be modest, claim US military sources. Of
course. Just like those small numbers of American
“advisors” and “trainers” in Vietnam that eventually grew
to 550,000. Just as there are now US special forces in
over 100 countries. We call it “mission creep.”
“We can’t allow Russia to keep Crimea,” goes another
favorite neocon mantra. Why not? Hardly any Americans
could even find Crimea on a map.
Crimea belonged to Russia for over 200 years. I’ve been
all over the great Russian naval base at Sevastopol. It
became part of Ukraine when Kiev declared independence
in 1991, but the vital base was always occupied and
guarded by Russia’s military. Ukrainians were a minority
in the Crimea – whose original Tatar inhabitants were
mostly ethnically cleansed by Stalin. Most of those
Russian troops who supposedly “invaded” Ukraine
actually came from the giant Sevastopol base, which was
under joint Russian and Ukrainian sovereignty.
The war-craving neocons in Washington and their allies in
Congress and the Pentagon have long wanted to pick a
fight with Russia and put it in its place for daring to
oppose US policies against Iran, Syria and Palestine. What
neocons really care about is the Mideast.
Some neocon fantasies call for breaking up the Russian
Federation into small, impotent parts. Many Russians
believe this is indeed Washington’s grand strategy, mixing
military pressure on one hand and social media subversion
on the other, aided by Ukrainian oligarchs and rightists. A
massive propaganda campaign is underway, vilifying
Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin as “the new Hitler.”
Only fools and the ignorant can have believed that tough
Vlad Putin would allow Ukraine’s new rightist regime to
join NATO and hand one of Russia’s most vital bases and
major exit south to the western alliance.
Back to eastern Ukraine. You don’t have to be a second
Napoleon to see how a big war could erupt.
Two of Crimea’s cities, Sevastopol and Kerch, were
honored as “Hero Cities” of the Soviet Union for their
gallant defense in World War II. Over 170,000 Soviet
soldiers died in 1942 defending Sevastopol in a brutal,
170-day siege. Another 100,000 died retaking the
peninsula in 1944.
Ukrainian National Guard forces, stiffened by American
“volunteers” and “private contractors,” and led by US
special forces, get in a heavy fire fight with pro-Russian
separatist forces. Washington, whose military forces are
active in the Mideast, Central America, the Philippines,
Africa, Afghanistan, Pakistan, South Korea, has been
blasting Moscow for allegedly sending some 9,000
soldiers into neighboring Ukraine.
In total, well over 16 million Soviet soldiers died in the
war, destroying in the process 70% of the German
Wehrmacht and 80% of the Luftwaffe. By contrast, US
losses in that war, including the Pacific, were 400,000.
The Americans, who have never been without total air
superiority since the 1950’s Korean War, call in US and
NATO air support. Pro-Russian units, backed by Russian
military forces just across the border, will reply with
One might as well ask Texas to give up the Alamo or
Houston as to order Russia to get out of Crimea, a giant
graveyard for the Red Army and the German 11th army.
9
involved in military operations there when the US is still
bogged down in the Mideast and Afghanistan is daft. Even
more so, when President Barack Obama’s “pivot toward
Asia” is gathering momentum.
In 2013, President Putin proposed a sensible negotiated
settlement to the Ukraine dispute: autonomy for eastern
Ukraine and its right to speak Russians as well as
Ukrainian. If war or economic collapse is to be avoided,
this is the solution. Eastern Ukraine was a key part of the
Soviet economy. Its rusty heavy industry would be wiped
out if Ukraine joined the EU – just as was East Germany’s
obsolete industries when Germany reunified.
Didn’t two world war at least teach the folly of waging
wars on two fronts?
Eric Margolis is the author of War at the Top of the
World and the new book, American Raj: Liberation or
Domination?: Resolving the Conflict Between the West
and the Muslim World.
So now it appears that Washington’s economic warfare
over Ukraine is going to turn military, even though the US
has no strategic or economic interests in Ukraine. Getting
The Guardian (UK)
Iceland to build first temple to Norse gods since Viking age
A modern version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in recent years
as followers see the stories as metaphors for life not worship of the gods
Örn Hilmarsson, high priest of Ásatrúarfélagið, an
association that promotes faith in the Norse gods.
“We see the stories as poetic metaphors and a
manifestation of the forces of nature and human
psychology.”
Membership in Ásatrúarfélagið has tripled in Iceland in
the last decade to 2,400 members last year, out of a total
population of 330,000, data from
StatisticsIceland showed.
The temple will be circular and will be dug 4 metres (13ft)
down into a hill overlooking the Icelandic capital
Reykjavik, with a dome on top to let in the sunlight.
High priest Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson and fellow members of
the Asatru Association attend a ceremony at the Pingvellir
National Park near Reykjavik. Photograph: Reuters
“The sun changes with the seasons so we are in a way
having the sun paint the space for us,” Hilmarsson said.
Icelanders will soon be able to publicly worship at a shrine
to Thor, Odin and Frigg with construction starting this
month on the island’s first major temple to the Norse gods
since the Viking age.
The temple will host ceremonies such as weddings and
funerals. The group will also confer names to children and
initiate teenagers, similar to other religious communities.
Worship of the gods in Scandinavia gave way
to Christianity around 1,000 years ago but a modern
version of Norse paganism has been gaining popularity in
Iceland.
Iceland’s neo-pagans still celebrate the ancient sacrificial
ritual of Blot with music, reading, eating and drinking, but
nowadays leave out the slaughter of animals.
“I don’t believe anyone believes in a one-eyed man who
is riding about on a horse with eight feet,” said Hilmar
10
Secession Begins at Home
By Jeff Deist
dismiss secession, the pragmatic alternative that’s staring
us in the face?
Presumably everyone in this room, or virtually everyone,
is here today because you have some interest in the topic
of secession. You may be interested in it as an abstract
concept or as a viable possibility for escaping a federal
government that Americans now fear and distrust in
unprecedented numbers.
Since most of us in the room are Americans, my focus
today is on the political and cultural situation here at
home. But the same principles of self-ownership, selfdetermination, and decentralization apply universally —
whether we’re considering Texas independence or dozens
of active breakaway movements in places like Venice,
Catalonia, Scotland, and Belgium.
As Mises wrote in 1927:
The situation of having to belong to a state to which
one does not wish to belong is no less onerous if it is
the result of an election than if one must endure it as
the consequence of a military conquest.
I truly believe secession movements represent the last best
hope for reclaiming our birthright: the great classical
liberal tradition and the civilization it made possible. In a
world gone mad with state power, secession offers hope
that truly liberal societies, organized around civil society
and markets rather than central governments, can still
exist.
I’m sure this sentiment is shared by many of you. Mises
understood that mass democracy was no substitute for
liberal society, but rather the enemy of it. Of course he
was right: nearly 100 years later, we have been conquered
and occupied by the state and its phony veneer of
democratic elections. The federal government is now the
putative ruler of nearly every aspect of life in America.
Secession as a “Bottom-Up” Revolution
“But how could this ever really happen?” you’re probably
thinking.
That’s why we’re here today entertaining the audacious
idea of secession — an idea Mises elevated to a defining
principle of classical liberalism.
Wouldn’t creating a viable secession movement in the US
necessarily mean convincing a majority of Americans, or
at least a majority of the electorate, to join a mass political
campaign much like a presidential election?
It’s tempting, and entirely human, to close our eyes tight
and resist radical change — to live in America’s past.
I say no. Building a libertarian secession movement need
not involve mass political organizing: in fact, national
political movements that pander to the Left and Right may
well be hopelessly naïve and wasteful of time and
resources.
But to borrow a line from the novelist L.P. Hartley, “The
past is a foreign country, they do things differently there.”
The America we thought we knew is a mirage; a memory,
a foreign country.
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is precisely why we
should take secession seriously, both conceptually — as
consistent with libertarianism — and as a real alternative
for the future.
Instead, our focus should be on hyper-localized resistance
to the federal government in the form of a “bottom-up”
revolution, as Hans-Hermann Hoppe terms it.
Does anyone really believe that a physically vast,
multicultural, social democratic welfare state of 330
million people, with hugely diverse economic, social, and
cultural interests, can be commanded from DC indefinitely
without intense conflict and economic strife?
Hoppe counsels us to use what little daylight the state
affords us defensively: just as force is justified only in
self-defense, the use of democratic means is justified only
when used to achieve nondemocratic, libertarian, proprivate property ends.
Does anyone really believe that we can unite under a state
that endlessly divides us? Rich vs. poor, black vs. white,
Hispanic vs. Anglo, men vs. women, old vs. young,
secularists vs. Christians, gays vs. traditionalists,
taxpayers vs. entitlement recipients, urban vs. rural, red
state vs. blue state, and the political class vs. everybody?
In other words, a bottom-up revolution employs both
persuasion and democratic mechanisms to secede at the
individual, family, community, and local level — in a
million ways that involve turning our backs on the central
government rather than attempting to bend its will.
Secession, properly understood, means withdrawing
consent and walking away from DC — not trying to
capture it politically and “converting the King.”
Frankly it seems clear the federal government is hell-bent
on Balkanizing America anyway. So why not seek out
ways to split apart rationally and nonviolently? Why
Secession is Not a Political Movement
11
Wouldn’t the federales simply crush any such
attempt (at localized secession)?
Why is the road to secession not political, at least not at
the national level? Frankly, any notion of a libertarian
takeover of the political apparatus in DC is fantasy, and
even if a political sea change did occur the army of 4.3
million federal employees is not simply going to
disappear.
They surely would like to, but whether or not they
can actually do so is an entirely different question …
it is only necessary to recognize that the members of
the governmental apparatus always represent, even
under conditions of democracy, a (very small)
proportion of the total population.
Convincing Americans to adopt a libertarian political
system — even if such an oxymoron were possible — is a
hopeless endeavor in our current culture.
Hoppe envisions a growing number of “implicitly seceded
territories” engaging in noncompliance with federal
authority:
Politics is a trailing indicator. Culture leads, politics
follows. There cannot be a political sea change in America
unless and until there is a philosophical, educational, and
cultural sea change. Over the last 100 years progressives
have overtaken education, media, fine arts, literature, and
pop culture — and thus as a result they have overtaken
politics. Not the other way around.
Without local enforcement, by compliant local
authorities, the will of the central government is not
much more than hot air.
It would be prudent … to avoid a direct
confrontation with the central government and not
openly denounce its authority …
This is why our movement, the libertarian movement,
must be a battle for hearts and minds. It must be an
intellectual revolution of ideas, because right now bad
ideas run the world. We can’t expect a libertarian political
miracle to occur in an illibertarian society.
Rather, it seems advisable to engage in a policy of
passive resistance and noncooperation. One simply
stops to help in the enforcement in each and every
federal law …
Now please don’t get me wrong. The philosophy of liberty
is growing around the world, and I believe we are winning
hearts and minds. This is a time for boldness, not
pessimism.
Finally, he concludes as only Hoppe could (remember this
is the 1990s):
Waco, a teeny group of freaks, is one thing. But to
occupy, or to wipe out a significantly large group of
normal, accomplished, upstanding citizens is quite
another, and quite a more difficult thing.
Yet libertarianism will never be a mass —which is to say
majority — political movement.
Some people will always support the state, and we
shouldn’t kid ourselves about this. It may be due to
genetic traits, environmental factors, family influences,
bad schools, media influences, or simply an innate human
desire to seek the illusion of security.
Now you may disagree with Dr. Hoppe as to the degree to
which the federal government would actively order
military violence to tamp down any secessionist hotspots,
but his larger point is unassailable: the regime is largely an
illusion, and consent to its authority is almost completely
due to fear, not respect. Eliminate the illusion of
benevolence and omnipotence and consent quickly
crumbles.
But we make a fatal mistake when we dilute our message
to seek approval from people who seemingly are
hardwired to oppose us. And we waste precious time and
energy.
Imagine what a committed, coordinated libertarian base
could achieve in America! 10 percent of the US
population, or roughly thirty-two million people, would be
an unstoppable force of nonviolent withdrawal from the
federal leviathan.
What’s important is not convincing those who
fundamentally disagree with us, but the degree to which
we can extract ourselves from their political control.
This is why secession is a tactically superior approach in
my view: it is far less daunting to convince liberty-minded
people to walk away from the state than to convince those
with a statist mindset to change.
As Hoppe posits, it is no easy matter for the state to arrest
or attack large local groups of citizens. And as American
history teaches, the majority of people in any conflict are
likely to be “fence sitters” rather than antagonists.
What About the Federales?
Now I know what you’re thinking, and so does the
aforementioned Dr. Hoppe:
Left and Right are Hypocrites Regarding Secession
One of the great ironies of our time is that both the
political Left and Right complain bitterly about the other,
12
but steadfastly refuse to consider, once again, the obvious
solution staring us in the face.
Again quoting Mises:
If it were in any way possible to grant this right of
self-determination to every individual person, it
would have to be done. (italics added)
Now one might think progressives would champion the
Tenth Amendment and states’ rights, because it would
liberate them from the Neanderthal right wingers who
stand in the way of their progressive utopia. Imagine
California or Massachusetts having every progressive
policy firmly in place, without any preemptive federal
legislation or federal courts to get in their way, and
without having to share federal tax revenues with the
hated red states.
Furthermore, some conservatives argue that we should not
support secession movements where the breakaway
movement is likely to create a government that is more
“liberal” than the one it replaces. This was the case in
Scotland, where younger Scots who supported the
independence referendum in greater numbers hoped to
create strong ties with the EU parliament in Brussels and
build a Scandinavian-style welfare state run from
Holyrood (never mind that Tories in London were
overjoyed at the prospect of jettisoning a huge number of
Labour supporters!).
Imagine an experiment where residents of the San
Francisco bay area were free to live under a political and
social regime of their liking, while residents of Salt Lake
City were free to do the same.
But if support for the principle of self-determination is to
have any meaning whatsoever, it must allow for others to
make decisions with which we disagree. Political
competition can only benefit all of us. What neither
progressives nor conservatives understand — or worse,
maybe they do understand — is that secession provides a
mechanism for real diversity, a world where we are not all
yoked together. It provides a way for people with widely
divergent views and interests to live peaceably as
neighbors instead of suffering under one commanding
central government that pits them against each other.
Surely both communities would be much happier with this
commonsense arrangement than the current one, whereby
both have to defer to Washington!
But in fact progressives strongly oppose federalism and
states’ rights, much less secession! The reason, of course,
is that progressives believe they’re winning and they don’t
intend for a minute to let anyone walk away from what
they have planned for us.
Democracy is the great political orthodoxy of our times,
but its supposed champions on the Left can’t abide true
localized democracy — which is in fact the stated aim of
secession movements.
Secession Begins With You
Ultimately, the wisdom of secession starts and ends with
the individual. Bad ideas run the world, but must they run
your world?
They’re interested in democracy only when the vote
actually goes their way, and then only at the most
attenuated federal level, or preferably for progressives, the
international level. The last thing they want is local
control over anything! They are the great centralizers and
consolidators of state authority.
The question we all have to ask ourselves is this: how
seriously do we take the right of self-determination, and
what are we willing to do in our personal lives to assert it?
Secession really begins at home, with the actions we all
take in our everyday lives to distance and remove
ourselves from state authority — quietly, nonviolently,
inexorably.
“Live and let live” is simply not in their DNA.
Our friends on the Right are scarcely better on this issue.
Many conservatives are hopelessly wedded to the Lincoln
myth and remain in thrall to the central warfare state, no
matter the cost.
The state is crumbling all around us, under the weight of
its own contradictions, its own fiscal mess, and its own
monetary system. We don’t need to win control of DC.
As an example, consider the Scottish independence
referendum that took place in September of 2014.
What we need to do, as people seeking more freedom and
a better life for future generations, is to walk away from
DC, and make sure we don’t go down with it.
Some conservatives, and even a few libertarians claimed
that we should oppose the referendum on the grounds that
it would create a new government, and thus two states
would exist in the place of one. But reducing the size and
scope of any single state’s dominion is healthy for liberty,
because it leads us closer to the ultimate goal of selfdetermination at the individual level, to granting each of
us sovereignty over our lives.
How To Secede Right Now
So in closing, let me make a few humble suggestions for
beginning a journey of personal secession. Not all of these
may apply to your personal circumstances; no one but you
can decide what’s best for you and your family. But all of
13
us can play a role in a bottom-up revolution by doing
everything in our power to withdraw our consent from the
state:
 secede from the federal tax and regulatory regimes by
organizing your business and personal affairs to be as
tax efficient and unobtrusive as possible;
 Secede from intellectual isolation. Talk to likeminded friends, family, and neighbors — whether
physically or virtually — to spread liberty and
cultivate relationships and alliances. The state prefers
to have us atomized, without a strong family structure
or social network;
 secede from the legal system, by legally protecting
your assets from rapacious lawsuits and probate
courts as much as possible;
 secede from the state healthcare racket by taking
control of your health, and questioning medical
orthodoxy;
 secede from dependency. Become as self-sufficient
as possible with regard to food, water, fuel, cash,
firearms, and physical security at home. Resist being
reliant on government in the event of a natural
disaster, bank crisis, or the like;
 secede from your state by moving to another with a
better tax and regulatory environment, better
homeschooling laws, better gun laws, or just one with
more liberty-minded people;
 secede from political uncertainly in the US by
obtaining a second passport; or
 secede from mainstream media, which promotes the
state in a million different ways. Ditch cable, ditch
CNN, ditch the major newspapers, and find your own
sources of information in this internet age. Take
advantage of a luxury previous generations did not
enjoy;
 secede from the US altogether by expatriating.
 Most of all, secede from the mindset that government
is all-powerful or too formidable an opponent to be
overcome. The state is nothing more than Bastiat’s
great fiction, or Murray’s gang of thieves writ large.
Let’s not give it the power to make us unhappy or
pessimistic.
 secede from state control of your children by
homeschooling or unschooling them;
 secede from college by rejecting mainstream
academia and its student loan trap. Educate yourself
using online learning platforms, obtaining technical
credentials, or simply by reading as much as you can;
All of us, regardless of ideological bent and regardless of
whether we know it or not, are married to a very violent,
abusive spendthrift. It’s time, ladies and gentlemen, to get
a divorce from DC.
 secede from the US dollar by owning physical
precious metals, by owning assets denominated in
foreign currencies, and by owning assets abroad;
Jeff Deist is president of the Mises Institute, a tax
attorney, and a former staffer for Ron Paul.
Xenophobic US Judge Offends Mexican Culture
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
The original headline was "Cartel associate gets 5 more
years for trying to bribe Texas judge," but clearly a Texas
judge committed a gross violation of the Mexican's right
to have his cultural norms respected in a Texas court.
Instead of accepting a bribe to reduce the original
sentence, the Texan judge added five years to the drug
money launderer's 20-year sentence.
violation of New York law, such a union is accepted in
Vietnam, where the two defendants came from.
If New York can see that multicultural America must
submit to the cultural practices of other cultures, Texas
must do the same. After all, in Mexico, a bribe,
or mordida, the "little bite," is the way you get things
done. Being able to bribe a public official is a right that all
Mexicans enjoy, and who are we to say they can't exercise
that right in this country? Get with it, Texas!
Why can't Texas be as enlightened as New York? In
October, a New York court threw out a conviction of
incest against an uncle and his niece because, though in
14
U.S. Escalation in Ukraine Is Illegitimate and Will Make Matters Worse
By Michael S. Rozeff
military relations as hostile, we are seeing the
genesis of Cold War II. This is bad, and it’s the
direct result of U.S. intervention in Ukraine, the U.S.
position on Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia.
These sanctions are really unthinkable.
Steven Pifer, a senior fellow at Brookings, writes
“The West, including the United States, needs to
get serious about assisting Ukraine if it does not
wish to see the situation deteriorate further. That
means committing real money now to aid
Ukraine’s defense.” (
Advice like that of Steven Pifer, which seeks to
expand the U.S. role in Ukraine into military confrontation
with Russia, could not be more wrong. Its main result will
be to escalate the conflict into one between two major
powers. The Ukrainian people, east, west, north and south,
will suffer.
He’s dead wrong. No matter who is in the right or wrong in
Ukraine, the U.S. shouldn’t intervene further. It shouldn’t
have intervened in the first place.
Escalation by the U.S. and European powers will make
matters worse. As a general rule, U.S. interventions make
matters worse and fail to achieve even their advertised
goals, about which one may also be rightly skeptical. See,
for example, this 1994 article arguing a case for the futility
of U.S. interventions.
The two sides are both going outside for help, as often
happens in civil wars. The U.S. should stop being one of
those outsiders providing aid, arms or help to one of the
battling sides. This recommendation does not hinge on
Russia’s actions. It doesn’t hinge on Crimea, on the
downing of MH17, or on Russian tanks, artillery or
personnel, volunteers or regulars. It doesn’t hinge on
borders, the history of Ukraine and Russia, Neo-Nazis,
democracy, or perceived rights and wrongs. Nonintervention is based on the idea that the U.S. government
should not be in the business of righting evils that it
identifies, domestic or foreign.
U.S. interventions tend to intensify wars, resulting in more
and worse civilian casualties and refugees, more and
greater destruction, and more and greater military
casualties.
U.S. interventions result in a more powerful state at home.
Wars and related interventions on any scale establish
precedents for greater powers of the state. The idea of
using the state to eradicate or ameliorate evils takes root.
This idea leads to government that knows no ideological
limits, because evils are everywhere both here and abroad.
As time passes, the state then applies its enhanced powers
in whatever spheres of American life turn out to be
politically favorable. The result after many interventions
and decades is a warfare-welfare-regulatory state, a spyingpolice state, and a state with a massive propaganda
apparatus. The departments of the federal government
control every significant sector of American life.
At a fundamental level, a philosophy of law and
government is the issue. Each of us as persons, if we so
choose, can identify evils and decide what to do about
them. No one of us has willingly or voluntarily deputized
government persons to do this for us. There are no
documents, contracts, or legal instruments that I or anyone
else have signed that have chosen government personnel as
our agents and instructed them to intervene in Ukraine.
There are no such signed and valid contracts that have
given them the power to extract taxes from us to pursue
their quests, visions and crusades. In other words, such
interventions are not legitimate. They are not legitimated.
They are thought to be and said by many persons to be
legitimated by the Constitution and various rituals still
pursued to this day, but they are not. The customs of many
who support government and its attendant interventions do
not make for or justify laws that are applicable to the many
others who demur and dissent from the powers being
imposed on them. Might does not make right. Majority rule
does not make right. Legalisms propounded by might are
not necessarily lawful, although they may accidentally be
so. There really is no lawful link between you and me and
a government action like intervening in Ukraine.
Intervention after intervention by government embeds the
idea that we the people need the government for the sake of
our safety and security. This is a totally false idea.
In the case of Ukraine, U.S. intervention over the past has
already gone wrong. (There is evidence that U.S.
intervention goes back for 70 years.) It has led to sanctions
on Russia. This policy is completely wrong. Confrontation
with Russia is completely against the interests of
Americans. What good does it do to create a world of
hostile relations, a world divided, a world with some
nations cut off and isolated from others, and a world in
which great powers are rivals over a set of lesser nations?
The benighted policy of sanctions has already resulted in
inducing Russia to solidify relations with China, Greece,
Turkey and Iran. As such state-to-state actions go in this
world of states, these moves are not remarkable; but in a
context in which the U.S. regards these new economic and
The U.S. intervenes in a hundred or more countries with
various forms of “aid”, Ukraine being one of them. To
quote one article:
15
that these programs, which bring thousands of foreign
military personnel to the U.S. for education, help instill
American values and establish contacts between the U.S.
and foreign military personnel. (See, for example, here.)
“Since 1992, the government has spent about $5.1 billion
to support democracy-building programs in Ukraine,
Thompson said, with money flowing mostly from the
Department of State via U.S. Agency for International
Development, as well as the departments of Defense,
Energy, Agriculture and others. The United States does this
with hundreds of other countries.
The military portion of the military-industrial complex
promotes its own size and scope, so as to retain its access
to resources extracted from taxpayers. It defines new
missions and propagandizes them as important or essential.
Interventions are its business. This is the case in Ukraine
and other trouble spots. The military battens on trouble
spots as do its suppliers. Promotions are helped by active
duty, combat and missions engaged in, even if they are not
missions accomplished. These interventions do no good to
Americans who are outside the military-industrial orbit.
“About $2.4 billion went to programs promoting peace and
security, which could include military assistance, border
security, human trafficking issues, international narcotics
abatement and law enforcement interdiction, Thompson
said. More money went to categories with the objectives of
‘governing justly and democratically’ ($800 million),
‘investing in people’ ($400 million), economic growth
($1.1 billion), and humanitarian assistance ($300 million).”
Pifer’s article is co-written with Strobe Talbott. Steven
Pifer is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution’s
Center on the United States and Europe. He is Director of
Brookings’ Arms Control Initiative. Strobe Talbott is
President of the Brookings Institution. Six other members
of the establishment join them in their recommendation,
which includes supplying Ukraine with lethal aid, radar,
anti-armor weapons, etc. These persons are “former U.S.
representative to NATO Ivo Daalder, former
undersecretary of defense Michèle Flournoy, former U.S.
ambassador to Ukraine John Herbst, former deputy
undersecretary of defense Jan Lodal, former NATO
European commander James Stavridis and former U.S.
European Command deputy commander Charles Wald.
This article is making the point that the assistance was
humanitarian and that it didn’t lead in a direct line to the
coup d’etat against the democratically-elected government
of Ukraine that has led to the current conflict, with its
attendant miseries imposed on the population of that
country. But whether or not that assistance or even earlier
links of the CIA to elements in Ukraine contributed to
Maidan, what these interventions purportedly do is to fight
what the U.S. government regards as evils and institute
various goods. Fighting evils is, however, precisely what
the U.S. government has no business doing and should not
be doing.
What these interventions do is to establish beachheads of
the U.S. government in a long list of foreign countries.
This often includes military beachheads. These beachheads
provide options for the U.S. government that can be
exercised in the future, including the options of further aid,
further intervention and escalation when conflicts occur.
These beachheads tie the U.S. government to foreign
governments so that the U.S. government can exercise
influence on those governments. Foreign governments
become dependent on foreign aid, IMF loans, World Bank
projects and other such infusions. But foreign governments
then gain influence over the U.S. government. The U.S.
institutions that benefit from the programs and links to
foreign governments become dependent for their own
livelihoods on these activities. They become proponents for
a larger U.S. government that’s responsive to foreign
demands and interests. The U.S. becomes more likely to
become a proponent of foreign interests and to intervene
further.
All of these seem to have learned zip from previous
escalations, such as occurred constantly throughout the
Vietnam War. Their so-called expertise in foreign affairs is
impossible to detect in their recommendation. Pifer is
certainly not living up to his title relating to arms control.
These members of the U.S. elite have not learned a thing
from the escalation in Iraq that graduated from sanctions to
outright aggressive war, from the escalation in Afghanistan
which went from getting bin Laden to taking down the
Taliban government, from the ongoing escalation in Syria
that has produced ISIS and now is totally in confusion,
from the escalation in Libya that wrecked the country and
from the escalation in Yemen, a country now undergoing a
change in government that the U.S. didn’t foresee. Along
similar lines, there was no need for Americans to fight
communism in Vietnam and there is no need for the U.S.
government to fight the devils it perceives are operating in
Ukraine.
The Pentagon and U.S. military, lacking great purposes
after the Cold War, readily embraced interventions along
three lines: drug interdiction, fighting terrorism, and
training foreign military forces, both here and abroad. The
public relations or propaganda arms of the U.S. now say
Michael S. Rozeff is a retired Professor of Finance living
in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free ebook Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination
and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money:
Corruption and Decline.
16
Of Two Minds
Looks Like I'll Be Able to Retire Comfortably at Age 91
By Charles Hugh Smith
This raises the second problem: identifying
those magical high-yielding investments that
won't suddenly turn to dust when the longawaited retirement approaches.
My advice is to focus not on retiring
comfortably, but on working comfortably.
You've probably seen articles and adverts
discussing how much money you'll need to
"retire comfortably." The trick of course is the
definition of comfortable. The general idea of
comfortable (as I understand it) appears to be an
income which enables the retiree to enjoy
leisurely vacations on cruise ships, own a wellappointed RV for tooling around the countryside, and
spend as much time on the golf links as he/she might
want.
In the good old days, plain old savings earned
5.25% annually by federal law. Buying a house
was not a way to get rich quick, it was more like a
forced savings plan, as over time real estate
earned about 1% above the core inflation rate.
But all the safe ways of gaining earned income have
been eradicated by the Federal Reserve. As I described
in The Fed's Solution to Income Stagnation: Make
Everyone a Speculator (January 24, 2014), the status quo
"fix" for economic stagnation was to financialize the U.S.
economy. What this means on the ground is eliminate
safe returns and make everyone a speculator in highrisk, high-yield financial games.
Needless to say, Social Security isn't going to fund a
comfortable retirement, unless the definition is watching
TV with an box of kibble to snack on.
By this definition of retiring comfortably, I reckon I
should be able to retire at age 91--assuming I can work
another 30 years and the creek don't rise.
The essence of financialization is turning debt into a
tradeable security that can be leveraged into
speculative pyramids. If I loan you $100,000 to buy a
house, that loan is called a mortgage. The collateral for the
mortgage is the property. In the pre-financialization era, I
held the mortgage to maturity (30 years) and collected the
interest and principal. This trickle of earnings from
interest was the entire yield on the loan.
Since I earned my first real Corporate America paycheck
at 16 in 1970 (summer job for Dole Pineapple), I've
logged 45 years of work. Now if I'd been smart and
worked for the government, I could have retired 10 years
ago with generous pension and healthcare benefits for life.
But alas, I wasn't smart, so here I am, a self-employed
numbskull.
In the securitized economy, I divide the loan into
tranches that are sold to investors like stocks and
bonds. I can "cash out" my entire gain in the present, and
then sell derivatives on the securitized debt as a form of
"portfolio insurance" to other buyers.
The articles and adverts usually suggest piling up a
hefty nestegg to fund that comfortable retirement. As
near as I can make out, the nestegg should be around $2.6
million--or maybe it's $26 million. Let's just say it's a lot.
Clever financiers can pyramid security on security and
debt on debt, all collateralized by debt on one property.
This presents retirees without generous government
pensions two basic problems. One is making enough
money to pay the bills of survival and set aside the two
million or whatever the number is to retire comfortably.
This enables the generation of vast profits not from
producing goods and services but from financial
churning. The more debt I underwrite, the more I can
securitize and the more debt instruments I can conjure out
of thin air.
The average full-time earned income in the U.S. is around
$50,000, depending on how the statistics are massaged. At
this income, the worker would need to to save every dime
for 40 years to assemble the nestegg. Needless to say, this
isn't practical (unless you inherit a trust fund, in which
case you don't even have to bother with earned income.)
The key dynamic of speculative financialization is that
pyramiding credit expansions lead to bubbles which
eventually pop, wiping out the phantom wealth created
by the bubble.
The magic solution is unearned income, i.e. dividends,
interest, capital gains on investments, etc. If the worker
aiming for that comfortable retirement socks his/her
retirement nestegg in high-yielding investments, the
nestegg will grow over time to the sky (i.e. the $2 million
needed to retire comfortably.)
In effect, the central bank/state's policies of low interest
rates, easy money and limitless liquidity sought to
compensate for the decline of real income by generating
speculative income on a vast scale.
17
cashes out. If the bubbles keep inflating steadily for
another decade, making assets ever-more richly valued
and unaffordable to anyone who isn't using leverage to
buy them, then maybe I could retire after only 55 years of
work at age 71.
The problem is that speculative financialization only
benefits speculators with access to nearly free money and
the securitization markets--Wall Street financiers,
corporate raiders, hedge funds and other financial Elites.
These Elites pocketed immense fortunes but very little of
this wealth trickled down to households for the simple
reason that there is no mechanism for such a transfer
except taxes--and this mechanism is controlled by the
central state, which is easily influenced by wealth
(campaign contributions, lobbying, etc.)
But what are the chances that monumental bubbles in
stocks, bonds and real estate will continue inflating for
another decade? Most gigantic asset bubbles pop after
five years of expansion. The current bubbles are in Year 6
of their speculative expansion, and it seems highly
unlikely that they will be the only bubbles in the history of
humanity to never pop.
The Federal Reserve's solution to stagnating household
income was to make every homeowner into a
speculator. The Great Housing Bubble of the 2000s was
the perfection of this strategy: as every home in the nation
was floating higher in valuation as the result of an
enormous credit/financialization bubble, homeowners
were granted a form of "free income" via home equity
lines of credit (HELOCs) and second mortgages.
If the current bubbles follow the pattern of all other
speculative credit-driven bubbles, they will pop,
without much warning and with devastating
consequences for all those who believed the bubbles
couldn't possibly pop. In that case, it looks like I'll need
to work another 30 years, logging 75 years of labor before
I can retire comfortably at 91.
That this increase in home equity was a form of
phantom wealth that would necessarily vanish was not
advertised as being an intrinsic feature of the solution.
My advice is to focus not on retiring comfortably, but
on working comfortably. Line up work you enjoy that can
be performed in old age. That's a much safer bet than
counting on the serial bubble-blowing machinery of the
Fed to keep inflating speculative bubbles that magically
never pop.
In the wake of the implosion of the housing bubble, the
Fed sought to repeat the exact same strategy of inflating
speculative bubbles in widely held assets: stocks, bonds
and real estate.
Charles Hugh Smith is an American writer and blogger.
So anyone assembling a nestegg for retirement is
gambling that the bubbles don't all pop before he/she
Real Clear Politics
Sharyl Attkisson: If You Cross Obama Administration
They Will Treat You Like "Enemies Of The State"
By Ian Schwartz
For much of history, the United States has held itself
out as a model of freedom, democracy, and open
accountable government. Freedoms of expression
and association are of course protected by the
constitution. Today those freedoms are under assault
due to government policies of secrecy, leak
prevention, and officials contact with the media,
combined with large scale surveillance programs.
The nominee if confirmed should chart a new path
and reject the damaging policies and practices that
have been used by others in the past. If we aren't
grave enough to confront these concerns, it could do
serious long-term damage to a supposedly free press.
Thank you.
Former CBS investigative correspondent testifies at the
confirmation hearing for Attorney General nominee
Loretta Lynch:
SHARYL ATTKISSON: In 2013, Reporters
Without Borders downgraded America's standing in
the global free press rankings, rating the Obama
administration as worse than Bush's. It matters not
that when caught the government promises to dial
back or that [FOX News'] James Rosen gets an
apology. The message has already been received. If
you cross this administration with perfectly accurate
reporting they don't like, you will be attacked and
punished. You and your sources may be subjected to
the kind of surveillance devised for enemies of the
state.
18
Banned? 'Hope,' 'Stand with Rand' and 'Christ Is Risen!'
Briefs argue for Supreme Court to cut down 'heckler's veto'
By Bob Unruh
The suit was brought on behalf of students who
were told by school officials, Principal Nick
Boden and Assistant Principal Miguel Rodriguez,
to turn their flag-themed shirts inside out or
remove them.
Legal teams and experts across the nation are
arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court that the
justices must step into a California school case and
overrule a “heckler’s veto” established by a lower
court to prevent phrases such as “Hope,” “Stand
with Rand,” “Christ is risen!” and the Muslim
shahada from being banned.
The parents of the students named in the case are
John and Dianna Dariano, Kurt and Julie Ann Fagerstrom,
and Kendall and Joy Jones.
It was a 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in a
dispute over American flag T-shirts and the Mexican
Cinco de Mayo holiday that affirmed school officials can
censor the passive speech of students – such as a message
on a T-shirt – if someone else threatens violence because
of it.
Freedom X said the students sued the district “after their
Mexican-American principal, claiming to be acting out of
concern that Mexican students might retaliate with
violence, ordered them to remove their American flag Tshirts or turn them inside out.”
“American students shouldn’t be censored just because
government officials think someone might be offended,”
said Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance
Defending Freedom, one of the legal teams filing friendof-the-court briefs in support of overturning the ruling.
Freedom X President Bill Becker said the 9th Circuit
essentially concluded that the U.S. Constitution “imposes
a one-day-per-year calendar restriction on the right to
display our patriotism.”
“The First Amendment does not give some people free
speech rights while denying it to others,” he contended.
“It’s unbelievable that we need to remind the courts that
American students at an American school have just as
much right to celebrate their heritage as Mexican students
have. If the principal had banned Mexican-American
students from wearing Mexican flag T-shirts on Memorial
Day, you can bet the 9th Circuit would have struck that
down.”
“The Supreme Court has made clear repeatedly that the
government cannot stifle speech on the basis that someone
might consider it controversial,” he said. “To engage in
that kind of censorship is a gross violation of the First
Amendment and the civic virtue of robust debate that
public schools should embrace and encourage among
students.”
WND reported when the request for review by the
Supreme Court was announced by Freedom X and the
Rutherford Institute, which are working on the case with
the Thomas More Law Center.
The American Freedom Law Center said in its own brief
the Supreme Court should decide whether the 9th Circuit
erred.
The case arose in 2010 when school officials at Live Oak
High School in Morgan Hill, California, south of the Bay
Area, barred students from wearing shirts bearing the U.S.
flag on the Cinco De Mayo holiday, “because other
students might have reacted violently.”
“One of the foundational First Amendment principles that
the 9th Circuit’s decision disregards is that government
officials may not restrict speech based on listener reaction.
This is known as a ‘heckler’s veto.’ By permitting a
heckler’s veto, the 9th Circuit’s decision affirms a
dangerous lesson by rewarding students who resort to
disruption rather than reason as the default means of
resolving disputes,” said AFLC co-founder Robert Muise.
Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain warned in his dissent from
the 9th Circuit the ruling would result in “mob rule.”
He said: “The next case might be a student wearing a shirt
bearing the image of Che Guevara, or Martin Luther King
Jr. or Pope Francis. It might be a student wearing a
President Obama ‘Hope’ shirt, or a shirt exclaiming
‘Stand with Rand!’ It might be a shirt proclaiming the
shahada, or a shirt accounting “Christ is risen!’ It might be
any viewpoint imaginable, but whatever it is, it will be
vulnerable to the rule of the mob.
AFLC Senior Counsel David Yerushalmi said: “There is
never a legitimate basis for banning the display of an
American flag on an American public school campus. And
by incentivizing and rewarding violence as a legitimate
response to unpopular speech, the 9th Circuit’s decision
undermines a bedrock principle of the First Amendment
and provides a dangerous lesson in civics to our public
school students. The Supreme Court should grant review
and reverse this terrible decision.”
“The demands of bullies will become school policy,” he
said.
19
Both briefs cite the U.S. Supreme Court’s Tinker case as
establishing a benchmark for free speech. It involved
similar circumstances: students who wanted to wear an
armband to protest the Vietnam war. Officials feared a
reaction and banned them. The high court overturned the
decision.
‘unacceptable’ speech today, from calling it politically
incorrect and hate speech to offensive and dangerous
speech, but the real message being conveyed is that
Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if
what they are saying is unpopular or in any way
controversial.”
In the current case, the briefs note that schools officials
were “concerned that the students’ clothing would lead to
violence.”
“Whether it’s through the use of so-called ‘free speech
zones,’ the requirement of speech permits, or the policing
of online forums, what we’re seeing is the caging of free
speech and the asphyxiation of the First Amendment,” he
said.
“The Supreme Court has held time and again, both within
and outside of the school context, that the mere fact that
someone might take offense at the content of speech is not
sufficient justification for prohibiting it,” one brief arguea.
WND reported later that a small group of protesters who
waved U.S. flags in front of Live Oak High School on
another Cinco de Mayo holiday were branded as racist.
Another said, “If this decision is permitted to stand, it will
have a detrimental impact on all student speech by
rewarding violence over civil discourse and effectively
invalidating Tinker.”
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three
decades with the Associated Press, as well as several
Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything
from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and
homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose
scenic work has been used commercially.
John W. Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute,
said there are “all kinds of labels being put on so-called
Newsmax
Sheriff Dave Clarke: DOJ Trying to Federalize Local Police
By Greg Richter
The Justice Department's call for all police officers to be
issued body cameras and undergo retraining in dealing
with minority suspects is moving toward a federalized
police force, warns Milwaukee County Sheriff David
Clarke.
"We don't have a national police force nor do we want one
because of civil liberty issues," Clarke said. "This is an
attempt by the justice department to emasculate the
American police officer, to turn them into social workers."
Clarke, who is black, said there is a time for police to be
sensitive to the needs of minorities and other members of
the community, but there also is a time when officers need
to use deadly force to protect themselves and members of
the public.
Appearing Tuesday on Fox News Channel's "Your World
with Neil Cavuto," Clarke said he has no problem with
police wearing cameras, but said that "this transforming
local policing" is just a knee-jerk reaction to the shooting
of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown by white police
officer Darren Wilson in Ferguson, Missouri in August.
And he said that while he favors using body cameras to
protect both police and the public, it will be local police
departments who have to pay for the storage capacity of
the pictures taken.
"This is a slippery slope toward federalizing local law
enforcement," Clarke said. "That's something that the
founders of this country resisted, and it was talked about
by Congress after World War I."
"So if my board is going to take money away from me for
other vital resources that I need for my officers because
they need some of that money for the storage capacity
necessary for cameras, I think that discussion needs to be
had," Clarke said.
The issue was raised as recently as the 9/11 Commission
Report, but the idea was rejected, he said.
20
Netanyahu Fires Back at 'Obama Army' Plotting His Defeat
Demands injunction against U.S.-linked group trying to swing Israeli election
By Aaron Klein
Confirming the official Likud complaint, the contents of
which were shared with WND, Wollman conceded the
V15 effort against Netanyahu is funded primarily by three
private philanthropists, two of whom are American:
 S. Daniel Abraham, the billionaire founder of the
Slim Fast food line. Abraham is a major donor to the
Democratic Party and the Clinton Foundation
 Daniel Lubetzky, a social entrepreneur whose
OneVoice Movement is partnered with V15
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President
Obama
 Alon Kastiel, a Tel Aviv-based businessman and
owner of multiple local venues, including bars, clubs
and hotels.
EILAT, Israel – Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud Party hit
back Sunday at a U.S.-linked organization
staffed with former Obama campaigners now
working to defeat Netanyahu in an upcoming
general election.
WND previously visited V15′s Tel Aviv headquarters and
interviewed the group’s founder, Nimrod Dweck, who
explained the ultimate goal of his campaign was to ensure
“center and left parties will form the next coalition.”
Victory 2015, or V15, attracted U.S. media attention after
it hired 270 Strategies, a consulting firm whose senior
leadership is comprised mostly of former top staffers for
President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign.
State Department ties
V15′s headquarters is actually the offices of a U.S.-U.K.
group calling itself OneVoice.
During a press conference Sunday, the Likud Party
officially accused V15 and other related nonprofits of
being supported “through millions of dollars funneled
from Europe, the U.S. and the New Israel Fund and
international factors interested in bringing down Prime
Minister Netanyahu” who think “that all means are
appropriate.”
OneVoice bills itself as an “international grassroots
movement that amplifies the voice of mainstream Israelis
and Palestinians.” It has a clearly leftist tone.
The Likud further called for Israel’s Central Elections
Committee to outlaw V15′s activities to “ensure the
integrity of the election.”
The State Department is also listed as a partner of
OneVoice on the group’s website.
OneVoice is reportedly sponsored by scores of nonprofits
and received two grants in the past year from the U.S.
State Department.
The party today will be filing an official complaint with
the Committee seeking an injunction against V15, Likud
sources said.
OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler
told the Washington Free Beacon that “no government
funding” has gone toward the V15 voter mobilization
effort.
Reacting to the developments, Uri Wollman, V15′s
spokesman, told WND his organization will not stop its
campaign to ensure a center-left coalition forms the next
government in Israel.
V15′s complete takeover of OneVoice’s Tel Aviv offices,
however, may raise some questions not only about the
grant usage, but also about the State Department’s current
partnership with OneVoice.
Wollman accused Netanyahu and the Likud of
“fabricating” a relationship between V15 and the Obama
administration.
Indeed, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, has called for an
investigation into the State Department’s ties to OneVoice
and the group’s anti-Netanyahu effort.
“We have no relation to any U.S. political party, the White
House or the State Department,” Wollman told WND.
Aside from the State Department, OneVoice is also openly
partnered with Google, the U.K. Labour Party and the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
‘Obama army’ deploys to Tel Aviv
21
Guardian called “a historic ground operation that will
provide the model for political campaigns in America
and around the world for years to come.”
For its anti-Netanyahu campaign, OneVoice and V15
recently hired 270 Strategies, whose founder is ex-Obama
campaign staffer Jeremy Bird.
 Mark Beatty, a founding partner who served as
deputy battleground states director for the Obama
campaign. He had primary responsibility for
Obama’s election plans for the battleground states.
Bird served as a data analyst and a deputy director for
Obama’s 2008 campaign and was the national field
director for the president’s massive re-election machine.
Dweck told WND that Bird’s organizing skills are central
to designing the evolving V15 battle plan.
 Marlon Marshall, a founding partner at 270 Strategies
who joins the team after holding several key
positions in national Democratic politics, most
recently as deputy national field director for the 2012
Obama campaign.
“Israelis don’t know how to run field (operations) as
Americans [do], and that was the major contribution of
Jeremy’s team,” he said.
Bird has provided “very professional help about how to
organize, manage people, how to go door-to-door, how to
talk to people on the street,” Dweck said.
 Betsy Hoover, a founding partner who served as
director of digital organizing on the Obama
campaign.
270 Strategies’ team of 45 staffers includes 16 members
who worked directly for Obama’s campaigns. Most of the
former Obama staffers hold senior posts at the firm.
Others worked for the Democratic Party, the Democratic
National Committee or grassroots groups involved in
progressive efforts, including a group to enroll Americans
in Obamacare.
 Meg Ansara, who served as national regional director
for Obama for America where she was responsible
for overseeing the 2012 programs in the Midwest and
southern states.
 Bridget Halligan, who served as the engagement
program manager on the digital team of the 2012
Obama campaign.
The involvement of Bird’s team has ignited reports in
some conservative media outlets that Obama or his
surrogate are attempting to influence the Israeli elections.
 Kate Catherall, who served as Florida deputy field
director for Obama’s re-election campaign.
Dweck dismissed those claims as “bullsh-t.”
 Alex Lofton, who most recently served as the GOTV
director of Cleveland, Ohio, for the 2012 Obama
campaign.
“It’s a matter of finding the right professionals,” he
continued. “And if I need to pick the best professional in
the world for the job, [Bird] knows what he is doing. 270
[Strategies] is a great company.”
 Martha Patzer, the firm’s vice president who served
as deputy email director at Obama for America.
Besides the initial work to organize the group’s efforts,
Dweck said he and V15 continue to consult with Bird and
his firm on a regular basis.
 Jesse Boateng, who served as the Florida voter
registration director for Obama’s re-election
campaign.
The conservative blogosphere is largely focusing on the
involvement of Bird in the V15 campaign.
 Ashley Bryant, who served most recently as the Ohio
digital director for the 2012 Obama campaign.
A closer look at Bird’s consulting firm as well as its
working relationship with the Israeli groups finds he is
just one of scores of former senior Obama election
campaign staffers now working on the anti-Netanyahu
effort.
 Max Clermont, who formerly served as a regional
field director in Florida for Obama’s re-election
campaign.
 Max Wood, who served as a deputy data director in
Florida for the 2012 Obama campaign.
Besides Bird, the 270 Strategies team includes the
following former Obama staffers:
Aaron Klein is WND's senior staff reporter and Jerusalem
bureau chief. He also hosts "Aaron Klein Investigative
Radio" on Salem Talk Radio.
 Mitch Steward, a 270 Strategies founding partner
who helped the Obama campaign build what the U.K.
22
Get Over Your Blackness
Issues new challenge to African-Americans this month
By Jesse Lee Peterson
When blacks valued character over color, they
produced great men like Booker T. Washington.
Despite having been born a slave, Washington
founded Tuskegee Institute in 1881 – a very
successful school in Alabama that taught blacks
highly desirable trades and skills. Washington also
encouraged blacks to be a moral and self-sufficient
people, and he became one of the most influential
educators of his time.
Black History Month is dumb. And it provides no
value for black Americans or anyone else.
In reality, black history is American history, and any
attempt to detach the two separates blacks from their
country and empowers useless black “leaders.”
Instead of celebrating Black History Month, I challenge
black Americans to get over their “blackness” and start
building character this month!
A black culture that valued character
also produced George Washington
Carver. Born to slave parents in
Missouri, Carver went on to become a
great botanist and inventor. A devoted
Christian, Carver is best known for his
research into finding alternative crops
to cotton, such as peanuts, soybeans
and sweet potatoes, which fed and
provided much-needed nutrition for poor farm families.
We still use hundreds of his inventions today.
Over the past 50 years, blacks have
been seduced away from character
and truth. Their “leaders” have
convinced them that their struggle is
a physical battle with whites and that
America is a racist nation. The truth is
that there is good and bad in every
race, and every human being is
engaged in a spiritual battle of good
versus evil.
Blacks in the United States are the freest and wealthiest
group of blacks anywhere. If black America were a
country, it would be the 15th wealthiest nation in the
world.
Washington and Carver are great examples, and they were
highly regarded by blacks and whites. Republican
President Theodore Roosevelt publicly acknowledged
them both for their contributions. But because they were
not into promoting racial division and creating social
chaos, their legacy and that of others like them has been
relegated to footnotes during Black History Month. You
may hear their names, but you’ll rarely hear about the
principles that shaped their lives.
Blacks who are caught up with their skin color and think
they need a Black History Month foolishly believe they
are righting past wrongs. The sad truth is that they’re
wasting their time and building false pride.
Instead of highlighting black men and women of character
and achievement, Black History Month often glorifies the
worst in black America. During the upcoming 46th Annual
NAACP Image Awards, the liberal organization will
honor racists Eric Holder and Spike Lee. Self-serving
liberal black “leaders” like Barack Obama, Rep. Maxine
Waters, and Jesse Jackson will also be recognized at
events throughout the month of February. The very people
who encourage hate and hold black people back are
celebrated as heroes.
Focusing on color is a losing proposition. The obsession
with race leads to anger, blame and bitterness, which
ultimately destroys people. The time and energy wasted
on hatred leaves little time and energy for productive
living; whereas building a life based on character and love
will help one succeed in life.
Focusing on color over character gave us Barack Obama –
the worst president in U.S. history.
Focusing on skin color and gender is about to give us
Loretta Lynch, another Obama appointee for U.S. attorney
general, who will continue Eric Holder’s dirty work –
trampling on our rights and dividing our nation.
The focus on color over character has created a shameless
generation of blacks. Black immorality (72 percent out-ofwedlock birth rate), overly sexualized black films and vile
rap music and the thug culture are what pass for black
culture today. The inner cities are crime-infested ghettos.
Chicago has the “distinction” of being called “Chi-Raq”
(named after Iraq).
The preoccupation with their blackness has made many
black celebrities stone cold racists. For example, singer
Stevie Wonder hijacked the recent funeral of famous
gospel singer Andrae Crouch to make a political
statement. He accused Obama’s critics of opposing the
president because he’s black! Stevie can’t help being
It wasn’t always this way. Most blacks used to be moral.
They believed in hard work and valued character, and few
were racists.
23
physically blind, but there’s no excuse for being a
spiritually blind fool.
Jesse Lee Peterson is the founder and president of two
dynamic organizations: BOND (Brotherhood
Organization Of A New Destiny), a national 501(c) (3)
nonprofit organization dedicated to "Rebuilding the
Family by Rebuilding the Man," and BOND Action, a
501(c) (4) organization whose purpose is to educate,
motivate and rally Americans – especially black
Americans – to greater involvement in the moral, cultural
and political issues that threaten our great country. In
2011, Jesse founded The South Central L.A. Tea Party.
He's a media commentator and also hosts "The Jesse Lee
Peterson Radio Show" and is the author of "SCAM: How
the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."
Starting this month, take my “Get Over Your Blackness”
challenge. I urge you to question everything you see and
do during Black History Month and ask yourself, “Is this
helping to develop my character or is it sucking me in to
focus on my race and making me a resentful person?”
If we can get blacks to start to question that which they’ve
blindly accepted for decades, we can turn things around in
a heartbeat. But unless they begin to open their eyes, black
Americans will soon be history.
Zero Hedge
Where the Greeks Are Hiding their Cash
By Tyler Durden
While today surprised some with its lack of images of
Greeks standing in line furiously pulling cash from bank
ATMs, as Bloomberg reports, Greeks are anxiously
stashing cash in the most unusual places…
Yet another fashioned a small safe box in the airconditioning unit on his balcony.
“I can’t fault these people,” said Karavelas, 37.
“They were obviously people who had worked hard
for their money, with families and jobs, not
oligarchs.”
As Bloomberg reports, in the days after Tsipras’s election,
the nation’s banks found themselves busy again…
The teller at National Bank of Greece SA leaned
forward to tell one customer something he’s noticed
over the past few days.
And deposit runs continue…
The deposit outflows in the walk up to the elections
would rival banks’ losses in 2012 when back-toback elections in May and June fanned fears Greece
would leave the euro.
“Had you come in last week, without warning, I
wouldn’t have been able to give you so much cash,”
he said in a low voice to the client withdrawing
20,000 euros. “We didn’t have the money.”
“The story of the Greek deposits is not one of a bank
run but a bank marathon,” said Andreas Koutras, a
partner at In Touch Capital Markets Ltd. in London.
“The smart money is long gone and there are few
accounts with more than 100,000. The true
barometer of fear is the amount of hard cash that is
withdrawn, not how much is transferred outside
Greece. This has gone up the past two months.”
And stashing it wherever they can – that’s not under the
eye of the government…
He said customers coming in to withdraw funds
ahead of the election were for the most part older
Greeks worried about their savings, removing cash
and stashing it in safe deposit boxes.
And finally, if you are wondering why Greek Bank runs
have not been greater so far…
Another favorite for an older generation of Greeks
is to buy gold sovereigns from the central bank.
Karavelas, the taxi driver, said he commiserates with
his clients even though he has little to worry about.
“I don’t have deposits,” said the father of two who
still has his savings in the bank. “I have about 1,000,
2,000 euros in the bank and that’s for my children.”
On Greek said that he’d withdrawn 25,000 euros
from the bank, taken it home, worked loose a tile in
the bathroom and stashed the money there.
Another took the cash to his village and buried it in
the garden.
24
The Police State Is Upon Us
By Paul Craig Roberts
Many commentators have written articles and given
interviews about government’s ever expanding
police powers. The totality of the American Police
State is demonstrated by its monument in Utah,
where an enormous complex has been constructed
in which to store every communication of every
American. Somehow a son or daughter checking on
an aged parent, a working mother checking on her
children’s child care, a family ordering a pizza, and
sweethearts planning a date are important matters of
national security.
Anyone paying attention knows that 9/11 has been
used to create a police/warfare state. Years ago
NSA official William Binney warned Americans
about the universal spying by the National Security
Agency, to little effect. Recently Edward Snowden
proved the all-inclusive NSA spying by releasing
spy documents, enough of which have been made
available by Glenn Greenwald to establish the fact of NSA
illegal and unconstitutional spying, spying that has no
legal, constitutional, or “national security” reasons.Yet
Americans are not up in arms. Americans have accepted
the government’s offenses against them as necessary
protection against “terrorists.”
Some educated and intelligent people understand the
consequences, but most Americans perceive no threat as
they “have nothing to hide.”
Neither Congress, the White House, or the Judiciary has
done anything about the wrongful spying, because the
spying serves the government. Law and the Constitution
are expendable when the few who control the government
have their “more important agendas.”
The Founding Fathers who wrote the Bill of Rights and
attached it to the US Constitution did not have anything to
hide, but they clearly understood, unlike modern day
Americans, that freedom depended completely on strictly
limiting the ability of government to intrude upon the
person.
Bradley Manning warned us of the militarization of US
foreign policy and the murderous consequences, and
Julian Assange of WikiLeaks posted leaked documents
proving it.
Those limits provided by the Founding Fathers are gone.
The hoax “war on terror” demolished them.
Were these whistleblowers and honest journalists, who
alerted us to the determined attack on our civil liberty,
rewarded with invitations to the White House and given
medals of honor in recognition of their service to
American liberty?
Today not even the relationships between husband and
wife and parents and children have any protection from
arbitrary intrusions by the state.
Essentially, government has destroyed the family along
with civil liberty.
No. Bradley Manning is in federal prison, and so would be
Julian Assange and Edward Snowden if Washington could
get its hands on them.
Those insouciant Americans who do not fear the police
state because they “have nothing to hide” desperately need
to read: Home-schooled Children Seized by Authorities
Still in State Custody.
Binney escaped the Police State’s clutches, because he did
not take any documents with which to prove his
allegations, and thus could be dismissed as “disgruntled”
and as a “conspiracy kook,” but not arrested as a “spy”
who stole “national secrets.”
In Police State America, authorities can enter your home
on the basis of an anonymous “tip” that you are, or might
be, somehow, abusing your children, or exposing them to
medicines that are not in containers with child-proof caps
or to household bleach that is not under lock and key, and
seize your children into state custody on the grounds that
you present a danger to your children.
Greenwald, so far, is too prominent to be hung for
reporting the truth. But he is in the crosshairs, and the
Police State is using other cases to close in on him.
These are only five of the many people who have provided
absolute total proof that the Bill of Rights has been
overthrown. Washington continues to present itself to the
world as the “home of the free,” the owner of the White
Hat, while Washington demonstrates its lack of mercy by
invading or bombing seven countries on false pretenses
during the past 14 years, displacing, killing, and maiming
millions of Muslims who never raised a fist against the
US.
The government does not have to tell you who your
accuser is. It can be your worst enemy or a disgruntled
employee, but the tipster is protected. However, you and
your family are not.
The authorities who receive these tips treat them as if they
are valid. A multi-member goon squad shows up at your
house. This is when the utterly stupid “I have nothing to
25
vaccines. Turn your backs to leaders who could liberate
you as it is too dangerous to risk the failure of liberation.
Be an abject, cowardly, obedient, servile member of the
enserfed, enslaved American population. Above all, be
thankful to Big Brother who protects you from terrorists
and Russians.
hide” Americans discover that they have no rights,
regardless of whether they have anything to hide.
We owe this police power over parents and children to
“child advocates” who lobbied for laws based on their
fantasies that all parents are serial rapists of children, and
if not, are medieval torturers, trained by the CIA, who
physically and psychologically abuse their children.
You, dear insouciant, stupid, Americans are back on the
Plantation. Perhaps that is your natural home. In his
masterful A People’s History of the United States, Howard
Zinn documents that despite their best efforts the exploited
and abused American people have never been able to
prevail against the powerful private interests that control
the government. Whenever in American history the people
rise up they are struck down by brute force.
In the opinion of “child advocates,” children are brought
into the world in order to be abused by parents. Dogs and
cats and the fish in the fishbowl are not enough. Parents
need children to abuse, too, just as the Police and the
Police State need people to abuse.
Of course, sometimes real child abuse occurs. But it is not
the routine event that the Child Protective Services Police
assume. A sincere investigation, such as was missing in
the report on the home-schooled children, would have had
one polite person appear at the door to explain to the
parents that there had been a complaint that their children
were being exposed to a poisonous substance in the home.
The person should have listened to the parents, had a look
at the children, and if there was any doubt about the water
purifier, ask that its use be discontinued until its safety
could be verified.
Zinn makes totally clear that “American freedom,
democracy, liberty, blah-blah” are nothing but a disguise
for the rule over America by money.
Wave the flag, sing patriot songs, see enemies where the
government tells you to see them, and above all, never
think. Just listen. The government and its presstitute media
will tell you what you must believe.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the
US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall
Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of
prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his
book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with
Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how
americans lost the protection of law, has been released by
Random House.
But nothing sensible happened, because the Police State
does not have to be sensible.
Instead, a half dozen goon thugs show up. The parents are
put outside in the snow for 5 hours while the children are
scared to death with questions and then carried away from
their home, mother, and father.
In Police State America, this is called Protecting Children.
We owe this tyranny to the idiot “child advocates.”
It is no longer important to protect children from
homosexuals, unless the homosexuals are Catholic child
pedophiles. But it is absolutely necessary to protect
children from their parents.
So, yes, dear insouciant American fool, whether you have
anything to hide or not, you are in grave danger, and so
are your children, in Police State America.
You can no longer rely on the Constitution to protect you.
This is the only way that you can protect yourself: grovel
before your neighbors, your co-workers, your employees
and employers, and, most definitely, before “public
authority” and your children, as your children can report
you. Don’t complain about anything. Do not get involved
in protests. Don’t make critical comments on the Internet
or on your telephone calls. Don’t homeschool. Don’t resist
26
How Much Longer Can the U.S. Economy Bear the Burdens?
By Robert Higgs
To examine some of the most important such
evidence, I have divided the U.S. economy’s postWorld War II history into three periods: 19481973, 1973-2007, and 2007 to the present (or the
most recent date for which appropriate data are
available). These periods are defined by apt
demarcations in that each of the years 1948, 1973,
and 2007 was a business-cycle peak. Measuring
longer-term changes between business cycle peak
years is a time-honored way in which economists guard
against drawing faulty conclusions by comparing
conditions in essentially noncomparable years, between,
say, a cyclical peak year and a cyclical trough year or
between a peak or a trough and an intermediate year
somewhere in the intervening contraction or expansion.
Ordinary people, and sometimes experts as well,
tend to overreact to short-term economic changes.
The current economic malaise in the United States
and Europe has brought forth a bevy of
commentators convinced that this time the
economy has taken a permanent turn for the
worse. Never again, they declare, will we enjoy
growing prosperity as we did in days of yore.
Some of these Chicken Littles do see a possible
means of escape from the impending doom, but only if the
government carries out an extraordinarily bold economic
rescue program, flush with such Keynesian measures as
unprecedented monetary “quantitative easing” and large
ongoing deficits in the government budget. Anything else,
they insist, condemns us to languish indefinitely in a
“liquidity trap” characterized by diminished rates of
employment and slow, if any, economic growth.
Economic historians know, however, that such
declarations are hardly new and that the economy’s longrun trend has continued to tilt upward for two centuries
despite the short-run ups and downs around the trend line.
Consider first the average annual rate of growth of real
(that is, inflation adjusted) GDP per capita. From 1948 to
1973, this rate was 2.5 percent. Between 1973 and 2007,
however, it was only 1.8 percent. And between the fourth
quarter of 2007 and the fourth quarter of 2014, it was a
mere 0.4 percent per annum. Thus, the average rate of real
economic growth has slowed substantially during the past
67 years, and the current anemic recovery from the
cyclical trough reached in mid-2009—the weakest
recovery of any since World War II—may be only a
continuation and worsening of a deteriorating growth
performance that stretches back more than 40 years.
Nevertheless, even the experts perceive some ominous
longer-term changes and appreciate that people, in the
conduct of their economic affairs, may have limits to how
many burdens they can bear. These burdens take the form
of taxes, regulations, and uncertainties loaded onto them
by governments at every level. Each year, for example,
federal departments and regulatory agencies put into effect
several thousand new regulations. Only rarely do these
agencies remove any existing rules from the Code of
Federal Regulations. Thus, the total number in effect
continues to climb relentlessly. The tangle of federal red
tape becomes ever more difficult for investors,
entrepreneurs, and business managers to cut through.
Business people have to bear not only a constantly
changing, ever more complex array of taxes, fees, and
fines, but also a larger and larger amount of regulatory
compliance costs, now estimated at more than $1.8 trillion
annually. Governments at the state and local levels
contribute their full share of such burdens as well. Small
wonder that the economic freedom rank of the United
States among the world’s nations has fallen substantially
in recent years.
Let us examine next, therefore, the long-run growth
performance of the major economic input, which is hours
of labor applied in production processes. It is easy to
muddy the water in this regard if we include all workers,
because a a substantial number of workers are, and long
have been, employed by governments, which need not
make the same kinds of economic calculations and
appraisals that private employers must make. No
dispassionate observer can deny that much government
employment is, and always has been, make-work—
employment created for political motives by public-sector
employers who need not worry about a bottom-line
constraint and can rely on the capture of funds via taxes,
fines, fees, and forfeitures to meet their payrolls. Indeed,
many government employees—for example, tax
collectors, drug warriors, vice cops, domestic spies, and
most regulatory enforcers—are engaged not so much in
make-work as in anti-work, efforts that serve only to
harass and harm the public at large, and, truth be told, they
subtract from rather than adding to the true social product.
In assessing the economy’s long-term health, therefore,
we must confine our attention to private workers, who
help to produce goods and services that are genuinely
valued by consumers in free markets.
So it is scarcely a wild-eyed question if we ask, as
economist Pierre Lemieux does in a probing article in the
current issue of Regulation magazine, whether the U.S.
economy is now reacting to these growing burdens by
undergoing “a slow-motion collapse.” A substantial body
of evidence supports the answer that indeed such is the
case.
27
Consider then the number of persons engaged as wage and
salary earners in private nonfarm employment. Between
1948 and 1973, the average annual rate of growth of such
workers was 1.9 percent. Between 1973 and 2007, it was
only slightly less at 1.8 percent. Between December 2007
and December 2014, however, this rate of growth
collapsed to a mere 0.3 percent per annum. Whatever else
we may say about the current recovery, it has scarcely
touched the heart of the problem in the labor markets.
Indeed, millions of potential workers have dropped out of
the labor force entirely, surviving on savings, disability
insurance benefits, unemployment insurance benefits,
other welfare benefits, and the generosity of kinfolk.
Whatever the most accurate description of recent events in
the labor markets may be, there is no gainsaying the
reality that potential workers who are no longer working
are doing nothing to assist in the overall economy’s
genuine recovery.
There is much more to this story than I have space to
mention here. It must suffice to say that the present
anemic recovery fits into a much longer-term pattern of
declining economic robustness in the U.S. economy’s
performance. (A similar story can be told about western
Europe.) Although various hypotheses may plausibly be
advanced to account for this pattern, it makes good
economic sense to interpret the economic history of the
past several decades as the tale of a camel on which,
without a doubt, more and more straws have been piled.
Although the beast’s back is not yet broken, his powers
have surely been tested severely, and as additional
burdens continue to be loaded onto him year after year it
is an open question as to how much longer he will be able
to make any headway at all. Adam Smith wisely observed
that “[t]here is a great deal of ruin in a nation,” but he did
not say that there is an infinite amount. It is a mistake to
suppose that no matter how greatly the governments of the
United States burden the nation’s private sector, they can
never crush the life out of it.
Growing prosperity depends not only on a growing
volume of employment but, more important, on the
growth of labor productivity brought about by capital
accumulation, technological and organization changes,
and improvements in the health, education, and training of
the labor force. Again, to see what has happened on this
critical front, we must concentrate on the private sector.
Here we find that between 1948 and 1973, the average
annual rate of growth of real output per hour worked in
the business sector was 2.7 percent. From 1973 to 2007,
however, this growth rate was only 1.9 percent per annum,
and between the fourth quarter of 2007 and the third
quarter of 2014 it was even less, just 1.3 percent per
annum. Clearly many employers who have been reluctant
to hire new workers since the economy’s cyclical trough
in mid-2009 have been able to squeeze more output from
the same number of workers during the past five years, but
notwithstanding these efforts the rate of growth of labor
productivity has been substantially slower than it was
during the preceding 60 years. Perhaps we are indeed
witnessing more than a weak cyclical recovery. In Figure
1, which I have plotted on a logarithmic scale, the
declining rate of growth of private output per hour can be
seen clearly as a reduction in the slope of the line after
1973 and, even more so, after 2005 or thereabouts.
Robert Higgs is senior fellow in political economy at the
Independent Institute and editor of The Independent
Review. He is also a columnist for LewRockwell.com. His
most recent book is Neither Liberty Nor Safety: Fear,
Ideology, and the Growth of Government. He is also the
author of Depression, War, and Cold War: Studies in
Political Economy, Resurgence of the Warfare State: The
Crisis Since 9/11 and Against Leviathan: Government
Power and a Free Society.
Figure 1. Real Output per Hour in the U.S. Business
Sector, 1947-2014
28
Exporting Sherman’s March
By David Swanson
march to the sea, even as Iraq, Afghanistan, and Gaza are
destroyed with weapons named for Indian tribes. Sherman
not only attacked the general population of Georgia and
the Carolinas on his way to Goldsboro — a spot where the
U.S. military would later drop nuclear bombs (that very
fortunately didn’t explode) — but he provided articulate
justifications in writing, something that had become
expected of a general attacking white folks.
What intrigues me most is the possibility that the South
today could come to oppose war by recognizing
Sherman’s victims in the victims of U.S. wars and
occupations. It was in the North’s occupation of the South
that the U.S. military first sought to win hearts and minds,
first faced IEDs in the form of mines buried in roads, first
gave up on distinguishing combatants from
noncombatants, first began widely and officially (in
the Lieber Code) claiming that greater cruelty was
actually kindness as it would end the war more
quickly, and first defended itself against charges of
war crimes using language that it (the North) found
entirely convincing but its victims (the South) found
depraved and sociopathic. Sherman employed
collective punishment and the assaults on morale
that we think of as “shock and awe.” Sherman’s
assurances to the Mayor of Atlanta that he meant well and
was justified in all he did convinced the North but not the
South. U.S. explanations of the destruction of Iraq
persuade Americans and nobody else.
Sherman statue anchors one southern corner of Central
Park (with Columbus on a stick anchoring the other)
Matthew Carr’s new book, Sherman’s Ghosts:
Soldiers, Civilians, and the American Way of War, is
presented as “an antimilitarist military history” —
that is, half of it is a history of General William
Tecumseh Sherman’s conduct during the U.S. Civil
War, and half of it is an attempt to trace echoes of
Sherman through major U.S. wars up to the present,
but without any romance or glorification of murder
or any infatuation with technology or tactics. Just as
histories of slavery are written nowadays without any
particular love for slavery, histories of war ought to be
written, like this one, from a perspective that has
outgrown it, even if U.S. public policy is not conducted
from that perspective yet.
Sherman believed that his nastiness would turn the South
against war. “Thousands of people may perish,” he said,
“but they now realize that war means something else than
vain glory and boasting. If Peace ever falls to their lot they
will never again invite War.” Some imagine this to be the
impact the U.S. military is having on foreign nations
today. But have Iraqis grown more peaceful? Does the
U.S. South lead the way in peace activism? When
Sherman raided homes and his troops employed
“enhanced interrogations” — sometimes to the point of
death, sometimes stopping short — the victims were
people long gone from the earth, but people we may be
able to “recognize” as people. Can that perhaps help us
achieve the same mental feat with the current residents of
Western Asia? The U.S. South remains full of monuments
to Confederate soldiers. Is an Iraq that celebrates today’s
resisters 150 years from now what anyone wants?
What strikes me most about this history relies on a fact
that goes unmentioned: the former South today provides
the strongest popular support for U.S. wars. The South has
long wanted and still wants done to foreign lands what
was — in a much lesser degree — done to it by General
Sherman.
What disturbs me most about the way this history is
presented is the fact that every cruelty inflicted on the
South by Sherman was inflicted ten-fold before and after
on the Native Americans. Carr falsely suggests that
genocidal raids were a feature of Native American wars
before the Europeans came, when in fact total war with
total destruction was a colonial creation. Carr traces
concentration camps to Spanish Cuba, not the U.S.
Southwest, and he describes the war on the Philippines as
the first U.S. war after the Civil War, following the
convention that wars on Native Americans just don’t
count (not to mention calling Antietam “the single most
catastrophic day in all U.S. wars” in a book that includes
Hiroshima). But it is, I think, the echo of that belief that
natives don’t count that leads us to the focus on Sherman’s
When the U.S. military was burning Japanese cities to the
ground it was an editor of the Atlanta Constitution who,
quoted by Carr, wrote “If it is necessary, however, that the
cities of Japan are, one by one, burned to black ashes, that
we can, and will, do.” Robert McNamara said that General
29
perhaps for the South to rise again, not in revenge but in
understanding, to join the side of the victims and say no to
any more attacks on families in their homes, and no
therefore to any more of what war has become?
Curtis LeMay thought about what he was doing in the
same terms as Sherman. Sherman’s claim that war is
simply hell and cannot be civilized was then and has been
ever since used to justify greater cruelty, even while
hiding within it a deep truth: that the civilized decision
would be to abolish war.
David Swanson is an author, activist, journalist, and radio
host. He is director of WorldBeyondWar.org and
campaign coordinator for RootsAction.org. Swanson's
books include War Is A Lie. He blogs at
DavidSwanson.org and WarIsACrime.org. He hosts Talk
Nation Radio.
The United States now kills with drones, including killing
U.S. citizens, including killing children, including killing
U.S. citizen children. It has not perhaps attacked its own
citizens in this way since the days of Sherman. Is it time
Gold Core
“Buy Gold” and Short Federal Reserve, Says Marc Faber
Alone among the emerging markets, India is still growing
impressively at 5-6%. However, Dr. Faber does not see
the enormous gains made in some sectors of the Indian
economy – the stock market rallied 35% last year- and
those of other emerging markets continuing.
Faber: “Only one way to short central banks and that is to
buy gold”.
Marc Faber warned at the weekend that 2015 may be the
year that investors will lose confidence in central banks
and that investors will “suddenly realize what a scam that
central banking is”.
“A lot of markets are not terribly expensive but [they] are
not bargains,” he said.
He is long gold and recently bought more gold and
investors should buy gold and short sectors such as
biotech and social media.
Ultimately he sees the global economy continuing to slow
down. “In general, if you look at global exports they are
flat, if you look at the global reserve accumulation they
are flat. So I think that we will face a disappointing 2015
in terms of economic growth.”
In an interview with Jack Otter, editor Of Barrons.com,
Dr. Faber again reiterated his desire to short central banks.
While that is technically impossible, the editor of the
excellent Gloom, Doom and Boom newsletter indicated
that it can be done by proxy through the buying of gold
and silver bullion.
He added that while China is slowing down he expects the
stock markets to perform reasonably well due to the
distorting influence of central banks.
There is a lot central bank interventions and
expectations by investors what the central bank will
do next and so investors pile into stocks in the
expectation that the Bank of China will essentially
ease.
In a Barron’s video interview published by the Wall Street
Journal, ‘Dr. Doom’ said,
I think that my bet is that if I could short central
banks I would short central banks in 2015 because I
think that investors will suddenly realize what a
scam central banking is and then they will lose
confidence. And there is only one way to short
central banks and that is to buy gold.
When asked where one should invest their money he
indicated that his main strategy currently was to short
various sectors rather than shorting companies.
In January he said at a Societe Generale presentation that
he expected to price of gold to go “up substantially – say
30%” in 2015. Dr. Faber has an impressive track record of
accurately predicting medium term patterns within the
overall long-term trend.
In particular he singled out the biotech industry and with
less enthusiasm social media and semiconductor ETFs. He
was considering shorting the Australian dollar and
indicated that the U.S. dollar was also in his sights while
he thinks the euro is oversold in the short-term.
He sees an anemic economic performance from Europe
this year, he thinks the U.S. is slowing and his attitude to
emerging markets has cooled. “In some [emerging market]
countries they may be growing 1-2%, in others there is a
contraction in industrial production. The Chinese
economy which is the dominant emerging economy in the
world is definitely slowing down.”
While he sees mainly shorting opportunities, he is long
gold, prefers physical gold and opts for storage in
Singapore:
Yes I am long gold. I’ve been long gold since the
mid 1990’s and I bought recently again more.
30
Where Does Information Come From?
Notes absurdity of a website 'evolving' without intelligent design
By Joseph Farah
We all know what information is. We know it when
we see it.
That would be quite a story, wouldn’t it?
But it’s not going to happen, ever – not with the
creation of real information by a non-intelligent
source. Agreed?
If we find a new website, for example, we all know
someone created it – no matter how good or bad it is.
So why do we persist in peddling this evolutionary fairy
tale to every schoolchild and every university science
student as fact? Why does government involve itself in
this charade through public funding? Why is the theory of
intelligent design pooh-poohed by the scientific
establishment, the academy, government and the entire
popular culture?
We know, for instance, that it didn’t just evolve – or
appear as a result of chance or a random series of viruses
and electronic mutations.
Think of how infinitely more complex a single, “simple”
plant or animal cell is.
Back in the days of Charles Darwin, scientists didn’t know
much about the cell. So, to many people, the idea that
animals could evolve as a result of “natural selection” and
random mutations seemed to make some sense.
My theory?
Because they can’t accept or even entertain the one
alternative – that it takes intelligence to create
information.
Now, however, with the knowledge of the complexity of
all living cells, information science and DNA, the notion
of animals changing from one kind to another or, even
more preposterously, that even a single-cell animal would
spring to life through spontaneous generation, is
considerably more difficult to imagine.
We know this when we see a book. It wouldn’t occur to us
when we see a book to think of any other possibility than
it was the result of an act of intelligence – no matter how
idiotic the book might be. After all, even “On the Origin
of the Species,” originally titled by Darwin, “On the
Origin of the Species by Means of Natural Selection,
or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for
Life.” (Italics added)
It’s why evolution in the macro sense is sometimes called
“a fairy tale for adults.” I would add, “It’s a fairy tale for
adults who don’t want to consider the alternative.”
What is the alternative?
When we see a house, we know there was a builder. We
don’t ever think for a moment that it assembled itself. We
don’t think a tornado swept through a junkyard and a
house was built as a result – no matter how many
tornadoes we see through how many junkyards.
The only alternative is the one often laughably mocked by
people like Richard Dawkins – “intelligent design.”
The biggest crisis for the “theory of evolution,” which is
most often taught not as a theory but as scientific fact, is
information science.
That kind of systematic creation requires information –
whether it’s in the mechanical, material world or in the
world of life. Life, indeed, is far more complex, as we
know now, than what we see in the lifeless material world.
Every cell, every strand of DNA contains a virtual library
of information that is passed on to offspring. Where did
that extraordinary, detailed information come from? Did it
create itself? Did it happen through chance – like the
thousand chimpanzees banging away on keyboards for
their entire lives resulting in one perfectly crafted piece of
literature?
Where did we learn all this a long time ago?
In the Bible.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with
God, and the Word was God. The same was in the
beginning with God. All things were made by him; and
without him was not any thing made that was made. In
him was life; and the life was the light of men.”
– the Gospel of John 1:1-4
Do you believe that fairy tale?
Are you at least skeptical?
With billions of people on the Internet now for 20 years
and millions of websites created by them, have any just
spontaneously generated as a result of chance or a random
series of electronic mutations or viruses?
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a
nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News
Service.
31
U.S.-Russia Clash in Ukraine?
Disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled
By Pat Buchanan
He could back down, abandon the rebels and be seen
as a bully who, despite his bluster, does not stand up
for Russians everywhere.
Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush
I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge
Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of
influence.
More in character, he could take U.S. intervention as
a challenge and send in armor and artillery to enable the
rebels to consolidate their gains, then warn Kiev that,
rather than see the rebels routed, Moscow will intervene
militarily.
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian
Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of
Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their
barracks.
Or Putin could order in the Russian army before U.S.
weapons arrive, capture Mariupol, establish a land bridge
to Crimea, and then tell Kiev he is ready to negotiate.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow’s red line, and they saw it as
ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in
Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of
Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
What would we do then? Send U.S. advisers to fight
alongside the Ukrainians, as the war escalates and the
casualties mount? Send U.S. warships into the Black Sea?
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
Have we thought this through, as we did not think through
what would happen if we brought down Saddam, Gadhafi
and Mubarak?
For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the
liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry
to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk
and Luhansk.
America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the
Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And
we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive
out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger
war and the potential devastation of Ukraine.
That war has already cost 5,000 lives – soldiers, rebels,
civilians. September’s cease-fire in Minsk has broken
down. The rebels have lately seized 200 added square
miles, and directed artillery fire at Mariupol, a Black Sea
port between Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea.
What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan
think of an American president willing to risk military
conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces
in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the
time of Catherine the Great?
Late last year, Congress sent Obama a bill authorizing
lethal aid to Kiev. He signed it. Now the New York Times
reports that NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove
favors military aid to Ukraine, as does Defense Secretary
Chuck Hagel. John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey of
the joint chiefs are said to be open to the idea.
What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster.
And we are in part responsible, having egged on the
Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian
government.
A panel of eight former national security officials, chaired
by Michele Flournoy, a potential defense secretary in a
Hillary Clinton administration, has called for the U.S. to
provide $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including
anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance drones, Humvees and
radar to locate the sources of artillery and missile fire.
But a greater disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled
in Ukraine’s civil war. We would face, first, the near
certainty of defeat for our allies, if not ourselves. Second,
we would push Moscow further outside Europe and the
West, leaving her with no alternative but to deepen ties to
a rising China.
Such an arms package would guarantee an escalation of
the war, put the United States squarely in the middle and
force Vladimir Putin’s hand.
Given the economic crisis in Russia and the basket case
Ukraine is already, how do we think a larger and wider
war would leave both nations?
Thus far, despite evidence of Russian advisers in Ukraine
and claims of Russian tank presence, Putin denies that he
has intervened. But if U.S. cargo planes start arriving in
Kiev with Javelin anti-tank missiles, Putin would face
several choices.
Alarmists say we cannot let Putin’s annexation of Crimea
stand. We cannot let Luhansk and Donetsk become a proRussian enclave in Ukraine, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia
or the Transdniester republic.
32
But no one ever thought these enclaves that emerged from
the ethnic decomposition of the Soviet Union were worth
a conflict with Russia. When did Luhansk and Donetsk
become so?
the role of the honest broker who brings it to an end. Isn’t
that how real peace prizes are won?
Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate
in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American
Conservative
Rather than becoming a co-belligerent in this civil war
that is not our war, why not have the United States assume
Tragic School Stories
By Walter E. Williams
Then there’s “Day 44: The Graduate.” David, a
senior, hasn’t learned much since the third grade,
but he has been passed along and is about to
graduate. Mrs. Ball says that not everyone needs to
be able to analyze a literary character’s motives or
whether the U.S. motives in the Spanish-American
War were justified. David should have been spared
the torture and given suitable activities. He could
surely wash cafeteria tables, run errands and change oil
and tires. She asks why educators try to force square pegs
into round holes year after year, kid after kid.
New York’s schools are the most segregated in the
nation, and the state needs remedies right away.
That was Chancellor Merryl H. Tisch’s message to
New York’s governor and Legislature. She said that
minority children are disproportionately trapped in
schools that lack teaching talent, course offerings
and resources needed to prepare them for college
and success.
Simply calling for more school resources will produce
disappointing results. There are several minimum
requirements that must be met for any child to do well in
school. Someone must make the youngster do his
homework, ensure that he gets eight to nine hours of sleep,
feed him breakfast and make sure that he behaves in
school and respects the teachers. None of these
requirements can be satisfied by larger education budgets.
They must be accomplished by families, or all else is for
naught.
The grossly poor education that so many blacks receive
exacerbates racial problems. During last year’s
disturbances in Ferguson, Missouri, some people
complained that of the city’s 53 police officers, only four
were black. Such an observation typically leads to
suggestions of racial discrimination but never leads to a
question about the ability of black high-school graduates
to pass a civil service exam. It’s natural for a black man
with a high-school diploma to see himself as equal to a
white man with a high-school diploma. In his eyes,
differences in employer treatment are ascribed to racial
discrimination. It dawns on few that the average black
high-school graduate has the level of academic
achievement of a white seventh- or eighth-grader or lower.
The black high-school graduates who have unearned
diplomas have no knowledge of their being fraudulent. If
black politicians and civil rights leaders know it, they
refuse to publicly acknowledge it.
Linda Ball, a public high-school history and government
teacher in Cincinnati, has written an engaging book about
her experiences, titled “185 Days: School Stories.” Let’s
look at a few of her days.
On Day 167, Mrs. Ball ordered a student to the in-school
discipline room for disruption and being in her class
without permission. When the student finally decided to
leave the room, he told her, “F—- you,” and then he
swatted her on the head with some papers. In her Day 10
section, there’s a brief story about how respect is earned.
Wesley, a student with an IQ of 140, did an outstanding
job on a paper about the Enlightenment but completed
only half his assignment and earned an F. Jake, a student
repeating her class, told Wesley, “I have newfound respect
for you today.” Failure earns respect.
The bottom line is that if nothing is done to affect the
home life and cultural values that produce the nonlearning attitudes and climate that are the subject of Linda
Ball’s “185 Days: School Stories,” there’s little that can be
done to improve black education. The best that politicians
can do is to give parents and children who are serious
about education a mechanism to opt out of rotten schools.
That option is
Here’s one result of Mrs. Ball’s assignment to propose a
28th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, written by a
high-school senior: “I think the 28th Amendment should
be about a choice weather (sic) to join school or not. I
think it should be a choice not something you have to do.
Because school just ain’t for someone like me. For
example school just ain’t for me.”
Walter E. Williams is the John M. Olin distinguished
professor of economics at George Mason University, and
a nationally syndicated columnist.
33
Thieving Vegan Poet (AKA Founding Father)
By David Hathaway
corpulence at a time when most Americans were
still trim. He enjoyed the recipes in the book and
immersed himself in the preparation and eating of
potatoes, rice, and hasty pudding (sweetened grain
porridge).
Ben Franklin noted that he showed skill for statism
in his early years saying that he was often allowed
to “govern” and to be a “leader” when doing things
with other boys. To demonstrate this innate
ability, he described an occasion which he related
because it showed what he described as “an early
projecting public spirit.” This incident, showing
Ben’s ability at statecraft, involved an occasion
when he and his gang had trampled down the edge of a
private mill pond turning it into a quagmire. He
marshalled the boys directing them to steal all the stones
that had been assembled to build a new house near the
mill pond. After waiting for the workmen at the house site
to go home for the day, he had the boys take the rocks in a
grand procession and dump them in the muddy marsh
thereby providing what he considered to be a public good
by making a sort of stone wharf when the stones sank into
the mud remedying the mess caused by the boys’
trampling. He thought this act to be quite appropriate as
he was providing a public service by making a firm place
for his band of hooligans to continue to trespass at the
edge of the pond. When the builder came by the next day
and noticed the lack of assembled building material, Ben’s
father was advised. Ben’s father administered counsel to
his son on his impropriety while Ben insisted on the
usefulness of his project. Shunning his father’s advice
was a passion of his.
On one occasion, although he had resolved that
taking fish was “unprovoked murder” since they
had no ability to reciprocate in the killing of humans, the
cod being cooked by others during a ship voyage smelled
so good that he concluded on that occasion, and on and off
in the future, that fish were also murderers in that they ate
their fellows thereby deserving to be eaten by him. When
reminiscing about that occasion, he admitted that moral
flip-flopping, such as calling fish murderers making them
deserving of the same punishment, was a convenient
ability that men had when their proclaimed ethics wanted
for some flexibility.
He started seeing a woman and after some time demanded
that the woman’s parents mortgage their house to pay off
the debts on his printing shop. He threatened to not marry
their daughter if they didn’t. They thought it over,
refused, and then barred him access to their home. They
then allowed another suitor to begin courtship of their
daughter and propose marriage. She accepted, but rumors
surfaced that the suitor had a wife in England at which
time Ben re-entered negotiation and decided to take her
for his wife anyway despite his lingering sourness over the
family’s refusal of his demand that they pay off his
business debts as a condition of the marriage.
Ben Franklin tried to avoid getting a job. No matter how
hard his dad tried to help him get a trade, he insisted he
wanted to go to sea; apparently the 18th century equivalent
in his mind of running off to join the circus. Since his
older brother had started his own trade, Ben’s father
taught him his trade, candle maker, and would bequeath
him its implements which would have otherwise gone to
the older brother. Ben made it clear to his father that he
despised the occupation. So, his dad accommodated him
and gave him a tour of every other trade which he also
disliked. He liked watching the men work, but resisted the
idea of becoming an apprentice to any.
Franklin soon found it to be advantageous to court
bureaucrats. By doing so, he was awarded the position of
clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1736 holding that
position for 15 years. He enjoyed the position immensely
because of its cronyist advantages. As clerk, his shop
obtained all the printing work for the assembly. As clerk,
he also obtained the job of printing up the state’s paper
money. When a paper currency issue was under
consideration in the Pennsylvania Assembly, Franklin
wrote and printed a pamphlet entitled, “A Modest Enquiry
into the Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency” to
sway the members to approve the printing of the money.
His pamphlet argued against hard money, presented a
labor theory of value, argued for a low interest rate, and
suggested that labor and industry could not progress
adequately without state printing of paper money.
Ben tried his hand at writing poetry which he thought
suited him. His father advised against it telling him that
“verse makers were generally beggars.” Ben held a
grudge against his father for discouraging his poetic
cogitations thinking that his vocabulary would have
improved if he had been allowed to persist in searching for
fanciful words to add to the eloquence of his verses.
The assembly approved the printing of money after
reading Franklin’s pamphlet. Franklin wrote, “My friends
there, who consider I had been of some service, thought fit
Ben got a hold of a book on eating a vegetable only diet.
The idea pleased him and he shunned meats on and off
throughout his life, prompting the question of whether this
carb heavy diet started him down the road to his notorious
34
to reward me by employing me in printing the money; a
very profitable job, and a great help to me.”
manner, told the government to interpret grain to mean
“gunpowder.”
Of course, later in his life, when his business had been
well-fattened by government contracts obtained via a
serious conflict of interest as a government employee,
Franklin had the time to produce philosophical musings
and nuggets of morality such as describing the advantages
of debauching older women.
Ben made many other priceless suggestions, making him
worthy of the title of founding father.
When it was discussed by the assembly that conscientious
objectors would not object to their coerced tribute funds
being used to procure a “fire engine,” Franklin suggested
the engine procured would emit fire via a great cannon
and the Quakers’ “grain” (gunpowder) would feed this
“fire engine.” The other bureaucrats admired his truly
despicable machinations to pervert the non-violent wishes
of his fellow man thinking that he truly had the makings
of something great.
He suggested that rum be used to intoxicate the Indians so
that their land could be taken and turned over to
“cultivators.”
The stone stealing plan carried out in his youth had truly
foretold his “public spirit” and propensity for public
service as he himself had predicted.
On an occasion when the Quakers objected to giving
money for implements of war that the state demanded,
requiring instead that they would only give their tribute
money if it was exclusively earmarked to purchase bread,
flour, wheat, or other grain, Ben, despising their pacifist
David Hathaway is a former supervisory DEA Agent. He
is a cowboy and aficionado of Latin America where he has
lived and traveled extensively. He is a homeschooling
father of nine children.
Moneynews
Economist Steve Beaman:
Jobless Rate Really About 15 Percent or 'Much Worse'
By Dan Weil
Martin," Beaman said. "Now you work for 10 hours or 15
hours a week at McDonald's. You're considered employed
in those numbers."
The unemployment rate may have registered a six-year
low of 5.6 percent in December, but it doesn't reflect the
true state of the labor market, Steve Beaman, chairman of
the Society to Advance Financial Education, told
Newsmax TV.
In addition, once unemployed people can no longer
receive unemployment compensation, they're not included
as part of the work force, he explained.
"Anyone that follows the economy knows we're more like
15 percent in current unemployment, and structurally
we're actually much worse," he said on the network's
"MidPoint" program.
So "we get closer to 15 percent, and demographically it
depends which group you're looking at," he said.
Among African-Americans in urban areas, the jobless rate
is near 50 percent.
"Gallup's numbers show that only about 44 percent of the
above-18 population is actually working a full-time job
right now, and that's well below where we need to be,"
Beaman said.
"These numbers are not good, and it gets to the point
about why Americans don't really feel good about this
recovery," Beaman said.
Part-time workers count as employed in the government
numbers.
"Say you're an engineer, you went to school, you got your
master's degree and you got laid off from Lockheed
Economists expect the official jobless rate to again
register 5.6 percent in the January report to be released
Friday.
35
Chris Kyle: Pagan Idol for Warmongering Christians
By Jay Stephenson
former Navy SEAL and vocal anti-war proponent Jesse
Ventura. Fox News and “Christians” such as Glenn Beck
allowed Kyle to bear false witness against Ventura with
his lie that he punched the former governor out at another
veteran’s wake for saying his Navy SEAL team “deserved
to lose a few” in Iraq. Ventura took Kyle’s estate to court
for libel, and after he won his suit, even the mainstream
media criticized Kyle for the Ventura lie and a slew of
other made up stories, including a claim that he shot dead
dozens of looters in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
“But the chief priests and elders persuaded the multitude
that they should ask Barabbas and destroy Jesus. The
governor answered and said unto them, Whether of the
twain will ye that I release unto you? They said,
Barabbas.”
– Matthew 27:20-21
In the year following the Bush administration’s illegal and
unjust war in Iraq, debate raged among media elites and
the country at large regarding a biblical film depicting the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Mel Gibson’s The Passion of
the Christ broke box office records and remains the
highest grossing R rated film in history. The movie was
released nearly two months after the capture of Saddam
Hussein and prior to a vastly changed Iraqi landscape that
would eventually eradicate a Christian population nearly
four times the number held prior to a war cheered by
conservative Christians here at home.
Despite the false and repeated smears against Ventura, the
deadliest sniper’s Christian cheerleaders refused to admit
wrong even after the libel case was won in court. In fact,
they piled on even more smears.
The proclaimed Christian Glenn Beck, who called Ventura
a “scumbag” based on Kyle’s lies, doubled down on his
Ventura criticism while never admitting that he was wrong
for giving the lie airtime in the first place. Since Kyle was
sadly killed by another veteran at a gun range before he
could testify in court, the war friendly right was able to
use his death to portray the former governor as heartlessly
taking money from a distraught widow even though the
publisher’s insurance company was on the hook for the
$1.8 million awarded in the case.
Fast forward nearly a decade later and America is once
again on the brink of another ground war in Iraq and a
new R rated movie is smashing records at the box office,
but this time it’s about a glorified warrior said to have
more kills than any other sniper in American History.
“American Sniper isn’t just a hit, it’s on its way to a
colossal box-office return,” penned National Review’s
David French in celebration of a profanity laced movie
that glorifies violence. No longer are conservatives
decrying Hollywood’s immoral role in America’s culture
wars; along with television shows like 24 and movies like
Zero Dark Thirty that promote torture, Clint Eastwood’s
war porn biopic has Christians and neoconservatives
siding with an evil industry they’ve been criticizing for
years.
Once the movie was released, Kyle’s fictional story and
death turned him into a pagan god conservative Christians
could idolize; detractors not on board with the nation’s
newfound blood lust were to be excommunicated for
daring to blaspheme the Iraq war’s gun toting Moloch.
In addition to Kyle’s critics like Ron Paul and Ventura,
the Hollywood director Michal Moore and actor Seth
Rogen learned how easy it is to be cast down as heretics
for not appreciating the Leviathan state’s holy script.
Reviling the epic poems of Homer and Virgil, the
mythical creation of Chris Kyle’s life as portrayed by
Bradley Cooper is as fabled a tale as the weapons of mass
destruction lies told in the lead up to the Iraq war. Since
the country’s faith in politicians is at an all time low, gone
are the days of infallible presidents who can lie the
country into war. Instead, a farm boy from Texas turned
Navy SEAL has been cast as the great war messiah whose
story can lead the American sheep to once again support
and cheer present and future wars. Released after the U.S.
government commenced bombing Iraq and during the lead
up to the war promoting Superbowl event, the timing
could not be more perfect.
“My comment about the movie was not meant to have any
political implications,” Rogen said in an effort to water
down a previous tweet comparing the American Sniper
movie to a Nazi propaganda film.”Any political meaning
was ascribed to my comment by news commentary.”
Moore also had to walk back a tweet questioning Kyle’s
bravery.
Similar to the way conservative Christians like to portray
Muslims as fanatics who overreact to criticism of the
Prophet Muhammad, any criticism of the Prophet Kyle’s
legacy is met with brazen hysteria. Nowadays,
conservative Christians typically turn the other cheek to
real blasphemy against Christ, but criticism of the war
messiah shall not be tolerated.
Aside from the 160 confirmed kills (confirmed by the
never to be trusted U.S. government), Kyle’s real story is
much different from the movie portrayal. When the
American Sniper book was published, it was mostly
promoted via his viscous slander upon the character of
36
With so much war talk coming from those claiming to be
Christians, it’s no wonder the world’s largest religion is in
decline. Even the atheist Bill Maher recently observed the
gross inconsistency of those proclaiming to worship the
Prince of Peace while celebrating the violence Kyle’s life
promotes through the American Sniper film.
In the wake of Kyle criticism, the “born again Christian”
Sarah Palin even took a break from her sacrilegious
applause lines mocking the Christian baptism and drunken
family brawls to take a picture of herself holding up a
sign telling Michael Moore “F*** You.” Much like the
Constitution conservatives like to hang their hat on,
biblical rules against using profanity, taking the lord’s
name in vain, and even murder, get tossed out the window
once war comes into the picture. As Chris Hedges
recently wrote: “The innate barbarity that war and
violence breed is justified by a saccharine sentimentality
about the nation, the flag and a perverted Christianity that
blesses its armed crusaders. “
The sad irony is that the war Kyle fought in actually
served to eradicate the Christian population in Iraq, as
noted earlier. But even more ironic is the fact that Kyle is
no longer alive because of that war and the false Christian
jingoism that led up to it. His life was brought to an end
by another war veteran suffering from PTSD. The war on
terror isn’t just killing Muslims. It’s killing our veterans
here at home.
Hedges words could easily describe the Kyle worship on
Fox News that was exemplified by commentator Todd
Starnes, who said : “I suspect Jesus would tell that Godfearing, red-blooded American sniper, ‘Well done, thou
good and faithful servant for dispatching another Godless
jihadist to the lake of fire. ’”
Jay Stephenson is a former small-town newspaper
reporter from Minnesota.
As Parents Get More Choice, San Francisco Schools Resegregate
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
Seems the hard-core lefties in the People's Republic of
San Francisco don't practice what they preach. From
the San Francisco Public Press:
This is both amusing and instructional on many levels.
Notice that the school district's "No. 1 goal" is not
something along the lines of "teaching our children to read
and write" or even the vacuous "excellence in education,"
but is instead "classroom diversity." But the parents
choose to send their children to safe schools where their
kids can learn rather than sending them to racially
integrated schools.
Each January, parents across San Francisco rank
their preferences for public schools. By June, most
get their children into their first choices, and almost
three-quarters get one of their choices.
A majority of families may be satisfied with the
outcome, but the student assignment system is
failing to meet its No. 1 goal, which the San
Francisco Unified School District has struggled to
achieve since the 1960s: classroom diversity.
You can almost smell the hypocrisy.
"Diversity" is a play-pretend value, something leftist
ideologues invented. Nowhere in the world is division a
strength; in fact, it is the major cause of social breakdown.
Classroom diversity cannot co-exist with freedom of
choice. Either the government imposes and enforces it, or
it disappears. And the same is true with social diversity.
People naturally self-organize along racial lines. What's
more natural than seeking out those with whom you can
freely cooperate? And what's more unnatural than
government-enforced order?
Since 2010, the year before the current policy went
into effect, the number of San Francisco’s 115
public schools dominated by one race has climbed
significantly. Six in 10 have simple majorities of one
racial group. In almost one-fourth, 60 percent or
more of the students belong to one racial group,
which administrators say makes them “racially
isolated.” That described 28 schools in 2013–2014,
up from 23 in 2010–2011, according to the district.
37
Should Mickey and Minnie Mouse Be Vaccinated?
By David Brownstein, MD
The recent 2015 measles outbreak in Disneyland has
sparked an outcry against parents who choose not to
vaccinate their children. Over 60 people have been
diagnosed with measles in this latest outbreak.
such as measles and whooping cough. However, you can
see from the graph above that the mortality rate of these
illnesses were rapidly falling before the mass vaccination
campaign began.
The hysteria surrounding this outbreak is beyond me. I
have seen the articles stating that parents who choose not
to vaccinate should be prosecuted. Parents who choose not
vaccinate have been accused of child abuse.
I am not saying that all vaccines don’t work. I know some
of them do. The chicken pox vaccine has clearly lowered
the incidence of chicken pox. However, is that a good
thing? I am not sure as shingles cases have skyrocketed
since the mass vaccination of chicken pox was started.
And, perhaps a child’s immune system needs to be
stimulated with these childhood infections to become
strong.
I say everyone needs to chill out—easy for me to write
that in the midst of a foot of snow falling.
Measles is a highly infectious disease. It is very common
throughout the world. In fact, it is estimated that over 20
million cases of measles occur worldwide on an annual
basis. Measles can lead to severe problems including
encephalitis and death. However, serious complications
from measles are rare in the developed world.
I travelled to Barbados last week (beautiful island with
wonderful people). In the airport, one of my Natural Way
to Health newsletter subscribers came up to me and told
me she recognized my picture on the newsletter. She
asked me a question. “Why are so many kids having all
these allergies? We never saw peanut, milk and gluten
allergies when we were kids—where is it all coming
from?” I said to her that there are multiple reasons for this
but the main reasons are that the young generation’s
immune system is becoming weaker and weaker. I feel
that today’s children, as compared to previous
generations, are suffering from more chronic illnesses
because they are exposed to more toxins and they are
receiving too many vaccines at too young of an age. The
vaccines contain toxic elements such as mercury,
aluminum and formaldehyde. It is ludicrous to inject these
toxic agents into our youth and expect good outcomes.
I am not downplaying serious problems related to the
measles virus. However, serious problems can develop
from anything—a common upper respiratory illness can
develop into pneumonia. People can die from pneumonia.
Should parents who send their children to school with an
upper respiratory infection—a cold—be accused of child
abuse? Should they be prosecuted? Of course not.
Measles can cause severe complications especially when
someone is deficient in vitamin A. One of the best
treatments for preventing serious complications from
measles is vitamin A supplementation.
The measles vaccine was introduced in 1963. You would
think from the propaganda surrounding the shot that the
measles vaccine was responsible for the rapid decline in
mortality from measles. Think again. Look at the graph
below.
The MMR vaccine (MMR ProQuad) contains aborted
fetal lung tissue. This original fetus was aborted due to
maternal psychiatric reasons in September, 1966.(1) The
MMR2 vaccine contains aborted fetal lung tissue of a 3month old human female. (2) These fetal cells are used
because the human cells can be used to grow the measles
virus. There is concern that the increase in autism that has
occurred may be due to the introduction of human DNA–
from fetal cells–in the MMR and chicken pox vaccines.(3)
A scientific review from Dr. Helen Ratajczak, a former
scientist at a pharmaceutical firm, reviewed the body of
published research since autism was first described in
1943. Dr. Ratajczak stated, “What I have published is
highly concentrated on hypersensitivity. The body’s
immune system is being thrown out of balance..” by the
increasing number of vaccines given in a short period of
time. (4) She also felt that the introduction of human DNA
contained in vaccines has markedly increased the risk of
developing autism. Presently, human tissue is used in 23
vaccines. Dr. Ratajczak feels that the increased spike in
autism may be related to the introduction of human DNA
The Powers-That-Be claim that vaccines markedly
lowered the death rate of common childhood illnesses
38
just fine with measles. They did not suffer the plethora of
autoimmune, allergic and chronic illness that the younger
generations suffer from. Perhaps we need to do research
comparing vaccinated with non-vaccinated populations.
Unbelievably, this work still has not been done. There has
not been a single randomized, controlled study of a
vaccinated versus a non-vaccinated population.
into the MMR and chicken pox vaccines. She goes on to
state that the foreign DNA from vaccines can be
incorporated into the host DNA which causes the immune
system to fight against the foreign cells. This could start
an inflammatory process that never ends, leading to
chronic illnesses like autoimmune disease and allergies.
Maybe this is why we are seeing so many children with
severe, life-threatening allergies to common foods like
peanuts.
I think the rhetoric should be toned down. No parent
wants to harm their child by not vaccinating. We should
all respect individual choice. That is what our country was
founded on. I would never criticize a parent for
vaccinating nor would I be critical of one not vaccinating.
It is tough for parents out there, we don’t need to make it
worse for them.
Is the measles vaccine 100% safe? No way. I wrote about
the problems with the MMR vaccine in past blog posts. I
showed you research by Dr. Andrew Wakefield which
found measles virus in the lymph tissue of 12 autistic
children. These children never had measles, but they were
vaccinated with the measles vaccine. Dr. Wakefield felt
that vaccine could be causing the gut inflammation that
most autistic kids suffer from. For that crime, he was
prosecuted by the media and the medical profession. I
wrote to you in August, 2014,
(http://blog.drbrownstein.com/toxic-vaccines-and-autisma-cdc-coverup/) that the Center for Disease Control—
CDC—altered a 2004 study which hid the data that
supported Dr. Wakefield’s research. A CDC
whistleblower and author on that 2004 paper came
forward to announce the 2004 paper was a fraud; the CDC
hid data in the paper which showed a clear link between
the early administration of the MMR vaccine and autism.
As for vaccinating Minnie and Mickey, I say leave it up to
Mr. and Mrs. Mouse.
1. Coriell Institute for Medical Research.
https://catalog.coriell.org/0/Sections/Search/Sample_Detail.a
spx?Ref=AG05965-D&PgId=166
2. http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/900201
07?lang=en&region=US
3. J. of Immunotoxicology. January-March 2011, Vol. 8, No. 1,
Pages 68-79
4. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/vaccines-and-autism-a-newscientific-review/
5. J. of Clin. Microbiology. Sep.1995 33(9): 2485-88
Furthermore, the MMR vaccine is known to cause a
shedding (the recipient sheds the virus in bodily fluids) of
the measles virus after it is given. (5) Of course, this study
(5) would lend credence to Dr. Wakefield’s earlier study.
It is unknown if the latest outbreak of measles was due to
a vaccinated patient shedding the virus or a wild-type
strain. It would be nice to know the answer to this as the
vaccination process may be responsible for starting this
epidemic.
David Brownstein, M.D. is a Board-Certified family
physician and is one of the foremost practitioners of
holistic medicine. He is the Medical Director of the Center
for Holistic Medicine in West Bloomfield, MI. Dr.
Brownstein has lectured internationally to physicians and
others about his success in using natural hormones and
nutritional therapies in his practice.
I am still waiting for the highest levels of our Government
to examine the CDC fraud. We need the U.S. Congress to
call an open hearing to address this matter. Until this
matter is resolved how can you fault any parent for
questioning the safety of the MMR vaccine?
Perhaps Dr. Wakefield’s research was fraudulent (I have
studied it and I don’t think it is). Until we know the truth
from the CDC, a parent cannot know for sure whether the
MMR vaccine is safe to give their child.
One last comment. Both of my much-older-than-I sisters
had measles. Back then, it was a benign illness that
everybody got. Just like chicken pox. That generation did
39
Health Care Then Guns: Nazis Lay Plan for Destroying Freedom
How tyranny took over and 1 man made a difference
By Bill Federer
what the quest for ‘quality of life’ without reference
to ‘sanctity of life’ can involve. … The origins of the
Holocaust lay, not in Nazi terrorism … but in …
Germany’s acceptance of euthanasia and mercykilling as humane and estimable.”
The National Socialist Workers’ Party leader,
Adolph Hitler, became chancellor of Germany on
Jan. 30, 1933, and began implementing a plan of
universal health care, with no regard for conscience.
The New York Times reported Oct. 10, 1933: “Nazi Plan
to Kill Incurables to End Pain; German Religious Groups
Oppose Move.”
In 1933, the German Reichstag (Capitol Building) was set
on fire under suspicious conditions, creating a crisis Hitler
used to suspend basic rights, arrest his political opponents
and have them shot without a trial.
“The Ministry of Justice,” the Times reported, “explaining
the Nazi aims regarding the German penal code, today
announced its intentions to authorize physicians to end the
sufferings of the incurable patient … in the interest of true
humanity.”
Hitler forced old military leaders to retire. He swayed the
public with mesmerizing speeches.
An SA Oberführer warned of an ordinance by the
provisional Bavarian Minister of the Interior: “The
deadline set … for the surrender of weapons will expire on
March 31, 1933. I therefore request the immediate
surrender of all arms. … Whoever does not belong to one
of these named units (SA, SS and Stahlhelm) and … keeps
his weapon without authorization or even hides it, must be
viewed as an enemy of the national government and will
be held responsible without hesitation and with the utmost
severity.”
The Times continued: “The Catholic newspaper Germania
hastened to observe: ‘The Catholic faith binds the
conscience of its followers not to accept this method.’ …
In Lutheran circles, too, life is regarded as something that
God alone can take. … Euthanasia … has become a
widely discussed word in the Reich. … No life still
valuable to the State will be wantonly destroyed.”
When Germany’s economy suffered, expenses had to be
cut from the national health-care plan, such as keeping
alive handicapped, insane, chronically ill, elderly and
those with dementia. They were considered
“lebensunwertes leben” – life unworthy of life. Then
criminals, convicts, street bums, beggars and gypsies,
considered “leeches” on society, met a similar fate.
Heinrich Himmler, head of Nazi S.S. (“Schutzstaffel” –
Protection Squadron), stated: “Germans who wish to use
firearms should join the S.S. or the S.A. Ordinary citizens
don’t need guns, as their having guns doesn’t serve the
State.”
When a suspected homosexual youth shot a Nazi diplomat
in Paris, it was used as an excuse to confiscate all firearms
from Jews.
Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger had been
the editor of the Birth Control Review, a magazine that
published in April 1933 an article by Ernst Rudin, one of
the “fathers of racial hygiene.”
German newspapers printed, Nov. 10, 1938: “‘Jews
Forbidden to Possess Weapons By Order of SS
Reichsführer Himmler, Munich. ‘ … Persons who,
according to the Nürnberg law, are regarded as Jews, are
forbidden to possess any weapon. Violators will be
condemned to a concentration camp and imprisoned for a
period of up to 20 years.”
Ernst Rudin advised the Nazi Socialist Workers Party to
prevent hereditary defective genes from being passed on
to future generations by people considered by the State to
be inferior mankind – “untermensch.”
Labeling the Aryan race “ubermensch” (super mankind),
the National Socialist Workers Party enacted horrific
plans to purge the human gene pool of what they
considered “inferior” races, resulting in 6 million Jews
and millions of others dying in gas chambers and ovens.
The New York Times, Nov. 9, 1938, reported: “The
Berlin Police … announced that … the entire Jewish
population of Berlin had been ‘disarmed’ with the
confiscation of 2,569 hand weapons, 1,702 firearms and
20,000 rounds of ammunition. Any Jews still found in
possession of weapons without valid licenses are
threatened with the severest punishment.”
U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop stated in 1977:
“When the first 273,000 German aged, infirm and retarded
were killed in gas chambers there was no outcry from that
medical profession … and it was not far from there to
Auschwitz.”
Earlier in his political career, Hitler pretended to be a
Christian in order to get elected, but once in power he
British Journalist Malcolm Muggeridge explained: “We
have … for those that have eyes to see, an object lesson in
40
In his book, “The Cost of Discipleship,” Bonhoeffer
rebuked nominal Christians: “Cheap grace is the
preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance,
baptism without church discipline. Communion without
confession. Cheap grace is grace without discipleship,
grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ.”
revealed his nazified social Darwinism beliefs and became
openly hostile toward Christianity.
Of the Waffengesetz (Nazi Weapons Law), March 18,
1938, Hitler stated at a dinner talk, April 11, 1942,
(“Hitler’s Table Talk 1941-44: His Private
Conversations,” 2nd Edition, 1973, p. 425-6, translated by
Norman Cameron and R. H. Stevens): “The most foolish
mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the
subject races to possess arms. History shows that all
conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry
arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing. … So
let’s not have any native militia or native police. German
troops alone will bear the sole responsibility for the
maintenance of law and order.”
Bonhoeffer stated in a 1932 sermon: “The blood of
martyrs might once again be demanded, but this blood, if
we really have the courage and loyalty to shed it, will not
be innocent, shining like that of the first witnesses for the
faith. On our blood lies heavy guilt, the guilt of the
unprofitable servant.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer warned Germans not to slip into the
cult of Führer (leader) worship, as he could turn out to be
a Verführer (mis-leader, seducer).
Franklin D. Roosevelt stated of Hitler, Dec. 15, 1941:
“Government to him is not the servant … of the people
but their absolute master and the dictator of their every
act. … The rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness which seemed to the Founders of the Republic
inalienable, were, to Hitler and his fellows, empty words.”
Jimmy Carter wrote in his book “Sources of Strength,”
1997: “Rev. Niebuhr urged Dietrich Bonhoeffer to remain
in America for his own safety. Bonhoeffer refused. He felt
he had to be among the other Christians persecuted in
Germany. So he returned home, and … in resistance to
Hitler … preached publicly against Nazism, racism, and
anti-Semitism. … Bonhoeffer was finally arrested and
imprisoned.”
FDR continued: “Hitler advanced: That the individual
human being has no rights whatsoever in himself … no
right to a soul of his own, or a mind of his own, or a
tongue of his own, or a trade of his own; or even to live
where he pleases or to marry the woman he loves; That his
only duty is the duty of obedience, not to his God, not to
his conscience, but to Adolf Hitler. … His only value is
his value, not as a man, but as a unit of the Nazi state. …
To Hitler, the church … is a monstrosity to be destroyed
by every means.”
Jimmy Carter continued: “Dietrich Bonhoeffer died April
9, 1945, just a few days before the allied armies liberated
Germany. He was executed on orders of Heinrich
Himmler. He died a disciple and a martyr.”
Jimmy Carter concluded: “The same Holy Spirit … that
gave Bonhoeffer the strength to stand up against Nazi
tyranny is available to us today.”
FDR stated in his State of the Union Address, Jan. 6,
1942: “The world is too small … for both Hitler and God.
… Nazis have now announced their plan for enforcing
their … pagan religion all over the world … by which the
Holy Bible and the Cross of Mercy would be displaced by
‘Mein Kampf’ and the swastika.”
Dietrich Bonhoeffer challenged: “To endure the cross is
not tragedy; it is the suffering which is the fruit of an
exclusive allegiance to Jesus Christ.”
On Feb. 16, 2002, Dr. James Dobson told the National
Religious Broadcasters: “Those of you who feel that the
church has no responsibility in the cultural area … what if
it were 1943 and you were in Nazi Germany and you
knew what Hitler was doing to the Jews? … Would you
say, ‘We’re not political – that’s somebody else’s
problem’?”
Some church leaders resisted Hitler, like Dietrich
Bonhoeffer.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer was born Feb. 4, 1906.
He studied in New York in 1930, where he met Frank
Fisher, an African-American seminarian who introduced
him to Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. He was
inspired by African-American spirituals and the preaching
of Adam Clayton Powell Sr., who helped Bonhoeffer turn
“from phraseology to reality,” motivating him to stand up
against injustice.
Dobson concluded: “I thank God Dietrich Bonhoeffer did
not give that answer, and he was arrested by the Nazis and
hanged in 1945, naked and alone because he said, ‘This is
not right.’”
William J. Federer is the author of "Change to Chains:
The 6,000 Year Quest for Global Control" and "What
Every American Needs to Know About the Quran: A
History of Islam and the United States."
Bonhoeffer helped found the Confessing Church in
Germany, which refused to be intimidated by Hitler into
silence.
41
'Truth' in a Post-Christian West
Wonders how lying can be condemned anymore
By Jerry Newcombe
In that Address, he famously noted: “Of all the
dispositions and habits which lead to political
prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable
supports.”
A great quote attributed to George Orwell, author of
“1984,” is, “During times of universal deceit, telling
the truth becomes a revolutionary act.”
In poring over the news of late, it’s amazing how
much untruth there is, mixed with partial truth. Spin and
euphemisms often replace truth.
He went on to say that we can’t expect morality to
continue if we undermine religion. Keep in mind, this was
at a time when the vast majority of Americans were
professing Christians.
I read recently that an abortion doctor was honored for his
work. But not once was there a mention of the word
“abortion” or even a hint of the grisly work he is involved
in.
He also said, “Let it simply be asked: Where is the
security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of
religious obligation desert the oaths which are the
instruments of investigation in courts of justice?”
Just last month, noted Matt Rocheleau for the Boston
Globe (Jan. 8), “Up to 64 Dartmouth College students –
including some athletes – could face suspension or other
disciplinary action for cheating in an ethics class this past
fall.” Cheating in ethics class? This speaks for itself.
In other words, how can we expect someone to obey a
sworn oath to tell the truth if they have no “the sense of
religious obligation” undergirding that oath?
The founders understood that belief in a God who sees all
things and who will one day hold us accountable made a
huge difference. That’s why in our days truth is breaking
down – even among some professing Christians. But let
God be true and every man a liar.
Meanwhile, a Christian publisher pulled a book detailing
the alleged foray into heaven of a boy who died and came
back. The boy admits now he made it all up to get
attention.
When people preface what they say with the phrase “Well,
to tell you the truth,” do they mean to imply that they
normally don’t tell you the truth? Note to self: Try to drop
that phrase from my speech.
This isn’t just an American problem. It is a problem in the
post-Christian West.
George Weigel, an insightful Catholic writer, said in the
L.A. Times in 2006: “If the West’s high culture keeps
playing in the sandbox of postmodern irrationalism – in
which there is ‘your truth’ and ‘my truth’ but nothing such
as ‘the truth’ – the West will be unable to defend itself.
Why? Because the West won’t be able to give reasons
why its commitments to civility, tolerance, human rights
and the rule of law are worth defending.”
One of the most amazing exchanges in the history of the
world was when Pontius Pilate, governor of Judea, was
trying Jesus of Nazareth and the prisoner referred to “the
truth.” Pilate then asked Him, “What is truth?” and he
pivoted and walked away.
Just a few hours before, Jesus had said to His disciples
during the Last Supper, “I am the way, the truth, and the
life. No one comes to the Father but by Me.” Here was
Truth incarnate standing before Pilate, and the blind
governor had no clue.
He added, “A Western world stripped of convictions about
the truths that make Western civilization possible cannot
make a useful contribution to a genuine dialogue of
civilizations, for any such dialogue must be based on a
shared understanding that human beings can, however
imperfectly, come to know the truth of things.”
As the famous line in the movie puts it, “You can’t handle
the truth!” Or as the great American short story writer
Flannery O’Connor once said, “The truth does not change
according to our ability to stomach it.”
The battle for truth has major stakes.
In our day of relativistic ethics, where there is supposedly
no real right or wrong, how can we condemn lying –
truly? Unless, I suppose, you get caught.
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is a TV producer and the cohost of "Kennedy Classics." He has also written or cowritten 24 books, including "The Book That Made
America" (on the Bible) and (with D. James Kennedy)
"What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?" and (with Peter
Lillback) "George Washington’s Sacred Fire."
But that wasn’t the way George Washington saw things.
Before he retired, he imparted a masterfully written
speech in 1796, his Farewell Address.
42
Politicians or Parasites: Which Is Worse?
Compares elected officials to bloodsucking ticks
By John Stossel
And as I mentioned, it’s not just companies that get
dragged in.
Politicians and lawyers pretend that they are
important people doing important work. But often
they’re important because they are parasites. They
feed off others, while creating no wealth of their
own.
I built a house on the edge of the ocean. People
weigh the costs and benefits of building in risky
places like that. Without government’s encouragement, I
would have just built someplace else. But because
politicians decided that government should be in the flood
insurance business, and then other politicians decided that
government’s insurance business should offer cheap rates,
I did build on the beach.
We all complain about businesses we don’t like, but
because business is voluntary, every merchant must offer
us something we want in order to get our money.
But that’s not true for politicians and their businessman
cronies. They get to use government force to grab our
money.
Even though my property was obviously a high flood risk,
my insurance premiums never exceeded $400 a year. Ten
years later, my house washed away, and government’s
insurance plan reimbursed my costs. Today, the federal
flood insurance program is $40 billion in the red.
Those people who take instead of producing things make
up “the parasite economy,” says Cato Institute Vice
President David Boaz. It’s my favorite chapter in his new
book, “The Libertarian Mind.”
In other words, you helped pay for my beach house.
Thanks! I never invited you there, but you paid anyway. I
actually felt entitled to the money. It had been promised
by a government program!
The parasite economy, says Boaz, thrives wherever “you
use the law to get something you couldn’t get voluntarily
in the marketplace.”
That includes much of the military-industrial complex,
“green” businesses that prosper only because politicians
award them subsidies, banks that can borrow cheaply
because they’re labeled “too big to fail” and –
unfortunately – me.
But it was wrong, and I won’t collect again. I don’t want
to be a parasite.
All of us are parasites if government granted us special
deals. Some parasites (not me) lobbied for their deal.
“You might use a tariff to prevent people from buying
from your foreign competitors or get the government to
give you a subsidy,” says Boaz. “You might get the
government to pass a law that makes it difficult for your
competitors to compete with you.”
On my TV show this Friday, I compare politicians and
politicians’ cronies to tapeworms and ticks. Like parasites
in nature, the ticks on the body politic don’t want to kill
the host organism – meaning us. It’s in politicians’ and
regulators’ interest to keep the host alive so they can keep
eating our food and sucking our blood.
But it’s tough, because government keeps making offers.
Government handouts make parasites out of many of us.
After watching members of Congress applaud President
Obama during his last State of the Union address, I came
to think that politicians were worse than tapeworms and
ticks. The president bragged about American energy
production being up. Domestic energy is up, but it’s up
because of private sector innovation, not government. In
fact, it’s up in spite of administration rules that make it
harder to extract oil from public lands. Yet many in
Congress applauded the president’s misleading claim.
This quickly creates a culture where businesses conclude
that the best way to prosper is not by producing superior
goods, but by lobbying. Politicians then tend to view those
businesses the way gangsters used to view neighborhood
stores, as targets to shake down.
Says Boaz, “You have politicians and bureaucrats and
lobbyists coming around to these companies and saying,
hey, nice little company you’ve got there, too bad if
something happened to it. … They start suggesting that
maybe you need to make some campaign contributions,
maybe hire some lobbyists, and maybe we’ll run an antitrust investigation, and maybe we’ll limit your supply of
overseas engineers. And all of these things then drag these
companies into Washington’s lobbying culture.”
At least tapeworms and ticks don’t expect us to clap.
John Stossel is a longtime award-winning broadcast
journalist who hosts "Stossel" on the Fox Business
Network. His newest book is "No, They Can't: Why
Government Fails, but Individuals Succeed."
43
The Chris Kyle Question
By Jack Kerwick
“Consider this story confirmed by the man himself,”
Mooney remarked.
I confess to having been more than a bit shocked,
and even mystified, to have recently found myself on
the receiving end of some wildly baseless attacks by
people, Iraq War devotees, who accused me of
“tearing down” the late Chris Kyle, the subject of Clint
Eastwood’s latest blockbuster film, American Sniper.
Fortunately, Nicholas Schmidle of The New Yorker—
the same writer who distinguished himself on account
of his feature on the killing of Osama bin Laden—did a
little more homework than Mooney was willing to do.
I have written three articles on Kyle. Unlike those who
have derided him, I at no time and in no way uttered a
single syllable to slander the man. In fact, I have
conceded his heroism.
Schmidle wrote a sympathetic, yet honest, piece—“In the
Crosshairs”—on Kyle and some of his comrades-in-arms
back in June of 2013. He supplies reasons to doubt Kyle’s
account of this carjacking-gone bad.
This isn’t enough for some, particularly those who ache to
vindicate the scandal that is the Iraq War and the foreign
policy vision to which it belongs. As I’ve written, for
them, as for their “libertarian” critics, Kyle is a prop for
their ideology, perhaps the one last attempt to prove to the
American public before 2016 that the Iraq War was both
just and necessary.
The alleged incident was said to have transpired on a
stretch of highway bounded by three counties. Yet the
sheriffs of these counties assured reporters that there was
no such incident.
Sheriff Tommy Bryant, of Erath County, said that he
could “‘guar-an-damn-tee it didn’t happen here.” Greg
Doyle, the sheriff of Somervell County, was just as
adamant that the story was a hoax. Before asserting that
he “‘never heard’” of it and found it “‘kinda shocking,’”
he stated bluntly: “‘It did not occur here.’” Sheriff Bob
Alford, of Johnson County, pulled no punches either: “‘If
something like that happened here I would have heard of
it, and I’m sure you all at the newspapers would have
heard of it.’”
Thus, acknowledgment of Kyle’s heroism is insufficient:
nothing less than unadulterated hero worship is called for.
Hero worship, especially when it revolves around a
government agent—in this case, an agent of the United
States military—is dangerous to a free people. It’s
dangerous because the hero then fills the entire range of
our vision, eclipsing all other considerations—including,
most importantly, moral and legal considerations.
Schmidle adds but another reason to be skeptical about
Kyle’s account. A “SEAL with extensive experience in
special-mission units” told Schmidle “that the notion of
such a provision [a direct line to the Department of
Defense] being in place for a former SEAL driving a
private vehicle was ‘bullshit.’”
I’ve pointed out that Kyle was a braggart. Yet he bragged
not just about his exploits in the military; he bragged
about those violent confrontations about which he lied.
(1)Kyle said that while at a Texas gas station, he shot dead
two men who attempted to carjack him. Supposedly,
when police officers arrived and ran Kyle’s license, the
license check gave them the phone number of the
Department of Defense. The officers were then informed
of Kyle’s identity as the skilled sniper that he was. There
was no arrest—even though, according to Kyle, the whole
event was captured on video.
Taya Kyle, when (much later)asked by a reporter for the
Dallas Morning News about this event and the press’
inability to verify it, replied thus: “All I can say in
response to that is that people enjoy taking rumors and try
to paint a picture of what they want it to be.” She added
that she doesn’t recall her husband ever mentioning this
“in public” (but he did mention it—to DMagazine’s
Michael Mooney). When then asked whether Kyle ever
mentioned it to her privately, she responded that she’s
“been sticking to what he decided to share publicly and
share only those things.”
I have claimed that this incident never occurred. One
angry critic castigated me for having failed to do my due
diligence and insisted that had I done my research (as he
allegedly had done) I would’ve discovered that I am
sorely mistaken.
Only blind hero-worship explains how, in light of these
considerations, one can continue to maintain that Kyle
gunned down two carjackers (But even if he did, how can
anyone who claims to value liberty, to say nothing of a
person who is said to have fought for “our liberties,” take
heart in hearing that a man, because he was once a combat
Michael J. Mooney, a writer for DMagazine (in Dallas,
Texas), wrote about this with Kyle’s cooperation.
Mooney apparently believed Kyle—in spite of the fact
that, to his admission, he was unable to confirm anything
that Kyle said: no video surveillance, no police reports,
and no coroners’ reports on the dead carjackers.
44
Stuff happened. Scruff Face [Kyle never referred to
Ventura by name in his book] ended up on the floor.”
soldier, can determine when he is permitted to kill as a
civilian? How can the lover of liberty be untroubled
believing that the national government coerced local
government agents—police officers—into allowing a
double-killer to ride off without any further questioning or
paperwork?).
It wasn’t until Kyle went on his book tour, and on “The
Opie and Anthony Show,” specifically, that he first started
identifying Ventura as “Scruff Face.” He continued
doing so while on the “conservative” talk radio and Fox
News routes.
(2)Kyle claimed to a bunch of people that he and another
sniper were commissioned to shoot, from atop of the
Superdome, armed rioters in New Orleans during the
Hurricane Katrina mess in 2005.
It was then that Ventura sued Kyle for defamation.
A.J. Delgado, writing for, not Alex Jones’ Prison Planet,
Slate, or some other leftist or fringe “libertarian” site, but
National Review On-Line, does as excellent a job as
anyone of separating out the “myths” from the facts of
what followed next.
Nicholas Schmidle spoke with three people to whom Kyle
made this claim. One person said that Kyle boasted of
killing 30 rioters himself. Another said that Kyle said that
he and his fellow sniper killed 30 people collectively. The
third commented that she could recall no specifics
regarding the conversation that she had with Kyle.
Legal experts generally, Constitutional experts
specifically, assumed from the outset that Ventura had
virtually no chance of winning. Not only are defamation
and libel suits notoriously difficult to win given the First
Amendment, they are even that much more difficult when
it is a public figure who is leveling the suit. Ventura had to
prove not just that the stories told of him were false; he
had to convince a jury that Kyle knew that what he stated
was false or that he acted “recklessly” in regard to the
falsity of his statements.
Brandon Webb, who served with Kyle on SEAL Team
Three and is the editor of SOFREP, a website covering
special operations forces, invited Kyle on a radio show to
discuss life as a special operator. Webb originally posted
an article regarding Kyle’s alleged time as a sniper in New
Orleans on his website. According to Schmidle, he
eventually took it down, concluding that it was “dubious.”
A spokesman for Special Operations Command, or
SOCOM, told Schmidle: “‘To the best of anyone’s
knowledge at SOCOM, there were no West Coast SEALS
deployed to Katrina’.”
But given that, by the time the case went to trial, Kyle—a
distinguished war hero—was dead, and that his widow
was sure to cry on the stand—she did, and on more than
one occasion—the odds were stacked further against
Ventura.
One of Kyle’s officers insisted that he had “‘never heard
that story’.”
Still, of a jury of ten, eight jurors ruled in his favor and
awarded Ventura over $1.8 million for defamation and
“unjust enrichment.”
And a “SEAL with extensive experience in specialmission units wondered how dozens of people could be
shot by high-velocity rifles and just disappear; Kyle’s
version of events, he said, ‘defies the imagination.’”
One of my critics charged that the jury was “split.”
Technically it was, but if 80 percent—four out of five—
Americans were in agreement over any issue, only the
most cynical of ideologues would say that the country was
“split.”
Not unlike the carjacking episode, all of the evidence
points to one verdict: Kyle was untruthful about his time
as a sniper in New Orleans.
This same critic elsewhere argued that juries can be
mistaken, hence implying that this jury got it wrong.
Delgado’s response is decisive:
(3) Among the most famous—notorious—of Kyle’s
claims is that he knocked out Jesse Ventura when the
latter began running down the Iraq War while expressing
his desire for the deaths of more American soldiers who
were deployed there.
“Yes, juries sometimes get it wrong. (Though, statistics
show, not often….) But common sense would tell you that
Ventura’s case must have been exceptionally strong and
Kyle’s case extremely weak if the jury held in favor of
Ventura. Defamation is notoriously hard to prove, and
juries do not easily find against a young widow (who cried
on the stand multiple times) or a fallen war hero, let alone
both.”
Ventura was in Coronado, California in order to address a
graduating class at the nearby naval base. Kyle was there
for the funeral of a fallen SEAL. Both, according to Kyle,
were in a bar when the fight happened.
In his memoir, Kyle writes that he initially asked Ventura
to keep his comments to himself. When the latter only got
more belligerent, Kyle said: “I laid him out. Tables flew.
Another critic asserted that this is a case of “he said, he
said.” Delgado notes that this is simply not true. “There
45
Marino Eccher, a reporter from Minnesota who covered
the trial, relayed the testimony of Kyle’s publicists. The
story of Ventura, one said in an email to Kyle, “is
priceless.” Another characterized it as “hot [,]hot [,] hot!”
Eccher reports: “In another email, an executive said a
planned talk show rebuttal of Ventura’s denial would be ‘a
nice little bonus hit for us.’ A publicist said ‘the so-called
incident has helped the book go crazy,’ according to
emails excerpts read in the [Kyle’s] deposition.”
were multiple witnesses, called by both sides. Clearly, the
jury found Ventura’s witnesses believable and not
Kyle’s.”
Among Ventura’s witnesses, incidentally, were former
Navy SEALS, including Terry “Mother” Moy, the owner
of the bar in which this fight was supposed to have
occurred (Tellingly, those, like my critics, think that the
Vets and war heroes with whom they agree should be
beyond criticism while those Vets and war heroes—like
Ventura and his witnesses—with whom they disagree can
be blasted, and even slandered, without end).
There is no reason, other than Kyle’s own word, to believe
his tales about carjackers and armed rioters in New
Orleans. There is even less reason to believe what he said
about Ventura.
One of my critics, like several on Fox News, wax
indignant over Ventura’s suing Kyle’s widow. Again, for
the truth, we must turn back to Delgado who reminds us
that Ventura sued Kyle in 2012 before the latter was
murdered—and after Ventura demand for an apology and
a retraction from Kyle was denied.
(4)There is a final claim that Kyle made that, perhaps
most tragically of all, has since been exposed as untrue:
Kyle claimed that the proceeds of his book went to the
families of fallen soldiers.
A.J. Delgado notes that while Kyle, his publicist, and
several other publications advanced this line, it simply
ain’t so. “Of the staggering $3 million that American
Sniper collected in royalties for Kyle, only $52,000”—
that’s 2 percent—“actually went to the families of fallen
servicemen.”
Since Kyle’s wife is the executor of his estate and profited
immensely from her husband’s book—over $6 million as
of last summer, months prior to the release of the film,
American Sniper—the lawsuit had to shift to his estate.
Delgado notes that Kyle’s widow is a “multi-millionaire”
who is scarcely going to hurt financially because of this
verdict. The $500,000 for defamation will be paid by libel
insurance. The remaining $1.3 million for “unjust
enrichment” will be paid for easily enough given all of the
millions in rights and royalties from the sales of her late
husband’s book, to say nothing of his life insurance
policies.
Kyle’s widow said that “gift-tax laws” precluded her and
her husband from giving more than $13,000 each to two
families from the prior year. When questioned by
Ventura’s lawyer as to why they just didn’t start a nonprofit organization, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reports
that she replied that “she had not had the time to set up
such a non-profit.”
Delgado remarks that the claim that this judgment is
“cruel or [imposes] a hardship on a destitute widow is illinformed and disingenuous.”
Delgado is correct when she expresses incredulity that
neither Chris nor Taya Kyle managed to find the time to
find families in need. “Surely it’s quite easy to locate the
families of fallen servicemen.” She is further correct
when she blasts the Kyles and their publisher for “strongly
implying, and allowing others to claim unambiguously,
that they were giving all the money away when this was
clearly not true.”
But the point is that Ventura first took aim at Kyle.
And—here goes another one of my critics’ myths—Kyle
did indeed take the stand in his own defense.
According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Kyle gave a
videoed deposition in 2012. As the jury watched it, the
defendant’s credibility gradually started to slip. Kyle
admitted that “tables” did not go “flying,” and claimed to
not recall who told him about the injuries—a damaged
head and a black eye—that he originally boasted of
delivering to Ventura.
One particularly angry critic of mine expressed being
“perplexed” as to why anyone—like, presumably, yours
truly—would want to “tear down” Kyle. I, for one, am
not interested in tearing down anyone. Nor have I done
anything of the kind.
That Ventura was awarded damages for “unjust
enrichment” means that the jury found that Kyle and his
estate profited from the lies that Kyle told about Ventura.
Delgado directs skeptics to the words of Kyle’s publisher
to confirm that sales for the Harper Collins book most
definitely increased astronomically once Kyle revealed
“Scruff Face” to be Ventura.
But this critic actually makes the case for why it is of
crucial importance to separate truth from myth: Once we
are swept up in hero-worship—or maybe its idolatry—
reason, facts, logic, evidence, and, most importantly,
considerations of fundamental fairness and decency are all
too easily swept away.
46
Delgado makes this point while focusing on the law.
Americans “are showing a disturbing level of either
support or disregard for the legal system—based solely on
what they think of the parties involved.” This, she warns,
“is a dangerous approach,” and contradicts “the
fundamentals of justice to decide how you feel about a
case based on how much you like the plaintiff or
defendant, rather than the facts.”
Hero-worship—the inability or unwillingness to think
beyond our clichés, stock phrases, and feelings—can and
has resulted in evil.
This, ultimately, is why we must sort out truth from myth.
Jack Kerwick received his doctoral degree in philosophy
from Temple University. His area of specialization is
ethics and political philosophy. He is a professor of
philosophy at several colleges and universities in New
Jersey and Pennsylvania. Jack blogs at Beliefnet.com: At
the Intersection of Faith & Culture.
The Moneychanger
That Wonderful Word Beguile
By Franklin Sanders
compartments, but in one whole heart. If a man
tried to seduce your wife, you think he'd balk at
picking your pocket? Or lying?
We need to revive that wonderful word "beguile."
It means "to apply guile, to deceive by trickery, to
seduce, betray, or gyp," as in, "Ma Yellen has
beguiled the gullible American public into
believing she can save them, when really she don't
know 'sic 'em' from 'come here'." It's a right useful
word, seeing how most the the American
Establishment in government & finance & of
course the Fed, spend most of their time beguiling us
mushrooms.
Is THIS the sort of "expert" in charge of much
of the world's financial arrangement? Strange
job qualifications there at the IMF.
Some folks (not me!) suspect that quite a few of
Our Rulers at Mr. Strauss-Kahn's exalted level share his
scorn for morality. Some also suspect that Mr. StraussKahn made somebody REALLY big REALLY mad for
them to pull the plug on him publicly, since immunity
from exposure or prosecution is one of the perks that
usually go with high status in that world.
Another little meditation prompted by the pimping trial of
former International Monetary Fund head & erstwhile
contender for the French presidency Dominique StraussKahn: I know it's popular & even sophisticated to say as
Strauss-Kahn does that he can do whatever he likes in his
private life, but that's low grade hogwash. If a man can't
be trusted to act right when nobody's watching, he can't be
trusted. The measure of integrity is how well a man's
public & private acts agree. If he can't even privately
control his sexual appetites, how will he handle a public
trust? Of course, this is probably one of the most
consistently ignored principles in the world today, but that
doesn't refute it. Morality doesn't live in sealed
But don't y'all pay no 'tention to me -- I don't know
nothing. I'm just a nat'ral born durned fool from Tennessee
who don't know no better than to doubt my sorry
superiors.
Franklin Sanders lives on a farm in Middle Tennessee by
choice, deals in physical gold & silver, and has been
writing and publishing The Moneychanger for nearly 26
years.
47
How Reality TV Is Teaching Us to Accept the American Police State
By John W. Whitehead
Yet it’s more than just economics at play. As I
make clear in my book A Government of Wolves:
The Emerging American Police State, we’re being
subjected to a masterful sociological experiment in
how to dumb down and desensitize a population.
“Plays, farces, spectacles, gladiators, strange
beasts, medals, pictures, and other such opiates,
these were for ancient peoples the bait toward
slavery, the price of their liberty, the
instruments of tyranny. By these practices and
enticements the ancient dictators so
successfully lulled their subjects under the yoke, that
the stupefied peoples, fascinated by the pastimes and
vain pleasures flashed before their eyes, learned
subservience as naively, but not so creditably, as
little children learn to read by looking at bright
picture books.”—Etienne de La Boétie, “The
Discourse on Voluntary Servitude: How Do Tyrants
Secure Cooperation?” (1548)
This doesn’t bode well for a citizenry able to sift
through masterfully-produced propaganda in order to
think critically about the issues of the day. Then again, it
can be hard to distinguish between the two. As cognitive
scientist Steven Pinker points out, the hallmark of welltold fiction is that the audience can’t tell the difference.
Concerning reality TV, journalist Chris Weller explains:
Producers have become so good at their job of
constructing a cohesive narrative, one that imitates
life – albeit, dramatically so – that the narrative ends
up compelling life to imitate it. This is an important
distinction…. drama doesn’t emerge accidentally.
It’s intentional. But not everyone knows that.
Americans love their reality TV shows—the drama, the
insults, the bullying, the callousness, the damaged
relationships delivered through the lens of a surveillance
camera—and there’s no shortage of such dehumanizing
spectacles to be found on or off screen, whether it’s Cops,
Real Housewives or the heavy-handed tactics of police
officers who break down doors first and ask questions
later.
“Reality TV is fiction sold as nonfiction, to an audience
that likes to believe both are possible simultaneously in
life,” continues Weller. “It’s entertainment, in the same
way Cirque du Soleil enchants and The Hunger Games
enthralls. But what are we to make of unreal realness?
And what does it make of its viewers? Do they…mimic
the medium? Do they become shallow, volatile, mean?”
Where things get tricky is when we start to lose our grasp
on what is real vs. unreal and what is an entertainment
spectacle that distracts us vs. a real-life drama that impacts
us.
For example, do we tune into Bruce Jenner’s gender
transformation as it unfolds on reality TV, follow the
sniping over Navy sharpshooter Chris Kyle’s approach to
war and killing, or chart the progress of the Keystone oil
pipeline as it makes it work through Congress? Do we
debate the merits of Katy Perry’s Superbowl XLIX
halftime performance, or speculate on which politicians
will face off in the 2016 presidential election?
The answer is yes, they do mimic the medium.
Studies suggest that those who watch reality shows tend to
view what they see as the “norm.” Thus, those who watch
shows characterized by lying, aggression and meanness
not only come to see such behavior as acceptable but find
it entertaining.
It’s a phenomenon called “humilitainment,” a term coined
by media scholars Brad Waite and Sara Booker to refer to
the tendency for viewers to take pleasure in someone
else’s humiliation, suffering and pain. It largely explains
not only why American TV watchers are so fixated on
reality TV programming but how American citizens,
largely insulated from what is really happening in the
world around them by layers of technology, entertainment,
and other distractions, are being programmed to accept the
brutality, surveillance and dehumanizing treatment of the
American police state as things happening to other people.
Here’s a hint: it’s all spectacle.
Studies suggest that the more reality TV people watch—
and I would posit that it’s all reality TV—the more
difficult it becomes to distinguish between what is real
and what is carefully crafted farce. Unfortunately,
Americans have a voracious appetite for TV
entertainment. On average, Americans spend five hours a
day watching television. By the time we reach age 65,
we’re watching more than 50 hours of television a week,
and that number increases as we get older. And reality TV
programming consistently captures the largest percentage
of TV watchers every season by an almost 2-1 ratio.
This is what happens when an entire nation, unable to
distinguish between what is real and unreal and
increasingly inclined to accept as normal the tactics being
played out before them in hi-def, not only ceases to be
As journalist Scott Collins notes, “reality is a cheap way
to fill prime time.”
48
Police officers possessing less-than-lethal weapons
are often more inclined to use these weapons in
situations where they would not have been legally
justified in using traditional weapons, or for that
matter any level of force at whatsoever. This
phenomenon is known as net widening. As use of
force technologies improve, police become more
likely to apply force in a greater number of
situations, in less serious situations, to more
vulnerable people and resort to force in cases where
people simply do not immediately comply with their
directives.
outraged by the treatment being meted out to their fellow
citizens but takes joy in it.
Unfortunately, for the majority of Americans who spend
their waking, leisure hours transfixed in front of the
television or watching programming on their digital
devices, the American police state itself has become
reality TV programming—a form of programming that
keeps us distracted, entertained, occasionally a little bit
outraged but overall largely uninvolved, content to remain
in the viewer’s seat.
In fact, we don’t even have to change the channel when
the subject matter becomes too monotonous. That’s taken
care of for us by the programmers (the corporate media
and the police state). Before we got too worked up over
government surveillance, they changed the channels on us
and switched us over to militarized police. Before our
outrage could be transformed into action, they changed the
channel once again. Next up: ISIS beheadings, plane
crashes, terrorist shootings and politicians lip-synching to
a teleprompter.
What we’re witnessing is net widening of the police state
and, incredibly, it’s taking place while the citizenry
watches.
Viewed through the lens of “reality” TV programming,
the NSA and other government surveillance has become a
done deal. Militarized police are growing more militant by
the day. And you can rest assured that police-worn body
cameras, being hailed by police and activists alike as a
sure-fire fix for police abuses, will only add to this net
widening.
In this way, televised events of recent years—the
Ferguson shooting and riots, the choke-hold of Eric
Garner, the Boston Marathon manhunt and city-wide
lockdown, etc.—became reality TV programming choices
on a different channel.
Ironically, whether we like it or not, these cameras—
directed at us—will turn “we the people” into the stars of
our own reality shows. As Kelefa Sanneh, writing for the
New Yorker, points out, “Cops,” the longest-running
reality show of all which has “viewers ride with police
officers as they drive around, in search of perpetrators…
makes it easy to think of a video camera as a weapon,
there to keep the peace and to discipline violators.”
The more that is beamed at us, the more inclined we are to
settle back in our comfy recliners and become passive
viewers rather than active participants as unsettling,
frightening events unfold. Reality and fiction merge as
everything around us becomes entertainment fodder. This
holds true whether we’re watching American Idol,
American Sniper or America’s Newsroom.
Ultimately, that’s what this is all about: the reality shows,
the drama, the entertainment spectacles, the surveillance
are all intended to keep us in line, using all the weapons
available to the powers-that-be. It’s the modern-day
equivalent of bread and circuses.
With every SWAT team raid, police shooting and terrorist
attack—real or staged, we’re being systematically
desensitized and acclimated to the trappings of the police
state. This is borne out by numerous studies indicating that
the more violence we watch on television—whether real
or fictional—the less outraged we will be by similar acts
of real-life aggression.
As for the sleepwalking masses convinced that all of the
bad things happening in the police state—the police
shootings, the police beatings, the raids, the roadside strip
searches—are happening to other people, eventually, the
things happening to other people will start happening to us
and our loved ones.
For instance, tasers were sold to the American public as a
way to decrease the use of deadly force by police, reduce
the overall number of use-of-force incidents, and limit the
number of people seriously injured. Instead, we’ve
witnessed an increase in the use of force by police and a
desensitizing of the public to police violence. As Professor
Victor E. Kappeler points out, “no one riots because the
police stunned-gunned a drunk for non-compliance or
because a cop pepper-sprayed a group of protesters.”
When that painful reality sinks in, it will hit with the force
of a SWAT team crashing through your door, a taser being
aimed at your stomach, and a gun pointed at your head.
And there will be no channel to change, no reality to alter,
no manufactured farce to hide behind.
By that time, however, it will be too late to do anything
more than submit.
Indeed, notes Kappeler:
Professor Neil Postman saw this eventuality coming.
“There are two ways by which the spirit of a culture may
49
when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round
of entertainments, when serious public conversation
becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a
people become an audience, and their public
business a vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at
risk; culture-death is a clear possibility.
be shriveled,” he predicted. “In the first—the Orwellian—
culture becomes a prison. In the second—the Huxleyan—
culture becomes a burlesque.” Postman concludes:
No one needs to be reminded that our world is now
marred by many prison-cultures…. it makes little
difference if our wardens are inspired by right- or
left-wing ideologies. The gates of the prison are
equally impenetrable, surveillance equally rigorous,
icon-worship pervasive…. Big Brother does not
watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours….
When a population becomes distracted by trivia,
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is
founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is
the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging
American Police State and The Change Manifesto
(Sourcebooks).
50
Environmentalists' Hatred for Humans
Affirms wisdom of renewables while indicting climate 'cultists'
By Phil Elmore
Certainly Obama’s environmental and energy
policies have borne this out; the man has repeatedly
stood in the way of energy initiatives that could
improve our economy and decrease our
dependence on foreign energy sources. While he
was more than happy to take credit for the surge in
production here in the United States, Obama opposed that
increase in production and has taken repeated steps to
close off federal land to it. While private business in the
United States was busy tapping new sources of energy,
Obama was refusing to approve the Keystone Pipeline and
drafting plans to close portions of ANWR and the Atlantic
Ocean to drilling for oil.
“Green.” “Renewable.” “Sustainable.” These have
all become buzzwords, but the concept underlying
them is laudable enough. The sources of energy on
which we rely most, such as fossil fuels, will not
last forever. There will come a time when we
cannot rely on them. We will then, presumably,
have to rely on other forms of energy to satisfy the evergrowing demand for power. We’ve seen the need for
power skyrocket thanks to the integration of portable
electronic devices in our society, in fact. Your tablets and
smartphones, your iPads and iPods, are thirsty little
machines that require steady infusions of electrical power.
And that electricity has to come from somewhere. It is not
unreasonable to worry about where those sources of power
are going to be found when the ones we use now are
depleted. And it is not unreasonable to suggest that
perhaps there could be a better way to power our society, a
way that pollutes less, a way that is, in fact, renewable,
sustainable and even green.
The latest crackpot environmentalist proposals have to do
with banning automobiles, in whole or in part, at certain
age or mileage or pollution standards cut-offs. Climatechange extremists are always happy to subvert individual
liberty to centralized government planning. They adore the
thought of all of America’s citizens packed into densely
populated urban areas – the same crime-riddled, diseaseinfested, heavily legislated gulags that even now provide
political leftists with their strongest voting bases – and
forcing all citizens to endure government-regulated,
government-administrated, government-controlled public
transportation as their means of getting, not from Point A
to Point B, but from whatever point to whatever point the
government mandates.
Part of the problem with these buzzwords lies in how they
are used like a bludgeon by environmental extremist
groups. What separates a conservationist from an
environmental extremist is the degree to which the latter is
happy to harm his or her fellow humans in the name of
“saving” the Earth. This is the same reason members of
the Religion of Climate Change have earned themselves
such a bad name among Americans in general. Set aside
all the documented instances in which “climate change”
figures were falsified to make the problem look worse
than it is, the hypocrisy of global-warming activists who
fly around in private planes and own mansions (yes, Al
Gore, we’re looking at you) and the nasty tendency of
these activists to smear anyone who questions them as a
“climate denier,” and what you have left is still a serious
problem. Specifically, even if we were to stipulate that
global warming is happening, that it is a man-caused
phenomenon, that man can somehow alter carbon
emissions on planet Earth to reverse it and that America is
not a tiny percentage of these emissions compared to
industrial polluters like China and India, we’re still left
with a very serious issue: Environmentalists’ hatred for
human beings.
All of this is done in the name of cutting pollution and
helping the Earth. It comes as no surprise, though, that “all
of this” invariably amounts to robbing you of your liberty,
depriving you of your property and controlling your
actions as a human being. To the leftist, you are not a free
citizen endowed by your creator with the right to your
own life, the right to own property you earn and the right
to pursue your own happiness. You are, in fact, a
government-owned slave in the eyes of the environmental
extremist. You are a cog in a machine that, when you do
as you will, is not functioning as the leftists want you to.
You will, therefore, be repaired – you don’t have to like it
– and if you can’t be corrected, you will be removed and
discarded.
Against this sociopolitical backdrop, the city of
Burlington, Vermont, has announced that 100 percent of
its electricity now comes from renewable, “green” sources
such as wind, water and biomass. This is a laudable
achievement. It is a model for sustainable development for
other cities in the United States and the promise of a
brighter, less polluted future for all of us.
What I mean is that the “sustainable” solution to every
energy- and climate-related problem, according to
environmental activists, seems to be to completely cripple
our economy while reducing the standard of living for
Americans and diminishing the stature of the United
States compared to the other nations of the world.
51
Energy independence, the use of renewable and
sustainable resources and a drive toward “green” energy
are all laudable goals. It is simply a shame that we cannot
make this effort without constantly fielding the lies and
distortions of environmental extremists – who are happy
to twist the truth to score their points. Until we separate
the truth of renewable energy from the falsehoods of the
Cult of Climate Change, we will never be able to deal with
this problem seriously and definitively.
Or it would be, if it wasn’t a lie. “Neither utility claims
that each of their customers’ lights comes from renewable
sources all the time. When the wind isn’t blowing and the
rivers are low, they will buy power from traditional
sources that include electricity generated from fossil
fuels.” In other words, no, the city is not powering its
energy needs from 100 percent renewable sources.
Traditional fossil fuels are taking up the slack (to an
unspecified degree). Burlington’s “renewable energy” lie
is also built on the sale of “renewable energy credits,” the
same scam on which Al Gore’s “carbon credit” scheme is
built.
Phil Elmore is a freelance reporter, author, technical
writer, voice actor and the owner of Samurai Press.
Newsmax
Gallup Chief: Obama's 5.6 Percent Unemployment Rate Is 'Big Lie'
By Cathy Burke
The 5.6 percent unemployment rate being trumpeted by
the White House, Wall Street and the media is a "big lie,"
the head of the Gallup polling firm says.
In addition, those working part time but wanting full-time
work – the so-called "severely underemployed" – also
aren't counted in the latest low number.
"None of them will tell you this: If you, a family member
or anyone is unemployed and has subsequently given up
on finding a job -- if you are so hopelessly out of work
that you've stopped looking over the past four weeks -- the
Department of Labor doesn't count you as unemployed,"
the venerable firm's chief executive officer and chairman
Jim Clinton, writes in his blog.
"There's no other way to say this," he writes.
"The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks
the suffering of the long-term and often permanently
unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed,
amounts to a Big Lie."
Clifton argues the United States "is delivering at a
staggeringly low rate of 44 percent, which is the number
of full-time jobs as a percent of the adult population, 18
years and older."
"Right now, as many as 30 million Americans are either
out of work or severely underemployed. Trust me, the vast
majority of them aren't throwing parties to toast 'falling'
unemployment."
That number needs to "50 percent and a bare minimum of
10 million new, good jobs to replenish America's middle
class," he writes.
President Barack Obama hailed the 5.6 percent
unemployment figure from the Bureau of Labor Statistics
as the lowest since June 2008.
"Our economy is growing and creating jobs at the fastest
pace since 1999,” Obama said in his State of the Union
address Jan. 20. “Our unemployment rate is now lower
than it was before the financial crisis."
“When the media, talking heads, the White House and
Wall Street start reporting the truth – the percent of
Americans in good jobs, jobs that are full time and real –
then we will quit wondering why Americans aren't
‘feeling’ something that doesn't remotely reflect the reality
in their lives," Clifton writes.
But Clifton writes Americans out of work for at least four
weeks are "as unemployed as one can possibly be" and
argues that as many as 30 million of them are now either
out of work or severely underemployed.
"And we will also quit wondering what hollowed out the
middle class."
52
To Vaccinate or Not To Vaccinate?
By Andrew P. Napolitano
Paul argues that parents are the natural and legal
custodians of their children’s bodies until they reach
maturity or majority, somewhere between ages 14
and 18, depending on the state of residence.
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie unwittingly ignited a
firestorm earlier this week when he responded to a
reporter’s question in Great Britain about forced
vaccinations of children in New Jersey by suggesting
that the law in the U.S. needs to balance the rights of
parents against the government’s duty to maintain
standards of public health.
What do the states have to do with this? Under our
Constitution, the states, and not the federal
government, are the guardians of public health. That is an
area of governance not delegated by the states to the feds.
Of course, you’d never know this to listen to the debate
today in which Big Government politicians, confident in
the science, want a one-size-fits-all regimen.
Before Christie could soften the tone of his use of the
word “balance,” Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul jumped into the
fray to support the governor. In doing so, he made a
stronger case for the rights of parents by advancing the
view that all vaccines do not work for all children and the
ultimate decision-maker should be parents and not
bureaucrats or judges. He argued not for balance, but for
bias — in favor of parents.
No less a champion of government in your face than
Hillary Clinton jumped into this debate with a whacky
Tweet that argued that because the Earth is round and the
sky is blue and science is right, all kids should be
vaccinated. What she was really saying is that in her
progressive worldview, the coercive power of the federal
government can be used to enforce a scientific orthodoxy
upon those states and individuals who intellectually reject
it.
When Christie articulated the pro-balance view, he must
have known that New Jersey law, which he enforces, has
no balance, shows no deference to parents’ rights and
permits exceptions to universal vaccinations only for
medical reasons (where a physician certifies that the child
will get sicker because of a vaccination) or religious
objections. Short of those narrow reasons, in New Jersey,
if you don’t vaccinate your children, you risk losing
parental custody of them.
In America, you are free to reject it.
Clinton and her Big Government colleagues would be
wise to look at their favorite Supreme Court decision: Roe
v. Wade. Yes, the same Roe v. Wade that 42 years ago
unleashed 45 million abortions also defines the right to
bear and raise children as fundamental, and thus personal
to parents, and thus largely immune from state
interference and utterly immune from federal interference.
The science is overwhelming that vaccinations work for
most children most of the time. Paul, who is a physician,
said, however, he knew of instances in which poorly timed
vaccinations had led to mental disorders. Yet, he was wise
enough to make the pro-freedom case, and he made it
stronger than Christie did.
Paul’s poignant question about who owns your body —
and he would be the first to tell you that this is not a
federal issue — cannot be ignored by Christie or Clinton
or any other presidential candidate. If Paul is right, if we
do own our bodies and if we are the custodians of our
children’s bodies until they reach maturity, then we have
the right to make health care choices free from
government interference, even if our choices are grounded
in philosophy or religion or emotion or alternative science.
To Paul, the issue is not science. That’s because in a free
society, we are free to reject scientific orthodoxy and seek
unorthodox scientific cures. Of course, we do that at our
peril if our rejection of truth and selection of alternatives
results in harm to others.
The issue, according to Paul, is: WHO OWNS YOUR
BODY? This is a question the government does not want
to answer truthfully, because if it does, it will sound like
Big Brother in George Orwell’s novel “1984.” That’s
because the government believes it owns your body.
But if Paul is wrong, if the government owns our bodies,
then the presumption of individual liberty guaranteed by
the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution has
been surreptitiously discarded, and there will be no limit
to what the government can compel us to do or to what it
can extract from us — in the name of science or any other
of its modern-day gods.
Paul and no less an authority than the U.S. Supreme Court
have rejected that concept. Under the natural law, because
you retain the rights inherent in your birth that you have
not individually given away to government, the
government does not own your body.
Andrew P. Napolitano, a former judge of the Superior
Court of New Jersey, is the senior judicial analyst at Fox
News Channel.
Rather, you do. And you alone can decide your fate with
respect to the ingestion of medicine. What about children?
53
Amerian Sniper: A Model American
By Gerald Celente
wrote “We wanted people to know, we’re here and we
want to f$#@ with you … we will kill you…”
The votes are in and the decision is overwhelmingly clear.
Chris Kyle—the Navy SEAL portrayed in the blockbuster
movie purported killer of some 200 Iraqis during four
tours of duty—is the people’s choice.
Former Vice President Dick Cheney, in his response to the
recently released report on CIA torture, said he was proud
of his role in creating the gruesome interrogation program
that included water boarding and rectal feeding. Did he
have any regrets for what he ordered? “No … absolutely
not … and I’d do it again in a minute,” Cheney said.
From record ticket sales to major media accolades, from
the halls of Congress to the White House, the nation has
spoken: “American Sniper” is all-American. Chris Kyle—
the most lethal killer in U.S. military history, a true hero, a
brave warrior—has been anointed as a role model for all
that America has come to stand for.
Indeed, if Kyle were alive he would certainly be a force to
be reckoned with in the 2016 race for the White House.
While it would be difficult to trump Hillary Clinton’s
giggling glee over the murder of Libyan leader Muammar
Qaddafi, (“We came, we saw … he died,”) in a war that
she personally pushed for, Kyle’s statement that he “…
couldn’t give a flying f%@# about the Iraqis. I loved
killing bad guys. … I loved what I did. I still do … it was
fun,” comes very close.
“American Sniper has the look of a bona fide cultural
phenomenon!” said Brandon Griggs of CNN. And as
Michelle Obama contends, “… for all those folks in
America who don’t have these kinds of opportunities [to
meet veterans and military families personally] films and
TV are often the best way to share those stories.”
Speaking at a film industry event, Ms. Obama said the
movie stressed, “The complicated moral decisions they
[troops] are tasked with … the balancing of love of family
with love of country.”
The American Sniper is a model American. And the
American model is immorality. George W. Bush, Colin
Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condaleeza
Rice, Susan Rice, Samantha Powers … the list of
perpetrators goes on. And so does the list of their crimes:
slaughtering millions by waging wars based of false
information, overthrowing sovereign governments based
on lies, killing innocents and “suspects in drone strikes”
without regard to international law and with no personal
regret for their roles in fostering the mass murders. Like
Chris Kyle, each of them speak proudly of their actions
and express not a hint of sorrow.
For Navy SEAL Chris Kyle, the essence of his “love of
country” lay in obeying his commander in chief and living
up to Washington’s “moral decisions.” As the movie has
it, when the Twin Towers were brought down on 9/11, off
to war Kyle marched. This take-no-prisoners Texan
dutifully followed the orders of the tough-talking fauxTexan George W. Bush to get those “evil doers.”
Bush’s simplistic and transparently shallow bravado about
bringing ‘em in “dead or alive,” a comforting scenario
made plausible by nearly a century of Hollywood
Westerns, once again played out perfectly in Hollywood’s
“American Sniper.” In a nation where politics has become
show business for ugly people, the mindset of America’s
first lady made perfect sense; film and TV’s dumbeddown, glossed over, whitewashed versions of hard facts
served as the perfect substitutes for harsh reality and the
solid truth.
Most Americans have forgotten about former Secretary of
State Madeleine Albright who defended Bill Clinton’s
sanctions against Iraq on a 60 Minutes segment. When the
show’s host, Lesley Stahl, asked her “We have heard that
half a million children have died. I mean that’s more
children than died in Hiroshima … is the price worth it?”
Albright replied, “we think the price is worth it.”
“We,” she says, as if it truly included “us.” So speak the
moralizing madmen and madwomen—sociopaths and
psychopaths—who pontificate from their positions of high
office, telling the rest of us what we must believe and who
should be killed next.
Perhaps Ms. Obama had found a soft spot in her heart for
Mr. Kyle because he closely reflects the words and deeds
of her husband. In his book, American Sniper, Kyle wrote
that killing is “fun,” something he “loved.” In the book
“DoubleDown,” authors Mark Halperin and John
Heilemann wrote that President Obama bragged that he’s
“really good at killing people” while discussing drone
strikes with his staff.
Chris Kyle did his patriotic duty. He obeyed orders,
followed the words and carried out the tasks issued from
the White House. The fish rots from the head down. The
American Government is the American Sniper.
If not exactly presidential material, Kyle certainly has
what it takes to be second in command. In his memoir, he
Gerald Celente is founder and director of The Trends
Research Institute.
54
Obama versus America
By Thomas Sowell
These two men — neither of whom grew up in a
ghetto — have been quick to play the role of
defenders of the ghetto, even when that meant
defending the kinds of hoodlums who can make
life a living hell for decent people in black ghettos.
In his recent trip to India, President Obama
repeated a long-standing pattern of his —
denigrating the United States to foreign audiences.
He said that he had been discriminated against
because of his skin color in America, a country in
which there is, even now, “terrible poverty.”
Far from benefitting ghetto blacks, the vision
presented by the Obama administration, and the
policies growing out of that vision, have a track
record of counterproductive results on both sides of the
Atlantic — that is, among low-income whites in England
as well as low-income blacks in the United States.
Make no mistake about it, there is no society of
human beings in which there are no rotten people.
But for a President of the United States to be smearing
America in a foreign country, whose track record is far
worse, is both irresponsible and immature.
In both countries, children from low-income immigrant
families do far better in schools than the native-born, lowincome children. Moreover, low-income immigrant
groups rise out of poverty far more readily than lowincome natives.
Years after the last lynching of blacks took place in the
Jim Crow South, India’s own government was still
publishing annual statistics on atrocities against the
untouchables, including fatal atrocities. The June 2003
issue of “National Geographic” magazine had a chilling
article on the continuing atrocities against untouchables in
India in the 21st century.
The January 31st issue of the distinguished British
magazine “The Economist” reports that the children of
African refugees from Somalia do far better in school than
low-income British children in general. “Somali
immigrants,” it reports, “insist that their children turn up
for extra lessons at weekends.” These are “well-ordered
children” and their parents understand that education “is
their ticket out of poverty.”
Nothing that happened to Barack Obama when he was
attending a posh private school in Hawaii, or elite
academic institutions on the mainland, was in the same
league with the appalling treatment of untouchables in
India. And what Obama called “terrible poverty” in
America would be called prosperity in India.
Contrast that with the Obama administration’s threatening
schools with federal action if they do not reduce their
disciplining of black males for misbehavior.
The history of the human race has not always been a
pretty picture, regardless of what part of the world you
look at, and regardless of whatever color of the rainbow
the people have been.
Despite whatever political benefit or personal satisfaction
that may give Barack Obama and Eric Holder, reducing
the sanctions against misbehavior in school virtually
guarantees that classroom disorder will make the teaching
of other black students far less effective, if not impossible.
If you want to spend your life nursing grievances, you will
never run out of grievances to nurse, regardless of what
color your skin is. If some people cannot be rotten to you
because of your race, they will find some other reason to
be rotten to you.
For black children whose best ticket out of poverty is
education, that is a lifelong tragedy, even if it is a political
bonanza to politicians who claim to be their friends and
defenders.
The question is whether you want to deal with such
episodes at the time when they occur or whether you want
to nurse your grievances for years, and look for
opportunities for “payback” against other people for what
somebody else did. Much that has been said and done by
both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder
suggests that they are in payback mode.
The biggest advantage that the children of low-income
immigrants have over the children of native-born, lowincome families is that low-income immigrants have not
been saturated for generations with the rhetoric of
victimhood and hopelessness, spread by people like
Obama, Holder and their counterparts
Both have repeatedly jumped into local law enforcement
issues, far from Washington, and turned them into racial
issues, long before the facts came out.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution
at Stanford University.
55
The Guardian Calls for WWIII. Sure, Why Not?
Oxford professor Timothy Garton Ash seems keen on a hot war, but who will fight it? Not Timothy Garton Ash
By Riley Waggaman, Russian Insider
elements is not even disputed anymore. Now it’s just a
matter of “how” fascist the government is. A little bit
fascist, somewhat fascist, or very very fascist? This is
what scholarly circles are now discussing.
Since the beginning of time, television pundits and other
serious thinkers have beckoned the young to die or lose
limbs in pointless, illegal wars.
Just in the last 15 years alone, our groomed foreign policy
experts and think tank fellows have made compelling
cases for armed humanitarian interventions in
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and about a half dozen
other defenseless nations desperately in need of drone
strikes or some other form of Western aid.
The rest of the article—comparing Putin to Slobodan
Milošević, for example—is not particularly creative. But a
real pearl of wisdom comes at the end of his piece:
We need to counter [Russian] propaganda not with lies
of our own but with reliable information and a
scrupulously presented array of different views. No
one is better placed to do this than the BBC.
Some might think this ancient practice of the privileged
few urging everyone else to perish for nothing
is outdated—maybe even harmful.
Of course, the entire piece is bold-faced garbage since it’s
based on the completely baseless notion that Russia has
invaded Ukraine. But that won’t stop Ash from cheering
for further violence and hostilities—which could easily
lead to a real war between Russia and NATO.
Perhaps. But tradition is very important in the United
Kingdom. Well-placed sources tell us that wooden malletspankings at Eton College are just as regular as they were
100 years ago.
We are beginning to drift into less savory subjects, so let
us return to the main agenda item: Writing in The
Guardian, Oxford historian Timothy Garton Ash
has demanded more weapons for Ukraine, and more
hostile, Draconian measures levied against Russia. Why?
Because Putin is a maniac and “sometimes only guns can
stop guns.”
As Mark Twain warned long ago:
The loud little handful–as usual–will shout for the war.
The pulpit will–warily and cautiously–object–at first;
the great, big, dull bulk of the nation will rub its
sleepy eyes and try to make out why there should be a
war, and will say, earnestly and indignantly, ‘It is
unjust and dishonorable, and there is no necessity for
it.’ Then the handful will shout louder. A few fair
men on the other side will argue and reason against
the war with speech and pen, and at first will have a
hearing and be applauded; but it will not last long;
those others will outshout them, and presently the
anti-war audiences will thin out and lose popularity.
Before long you will see this curious thing: the
speakers stoned from the platform, and free speech
strangled by hordes of furious men who in their secret
hearts are still at one with those stoned speakers–as
earlier–but do not dare say so. And now the whole
nation–pulpit and all–will take up the war-cry, and
shout itself hoarse, and mob any honest man who
ventures to open his mouth; and presently such mouths
will cease to open. Next the statesmen will invent
cheap lies, putting the blame upon the nation that is
attacked, and every man will be glad of those
conscience-soothing falsities, and will diligently study
them, and refuse to examine any refutations of them;
and thus he will by and by convince himself the war is
just, and will thank God for the better sleep he enjoys
after this process of grotesque self-deception.
This all makes perfect sense, except…Who’s supposed to
use these guns to fight Putin’s invisible Russian army?
The Ukrainians? They don’t want them. Ukraine’s
Ministry of Defense says that in the latest mobilization,
only 20% of those called up for service reported for
duty. More than one million Ukrainian men of military
age are now refugees in Russia. Mothers don’t want to
send their sons to die in a pointless war against an enemy
that doesn’t exist, and who could blame them?
Maybe Ash will answer the call to arms? He certainly
seems confident in Ukraine’s current leadership, as one of
his delightful anecdotes shows:
Last year a Russianist of my acquaintance was sitting
naked and at ease in the hot tub with a friend of his in
Moscow after several vodkas, as is the Russian custom,
when this highly educated Russian asked: “So tell me,
honestly, why do you support the fascists in Kiev?”
Ash doesn’t answer the question, because he’s an Oxford
professor and he can’t be bothered with questions.
The fact that the current government in Kiev is
authoritarian at its core and has neo-Nazi and extremist
We can’t allow this to happen.
56
Consortium News
Examining the Stasi, Seeing the NSA
By Elizabeth Murray
On a chilly morning in late January 2015, an unlikely
assortment of former U.S. and U.K. intelligence officers
gathered at the former headquarters of the Stasi — the
former East Germany’s Ministerium fuer Staatssicherheit
[Ministry of State Security] — for a tour of Berlin’s “Stasi
Museum.”
As Stasi Museum tour guide Julia Simoncelli described
the inner workings of the East German intelligence service
in great detail, it was telling to observe the facial
expressions of Binney and his whistleblower colleagues as
Simoncelli discussed what had been Stasi’s equivalent of
the current U.S. “Insider Threat” program and the
psychological levers used to manipulate citizens into
informing on one another.
The delegation – which included ex-officers from the
National Security Agency, the Central Intelligence
Agency and British MI5, who count themselves among
the members of the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in
Intelligence (SAAII) – had traveled to Berlin to confer the
2015 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence on
former NSA senior technical director-turnedwhistleblower William Binney, for his role in exposing
the extent of mass surveillance of ordinary citizens in the
United States.
“They [the Stasi] figured out that there was a technique far
more effective than force or violence to convince people
to inform on one another — and that was to persuade them
that doing so would be ‘good for them’ — i.e., a place for
their child at university, career advancement, an
apartment, access to Western luxuries, et cetera,”
explained Simoncelli.
The Stasi also made a point of uncovering what motivated
a particular person, including what he/she feared most
(anyone who has read Orwell’s 1984’ or seen the film
“The Lives of Others” will have seen vivid examples of
how such information can be exploited).
Annie Machon, a Sam Adams Associate and former MI5
officer who lived in exile for three years after blowing the
whistle on MI5 illegalities along with her then-partner
David Shayler, commented that the techniques used by the
Stasi “brought back a lot of memories for me from the
1990s. Despite it being the analog [versus digital] era, it
was startling how much personal data they could capture
— and how much worse it is now for all of us.”
The Stasi museum in Berlin.
In accepting the award, Binney said he resigned from the
NSA in 2001 after realizing that the agency was
“purposefully violating the Constitution” with its “bulk
acquisition of data against U.S. citizens … first against
U.S. citizens by the way — not foreigners.”
She observed that the Stasi Museum is “a potent warning
from history,” adding that “the sense of loss of privacy in
your own home, when phoning your family, and when
talking to friends who may potentially be turned against
you is corrosive to the human spirit.”
Binney had worked the Soviet target for nearly 30 years at
NSA, “so it was easy for me to recognize the danger” to
democracy and individual freedom posed by bulk data
collection — “that’s what the Stasi did, the KGB did it –
every totalitarian state down through history did that”
(albeit with a lot less technological power than was
available to the NSA).
Machon noted that while the former East Germany “is
always excoriated as the worst police state ever,” MI5 was
deploying “exactly the same intrusive techniques as the
Stasi against hundreds of thousands of political activists in
the U.K. for decades, and only stopped in the mid1990s.The penetration levels were not as high per capita,
nor were people snatched and interrogated then (unless
they were Irish) but the paranoid, barricade mentality was
equivalent.”
Now, in a strangely fitting yet ironic twist, Binney stood
among fellow whistleblowers in the entrance foyer at the
spy headquarters of what was once the world’s foremost
totalitarian surveillance state — one of whose former
operatives, Wolfgang Schmidt, noted wistfully that the
current extent of mass surveillance of the domestic U.S.
population would have been a “dream come true” for the
Stasi.
Retired U.S. Army Major Todd Pierce — who served on
the defense team for two Guantanamo Prison detainees in
his capacity as a Judge Advocate General (JAG) officer —
57
stated that “it was the Stasi that led the way in torture
techniques, with us merely adopting theirs.”
intelligence unlawfully gained through electronic
surveillance to extort and coerce collusion.”
The Stasi, Pierce said, “even led the way in teaching us
about kidnapping-renditions, as they would kidnap West
Germans and rendition them to East Germany for trial by
military court (Military Commissions).”
And, in earlier comments during the Sam Adams Award
ceremony, former NSA senior executive Thomas Drake
— who won the Sam Adams Award in 2011 jointly with
former Justice Department attorney Jesselyn Radack —
reflected: “Here we are, on what used to be the front lines
of the Cold War, facing the greatest threat in terms of
what we’ve created electronically – which is the real
prospect of turnkey tyranny of a digital kind.”
Former FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley — a previous
recipient of the Sam Adams Award and Time Magazine’s
2002 Person of the Year for her role in exposing the FBI
failure to share information that might have prevented the
9/11 attacks — commented that “what jumped out at me
from that [Stasi Museum] tour in comparing all the
excessive spying on the personal lives of citizens and
oppression and abuse during that period of East German
history was that — despite the use of different ideologies,
religions and loyalty groups, and despite the use of new
spy technologies — what remains constant is this form of
‘control-freak’ perceived need for domination.
Drake said he “never imagined that the model of the Stasi
— which was to know everything — would turn into the
collect-it-all digital dragnet.”
As the former intelligence officers-turned-whistleblowers
walked among the well-preserved offices and conference
rooms of a former totalitarian state’s internal spy
apparatus, the sense of deja vu and irony of what the
United States of America has become was clearly not lost
on any of them.
“Those in power do tend to be ‘true believers’ in their own
noble cause justifying their terribly wrongful, illegal
methods.”
Elizabeth Murray served as Deputy National Intelligence
Officer for the Near East in the National Intelligence
Council before retiring after a 27-year career in the U.S.
government. She is a member of Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Rowley added that current “FBI-CIA methods against the
Muslim community in the United States are not much
different [from Stasi tactics], most likely also assisted by
Breitbart
Obama at National Prayer Breakfast:
“People Committed Terrible Deeds in the Name of Christ”
by Charlie Spiering
Obama also denounced Islamic State
terrorists for professing to stand up for
Islam when they were actually “betraying
it.”
At the National Prayer Breakfast,
President Obama reminded attendees that
violence rooted in religion isn’t exclusive
to Islam, but has been carried out by
Christians as well.
“We see ISIL, a brutal vicious death cult
that in the name of religion carries out
unspeakable acts of barbarism,” he said
criticizing them for “claiming the mantle
of religious authority for such actions.”
Obama said that even though religion is a
source for good around the world, there
will always be people willing to “hijack
religion for their own murderous ends.”
“Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique
to some other place, remember that during the Crusades
and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the
name of Christ,” Obama said. “In our home country,
slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the
name of Christ.”
Pastor Wilson’s Comment: So Obama’s response to the
terrorism that IS Islam? He tells us essentially that:
“Christian’s are terrorists, too.” This man is incredible!
58
Newsmax
Obama: Christians Did Bad Things 'in the Name of Christ'
Buchanan also objected to Obama's reference to racial
segregation laws during the Jim Crow era during the same
speech.
President Barack Obama stirred outraged with his speech
at the National Prayer Breakfast Thursday, comparing the
atrocities committed by ISIS to those of Christians "in the
name of Christ."
"To call it Jim Crow, which was a form of segregation of
racists; to say that was rooted in Christianity, it seems to
be an absurdity and injustice," he said.
"Unless we get on our high horse and think that this is
unique to some other place, remember that during the
Crusades and Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds
in the name of Christ," Obama said. "In our home country,
slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the
name of Christ."
Former U.S. Rep. Allen West said: "President Obama is
the gift that keeps on giving,' "The Islamapologist-inChief attempted to find moral equivalency between the
brutality of ISIS and Christianity."
"So it is not unique to one group or one religion," Obama
said. "There is a tendency in us, a simple tendency that
can pervert and distort our faith."
And in a statement on his website, Bill Donohue,
president of the Catholic League, said "the president
should apologize for his insulting comparison."
The comments drew swift reaction.
Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore, a Republican, said
Obama's remarks were "the most offensive I’ve ever heard
a President make in my lifetime."
Appearing on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax
TV, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan fumed at
Obama comparing the extreme barbarity of ISIS to the
Crusades.
Gilmore said it illustrated that "Obama does not believe in
America or the values we all share. There is no moral
equivalency for the horrific behavior of terrorists whose
atrocities are shocking and reprehensible"
"He's trying to give them all equivalence to what
happened in the 11th century to what's happening today?
It's astonishing," Buchanan said.
Reaction also poured in on Twitter.
"The whole idea of the Inquisition in Spain – I mean these
things are hundreds of years ago. That was a 30-year war
long, long ago.
The president said that while religion is a source of good
around the world, people of all faiths have been willing to
"hijack religion for their own murderous ends."
"I can't think of any atrocities that have really been
committed in the name of Christ … There's no
justification anywhere in all the books of the New
Testament for any kind of violence on the scale of what
we just saw with that Jordanian pilot."
Obama called for all people of faiths to show humility
about their beliefs and reject the idea that "God speaks
only to us and doesn't speak to others."
"No god condones terror," he said.
Buchanan said Obama has a "real problem with the cold
hard truth and reality of our times" regarding terrorism.
"We are summoned to push back against those who would
distort our religion for their nihilistic ends," Obama said at
the National Prayer Breakfast.
"There is an element in the Islamic community worldwide,
which has awakened and is embarked on a global crusade
of its own to conquer western countries," Buchanan said.
He singled out the ISIS, calling the militants a "death
cult," as well as those responsible for last month's attacks
in Paris and deadly assault on a school in Pakistan.
"But first [they want to conquer] Arab and Muslim
countries and to impose upon them a Sharia law to expel
the Christians, Jews, and the nonbelievers if they're Shiite
and not part of what they consider the mainstream.
Obama offered a special welcome to a "good friend," the
Dalai Lama, seated at a table in front of the dais among
the audience of 3,600. Earlier Obama, from the head table,
pressed his hands together in a prayer-like position and
bowed his head toward the Dalai Lama, then gave him a
wave and a broad smile.
"They're using all manner of violence in order to achieve
this, from Boko Haram to ISIS to Ansar al-Sharia and to
al-Qaida. Can the president not see the reality of his own
time that he's got to retreat centuries to find what he thinks
might be a moral equivalence?"
It was the first time the president and the Tibetan Buddhist
leader attended the same public event.
59
Jordan's King Abdullah II canceled plans to attend the
breakfast after ISIS militants released a video this week
showing a captured Jordanian pilot being burned to death.
Good Samaritan, who saved a stranger who had been
beaten and left for dead.
Material from the Associated Press was used in this
report.
In his place, Sen. Roger Wicker, R-Miss., offered prayers
for Jordan and read the New Testament parable of the
Reason Magazine
UNC-Chapel Hill Admin Only Wants to Discuss Diversity
with Students Who Share Its Liberal Biases
How productive could a pro-diversity event be if it was not itself diverse?
By Robby Soave
For Israel were not even aware of the dinner until
the Daily Tar Heel wrote an article about it the next
day. ...
Many college
administrators love to tout
their commitment to
diversity. Implicitly, they
almost always
mean racial diversity—and
said commitment usually
takes the form of endless,
shallow discussions about
how important diversity is.
Alex Johnson, chairwoman of UNC Young
Americans for Liberty, a campus libertarian club,
said she was “extremely disappointed” the university
did not include all types of voices at the dinner.
“It seems to me that only one type of political
perspective is being included or recognized on
campus while the student body, itself, is actually
quite diverse in opinions,” Johnson said, according
to the Carolina Review.
Top officials at the University of North Carolina at
Chapel Hill are no different; they really want to have a
dialogue about diversity, as long as that dialogue only
includes people who already share the campus's
dominant, left-of-center views on what diversity
entails. Chancellor Carol Folt recently met with 40
student leaders to discuss campus diversity issues—but
it never occurred to her to include a single libertarian,
conservative, or otherwise non-liberal voice, according
to The College Fix:
How productive could a pro-diversity event be if it was
not itself diverse?
After hearing these complaints, the chancellor vowed
to meet with groups that had not been included the first
time around. But the fact that the administration's gut
impulse left no room for the inclusion of non-liberals
suggests that the chancellor's actual commitment to
diversity is skin deep.
In fact, right-leaning organizations including the
UNC College Republicans, Carolina Students for
Life, UNC Young Americans for Liberty, the Tar
Heel Rifle and Pistol Club, and Christians United
Robby Soave is a staff editor at Reason.com.
60
Lon Horiuchi: American Sniper
By William Norman Grigg
The victim of Horiuchi’s first documented “kill”
was a woman who was holding an infant. Kyle
inaugurated his career in the same fashion.
Somewhere, a figure clothed in a pseudonym has
been tracking the box office returns of “American
Sniper” with great interest and no small measure
of envy. He may be among the tens of millions
who contributed to its unprecedented commercial
success, assuming that a visit to the local Cineplex
is permitted under the terms of the federal witness
protection program.
“I looked through the scope,” Kyle narrated by
way of his ghost writer. “The only people who
were moving were [a] woman and maybe a child
or two nearby. I watched the troops pull up. Ten
young, proud Marines in uniform got out of their
vehicles and gathered for a foot patrol. As the Americans
organized, the woman took something from beneath her
clothes, and yanked at it. She’d set a grenade.”
Many who have seen the cinematic tribute to the late Chris
Kyle describe the experience in religious terms, recalling
how a chastened, reverent silence descended on the theater
as the end credits rolled. If the individual once known as
Lon Horiuchi was part of the congregation, the impious
sentiment of jealousy may have tainted his devotion. After
all, he had also been true and faithful to his commission as
a state-employed killer, shooting people from long
distances at the command of his superiors; why isn’t he
the object of similar veneration?
Without any of the agonized reluctance exhibited by his
cinematic avatar, Kyle shot the woman twice.
“It was my duty to shoot, and I don’t regret it,” Kyle
insisted. “The woman was already dead. I was just making
sure she didn’t take any Marines with her. It was clear that
not only did she want to kill them, but she didn’t care
about anybody else nearby who would have been blown
up by the grenade or killed in the firefight. Children on the
street, people in the houses, maybeher child….”
Chris Kyle, as everyone is required to know, was a Navy
SEAL. Lon Horiuchi was an infantry officer and graduate
of West Point before becoming a sniper with the FBI and
a member of its “Hostage Rescue Team,” an Orwellian
designation for a unit that functioned as a death squad at
Ruby Ridge in 1992 and Waco in 1993.
Kyle described this woman, who was trying to defend her
neighborhood from violent foreign invaders, as “blinded
by evil. She just wanted Americans dead, no matter what.
My shots saved several Americans, whose lives were
clearly worth more than that woman’s twisted soul.”
Both Kyle and Horiuchi have been described as deeply
religious and devoted family men. To the extent presently
known, Kyle was a much more prolific killer than
Horiuchi, which makes him more admirable in the eyes of
the segment of the public that regards state-sanctioned
murder as the highest and holiest public calling.
Vicki Weaver, the victim of Horiuchi’s kill-shot, was
standing in the doorway of her family’s home at Ruby
Ridge, Idaho. The family had come under federal siege
because of Randy’s refusal to become an informant within
the Aryan Nation white supremacist group. Randy had
been manipulated by an ATF undercover operative named
Kenneth Fadeley into selling a shotgun with a sawed-off
barrel. Eight months after that transaction, two of
Fadeley’s comrades in that detestable organization
demanded that Randy become an informant, threatening
his home and family if he didn’t cooperate.
Unlike Horiuchi, who retreated into anonymity after the
August 1992 federal standoff at Ruby Ridge, Kyle became
a best-selling author-by-proxy and a “reality TV” celebrity
following his retirement from the military. The resulting
sense of artificial intimacy with the public helps explain
why millions claimed to have felt a personal loss when
Kyle was killed by a fellow Iraq war veteran.
For more than two years, the Feds and their dutiful
servants in Bonner County pursued Randy and his family.
The US Marshals Service became involved, infiltrating the
family’s property and seeding surveillance devices near
the cabin. In August 1992, as they prepared to arrest the
“fugitive,” one of the marshals alerted the family’s dog,
Stryker. Randy’s only son, 14-year-old Samuel, went to
investigate, suspecting that Stryker might have
encountered a predator. In fact, he had – albeit of the twolegged, tax-devouring variety.
His funeral was a state-focused orgy of grief rivalling that
decreed by Soviet officials in 1982 following the death of
Leonid Brezhnev. When Horiuchi eventually pays his debt
to nature he will earn a brief mention in the “Whatever
happened to?” section of whatever media outlets happen
to notice his passing.
This is tragically unfair. If proficiency at state-authorized
killing constitutes heroism, Horiuchi has been shamefully
denied the honor to which he is due.
61
A gunfight erupted in which US Marshal William Deegan
was killed (almost certainly by friendly fire), suffering a
fate not inappropriate for any other prowler or burglar. As
Samuel fled to the cabin, he was shot in the back – ripped
apart – by automatic weapons fire.
Kyle’s lethal ministry was one of “saving lives,” he and
his supporters have insisted – not lives unworthy of life,
such as the Iraqi “savages” for whom he expressed such
disdain, but the incomparably valuable lives of his
comrades-in-arms.
Within a day, the Weaver family’s pathetic dwelling had
been transformed through official propaganda into an
“armed compound” – the term used to describe any
habitation owned by people the Regime has decided to
kill. Randy and a family friend named Kevin Harris had
stepped out of the house to tend to the body of 14-year-old
Sammy Weaver, which was in an outbuilding nearby.
Horiuchi’s comrades offered the same defense of the FBI
sniper’s murderous actions at Ruby Ridge. By killing
Vicki, he acted “to save lives,” insisted fellow FBI sniper
Dale Monroe. Like the unnamed Iraqi woman, Vicki must
be regarded as a hateful, irrational, marginally human
creature who simply didn’t understand that when the
Empire makes a proprietary claim on you and your family,
it is not only a crime but a sin to resist.
The rules of engagement for Horiuchi and the rest of the
HRT stated that FBI snipers “could and should” shoot any
armed male seen outside the family’s cabin. That
authorization was broadly comparable to the rules of
engagement under which Kyle operated while in Iraq:
“Our ROEs when the war kicked off were pretty simple: If
you see anyone from about sixteen to sixty-five and they’re
male, shoot ‘em. Kill every male you see. That wasn’t the
official language, but that was the idea.” (Emphasis
added.)
The FBI’s theatrical professions of regret over Vicki’s
death belied the fact that the battalion of combat-outfitted
law enforcement personnel on the scene at Ruby Ridge
celebrated the killing as a noble victory: With full
knowledge that Mrs. Weaver was dead, they named their
staging area “Camp Vicki,” and used a public address
system to taunt Randy and his by pretending to speak on
behalf of his dead wife.
During his ministry of bloodshed in Iraq, Kyle displayed
the same contemptuous, bullying attitude toward the
population he was there to “liberate.” His unit adopted the
logo of The Punisher, a nihilistic, Marvel Comics
character. They made a point of tagging every available
surface with the slogan: “Despite what your momma told
you, violence does solve problems.”
The “could and should” language employed at Ruby
Ridge was revised and expanded without official sanction.
In subsequent congressional testimony, former FBI sniper
Dale B. Monroe insisted that anyone inside the cabin was
also fair game, because of the “threat” they supposedly
posed to FBI agents operating a helicopter in the airspace
above the property.
Kyle proudly recalls that “we spray-painted it on every
building and walls when we could. We wanted people to
know, we’re here and we want to f**k with you…. You see
us, we’re the people kicking your ass. Fear us because we
will kill you, mother****r.”
It is not an exaggeration to say that Ruby Ridge was
considered a “kill zone” – just as Fallujah, Iraq would
later be for Kyle and his comrades. Before Horiuchi
slaughtered Vicki, he attempted to murder Randy with a
shot to his back intended to sever his spinal cord. A
sudden and unanticipated movement by Randy saved his
life: The intended kill-shot struck his shoulder and exited
his armpit. Another shot struck Vicki in her head as she
cradled her 10-month-old daughter Elisheba. The bullet
passed through her body and wounded Harris.
The invading army of which Kyle was part turned Fallujah
into a vast charnel house. Horiuchi’s comrades made an
abortive attempt to do the same on a smaller scale at Ruby
Ridge. At one point during the standoff, a news crew
from KREM-TV in Spokane saw several large canisters of
gasoline being loaded onto an FBI helicopter, which took
off and circled the Weaver “compound” – only to veer off
suddenly after being videotaped by observers on the
ground.
Although the FBI would later insist that Vicky’s death
was inadvertent, Horiuchi himself would confirm that he
knew the identity of his victim.
But for the inconvenient presence of witnesses, the FBI
would have fire-bombed the dwelling, immolating its
inhabitants and destroying all of the evidence. A few
months later, at the end of the 51-day siege at Mt. Carmel,
the FBI keep the media and emergency personnel more
than a mile away from the Branch Davidian sanctuary
during the chemical weapon attack and subsequent
A psychological profile of the family produced by the
Bureau identified Vicki, rather than her ex-Green Beret
husband, as the dominant personality in the family. James
“Bo” Gritz, an ex-Special Forces Colonel who acted as a
negotiator during the 10-day standoff, later testified under
oath that the FBI had deliberately targeted Vicki out of the
belief that she “would kill her children rather than ever
allow them to surrender.”
62
Whether or not such a meeting took place, Horiuchi no
longer has any reason to hide. The box office triumph of
“American Sniper” suggests that the mainstream
American public is prepared to welcome back – nay, to
embrace and celebrate – someone who displayed the same
variety of “heroism” on the Homefront that Chris Kyle
exhibited overseas.
holocaust. Horiuchi, it shouldn’t surprise us, participated
in that atrocity as well.
At the time of his death, Chris Kyle was president of Craft
International, a Homeland Security contractor involved in
training domestic law enforcement agencies. This
provokes an interesting question: Is it possible – not
likely, perhaps, but possible – that one of Kyle’s
instructors was an enigmatic, Hawaiian-born JapaneseAmerican well into middle age who graduated from West
Point in the mid-1970s? If Kyle and Horiuchi ever met,
they would quickly learn that they had a lot in common.
William Norman Grigg publishes the Pro Libertate blog
and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.
Newsmax
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson: Obama Is Not a Christian
"You don't see Christians going around beheading people,
killing young children, hanging them on crosses like
they're doing in Iraq right now."
Speaking at the National Prayer Breakfast, in Washington,
D.C., Obama compared the extreme barbarity of the
Islamic State to the Crusades, in which horrifying acts
were carried out a thousand years ago in the name of Jesus
Christ.
Peterson, host of syndicated radio program, "The Jesse
Lee Peterson Show," said:
"I have been saying for the last six years that Barack
Obama is not a Christian. I don't know of any time where
he has defended Christianity. He is quick to go against
Christianity instead of defending it.
President Obama's comparison to the burning alive of a
Jordanian pilot by the Islamic State (ISIS) shows he is
biased against Christianity, the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson,
founder of the Brotherhood Organization of a New
Destiny (BOND).
"I know of many times where he has defended Islam and
we can't even get Barack Obama to admit that ISIS is an
Islamic terrorist group who wants to kill the Christians
and Jews because they think that we are infidels … In my
personal opinion, Barack Obama hates Christianity."
"What's happening with radical Islamic terrorists right
now has nothing to do with Christianity," Peterson said
Thursday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax
TV.
Peterson also criticized Black History Month as "a racist
month."
"The only thing that it does is it divides the races even
more so rather than uniting them," he said.
63
Why ISIS Exists Today
Blames invasion of, not departure from, Iraq
By Ilana Mercer
you: “Keep your Status of Force Agreement. Give us
back the Iraq of Saddam Hussein.” True, the Kurds
were not in a good place. And Shia madrassas were
regularly shuttered. But some reconstruction was
under way. Democratic plans were
being drafted (albeit slowly). A “nonaggression pact” and
a “cooperation council to promote economic and cultural
development” had been established with the Arab
neighbors (Kuwait, not so much). Best of all, Iran was on
the run.
For the neoconservatives, ground zero in the creation
of the Islamic State (ISIS) is the departure of the
American occupying forces from Iraq without a
Status of Force Agreement (SOFA). At the behest of
President Barack Obama, or so the allegation goes,
the American military decamped, in December of 2011,
without securing an SOFA. A residual American military
force was to be the thing that would have safeguarded the
peace in Iraq. Broadcaster Mark Levin regularly rails
about the SOFA amulet. Most Republicans lambaste
Obama for failing to secure the elusive SOFA.
A 2012 Zogby poll, highlighted by The American
Conservative, questioned Iraqis about the impact on their
lives of the American invasion. “For the most part, Shia
and Sunni Arabs perceive almost every aspect of life to
have become worse or not [to have] changed.” And this
was in Iraq BI: Before ISIS.
So high is Barack Obama’s cringe-factor that
conservatives have been emboldened to dust off an
equally awful man and present him, his policies and his
dynastic clan to the public for another round.
The man, President George W. Bush, did indeed sign a
security pact with his satrap, Nuri al-Maliki, much to the
dismay of very many Iraqis. Although the agreement was
ratified behind the barricades of the Green Zone, journalist
Muntadhar al-Zeidi “spoke” on behalf of his battered Iraqi
brothers and sister: He lobbed a loafer at Bush, shouting,
“This is a farewell … you dog! This is for the widows, the
orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!”
Not long after the “great” American troop surge of 2007,
Global Policy Forum questioned Iraqis, too. (This was
more than Bush had done when he ordered that BLU82Bs be dropped on their neighborhoods.) What do you
know? With the surge and without an SOFA, Iraq was ohso violent. By September, Iraqis were still citing a “lack of
security and safety in general” as one of their most
pressing existential concerns.
Saddam Hussein – both dictator and peacemaker – had no
Status of Force Agreement with the U.S. He did, however,
use plenty of force to successfully control his fractious
country. Highly attuned to the slightest Islamist rumbling,
Saddam squashed these ruthlessly. When the shah of Iran
was overthrown by the Khomeini Islamist revolutionaries,
the secular Saddam feared the fever of fanaticism would
infect Iraq. He thus extinguished any sympathetic Shiite
“political activism” and “guerrilla activity” by
imprisoning, executing and driving rebels across the
border, into Iran. It wasn’t due process, but it wasn’t ISIS.
This “principle” was articulated charmingly and ever-so
politely to emissaries of another empire, in 1878: “My
people will not listen unless they are killed,” explained
Zulu King Cetshwayo to the British imperial meddlers,
who disapproved of Zulu justice. They nevertheless went
ahead and destroyed the mighty Zulu kingdom in the
Anglo-Zulu War (1879), exiling its proud king.
The answer to the question, “Who do you blame the most
for the violence that is occurring in the country?” placed
the U.S. up there with al-Qaida and foreign jihadis as the
root of all evil. Harmony being what it was in Iraq during
the halcyon Bush years – Shia blamed Sunni and Sunni
blamed Shia for their respective woes.
Guess who, in 1994, had advised against an invasion he
went on to orchestrate, in 2003.
… if we had gone to Baghdad we would have been
all alone. There wouldn’t have been anybody else
with us. It would have been a U.S. occupation of
Iraq. None of the Arab forces that were willing to
fight with us in Kuwait were willing to invade Iraq.
Once you got to Iraq and took it over and took down
Saddam Hussein’s government, then what are you
going to put in its place? That’s a very volatile part
of the world. And if you take down the central
government in Iraq, you could easily end up seeing
pieces of Iraq fly off. Part of it the Syrians would
like to have, the west. Part of eastern Iraq the
Iranians would like to claim. Fought over for eight
years. In the north, you’ve got the Kurds. And if the
Order lIana Mercer’s brilliant polemical work, “Into the
Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons for America from Post-Apartheid
South Africa”
Ask any ordinary Iraqi struggling to eke out an existence
in what remains of his pulverized homeland, and he’ll tell
64
Kurds spin loose and join with Kurds in Turkey,
then you threaten the territorial integrity of Turkey.
It’s a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over
Iraq.
In short, it was not the departure from Iraq that
guaranteed the rise of ISIS aka ISIL (in Yiddish) alias
Daesh (if you want to sound as cool as John Kerry), but
the invasion of Iraq.
This astute, if utilitarian, analysis was that of Bush’s vice
president, Dick Cheney. The architect of the invasion of
2003 had counseled against it in 1994. The man’s
predictions have come to pass.
Ilana Mercer is a paleolibertarian writer, based in the
U.S. She pens WND's longest-standing, exclusive
paleolibertarian column, "Return to Reason." She is a
fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Market Studies, an
award-winning, independent, nonprofit, free-market
economic policy think-tank. Mercer's latest book is "Into
the Cannibal's Pot: Lessons For America From PostApartheid South Africa."
The Bush SOFA specified a complete withdrawal of U.S.
forces by Dec. 31, 2011. Despite negotiations thereafter,
Iraqis rejected any further infringements on their
sovereignty.
Free
Florida
First
For a Free, Independent, Godly, Prosperous
and Traditionally Southern Florida
Next Meeting: Monday, February 9th at 7:30pm
Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday,
February 9, at 7:30pm at the church meeting house,
circle the date on your calendar today, and plan to be
with us.
Free Florida First is an independent organization
advocating the secession of Florida from the United
States and its subsequent independence.
If you agree, we invite you to join the Southern resistance.
Visit us on the web at:
www.freefloridafirst.org
65
World Net Daily
Docs to Dems: 'How Can We Force Vaccination?'
'It is totally antithetical to all ethics in medicine'
Just 24 hours earlier, Dr. Lee Hieb, an orthopedic surgeon
and past president of the Association of American
Physicians and Surgeons, warned in her WND
column, “How vaccine hysteria could spark totalitarian
nightmare,” of how government attempts to forcibly
vaccinate people. She argued that parents and patients
“should have the freedom to choose whether to vaccinate
their children.”
“Medical ethics are clear: No one should be forced to
undergo a medical treatment without informed consent
and without their agreement to the treatment,” she wrote.
“We condemn the forced sterilization of the ’20s and ’30s,
the Tuskegee medical experiments infecting black inmates
and the Nazi medicine that included involuntary
‘Euthanasia,’ experimentation and sterilization. How can
we force vaccination without consent?”
Less than one day after a prominent doctor warned that a
totalitarian push for universal vaccination might be
developing, California Democrat Sens. Barbara Boxer and
Diane Feinstein began calling for exactly what the medical
expert feared.
At the same time, California lawmakers are moving to
force parents to vaccinate their children – even if the
families object to immunizations on religious grounds. A
bill taken up by the state’s senate would allow parents to
decline the vaccines only if immunizations pose a medical
threat to children with conditions such as allergic
responses or weak immune systems.
She added, “Vaccination is a medical treatment with risks
including death. It is totally antithetical to all ethics in
medicine to mandate that risk to others.”
Dr. Hieb wrote that, since 2005, there have been no deaths
in the U.S. from measles. However, there have been 86
deaths from the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine, or
MMR – 68 of them in children under 3 years old. And
there were nearly 2,000 disabled.
“While a small number of children cannot be vaccinated
due to an underlying medical condition, we believe there
should be no such thing as a philosophical or personal
belief exemption, since everyone uses public spaces,”
California’s Democrat senators, Barbara Boxer and
Dianne Feinstein, wrote in a letter to state Health and
Human Services Secretary Diana Dooley Wednesday.
The physician also warned that mandatory vaccination is a
slippery slope.
“If you think the government has the right to forcibly
vaccinate people – for the good of society – what is to
prevent them from forcibly sterilizing people, or forcibly
euthanizing people, or forcibly implanting a tracking
device – for the good of society?” she asked. “You may
think those examples are extreme (although two-thirds
have happened), but the principle is the same. You are
allowing government to have ultimate authority over your
body.”
“As we have learned in the past month, parents who refuse
to vaccinate their children not only put their own family at
risk, but they also endanger other families who choose to
vaccinate.”
Meanwhile, California state Sen. Ben Allen announced he
is co-sponsoring legislation with fellow Democrat Richard
Pan to end parents’ rights to exempt their children. Gov.
Jerry Brown has signaled his support for the legislation,
even though he preserved religious exemptions to state
vaccination requirements in 2012.
According to state records, 13,592 California
kindergartners currently have vaccination waivers, and
2,764 of those are based on religious beliefs.
Allen said, “The high number of unvaccinated students is
jeopardizing public health not only in schools but in the
broader community. We need to take steps to keep our
schools safe and our students healthy.”
Who is to blame for measles?
66
In another development Thursday, CDC Director Tom
Frieden warned Americans concerned about the potential
risks of vaccines to stop believing what they read on the
Internet.
While the CDC said measles is brought into the U.S. “by
unvaccinated [Americans or foreign visitors] who are
infected in other countries,” Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet
suggested government and media focus on the possible
source of the outbreak: illegal immigrants streaming
across the U.S.-Mexico border. She wrote that measles is
widespread in parts of the world from which the illegal
immigration surge is coming – in particular, Central
America.
“Mark Twain said rumor can get halfway around the
world before truth puts its boots on,” Frieden told NBC
News. “And one of the things that we try to do is get out
there immediately anytime there are rumors with
information on social media, on the web, on Twitter – to
identify where the rumors are coming from and answer
them.
“Because the U.S. declared that it had eradicated measles
in 2000, parents were right to wonder why they should
take an unnecessary risk,” she wrote in a column
Thursday. “They are not the cause of this current
outbreak. Being unvaccinated does not give you measles.
“But the Internet is a big, open place and people may think
that all of the information on the Internet is relatively of
the same validity.”
“Lawlessness on our borders is the culprit that reintroduced the measles virus to our territory. The same
government that broke our immigration laws is now
blaming U.S. parents for the predictable consequences of
its policy. The U.S. government both facilitated and
encouraged the flood of illegal border crossers, and
assisted their rapid dispersal to cities across the U.S.”
However, Frieden himself has a reputation for being less
than honest with the American people in recent months
during another health scare.
It was Frieden who, for months before three people were
diagnoses with Ebola on American soil, insisted that the
U.S. was prepared and any hospital could treat the virus
under CDC guidelines. Nonetheless, the CDC had
neglected to provide Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital
with an infection control team to care for Ebola patient
Thomas Eric Duncan – a move that might have prevented
a second case of Ebola in Dallas.
A Feb. 4 Washington Times editorial noted that leftleaning news sites and blogs cite data from the World
Health Organization showing measles-vaccination rates in
Mexico and Central America are higher than the U.S. rate
of 92 percent.
Frieden’s handling of the situation prompted Rep. Tom
Marino, R-Pa., and Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, to call
for his resignation in October 2014.
“The president’s political allies argue that this clears the
illegals from blame, but the infected poor and usually
illiterate youths who streamed across the border
unchecked last year may have been drawn from those who
were not vaccinated,” the Post editorial stated. “We don’t
know, because there was no screening of the arrivals for
disease of any kind, nor whether they had had the
vaccinations most American children receive. They were
quickly dispersed across the country by the Department of
Homeland Security.”
Marino released a statement saying Frieden had released
information to the public that was “cryptic and in some
cases misleading,” lending to a “false sense of security.”
“That is exactly the opposite of the CDC director’s
primary responsibilities – to communicate clearly and
honestly,” he said. “I have no ill will toward him
personally but he should resign his position effective
immediately.”
Some on the left have even suggested parents who don’t
vaccinate their children should be sued.
Government websites tracking reported vaccine injuries
Dr. Vliet said the media and government must stop
blaming parents and “face the fact that this measles
outbreak has many causes, starting with our own
government’s failed policies.”
Most of what Frieden considers Internet “rumors” warning
of vaccine injuries are government websites tabulating
claims against the government’s vaccine injury
compensation program.
“There are valid reasons to vaccinate children and adults,”
she wrote. “There are valid reasons not to do so. Both
sides of the decision are medical ones, best made between
physician and patient, based on the circumstances of each
individual patient.”
As WND reported, the National Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program, part of the federal Department of
Health and Human Services, was set up in 1988 to pay for
the care of Americans, mostly children, profoundly
injured by vaccines. The intent was to hold the vaccineproducing pharmaceutical companies harmless for the
CDC warns against believing Internet ‘rumor’
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relatively rare but catastrophic damage vaccines
sometimes cause.
They include children who suffered anaphylactic shock
and brachial neuritis as a result of getting any tetanustoxoid-containing vaccines; others who developed
encephalopathy, a brain disease, from pertussis antigencontaining vaccines, as well as from MMR vaccines;
paralytic polio and vaccine-strain polio viral infection
from a polio live virus-containing vaccine; intussusception
(prolapsed intestine) from vaccines containing live, oral,
rhesus-based rotavirus; chronic arthritis from rubella
virus-containing vaccines; and vaccine-strain measles
viral infections from a measles virus-containing vaccine.
In November, the nonpartisan Government Accounting
Office issued an efficiency report on the Vaccine Injury
Compensation Program, including this up-front admission:
Vaccines save lives by preventing disease in the
people who receive them. In some instances,
however, a vaccine can have severe side effects,
including death or an injury requiring lifetime
medical care. VICP provides compensation to
people for injuries and deaths associated with certain
vaccines for medical and other costs.
Dr. Vliet said passions run high on both sides of the
vaccination issue.
A comprehensive review of its 26-year history by the
Health and Human Services department found as of March
5, 2014:
“Some parents object on moral grounds,” she said. “Some
parents fear the risk of autism. Even though we have no
proof of a causal link between vaccines and autism, it is
hard to ignore the anguish families have experienced when
a normal, healthy, vibrant child suddenly becomes
withdrawn and loses language skills soon after a
mandatory vaccine. We simply may never know a
‘definitive’ answer on this issue.
 13,964 vaccine injuries reported to and compensated
by the federal program (including 143 injuries caused
by the MMR vaccine); and
 1,132 vaccine deaths (including 57 caused by the
MMR vaccine).
In her column, Dr. Hieb concurred, “Science is never
‘concluded.’ Mr. Obama and other ideologues may think
the truth is finalized (‘The science is indisputable’), but
the reality is our understanding of disease and treatment is
constantly being updated. … The last word on vaccination
is not in. It hasn’t even begun to be written.”
Of all the adverse vaccine reactions tabulated, the biggest
offender was DPT (diphtheria-pertussis-tetanus), which
has resulted in 3,285 injuries and 696 deaths in the U.S.
Vaccine-caused conditions compensated by the federal
government since 1988 have included a wide variety of
serious medical issues.
Just for Your Consideration is compiled by Pastor Greg Wilson of Landmark Baptist
Church, Archer, Florida. The articles contained within do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Pastor Wilson or of Landmark Baptist Church.
Much of what you will find is not available via the so-called “main stream media.”
The articles are presented just for your consideration, education and edification.
For more information about our church, please visit our web site at:
www.libcfl.com
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