Road to Serfdom, Yesterday and Today

“The part of our social order which can or ought to be made a conscious product of human reason is only a small part of all the forces of society” ~ F A Hayek

” The path to a Global Gulag is paved with failed promises and stern submission. The functions of governments change little over time. Only the intensity of applying current techniques of crowd control evolves for making the task easier to corral the rowdy into prisons of their minds. Force works because people allow themselves to be intimidated and government stooges are willing to rejoice in the celebration of human misery. The police state stems from an entitlement of State tyranny, which justifies its existence based upon an absolutism of authority.

Fear keeps people in chains. Denial maintains the illusion that the government is worthy of respect and obedience. Self-loathing drives slobs into debasing their own dignity. Pride in one’s own ignorance spreads the “stuck on stupid” culture. The poverty society grows with every social welfare program. The FEMA dictatorship gives away doublewide trailers as a way to ease overcrowding in the penitentiaries. All in the spirit of state worship for the betterment of humanity and the planet.

Does this reality strike a response or are you so dead that nothing penetrates your own version of pathetic desperation?

Keep your loyalty fresh by recognizing that your patriotism is often misplaced. Quartering “Red Coats” or rounding up French Quarter Cajuns, the drill does not change. Disarm the public not just their guns, but more important their will to resist.

Reinhard Blänkner warns that Absolutism can take different forms.

“Liberals employed the term most effectively, asserting that an irreconcilable fight raged between two political systems since the American and the French Revolution, a struggle of absolutism and constitutionalism. In a liberal perception, absolutism was not confined to a single governmental form. The French Revolution demonstrated that political freedom was threatened not only by monarchical absolutism but also by democratic absolutism”.

Rally ‘Round the Flag, Boys!, takes place, not just in Putnam’s Landing; but in every hamlet and village. Liaison with the government, attend every civic meeting and lobby the ranks of all those condescending politicians; but never become a boisterous constituent. Bodacious Bohemian’s need not apply. Only lock step “sheeple” are suited for advance placement, in the re-education camps, as jailers for the domestic terrorists. Daniel Hannan’s new book,

“The New Road to Serfdom: A Letter of Warning to America”, offers this perceptive warning.

“Barack Obama born in Kenya? Pah! If anything, he was born in Brussels. The policies his administration is pursuing amount to comprehensive Europeanisation: European carbon taxes, European foreign policy, European healthcare, European daycare, European disarmament, European industrial intervention and, inevitably, European unemployment rates.

If there are any Americans reading, I’ve got some bad news for you. I inhabit your future. As a Member of the European Parliament, I have spent eleven years working in precisely the kind of system that you seem intent on creating.

I’m not saying that everything in the US is good and everything in the EU is bad, far from it. It’s just that the aspects of Euro-politics which your rulers seem most intent on copying are those which have demonstrably failed: the centralisation of power, higher state spending, welfare dependency, excessive regulation”.

British MEP Daniel Hannan quotes Doctor Ron Paul and understands the importance of the constitution being a living document, watch this video.By living document, he does not mean that “Black-Robe Tyrants” should pervert the Bill of Rights. Quite to the contrary, while the current climate now allows, The Government Can Use GPS to Track Your Moves, Mr. Hannan champions the best that American stands for.

“Government agents can sneak onto your property in the middle of the night, put a GPS device on the bottom of your car and keep track of everywhere you go. This doesn’t violate your Fourth Amendment rights, because you do not have any reasonable expectation of privacy in your own driveway – and no reasonable expectation that the government isn’t tracking your movements

It is a dangerous decision – one that, as the dissenting judges warned, could turn America into the sort of totalitarian state imagined by George Orwell”.

In another travesty of justice, an informal hearing (no court stenographer transcribing an official record) in a Rochester courtroom of a NYS Supreme Court judge, the court exerted judicial extortion upon a town municipality. New York State has home rule, which grants broad home rule powers enabling them to provide services to their residents and to regulate the quality of life within their jurisdictions. The case in question has a foreign developer suing the town to grandfather a project that the voters of the district rejected in the last election.

The judge is a tool of the corporatists and a devotee of judicial absolutism. His disdain for upholding a clear legal standard is outrageous. The proceedings are a sham. The court and attorney costs could run well over a half a million dollars that might bankrupt the community. The town is economically distressed. It became the target of commercial avarice, with the assistance of government subsidy. Corporate welfare trumps defending the will of the residents.

So what is the compelling reason to respect a legal system that makes it up as you go along? Sacrificing the liberty of citizens is sport in the home of the brave judges. The weighted scales in favor of a higher authority of despotism, blinds the myth of justice for all. The insignificant local borough is just another causality in the bigger scheme of regimentation.

When reciting the Pledge of Allegiance or singing the Star Spangle Banner, recall the words of Barry Goldwater. He spoke to the ages in his acceptance speech for nomination as President back in 1964.

“Now, my fellow Americans, the tide has been running against freedom. Our people have followed false prophets. We must, and we shall, return to proven ways– not because they are old, but because they are true. We must, and we shall, set the tide running again in the cause of freedom. And this party, with its every action, every word, every breath, and every heartbeat, has but a single resolve, and that is freedom – freedom made orderly for this nation by our constitutional government; freedom under a government limited by laws of nature and of nature’s God; freedom – balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the slavery of the prison cell; balanced so that liberty lacking order will not become the license of the mob and of the jungle . . .

Security from domestic violence, no less than from foreign aggression, is the most elementary and fundamental purpose of any government, and a government that cannot fulfill that purpose is one that cannot long command the loyalty of its citizens. History shows us – demonstrates that nothing – nothing prepares the way for tyranny more than the failure of public officials to keep the streets from bullies and marauders”.

Today, the bullies are the government storm troopers of Homeland Security, TSA and TIA. The courts protect the leviathan, even at the expense of a lower food chain unit of government itself. The new form of the Road to Serfdom transcends the economic-terrorism that F A Hayek revealed. The real mob consists of the enforcers that punish anyone, who defends the Bill of Rights. Their jungle resides in the layers of bureaucratic swamps that starve the lowly citizen creatures of the savanna, because they poisoned the water. The marauders are those who bestow an undying fidelity to a false authority.

Hannan, Paul and Goldwater all share a correct understanding in the danger of giving aid and support to a profane system of intrusive tyranny that has destroyed the last semblance of individual liberty. The Totalitarian Collectivism, originally imported from across the Atlantic is now homegrown. The devalued government that Mr. Hannan cites in the UK, is a monocracy of central government absolutism. The entire weight of the State is crushing the backs of the serfs.

Where will the next generation of Goldwater traditionalists and Paulian liberty champions come from? If the Brits can raise a Daniel Hannan, what is the excuse why America produces only whining cowardly trolls that suck the mother’s milk for crying victimized infants? Grow up and start fighting or stop babbling God Bless America. The nation deserves better.

“You are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued Government. You have run out of our money…You cannot spend yourself out of recession or borrow your way out of debt…” ~ Daniel Hannan



The New World Order Feudal Enslavement System

“The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the larger centers has owned the Government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson.” A letter written by FDR to Colonel House, November 21st, 1933

From times immemorial, the top down authority imposition has been the rule. This system of control is the reason why excrement discharge flows downhill. The feudal model works well for the lords who sit atop the pyramid. Essentially the New World Order is the supreme evolution of the subjugation of the serf class. In spite of this fact, what keeps this inequitable delineation between the dominant and the spineless? Pure power and malicious behavior achieves the perfection of perdition, in this hierarchal slave gulag. Because it can be done and no force can stop the captivity is the cause of the suffering.

The manipulating influence behind the Anglo-American hegemony and hyper-power governance is the “Crown”. The Crown as defined by NESARA INTERNATIONAL may seem bizarre to the casual spectator. However, the secrets of the international banksters, wholly exposed after the global financial meltdown, are undeniable. If this is not the ultimate extortion by the global gangsters, what could top this rush into thralldom?

“The U.S.A. is not the free and sovereign nation that our federal government tells us it is. If this were true, we would not be dictated to by the Crown Temple through its bankers and attorneys. The U.S.A. is controlled and manipulated by this private foreign power and our unlawful Federal U.S. Government is their pawnbroker. The bankers and Bar Attorneys in the U.S.A. are a franchise in oath and allegiance to the Crown at Chancery – the Crown Temple Church and its Chancel located at Chancery Lane – a manipulative body of elite bankers and attorneys from the independent City of London who violate the law in America by imposing fraudulent “legal” – but totally unlawful – contracts on the American people. The banks Rule the Temple Church and the Attorneys carry out their Orders by controlling their victim’s judiciary”.

This technical description helps to focus on the undeniable; that the entire legal, political and economic template is driven by a sinister desire to regiment the population. Substitute or interchange the term “Crown” for the Illuminati or the New Work Order and you have the same playbook used on different teams. The Khazars inspired banking system is the means by which the top echelon of the obelisk pulls the strings of all the puppets. In the Youtube, Monopoly Men Rothschild Banksters Rule, the feudal enslavement system in revealed.

In the news is a CNBC report, not exactly a radical repository of resistance, UK Proposes All Paychecks Go to the State First. “The UK’s tax collection agency is putting forth a proposal that all employers send employee paychecks to the government, after which the government would deduct what it deems as the appropriate tax and pay the employees by bank transfer”.

From the usually dependable Webster G. Tarpley, a second example illustrates the problem. In French President Sarkozy Demands Financial Transaction Tax on Banks, Mr. Tarpley identifies an even more dire financial impoverishment plot.

“What Sarkozy has thus proposed under the name of financial transaction tax is none other than the Tobin tax, the Wall Street sales tax, the securities transfer tax, or Robin Hood tax, which this website has long advocated. As Sarkozy specified, the financial transaction tax, like a sales tax, would take a small percentage of financial turnover and use the proceeds for purposes of world economic development. Naturally, the really critical questions are how big this percentage will be, who will collect it, and how it will be used”.

Banksters are exempt from the pain of paying taxes. TARP proved that reality with the “Too Big to Fail” precept. Their customers bear the burden of satisfying the impossibility of retiring the compound interest curse. Payment in any form of taxes, fuels the debt creation fiat money central bank monopoly. The push for a global currency is in full gear. This summary from NESARA INTERNATIONAL places the entire banking system under the mastery of the monolith cabal.

“The legal system (judiciary) of the U.S.A. is controlled by the Crown Temple from the independent and sovereign City of London. The private Federal Reserve System, which issues fiat U.S. Federal Reserve Notes, is financially owned and controlled by the Crown from Switzerland, the home and legal origin for the charters of the United Nations, the International Monetary Fund, the World Trade Organization, and most importantly, the Bank of International Settlements. Even Hitler respected his Crown bankers by not bombing Switzerland. The Bank of International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland controls all the central banks of the G7 nations. He who controls the gold rules the world”.

The notion that a Robin Hood Tax punishes the banks is ridiculous. The idea that such a universal tax is in the public interest is utterly obscene. Only in the land of Prince John would the serfs rally to a crusade of an improvised world cause. Here is the “wordspeak” of this 1984 propaganda. “This tax on banks – not you or I – has the power to raise hundreds of billions every year. It could give a vital boost to the NHS, our schools, and the fight against child poverty in the UK – as well as tackling poverty and climate change around the world”.

No doubt, the funds would go to ransom King Richard from the lion den of his New World Order jailers. All for the wonderful “feel good dream” of eliminating poverty and saving the planet! Just how stupid are our Brit cousins? The RHT poll is over ten to one in favor of the tax.

The minions of the banksters and their transnational corporatists create the problem and look to their crony knights to shape phony policy solutions; while there, Norman sheriffs enforce the collection of the tariff from the Saxon boors. Sound like the same plight of the indentured servant hoards that go begging for their food stamps in this country.

If falling astray of the dictates from feudal lords was the reason, why bands of thieves sought refuge in the forest; what option does the unemployed and beleaguered taxpayer do in his own collapsing castle? Just maybe the real problem is the destructive feudal scheme, is the true cause of the failed kingdom.

Taking from the rich in order to give to the poor is a caustic fable for hiding the systemic injustice. Caught in the debt created currency repression is the discipline that keeps the peasants in bondage. Money or the lack of it, in sufficient quantities for the little people to feed and shelter their families dominates the economic depression. The mental strain leads to despair. No modern day Robin Hood will equalize the booty, when the NWO squeezes out the natural entrepreneurial instincts of wealth creators. The elitist faction continually wage wars to maintain their rule. The golden top cap of the Great Pyramid is long gone, residing in some bankster’s vault, where only a Freemason knows the location. That real golden crown is now just an ingot in the inventory of “The Crown” system of global governance.

From Neo-Feudalist System, Keith Gardner states,

“The reality is that our current system is a mixed system of false paradigms. If you take a long-view of history and recognize the false paradigms, you start to see a pattern of feudalism. The New World Order is a new form of neo-feudalism. The goal is of course a world communist government. However, a world communist government is a world fascist government. A world fascist government is a world feudalistic government. The differences are in the details.

The solution is knowing the solution. The solution is classical liberalism. The false left/right paradigm of Marx, Keynes, and Mises will never solve the problem. They all push towards the New World Order and push towards enslavement of the people. Mises is perhaps the most deceptive method of enslavement, which is why they would pursue it, unless you understand feudalism and classical liberalism and recognize Mises as feudalism”.

The Totalitarian Collectivism that we live under is a top down authoritarian order of compliance. In order to break this prototype, Mr. Gardner offers this initial step.

“We should end the Federal Reserve, end fractional reserve lending, have the U.S. government print debt-free money to replace the fractional reserves with real reserves as private debt is paid. The U.S. government can use the debt-free money to pay off the national debt and issue significant tax refunds to every citizen. We can do this without causing inflation with a public debt-free paper if we end the Federal Reserve and fractional reserve lending”.

Would “The Crown” allow this repudiation of their banking monopoly? Ask most of the assassinated Presidents and the conquered nations that resisted the dictates of the New World Order despotic pyramid. The circlet of plutocrats grows in riches and power with every consolidation of their diabolical planetary empire. People will only be able to free themselves when the crown is ripped from the heads of this satanic Hydra. You have entered and are now living within the New World Order. Life worth living will soon become a faint memory. Your only hope is to slay the dragon.

“In total, during the first eighty-eight years of this century, almost 170 million men, women, and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed, or killed in any other of the myriad ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is as though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not of germs.” Dr. R. J. Rummel, Death by Government.



Screw Iraq, Afghanistan & Gaza: Let’s invade Detroit!

Returning from the 2010 Social Forum in Detroit, I saw several soldiers at the DTW airport, waiting for their flights.  And once again I was struck by the thought that every American soldier seems to be a whole autonomous unit unto himself or herself.  Every American soldier truly IS an “Army of One”.  Highly trained, efficient, skilled, confident and respectful — these men and women in uniform are just the kind of people that Detroit really needs to get itself out of its slump.  And every other city in America needs this caliber of person too.

So please tell me why, exactly, are these walking human resources being wasted way over on the other side of the world when their dedication and skill sets and — let’s face it — salaries and healthcare benefits are so desperately needed here at home?

No, we don’t need our soldiers’ weapons skills in places like the Gulf Coast states or the Rust Belt.  But we do need their dedication and heart.

We need the Marine Corps’ skill sets.  “The few, the proud.” We really do.  And we need that kind of bravery and willingness to get the job done here rather than there.

Second Marine Regiment in Al Anbar.  Tarawa.  “Keep Moving.”  I was there.  I saw for myself what our Marines can do to help re-build a country.

We need our soldiers’ ingenuity, dignity and courage here at home, helping to put America back on track — not over in Afghanistan, not over in Iraq and not even over in Gaza — where the corporatists who run America pay the cream of Israeli youth to do their dirty work for them, wasting their young lives being thugs to the brutal Occupation instead of being honorable men who refuse to shoot babies at point-blank range.

When I see a soldier at an airport, I just want to go up and hug him.  Or her.  You think that our boys aren’t doing a good job?  Then go see Sebastian Junger’s new documentary movie “Restrepo” (http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/restrepo/)  That’s the kind of ability and dedication I saw demonstrated again and again and again when I was in Iraq.

These guys are good.

But we need these men and women’s dedication and skills here at home, not over on the other side of the world.

And we need to be paying these men and women to be using their skill sets here, in America, in civilian life — in a job corps as well as a Marine Corps.

Screw bailouts for bankers, oil executives, Wall Street schemers and global corporations with no ties or loyalties to our country.  They have done nothing with the money that Reagan, Bush, Clinton and Obama gave them except to use it to rip us off even more.

Let’s take back all that money — and give it to our returning soldiers instead.  Let’s fill up ALL of our airports with returning soldiers.  We truly need this lost generation’s abilities here at home.  Now.

PS:  While I was at the Social Forum representing the Free Palestine Movement, my booth was next to a booth manned by Peggy Logue and her husband.  Logue is another dedicated Marine Mom.  And she was selling her new book, “Skin in the Game,” all about her Marine son’s experiences in Haditha and her conflict between wanting to support her son’s efforts and her moral obligation to try to stop the needless bloodshed caused by global corporate wars.  “Intense, raw, and profoundly honest, ‘Skin in the Game’ illustrates the human side of war and the daily struggle for peace.” http://www.amazon.com/Skin-Game-Journey-Mother-Marine/dp/142692433X

Totalitarian Collectivism: Part 10 – GLOBAL CONTROLLERS

“It cannot happen without U.S. participation, as we are the most significant single component. Yes, there will be a New World Order, and it will force the United States to change its perceptions.” ~ Henry Kissinger

As difficult as it is for most people to deal with the savage events that shape and manipulate humanity, it is nearly impossible to get the multitude to admit that they are expendable bondage slaves to a global system of hideous design and sinister purpose. The illusion that governments, serve the people is a total denial of history and especially, current events. Human nature requires an eternal struggle against the evil committed in the name of the “public good“. Honesty about their plight under the boot of oppression is too hard to digest. The cause of their captivity refuses to identify their own role and compliance within the cancerous organism that rules the planet.

Documentaries like to pinpoint individuals or specific groups as the culprits. The “so called” Nostradamus theme that there are three anti-Christ’s, Napoleon, Hitler and one to come, avoids the true political conflict that has been playing out with breakneck speed for the last two hundred years. It is simplistic and inaccurate to blame Bonaparte the emperor, or der Führer the dictator, as the embodiment of all mankind injustices. More to the point, when viewed within the context of global politics, both were major challenges of their era’s world community.

Many of the names are familiar; the Council on Foreign Relations, Trilateral Commission, Bilderberg Group and Illuminati get much of the attention. These and scores of lesser known groups and societies have a long and dark record of running the world behind the scenes. Claims that only a nutcase conspiracy theorist would hold to such an examination is anti-intellectual by all historic standards of rational inquiry and analysis. In order to be a member in good standing of polite society, one must discredit such research. The unadorned reason why facts, evidence and proof of the way the world really works is taboo, reveals the true character of the “TC” mindset.

Interdependence, global economy, climate change, quasi-governmental organizations and a myriad of other terms are all code words for the implementation of a Global Gulag. The United Nations, World Trade Organization, Intergovernmental Organizations and Multinational Corporations all function as components of a universal system of predatory carnivores that feed on the carcass of humanity. The ultimate objective is the age-old drive of all empires, total world domination. Totalitarian Collectivist policies are the means and methods of achieving the satanic aspiration of an immoral scheme of sheer wickedness.

For the want of a better name, “The World Community” is the New World Order. There is no need to fabricate secret societies to implement the global strategy for aggregate slavery. Often mentioned openly in the mass media are the names of the players and driving forces behind the plot. When in 1991 David Rockefeller thanked the press for their discretion that supported the implementation of the NWO and when in the same year President George H. Bush acknowledged, “. . . forge for ourselves and for future generations a new world order . . . “the existence of a secret NWO, went mainstream.

In the deeds that these “Mattoids” perpetrate, lay the real crimes against humanity. Make no mistake about the global comingling program; it is the death-blow to all that is dear in our Western Civilization heritage. The Global Controllers are not playing a parlor house game. The stakes cannot be any higher. The Totalitarian Collectivists are dedicated to the eradication of any resistance to their slave-state diagram for command and control.

The State is used as the blunt instrument to force people to obey. The Church is marginalized and invalidated as a source of moral authority and responsibility. The Family is assaulted and broken up as the basic unit of personal identity and security. The Economy is manipulated and stilted to impoverish main street business and create government dependency. The School is used to brainwash innocent students and mold them into dysfunctional obedient servants. The Media is used to distort reality and portray the “TC” society as the only social structure. Corporations control the marketplace under a court-enforced protection racket. The Corporate/State merges together to achieve domination over all aspects of commerce and public administration. The final solution is the holocaust of the NWO global gulag.

Is this malevolent juggernaut inevitable? Up to this point, no viable opposition seems feasible. If former historic patterns remain intact, the prospects for humankind are bleak. Reform is counterproductive because the under-structure no longer supports a legitimate authority. Progress is absurd when the integral ruling cabal is running a system that seeks the demise of human dignity. The premise upon which the world community operates is false and rests upon lies, deceit and fraud.

When governments claim to punish, remove or eliminate rogue regimes, it is really saying that there is no toleration of dissent to the NWO. Freedom of self-determination, the cry that justified the carnage of past world wars, is now a phony phrase. Resistant to the dictates of international councils and world government results in the most punitive measures. Economic sanctions and withholding of financial credit automatically follows. Military coercion is the terminal routine response for consistent defiance. Bring democracy to every corner of the planet is really paying homage to the beast.

It took a “reign of terror” to set the conditions for Napoleon and a hyperinflation destruction of currency to bring Hitler to power. Conversely, the global controllers are on the path to achieve total domination through the inevitable debt repudiation that is coming to the world economy. When the collapse arrives and the fiscal dike is broken beyond repair, the crisis that will come will dwarf 911 to a footnote of history.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste” has an absolute meaning, when the New World Order manufactures the ultimate excuse for Totalitarian Collectivism.

Just what can be done to stop this despotic madness? Institutions only provide reinforcement to the “Establishment”. The law engenders no relief. Public officials are miniature poodle lap dogs, soon to become bloodhounds. In the end, all that is left is you . . . thrust into a lonely and frightful position that no sane person would eagerly embrace. Yet that is where we each find ourselves.

Defense of the realm is now unpatriotic. Real Conservatism demands Radical Reactionaries. Revolutionary rebellion is a positive concept when viewed as a moral and non-violent force. Accepting insane government control is about as alien to the true meaning of the American Saga as surrendering the principles of the Declaration of Independence to the “Crown” of supreme oppression, the New World Order.

The Bill of Rights needs to be used daily to keep the relevance of the principles. Defying bureaucracy is moral and dynamic in an age of “TC” regimentation. Laws become irrelevant when individual’s natural rights are subverted. Governments in the normal course of affairs habitually commit treason against their own citizens. The global controllers are no more powerful than the jackboot stooges who do their dirty work. The system enslaves public officials and creates the plantation society for the remaining freemen. The overseers willingly use the whip on their fellow neighbors, for the reward of ill-gotten pay and unwarranted retirement benefits.

If Washington DC is out of touch with the heartland, just what hope would an American have under a world government? Accepting the dictates of a federal government and a fraudulent financial banking system is insane on its face. Both are committed to the consolidation of world governance. There is no solution for reversing this rush into total despotism if you continue to give your consent to an immoral system.

Totalitarian Collectivism is the enemy of all mankind. There is no legitimacy for any level of government, the corporate/state or a financial apparatus of debt created central banking that is based upon elimination of individual sovereignty. The Inherent Autonomy that is the literal heritage of the American Saga calls for rational, moral and measured civil disobedience against injustice and oppression. Re-establishing a true Free Market using honest “debt free” specie money is a necessary step for renouncing an empire and reinstating a true republic. The New World Order will cease if courageous Americans overthrow the tyrants that rule our own country.

This task seems so immense that each person, who contributes to the continuation of this despotism, must reject his or her own part in the process. That is why the prospects are bleak. The only white knight that will ride to your rescue is yourself. The “TC” system seems all-powerful, but it is vulnerable because it is based upon your submission. The choice is yours, live free or die.

“The powers of financial capitalism had another far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, a private bank owned and controlled by the world’s central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank…sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world.” ~ Carroll Quigley

Totalitarian Collectivism: Part 9 – CORPORATE STATE

“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
~ Benito Mussolini

The Corporation and the State form the worst synergism. Proponents would have you accept that Corporate Governance can direct, administer and control this alliance for the public good. Do-gooders and naive well-intentioned reformers lack the ability to learn the lessons of the corporate machine, the depths of human nature or the extent of government corruption. Without the semblance of a real free market economy, the merger of big business with unmitigated government is now the norm. The American “TC” Saga progressively eliminates individual liberty, while securing the shackles of a regimented political and economic society. Daniel McCarthy, the Tory Anarchist, in the American Conservative agrees that the negative consequences of corporate parenthood led to sinister results. In Origins of the Corporate State, he reasons.

“Power fled the people in the states and was absorbed and amplified by the institutions of the federal government — first by the Supreme Court, to a lesser extent by Congress, but ultimately and to the greatest extent by the executive branch, whose agencies, in the name of rights, can now seize property (the DEA), kill (the CIA), interfere in business (the FTC), censor communications (the FCC), and manipulate elections (the FEC) with nary a thought to “representation” or the legislative process. The corporate state turns out to be the executive state — which probably in the end becomes the military-security state.”

The government of the United States was designed to be a republic with separations of power and states’ rights. To any objective observer, the notion of a balance or counterweight to executive federal administration is a myth. Congress is systemically irrelevant, the courts are statist enablers and individual states are feudal districts. As for citizens, their natural rights are ignored, while their subsistence becomes a reward for obedience.

The Axis of the Corporate/State concludes: “Now consider what happens when this governmental culture meets the monopolists? Their interests often are the same. Elimination of business competition allows for consolidation and dominance of the economy. Growth in big government expands control over the entire society. Both have the goal of dictating to the public. Setting prices and discouraging upstarts benefits corporate commerce, all the time with the blessing of the State. The government enlarges their roles and intensifies their regulation of business, while favoring their cabal collaborators and contributors. Power shifts from a diffused economic base and the consumer is served up as the main course on the dinner table of the manipulation feast.”

Executive branch agencies are the arbitrators of administration. Legislative codes are incidental guidelines and court decisions become bureaucratic refinements. Dominant corporation insiders, wired to political patronage through lobbyist policy formation, rule the political process. How is this system different from the classic definition of fascism?

If you think that holding shares in a corporation make you the owner of that business, you are vastly mistaken. Capitalist Owners of the Corporate Economy argues, “Those that adopt the culture of the Capitalist/State axis, surrender their independence of market competition, for the safety of a government approved protection racket. In the process, the owners of these companies are deposed from any effective control of the companies that they own.”

Then, who controls the corporations? The bureaucratic careerist provides the function of disciplinarian to upstart pretenders. Legislators bark at CEOs for the cameras, but never control the conglomerates. Corporations spend their way into opulence. Actual competition becomes extinct when the business plan is to be first in your industry. Finance is the key to market share success, and the ability to borrow is the path to economic dominance.

Since all elections are intended to crowd out all but the richest or the most beholding, it should be no surprise that most legislators are measly busboys for the corporate interests. Presidents can jawbone all they want, while the regulators dole out special favors to financial backers of every administration. The point is that the electoral franchise is no solution, since candidates are selected far in advance for their loyalty to the corporate charter.

Laurence W. Britt in, It’s the Corporate State, Stupid lists the following conditions of the corporate/state.

Power of corporations protected – Although the personal life of ordinary citizens was under strict control, the ability of large corporations to operate in relative freedom was not compromised. The ruling elite saw the corporate structure as a way to not only ensure military production (in developed states), but also as an additional means of social control. Members of the economic elite were often pampered by the political elite to ensure a continued mutuality of interests, especially in the repression of “have-not” citizens.

Power of labor suppressed or eliminated – Since organized labor was seen as the one power center that could challenge the political hegemony of the ruling elite and its corporate allies, it was inevitably crushed or made powerless.

Rampant cronyism and corruption – Those in business circles and close to the power elite often used their position to enrich themselves. This corruption worked both ways; the power elite would receive financial gifts and property from the economic elite, who in turn would gain the benefit of government favoritism.

Note that not all unions are equal. Public employee unions are foot soldiers of the state and produce little of material benefit. Trade unionists and blue-collar workers are subject to economic conditions and the needs of their corporate employers. Government employees are parasites of the productive, insulated from economic down turns.

Since government never creates wealth, privileged corporations must provide the cash flow to generate tax revenue to fund public employees. Tax policy is intended to suppress individuals and workers, while granting effective exemptions for transnational corporations.

Enforcement is essential for keeping the corrupt cronyism cycle going. The State uses its phony legitimacy dominance to feed the insatiable appetite of the fascist alliance. Law enforcement has little to do with keeping the peace, but has everything to do with paying homage to the system.

The “TC” face of the Corporate State does not need to have the look of Il Duce or the crudeness of Uncle Joe. Huey Long was correct when he said, “When Facism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the American flag.” The dramatic loss of civil liberties since 911 as seen in the sinister Patriot Act and the despotic Homeland Security agency are all examples of the Statist mindset that have drained all rational fidelity from the true purpose of this country.

State Capitalism is more commonly associated with the European experience, but is now entrenched on this side of the pond. Government in control of the economy always fails. Corporations in partnership with the State are less obvious in their despotism than the familiar totalitarian regimes. However, the collectivism of their control is just as pervasive.

Gerald Celente believes that the merger of corporate and government powers in modern America is plain and simple fascism. He predicts, “You’re gonna start see people taking to the streets, like they do in other countries. People have had it, they are fed up. They can’t afford it anymore. Look at what is going on. Ten major states are raising taxes again as people are losing their jobs, income is going down, they are losing their pensions, they are losing their investments – and the government is saying: more taxes, more taxes, more taxes…”

Will Americans really take to the streets and follow the Greek model for messing with their collectivist benefits? On the other hand, will Americans just adopt the lead of their stiff upper lip Brit cousins? The Corporate/State does not care either way. Government control thrives with social unrest and plugs along with silent desperation.

Obama, Bush Jr, Clinton or Papa Bush makes no difference, the axis advances and the evil empire expands. The Extinction of the Middle Class provides this account. “The federal tempest is far worse than any hurricane, foreign foes or imaginary bogymen. If the middle class ever gathers their individual dignity, their focus should be to re-establish the supremacy of local governance. Meaningful solutions start with local initiative based upon individual inventiveness. The unmistakable lesson of the last several years is that a dominant federal government is lethal. This same conclusion has been true for over two centuries, but today the extent and reach of the propaganda, destructive technology and widespread apathy allows the DC monster to trash any community. For the middle class to save itself urgent action is needed to renounce the heresy that Washington authoritarianism is a government for and by the people.”

The Corporate/State is a reality that cannot be ignored any longer.

“Proponents of corporate libertarianism regularly pay homage to Adam Smith as their intellectual patron saint… Smith had a strong dislike for both governments and corporations… The classical political economy of Adam Smith was a much broader, more humane subject than the economics that is taught in universities today.”

David Korten, When Corporations Rule the World , 1995

US Military Trains To Clear ‘Civilian’ Homes

JOE CORTINA IS AN EX GREEN BERET, a former airborne special operations officer and US Army Training Center commander.

Joe Cortina’s subsequent experiences as an intelligence investigator and anti-terrorist adviser brought him to such hotbeds of turmoil as the State of Israel, adjacent Middle East nations, and Central America.

Joe Cortina’s hard hitting Web Site, “My Name Is Joe Cortina,” is a showcase of crimes committed against humanity by the Zionist global elite. Click Here.

Brother Nathanael Kapner: What was your military background?

Joe Cortina: I was initially attached to the XVIII Airborne Corps at Fort Bragg, NC, with the Strategic Army Command (STRAC) as an artillery officer. The time frame of my military leadership began in 1960 during the Vietnam war and the outset of the Berlin crisis.

I later was assigned to the USATC as a training instructor at hand grenade and machine gun ranges, infiltrating courses, bayonet training, and many other traditional basic soldiering drills. Subsequently, I was made a USATC Basic Training company commander.

Br Nathanael: Was civilian killing taught?

Joe Cortina: Absolutely not. Every trainee understood that the murdering of innocent defenseless civilians was one of the most loathsome acts imaginable and attributable only to Godless barbarian animals.

I trained soldiers to DEFEND our nation against aggressors – not to murder innocent civilians and created-enemies by another foreign power like the illegitimate State of Israel that brought us into the immoral war and slaughter of the Iraqi people.

Br Nathanael: Are home and business invasions a normal part of basic Army training?

Joe Cortina: No. Urban warfare training – a war going on in a civilian neighborhood which implies inevitable suffering and the immoral terrorizing of innocent civilians – should have absolutely NOTHING to do with US ARMY basic training. ONLY for unique incidents such as freeing hostages could it even be considered in Advanced Infantry Training Schools.

SUBLIMINAL POSTCARDS

Br Nathanael: Official USATC post cards appear to indicate that inexperienced soldiers will be asked to conduct violence against civilian homes and establishments as policy. Can you elaborate on this?

Joe Cortina: The Basic Training Postcards promote special military operations known as “MOUT” – “Military Operations in Urban Terrain.” In other words – home invasions which have resulted in the worst military war crimes in the history of the US such as looting, pillaging, raping, and murder – is now part of basic training.

We provided no such controversial training in any of the companies or battalions or regiments I was associated with during my military tenure.

Br Nathanael: Can you describe the nature of the card you showed me that was a ‘red flag’ to what you have experienced as normal basic infantry training?

Joe Cortina: I saw several cards, all reminiscent of my experiences as a basic trainee myself. BUT ONE CARD drew my attention and I found it alarming. As I began connecting the dots of the offensive card, it led me to the 29 Palms Military Survey which I will soon discuss.

The card showed soldiers forcing their way into private businesses not unlike those you might find in your OWN HOME TOWN. These were of course fabrications in the Training Center built to simulate an urban environment. It showed a “Fish Market” in Fallujah alongside of another business which could be located in any American city, “The Palace Night Club.” The front of the post card was marked URBAN WARFARE – as if it were some sort of Disney attraction.

Br Nathanael: What about the reverse side of the card?

Joe Cortina: Comments on the back of the card by a current trainee reads as follows: “MOUT – Military Operations in Urban Terrain.” What is interesting about it – my own home will be considered something abstract and impersonal: “URBAN TERRAIN.”

The psychology of war teaches that before an American soldier can kill a perfect stranger, a non-combatant – the first thing you do is dehumanize that person into a faceless ‘thing.’

Now devoid of all those qualities we cherish in ourselves, the US soldier does not have to deal with the dictates of his conscience when murdering a civilian in cold blood. Thus we find the use of dehumanizing terms: “hostiles” -”insurgents” – “extremists” – “terrorists.”

As the post card MOUT heading states, it can be a matter of months in which the arrival of a “civilian trainee” – (YOUR SONS) and their deployment to an “urban combat situation” becomes a real life event. Your very own 18 year old son’s first assignment may be to terrorize people in their homes or businesses – kick in their doors – smash their property. Apparently that was EXACTLY what the trainee who wrote the post card was taught.

Br Nathanael: What exactly was stated on the postcard’s reverse side?

Joe Cortina: The sender wrote in ink: “We were trained to enter a house – kick in a door – clear a room – check for explosives – create a foothold – engage hostiles – and call for a medevac.”

Now – if a fellow soldier had described these presumed orders to me – the following is what it means. The trainee was to forcefully smash his way into a civilian’s home – kill anyone who even looked like they would defend their home – search for their weapons to neutralize anything they may use to defend themselves – and if anybody survived their terrorist invasion to send them to sick bay for questioning. More On MOUT Here & Here.

THE ENEMY NEXT DOOR

Br Nathanael: What is the 29 Palms Military Survey you mentioned above?

Joe Cortina: “29 Palms,” named after the US military base in which the survey was made, is one of the most frightening and most disgusting testimonies to the ACCEPTANCE of military brutality and cold-blooded murder of one’s OWN citizens by American military ever revealed anywhere. A significant percentage of the Marines interviewed admitted that if ordered to do so they would kill their own neighbors.

Br Nathanael: How can we be sure that the US Army’s Basic Training has degraded to the alarming degree you claim?

Joe Cortina: Because the example I cited of the young trainee who seemed so eager to perform his ‘duty’ and carry out orders without question happens to be my own son. What we are teaching our children at this horrible place is unconscionable.

You will hear arguments from these war mongers to counter my concerns that: “It is necessary.” NECESSARY FOR WHAT? To murder more civilians here in our own country? So that these young men will now blindly follow orders and attack their OWN neighbors if Zionist-puppet Obama orders them to?

IT MAY BE TOO LATE to save my son’s soul from those who wish to transform him into a mindless murderer. But for the Love of Christ – please do not let these greedy Godless war mongers destroy your sons’ lives as well. Just Say “No” To This Evil!

Forget about Al-Qaeda or Osama Bin Laden. The chances are that VERY soon (with the declaration of martial law as the catalyst) you will be brutalized – murdered – raped – arrested – your home confiscated – by YOUR OWN SONS who have been taught that YOU are the enemy of the State and that THEY MUST follow orders. Sound familiar?…

Visit “My Name Is Joe Cortina” Web Site Here.

http://www.realzionistnews.com/?p=484

An Open Letter To America’s Christians

I was led to Christ at the tender age of 5 while sitting on my mother’s lap. I was raised in a devout, churchgoing Christian home. I have been in Gospel ministry all of my adult life (I am 57 years old). I have attended or have degrees and/or diplomas from 4 fundamentalist/evangelical colleges or Bible schools. I have been the Senior Pastor of a local Independent Baptist congregation for 34 years and counting. I have spoken in churches and Christian gatherings all over the country. I say all of that simply to provide my Christian credentials (in much the same way that the Apostle Paul provided his Jewish credentials in Philippians 3:5,6). As such, I believe I know something about the attitudes, conduct, philosophy, mindset, etc., of America’s Christians. I am not an outsider; I speak as one within the conservative/fundamentalist Christian camp.

As it relates to the rightful understanding of following Christ’s instruction that we are to be “salt” and “light” (and what that means for us Americans), and properly rendering to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God what is God’s (and knowing the difference), there are basically 2 groups: those who sincerely want to help America maintain its foundational principles and those who, frankly, are too preoccupied (or cowardly) to give much thought to it one way or another. I would say that the first group is slightly larger than the second group. The problem is, among the first group, there is a vast void of understanding regarding exactly how we are to implement and carry forth the principles of Christian liberty–which are the principles upon which America was built, of course.

As I see it, there are two glaring obstacles that keep today’s Christians from being truly effectual and influential in helping to restore America’s freedoms and founding principles. And let’s be honest enough to admit that, for the most part, today’s Christians (including our pastors) are ineffective and irrelevant in providing any meaningful solutions to America’s many problems. Sadly, more often than not, we are little more than gullible pawns, which wily and wicked politicians use to advance their own nefarious agendas.

Obstacle Number One: America’s current generation of Christians has allowed itself to become pathetically ignorant as to the Biblical, Natural Law principles of liberty and government. And when it comes to America’s historical principles of self-government and federalism, the ignorance quotient goes up even further.

It is really sad: we Christians (including our Christian pastors) know virtually nothing of real American history, law, government, etc. For example, I’m not sure that we can begin to remotely understand what Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence if we have not read John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government. I’m not sure we can begin to comprehend the American philosophy of government if we have not read George Washington’s Farewell Address. Without reading The Federalist Papers, one cannot begin to properly appreciate the US Constitution and the principles upon which it was predicated. Without reading Pastor Jonas Clark, one cannot understand what really happened at Lexington Green and Concord Bridge. Without reading Alexander Stephens’ History of the United States, it is doubtful that one can truly understand or appreciate the principles of federalism and State sovereignty. And how many of us have read even one of the above? And this does not even scratch the surface of necessary knowledge.

Let’s admit it: today’s Christians, for the most part, are operating in a vacuum of truth and understanding. Without a firm grasp of necessary truth, how can we know what to do, who to believe, or how to act?

Accordingly, smooth-talking “conservative” politicians who know how to use religious clich�s and terminology to gain our support and votes easily dupe the vast majority of sincere Christians. But it is actually worse than that. We Christians are, for the most part, unwitting contributors to the demise of freedom and rise of oppression in our land.

For example, Americans–including Christian Americans–lost more freedoms under former President George W. Bush than under any President since Lyndon Johnson, or maybe since Franklin Roosevelt. Yet, even today, most evangelical Christians continue to hold Bush in high esteem. They seem to be totally oblivious to the fact that Bush set the table and provided the opportunities for virtually everything that President Barack Obama is currently doing to advance socialism and globalism in our country. For the most part, Christians seemed to never notice that President Bush did almost nothing to change the course and direction set by his predecessor, President Bill Clinton. And liberals are just now beginning to wake up to the reality that, at the executive level, Obama is doing precious little to change the course set by George Bush–including escalating Bush’s war (now Obama’s war) in the Middle East. Will the American people never awaken to the fact that, for the most part, the only difference between these two parties at the national level is one of degrees, not direction?

At the national level, Democrats want to expand Big Government for the benefit of advancing the Welfare State, while Republicans want to expand Big Government for the benefit of advancing the Warfare State, but both want to expand Big Government. Make no mistake about it: neither major party in Washington, D.C., has any intention of returning America to the constitutional principles of limited government and federalism. But do Christians see this? No, they do not!

For the most part, today’s Christians seem to have the attitude that G.O.P. stands for God’s Own Party. That the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., is equally culpable for the destruction of liberty and constitutional government never seems to once enter their minds. The sum total of their patriotism seems to be voting Republican, watching Fox News, and paying taxes. The shallowness of today’s pastors and Christians is a major obstacle preventing us from doing much of anything that would actually contribute to good government.

Obstacle Number Two: Today’s Christians are not willing to support the principles they profess to believe.

I could not count the number of times that a sincere Christian brother or sister has asked me, “What is wrong with my pastor? Why does he refuse to take a stand?” or questions to that effect. Dear Christian Friend, as kindly as I know how to say it, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

I ask you, Why should your pastor “take a stand”? Why should he “get involved”? You and all the others of his congregation are more than willing to support his ministry the way it is. You sit under his preaching. You follow his leadership in the church. You give your tithes and offerings to support his vision for God’s work.

Look around you. What do you see? You see the Joel Osteen-type churches bulging out at the seams. Churches–where pastors are unwilling to get involved in anything “controversial,” where pastors are content to stay completely disengaged from anything that might be deemed “political,” and where pastors refuse to even hear the truth of what is really going on–are filled every Sunday. They have the largest crowds, biggest offerings, and most ornate buildings. Why, in the name of common sense, would you expect your pastor to “take a stand” or “get involved”? Why should he? You have–by your support, attendance, and offerings–clearly told him that you like him just the way he is!

Yet, throughout history, it has been pastors and preachers that have led the great civil movements and revolutions–including our own American Revolution. It is no hyperbole to say that without the leadership, courage, and resolve of Colonial America’s clergymen, we would still be a Crown colony of England, with no Declaration of Independence, no US Constitution, no Bill of Rights, and little freedom. And, it’s not like we do not have the same kind of lionhearted preachers today as we did in days of old, because we do. All across America, there are hundreds of Bible preaching men from virtually every Christian denomination who are more than willing to “take a stand” and “get involved.” As an example, go to my Black Regiment list and see the names of over 200 pastors who are out front in the fight for right. The problem is, the vast majority of America’s Christians today will not support these stalwart spiritual statesmen.

See the Black Regiment list at:

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php

So, Christian friend, why do you continue to worship under the leadership of a pastor who has no intention of standing in the gap for our country’s freedom? Why do you continue to give your tithes and offerings to such a church? It is time for Christians who know and care about what is going on to GET OUT of these spineless churches! If you really believe the principles you profess, how can you continue to deny those principles by staying in a church that has no intention of teaching those principles?

If you cannot find a patriot-pastor of your denomination, look for one outside your denomination. I would rather worship with a man with whom I disagree on secondary doctrines (but who is firm on the fundamentals, of course), but who is willing to stand for truth and freedom, than worship with a man of my preferred denomination, but who will do nothing to confront the evils that are currently destroying our republic.

Good grief! We have thousands of evangelical pastors who are willing to follow a man such as Rick Warren; a man who has become a partner with one of the most devilish and sinister organizations in the world–an organization that is actively working against the principles of freedom and independence, and in support of the principles of globalism and universalism: the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

Remember, it was Rear Admiral Chester Ward, former Judge Advocate General of the Navy, who rightly said, “The main purpose of the Council on Foreign Relations is promoting the disarmament of U.S. sovereignty and national independence and submergence into an all-powerful, one world government.” Most Christians readily discern any attempt at global government to be “of the devil.” Yet, Rick Warren is now an active member of the one organization whose major claim to fame is its incessant promotion of globalism.

How can any sincere Christian who is even remotely aware of what is going on–and who truly cares about the preservation of freedom–follow any pastor who follows someone such as Rick Warren? Yet, the Warren-type churches are flourishing all over America; and, at the same time, many of those congregants complain that their pastor is not “taking a stand.”

So, why don’t YOU take a stand by GETTING OUT of these soft, straddling, sugary, superficial, shallow, saltless churches?

It is infinitely more important that you be in a church that preaches the truth and takes a stand than that your teens attend “the most exciting youth program,” or that your kids are in one of these glorified playgrounds (called “children’s ministries”) so they can play games and stay entertained, or that your church has a softball team, or that it has the prettiest buildings, or that it has music you think is “just right,” or that it is the “premier church in town” for social gatherings or business contacts.

If you live near Phoenix, Arizona, why not attend Pastor Coleman’s church, 35th Avenue Baptist Church? If you live near Three Rivers, California, why not attend The Church of Kaweah, which is pastored by Warren Mark Campbell? If you live near Fort Myers, Florida, why not support Pastor James Riddle at Morningstar Baptist Church? If you live near Savannah, Georgia, why not support Pastor John Weaver’s Dominion Ministry? If you live near Ocean Springs, Mississippi, why not help Pastor John Mayfield’s Chapel of Faith? If you live near Kalispell, Montana, why not support Pastor Jim Huff and Bible Presbyterian Church? If you live near Omaha, Nebraska, why not support Pastor Phillip Kayser and Dominion Covenant Church? If you live in the Oklahoma City area why not help Pastor Jason Murphy at New Life Church in Collinsville, or Pastor Paul Blair at Fairview Baptist Church in Edmond, or Dr. Steve Kern and Olivet Baptist Church in Oklahoma City? If you live near Greenville, South Carolina, why not help Pastor Tony Romo at South Pointe Baptist Church in Pelzer, or Pastor Mark Dibler at Bible Baptist Church in Pickens. If you live near Madisonville/Athens/Etowah, Tennessee, why not support Pastor Jim Headings at the Piney Grove Community Church in Englewood? Daniel New has a home church in Hamilton County, Texas. Clell Drumheller pastors Truth in Love Ministries in northwest Houston. Why not support Pastor Brandon Teague at Faith Baptist Church in Paris, Texas? Pastor Butch Paugh is a patriot-pastor in Nettie, West Virginia. Pastor Wayne Sedlak is a patriot-pastor who ministers at Reformation Hope Church in West Bend, Wisconsin.

These are only a handful of the hundreds of dynamic patriot-pastors across America who are truly “taking a stand.” Ask yourself, what could the Church do if, instead of Rick Warren and Joel Osteen, men like those listed above pastored churches that numbered in the tens of thousands? Imagine what could happen if Black Regiment-type churches were the largest churches in a majority of the great metropolises throughout America?

I say again (as kindly as I know how): if you stay in, support, attend, and give your offerings to these churches that are pastored by men who will not take a stand, YOU ARE THE PROBLEM.

And though I would prefer that everyone have a local church they could support in good conscience, there are hundreds of people across America who, because they cannot find such a church, worship online with me and my church every Sunday morning, as we Livestream our service. We do this specifically for those who cannot find a church that will take a stand in their area.

To tune in to our Livestreamed service each Sunday morning at approximately 10:30am (CST), go to:

http://crossroadbaptist.net/live.html

If Christians today are to regain any semblance of relevancy in preserving America’s liberties, they must do two things: (1) immediately become acquainted with the foundational principles that created this country, and (2) get serious about supporting only those churches and ministries that truly know what’s going on and are willing to courageously stand in the gap. Anything short of this is pious-sounding rhetoric. And rhetoric will do nothing to help us–not now, anyway.

Anti-Empire Report

“It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets.” — Voltaire

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Somalian civil society and court system are so devastated from decades of war that one wouldn’t expect its citizens to have the means to raise serious legal challenges to Washington’s apparent belief that it can drop bombs on that sad land whenever it appears to serve the empire’s needs. But a group of Pakistanis, calling themselves “Lawyers Front for Defense of the Constitution”, and remembering just enough of their country’s more civilized past, has filed suit before the nation’s High Court to make the federal government stop American drone attacks on countless innocent civilians. The group declared that a Pakistan Army spokesman claimed to have the capability to shoot down the drones, but the government had made a policy decision not to. ¹

The Obama administration, like the Bush administration, behaves like the world is one big lawless Somalia and the United States is the chief warlord. On October 20 the president again displayed his deep love of peace by honoring some 80 veterans of Vietnam at the White House, after earlier awarding their regiment a Presidential Unit Citation for its “extraordinary heroism and conspicuous gallantry”. ² War correspondent Michael Herr has honored Vietnam soldiers in his own way: “We took space back quickly, expensively, with total panic and close to maximum brutality. Our machine was devastating. And versatile. It could do everything but stop.” ³

What would it take for the Obamaniacs to lose any of the stars in their eyes for their dear Nobel Laureate? Perhaps if the president announced that he was donating his prize money to build a monument to the First — “Oh What a Lovely” — World War? The memorial could bear the inscription: “Let us remember that Rudyard Kipling coaxed his young son John into enlisting in this war. John died his first day in combat. Kipling later penned these words:

“If any question why we died,
Tell them, because our fathers lied.”

“The Constitution supposes what the history of all governments demonstrates, that the executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and most prone to it. It has accordingly with studied care vested the question of war in the legislature.” — James Madison, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson, April 2, 1798.

A wise measure, indeed, but one American president after another has dragged the nation into bloody war without the approval of Congress, the American people, international law, or world opinion. Millions marched against the war in Iraq before it began. Millions more voted for Barack Obama in the belief that he shared their repugnance for America’s Wars Without End. They had no good reason to believe this — Obama’s campaign was filled with repeated warlike threats against Iran and Afghanistan — but they wanted to believe it.

If machismo explains war, if men love war and fighting so much, why do we have to compel them with conscription on pain of imprisonment? Why do the powers-that-be have to wage advertising campaigns to seduce young people to enlist in the military? Why do young men go to extreme lengths to be declared exempt for physical or medical reasons? Why do they flee into exile to avoid the draft? Why do they desert the military in large numbers in the midst of war? Why don’t Sweden or Switzerland or Costa Rica have wars? Surely there are many macho men in those countries.

“Join the Army, visit far away places, meet interesting people, and kill them.”

War licenses men to take part in what would otherwise be described as psychopathic behavior.

“Sometimes I think it should be a rule of war that you have to see somebody up close and get to know him before you can shoot him.” — Colonel Potter, M*A*S*H

“In the struggle of Good against Evil, it’s always the people who get killed.” — Eduardo Galeano

After the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, a Taliban leader declared that “God is on our side, and if the world’s people try to set fire to Afghanistan, God will protect us and help us.” ⁴

“I trust God speaks through me. Without that, I couldn’t do my job.” — George W. Bush, 2004, during the war in Iraq. ⁵

“I believe that Christ died for my sins and I am redeemed through him. That is a source of strength and sustenance on a daily basis.” — Barack Obama. ⁶

Why don’t church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion clinics?

God, war, the World Bank, the IMF, free trade agreements, NATO, the war on terrorism, the war on drugs, “anti-war” candidates, and Nobel Peace Prizes can be seen as simply different instruments for the advancement of US imperialism.

Tom Lehrer, the marvelous political songwriter of the 1950s and 60s, once observed: “Political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.” Perhaps each generation has to learn anew what a farce that prize has become, or always was. Its recipients include quite a few individuals who had as much commitment to a peaceful world as the Bush administration had to truth. One example currently in the news: Bernard Kouchner, co-founder of Medecins Sans Frontieres which won the prize in 1998. Kouchner, now France’s foreign secretary, has long been urging military action against Iran. Last week he called upon Iran to make a nuclear deal acceptable to the Western powers or else there’s no telling what horror Israel might inflict upon the Iranians. Israel “will not tolerate an Iranian bomb,” he said. “We know that, all of us.” ⁷ There is a word for such a veiled threat — “extortion”, something normally associated with the likes of a Chicago mobster of the 1930s … “Do like I say and no one gets hurt.” Or as Al Capone once said: “Kind words and a machine gun will get you more than kind words alone.”

The continuing desperate quest to find something good to say about US foreign policy

Not the crazy, hateful right wing, not racist or disrupting public meetings, not demanding birth certificates … but the respectable right, holding high positions in academia and in every administration, Republican or Democrat, members of the highly esteemed Council on Foreign Relations. Here’s Joshua Kurlantzick, a “Fellow for Southeast Asia” at CFR, writing in the equally esteemed and respectable Washington Post about how — despite all the scare talk — it wouldn’t be so bad if Afghanistan actually turned into another Vietnam because “Vietnam and the United States have become close partners in Southeast Asia, exchanging official visits, building an important trading and strategic relationship and fostering goodwill between governments, businesses and people on both sides. … America did not win the war there, but over time it has won the peace. … American war veterans publicly made peace with their old adversaries … A program [to exchange graduate students and professors] could ensure that the next generation of Afghan leaders sees an image of the United States beyond that of the war.” ⁸ And so on.

On second thought, this is not so much right-wing jingoism as it is … uh … y’know … What’s the word? … Ah yes, “pointless”. Just what is the point? Germany and Israel are on excellent terms … therefore, what point can we make about the Holocaust?

As to America not winning the war in Vietnam, that’s worse than pointless. It’s wrong. Most people believe that the United States lost the war. But by destroying Vietnam to its core, by poisoning the earth, the water, the air, and the gene pool for generations, the US in fact achieved its primary purpose: it left Vietnam a basket case, preventing the rise of what might have been a good development option for Asia, an alternative to the capitalist model; for the same reason the United States has been at war with Cuba for 50 years, making sure that the Cuban alternative model doesn’t look as good as it would if left in peace.

And in all the years since the Vietnam War ended, the millions of Vietnamese suffering from diseases and deformities caused by US sprayings of the deadly chemical “Agent Orange” have received from the United States no medical care, no environmental remediation, no compensation, and no official apology. That’s exactly what the Afghans — their land and/or their bodies permeated with depleted uranium, unexploded cluster bombs, and a witch’s brew of other charming chemicals — have to look forward to in Kurlantzick’s Brave New World. “If the U.S. relationship with Afghanistan eventually resembles the one we now have with Vietnam, we should be overjoyed,” he writes. God Bless America.

One further thought about Afghanistan: The suggestion that the United States could, and should, solve its (self-created) dilemma by simply getting out of that god-forsaken place is dismissed out of hand by the American government and media; even some leftist critics of US policy are reluctant to embrace so bold a step — Who knows what horror may result? But when the Soviet Union was in the process of quitting Afghanistan (during the period of May 1988-February 1989) who in the West insisted that they remain? For any reason. No matter what the consequences of their withdrawal. The reason the Russians could easier leave than the Americans can now is that the Russians were not there for imperialist reasons, such as oil and gas pipelines. Similar to why the US can’t leave Iraq.

Washington’s eternal “Cuba problem” — the one they can’t admit to.

“Here we go again. I suppose old habits die hard,” said US Ambassador to the United Nations, Susan Rice, on October 28 before the General Assembly voted on the annual resolution to end the US embargo against Cuba. “The hostile language we have just heard from the Foreign Minister of Cuba,” she continued, “seems straight out of the Cold War era and is not conducive to constructive progress.” Her 949-word statement contained not a word about the embargo; not very conducive to a constructive solution to the unstated “Cuba problem”, the one about Cuba inspiring the Third World, the fear that the socialist virus would spread.

Since the early days of the Cuban Revolution assorted anti-communists and capitalist true-believers around the world have been relentless in publicizing the failures, real and alleged, of life in Cuba; each perceived shortcoming is attributed to the perceived shortcomings of socialism — It’s simply a system that can’t work, we are told, given the nature of human beings, particularly in this modern, competitive, globalized, consumer-oriented world.

In response to such criticisms, defenders of Cuban society have regularly pointed out how the numerous draconian sanctions imposed by the United States since 1960 have produced many and varied scarcities and sufferings and are largely responsible for most of the problems pointed out by the critics. The critics, in turn, say that this is just an excuse, one given by Cuban apologists for every failure of their socialist system. However, it would be very difficult for the critics to prove their point. The United States would have to drop all sanctions and then we’d have to wait long enough for Cuban society to make up for lost time and recover what it was deprived of, and demonstrate what its system can do when not under constant assault by the most powerful force on earth.

In 1999, Cuba filed a suit against the United States for $181.1 billion in compensation for economic losses and loss of life during the first 39 years of this aggression. The suit held Washington responsible for the death of 3,478 Cubans and the wounding and disabling of 2,099 others. In the ten years since, these figures have of course all increased. The sanctions, in numerous ways large and small, make acquiring many kinds of products and services from around the world much more difficult and expensive, often impossible; frequently, they are things indispensable to Cuban medicine, transportation or industry; simply transferring money internationally has become a major problem for the Cubans, with banks being heavily punished by the United States for dealing with Havana; or the sanctions mean that Americans and Cubans can’t attend professional conferences in each other’s country.

These examples are but a small sample of the excruciating pain inflicted by Washington upon the body, soul and economy of the Cuban people.

For years American political leaders and media were fond of labeling Cuba an “international pariah”. We don’t hear much of that any more. Perhaps one reason is the annual vote in the General Assembly on the resolution, which reads: “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”. This is how the vote has gone:

How it began, from State Department documents: Within a few months of the Cuban revolution of January 1959, the Eisenhower administration decided “to adjust all our actions in such a way as to accelerate the development of an opposition in Cuba which would bring about a change in the Cuban Government, resulting in a new government favorable to U.S. interests.” ⁹

On April 6, 1960, Lester D. Mallory, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, wrote in an internal memorandum: “The majority of Cubans support Castro … The only foreseeable means of alienating internal support is through disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship. … every possible means should be undertaken promptly to weaken the economic life of Cuba.” Mallory proposed “a line of action which … makes the greatest inroads in denying money and supplies to Cuba, to decrease monetary and real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.” ¹⁰ Later that year, the Eisenhower administration instituted the suffocating embargo.

Notes

1. The Nation (Pakistan English-language daily newspaper), October 10, 2009 ^↩
2. Washington Post, October 20, 2009 ^↩
3. Michael Herr, “Dispatches” (1991), p.71 ^↩
4. New York Daily News, September 19, 2001 ^↩
5. Washington Post, July 20, 2004, p.15, citing the New Era (Lancaster, PA), from a private meeting of Bush with Amish families on July 9. The White House denied that Bush had said it. (Those Amish folks do lie a lot you know.) ^↩
6. Washington Post, August 17, 2008 ^↩
7. Daily Telegraph (UK), October 26, 2009 ^↩
8. Washington Post, October 25, 2009 ^↩
9. Department of State, “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958-1960, Volume VI, Cuba” (1991), p.742 ^↩
10. Ibid., p.885 ^↩

The Pathology of Evil

Israeli PM Netanyahu’s speech at the UN is a major insight into the Israeli’s mentality,  psyche and logic. In his speech Netanyahu, a prolific and charismatic speaker, gives air to his genocidal inclinations, he brings to light the Israeli supremacy but he also allows us to detect some shaky and vulnerable spots at the heart of the Jewish national narrative. Reading Netanyahu’s speech makes it very clear that both the Zionist Shoa and the ‘promised land’ narratives are on the verge of collapse. It seems as if the ‘discredited’ Iranian president Ahmadinejad has managed to succeed after all.

Don’t You Mess With Our Shoa

Israelis love their Shoa, for the Shoa is no doubt their best selling Hasbara (propaganda) product. It somehow allows them to kill en masse and to do it indistinguishably while insisting that it is they who happen to be the victims.

“I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee.” Said Netanyahu. “There, on January 20,1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people.”

PM Netanyahu, if you are genuinely interested in ‘extermination plans’ you do not have to travel to Wannsee, Berlin. All you have to do is visit your IDF’s headquarters in Tel Aviv. Your chief commanders will guide you through their IDF ‘solutions’ for the Palestinians. At the end of the day, it is your army that surrounds Palestinians with barbed-wire, it is you who keep civilian populations in a siege with inadequate food supplies and medicine. It is your army that poured WMD over the most densely populated neighbourhoods on this planet. While the real meaning of the ‘Nazi Final Solution’ (Die Endlösung) is still discussed by historians who fail to agree between themselves what it really meant, the true reality of the Israeli murderous solution has been seen by us all.

However, it is almost amusing to see PM Netanyahu rushing to defend the Zionist holocaust narrative. Looking at Netanyahu presenting the protocol of the Wannsee conference to the UN assembly gives a clear impression that the Israeli PM believes that the Shoa needs an urgent pump of credibility. For the first time, the Shoa is on the defence. 

“Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?” asks the Israeli PM.

PM Netanyahu, may I suggest to you that not a single humanist cares about the exact numbers: whether it was one or four millions Jews who died in Auschwitz, no one doubts that the camp was a horrible place. Yet, two questions must be answered once and for all:  how is it that the Jews, who suffered so much during that war, managed to get themselves involved in a colossal racist crime against the Palestinians (1948 Nakba) just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz? How is it that the Israeli leadership, that happens to be so sensitive to Jewish suffering, manages to neglect the pain they inflict on millions of Palestinians?

Supremacy and Beyond

As a National movement, Zionism fails to respect other national and popular movements.  Seemingly Netanyahu fails to respect the Iranian people and their regime. “Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated.” Netanyahu, must know that the Judaic law is not very different from Islam on these matters. He must also remember that it is in his country that gays were murdered in the street just a month ago. It is almost amusing that Netanyahu chooses to equate Iran with Barbarism and the Middle Ages for its treatment of minorities. As far as minorities are concerned, the Jewish state is actually the darkest place on this planet. In Netanyahu’s promised land half of the population cannot participate in the democratic game just for failing to be Jewish.

Israel according to Netanyahu is the embodiment of Western modernity.
“We (the Westerners) will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and
clean up the planet. I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances.” I must admit that I am not at all overwhelmed by Israeli scientific or technological achievements. Nor have I ever seen any evidence of Israeli attempts to save humanity or even the planet. In fact all I see is quite the opposite. However, if Netanyahu welcomes scientific progress, he should be the first to rally for the Iranian nuclear project. As we all know, this doesn’t seem to be the case. He, for some reason, thinks that, at least regionally, nuclear energy and weapons must remain Jew only property.

Netanyahu argues that “if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time.” Netanyahu may well be correct but one should point out to him that the above applies to Israel more than any other country, state or society. For the time being it is the Jewish State that has been caught pouring WMD on its imprisoned civilian population. It is the Jewish State that is dragging us all into an ‘eye for an eye’ primitive Biblical fanaticism. As if this is not enough, it is also America and Britain that launched illegal wars orchestrated by Zionist led Neocons and fundraisers. This war has cost more than one million lives so far.

However, for once I agree with Netanyhau:

“The greatest threat facing the world today”, he says, “is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.”

In fact, no one could describe the danger posed by the Jewish state and Zionism any better. Israel is indeed a deadly marriage between Old Testament gross genocidal barbarism, Zionist fanaticism and a huge arsenal of WMD, chemical, biological and nuclear that has already been partially put into action.

Sabbath Goyim

Like other Zionist operations around the world, Netanyahu is convinced that the Goyim should fight the Jewish wars. “Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?” I actually would like to stress that PM Netanyahu is all wrong here.  If the United Nation is interested in bringing peace to this region and the world, it is of the essence to help Iran to develop its nuclear project and even its military nuclear capacity. This seems to be the only thing that may curb the English Speaking Empire’s lethal expansionist enthusiasm as performed recently in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. It will surely stop the Zionists from celebrating their symptoms at the expense of their neighbours.

Following the successful transformation of the American and British armies into an Israeli subservient mission force, Netanyahu seems to expect the UN to follow and to fulfil the very same role. “Hamas”, he says, “fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks.” I guess that someone should remind the Israeli PM that the dispute between Hamas and Israel is not exactly an international quarrel, for Palestine is not a sovereign state and Gaza is nothing less than an Israeli-run concentration camp. In other words, the practicality of the matter is simple. The UN should only deal with war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by Israel, its leadership and its army. It is not down to the UN to pass any kind of judgment on the oppressed.

Mass Murder Fantasies

It doesn’t take long before Netanyahu lists his ideological mentors and the core of his lethal inspiration “When the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II…” Actually the allies levelled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of victims… By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice. Delegates of the United Nations, will you accept this farce?”

Netanyahu is almost correct. In his recounting of the 2nd WW he surely admits here that Israel follows Roosevelt’s and Churchill’s mass murder tactics. But he surely fails to realise that if it was indeed down to ethics and Justice (rather than the usual dirty politics) Roosevelt and Churchill would have been charged with war crimes on a most severe scale. Shockingly enough, Netanyahu falls into the most obvious legal trap equating Israeli activity with acts of carpet bombardment on a huge scale. For those who fail to see it all, this is a rapidly blinking red light hazard. In Netanyahu’s perception of reality nuking countries and flattening towns is a justifiable act. Roosevelt and Churchill seem to be his moral entitlement. In fact these statements are enough to make it clear to every reasonable human being that Israel is a genocidal entity that is capable of bringing our civilisation to a devastating end.

This is a wake up call: it is not just the Palestinians or the Iranians. It is actually all of us.

Bibi* the Peace Maker

By now, the Israeli PM is ready to state his Judeo centric peace mantra. “Ladies and Gentlemen, all of Israel wants peace”. Yet as far as statistics are concerned, we have recently learned that 94% of the Israeli Jews also approved the carpet bombardment of their next door neighbours. It is impossible not to see a clear discrepancy between the ‘peace loving’ verbalism and the murderous reality.

“We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes
to a Jewish state.” Once again, I happen to agree with PM Netanyahu. The Palestinian may as well say YES to a Jewish state, but not in Palestine or in the Middle East. If Obama, Brown, Merkel or any other deluded world leader  who is still insisting to approve the validity or necessity of a racially orientated ‘Jewish national homeland’, he or she is more than welcome to allocate land to such a project within his or her own territory. Palestinians should say NO to a Jewish state in the Holy Land or in the region. Palestinians should never agree to the existence of a Jewish state on their land. In fact the UN must follow this line and do whatever it can to dismantle this evil apartheid regime.

Khazarian United

To a certain extent, Netanyahu’s UN speech expresses some deep concerns Jews tend to keep to themselves. At the end of the day, the Israelis and Ashkenazi Israelis in particular know pretty well that Palestine is not exactly the land of their ancestors. If the Israeli Ashkenazi Jews, including Netanyahu, do want to find their roots, Khazaria is the place to start. However, Netanyahu tries to defuse these historical facts. “The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers… We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland” says Netanyahu with total conviction.

PM Netanyahu, I will make it plain and clear. Not only are you foreign to the land, you are also foreign to almost every possible understanding of the notion of humanity.  In fact, the Separation Wall that is going to be left after the inevitable disappearance of  your ‘Jew only democracy’ will serve generations to come with  an astonishing  historical monument of  Jewish national identity estranged from ethics, universalism and human  brotherhood. The crime against humanity committed by the Jewish state in the name of the Jewish people is not something that will be wiped out from the history text books in a short time. Quite the opposite; it will stand as another mythological chapter in this never-ending saga of supremacist compulsive pathological self-loving.

“We must have security” says Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu as he ends his speech. And I am here to disappoint him. Israel will never be secured. It was born in a sin, and its existence surpasses any notion of ethics or human existence. The Jewish state has passed the ‘no return zone’. It is doomed to vanish. We can only hope that once this happens the process of Jewish assimilation and integration into humanity will re-embark. At the end of the day Jewish Nationalism both left, right and centre was there to keep Jews apart. The history of the 20th century teaches us that this tendency to segregate oneself is bad for humanity and it is also devastating for the Jews.

* Netanyahu’s nickname is Bibi

Hate America? Count Me Out!

On this 8th anniversary of the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, it behooves me to comment on the spirit of hatred that seems to motivate many people in and out of our great land. That the supporters and disciples of Vladimir Lenin, Karl Marx, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Tse-tung, and Adolf Hitler would hate America is understandable. Communism, socialism, and fascism are diametrically opposed to everything the United States was founded upon. Therefore, it is not surprising that people who espouse the tenets of these “isms” would exude hatred for America–at least for the America of our forebears. What is most disconcerting, however, is the number of people within our country (and I don’t mean illegal aliens) who harbor hatred in their hearts for our beloved land.

To be sure, one can count me in with those who hate the manner in which the international banking cartel has wormed its way into the inner workings of our federal government. I hate the condescending, elitist attitudes of many in higher education. I hate the way globalists–such as David Rockefeller and his ilk–have been able to use the federal government to promote and safeguard their own private financial and political agendas. I hate the way secularists in public education and private organizations–such as the ACLU, People For the American Way, the Anti Defamation League, etc.–have been able to strip our culture of its Christian heritage. I hate the way politicians from both parties in Washington, D.C., ignore and trample the U.S. Constitution. I hate the way professing Christians and “conservatives” turn a blind eye and deaf ear to the warmongering, police-state mentality of many within the national Republican Party. I hate the way Nancy Pelosi and her gaggle of liberal Democrats use their power to promote socialism in America. I hate the liberal bias of the mainstream news media. I hate the so-called “political correctness” that permeates the philosophy of virtually every major organization in America these days. I hate the attempts by liberals and “do-gooders” of all stripes to take away my right to keep and bear arms. And, yes, I hate the way America’s foreign policy has been manipulated by foreign lobbyists, socialists within the United Nations, and international business interests.

With all of that said, however, if you hate America, count me out!

If Canaan was the Promised Land for Old Testament Israel, America was an earthly Promised Land for Christians and lovers of liberty. In the Providence of God, America was established by the right people, at the right time, and for the right purpose. With all its shortcomings, the U.S. Constitution–along with the Bill of Rights–is the greatest governing document ever devised by man. And the Declaration of Independence is the greatest birth certificate a nation ever had.

In fact, without the freedom and liberty protected by a 200-year history of constitutional government, all those anti-America, anti-Constitution, and anti-Founding Fathers critics out there could not even exist! As God gives the atheist the breath he uses to blaspheme his Creator, so, too, the Constitution protects the right of America-haters to foment their delirium.

I do find it demonstrably hypocritical, however, for these 21st Century preachers to condemn America’s Founding Fathers as being disobedient to Romans 13, only to turn around and celebrate Independence Day–and even conduct patriotic services in their churches. Even more egregious is the way these same preachers who condemn the 13 colonies in their fight for independence against the British Crown so quickly take up the war cry for military aggression all over the world. Obviously, inconsistency is one of the most consistent trademarks of Pharisaism.

The problem today is not that America is intrinsically bad. The principles of religious liberty, State sovereignty, Natural Law, self-government, and federalism are as righteous and good today as they were in 1776. The problem today is that the American people have lost touch with these principles and have allowed those who deny these principles to gain ascendancy within our land. The problem is, the America that was created 233 years ago is being supplanted with new doctrines and ideas. In fact, the doctrines and ideas prevalent today are really nothing new: they are the same antiquated doctrines of centralism and collectivism from which the 13 Colonies broke free so long ago.

So, I say it proudly and loudly: I love the America our Founding Fathers bequeathed to us. I love our republican form of government. I love America’s Christian heritage. I love the principles of federalism and constitutional government. I love the Declaration of Independence. I love the Bill of Rights. I love what our flag represents: a united federation of states. I love the examples of sacrifices made at Bunker Hill, Lexington Green, and Concord Bridge. I love the resolve and dedication of the colonial patriot-preachers known as the Black Regiment [1]. I love the combined wisdom, courage, and commitment to liberty demonstrated by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Sam Adams, Patrick Henry, James Otis, Joseph Warren, James Madison, John Jay, et al.

My criticisms and condemnations are reserved for those who would remove America from her roots, who would strip her of her principles, and who would destroy the fabric of her foundation. Don’t think for one minute that because I loathe those who are trying to merge America into an international New World Order or are working to dismantle constitutional government or are attempting to turn America into a socialist state, that I am in league with those who, in their hearts, hate America. I claim no brotherhood with them, for they hate what I love.

[1] To read my column regarding the Black Regiment that is published exclusively in the current edition of The New American magazine, go here:

http://www.thenewamerican.com/index.php/history/american/1789

Has The Church Become Irrelevant?

America’s Christian heritage is both rich and deep. What most historians and educators refuse to acknowledge, our forebears understood clearly: it was mostly Christians and churches that formed and shaped the new land that became known as the United States of America.

For example, when discussing the brave exploits of the passengers on board the Mayflower, people seem to have forgotten that the voyage was mostly the endeavor of a single church congregation. And don’t forget that it was Pastor Jonas Clark’s male congregants who withstood British troops at Lexington and fired the very first of the shots heard ’round the world. The famous French historian, Alexis De Tocqueville, credited the pulpits and churches of Colonial America with inspiring America’s successful War for Independence and subsequent prosperity much more than its institutions of learning, halls of Congress, or industries of invention. From the very beginning, America’s Christians and pastors were intricately involved in the establishment and building of this republic.

It is no hyperbole to say that without the influence, sacrifice, dedication, blood, sweat, and tears of America’s early Christians, this country would not exist.

But what do we see today? We see pastors and church congregations who are, for the most part, totally ignorant of their own heritage and history. They have little or no understanding of the principles of Natural Law–something America’s founders knew almost by second nature (no pun intended). They seem to know next to nothing of the Biblical principles of liberty and government. All they seem to be able to do is regurgitate some mindless interpretation of Romans 13–an interpretation that could have been written by King George III or even Adolf Hitler.

(Read my column regarding Romans 13 at http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/c2009/cbarchive_20090715.html )

Ignoring the great examples and exhortations of both Testaments, today’s Christians seem to have lazily latched onto a modern-day “divine right of kings” philosophy, through which they have become the pathetic slaves of arrogant and pompous political wolves dressed (barely) in the sheepskins of legitimacy.

Where are America’s watchmen on the wall? Where are the great stories of courage and commitment demonstrated by America’s founders that once emanated from church pulpits? How is it that today’s Christians know more about sports celebrities than they do America’s heroes? How is it that these lying, conniving, con artists called politicians can sucker church members as easily as they do the un-churched? How is it that Christians do not seem to recognize the devilish doctrines of socialism, fascism, elitism, or globalism for what they are? How can they be so easily manipulated? How is it that these corrupt politicians–who vote to kill unborn babies, merge America into internationalist and global entities, strip Americans of their God-given natural right of self defense, promote homosexual marriage, or allow America to lose its identity, culture, and heritage through unbridled illegal immigration–remain in “good standing” with any number of supposed “Christian” churches?

Even though there are more churches in America than anywhere else in the world, the pastors and Christians of this country have, for the most part, become completely irrelevant to preserving “the blessings of liberty”–or even fundamental Biblical principles, for that matter.

Churches used to be respected as lighthouses in communities: places free from the jaundiced juxtaposition of political correctness and avarice. Today’s churches are filled with both. Where once churches stood as guardians of truth, they have now become progenitors of error. Where once preachers stood in the similitude of Elijah and John the Baptist, they now grovel in the image of Joel Osteen and Rick Warren. Sunday Schools were once bastions of Bible teaching; today they are glorified coffee shops and playgrounds. The modern Christian home cannot even disciple its own children: how can it then be expected to “make disciples of all nations”?

I repeat: the modern American church has, for the most part, become irrelevant.

It is little wonder that more and more people are losing interest in the organized church. Instead of finding Christian love and kindness, they find the same kind of gossip, slander, petty bickering, favoritism, and selfishness that they might find at any office water cooler. Instead of hearing a prophet of God declare the Word of God, they hear a milquetoast minister meekly musing the latest self-help book.

The complete irrelevance of today’s organized church in America to the preservation of Christian liberty and constitutional government is especially disconcerting to those of us who still have freedom’s fire burning in our souls. Where do we go for respite and instruction?

I tell you the truth: there are hundreds of thousands of patriotic, freedom-minded Christians all over America who have had it “up to here” with these spineless social clubs called churches! They are tired of petrified pastors groveling before corrupt politicians and businessmen. They hunger for truth, and they are not finding it in most organized churches.

As an example, go to my list of people who have written me to let me know that they are desperately seeking a Black Regiment-type church that they can attend. The list grows by the day. See the list at

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php#Looking

These people are not looking to be entertained or pampered. They do not care about social standing or making “business contacts.” They don’t care which church has the “most exciting” youth program, or how many softball teams it has. They want a church where the pastor isn’t afraid to speak truth to power and take a stand for liberty. And, unfortunately, such churches are getting harder and harder to find.

In fact, I submit that the true church is not “emerging”; it is “submerging.” As in totalitarian regimes all over the world, where there are basically two types of churches: the organized State-approved church, where people who worship the State go to put on a religious show; and the underground church, where real Christians go to worship God with honest, likeminded believers.

The “underground” church in America is not totally underground–yet. But the schism is taking place rapidly. Unlike the houses of State Worship, which enjoy large congregations and ornate buildings, underground churches are, for the most part, small and unassuming. Home churches are also mushrooming and must be considered part of the underground church movement. And, of course, Black Regiment churches are springing up all across the country. See the list of Black Regiment churches at

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php

I am convinced that it is through these independent, unaffiliated, unorganized, or underground churches that relevancy will return. It is in these churches where Christians can be taught the Biblical principles of Natural Law, where children who are disciplined and know how to behave are not considered oddities, where pastors aren’t afraid to proclaim truth, where people are still committed to constitutional government–and understand the difference between a democracy and a republic–and where self-serving neocons are not regarded as heroes.

So, if you are a Christian and you want to be relevant to the preservation of liberty in this country, you need to get out of these establishment, State-worshipping churches and find yourself an “underground,” unaffiliated, or Black Regiment church. And you need to do it quickly!

Good For Nothing Christians

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” (Matt. 5:13 KJV)

Jesus said that salt without savor is “good for nothing.” Savor is the ingredient, the character that gives salt its quality–and its value. When salt is as it should be, it is a most precious commodity. Not only is it used as a seasoning; it is, more importantly, a preservative. As most everyone knows, salt was the primary source of food preservation before the days of refrigeration. Salt has been deemed to be so valuable at times that wars have actually been waged over it. During times of unusual deprivation, salt can be even more valuable than precious metals. But when salt loses its saltiness, it is absolutely worthless; it is “good for nothing.”

Jesus plainly proclaimed that He viewed His disciples as being the salt of society. In other words, when believers have the character they should have, they provide the preservation of the land. They hold back and retard the putrefying properties of spoilage and decay. But when Christians lose their character, when they lose the internal resistance to decay, they become “good for nothing” and the result is, the land is “trodden under foot of men.”

It grieves me to say that, for the most part, the modern Christian, the modern pastor, and the modern church have lost their savor. Taken as a whole, we have lost our inner character: the ability to resist decay and preserve the land has long departed, and America is fast being “trodden under foot of men.”

Our churches are no longer places of respite from the world: they are mirrors of it: the same dress; the same attitudes; the same carnality; the same spirit; the same stubbornness; the same pride. Churches are no longer bastions of truth: they are glorified social clubs or mere corporations, where Christianity is never allowed to interfere with business. Instead of being watchmen on the wall, our pastors are CEOs or, even worse, politicians. Popularity and personal ambition far outweigh commitment to truth and an independent mind. And as for Christian homes, forget it. The modern American home is straight out of Isaiah chapter three: “babes shall rule over them.” In the average “Christian” home, children rule the mothers, and mothers, in turn, rule the fathers. Discipline and instruction are out; leniency and ignorance are in.

We have a pandemic all right, but it’s not the swine flu: it is a pandemic of spineless Christianity. Parents who cannot stand up to their own children; pastors who cannot stand up to their own congregations; religious leaders who cannot stand up to politicians; and churches that cannot stand up to unconstitutional government.

Our so-called “conservative Christian” special interest groups are far more concerned about not losing financial contributions than they are about confronting the real evils of society. And as far as the Religious Right is concerned, it lost its soul somewhere early on in the first administration of George W. Bush.

If one is looking for someone to blame America’s demise on, don’t look to the prostitutes, drug dealers, or crooked politicians: look no further than the doorsteps of America’s churches. While the ominous clouds of oppression and tyranny boil overhead, our churches are content to play kid games and wallow in their own materialism and laziness. I realize there are exceptions to the rule, of course, but they are few and far between.

Sadder still is the lack of anything on the horizon that points to any kind of spiritual awakening. Look at the churches that are growing: for the most part, they are of the Joel Osteen and Rick Warren variety, where conviction has been replaced with compromise, and popularity has replaced principle. Genuine Bible prophets usually occupy the pulpits where hardly anyone attends. Truth has been replaced with entertainment, and calls for repentance are drowned out by the clamor for prosperity theology.

I can tell you from personal experience that, in more than 34 years of Gospel ministry, it has never been harder to continue to carry the torch of truth than it is today. It takes a toll on one’s physical health and emotional being, and even on one’s family. Any pastor desiring to carry the torch of truth today need not expect to have many friends. And any evangelist desiring to carry the torch of truth today need not expect to get many meetings. Truth is about as popular as a bad case of the measles, and yes, I mean among today’s professing “Christians.”

Should it surprise us, then, that we see the encroachment of our liberties and the erosion of constitutional government coming hard and fast? Should it surprise us that America is losing its conscience–not to mention our heritage? Should it surprise us when we see hundreds of large, empty internment camps popping up everywhere? Should it surprise us when we read of would-be tyrants in Washington, D.C., trying to pass egregious legislation that would strip us of our Bill of Rights? Should it surprise us when we see multinational corporations working with foreign governments to erode the sovereignty of these United States? Should it surprise us when we see both Republican and Democratic Presidential administrations look the other way while our borders are being invaded and even erased?

When the salt loses its savor, it is “cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.” And that is exactly what is happening to us today.

Does all this make me fatalistic? Not at all. I am absolutely convinced that God will always reserve to Himself a faithful remnant and a land of liberty for those who desire it. But before we talk about the land, we must be sure that our hearts are willing to pay the price to obtain it. We’ll leave that discussion for another time.

In the meantime, the clarion call to “come out” of this apostate, compromising, and carnal “church” is a good place to begin. We created our Black Regiment directory to help people find churches that were willing to stand up for Christ and liberty, as did colonial preachers of old. To locate Black Regiment churches and pastors in your area, or to volunteer to be a Black Regiment pastor, go to: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php

Obama’s Speech In Egypt

Much has been made of President Barack Obama’s “reconciliation” speech in Cairo, Egypt, last week. For the most part, the American media have focused on Obama’s attempt to “repair” relations with the Muslim nations of the world. For example, Obama referenced the Koran five times, and the Bible only once. (It is noteworthy that one of the Koranic references Obama used was a verse dedicated to Islamic Jihad, in which Muslims are required to kill infidels–meaning those who are not Muslims, of course. Not surprisingly, the vast majority of America’s major media failed to report http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=100504″>this story.

As nonsensical and revolting as much of Obama’s speech was, the most egregiously dangerous statement he made in his Egyptian speech was another one that all but a small portion of America’s mainstream media bothered to report. The sinister statement is as follows:

“Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail. So whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.” (Barack Obama 06/04/2009, Source: WhiteHouse.gov)

Like his predecessors, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George H.W. Bush, Barack Obama envisions a global union, in which all nations are linked commercially, governmentally, and militarily. Bush I called it a “New World Order;” Bush II called it an “international order;” Clinton often regurgitated Bush Sr.’s “New World Order” mantra; and Barack Obama called it a “world order.” Do people not recognize that every President since Ronald Reagan (both Democrat and Republican) has called for an international one-world order? Obama’s speech goes a step further, however.

In calling for a “world order,” Obama blatantly said “Given our interdependence, any world order that elevates one nation . . . over another will inevitably fail.” Does everyone understand what Obama is saying? In order for this new “world order” to materialize, no individual nation can be preferred over another–not even our own. In a word, no country can be allowed to maintain national sovereignty, independence, or military superiority. All nations must be willing to surrender their sovereignty and independence to the new “world order.” Furthermore, all nations must be willing to submit their militaries to a new global military. Oh yes, my friend, all of this is inferred in Obama’s statement.

The last half of Obama’s statement is equally chilling: “Whatever we think of the past, we must not be prisoners to it.” In other words, Americans must forget about the heritage and tradition of our past. The ideas of national sovereignty and independence are archaic. The notion of “America First” is passé. The principles of constitutional government must be replaced with the international principles of a new “world order.”

In this regard, it would not have mattered to a tinker’s dam if John McCain had been elected President instead of Barack Obama. I well remember McCain repeatedly saying that one of the first things he would do after becoming President would be to implement a new “League of Democracies.” In fact, look no further than to a speech McCain made to the Hoover Institution. According to McCain, “The new League of Democracies would form the core of an international order.” (Source: John McCain Addresses The Hoover Institution, CFR Publication, May 1, 2007)

At the national level, both the Republican and Democratic parties are taking the United States headlong into an international “New World Order.” The national news media is likewise culpable, as are the vast majority of the Religious Right and most other religious entities, organizations, and movements.

As an example, outside of this column, how many warnings have you read or heard regarding the abovementioned statement by Mr. Obama? I dare say that many readers are learning of this statement for the very first time as they read this column.

The burning question facing the American people today is, are we going to do nothing as these globalists who control our political and corporate institutions sell our country into global tyranny?

Forget Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Bill O’Reilly. They will do nothing to resist. Forget Joel Osteen and Rick Warren. They, too, will raise no voice of opposition. Forget Newt Gingrich. He is as much a part of the problem as anyone. Ditto for virtually every other major Republican in Washington, D.C.–with the exception of Ron Paul, of course. (At the national level, only Sarah Palin seems to bring any of the right instincts to the discussion, but she is desperately behind the curve on this issue, and needs much education if she is to be an effective voice on the subject.) Forget Nancy Pelosi and her fellow socialists in the Democratic Party. They have never seen a Big Government proposal that they did not love. And if they love big national government, think how they will love big international government.

Forget the TV news talk shows. With the exception of Lou Dobbs, they are all too busy putting big bucks in their bank accounts to have time to worry about something as insignificant (to them) as the surrender of our sovereignty and independence. Forget the vast majority of today’s pastors. They are either totally ignorant or unconcerned on the subject, or too busy fighting with their own carnal church members to provide the leadership necessary to “rally the troops”–as did the patriotic clergymen of Colonial America’s “Black Regiment.”

That leaves you and me–and God, of course. But then again, God, guns, and guts was all it took in 1776, wasn’t it?

So, while all of the attention of the “talking heads” was focused on virtually everything else Obama said, the most diabolical and potentially destructive statement that came from his mouth last week was all but ignored.

From Bunker Hill to Baghdad

Pinter’s Dispatch to Obama…

Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see
the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood
in the streets!
Poem by Pablo Neruda

About a month before Barack Obama announced his candidacy for the presidency of the United States, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski appeared on PBS’s Charlie Rose Show and was asked whether he thought Obama would be a good choice for president. Brzezinski paused for a minute, peered at Rose out of the corner of his eye, and answered, “Just think of the symbolism.”  As soon as he said that, Brzezinski and Rose broke out into laughter as though they were sharing a private joke.

Brzezinski was right, of course. Obama was the perfect choice for president. Not because of his experience. He had none. He was a two year senator with a resume’ small enough to fit on the back of a matchbox.  Still Obama had what Brzezinski and Co. were looking for, symbolism; the kind of symbolism that connected him to people around the world and made them feel like one of their own had finally clawed their way to the top. Even better, Obama was a charismatic populist who could fill stadiums with adoring fans and put a benign face on America’s interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. What more could Brzezinski hope for? After 8 years of dragging “Brand America” through the mud, the country would finally get the emergency facelift it needed and begin to restore its battered image as the world’s indispensable nation.

For leftists, Obama has been a total bust. He’s escalated the war in Afghanistan, increased the cross-border bombings of Pakistan, hemmed and hawed about prosecuting war crimes, refused to actively lobby House members to make it easier for workers to organize (EFCA), and surrounded himself with bank industry reps who’ve committed $12.8 trillion to sinking financial institutions with no assurance that the money would be repaid. Apart from a trifling bill on stem cells, Obama has done absolutely zero to confirm his bone fides as a liberal. The truth is, Obama is neither liberal nor conservative; he’s simply an inspiring orator and a skillful politician who has no strong convictions about anything. If he achieves greatness, it will be because he was thrust into a crisis he couldn’t avoid and reluctantly acted in the best interests of the American people. That possibility still exists, although it seems more unlikely by the day.

Foreign leaders are clearly relieved to see the last of George W. Bush, and they appear to be willing to give Obama every opportunity to mend fences and break with the past. But Obama has made little effort to reciprocate or show that he’s serious about real change. The emphasis seems to be more on public relations than policy; more on glitzy photo ops, grandiose speeches and gadding about from one capital to another, than ending the chronic US meddling and militarism. Where’s the beef or is it all just empty posturing?

No one’s ready to write-off Obama just yet, but he needs to show he’s the real-deal by taking steps to ratchet-down the war machine and reign in the corporate elites and bank vermin. But is it really possible for one man–however well-meaning–to change the course of a nation by standing up the gaggle of racketeers who pull the strings from behind the curtain? Keep in mind, America’s history of violent interventions, unprovoked wars,  color-coded revolutions and coup d’ etats has a long pedigree that stretches from Bunker Hill to Baghdad. That river of blood did not begin with George Bush and it won’t end with Barack Obama. Every generation has produced its own litany of crimes, from Wounded Knee to Nagasaki to My Lai to Falluja. In Harold Pinter’s Nobel acceptance speech, the playwright invokes one such incident which epitomizes the pattern of hostility which has been repeated over and over again wherever the Washington mandarins detect opposition to their iron-fisted rule.

Harold Pinter, Nobel Acceptance Speech:

“The United States supported the brutal Somoza dictatorship in Nicaragua for over 40 years. The Nicaraguan people, led by the Sandinistas, overthrew this regime in 1979, a breathtaking popular revolution.

The Sandinistas weren’t perfect. They possessed their fair share of arrogance and their political philosophy contained a number of contradictory elements. But they were intelligent, rational and civilized. They set out to establish a stable, decent, pluralistic society. The death penalty was abolished. Hundreds of thousands of poverty-stricken peasants were brought back from the dead. Over 100,000 families were given title to land. Two thousand schools were built. A quite remarkable literacy campaign reduced illiteracy in the country to less than one seventh. Free education was established and a free health service. Infant mortality was reduced by a third. Polio was eradicated.

The United States denounced these achievements as Marxist/Leninist subversion. In the view of the US government, a dangerous example was being set. If Nicaragua was allowed to establish basic norms of social and economic justice, if it was allowed to raise the standards of health care and education and achieve social unity and national self respect, neighboring countries would ask the same questions and do the same things. There was of course at the time fierce resistance to the status quo in El Salvador.

I spoke earlier about ‘a tapestry of lies’ which surrounds us. President Reagan commonly described Nicaragua as a ‘totalitarian dungeon’. This was taken generally by the media, and certainly by the British government, as accurate and fair comment. But there was in fact no record of death squads under the Sandinista government. There was no record of torture. There was no record of systematic or official military brutality. No priests were ever murdered in Nicaragua. There were in fact three priests in the government, two Jesuits and a Maryknoll missionary. The totalitarian dungeons were actually next door, in El Salvador and Guatemala. The United States had brought down the democratically elected government of Guatemala in 1954 and it is estimated that over 200,000 people had been victims of successive military dictatorships.

Six of the most distinguished Jesuits in the world were viciously murdered at the Central American University in San Salvador in 1989 by a battalion of the Alcatl regiment trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, USA. That extremely brave man Archbishop Romero was assassinated while saying mass. It is estimated that 75,000 people died. Why were they killed? They were killed because they believed a better life was possible and should be achieved. That belief immediately qualified them as communists. They died because they dared to question the status quo, the endless plateau of poverty, disease, degradation and oppression, which had been their birthright.

The United States finally brought down the Sandinista government. It took some years and considerable resistance but relentless economic persecution and 30,000 dead finally undermined the spirit of the Nicaraguan people. They were exhausted and poverty stricken once again. The casinos moved back into the country. Free health and free education were over. Big business returned with a vengeance. ‘Democracy’ had prevailed.

But this ‘policy’ was by no means restricted to Central America. It was conducted throughout the world. It was never-ending. And it is as if it never happened.

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it.”

Pinter’s speech is a somber indictment of US foreign policy; a policy which is now cloaked behind the rock-star facade of Barack Obama. Nothing has changed and, perhaps, nothing will change. The same barbarous campaign that thrived under Bush has been passed along to Obama intact. Wherever there is resistance to US ambitions; there lies the enemy. Whether its Marxists in Bogota,  nationalists in Kosovo,  Bolivarians in Caracas, Shia militias in Beirut, Islamic moderates in Mogadishu or Quakers in Toledo. They’re all enemies, every one of them, and they need to be dealt with.

Obama is no fool; he knows he’s being used. He knows he wasn’t chosen for his enlightened views on health care and stem cells. He was picked because the men in charge needed a new posterboy to hide behind while they carry out their illicit activities. Obama is not so much of a Commander in chief as he is master illusionist, diverting attention from the stealth war that goes on relentlessly with or without his consent. Here’s Pinter again:

“The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis…It’s a scintillating stratagem.”

Consider how the news was shaped to make it look like the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were carried out for altruistic reasons.  Thus, the war in Afghanistan became “Operation Enduring Freedom”, stressing the selfless generosity of bombing a country into oblivion and reinstating the thuggish warlords to power. The same strategy was used for the invasion of Iraq which was celebrated as “liberation from a brutal dictator.” Liberation which cost the lives of over 1 million Iraqis and the displacement of 4 million more. Still, no one in the UN or so called international community has pressed for removing the US from the Security Council or prosecuting its leaders for war crimes. It’s a testimony to the success of the US media in upholding the “tapestry of lies” of which Pinter speaks.  Under Obama, the charade has only gotten worse. The coverage of the war has stopped entirely. War? What war? What matters now is Obama’s cheery banter with Jay Leno, or Michelle’s well-proportioned arms or Malia’s adorable Portuguese Waterdog. America is whole again. Let the killing resume.

Pinter: “What has happened to our moral sensibility? Did we ever have any? What do these words mean? Do they refer to a term very rarely employed these days – conscience? A conscience to do not only with our own acts but to do with our shared responsibility in the acts of others? Is all this dead? Look at Guantanamo Bay. Hundreds of people detained without charge for over three years, with no legal representation or due process, technically detained forever. This totally illegitimate structure is maintained in defiance of the Geneva Convention. It is not only tolerated but hardly thought about by what’s called the ‘international community’. This criminal outrage is being committed by a country, which declares itself to be ‘the leader of the free world’. Do we think about the inhabitants of Guantanamo Bay? What does the media say about them? They pop up occasionally – a small item on page six. They have been consigned to a no man’s land from which indeed they may never return. At present many are on hunger strike, being force-fed, including British residents. No niceties in these force-feeding procedures. No sedative or anesthetic. Just a tube stuck up your nose and into your throat. You vomit blood. This is torture. What has the British Foreign Secretary said about this? Nothing. What has the British Prime Minister said about this? Nothing. Why not? Because the United States has said: to criticize our conduct in Guantanamo Bay constitutes an unfriendly act. You’re either with us or against us.”

Obama doesn’t need to solve the world’s problems. He doesn’t have to reverse global warming or slow peak oil, cure AIDS or end world hunger. All he needs to do is meet the minimal requirement of his job as president, which is to deliver justice to his people. That’s why the prosecution of Bush for war crimes is more important than any other issue on the docket. Justice precedes everything; it’s the thread that keeps the social fabric stitched together.  Justice for the victims who were killed in their homes with their families while they were sleeping or eating dinner. Justice for the people who were bombed in wedding parties or going to work or at the mosque praying to God. That’s what people want from Obama. Justice, nothing more. The Reverend Martin Luther King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” It’s up to Obama follow that arc and take at least one step on the path of legitimacy, accountability and justice.

Pinter: “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice.”

It’s highly unlikely that a black man with a background in community organizing really believes that expanding the war in Afghanistan is the right thing to do. Nor is it likely that he supports wiretapping, the crackdown on immigrants, penalizing sellers of medical marijuana, trillion dollar bank bailouts or “enhanced” interrogation. He is merely reading from the script that he has been given. But as the economic crisis deepens and the country becomes more radicalized and politically unstable, that script will have to be tossed aside. Obama will have plenty of opportunities to shrug off his handlers and show what he’s really made of. Perhaps he is great man after all.

Pinter: “When we look into a mirror, we think the image that confronts us is accurate. But move a millimeter and the image changes. We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.”

Go ahead, Barack. Smash the mirror.

Few Christians Have Biblical Worldview

The prolific pollster George Barna just released another startling survey: among America’s professing “born-again” Christians, only 19% possess a Biblical worldview. That’s right. Some 80% of professing Christians do not possess a Biblical worldview.

And it’s not as if Barna’s survey questions were all that difficult. Barna’s criteria for determining a person’s Biblical worldview were the following:

• Believing that absolute moral truth exists;
• Believing that the Bible is totally accurate in all of the principles it teaches;
• Believing that Satan is considered to be a real being or force, not merely symbolic;
• Believing that a person cannot earn their way into Heaven by trying to be good or do good works;
• *Believing that God is the all-knowing, all-powerful creator of the world who still rules the universe today.

In the research, anyone who held all of those beliefs was said to have a Biblical worldview. And again, even among professing “born-again” Christians, only 19% were shown to have a Biblical worldview.

See Barna’s research at:

http://www.barna.org/barna-update/article/21-transformation/252-barna-survey-examines-changes-in-worldview-among-christians-over-the-past-13-years

This survey helps explain a bunch!

How in the name of common sense can Christians expect to be the “salt” and “light” to a lost and dying world when the vast majority of believers do not even possess a basic Biblical foundation?

Of course, many mainline Protestant denominations lost their allegiance to Biblical truth decades ago. And now it seems that a majority of evangelical churches are consumed with the politically correct doctrines of Prosperity Theology and Entertainment Evangelism. Old-fashioned Bible Christianity has been replaced with avant-garde movements such as the Emerging Church, Purpose Driven Church, Seeker-Sensitive Church, User-Friendly Church, Meta-Church, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

The result of this departure from Biblical Christianity is that some 80% of professing Christians today do not hold a Biblical worldview and are, therefore, impotent at being the “salt” and “light” that our Lord requires.

Let’s face it: without a Biblical worldview, these modern “born-again” evangelicals are walking around with pagan, Christless worldviews. Instead of the Bible, socialist talking heads, globalist media moguls, hedonistic entertainers, political hacks, and humanistic academicians are the ones to most influence their opinions, philosophies, and mindsets.

And just whose fault is it that our churches have become so riddled with infidelity and apostasy? The preachers, obviously.

Instead of standing up on their own hind legs and proclaiming, “Thus saith the Lord,” without fear or favor, they are falling all over themselves trying to emulate Joel Osteen, Rick Warren, and Bill Hybels. Instead of preaching with the fear of God in their hearts, they preach with the fear of the I.R.S. and the G.O.P. in their hearts. Or, worse than that, they “tiptoe through the tulips” for fear of their own church members.

I will say it one more time, if America’s preachers would stand up in their pulpits every Sunday and not be afraid to preach the truth (and courageously relate it to America’s everyday problems and challenges including our political problems and challenges), the ship of state could be turned around overnight! As the pulpits go, so goes the nation. And right now, the pulpits of America are leading our country over the cliff!

It is for this very reason that, a few years ago, I began a nationwide campaign to discover the modern “Black Regiment” pastors and churches in America. As a result of this effort, we have already identified scores of pastors and churches across America that have gladly chosen to identify themselves as being part of America’s “Black Regiment.”

See the Black Regiment web page here:

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/blackregiment.php

If you find a Black Regiment pastor in your area, by all means, join with and support both him and his congregation. How can pastors be expected to courageously proclaim the truth unless people who appreciate the truth support them with both their attendance and offerings?

It is also for this reason that I am now live-streaming my Sunday morning messages on the Internet. We now have hundreds of thirsty souls watching us every Sunday morning. For the most part, these are people who have tried desperately to find courageous, independent-minded patriot-pastors in their communities, but have failed to do so. Our live-streamed broadcast gives them an online home where truth is preached. If you want to join them, use this url on Sunday at approximately 10:30 a.m. (Central Daylight Time):

http://crossroadbaptist.net/live.html

George Barna’s research is tremendously revealing–and disconcerting. It is a sad day when many unbelievers seem to have more character and conviction about the foundational principles of constitutional government, liberty, and independence than do professing Christians. But then again, if Christians cannot be trusted to understand and revere the Sacred Text, how can they understand and revere the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution, and Bill of Rights?

The Power Elite Playbook, Corporate Generals

Part Eighteen

Coincidentally or not, at about the same time that the international bankers were promoting and funding Japan’s war-hawk behavior under Emperor Meiji (Hirohito’s grandfather) against Korea, China and Manchuria, banker-backed U.S. imperialists were looking for ways to seize productive land and control in Cuba (achieved by the Platt Amendment on March 2, 1901), banish the Spanish and expand into the resource-rich Philippines. William Howard Taft represented U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt in a highly confidential meeting in Tokyo with Japanese Prime Minister Katsura on July 27-29, 1905. They agreed that Japan would relinquish economic control of Hawaii and the Philippines to the U.S. while Japan targeted adjacent Asiatic countries. This insidious treaty sealed Korea’s death warrant. It was approved by Britain, or rather the British financiers behind the throne who were also funding Japan’s warfare. [1]
 
The Philippines (7,000 islands), a Spanish theocracy by 1575, were on the early trade routes. Chinese merchants had been trading there since the tenth century. Many merchants settled along the coast of Luzon, the largest island. In exchange for Chinese goods, Spanish traders received gold from the New World and silver from Mexico. The Spanish traders would return to Luzon’s Manila Bay from Acapulco with ships loaded with precious metals. Thus, Manila became a very important Chinese financial center as early as the sixteenth century. The Chinese middlemen made a reasonable profit and sent the majority of the gold and silver to China to pay for goods. The Spanish, intimidated by Chinese capabilities, unique skills and economic access, denied them citizenship and prohibited them from direct ownership of land. Occasionally, the Chinese were massacred – sending a persuasive message while reducing a specific ethnic population. Inevitably, the ghetto-dwelling Chinese cohabited with Malay girls to produce a large number of illegitimate Chinese mestizo children. These children, still a minority, were raised as good Catholics. They often inherited their father’s financial acuity, could buy land, and acted as moneylenders and middlemen. [2]  
 
The Spanish mestizos, not as business-savvy as their Chinese counterparts, used the law to manipulate the native Malays into forfeiting their land. This ultimately resulted in the Katipunan Rebellion which began on August 23, 1896, an uprising against Spanish dominance. Emilio Aguinaldo, a member of the Chinese-mestizo minority, was a leader in that rebellion. [3] It failed, and Aguinaldo took refuge in Hong Kong where he purchased weapons to continue the battle. 
 
American politicians, eager to assist the corporate moguls in their opportunistic business quests, intervened. President McKinley sent Admiral George Dewey who led the Hong Kong-based Asiatic Squadron* of the U.S. Navy. (One must ask why the U.S. had an Asiatic Squadron, inasmuch as our military was/is constituted to exclusively defend our “homeland.”) On May 1, 1898, Admiral Dewey and his squadron defeated and sank the entire Spanish fleet in Manila Bay in six hours with the loss of one American life. If assistance to the Filipinos had been the actual agenda, they could then have departed, satisfied and victorious. Instead, on May 2, 1898, Congress voted a war emergency credit of $34,625,725. Two days later, the House, with McKinley’s consent, approved the annexation of Hawaii. On June 11, McKinley reiterated: “We must have Hawaii to help us get our share of China.” [4] In relation to the U.S., the Philippines are 7,000 miles across the Pacific Ocean, 600 miles from the Asian continent and more than 4,500 miles from Hawaii.
 
McKinley cabled Admiral Dewey and asked him to compile an account of the Philippines’ natural resources, mining, farming and industry. An emissary from the State Department was sent to prepare a directory for the economic exploitation of the area. American companies quickly targeted the most fertile lands. A Del Monte subsidiary, restricted by law to 1,024 hectares, managed to have the U.S. Governor-General convert public land into a U.S. Navy preserve. Then the Navy subleased 20,000 hectares to Del Monte. [5]
 
U. S. Governor-Generals from 1898 to 1901 were: General Wesley Merritt who functioned from August 14, 1898 to August 28, 1898; General Elwell S. Otis who operated from August 28, 1898 to May 5, 1900 and General Arthur MacArthur, Jr. who implemented the U.S. program from May 25, 1900 to July 4, 1901, when the U.S. installed a civilian – William Howard Taft (1901 to 1903) whose father Alphonso Taft had co-founded Skull and Bones (The Brotherhood of Death) at Yale University in 1832. Taft became Secretary of War (1904–1908) and U.S. president (1909–1913). Additionally, he supported the unconstitutional 16th Amendment of February 3, 1913, which allows the privately owned IRS to collect income tax designed to pay interest on the fiat money that the Federal Reserve, also privately owned, prints. He also supported the 17th Amendment, ratified on April 8, 1913, which deprived state governments of the right to select U.S. senators in favor of  direct, popular election of senators – popular election allows corporate giants to influence the result, and thus effectively to purchase federal legislation in their own favor.
 
Emilio Aguinaldo returned from his Hong Kong exile on May 19, 1898, at the invitation of the U.S. On May 25, 1898, the Philippine Expeditionary Force of 8,500 men (Eighth Army Corps) left San Francisco and arrived at Cavite, Philippine Islands. Surprise! Those U.S. soldiers were NOT there to help the Filipinos. Aguinaldo, naïve but hopeful, declared independence on June 12, 1898 and established the First Philippine Republic.
 
Aguinaldo stated in his 1899 work, True Version of the Philippine Revolution: “On the 4th of July (1898) the first United States military expedition arrived, under command of General Anderson, and it was quartered in Cavite Arsenal. This distinguished General called on me in the Filipino Government House at Cavite, an honour and courtesy which I promptly returned, as was right and proper, seeing that we were friends, of equal rank, and allies. In the course of official intercourse General Anderson solemnly and completely endorsed the promises made by Admiral Dewey to me, asserting on his word of honour that America had not come to the Philippines to wage war against the natives nor to conquer and retain territory, but only to liberate the people from the oppression of the Spanish Government.” [6]
 
According to Aguinaldo, Admiral Dewey had said: “Documents are useless when there is no sense of honour…have faith in my word, and I assure you that the United States will recognize the independence of the country. I further ask you to have patience if any of our soldiers insult any Filipinos, for being Volunteers they are as yet undisciplined.” [7]
 
On February 4, 1899, the official beginning of the American War in the Philippines, a Filipino was shot by an American sentry. This started the Battle of Manila led by General Arthur MacArthur Jr. (1845-1912). Between 50 and 60 Americans were killed while 2,000 Filipino corpses lay in the streets of Manila. Poorer, less experienced populations cannot compete with better artillery, warships, or superior marksmanship and firearms. McKinley claimed that “insurgents had attacked Manila.” The administration further declared that Aguinaldo was an “outlaw bandit,” the antiquated term for enemy combatant.
 
U.S. troops took Aguinaldo captive on March 25, 1901. General MacArthur convinced him to surrender and swear allegiance to America. European dominance was then replaced by U.S. imperialism. Vice President Teddy Roosevelt thought Manila should become an American Hong Kong. McKinley, feeling that the Filipinos were unfit to govern themselves, wanted all of the Philippines, not just Manila. [8] Some Filipinos were willing to employ guerrilla warfare to resist, despite their lack of armaments.
 
On December 20, 1900, General Arthur MacArthur had officially declared that Filipinos were an “inferior race” and further stated that because guerrilla warfare was contrary to “the customs and usages of war,” that those who engaged in it “divest themselves of the character of soldiers, and if captured are not entitled to the privileges of prisoners of war.” Thus, they were treated as criminals. The real war criminals, Jacob Smith and Littleton Waller, were later admonished and acquitted during a Senate white-wash investigation, headed by imperialist Republican Senator Henry Cabot Lodge. The U.S. use of the water torture or waterboarding, frequently lethal, was divulged during the very revealing hearings. [9] [10] [11] Waller was, after all, just following orders, a defense not allowed to German defendants by the U.S. at Nuremburg. [12] California’s Fort MacArthur, a U.S. Army installation in San Pedro, was named after the general.
 
General Arthur MacArthur left the Philippines on July 5, 1901 and became Commander of the Department of the Pacific from January 1904 to April 1907. He was a Civil War veteran and had fought against America’s native population for thirty years. He was stationed in the Dakota Territory when the Spanish-American War began in 1898. He was sent to Manchuria to observe the Japanese military from January to September 1905, towards the end of the Russo-Japanese War.  He then did a short stint as military attaché to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo. [13] While in Japan, both the general and his son, Lt. Douglas MacArthur, met with Emperor Meiji who had collaborated with the British bankers in Japan’s assault against Korea, China and Russia. Then the general, his wife and his son toured several Asian countries from November 1905 through June 1906 to assess their military strength. Who received that report? The MacArthurs visited Shanghai, Hong Kong, Ceylon, India, Burma, Bangkok, Batavia, Singapore, Rangoon and Saigon, and were possibly among the first U.S. officers to visit Vietnam. [14]
 
Douglas MacArthur graduated from West Point in 1903 and was commissioned a second lieutenant of engineers. His first assignment was in the Philippines, from 1903 to 1904, with the 7th Cavalry Regiment. During this Philippines assignment he befriended Manuel Quezon, one of two leaders of the Nationalista Party which would monopolize politics in the Philippines for the next forty years. He was promoted to first lieutenant in April 1904, and was an engineer officer and aide to the Commander of the Pacific Division (his father) from 1904 to 1906. [15]
 
As part of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, signed on December 10, 1898, America paid $20 million to Spain and then started fighting the ill-prepared Filipinos, who many of the ex-Civil War officers referred to as “Niggers” or “Goo-Goos.” [16] President McKinley had been assassinated by a lone gunman and the U.S. military in the Philippines was holding a memorial service on September 28, 1901 in Balangiga on the island of Samar (600 square miles). Filipino guerillas who opposed the  American occupation chose this opportunity to attack. They killed forty-eight and wounded twenty-two. [17]
 
To avenge this surprise attack, General Jacob Smith (previously a speculator in whiskey, gold, and diamonds who had stolen Civil War enlistment money from “colored” recruits) gave instructions regarding the inhabitants of Samar to Major Littleton Waller: “I want no prisoners. I wish you to kill and burn, the more you kill and burn the better you will please me. Kill everyone over the age of ten.” Homes were burned; all animals were destroyed. Then they imposed sanctions to starve the remaining population into submission. Major Adna Chaffee advised reporters not to be sentimental over the deaths of “a few Goo-Goos.” [18]
 
Littleton also sought to avenge the deaths of his military comrades who had died in North China. The Chicago Tribune reported that “We are the trustees of civilization and peace throughout the islands.” In an effort to persuade the Filipinos of American generosity and good will, the U.S. established a few schools, reorganized city governments, and improved sanitation conditions. [19]
 
H. L. Wells, a correspondent for New York Evening Post stated that there had been no widespread outrageous acts committed by U.S. troops. However, he understood their savage contempt for the enemy: “There is no question that our men do ‘shoot niggers’ somewhat in the sporting spirit, but that is because war and their environments have rubbed off the thin veneer of civilization… Undoubtedly, they do not regard the shooting of Filipinos just as they would the shooting of white troops. This is partly because they are ‘only niggers,’ and partly because they despise them for their treacherous servility… The soldiers feel they are fighting with savages, not with soldiers…” [20]
 
General Order #100 was applied in the Philippines: Lincoln’s order authorized the shooting on sight of all persons not in uniform or acting as soldiers and those committing, or seeking to commit, sabotage. The 7th Calvary Regiment, a part of the Regular Army, was originally organized on September 21, 1866 and is still viable today.[21] This regiment was in the Philippines from 1904 to 1907, and again from 1911 through 1915. It employed the very same scorched earth policies against the Filipinos that had proven so effective against the vulnerable Plains Indians. Entire villages were burned, and unarmed Filipinos, women and children, were killed. To the troopers, all Filipinos looked alike and similar to the “red savages.” In fact, they called the Filipinos “Apaches” or “gooks. “[22]
 
Every member of America’s “high command” in the Philippines had spent most of his career chasing Apaches, Comanches, Kiowas, and Sioux. Some of them, the 7th Cavalry Regiment, had taken part in the massacre at Wounded Knee, South Dakota on December 29, 1890, where 370 women and children were slaughtered, in revenge for Custer. In American-written text books, the Balangiga Massacre focuses on  forty-eight dead Americans, without mentioning the slaughter of tens of thousands of Filipino civilians. [23] The men under the questionable “high command” expressed their biased views in letters they wrote home. (Read some of them here.)
 
One trooper wrote home: “I am in my glory when I can sight my gun on some dark skin and pull the trigger.”  His squad killed more than one thousand “dark-skinned” Filipinos in just one village. General Arthur MacArthur defended his army’s civilian massacres as “carrying out the civilizing mission of its Aryan ancestors.” [24]
 
War generates famine; wealthy landowners finally acquiesced. Americans passed a law stating that resisters would be ineligible for civil service employment. The desperate people gave up, and the war ended. One million (out of six million) Filipinos died: 16,000 guerrillas and 984,000 civilians. [25] The war officially ended July 4, 1902, but hostilities and the work of death continued for almost a decade.
 
*Cruisers: U.S.S. Olympia (flag ship), U.S.S. Raleigh, U.S.S. Boston, U.S.S. Baltimore, U.S.S. Concord and U.S.S.  Petrel; the Revenue Cutter USRC Hugh McCulloch (commissioned 12 December 1897; under the authority of the United States Department of the Treasury). After the Battle of Manila Bay, the monitors U.S.S. Monadnock and the U.S.S. Monterey provided heavy-gun support for ongoing warfare against the Filipinos. The U.S.S. Charleston, on the way to Manila on May 10, 1898 captured Guam, as instructed by Secretary of the Navy John D. Long. [26]
 

[1] The 1905 Secret Taft-Katsura Agreement: America’s Betrayal Of Korea
[2] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 8-9
[3] Emilio  F.  Aguinaldo (1869-1964)
[4] Chronology for the Philippine Islands and Guam in the Spanish-American War
[5] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 30
[6] True Version of the Philippine Revolution by Don Emilio Aguinaldo y Famy, Chapter X. The Proclamation of Independence, Tarlak, 23rd September, 1899
[7] Ibid
[8] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 10-11
[9] Nation Master Encyclopedia, Lodge Committee, January 1902
[10] The Lodge Committee, Testimonies
[11] Secretary Root’s Record: “Marked Severities” in Philippine Warfare, Report of the Philippine Investigating Committee formed in April of 1902 to investigate and publicize U.S. military atrocities in the Philippines.
[12] The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centennial Series, June 15, 1997
[13] Arlington National Cemetery, Arthur MacArthur, Jr., Lieutenant General, United States Army
[14] Lt. Gen. Arthur MacArthur (1845-1912) by James M. Gallen
[15] Douglas MacArthur Bio
[16] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 12-13
[17] The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centennial Series, June 15, 1997
[18] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 12-13
[19] The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centennial Series, June 15, 1997
[20] The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centennial Series, June 15, 1997
[21] 7th Cavalry Regiment (United States)
[22] The Bridge at No Gun Ri, A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War By Charles J. Hanley, San-Hun Choe and Martha Mendoza, Reviewed by: Lee Wha Rang
[23] The Balangiga Massacre: Getting Even by Victor Nebrida in Hector Santos, ed., Philippine Centennial Series, June 15, 1997
[24] The Bridge at No Gun Ri, A Hidden Nightmare from the Korean War By Charles J. Hanley, San-Hun Choe and Martha Mendoza, Reviewed by: Lee Wha Rang
[25] The Marcos Dynasty by Sterling Seagrave, Harper and Row, New York, 1988, pgs. 12-13
[26] Chronology for the Philippine Islands and Guam in the Spanish-American War

Deanna Spingola is a regular columnist for Novakeo.com

Deanna Spingola has been a quilt designer and is the author of two books. She has traveled extensively teaching and lecturing on her unique methods. She has always been an avid reader of non-fiction works designed to educate rather than entertain. She is active in family history research and lectures on that topic. Currently she is the director of the local Family History Center. She has a great interest in politics and the direction of current government policies, particularly as they relate to the Constitution. Her website is at: www.spingola.com
email: deanna@spingola.com

« Previous Page — Next Page »