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Where Is The Rehabilitation For "Racists"?
May 18, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
For decades liberals have lobbied against punishment and for rehabilitation. The argument was that a mugger or murderer was just a victim of his environment, someone caught in the crosshairs of bad nurturing and neighborhood. Accountability is unwarranted because the person bears no responsibility: he knew not what he did. And so successful was this movement that our penal system was largely reorganized based on the rehabilitation model. Why, I've even argued with people who insisted that "punishment doesn't work" (apparently, they'd never heard of Singapore, caning and virtually zero crime).
So, question: where are the calls for rehabilitation, as opposed to punishment, for "racists" such as Clippers owner Donald Sterling?
And the rehabilitation mentality's absence isn't just apparent in the social ostracism and career destruction visited on those accused of the One Liberal Deadly Sin of "racism"*.
(*Some exceptions may apply.)
It isn't even just apparent in the social persecution of supposed "haters" in general, from Brendan Eich to the Boy Scouts to devout Christians.
Just consider leftism-disgorged "hate-crime" law. It proves ever so explicitly that, somehow, liberals have discovered the utility of punishment; after all, they will justify this legislation by saying that since some crimes target whole communities, they're so destructive that a message must be sent. It appears that when their own ideological ox is being gored, the people who authored the atheist version of "the Devil made him do it" want Devil's Island.
A good example is Donald Sterling. It's not enough that he has had his reputation destroyed, been fined $2.5 million and been "banned for life" by the National Bolsheviks Association. There are people who want newspapers to stop accepting his ads. And the bigoted Al Sharpton — proving hypocrisy knows no bounds — had actually said that the Clippers should be disbanded. Yes, and maybe we should adopt the North Korean model of purging Sterling's family and friends, too. But how much punishment is enough? How many pounds of flesh will sate the rapacious and blood-stained leftist palate? Would only a gulag and a long, slow, painful death suffice for the world's Sterlings?
None of this is a surprise if you understand that liberals don't operate based on principles, but feelings; in keeping with this, liberalism isn't an ideology. It is a process. Even Marxism has a vision for how society should be (unrealistic though it is), but liberals do not. The only consistent definition of liberalism is "a desire to change the status quo," which means there will always be, without a guiding vision, directionless, unprincipled change and action. Liberals are the children who ever fight the parents simply because that is the nature of the brat, and they do this even when yesterday's liberals have become the parents.
How does this relate to punishment? A person operating on principle, on a vision, will try to tame his emotion and say: here's the crime, here's what justice dictates, so here is the proportionate punishment. But with liberals there is no justice — it's "just us" as they're governed by the shifting sands of convenience. Their feelings tell them that they hate the transgressor and that they want revenge, and it's never enough to satisfy them viscerally. It's as with the feeling of hunger: no matter how much you eat, there's always another appetite mere hours away.
This governance by emotion helps explain why "*Some exceptions may apply." It sheds light on why liberals haven't made a federal case out of Bellville, NJ, Democrat mayoral candidate Marie Strumolo Burke, who lamented proposed tax-rate changes and was caught on audio exclaiming, "This is gonna be a f*****g n****r town!" It illuminates why they did nothing when then NBA owner Jay-Z threw a 2010 party in which no whites were allowed. It even explains why Sterling, whose views were long known, received not only a special dispensation but also acclaim and awards from the left. As part of their political phalanx, liberals don't hate Burke; they don't hate bigoted blacks such as Jay-Z; they don't even hate rich, old white men who pay their dues and pay off the cause. And disconnected from Truth and thus having "situational values," it's easy for libs to live in a world of rationalization. Just give them plausible deniability in their own minds, so, as Mark Cuban once said about Sterling, they can shrug off the sin as the eccentricities of a fellow who "plays by his own rules." But don't you dare out yourself if you're a white guy. Don't become a liability to the cause. It's as if the mistake isn't the act (at least if you're one of the initiated) — the mistake is getting caught.
But with those who aren't part of their phalanx, liberals will hate, hate, hate; they will hunger for vengeance and, since vengeance never eliminates hate (only forgiveness does), there is never an end to their retribution.
To be clear, I'm not saying that outrage over "racism" is always mere artifice. Sometimes it is. Sometimes it's reminiscent of medieval heresy accusations, which could be leveled against an individual by vindictive people with an axe to grind. But much of the time if not most, the anger is real.
It's just selectively triggered.
In rare cases, the transgression itself may be enough to induce the emotional response. Most of the time, however, it's some combination of transgression+transgressor+
This isn't to say that most liberals are fully conscious of what animates them. Self-awareness is often lacking among man, and this is especially true among philosophically dysfunctional men (who we today often call liberals). All most leftists know when spewing venom at a supposedly "racist" conservative is that they hate the person, and they assume it's only because of his transgression. Living situational lives where everything is compartmentalized, they generally don't know what truly drives them or consider, at the moment they're wallowing in hatred, that in the past they've reacted very differently to liberals in the same boat.
Of course, another factor is that liberals don't view these transgressions the way a normal person would. They often "feel" — "think" would be the wrong word because, again, leftists generally operate emotionally — that a black's or liberal's uttering of a racial remark is of a very different moral species than when a white conservative does so. A black has a right to such sentiments because of the "legacy of slavery." As for a white liberal, it was perhaps just a weak moment, a slip of the tongue; after all, the person has proven his credentials with his public face as a good leftist foot soldier. If a white conservative says the same thing, however (which never seems nearly as common), it just reflects the deep-seated bigotry that you have to know resides in his dark soul.
Going even deeper, understand that this accords with liberals' favored reality-denying modern isms. Nominalism states there is nothing that objectively makes both a tiger and a buff tabby "cats," categorically speaking — we just happen to view them that way. Likewise, a normal person may see two bigoted statements or two acts of punishment as occupying the same category, but there is, objectively speaking, no such thing as a category called "bigoted statements" or "acts of punishment." Such classifications only exist in our minds, so we can assign these labels as we see fit. And in deference to relativism, which boils down to the notion that there's no right or wrong, neither punishment nor rehabilitation can be inherently good or bad, and consistency can be no better than inconsistency.
At bottom, this is how devout leftists view the world. Subscribing to the Protagorean proposition "Man is the measure of all things" and the apocryphal one "Might makes right," when they win culture wars and take control, they make themselves the measure of all things. Perhaps the best characterization of their philosophy is occultist Aleister Crowley's formulation, "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law."
And what they wilt do is persecute you. Remember that, nice-guy conservatives, the next time you want to fight them using Queensbury Rules.
Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative and he writes regularly for The New American and Christian Music Perspective.
He can be reached at: email@example.com
Selwyn Duke is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Hate Laws Intended To Silence Truth
May 17, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
"The grimmest dictatorship is the dictatorship of the prevailing orthodoxy" – George Galloway
In a relativism culture of social permissiveness, the non-judgmental attitude, held out as the suitable standard for conduct, has become the politically correct behavior. One might think that anything goes under this mindset. However, the exact opposite practice and enforcement, under the most rigid conditions, is championed as necessary for enlighten and tolerant liberalists. The proliferation of demands that hate speech is the new capital crime, actually is counter iterative in building a civil society. This orthodoxy of the fanatical, proudly presents this illuminated and required deportment, as obligatory for all citizens.
So what exactly is hate for the neo-Jacobins? Obviously, whatever the "Society of the Friends of the LIVING Constitution" deems it to be, because under the color of law, the self-proclaimed pure of heart, are justified to off the heads of anyone who dares speak out in inappropriate terms. Remember "thinking progress" for the greater good, must be imposed on anyone who dare defies the wisdom of the gatekeepers for the collective.
Racism has to go, unless practiced by Negros against whites, or is the mere mention of such a term a slight to African-Americans? Once upon a time cries of anti-Semitism would be heard if Donald Sterling was made a pariah after the NAACP did an about face after awarding him for promoting civil rights. Not in today's world, such a distasteful zealot no longer has the protection of his tribe from the scrutiny of the thought police. The almost total condemnation of his recently private remarks has the entire sports world clambering for his forced sale of the LA Clippers.
Such broad-minded fans in a league that made homies multimillionaires and took them out of the hood, must not be dis. No wonder the attraction of not just the NBA, but sports in general, have serious minded buffs of the Wide World of Sports looking for, "The Thrill of Victory…" in other arenas. Why not demonstrate that sporting enthusiasm and jock celebrity worship, by starting a grassroots campaign to install America's favorite redneck, Phil Robertson and his Duck Dynasty clan, as the new ownership of the team.Surely, good standing Democrats should have no problem supporting a bunch of good old boys from the South. Frances Rice writes in the National Black Republicans Association site that, KKK Terrorist Arm of the Democratic Party. "This ugly fact about the Democrat Party is detailed in the book, A Short History of Reconstruction, (Harper & Row Publishers, Inc., 1990) by Dr. Eric Foner, the renowned liberal historian who is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University. Dr. Foner in his book explores the history of the origins of Ku Klux Klan and provides a chilling account of the atrocities committed by Democrats against Republicans, black and white."
Carole Emberton, an associate professor of history at the University at Buffalo adds:
"The party lines of the 1860s/1870s are not the party lines of today. Although the names stayed the same, the platforms of the two parties reversed each other in the mid-20th century, due in large part to white 'Dixiecrats' flight out of the Democratic Party and into the Republican Party after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. By then, the Democratic Party had become the party of 'reform,' supporting a variety of 'liberal' causes, including civil rights, women's rights, etc. whereas this had been the banner of the Republican Party in the nineteenth century."
Fast forward to today's conductor Eric Holder, of selective bigoted racism, when describing "his people", who "seem to get a pass on hate crime charges when they select whites for their blood sport", one needs to question who the real haters are. David Risselada provides a valid assessment in the essay, Hate Crimes Legislation . . . Racial Identity Politics and the Institutional Racism of the Left.
"The institutional racism that is built in our society is the responsibility of the left. Throughout history it has been the democrats who have supported segregation and slavery while continuously voting against civil rights legislation. Today, they attempt to hide their history through racial identity politics, and the creation of a system where inequality is the new equality. By creating laws based on racial preferences, the left is telling minorities that they believe they are not as capable as white men and therefore need their programs in order to stand a chance in the racist United States of America. This does little but reinforce hatred while attempting to justify black on white violence."
Once upon a time and in a place long ago, the Democratic Party defended the rights of the individual to associate with individuals of their choosing and speak their minds openly and without concern of censor. Since the conversion to ecumenical orthodoxy, the authoritarians that gave you the New Deal and the Great Society have a long record of creating their own hatred of Free Speech. The example of the New York Times vicious attack on Cliven Bundy illustrates another trumped-up incident ripe to exploit.The New American, author William F. Jasper makes the point:
"Much of what Mr. Bundy is saying closely parallels what even many black leaders, authors and intellectuals — such as Prof. Walter Williams, Rev. C.L. Bryant, Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson, Bill Cosby, Alveda King, Star Parker, and Alan Keyes — have been saying. But Cliven Bundy's "sin" is that he is an elderly white man who is unschooled in traversing the minefield of political correctness — and he was careless in failing to make important distinctions and clarifications. He "sinned" by being born when he was born, and failing to keep up with the constantly changing terminology for ethnic designations. He still uses the terms "Negro," "colored people," and "Mexican," instead of "black/ African American" or "Hispanic/Latino" — but then, race activists still argue amongst themselves concerning the "proper" ethnic label to apply to their lineage and group identity."
When Senator Ed Markey, D-Mass., introduces legislation called the "Hate Crime Reporting Act of 2014," it is another partisan concerted attempt to silence voices and views entirely protected under the First Amendment, by monitoring radio, television and Internet speech. Can one say arbitrary and capricious, or will Big Brother now prey on any convenient and moving target to label anyone as a hate monger, that does not conform to the "PC" orthodoxy?
The excellent video from Ben Swann identifies in New "Hate Crime" Bill Will Attempt To Control Speech On Internet, Radio and TV, that the real objective is to censor the internet.
Well, this development should concern any student of inquiry, but the real world often fosters political threats that seem to be so implausible, if they were not true. The case of the arrest of Paul Weston should alarm everyone. In the Michael Coren interview or Mr. Weston, the vanguard of British lunacy once again blazes new trails in the annals of hate speech. If quoting Winston Churchill is now a crime, what does that make Winnie?The British Bulldog is his own words:
"How dreadful are the curses which Mohammedanism lays on its votaries! Besides the fanatical frenzy, which is as dangerous in a man as hydrophobia in a dog, there is this fearful fatalistic apathy. The effects are apparent in many countries. Improvident habits, slovenly systems of agriculture, sluggish methods of commerce, and insecurity of property exist wherever the followers of the Prophet rule or live. A degraded sensualism deprives this life of its grace and refinement; the next of its dignity and sanctity. The fact that in Mohammedan law every woman must belong to some man as his absolute property — either as a child, a wife, or a concubine — must delay the final extinction of slavery until the faith of Islam has ceased to be a great power among men. Thousands become the brave and loyal soldiers of the faith: all know how to die but the influence of the religion paralyses the social development of those who follow it. No stronger retrograde force exists in the world. Far from being moribund, Mohammedanism is a militant and proselytizing faith. It has already spread throughout Central Africa, raising fearless warriors at every step; and were it not that Christianity is sheltered in the strong arms of science, the science against which it had vainly struggled, the civilisation of modern Europe might fall, as fell the civilisation of ancient Rome."
Move over denial ridden Americans; the English have a talent in leading the civilized world in false guilt. For the rest of humankind, they are perceptive enough to admit that the normal human condition acknowledges Discrimination as a Virtue.
"Discrimination has been characterized as racism. Quite to the contrary, discrimination is an ally in the struggle to end bigotry and injustice. When Liberty is suppressed in a quest for equality; hatred and revulsion breeds, for different groups, cultures and ideologies. All attempts to force equal treatment are futile, even when severe penalties are imposed."
Condemning a person, solely by his beliefs, bias and predisposition – that fanatical frenzy will surely bring about the fall of our cherished tradition of Free Speech. For those who fear Sharia Law, you had better be more concerned about the progressive despots, who are the model for imposed intolerance through a government, which hates everyone that refuses their Groupthink.
Sartre is the publisher, editor, and writer for Breaking All The Rules. He can be reached at: BATR
Sartre is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
So What If Cliven Bundy Is A "Racist"?
May 13, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
For the record, I don't believe Cliven Bundy is a "racist."
For the record, I don't even care.
Such indifference to that damnable failing, that thing we all know is the worst thing one can be, must make me a damnable man. But I am flexible. I just want equality. I'm perfectly willing to demonize "racists," provided we give other sinners equal time.
I just want to hear, for example, "Forget the facts of the matter! The man is lustful!" or "Don't listen to that miscreant. He's guilty of sloth!" Or let's say a fellow posits an opinion on, oh, taxation. Our very intellectual response could be, "Hey, didn't I hear you talkin' to your girlfriend about how you scarfed down four cheeseburgers at the barbecue and binged on ice cream in your easy chair? Look, everyone, he's a glutton!"
This isn't to say that being a bigot — the word "racist" is in quotation marks because it's an invention of leftist language manipulators — is a good thing. Not at all. But neither is being lustful, slothful or gluttonous. Yet people who couldn't name three of the Seven Deadly Sins and are thoroughly guilty of at least six, will claim they can disqualify a person, and his point of view, from debate based on their assessment of his moral state. What blindness — and hubris.
Bigotry is simply a sub-category of wrath, one part of one-seventh, not the moral end-all and be-all. And even if Bundy did have racial hang-ups, would it follow that he was wrong about his case or on federal power in general? Can a man be flawed, and even sinful, but yet right on a matter? Can he still have virtues? Albert Einstein could be lewd and lascivious, Galileo an irascible jerk, Ernest Hemingway was a drunkard.
This isn't to say, as certain people with poor character once averred, that character doesn't matter. It's not to say a person's vices can't speak to motivations; it's valid to point it out if a judge who rules that pornography has First Amendment protections habitually views porn himself. But it's not valid to fixate on the allegedly "racist" tendencies of a judge who rules that racial commentary enjoys such protections (at least not within the context of analyzing the ruling). The difference is that since the former is wrong, there's good reason to believe that his personal inclinations corrupted his judgment on the matter; with the latter judge, however, dwelling on the supposed flaw in question would only serve to discredit a legitimate ruling.
The point is that we all have flaws, yet all can be correct about a whole host of things. I wouldn't have wanted Einstein to care for a teenage daughter or be president, but I wouldn't deny that E=mc2.
Of course, it really is true that some flaws are more unequal than others — there is a hierarchy of sin — but moderns' sense of proportion is highly askew. G.K. Chesterton said that a "Puritan is a person who pours righteous indignation into the wrong things." Today we have Impuritans, complete reprobates worshipping at hedonism's altar, who pour their indignation onto others in a vain attempt to wash their own souls clean of sin. But there is much more to being a "good" person than simply not being bigoted.
To further illustrate this askew sense of proportion, consider again the gluttony example. Gluttony is a sin, no doubt. But now let's say that our society considered it the ultimate disqualifier. Let's say we might scrutinize a person, asking "What are his food bills?" "Do cookbooks figure too prominently in his library?" "Does he wile away excessive time watching Emeril Live?" "Is he the one who cleared the buffet table like a hurdler?" And imagine we visited pariah status on the person after deeming him guilty.
Would you think this society's greater fault was gluttony — or being hung-up about it? I'd think it exhibited a gluttonous zeal for eradicating gluttony.
The problem is that man always swings from one extreme to another. The early to mid 20th century saw the embrace of eugenics and racial-superiority dogma, which was then discredited by the loathsome Nazis. But now we just as zealously impose a dogma denying the reality of group differences and mandating equality of outcome among races.
This tendency toward true extremism — meaning, extreme deviation from Truth — brings to mind C.S. Lewis' observation that evil always tries to persuade us to exaggerate our flaws, telling the militant he's too pacifistic and the pacifist that he's too militant. As an example, today we have Impuritans who, awash in the Great Sexual Heresy, will still lament how "Puritan" America is so sexually "repressed." Evil tells the pervert he's too prudish, just as it tells self-hating whites that they're too anti-black.
But what we should be is anti-"racism." I don't mean what you think. We need to oppose both the word and the concept — at least how the latter is often conceptualized.
Bigotry is bad by definition, and that definition is commonly agreed upon. But "racism" often has a different meaning, one whose influence is readily apparent in the reaction to Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling's much reported comments. Al Sharpton, who once used the term "white interlopers" and once said, "White folks was in caves while we were building empires…," called for a boycott of the NBA. Former hoop star Larry Johnson reacted to a man who didn't want blacks around by saying he didn't want whites around, as he suggested creating an all-black basketball league. Spike Lee told CNN he wished that white NBA players would speak out against Sterling, which is a bit like John Gotti having wished that someone would speak out against racketeering. And Barack Obama took time away from destroying our world standing, healthcare system, social policy and economy to say that "comments reportedly made by Sterling are 'incredibly offensive racist statements,' before casting them as part of a continuing legacy of slavery and segregation that Americans must confront," wrote CBS DC. He then opined, "When ignorant folks want to advertise their ignorance, you don't really have to do anything; you just let them talk" (you don't have to do anything except, I suppose, "confront" a "legacy of slavery and segregation"). But, okay, I'll just let Obama talk.
Now, opportunism is often a factor in such hypocrisy, but there is something else: a striking sense of entitlement. This is why many black people will condemn a white person for making a bigoted comment with an equally bigoted comment without batting an eye; when whites are bigoted, it's "racist"; when blacks are, it's something else. And, in fact, this idea is encapsulated in the definition of "racism" I alluded to earlier. It's one you've probably heard:
Only whites can be "racist" because a prerequisite for "racism" is not only bigoted intent, but the power to act upon it.
And, actually, they'll get no argument from me. As I've said before, the left originated the word "racism," so they may define it. They may have it.
And if they ask, I'll tell them where they can stick it.
The problem is that conservatives, being conservative — meaning, conserving yesterday's liberals' social victories — parrot the word. It's another example of how, forgetting that the side defining the vocabulary of a debate, wins the debate, conservatives slavishly use the Lexicon of the Left.
Of course, eventually this will all be left in the dustbin of history. Movements, peoples and civilizations come and go, and we'll get over our fixation with one part of one-seventh of the Deadly Sins. And then man will swing to another extreme, as he goes on to the next great mistake.
Selwyn Duke is a writer, columnist and public speaker whose work has been published widely online and in print, on both the local and national levels. He has been featured on the Rush Limbaugh Show and has been a regular guest on the award-winning Michael Savage Show. His work has appeared in Pat Buchanan's magazine The American Conservative and he writes regularly for The New American and Christian Music Perspective.
He can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com
Selwyn Duke is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Fantasy And Reality
May 3, 2014 by Administrator · 83 Comments
A Time For Discernment…
I am re-reading several of R. J. Rushdoony's books: "Deuteronomy", "Numbers", "Van Til and the Limits of Reason", "The Cure of Souls", "The American Indian", "Systematic Theology", Sovereignty", and, of course, the "Institutes". For Christians who reverence the entire Word of God and are willing to submit to His rule, Rushdoony's writings elicit several "Amens" per page.
In his book on Van Til, Rushdoony writes, "What did make itself clear to me was that reason is limited by its own experience, whereas the universe is far vaster than the mind of man. Moreover, God's realm which transcends man's narrow vision is far greater than man's mind can comprehend." Pg. 57
When humanistic philosophers attempt to define themselves and the universe in terms of their own reason they begin with a false premise. God created us and enclosed us in time. Our world is limited by time but He is infinite. Though we are made in His image His concepts exceed our ability.
Regardless of what they may say few Christian leaders actually position themselves under the Kingship of Christ. Most of our leaders and their followers see religion as a belief system that they accept and follow. When man makes himself the arbiter of the Faith he, like Adam, has been seduced by the Devil and is attempting to be like God.
This serious sin is so deeply engrained in us and in our culture that Christians regularly approach the Bible with the evil intention of deciding what parts they believe. Invariably God's Law which is the core of His character is discarded in favor of a pietistic spiritualism. Famous evangelist, Billy Graham, has succeeded in calling hundreds of thousands of Christians to "accept Christ" and most of these converts still believe that the decision was theirs and theirs alone. Contemporary Christianity has man firmly entrenched in the driver's seat.
"It is not God who speaks but, again, man's own reason. God is either eliminated from the scene or allowed to co-exist with autonomous man on man's own terms." Rushdoony in the book on Van Til. Pg. 15
The rancor that follows the introduction of Dominion Theology results from the challenge it poses to man's reason. Since individual Christians reserve the right to reconcile their faith the Christian population of the United States of America is composed of millions of individual human sovereigns whose failure to become faithful servants to the King allows murder and confusion to flourish. Humanism is deadly!
When confronted with the reality that God is the absolute ruler of His creation and of those He has created we often equivocate. Rushdoony cites the secular law involving severe punishment for "Habitual criminals" which is widely accepted as just, to the Biblical Law of turning an habitually debauched and recalcitrant son (or daughter) over to the magistrate to receive the ultimate penalty; the former is generally accepted while the latter makes most Christians cringe. We can accept the murder of millions of innocent citizens in foreign lands by our armed forces but we cannot stomach the stoning of one guilty, incorrigible son (or daughter).
We cannot know reality apart from the One True God. In "The Cure for Souls" Rushdoony writes concerning the self-righteous humanist, "By denying his sin, he denies the reality about himself. He replaces self-knowledge with illusion. This means a departure from the truth into a world of fiction. Whoever else he may delude, he has deluded himself most of all. His is a delusional existence." Pg. 102
Delusion has permeated American society. Our ears are accosted with a constant stream of propaganda from the media, academia, the marketplace, the government, and, sadly, from the Church. This morning's paper had an article on the confiscation (theft) of property from citizens, both innocent and guilty, by policemen who are enforcing laws passed by a delusional legislature. Our legal system has become so badly corrupted that justice is seldom a result of contact with our policemen and courts.
"A culture which is not truly Christian may plan grandly for "a new world order". It may imagine that all problems are to be solved by its wisdom, and it has a great deal of self-admiration. Is there a major country in the world today which does not see itself as the earth's true center? Each seeks to direct itself and the world in terms of its ostensibly superior eminence and wisdom." Pg. 211 "The Cure for Souls"
American television overflows with sneering, self-important experts who love to discuss what should be done with other nations as if they and the government they represent created and governs everything.
According to a reliable internet source Princeton University has reclassified the United States of America from a Democracy to a nation under the control of an Oligarchy. An Oligarchy is a small, wealthy and powerful, elite group. The opinions of the governed are no longer valid in the conduct of the affairs of the nation. We are at the mercy of money and power which controls our elected representatives and the legislation they approve.
Please understand, gentle reader, that what you believe about the Christian religion must be destroyed by what God says about Himself and His Will in His Word. The One True God is our creator and our ruler. Rebellion against His rule results in spiritual death and a separation from reality – a delusional existence.
America has forsaken the God of the Bible and replaced His dominion with personal interpretations. They have substituted worship of the One True God with a humanistic religion of our own making and His Majesty is offended.
Have you attended a Bible study where the Word of God was subjected to human reason and where Truth was accepted or rejected by the evil minds of the participants? Did you think some of the human responses were brilliant and did you agree with some of them? Was the leader conciliatory with the questioners? As Jesus sits at the right hand of His Father and judges the world what do you think His reaction is to hearing His created beings judging His validity under the cover of His Church?
The capture of the United States of America by an elite oligarchy is well along and there is no apparent course that will restrain it. We are being enslaved because we have been a stiff necked people who have refused to see and accept reality. The men and women we have elected to office (in spite of adequate information to the contrary) have sold the nation into slavery.
The ruling oligarchs are both arrogant and brutal. Our failure to require obedience to God's Law has allowed humanistic terrorists to capture the world. When God's absolute legal structure is forgotten, man's sinful nature will fill the void by putting himself on the throne.
In "Deuteronomy" Rushdoony quotes Dr. Joseph Morecraft III "The entire community has a responsibility when crimes are committed or injustice done. A community cannot be indifferent to any sin, crime, or injustice in its midst, or else it bears the guilt as well as the offender and is under judgment. When a community shuts its eyes to any evil in its midst and refuses to deal with it justly and in accordance with God's law, then the whole community is under God's condemnation." Pg. 305
In its early years the United States of America lived under a legal structure that was heavily flavored with Biblical principles. As time has gone on we have allowed secular and often evil laws to be encoded so we have not only failed to be obedient but have failed to set a proper standard. As a result our policemen have become brutal and our courts have become arenas of bias and injustice. We are living in a nation full of lies.
We have reached our current state because we have shut our eyes to evil and refused to deal with it in accordance with God's Law.
Al Cronkrite is a writer living in Florida, reach him at: firstname.lastname@example.com
Visit his website at:http://www.verigospel.com/
Al Cronkrite is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
Why Authoritarianism Doesn't Work: Because Nobody Likes It
February 6, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
I just finished reading Malcolm Gladwell's book, "David and Goliath" — wherein Gladwell says that, in the course of any human interaction, there will always be a graphic curve of diminishing returns when it comes to maximizing the use of force in order to achieve one's goals.
In other words, always punching other people's lights out in order to get your own way can very quickly become counterproductive. Good grief, I think that Gladwell might be onto something here.
Want examples?
If the maximum use of force in order to obtain one's goals had been successful in Iraq (and assuming that said goals were to depose a dictator and not just to create chaos and steal oil), then the Bush-led invasion would never have been such a dismal failure and there never would have been such a disastrous resistance war there — one that still keeps rolling right along to this day. So much for Shock and Awe.
If maximum use of force really worked, then Europe would still be saluting Hitler.
Slavery would still be on the books in Georgia and Alabama because of all those happy slaves it created. Or, alternatively, segregation would still be a huge success and MLK would have had no effect at all on it.
Descendants of Genghis Khan would still be running Russia and China.
There would be no Child Protective Services anywhere and parents would still be beating their kids to within an inch of their lives. And I would still be lovingly obeying my mean older sister.
Women would look forward to being placed in harems and having a dozen babies each and would never demand the right to be pro-choice. "Barefoot and pregnant." They would know their place as slaves to their husbands and not strive for anything else. Rape would not be a problem for women and girls.
Those viscous stormtroopers who illegally seized control of Palestine 65 years ago by ruthlessly wiping out hundreds of villages and slaughtering Christians and Muslims by the thousands? They would not still be getting resistance from the Occupied Territories even now. And the current Israeli neo-cons' constant brutal "eye for an eye" faux cleverness wouldn't have forced Al Qaeda out of the remote caves of Afghanistan where it was holed up in 2001 — and forced it into not-so-remote southern Syria where Al Qaeda is now, right at Israel's front door.
And there would not have been 30 years of The Troubles in Northern Ireland either.
And in South America, Pinochet's ghost would still be running Chile, Argentina's Dirty War would have made Henry Kissinger proud, the billions Reagan spent on killing peasants in Guatemala would not have been wasted, Batista's grandson (not Castro's brother) would still be ruling Cuba and all those tin-pot dictators that the CIA supported in Central and South America over the years would be in Heaven right now — not in Hell. And phrases like "Banana Republic" and "Military Junta" and "Drug Cartel" would all stir our hearts with pride instead of just making us queasy.
The Soviet Union would still exist — and Afghans and Chechyans would just love being a part of it. People there would stop praising Tolstoy, Tchaikovsky and Baryshnikov and start even more fan clubs for Stalin.
We would have "Fascism" and "Corporatism" engraved on our dimes now instead of just that stupid old word "Liberty". And "Mein Kampf" — not "Romeo and Juliette" — would be required reading in all American high schools.
All seven billion of us human beings, when we were babies, would have been spanked every time we cried, been locked in closets for days for the slightest infraction and would have thrived on harsh whippings — and that would have been that. And as a result we would all have grown up to become obedient citizens, not axe-murdering psychopaths.
Jesus would have been just another loser with wild ideas. Even Mohammed and the Buddha would have been buked and scorned (and sent to bed without any Last Supper). http://www.youtube.com/watch?
Everyone in America would be happily welcoming the NSA and the militarization of our police forces with open arms right now. More tanks driving down Main Street? More surveillance on our phones? More destruction of our Constitutional rights? Bring it on!
And Baby Doc and his Bon Ton Macoute would still be running Haiti and Jean-Bertrand Aristide would have been laughed out of the country instead of becoming a hero almost as legendary as Toussaint L'Ouverture.
So why don't whips and chains and oppression and torture work out so well in the long run? One would think that they would. Isn't Fear the greatest motivator? According to Gladwell, apparently not.
And why is "Do unto others as you would have others do unto you" still such a hot item? You tell me. Which way would you prefer to be treated? As a friend or as a slave? Which way of being treated would piss you off to the degree that you would take torches and pitchforks in hand rather than live under a tyrant?
Jane Stillwater is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
She can be reached at: firstname.lastname@example.com
The Political Tower of Babel: Government Solution
February 4, 2014 by Administrator · 3 Comments
"If law does not reflect the fact that God is the Lord and Sovereign, it will reveal the premise that man and the state are gods. No more dangerous gods have ever been affirmed by man." R. J. Rushdoony
Real Christianity is a foreign religion to the majority of those who claim the name. We tend to think of ourselves as the center of reality and as arbiters of our beliefs and our conduct. The Christian Church supports this heresy. In spite of the Bibles unswerving record of God choosing His servants, Christian leaders urge the heathen to "make a decision" for Christ. When the creature decides to affirm the Creator the creature becomes the sovereign – a blatant form of humanism. Hundreds of thousands of Christians have allowed this heresy to invade their beliefs and, as a result, have never achieved a proper relationship to Christ.
The Triune God is the center of the Universe and we are His servants. We are chosen by God before we voiced our allegiance and as one of God's chosen people our duty is to obey His Law and seek to bring the creation under it.
With the Latin mantra Lex Rex (The law is king) the Protestant Reformation was partially successful in upending the Tower of Babel constructed by the divine right of kings. Protestant Christianity brought the world its first taste of real freedom, order, and prosperity.
Though it was tainted by Arminianism and the Enlightenment colonial America set in place many of God's legal principles and some of today's fast fading elderly generation can remember the wonderful freedom it produced. During the 1930s mothers did not worry about their children. Doors were not locked and children ran through the neighborhood without fear. It was a wonderful almost utopian time that now seems remote.
Obedience to God's Law offers nations the closest thing to Libertarianism that humans can attain. Liberal, Conservative, or anarchic Libertarian governments cannot sustain freedom and justice. The sinful nature of man will always overcome freedom and righteousness with centralization and evil. Without the immutable yardstick of God's Law man will be unduly restricted.
New Testament Christianity (Arminianism) is cultic and like all cults it is difficult to bring followers to righteousness. True Christianity was bequeathed to us by the Reformation and for the cultic Christian to return is like accomplishing a difficult passage on a piano or understanding a complex mathematical problem; it is exhausting hard work that must be continued until the blessed truth lights up the mind and one understands what God intends for His chosen people.
Christians in their largest realm are not much different than their unbelieving neighbors. Non-Christians often believe in a god and pray but they do not pray to the God of the Bible their prayers are to another deity or a god of their own making Cultic Christians are no different;; they pick and choose what parts of God's Word they will believe and obey thereby constructing their own god; they do not worship the God of the Bible.
Most so-called Christians will tell you that they chose to accept Christ as their personal Savior and are in the process of trying to please him by improving their relationship with Him. They live in a spiritual quandary not unlike the "war on terror"; their behavior is evil and their objective is obscure.
We treat the King of the world as if He is our next door neighbor. We ignore His nature which is described in stark detail in the Books of the Old Testament and instead of approaching Him with awe, terror, and a subservient spirit, by regaling Him with requests we make Him our servant rather than us His. We are made in the image of God but Jesus, our Savior, is the ruler and judge of the world. We are His servants and until we begin to understand that we are to obey His Commandments we are missing the nature of the relationship.
Arminian Christians (Lawless) have no defense against the satanic tyranny that threatens the world. When God's Law is no longer in vogue and human opinion rules, opinion enforced by power will win and slavery will result. God's immutable Law must rule His creation.
God's judgment often comes in the form of tyranny. Christians and their churches have failed to honor and obey the ruler of the world and we are being punished by the specter of a burgeoning police state. Had we been obedient Christians and used His Word and His Law against the forces of evil we would not be in this dire state. The Christian Church has forgotten its mission to teach and define obedience, to confront and resist sin, both personal and public, and to support and define truth, righteousness, and justice.
The former president of J. C. Penney, Ron Johnson, made an effort to return honesty to the Department Store business; he failed miserably because the American public prefers to be flimflammed into thinking they are getting a bargain. Rushdoony writes, "A lie moves a man from the real world into a world of fiction, and his life begins to rest on falsity. Truth gives us freedom in the real world God has made. We are to live all our life in God and therefore in truth. Because a lie moves men and nations from the free world into fiction and slavery, men and nations must require a true witness or else theirs is a course of disaster and ruin."
American Christians have allowed lying, cheating, theft, and immorality to become rampant in our nation. We are propagandized by our media, lied to by our retail stores, cheated by our merchants, filled with blatant prevarications by our elected representatives, and deceived by our churches. Is it any wonder that our nation and our individual citizens are hopelessly in debt, that we have become a puppet to hidden powers that are trashing our country to achieve world domination.
And where do our citizens go for help in this dire emergency? Like dumb oxen they go to the major source of the problem, the United States Government. Over and over again like imbeciles they seek the same failed solution. When will we realize the only remedy to our dilemma is the God of the Bible? How long will it take us to repent and to seek His blessing? God still runs this world and He is angry with the United States of America!
Many of our citizens have become so addicted to the sensual pleasures of living a leisurely life devoid of worry that they refuse to understand what is happening all around them. Faced with factual information they will dismiss it without consideration. When the truth is ignored by a major portion of society there is no way to stop the decline of our civilization. Truth is essential to freedom!
The United States Government is a modern day Tower of Babel that is not only unable to save America but is itself the source of our problem. A nation cannot remain free without an anchor. The Constitution was supposed to maintain our freedom but it has been discarded and replaced by presidential fiat.
No Constitution is of any worth when the people it is designed to govern become dishonest and immoral. The Constitution was crafted to govern a Law abiding, Christian people and we no longer have such a populace. Christians and the leaders of their deceitful churches must shoulder the responsibility for this social deterioration.
Joseph C. Morecraft writes, "The entire community has a responsibility when crimes are committed or injustice done. A community cannot be indifferent to any sin, crime or injustice in its midst, or else it bears the guilt as well as the offender and is under judgment. When a community shuts its eyes to any evil in its midst and refuses to deal with it justly and in accordance with God's law, then the whole community is under God's condemnation."
The answer to our problem lies in God and our relationship to Him – and nowhere else!
This essay was a result of the ideas express in "Deuteronomy" and excellent commentary by R. J. Rushdoony. Buy it here.
Al Cronkrite is a writer living in Florida, reach him at: email@example.com
Visit his website at:http://www.verigospel.com/
Al Cronkrite is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
The History of the Pharma-Cartel
January 31, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
1911, May 15
The Supreme Court of the U.S. finds John Rockefeller and his Trust guilty of corruption, illegal business practices and racketeering. As a result of this decision, the entire Rockefeller Standard Oil-Trust, the world's largest corporation of its time, was sentenced to be dismantled. But Rockefeller was already above the Supreme Court and did not care about this decision.
In order to disperse public and political pressure on him and other robber-barons, Rockefeller uses a trick called "philanthropy", whereby the illegal gains from his robber-practices in the oil business are used to launch the Rockefeller Foundation. This tax haven was used to strategically take over the health care sector in the U.S..
The Rockefeller Foundation was the front organization for a new global business venture of Rockefeller and his accomplices. This new venture was called the pharmaceutical investment business. Donations from the Rockefeller Foundation went only to medical schools and hospitals. These institutions had become missionaries of a new breed of companies: the manufacturers of patented, synthetic drugs.
This was also the time when the first vitamins were discovered. It soon became clear however that these natural molecules had live-saving health benefits and that they were able to prevent many chronic health conditions. The first books appeared with research, subsequently abandoned, about the health benefits of vitamins. These newly discovered molecules had only one disadvantage: they were non-patentable.
Thus, in its first years of existence, the pharmaceutical investment business already faced a mortal thread: vitamins and other micronutrients promoted as public health programs would prohibit the development of any sizable investment business based on patented drugs. The elimination of this unwanted competition from natural micronutrients therefore became a question of life and death for the pharmaceutical business.
The Rockefeller Foundation uses the Spanish flu epidemic – and the media (that it already controlled by this time) – to start a witch-hunt on all forms of medicine that were not covered by its patents.
Within the next 15 years, all medical schools in the U.S., most hospitals and the American Medical Association all essentially became pawns on the chessboard of Rockefeller's strategy to subjugate the entire health care sector under the monopoly of his pharmaceutical investment business.
Disguised as a "Mother Theresa", the Rockefeller Foundation was also used to conquer foreign countries and entire continents for the pharmaceutical investment business – just as Rockefeller himself had done a few decades previously with his petrochemical investment business.
On the other side of the Atlantic, in Germany, the first chemical / pharmaceutical cartel is founded in order to compete with Rockefeller's quest for control of the global drug market. Lead by the German multinationals Bayer, BASF and Hoechst, the I.G. Farben cartel was founded with a total number of employees surpassing 80,000. The race for global control was on.
1929, November 29
The Rockefeller cartel (U.S.A.) and the I.G. Farben cartel (Germany) decided to divide the entire globe into interest spheres – the very same crime Rockefeller had been sentenced for 18 years earlier, when his trust had divided up the U.S. into "interest zones".
1932 / 33
The I.G. Farben cartel, equally insatiable, decides no longer to be bound by the 1929 constraints. They support an uprising German politician, who promises I.G. Farben to militarily conquer the world for them. With millions of dollars in election campaign donations, this politician seized power in Germany, turned the German democracy into a dictatorship and kept his promise to launch his conquest war, a war that soon became known as WWII.
In each and every country Hitler's wehrmacht invaded, the first act was to rob the chemical, petrochemical and pharmaceutical industries and assign them – free of charge – to the I.G. Farben empire.
1942 – 45
In order to cement its global leadership with patented drugs, the I.G. Farben cartel tests its patented pharmaceutical substances on concentration camp inmates in Auschwitz, Dachau and many other sites. The fees for conducting these inhumane studies were transferred directly from the bank accounts of Bayer, Hoechst and BASF to the bank accounts of the SS, who operated the concentration camps.
I.G. Farben's plan to take control of the global oil and drug markets has failed. The U.S. and the other allied forces won WWII. Nevertheless, many U.S. and allied soldiers had lost their lives during the conflict, and the allies' reward was little compared to the rewards of others. The corporate shares of the losers, I.G. Farben, went to the Rockefeller trust (U.S.A.) and Rothschild / J.P. Morgan (U.K.).
In the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal, 24 managers from Bayer, BASF, Hoechst and other executives of the I.G. Farben cartel were tried for crimes against humanity. These crimes included: leading wars of aggression, instituting slavery and committing mass murder. In his final pleading, U.S.-Chief Prosecutor Telford Taylor summarized the crimes committed by these corporate criminals with the following words: "Without I.G. Farben, the second World War would not have been possible".
Amazingly, the real culprits for the death of 60 Million people in World War II – the I.G. Farben executives – received the mildest verdicts. Even those executives directly responsible for the crimes in I.G. Auschwitz only received a maximum of twelve years in jail. Surprised? You shouldn't be.
By 1944 Nelson Rockefeller had already entered the executive branch of the U.S. government. He started off as Under-Secretary of State and ended up a few years later as Special Adviser of President Truman for Special Affairs. In other words, at critical junctures of the 20th century, the Rockefeller interests took direct charge. They decided the post war shape of the world and the distribution of its wealth.
As such, under the influence of the U.S. State Department, the verdicts in Nuremberg against the I.G. Farben managers can easily be explained. In return for taking over the corporate shares of I.G. Farben, and thereby global control of the oil and drug business, Nelson Rockefeller made sure that the real culprits of World War II were not hanged. In fact, and as we shall see, they were needed.
The Federal Republic of Germany was founded. This was the first time in history that the constitution and society of an industrialized nation could be planned and modeled as a fortress of the pharmaceutical investment business – a transatlantic outpost of the Rockefeller interests.
Within only a few years, the I.G. Farben managers sentenced in Nuremberg were released from jail and put back into their previous positions as stakeholders of the Rockefeller interests. Fritz Ter Meer, for example, sentenced to twelve years in jail for his crimes in Auschwitz, was back as chairman of the board of Germany's largest pharmaceutical multinational, Bayer, by 1963!
1945 – 49
The role of the Rockefeller brothers was not limited to their taking over the global monopolies of the oil and drug businesses. They also needed to create the political framework for these businesses to thrive. Under their influence, therefore, the United Nations was founded in 1945, in San Francisco. To seize political control of the post war world, three countries – leading drug export nations – had all the say, and 200 other nations were rendered mere spectators.
Founded as organizations to allegedly serve the wellbeing of the people of the world, the UN's subsidiary organizations, such as the World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO), soon turned out to be nothing more than the political arms of the global oil and drug interests.
On behalf of the Rockefeller interests, the government of the pharmaceutical banana republic Germany spearheaded one of the most infamous efforts ever made within the United Nations. Under the pretense of consumer protection, it launched a four-decade-long crusade to outlaw vitamin therapies and other natural, non-patentable health approaches in all member countries of the United Nations. The goal was to simply ban any and all competition for the multi-billion dollar business with patented drugs. The plan was simple: copy for the entire world what had already been accomplished in America in the 1920s – a monopoly on health care for the investment business with patented drugs.
Since the marketplace for the pharmaceutical investment business depends upon the continued existence of diseases, the drugs it developed were not intended to prevent, cure or eradicate disease. Thus, the goal of the global strategy was to monopolize health for billions of people, with pills that nearly cover symptoms but hardly ever address the root cause of disease. The deprivation of billions of people from having access to life saving information about the health benefits of natural health approaches, whilst at the same time establishing a monopoly with largely ineffective and frequently toxic patented drugs, caused disease and death in genocidal proportions.
This epidemic of unnecessary disability and death by the pharmaceutical business with disease is unparalleled in history.
Linus Pauling and other eminent scientists deserve credit for having kept open the door of knowledge about the health benefits of vitamins and other effective natural health approaches. If it were not for them we would already be living in a health prison today, guarded by the gatekeepers of the pharmaceutical business with disease in medicine, politics and the media.
Linus Pauling should also be credited for having identified the significance of Dr. Rath's early research in vitamins and cardiovascular disease, and for having invited Dr. Rath to join him during his last years to continue his life's work.
1990 – 92
These years will go down in history as the beginning of the end of the pharmaceutical business with disease. In a series of scientific publications, in some of which Dr. Rath invited Linus Pauling to join him as co-author, Dr. Rath identified micronutrient deficiency as the primary cause of diseases. These diseases include heart attacks, high blood pressure, diabetic circulatory problems, cancer and even immune deficiency diseases, including AIDS.
Like a Sherlock Holmes of science, Dr. Rath traced the real cause of these diseases, and found that they had been deliberately nebulized or even hidden away from millions of people for one purpose only: to feed the insatiable greed of the pharmaceutical business with disease.
Source: Dr. Rath Health Foundation
Everyone Loves A Police State
January 31, 2014 by Administrator · 2 Comments
A few years ago, Reuters News reported that a nationwide poll conducted of the Russian people found that former dictator Josef Stalin was voted the third most popular historical figure. Over one-third of the Russian population participated in the poll.
See the report here:
Dictator Stalin Voted Third Most Popular Russian
Can you imagine? Stalin just might be the greatest mass-murderer in human history. Estimates of the body count during Stalin's reign of terror range anywhere from 20-60 million, and that doesn't include the millions of people who were starved, imprisoned, and tortured but who didn't die. Only China's Mao Tse-tung rivals Stalin's butchery. Then, again, many Chinese people still love Mao Tse-tung, too.
How is it that people can laud and honor tyrants and butchers? How can people so easily submit to slavery and despotism?
No tyrant rises to power calling himself a tyrant. Tyranny is never sold as tyranny. Every tyrannical regime of history considered itself to be patriotic and compassionate; and the people who supported and submitted to such regimes considered themselves to be patriotic and compassionate, as well. The police state is never called that by those who promote it; they call it "law and order," "keeping the peace," "protecting the homeland," etc.
Ask the average American today about the possibility that our country could become a police state and the common response is, "That could never happen here." But, ladies and gentlemen, it is already happening here. And, furthermore, it seems that the vast majority of the American people are all in favor it. Republicans love it; Democrats love it; Christians love it; politicians love it; police officers love it; pastors love it; school teachers love it; businessmen love it; everyone loves a police state.
Threaten to remove Phil Robertson from Duck Dynasty, and Christians and conservatives come out of the woodwork in righteous indignation. Threaten to put a Nativity scene on some courthouse lawn, and Democrats and liberals come out of the woodwork in righteous indignation. But propose laws that strip the American people of their God-ordained liberties protected by the Bill of Rights, and conservatives and liberals alike, Christians and unbelievers alike, think it's just about the greatest thing since sliced bread.
You don't believe that? Try this news story on for size:
According to a World Net Daily report, "The 2014 NDAA was fast-tracked through the U.S. Senate, with no time for discussion or amendments, while most Americans were distracted by the scandal surrounding A&E's troubles with 'Duck Dynasty' star Phil Robertson.
"Eighty-five of 100 senators voted in favor of the new version of the NDAA, which had already been quietly passed by the House of Representatives."
The report continued saying, "Section 1021 allows the detention of anyone, including American citizens, by the military, if the president considers that person to have helped with terror."
The report further said, "Congress specifically expressed its desire for the detention provision to apply to American citizens even on American soil by rejecting multiple amendments that would have exempted them."
So, where are the notable leaders of the Religious Right? Where are the liberal groups? Where is the national media? Where are the talking heads from the right and the left? With precious few exceptions, they are absolutely silent on the subject. Why? Because they like it.
Liberals never met a big-government program or proposal they didn't like. If it increases the size and scope of government, liberals love it. Conservatives love anything that smacks of "law and order." (A word of caution: you never want to be the defendant in a courtroom where the jury is stacked with conservatives. If you do, you're dead meat, friend.) And Christians get goose bumps up their spine about anything they think resembles Romans 13. Give government more power over our lives and listen to the Hallelujahs ringing out from the all of these 501c3 churches. And ditto for most of the talking heads on radio and television and the vast majority of the pundits and spokesmen from the national news media. Like I said, everyone loves a police state.
Well, not everyone, thank God!
The same WND report mentioned above states, "Some of the nation's most respected legal teams are asking the Supreme Court to take up a challenge to the indefinite-detention provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, charging the law has created the framework for a police state.
"The controversial provision authorizes the military, under presidential authority, to arrest, kidnap, detain without trial and hold indefinitely American citizens thought to 'represent an enduring security threat to the United States.'
"Journalist Chris Hedges is among the plaintiffs charging the law could be used to target journalists who report on terror-related issues.
A friend-of-the-court brief submitted in the case states: 'The central question now before this court is whether the federal judiciary will stand idly by while Congress and the president establish the legal framework for the establishment of a police state and the subjugation of the American citizenry through the threat of indefinite military arrest and detention, without the right to counsel, the right to confront one's accusers, or the right to trial.'
"The brief was submitted to the Supreme Court by attorneys with the U.S. Justice Foundation of Ramona, Calif., Friedman Harfenist Kraut & Perlstein of Lake Success, N.Y., and William J. Olson, P.C. of Vienna, Va."
See the report here:
Congress Grants Obama Free Rein For Martial Law
Believe it or not, there was a time in this country when people from both sides of the political aisle believed in freedom. I know it's hard to imagine, but there was a time in this country when pastors from virtually every denomination believed in freedom. Not only did they believe in it; they fought for it. It seems like a long time ago.
Have you taken a close look at your State and local police agencies lately? More and more, our police officers and sheriff's deputies resemble soldiers more than they do peace officers. I challenge you to Google "police abuse." What you will discover will shock you. And, for all intents and purposes, the folks who live in many Northeastern states—along with California and Illinois–are already living in a State that is more controlled than many foreign countries, including some of the countries that we would call oppressive. And even our freer states are feeling the heavy hand of Big Brother more and more each day.
In fact, if you want to really get a taste of a police state, just move into some neighborhoods with their Gestapo-like Home Owner Associations (HOA). I'm telling you, some of these HOA rival anything Adolf Hitler could dream up.
Folks, take a good, hard look at reality: America is already in the beginning throes of a police state. Orwell's "1984" and Huxley's "Brave New World" are here. And far, far too many people seem fine with it.
I tell you the truth: I am to the point where I don't know what to call myself. "Conservative" means nothing today. Nothing! One can be a "conservative" and believe in Big Government, undeclared wars of intervention, debt-driven economics, socialized medicine, increased taxes, and, of course, a police state. Likewise, "Christian" means nothing today. Nothing! One can be a "Christian" and believe in Big Government, undeclared wars of intervention, debt-driven economics, socialized medicine, increased taxes, and, of course, a police state. Oh, many "conservatives" and "Christians" might SAY they don't believe in these things, but their actions (or lack of them) speak louder than their words.
A big THANK YOU is in order for Bill Olson, Herb Titus, Chris Hedges, et al. And THANK YOU to all of you folks out there who see what's going on and are actively engaged in "the holy cause of liberty." (Patrick Henry) I am your brother and compatriot, no matter what you call yourself. At this point, we aren't conservatives or liberals, Christians or unbelievers; we are freedomists or statists.
Tyrants such as Joe Stalin and Mao Tse-tung might be popular with some people, and a burgeoning police state might be popular with some people, but there is a whole host of us in these United States who aren't going to the gulags and gas chambers peacefully. And unlike the peasants of Europe and Asia, we aren't surrendering our means of self-defense, either.
No, not everyone loves a police state.
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: email@example.com
Please visit Chuck's web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
Why The US Cannot Be Saved
January 27, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
The people that work here, own you.
I receive many emails from well-intentioned and intelligent readers who hold up Iceland as a shining example of what America must do in order to save herself. I agree, in principle with the people who wrote to me that we should emulate Iceland. The Icelanders have demonstrated tremendous resilience, courage and vision to overcome and, at least temporarily, defeat the banksters while restoring their economy.
The people of Iceland have more courage in their little finger than America has in its entire being. Iceland's financial failure forced its government to resign or be removed, and it also caused citizens to re-evaluate the merits of their reckless spending, borrowing and consumption. Just how did Iceland do it?
Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimmson was interviewed earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos on why Iceland has enjoyed such a strong recovery after it's complete financial collapse in 2008, while the rest of the West is still mired in debt, poverty and hopelessness to go with empty promises of an economic recovery.
When asked whether Iceland's policy of letting the banks fail would have worked in the rest of Europe, Grimsson stated:
"… Why are the banks considered to be the holy churches of the modern economy? Why are private banks not like airlines and telecommunication companies and allowed to go bankrupt if they have been run in an irresponsible way? The theory that you have to bail-out banks is a theory that you allow bankers enjoy for their own profit their success, and then let ordinary people bear their failure through taxes and austerity. People in enlightened democracies are not going to accept that in the long run. …"
Imagine that, let the banks fail! Let the criminal bankers take the same risk as any other business venture. Can we imagine Obama ever speaking this way in public? In fact, if the United States was Iceland, President Obama, John McCain, Diane Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Lindsay Graham, Hillary Clinton, Valerie Jarrett, G.W. Bush, G. H. W. Bush, Lloyd Blankfein, Tim Geithner, Hank Paulson, Jon Corzine, Peter Sutherland, Ben Bernanke, et al., would all be in prison.
And nearly six years later, where is Iceland at today? In just the first year following the repudiation of the debt, the Icelanders economy grew by 2.6%. Banks failed, bankers and politicians were jailed and these brave people wrestled control of their lives back.
If the Icelanders could get their hands on Goldman Sachs officials they would. They impeached and convicted corrupt politicians who were in league with Wall Street, many of whom are serving prison sentences. Iceland is on its way to a full economic recovery while still saying no to the corrupt Goldman Sachs influences in Europe. Iceland is saying no to the Bank of International Settlement. Iceland is a beacon of hope for the rest of the G20 nations including the United States. Yet, the courage on display by the Icelanders will never be on display in the United States.
Americans Aren't Icelanders
There are a number reasons that America will never throw off the shackles of the Bastards from Basel. First and foremost, we, as a country, are just too plain stupid. Through repeated and failed education programs, such as Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind and now the substandard Common Core, Americans lack the basic sense to organize against anything, much less a virulent pack of banksters.
Additionally, at the end of the day, the Icelanders victory will prove to be inconsequential and very temporary. When the international forces align against Iceland for some contrived excuse, their government will collapse like a house of cards and the banksters will be back in control. We have seen it in Egypt, Libya and soon it will be Iceland's turn.
The Duck Dynasty worshiping, American Idol watching country can't even find England on a map 65% of the time. A whopping 80% cannot find Iraq on a map, 55% cannot name the Vice President and America reads nearly two whole grade levels lower than they did only a 40 years ago. In short, the rank and file of our citizenry lacks the intelligence to organize their collective shoes in the closet.
Change can be painful and America has become a soft nation. We are not only an ignorant nation, we are the most obese nation on the planet. Most of the people in this country could not fight their way out of a wet paper bag. My military sources tell me that there have been serious discussions among the military leadership about how they would fight a guerrilla war against the bankster occupation forces which will consist mostly of the Chinese and the Russians. What is holding them back is that they do not feel that they can count on the support from the rank and file of this population. The military believes that maybe, on a good day, 2-3% of the adult males would stand with dissident military forces. I never thought I would write this, but the American people are no tougher than the French and the French haven't won a war in over 200 years.
I do expect that the factions of the military are going to rise and put up some resistance. However, no revolution can be successful without the support of the people.
Well-intentioned people write to me and tell me how 250 million gun owners are going to throw off the chains of slavery. If that were going to happen, it would have happened nearly six years ago. In 2008, the banksters, led by Hank Paulson, helped themselves to our nation's money and our economy went into free fall. And what did we do to stop the greatest bank robbery in world history? We did nothing!!! Subsequently, we are a defeated nation. With the growing foreign troop presence and the rise of America's version of the East German Stasi (aka the DHS), we are also an occupied nation. Americans have lost the war and most are unaware that anything has even happened. Hillary Clinton is selling off the assets of this country to the Chinese. The EPA is stealing a million acres of land at a time. Your retirements, IRA's and bank account will soon be gone. And what will most of America do, change the channel and open another beer.
This is why my analyses and subsequently my writing style changed to more of an adaptation approach. Americans need to be worried about having enough resources to survive the induced social chaos that is coming. Our people must also be able to defend their resources. And finally, you and your family need to develop strategies on how to avoid being induced or forced to into a detention camp. These events are not far away.If you do not know how to pray, now is the time to learn.
Source: The Common Sense Show
Random Acts of Revolution
January 22, 2014 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
The 13th Amendment to the Constitution abolished slavery. This means that if you are a slave today, it's either illegal, or you have voluntarily accepted your servitude.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
You have a Constitutionally protected right to be free. If you aren't free, then revolution is your duty.
Many people believe that revolution requires that they lead a march, stand in front of a crowd with a bullhorn, or form a militia. They feel like it's a job for the Alex Joneses, the Adam Kokeshes, the James Wesley Rawleses, and the Bradley Mannings of the world.
They're wrong. You don't have to be a person with thousands of followers on Twitter and Facebook . You don't have to be a person with a military leadership position on your resume. You need not get yourself arrested on the steps of the White House, got to prison forever for telling the truth about your unit in the army, or stare down a bunch of scary-looking thugs in jack boots.
But you do have to do something.
You can't just sit there and complain unless you are really just another armchair Rambo.
The way you lead your life every single day can be an act of revolution. By refusing to concede your natural rights, quietly and resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution. Walking the walk doesn't always require civil disobedience or militia membership (although those actions definitely have their places). It requires your consistent determination not to be infringed upon.
It doesn't matter if you are a soccer mom from the suburbs, a college student in a dormitory, a church-going dad and husband, or a person who has found themselves homeless through the ongoing economic crisis – by living resolutely, you are performing an act of revolution.
Don't get me wrong – we need the Alexes, the Adams, the militias, the Bradleys, and the JWRs. We need the people who stand in protest. We need those who expose wrongdoing. We need the organizers, the shouters, the big personalities, the quiet strong types, and the leaders. But these are not the only ways to revolt. If every single person was off organizing their own rally, there'd be no one left to march in it.
What it is imperative upon us to do is to find our compass and follow it. We must make ourselves immune to control by not needing what "they" hand out. We have to be armored against the way everyone else lives and choose our own paths. We must stubbornly refuse to participate in the hoop-jumping that is everyday life in North America. By all of us who believe in liberty doing this, we form an army of stubborn non-participants in the status quo.
Here's an example. It's a small thing, a battle that today only affected my daughter and me. My daughter is not vaccinated. She attends a public school where the kids must be vaccinated, or hoops must be jumped through. I filled out the initial forms stating that I had an objection of conscience to vaccines. I was contacted by a representative of the school system who suggested that I sign instead the form that stated a religious objection, because that was "easier". I refused, because my objection is NOT one of religion, and I felt like that was a cop-out. I knew that I was within my rights to have an objection of conscience, and I felt that it was important to make a point that might make it easier for the next parent. I was then told that I'd have to pay $25 and get a statement notarized to allow her exemption on my basis. I said I'd be happy to get a statement notarized, but not at my expense. I pointed out that nowhere does our local law state that I should have to pay any money for my child to NOT do something. Lo and behold, after 5 months of politely going back and forth, being escalated through numerous different superiors of superiors in the school board and public health system, my daughter is still unvaccinated, I have not spent $25, and she was not suspended from school. The point I'm making is not about vaccines, but about not stepping back from your rights, for your convenience or for the convenience of others. This requires that you read the relevant laws and understand them. It requires a certain degree of persistence and a willingness to be a pain in the butt.
There are valid reasons for revolution.
One of the benchmarks of tyranny is the dizzying arrays of laws on the books, with more and more added every single day. It is humanly impossible not to break multiple laws every single day. Regulations are revenue builders and/or control mechanisms. If the "authorities" can ALWAYS find a law that you've broken, then they can ALWAYS give a "reason" for punishing you. Punishment might include incarceration, hefty fines, or the removal of some privilege (like taking away your driver's license or not allowing your child to go to school).
If the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood; if they be repealed or revised before they are promulgated, or undergo such incessant changes that no man, who knows what the law is to-day, can guess what it will be to-morrow. Law is defined to be a rule of action; but how can that be a rule, which is little known, and less fixed? – James Madison, Federalist Papers 62
The police state is growing at a dizzying rate, and often the news makes it look like we live in Nazi Germany. It is now or never. Like cockroaches, "they" – the thugs in jackboots and their masters – multiply in the dark, and will soon overtake us if we don't put a stop to it right now. They want to take our guns because that would make our resistance more difficult. They keep buying up ammo and now have more than enough to kill every man, woman, and child in America multiple times. The NDAA means that any person can be indefinitely detained. There has been a sustained attack on the Bill of Rights and one by one our rights are being submerged beneath the desires of those who would demand our submission.
How can you be an everyday revolutionary?
The most revolutionary act is to be self-sufficient and in need of nothing that the government can provide for you in exchange for some small liberty. When there is nothing that you require enough to submit, then bullying you becomes much more difficult.
This list of suggestions is by no means comprehensive. Please, add your own random acts of resistance in the comments below.
- Question absolutely everything you hear on the news. Always be a skeptic. All major media goes back to just a few conglomerates. The "news" is now all a propaganda ploy to help the rich get richer and the powerful remain in power. The media can make or break a candidate with unholy zeal in less than a week. These people and others like them are the ones that decide what "we the people" get to see. If they feel like a candidate or a news item might upset the status quo, they black it out by refusing to cover it.
- Call out the media. Let everyone know that the mainstream media is the enemy of the people. When you see coverage that is clearly biased, take a moment to call out the media about it. Take the time to comment on mainstream media websites and point out the unbalanced coverage. If you use social media, share this information and post on the media outlet's social media pages as well.
- Get out of the banking system. By opting to "unbank" or "underbank" there is a limit to what can be easily stolen from you. When you have physical control of your financial assets, you are not at as high a risk of losing those assets, and therefore, less likely to be dependent on "the system."
- Turn your savings into precious metals or tangible assets. On the same note as unbanking, you definitely don't want to rely on a 401K or savings account to provide for you in your old age. Ask the people of Cyprus how well that worked out for them. Diversify with assets you can touch. Purchase tangible goods like land, food, ammo, and seeds. Once you are well supplied, move on to precious metals to preserve your wealth.
- Educate others. At the (very high) risk of people thinking you're crazy, it's important to let people know WHY you do what you do. If you are an anti-Monsanto activist, teach others about the dangers of GMOs. If you object to a municipal policy, speak at a town meeting or send a letter to the editor of your local paper. By ranting incoherently or by keeping your mouth shut, you influence no one. By providing provable facts, you can open minds and awaken others to tyranny.
- Get others involved in the fight. For example, if you are fighting with the city council that wants to rip out the vegetables growing in your front yard, let your friends and neighbors know, post a notice at the grocery store, and write a letter to the editor. When injustice occurs, use the power of social media to spread awareness. Often a public outcry is what is necessary to get the "authorities" to back down. Look at the case of Brandon Raub, the veteran who was kidnapped and taken to a mental hospital for things he posted on Facebook. Raub was not charged, but he was detained in the psych ward involuntarily. His friends and family immediately mobilized and spread the videos of his arrest all over the internet. It snowballed and alternative media picked it up – soon Raub was released, and all because of a grass roots and social media campaign to bring the injustice to light.
- Grow your own food. Every single seed that you plant is a revolutionary act. Every bit of food that you don't have to purchase from the grocery store is a battle cry for your personal independence. When you educate yourself (and others) about Big Food, Big Agri, and the food safety sell-outs at the FDA, you will clearly see that we are alone in our fight for healthy, nutritious foods. Refuse to tolerate these attacks on our health and our lifestyles. Refuse to be held subject to Agenda 21′s version of "sustainability".
- Take control of your health. It is imperative that you not blindly trust in the medical establishment. Many members of this establishment are merely prostitutes for their pimp, Big Pharma. Millions of children are given powerful psychotropic drugs to help them fit into the neat little classroom boxes, and the numbers are growing every day. Americans spent 34.2 BILLION dollars on psychiatric drugs in 2010. (Source) Big Pharma is an enormously profitable industry that only pays off if they can convince you that you're sick. Learn about the toxic injections and medications, weight the risks and benefits, and always look for second and third opinions before making a medical decision. Maintain your health by avoiding toxins, exercising, and ditching your bad habits to reduce the number of doctor's visits that are necessary.
- Refuse to comply. If you know your natural rights, which are guaranteed under the Constitution and its Amendments, then it makes it much harder for "authorities" to bully you. You don't have to let them search your home without a warrant, you don't have to answer questions, and you don't have to comply with laws that are in conflict with the Constitution.
- Learn. Every day, spend time learning. This shouldn't stop once our formal education ends. Fill your mind with history, with current events, with constitutional law, and information about the natural world. Learn about health, study economics, research things that interest you, and unravel the complicated conspiracies that are afoot. To pursue unbiased knowledge is to free your mind from the prison of propaganda and indoctrination.
- Don't consume chemicals that cause you to be dumbed down. Avoid chemical-laden food with brain-killing neurotoxins like MSG and aspartame. Don't drink fluoridated water.
- Embrace your right to bear arms. Be responsible for your own safety and security.
- Don't be in debt. No one can be free if they are in debt. If you are in debt, you are forced to work in whatever conditions are present, for whatever amount is offered, complying with whatever criteria is necessary to keep your job. in order to either pay your debt or face penalties. As well, the high interest rates that you pay only serve to make the bankers more wealthy. Instead of borrowing, save until you can afford something or realize that if you could actually afford it, you wouldn't need to borrow money to have it.
- Be prepared for disaster. Have enough food, water, and supplies to take care of your family in the event of a natural disaster. Don't expect FEMA to take care of you.
- Be involved in your children's education. For some, this means homeschooling or unschooling, and for others this means being on top of what they are learning in a formal school setting. Join the PTA and actively volunteer if your child goes to school. Be an advocate for your child and insist that the teachers teach. If your child goes to school, supplement this at home with discourse about current events and outings that help them learn about the world around them.
- Be the squeaky wheel. If you see something wrong, don't just ignore it. Say something about it, and keep saying something until it changes. Whether this is some process that infringes on your privacy, a job requirement that impedes your health, or another injustice, pursue it relentlessly. Ask questions publically, write letters, and use social media to bring pressure to encourage a change.
- Reduce your consumer spending. Spending less helps to starve the beast by reducing the sales taxes you pay and withdrawing your financial support to big conglomerates. If we vote with our dollars, eventually there will, of a necessity, be a paradigm shift that returns us to simpler days, when families that were willing to work hard could make a living without selling their souls to the corporate monoliths. A low-consumption lifestyle reduces your financial dependency, which allows for more freedom.
- Ditch popular culture. If reality TV isn't a tool for dumbing people down, I don't know what it is. My daughter recently begged to watch an episode of a popular reality TV show that "everyone" was watching. She managed about 15 minutes of it and then said, "This is the stupidest thing I've ever seen." She decided to read a book instead. Popular entertainment is a media tool used to change our perspectives about our personal values, and to tell us how to think and feel about issues.
- Buy locally. Support local small businesses to help others who are fighting for independence from the system. You might pay a little bit more than you would at your big box store, but the only people benefiting from your purchases made at the corporate stores are those with the 7 figure annual bonuses.
- Develop multiple streams of income. Don't put all of your eggs in one basket. Figure out several ways to bring in income. Not only does this free you from being a wage slave, but it allows you to hire friends or family members. You are less entangled in the system and not subject to corporate whims. If one business fails, or becomes subject to regulations that make it no longer worthwhile, you are not forced to comply just to keep a roof over your head.
- Say thanks, but no thanks. There is no such thing as a benevolent hand out. Nearly anything offered for free (particularly by a government entity) has strings attached. Maybe there is a handy-dandy registration form that you need to fill out. You might be influenced to vote a certain way just to keep the freebies coming. You might have to pee in a cup every two weeks. Perhaps one day you'll need to have a microchip embedded in your hand. Either way, by accepting handouts from those in "authority", you become beholden to them or you need them, and someone who is free is neither beholden nor needy.
- Don't take the easy road. The PTB like to seduce people with simplicity. "If you just sign this paper, it will be much easier," they say. "This chip is for your convenience," they tell you. "By giving up this, it lets us take care of you and you will be much safer." The easy road only gets you to Slave Street a whole lot faster. Take the difficult road and be responsible for yourself. Don't take shortcuts that compromise your beliefs. Go to court to fight a ticket, read the laws and defend yourself, and know that anything you give up, you will never get back.
According to the Declaration of Independence, "Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed."
That means that you don't have to accept the unjust laws. That means you don't have to quietly take it, muttering under your breath that it isn't right, but not daring to raise your voice. That means that "they" are only in control of you if you allow it.
There are nearly 316 million people in the United States. (source)
Only 3% of the population fought in the Revolutionary War, and 10% actively supported them.
If 9,480,000 people quietly and peacefully revolted by withdrawing their consent to be governed by tyrants we could not be silenced.
If 31,600,000 people supported those revolting, we could not be stopped.
The government might be watching us, but we can watch them right back. Make the way you live your life a revolutionary act.
Source: The Organic Prepper
Barack Obama and the Legacy of American Capitalism
December 25, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
"You're not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you cannot face reality. Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or says It." – Malcolm X
I have been reading political commentary on Black Agenda Report (BAR) regularly of late. The site, which purveys a black leftist perspective, regularly excoriates President Obama, as well they should. BAR has become a trusted source in my quest to understand history and current events. This is the home of the real left, not the pseudo left that pervades the corporate airwaves masquerading as champions of equality. Here, no one is paying homage to Obama or calling him a liberal or progressive simply because he is a black democrat. No one is calling him a socialist, either. The political commentators at BAR hold Obama to the same standard to which they held George W. Bush and his fascist predecessors.
Most of the self-proclaimed liberals who castigated Bush and Cheney for their neoconservative polices are giving Obama, whose polices are no less regressive or extreme than those of his precursors, a free ride. This is because the president belongs to the Democratic Party, which continues to be associated with traditional liberalism in the minds of contemporary faux progressives and liberals, rather than the neoliberalism that defines its policies.
Those who continue to support Obama and his backsliding pro-corporate regime obviously have no conception about what classical liberalism and progressivism are. They are at least half a century behind the times.
Although I may lack the political acumen to concisely define terms such as liberalism, progressivism, and leftist, which are somewhat subjective anyway, it is apparent to me that neoliberalism, the form of liberalism that is actually practiced by today's Democratic Party, bears much in common with the neoconservatism that is associated with contemporary Republicans. There is nothing progressive about either ideology, and nothing in them that is beneficial to workers. To call Obama a liberal or a socialist, as so many people do, is beyond farcical. It strains one's credulity to the breaking point.
I distrust Barack Obama for the same reasons that I spurn George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, the Clintons, and any other war mongering capitalist. My criticism has nothing to do with race or gender. It stems from ideological differences, class conflict, and radically dissimilar values from the ruling clique.
Among some black folk, charges of racism are leveled against any white folks who criticize the black president in the same way that charges of anti-Semitism are used against anyone who is critical of Israel's Zionist polices of apartheid that, with the aid of the U.S., are being carried out against the Palestinians. This is not to deny the racism that is directed against the president. It is to philosophically and morally disassociate myself from any and all groups of white supremacists engaged in bigotry.
If a policy is morally reprehensible and unjust, just people have a moral obligation to criticize it, regardless of who is responsible for formulating and enacting such policies. Every socially conscious human being has an ethical responsibility to take action against criminal government or any corporation that is harming one's community, or for that matter, the planet.
From my perspective, BAR and WPFW's Jared Ball are ethically consistent and accurate in their critiques of Barack Obama and American capitalism. These venerable warriors are true leftists who do not compromise their principles for political expediency, cost them what it may.
The virtually defunct radical left was once a formidable and organized political force in the U.S. Today's leftists are treated like pariahs by the pseudo left and its neocon brethren. Radical leftists pose a viable threat to the established orthodoxy. Anyone who refuses to carry forth the performative role assigned to them by the dominant culture is a threat to those in power. As true combatants for justice, today's leftwing dissidents are worthy of being associated with iconic revolutionaries like Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, and Mumia Abu Jamal, all of whom happen to be black.
By contrast, Barack Obama, who mouths an endless stream of pseudo liberal platitudes, is an unabashed disciple of Milton Friedman and the market fundamentalism he revered. This identifies the president as a corporate fascist and thus a promoter of inequality. It allies him with America's ruling class. Obama and his supporters should not be identified in any way, shape or form with thereal left. Whatever minutia one uses to differentiate between contemporary neoliberals and neoconservatives is akin to splitting hairs.
The Democratic Party and the Republican Party are not mortal enemies, as portrayed in the corporate media; they are in collusion against the world's working class and the poor. Together, they are raping and pillaging the Earth Mother and repressing workers through economic violence and imposed austerity. Like costumed wrestlers performing on television, the acrimony is not real; it is vitriolic political theater, an enthralling puppet show for diehard believers.
We must somehow move beyond party politics, beyond the simplicity of liberal versus conservative dichotomy, beyond left against right, and see things as they really are rather than as we wish them to be.
Voting doesn't change anything in a system flush with corporate money. The structures that put the money into politics cannot be used to extract it. Without proportional representation or corporate money, third parties are not a viable option in state and federal elections. They are just another distraction from reality, a mild form of symbolic protest. Voting for justice does nothing to actually attain it. Direct action directly applied to a problem offers the best hope for revolutionary change.
Conversely, political dualism keeps us fighting the wrong people. It has us believing in people and institutions that do not promote justice and do us harm. These institutions are not what they purport to be. They are at best a mirage; something that appears real but only exists in the mind of the beholder.
Belief in the American Dream and perverted systems of power as a means to justice provides a method for directing and cajoling the masses to do the biding of the super-wealthy and all-powerful corporate state. Faith, hope, and belief in phony people and bogus institutions function as a form of mass hypnosis that keeps the people from organizing in class struggle against a common oppressor—the capitalist system.
Despite reams of contradictory historical evidence, most people in the U.S. continue to associate democracy with capitalism. It is reckless of us to allow anyone to use these terms interchangeably without contesting them at every opportunity. Let me be clear: Democracy is the antithesis of capitalism! But capitalism is the product the U.S. government, the Pentagon, and the commercial media are marketing to us as democracy. And thus the inequality gap, the disparity between rich and poor, is growing wider rather than shrinking.
The nemesis of all working people, regardless of where they live or their political affiliation, is capitalism and its linear, hierarchal, male-dominated power structures. This is why we must have a truthful critique of capitalism and patriarchy and create alternatives that promote the public wellbeing above corporate profits. Many promising alternatives, such as Professor Richard Wolff's Worker Self-Directed Enterprise (http://www.democracyatwork.info), already exist.
When the richest and most powerful people on earth, the primary beneficiaries of capitalism, invest so many resources into demonizing and subverting the writings of one man—Karl Marx—and the various economic and philosophic alternatives to capitalism, inquisitive minds want to know why. There are elements of Marxism that makes the power elite quake in their shoes. This is what led me to read Marx years ago. I have been reading him ever since.
Marx has helped me to comprehend why capitalists fear and loathe him. Deep down, they know that he was right. If workers understood capitalism from a Marxist perspective, not one in ten thousand would voluntarily accept their performative role in this exploitative economic system. There would be widespread conflict and social upheaval. There would be global revolution. The power elite spends trillions of dollars to maintain the façade of capitalism as a manifestation of democracy. In fact, I would argue that nothing could be more opposed to democracy than American capitalism.
The key point to understand is that capitalism, a system based upon the ruthless exploitation and commodification of workers and the relentless rape of our Earth Mother, stifles and represses democracy. Capitalists abhor all forms of egalitarianism. Marx embraced them. The mere possibility of an empowered work force troubles the capitalist's sleep, as did the possibility of slave rebellion, albeit it small, distress the slaveholder.
Consider the vitriol, not to mention counter revolutionary forces that are levied against the alternatives to capitalism. What is their source? Who but wealthy capitalists fund America's propaganda apparatus? Working people in the U.S. are conditioned to reflexively recoil against ideas they do not understand. They are psychologically programmed to detest that which could potentially set them free. American workers are led to believe that economic servitude and wage slavery is freedom.
Why does a government that calls itself a democracy systemically spy on its citizens? Why does it punish its whistle blowers but materially reward the vilest white-collar criminals? Why is the majority of the U.S. budget spent on funding an insatiable war machine? Why do we raise classrooms of meat puppets rather than critical thinkers and political dissidents? It is all done for the benefit of capitalists at the expense of society.
It is by these means that capitalism survives and spreads like an aggressive malignancy to every organ of the planet. Furthermore, the majority of the wealth produced by labor is subverted to prop up the capitalist system and to indoctrinate and oppress the worker. To the detriment of us all, freethinking and critical analysis are discouraged and often reprimanded in academia and elsewhere. And thus hundreds of millions of human beings are transformed into herd animals that are led to slaughter in the military and the world's sweat shops. We celebrate our freedom and patriotism on our march to the scalding pots, singing "God Bless America." There is no fight in us. We go too quietly and too obediently into the good night of eternity.
Yet, despite everything and the repressive weight of history, Americans still have a propensity to believe in myths and fairy tales. Hope and faith in phony leaders and bogus institutions keep us servile and docile. Irrational faith requires nothing from us. Delusion has become the norm because too many of us are incapable of grappling with reality. We can and must do better than capitalism or we are doomed to an ignominious fate.
Charles Sullivan is a free-lance writer, educator, and citizen activist residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia.
Charles Sullivan is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
A Modern Exodus
December 22, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
God's deliverance of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage is the great recurring theme of the Old Testament. Time and again, God's prophets would remind the Hebrews of this great deliverance. Moses, himself, recounted The Exodus with the children of Israel over and over again. Hear Moses:
"I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright." (Lev. 26:13 KJV)
Make no mistake about it: it was a real deliverance. It was real bondage; real slavery; real tyranny; real whips; real chains; real beatings; and real death. And while there is certainly a spiritual correlation between the deliverance Christ extends to the soul and the deliverance of the children of Israel under Moses, let's not forget that The Exodus recorded in the Old Testament book named after the event was a literal, physical, and, yes, political reality. Real men and women were taken out of real slavery and given real freedom. It was not merely spiritual freedom; it was physical and political freedom. Men and women didn't just march out of Egypt in their hearts; they marched out of Egypt on their feet.
Is there any professing Christian today who would disparage what the children of Israel did when they walked out of Egypt? Who is the pastor or church leader who would dare question the legitimacy and rightness of what Moses did in bringing the Hebrews out of bondage?
For that matter, all of the Old Testament events that are lauded and extolled by New Testament writers as being "ensamples" for us, were literal events. There is certainly nothing wrong with making spiritual correlations to these events but not at the expense of denying or denigrating the literalness of the events. David used a real sling and killed a real giant and took a real sword and cut off his real head. Gideon, Barak, Jephthah, and Samson led real revolts against real oppressors. Queen Esther violated a real law and risked her real life to intercede for real people. After Esther's real bravery, the Hebrews were given real swords and real spears and successfully defended themselves against real enemies really intent on killing them. The list is endless.
I say all of this, because it seems that the vast majority of pastors and Christians today do not equate the real-life stories of Biblical history with practical reality in modern life. Everything is spiritualized away. But Bible history is the story of one exodus after another, one separation after another.
Noah was separated from the antediluvian world; Abram was separated from his country and kin; Joseph was separated from his family and country; Israel and his children were separated from their homeland; Moses was separated from the throne he was set to inherit; David was separated from his place and position–and even his own throne; the Apostle Paul was separated from his profession, his home, and his friends; and none of us really knows the amount of separation that the rest of the apostles endured. From the Book of Genesis where God told Abram, "Get thee out of thy country," to the Book of The Revelation where God declared, "Come out of her, my people," the divine call of separation was not merely mystical; it was literal.
Until people of faith are willing to walk with their feet, nothing will happen. We can spiritualize all we want, but nothing will happen until we literally WALK.
Martin Luther walked up to the Castle Church in Wittenberg and used a real hammer and nails to post a real 95 Theses on a real church door. Zwingli took a real sword into a real battle and died a real death in defense of real liberty. The pilgrims walked out of one European country after another until they climbed into real boats that sailed over a real ocean and landed in a new land in search of real freedom. Our patriot forebears wrote a real Declaration of Independence and fought a real revolutionary war in order to bequeath to their posterity real liberty. Dietrich Bonhoeffer separated from the German Church and formed a real protest movement known as the Confessing Church and collaborated with a real conspiracy to rid a real tyrant from his country. Again, the list is endless.
To, again, quote Bonhoeffer, "Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."
Yet, all over America, Christians refuse to walk away from those churches that are, through their silence, facilitating the enslavement of their very own children and grandchildren. Worse yet, they refuse to walk away from churches that actively promote the political policies that would enslave their posterity.
Many Christians have written me in an attempt to justify them remaining in churches that refuse to take a stand for liberty. For some, it is a matter of tradition. For the life of them, they cannot imagine themselves separated from their liturgies or denominations–as if somehow their acceptance before God depends on them. It doesn't! For others, it is an unwillingness to separate from friends. To them, church is mostly a social institution. Still others are addicted to programs. They have been deluded into thinking that somehow religious programs equals spirituality. They don't! Then there are those who think that the spiritual message somehow trumps everything else. As long as their pastor preaches "the Gospel," nothing else matters. Of course, many of these same people have jumped from church to church over any number of issues: music, children's programs, youth programs, building programs, the pastor didn't visit them when they were sick, etc., etc., etc. Yet, when it becomes obvious that their pastor will not take a stand for liberty, they continue to support the pastor because "he is preaching the Gospel."
And I have had sincere believers approach me saying that they are willing to overlook their pastor's silence, because they believe the pastor is simply ignorant and just doesn't understand the issues. I will admit that this is a valid point. All of us were enlightened at different rates of speed. None of our eyes were opened to these things overnight. But the real question is how open is your pastor to the truth? Is he open at all? Or, does he dismiss out-of-hand any attempt to make him aware of reality? The sad truth is the vast majority of pastors seem to be "willingly ignorant." Not only are they not aware of what's going on; they don't want to be aware of what's going on.
How long are you going to wait for your pastor to wake up? How many links must be added to the chains of oppression before you decide you might need to find a pastor and church that are engaged in the liberty fight? How long are you going to support your pastor's indifference and ignorance? Let me be blunt: as long as your pastor is preaching to a packed church, as long as the offering plates are full, as long as his ministry is "successful," you are going to be waiting for a long, long time for him to awaken. As far as he is concerned, God is blessing his efforts. The church is full; the offering plate is full; new buildings are planned; he is popular. You can give him all of Chuck Baldwin's video sermons you want; you can urge him to listen to Alex Jones all you want; you can give him all of the DVDs and articles you want. He won't read or watch them, and if he does, he won't act on them. Why? He is content to be ignorant. Life is too good.
Folks, I know I have said this before, but I say it again: until Christians by the droves remove themselves from these establishment churches that refuse to join the liberty fight, there is little hope for freedom. Without the patriot-pastors in Colonial America, there would have been no Lexington Green, Concord Bridge, Bunker Hill, Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, or United States of America. It was the combined efforts of pastors such as Jonas Clark, John Witherspoon, Ebenezer Baldwin, and James Caldwell as much as it was the efforts of political figures such as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Sam Adams, and Patrick Henry that brought the American colonies out of British bondage.
It is not the presence of political parasites that are destroying our country; it is the absence of patriot-pastors.
Moses and the children of Israel literally walked out of bondage. So must God's people today. If your pastor and church are content to let you and your family live in bondage, walk out. If he is unwilling to engage the liberty fight, walk out. God's command to Abram to "Get thee out of thy country" was no less painful than the Holy Spirit's command to us to "Get thee out of thy church." And one of the final appeals of Heaven to believers is, "Come out of her, my people." The "her" here is the Babylonian world system, of course. But need I remind readers that the Babylonian world system is a system that enslaves people? It always has; it always will. So, why would a believer stay in a supposed church that refuses to resist the Babylonian world system that seeks to enslave them? Why?
Besides, the true Gospel message always leads to action. Always! The Gospel requires action. Natural Law is little more than the practical application of the Gospel. The call to preach the Gospel is a call to action. For a pastor to say he is called to preach the Gospel then do nothing to teach and train his people how to apply the Gospel in Natural Law and practical life (including our political life) is to not understand (or to deny) the Gospel he is called to preach.
The Gospel is more than the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ. The Gospel is "the whole counsel of God." We would have a very thin Bible if the only verses in it were those which specifically deal with Christ's death and resurrection. If that's all the Gospel God wanted us to know, why did He give us the rest of Holy Writ? And why do we have the law of God "written in our hearts"?
The children of Israel walked out of a country that had put them in bondage; the spiritual children of Abraham today (all who believe on Christ) need to walk out of a church that would put them in bondage. The good news is the exodus has already begun.
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: email@example.com
Please visit Chuck's web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
Get Off The Sinking Ship
December 6, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
This column dated November 21, 2013, created a firestorm of outrage and venom from hundreds of pastors and Christians. It was a rude awakening for me, for sure. I have long maintained that the vast majority of today's pastors and church members are smugly content in abject apathy and indifference. However, after the vehement reaction to the above-mentioned column, I can now state dogmatically that the problem is actually much, much worse than I realized. Today's churchmen are not merely content to not being involved; they are absolutely committed to not being involved. It goes much deeper than apathy; it is apostasy.
See my November 21 column here:
My email inbox and mailbox filled with vitriolic rebukes from pastors and Christians. I was called just about every dirty name in the book and relegated to the depths of the damned–and those were the mild ones. At the heart of these feelings of contempt is the rejection of Natural Law. It's not only that today's pastors and Christians have not been taught the Biblical principles of Natural Law and, therefore, don't understand it; today's churchmen have developed a willful and stubborn conviction against Natural Law.
I will even go so far as to say that the majority of our pastors and church leaders today are monarchists at heart. The lack of instruction and understanding of the Biblical principles of Natural Law have created a generation of churchmen who are more than willing to submit to the unnatural laws of tyranny and oppression. Until two weeks ago, I didn't truly comprehend the depth of this volitional slavery.
The statements being made by today's pastors and Christians are so nonsensical and asinine that it is extremely difficult to believe that any person, much less pastors and Christians, could even utter them. Here are just a few examples of what pastors have said:
"If federal agents or troops came to my house and put my wife on the kitchen table and raped her, Romans 13 tells me I could not interfere."
"If government forces came to my home intent on harming my wife and children, I would not resist; I would simply tell my family to run."
"America's Founding Fathers were rebels against God. They had no right to fight a war for independence. Subjection to a king, even a tyrannical one, is God's Will."
"Anyone who resists civil government is going to hell."
"There is no such thing as natural law, and anyone who promotes it is of the devil."
Dear reader, trust me: the comments above are reflective of the majority of pastors and Christians I have heard from over the past couple of weeks. Truly did Jesus say, "Can the blind lead the blind? shall they not both fall into the ditch?" (Luke 6:39 KJV) That is exactly what is happening in America today: the blind are leading the blind into the ditch of tyranny and oppression.
Last Sunday, I delivered a message entitled, "Biblical Evidence For Natural Law." I invite readers to watch the archived video of that message here:
Biblical Evidence For Natural Law
Listen to the Scripture: "For when the Gentiles, which have not the law, do by nature the things contained in the law, these, having not the law, are a law unto themselves: Which shew the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience also bearing witness, and their thoughts the mean while accusing or else excusing one another." (Romans 2:14, 15 KJV)
The great theologians and Bible scholars of yesteryear all understood the Biblical teaching of Natural Law. Here are a few samples of some of church history's greatest Bible commentators on this passage in Romans 2.
Albert Barnes: "The expression means clearly by the light of conscience and reason, and whatever other helps they may have without revelation. It denotes simply, in that state which is without the revealed will of God. In that condition they had many helps of tradition, conscience, reason, and the observation of the dealings of divine Providence, so that to a considerable extent they knew what was right and what was wrong."
John Wesley: "The Ten Commandments being only the substance of the law of nature."
Adam Clarke: "Do, without this Divine revelation, through that light which God imparts to every man, the things contained in the law–act according to justice, mercy, temperance and truth, the practice of which the revealed law so powerfully enjoins; these are a law unto themselves."
John Gill: "The matter and substance of the moral law of Moses agrees with the law and light of nature…which they have by nature and use, and which natural reason dictates to them."
Matthew Henry: "They had that which directed them what to do by the light of nature: by the force and tendency of their natural notions and dictates they apprehended a clear and vast difference between good and evil. They did by nature the things contained in the law. They had a sense of justice and equity, honour and purity, love and charity; the light of nature taught obedience to parents, pity to the miserable, conservation of public peace and order, forbade murder, stealing, lying, perjury, etc. Thus they were a law unto themselves."
Think about it: man did not have the written, revealed laws of God for some 2,500 years of recorded history. Yet, they did have the Law of God "written in their hearts," or Natural Law.
Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were, without a doubt, among the most influential writings upon America's founders. In his commentaries (second section), Blackstone said, "Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will.
"This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws."
In that same second section of his commentaries, Blackstone further said, "This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other–It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."
Before Biblical Law said, "Thou shalt not kill," Natural Law said, "Thou shalt not kill." Before Biblical Law said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," Natural Law said, "Thou shalt not commit adultery." Before Biblical Law said, "Thou shalt not bear false witness," Natural Law said, "Thou shalt not bear false witness." Before Biblical Law said, "Thou shalt not steal," Natural Law said, "Thou shalt not steal." How is it, and since when is it, that pastors and Christians do not understand this?
Natural Law, by its very definition, demands procreation, protection, provision, and prohibition. From the very act of Creation, Adam and Eve were given in their hearts (by God) the desire to procreate. Does anyone deny that those who produce children have a right and duty to protect and provide for their children? Does not all of nature have an innate desire to produce young then protect and provide for the young that they produced? The bird and the beast build a nest or den for its young; it catches or hunts food for its young; and it uses every means in its power to drive away predators from its young.
How, in the name of God, can today's pastors and church leaders say they would not protect their own families from harm? How can they treat so flippantly the duty and responsibility to provide safety and security for home and community? Does a badge give a person the right to act like a predator? You mean to tell me that God would have us bring our children up in the "fear and admonition of the Lord" only then to sit back and do nothing while human beasts with badges devour and enslave them? What nonsense! What rubbish!
Beyond that, prohibition is as intrinsic to Natural Law as is procreation, protection, and provision. In the beginning, Adam and Eve were given great authority over the entire natural kingdom–yet, they were also given jurisdictional prohibition: they were not allowed to eat of the Tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil. Even in that state of perfect innocence, when Adam was the absolute master of all that God had created on earth, he had limited jurisdiction. And when Adam violated that jurisdictional prohibition, there were consequences that had to be paid. And that was the pattern for all human authority.
There is only one Sovereign: the Creator-God. All human authority, be it vocational, familial, ecclesiastical, or political, is limited and jurisdictional. Anytime human authority oversteps its jurisdictional borders, Natural Law (God's Law "written in our hearts") demands resistance. And the amount and type of resistance is commensurate to the amount and type of usurpation.
When the "kings of the nations" seized property not belonging to them and kidnapped some of Abram's family, he did not quote Romans 13 and sit complacent. He gathered his armed servants (who were already trained in the art of war) and pursued the oppressors. He put together a military strategy and attacked the predators and destroyed them. Not only that, when he returned, he was blessed by Melchizedek, who was "the priest of the most high God." (Genesis 14)
Hebrews 7 says Melchizedek was a type of Jesus Christ. Many Bible scholars believe that Melchizedek was actually a Christophany, meaning a pre-Bethlehem appearance of Christ. Think of it: Christ Himself (or a priest who is clearly a type of Christ) blessed Abram after he attacked and destroyed the usurpers who had transgressed their jurisdictional authority. And exactly where was it written that Abram should do this thing? It was written in his heart. Again, the resistance was commensurate to the transgression.
And those who say that violent resistance to tyrannical government is unbiblical and sinful should tear the entire Book of Judges out of their Bibles. Where in the Mosaic Law were the laws of insurrection recorded? They weren't. Yet, for a period of over 300 years, champion after champion felt the call of God in his heart to resist with violence the tyrants who were subjugating his country. Furthermore, Hebrews 11 places men such as Gideon, Barak, Samson, and Jephthah in the great "Hall of Faith." And, remember, Romans 15:4 says that the Old Testament was written "for our learning."
Western Civilization is rooted in Natural Law. Scholars in and out of the Church have historically accepted the Natural Law principles of the rights and duties of procreation, protection, provision, and prohibition as being "self-evident." In his book, "Political Obligations," University of Virginia political science professor George Klosko wrote, "[I]t is generally held that obedience to government is not unconditional. Though we have significant moral requirements to obey, these can be overridden by countervailing factors. For instance, a government that becomes tyrannical can lose its right to be obeyed, while obligations to obey specific laws that are unjust can also be not binding." (George Klosko, Political Obligations, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 2005, 11)
Klosko's philosophy matches the philosophy of the vast majority of Christian and non-Christian scholars including Sir Edward Coke, Hugo Grotius, Samuel von Pufendorf, Emerich de Vattel, Samuel Rutherford, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Thomas Hobbes, and Thomas Aquinas (to name a few).
Compare the Natural Law teaching of history's great scholars (many, if not most, of whom were Christians) to the teaching of so many of today's pastors and church leaders. The differences are stark. The great preachers, theologians, and scholars of history produced a thirst for both God and freedom and gave birth to the greatest free land the world has ever known. And what are today's pacifist preachers producing? An apathy and indifference that has brought our country to the brink of a modern-day Dark Ages. Everything that America's colonial pastors such as John Leland, John Witherspoon, John Peter Muhlenberg, James Caldwell, and Jonas Clark fought so bravely to bequeath to us is being surrendered by the cowardice and apostasy of the modern pulpit.
As I said, after reading the voluminous pieces of correspondence touting absolute submission to the state, I am convinced that a majority of pastors and church leaders today are monarchists at heart. Accordingly, so many of America's pastors today are not shepherds; they are slaves. They have repudiated the faith of our fathers; they have repudiated the inspiration and sacrifice of thousands of years of history; they have repudiated sound scholarship and reason; they have repudiated the values and virtues that protect everything that is sacred; and they have repudiated the Biblical Natural Law principles of liberty and justice.
Ichabod is written over the establishment church.
I am further convinced that the only way liberty and justice can be restored to America is for Christians to get out of these idolatrous government churches and form tens of thousands of independent, non-affiliated, non-establishment churches and home-churches. It must happen; it's going to happen!
I pray that God will use whatever time I have left on this earth to be part of the prophecy that famed Bible teacher A. W. Tozer uttered before his death in 1963. Tozer said:
"I hear Jesus saying…Matthew 23:37, 38, 'O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the one killing the prophets and stoning those who are sent to her, how often would I have gathered your children together, even as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you would not! Behold, your house is left to you desolate.'
"As the Church now stands, the man who sees this condition of worldly evangelicalism is written off as somewhat fanatical. But the day is coming when the house will be left desolate and there will not be a man of God among them. I would like to live long enough to watch this develop and see how things turn out. I would like to live to see the time when the man and women of God–holy, separated and spiritually enlightened–walk out of the evangelical church and form a group of their own; when they get off the sinking ship and let her go down in the brackish and worldliness and form a new ark to ride out the storm."
I agree with Tozer. Get off the sinking ship, folks. Form a new ark to ride out the storm. Pastors and churches that have repudiated Biblical Natural Law principles–including the duty of self-defense–should themselves be repudiated.
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: email@example.com
Please visit Chuck's web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
This Pastor Proves My Point
November 22, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
A fellow pastor wrote a Facebook response to my column last week, which was entitled, "Our Friends Are Killing Us." In the column I wrote, "By the same token, how long are Christians today who say they believe in the Second Amendment (and the rest of the Bill of Rights) going to keep sending their tithes and offerings to these churches where the pastors refuse to publicly resist these draconian gun control bills such as were recently introduced by Obama and Feinstein? How long are they going to keep filling the pews of these do-nothing churches? As long as these say-nothing pastors see their pews and offering plates full, don't expect anything to change.
"I will say it plainly: if you attend a church and didn't hear your pastor oppose the Obama/Feinstein gun control bills from the pulpit earlier this year, YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THAT CHURCH. The only thing holding this republic together is the people's right to keep and bear arms–especially semi-automatic rifles with large-capacity magazines. By refusing to resist evil, your pastor has become an enemy of liberty. Wittingly or not, he is helping to put the chains of slavery around the necks of your children and grandchildren. Why would you stay and support such a pastor and church?"
See the column here:
In response to my column, the pastor posted these remarks on a friend's Facebook page: "A pastor's call from God has nothing to do with fighting for any liberty guaranteed by any human government or document. I will fight and die for our Constitution, but that has nothing to do with my call as a pastor, that is my responsibility as an American, not a pastor. Nor is it the responsibility of any pastor in that calling. We are called to only one form of liberty, and it is not so frail as that offered by any human government. The liberty we are called to proclaim is the liberty that was purchased by the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, at Calvary, the only liberty which can never be taken nor infringed. While I support the author's passion and personally speak out defending the second amendment, he is absolutely wrong to accuse men of God of being enemies of liberty simply because they do not engage publicly in the fight for the second amendment. He clearly does not understand the spiritual calling responsibility of a pastor."
Readers should readily recognize that this pastor demonstrates he is totally ignorant of Natural Law or he could not have said what he did. Unfortunately, it has been the better part of a century since seminaries, Christian colleges or universities (not to mention State schools and colleges) have taught the principles of Natural Law. Therefore, it is not surprising that most of today's pastors share the sentiments of the pastor above.
The pastor suggests that, except for the soul's spiritual freedom at salvation, all liberty is something given by government. He is wrong. Liberty (including the Natural right of self-defense) is given by God.
While most of America's founders were Christians, not all were; but to a man, they understood the basic God-ordained principles of Natural Law. According to University of Houston political science professor, researcher, and historian, Don Lutz, the four most quoted sources of the Founding Fathers were (in order):
1. The Bible
2. Montesquieu
3. Sir William Blackstone
4. John Locke
Sir William Blackstone's Commentaries on the Laws of England were, without a doubt, among the most influential writings upon America's founders. In his commentaries (second section), Blackstone said, "Man, considered as a creature, must necessarily be subject to the laws of his creator, for he is entirely a dependent being. A being, independent of any other, has no rule to pursue, but such as he prescribes to himself; but a state of dependence will inevitably oblige the inferior to take the will of him, on whom he depends, as the rule of his conduct: not indeed in every particular, but in all those points wherein his dependence consists. This principle therefore has more or less extent and effect, in proportion as the superiority of the one and the dependence of the other is greater or less, absolute or limited. And consequently, as man depends absolutely upon his maker for every thing, it is necessary that he should in all points conform to his maker's will.
"This will of his maker is called the law of nature. For as God, when he created matter, and endued it with a principle of mobility, established certain rules for the perpetual direction of that motion; so, when he created man, and endued him with freewill to conduct himself in all parts of life, he laid down certain immutable laws of human nature, whereby that freewill is in some degree regulated and restrained, and gave him also the faculty of reason to discover the purport of those laws."
In that same second section of his commentaries, Blackstone further said, "This law of nature, being coeval with mankind and dictated by God himself, is of course superior in obligation to any other–It is binding over all the globe in all countries, and at all times; no human laws are of any validity, if contrary to this: and such of them as are valid derive all their force, and all their authority, mediately or immediately, from this original."
One can easily discern the influence of men such as Blackstone upon the men who penned our Declaration of Independence: Thomas Jefferson (the principal author), Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, Roger Sherman, and Robert Livingston. Listen to the Declaration:
"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."
See how Jefferson founded the Declaration of Independence upon "the laws of nature and of nature's God." Furthermore, America's Bill of Rights is simply a foundational treatise respecting the Natural liberties that God breathed into man at Creation. Virtually every amendment in the Bill of Rights has its root in Holy Scripture–and that includes the Second Amendment.
Please understand that every "right" granted by God also entails a sacred duty. If God has granted men the right to life and liberty, He has also demanded of them a duty to protect life and liberty. From the earliest examples of Holy Scripture we see these fundamental tenets of Natural Law.
Before human government existed, God cursed the world's first murderer. God then commanded the progenitor of the human race following the Flood (Noah) to protect human life by the pronouncement, "Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed: for in the image of God made he man." (Genesis 9:6) Then again, hundreds of years before Moses, the man Abram rallied to the defense of his family in Genesis 14 by taking up arms against the "kings of the nations," after which he brought the tithes of the spoils of war to the High Priest Melchizedek, who in turn blessed Abram for what he had done. And the Book of Hebrews tells us that Melchizedek was a type of Jesus Christ. If one were to remove from the Scriptures the examples of men and women of faith who fought for the Natural right of life and liberty–and who resisted those that tried to deny it–I dare say he or she would delete at least half of the entire Bible.
I must assume that this pastor has never read Blackstone or Locke or Hugo Grotius, et al. Listen to Grotius, "[Natural Law] may be called Divine also. And here may take Place that which Anaxarchus said, as Plutarch relates in the Life of Alexander, (but too generally) that GOD does not will a Thing because it is just; but it is just, that is, it lays on under an indispensable Obligation, because GOD wills it. And this Law was given wither to all Mankind, or to one People only: We find that GOD gave it to all Mankind at three different Times. First, Immediately after the Creation of Man, Secondly, Upon the Restoration of Mankind after the Flood, And thirdly, Under the Gospel, in that more perfect re-establishment by Christ. These three Laws do certainly oblige all Mankind, as soon as they are sufficiently made known to them." (Grotius, Hugo, The Rights of War and Peace, Book One, Print, Liberty Fund, Pages 164-166)
The pastor said he was willing to "fight and die for our Constitution," but he is unwilling to preach the divine Natural Law principles upon which our Constitution (including the Second Amendment) are based? Such is the height of ignorance and inconsistency.
Furthermore, whether he realizes it or not, the pastor's stated philosophy is identical to that of the doctrine of "two spheres," which was commonly taught in Germany's churches under the Nazi regime. Hitler's government instructed Germany's pastors and churches to teach Romans 13 as requiring Christians to always submit to civil authority. It was taught that Christ has sovereignty over men's hearts in the spiritual realm, but civil government has authority over everything else. This is exactly what the pastor is saying when he says, "We are called to only one form of liberty, and it is not so frail as that offered by any human government. The liberty we are called to proclaim is the liberty that was purchased by the shed blood of our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus, at Calvary, the only liberty which can never be taken nor infringed."
To say that we are only called to "one form of liberty," meaning the spiritual liberty of the heart produced by a soul's spiritual redemption, the pastor is relegating all other forms of liberty to the dominion of civil government. Whether he realizes it or not, the pastor is preaching the Hitlerian doctrine of "two spheres."
Ladies and gentlemen, the doctrine of "two spheres" is blasphemous and heretical. "All authority is given unto me," Jesus said. That means all human authority is subservient to His authority. When men (even pastors) cede to human government the sovereign authority of Jesus Christ, they have become idolaters–whether they realize it or not.
God's men throughout history (Biblical and Ecclesiastical) have been the most outspoken opponents of the evils of civil government at every level. One cannot read virtually any book of the Old Testament without reading the stories of courageous champions of God who defied and resisted civil authority when that authority became oppressive and illegitimate. And, remember, the New Testament says that the Old Testament was written for our "learning." (Romans 15:4) Are we New Testament believers to learn nothing from over 4,000 years of Biblical Natural Law teaching in the Old Testament? Do you mean to say that today's passive and compliant pastors are more spiritual than the prophets Micaiah, Jeremiah, and Daniel? Are they more spiritual than Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? More spiritual than Gideon, Barak, and Jephthah? Are today's pastors who refuse to say anything controversial in the pulpit, who delight in offending no one, who have, for the most part, become the pathetic pawns of government more spiritual than Martin Luther, Huldrych Zwingli, John Calvin, John Robinson, John Peter Muhlenberg, James Caldwell, or Jonas Clark?
And I also must assume that the pastor doesn't take Jesus literally when he COMMANDED His disciples to buy a sword even if it meant selling one's clothes in order to afford it. (Luke 22:36) If that doesn't make the right and duty to keep and bear arms a divine mandate, I don't know what does.
And remember, too, that the sword Jesus told His disciples to buy was the same sword that the Apostle Paul said that civil government bore in Romans 13. Jesus was not talking about a pocketknife, folks. He was talking about the most sophisticated, efficient self-defense tool known to man at the time: the Roman sword. For us in modern times that would be the equivalent of an AR-15-style semi-automatic rifle. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, the gift of liberty (in all of its forms) is as spiritual and godly as the gift of physical life or the gift of spiritual salvation.
Besides, does not the New Testament teach that everything a Christian does is spiritual in nature? Is a Christian not performing a spiritual work when he or she gets a job to provide for his or her family? Is he or she not performing a spiritual work when they sit around a table and partake of the provision and fellowship of the home? Is a Christian not performing a spiritual work when he or she protects their little ones by locking the doors at night or installing an alarm system or arming themselves against an intruder? Are we only spiritual when we are at church or when we are reading the Bible? Is not everything a Christian does thought to be spiritual? How then can pastors omit the Natural Law duties and responsibilities that God intends to govern our entire lives from their preaching and teaching? Does not the Scripture say, "But if any provide not for his own, and specially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel"? (I Timothy 5:8 KJV) The Apostle was speaking specifically about children providing for a widowed mother, but does not providing in the general sense include protection as much as it does provision? Therefore, can we not say that being capable and willing to protect our families against harm and danger is just as spiritual as putting food on the table or clothes on their backs? Regarding this verse, the famed Bible scholar, Albert Barnes, said, "According to our measure, we are to anticipate what will be the probable needs of our families, and to make arrangements to meet them." Certainly, the "probable needs of our families" includes physical protection. You mean to tell me that this pastor is not going to preach this truth of the Gospel from his pulpit? How dare he not? Pastors MUST preach the Natural Law principles of liberty in order to fulfill their divine calling.
In my column last week I said, "If you attend a church and didn't hear your pastor oppose the Obama/Feinstein gun control bills from the pulpit earlier this year, YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THAT CHURCH. The only thing holding this republic together is the people's right to keep and bear arms–especially semi-automatic rifles with large-capacity magazines. By refusing to resist evil, your pastor has become an enemy of liberty. Wittingly or not, he is helping to put the chains of slavery around the necks of your children and grandchildren." I think this pastor proves my point.
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: email@example.com
Please visit Chuck's web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
Our Friends Are Killing Us
November 15, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
There is a prophetic verse of Scripture that records the conquering Messiah as being asked about the wounds that are in his hands. He responds, "Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends." (Zechariah 13:6 KJV) Indeed. It wasn't the Romans that were fixated with killing Christ; it was the Lord's own brethren. "He came unto his own, and his own received him not." (John 1:11 KJV) In like manner, our nation is quickly losing its liberties and Natural rights, not because of our enemies, but because of our so-called friends and brothers.
Edmund Burke summarized it beautifully: "All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing." And, for the most part, that is what good men are doing today: nothing!
As regular readers of this column know, I am passionate in my defense of the Natural right of self-defense. I firmly believe that the only thing standing between us and tyranny is the right of the people to keep and bear arms. The freedom of speech, the right to assemble and redress government, the right to be secure in our own homes, the right to a trial by jury, the freedom of worship, etc., all depend on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. When the people of America surrender this right, all of the other rights will quickly disappear.
Furthermore, Daniel Webster was absolutely right when he said, "Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6,000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world." Amen!
Not only does the Second Amendment protect the liberties of the people of the United States, the Second Amendment protects the free peoples of the world. Without the armed citizenry of the people of America, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, France, and the rest of the free world would plummet into abject tyranny and oppression. Look at how socialistic and enslaved people in these countries already are. Can one imagine how quickly they would plunge into the Dark Ages without the power and influence of the last bulwark of liberty: a free and armed United States of America?
Daniel Webster uttered another profound truth: "There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter: from the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men and become the instruments of their own undoing."
Ladies and gentlemen, that is exactly what many of our so-called friends and brothers have become: "instruments of their own undoing." It is not the liberals, socialists, amoralists, elitists, globalists, etc., who are killing us; it is the pastors, Christians, conservatives, Republicans, etc., who sit back and do nothing that are killing us.
Let me say it plainly: neocon Republicans do far more damage to the cause of liberty than do liberal Democrats. Do-nothing pastors and Christians do far more damage to the cause of liberty than do atheists and agnostics. Compromising conservatives do far more damage to the cause of liberty than do liberals.
Come on, folks! Think about it: who endangered the cause of independence more: King George III or Benedict Arnold? A known enemy is far less dangerous than an enemy who pretends to be your friend.
All over America, our "friends" are selling out the cause of liberty. Every pastor who refuses to publicly repudiate the forces that are attacking our freedom is selling out the cause of liberty. Every Republican who refuses to stand firm against the forces that are attacking our freedom is selling out the cause of liberty. Every conservative who refuses to resist the forces that are attacking our freedom is selling out the cause of liberty.
There is nothing new about big-government zealots. They have been with us ever since the Tower of Babel. They were with us in 1775 and 1776. Freedom does not depend upon the absence of would-be tyrants; it depends upon the presence of those who are willing to resist would-be tyrants. And that is what seems to be vanishing.
Folks, this is an absolute truism: not all Christians are friends of liberty; not all pastors are friends of liberty; not all conservatives are friends of liberty; not all Republicans are friends of liberty; not all military personnel are friends of liberty; not all policemen are friends of liberty; not all attorneys are friends of liberty; not all physicians are friends of liberty; not all teachers and professors are friends of liberty; and not all gun owners are friends of liberty. Anyone who refuses to resist the forces of evil that attack our Constitution, Declaration, and Bill of Rights is no friend of liberty.
For example, I have been a long-time subscriber to a couple of gun magazines: Guns and Ammo and Handguns. Both of these magazines are published by the same parent company. When President Obama and Senator Feinstein attempted to ban semi-automatic rifles and full-size rifle and pistol magazines earlier this year, I kept waiting for the editors and writers of these two magazines to sound the clarion call of resistance. I waited and waited and waited. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. Throughout the entire debate, there was not one peep of protest to these egregious gun control laws proposed by Obama and Feinstein in these magazines. This in spite of the fact that practically every page of both magazines is filled with the very arms that would have been banned to the general public had Obama and Feinstein gotten their way. Had the gun-grabbing tyrants been victorious, I suppose Guns and Ammo magazine would simply have re-invented itself in order to fit into the new Amerika in much the same way that so many companies did in Nazi Germany. I guess they would simply have changed the name of the magazine to Military and Police Guns and Ammo.
I wrote the publisher of the two magazines mentioned above and explained why, after so many years as a faithful subscriber, I was not renewing my subscription. Of course, I received no reply. And now I know why.
Writing for Breitbart.com, AWR Hawkins filed this report: "In the December issue of Guns & Ammo magazine, editor Dick Metcalf uses his 'Backstop' column to argue that all constitutional rights need regulation, including the 2nd Amendment.
"TheTruthAboutGuns.com has scanned and posted a copy of the column online. In it, Metcalf explains why he chose to address the regulation of constitutional rights: 'I bring this up because way too many gun owners still believe that any regulation of the right to keep and bear arms is an infringement. The fact is that all Constitutional rights are regulated, always have been, and need to be.'
"Metcalf says he receives 'bags of mail every year' from people complaining of the myriad regulations related to concealed carry permits. He says these readers 'typically argue' that the 2nd Amendment 'is all the authority they need' to keep and bear arms, to carry a gun with them where they go.
"In response, Metcalf writes: 'I [wonder] whether those same people believe that just anybody should be able to buy a vehicle and take it out on public roadways without any kind of driver's training, test, or license.'
"Metcalf misses the point. The 2nd Amendment protects a natural right; that's why it is not to be infringed. Owning and operating a vehicle is not a natural right, so comparing it to gun ownership is like comparing the ability to own and operate an airplane with the rights to freedom of speech and religion.
"This is an important point because our Founders' central reason for creating the Bill of Rights was to hedge in a body of natural rights as off-limits to government regulation and interference.
"The 2nd Amendment says, 'A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.' Metcalf has seized on the words 'well regulated,' taking them out of context to the detriment of 'shall not be infringed.'"
See the report at:
Guns & Ammo Editor: All Constitutional Rights Need Regulation, Even 2nd Amendment
Hooray for Mr. Hawkins! He has a grasp of Natural Law. That is something that Dick Metcalf obviously doesn't possess. The sad thing is Mr. Metcalf occupies a very trusted and influential position that should be utilized to protect the Second Amendment. Instead, he is using his position to help destroy the Second Amendment. Like I said, not all gun owners are the friends of liberty.
But as long as Guns and Ammo magazine is rolling in the dough, don't expect any change. I, for one, am not going to help pay a gun magazine editor's salary that is using the money I send him to use the pages of the magazine to facilitate the destruction of the liberties that keep my children and grandchildren free. That means I have kissed my subscription to Guns and Ammo and Handguns magazines goodbye.
By the same token, how long are Christians today who say they believe in the Second Amendment (and the rest of the Bill of Rights) going to keep sending their tithes and offerings to these churches where the pastors refuse to publicly resist these draconian gun control bills such as were recently introduced by Obama and Feinstein? How long are they going to keep filling the pews of these do-nothing churches? As long as these say-nothing pastors see their pews and offering plates full, don't expect anything to change.
I will say it plainly: if you attend a church and didn't hear your pastor oppose the Obama/Feinstein gun control bills from the pulpit earlier this year, YOU NEED TO GET OUT OF THAT CHURCH. The only thing holding this republic together is the people's right to keep and bear arms–especially semi-automatic rifles with large-capacity magazines. By refusing to resist evil, your pastor has become an enemy of liberty. Wittingly or not, he is helping to put the chains of slavery around the necks of your children and grandchildren. Why would you stay and support such a pastor and church?
As Christ was betrayed and rejected by His "friends," so, too, the liberties and freedoms of our country are being betrayed and rejected by its "friends."
Chuck Baldwin is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice
You can reach him at: firstname.lastname@example.com
Please visit Chuck's web site at: http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com
The Foreclosure Meltdown Was Planned – A Whistle Blower Speaks Out
November 12, 2013 by Administrator · Leave a Comment
"The trade in derivatives, using home notes, was designed as a Ponzi scheme. Excel knew it. Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft (CWT), knew it. My fellow junior associates laughed at me, senior associates got mad at me, and the senior partners ultimately asked me to resign or be fired when I wrote repeated lengthy memoranda explaining this out to them." – Charles Lincoln, III, PH.D., Harvard, J.D., University of Chicago, School of Law
Who is Charles Lincoln, III?
In October, 1993, Charles Lincoln, III began work as an associate at Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft (CWT). He had just completed a judicial clerkship for Kenneth L. Ryskamp, U. S. District Judge, Southern District of Florida. During his clerkship with Judge Ryskamp, Lincoln had planned, coordinated, and framed the jury questions for a very large securities fraud trial in Palm Beach against Alan B. Levan's Florida-based BankAtlantic Bancorp and Subsidiary Bank Atlantic Financial Company (BAFCO), which were heavily involved in Florida Real Estate from 1952-2011.
What he was about to learn, and challenge, would change the course of his life, from one of privilege to destitution.
In many ways, Lincoln might have appeared exactly the kind of associate who could be expected to make partner rapidly. Ambitious, bright, and energetic, CWT hired him because he received top law school grades in Securities, Antitrust, and Banking Law, as well as for his clerkship experience in Securities & Banking cases in the post-S & L Collapse period in Florida. He had also been President of the Environmental Law Society at University of Chicago, School of Law.
In law school, he had become intrigued by the role of securities in establishing, maintaining, and shaping the global-elites of the 20th century. The complexities of hierarchical and socio-political structures had been his greatest interest in Anthropology & History at Harvard.
In his first month at CWT he turned in 393 billable hours wildly exceeding any expectations. First year associates are expected to bill at least 2000 hours per year, Lincoln managed to do this in less than six months. At Cadwalader, Lincoln aspired to a professional specialization in securities litigation, fraud, shareholder's and directors' relations, rights and obligations, general agency and relationships of fiduciary duty.
Lincoln had taken up law as a second career after a decade as a working archeologist in Mexico & Central America, during which time he wrote a doctoral dissertation "Ethnicity & Social Organization at Chichen Itza, Yucatan" at Harvard's Peabody Museum. His dissertation resulted from a project he directed in his 20s, funded by the National Geographic Society, Harvard's Peabody Museum of Archaeology & Ethnology, and private donors such as Doris Zemurray Stone and novelist James A. Michener.
As an archaeologist, Lincoln had become frustrated, acutely aware of problems mounting in the world, which originated in finance. Determined to use law creatively as a force for positive change, he enrolled at the University of Chicago, School of Law. At the school, he served as President of the Environmental Law Society (ELS), presiding on a year-long symposium at the Law School in 1990-1991, concerning oil spills in the immediate wake of the Exxon Valdez disaster of March 24, 1989.
Raised as the grandson, and effectively adopted son, of a wealthy petro-chemical engineer & military supplier in Highland Park, Dallas, Texas, Lincoln was not a stranger to the better addresses in New York. The welcome dinner held at the Waldorf Astoria for the twenty associates hired at the same time, of which he was one, did not impress him. Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft, though claiming to be the oldest, founded in 1792, the same year as the New York Stock Exchange, was by no means the largest.
Lincoln knew Cadwalader's history and greatest claim to fame and power. This is its status as primary law firm to the Bank of New York (BNY), now BNY-Mellon, founded in 1784 by Alexander Hamilton, 8 years before Cadwalader opened its doors under a different name.
The long relationship between the oldest bank and the oldest Wall Street Law Firm include Cadwalader's role in setting up BNY to be the very first law firm to be traded on the NYSE. Cadwalader's historical policies have consistently, matched and supported those of the BNY and the thinking of Alexander Hamilton.
Cadwalader's flagship office was then at 100 Maiden Lane, in New York 10038, close to the heart of the financial district in New York.
Having been hired on for Cadwalader's litigation department, Lincoln encountered a department which was essentially inactive in 1993. The only the only active cases involved municipal defense to voting rights act cases in California.
Even the litigators, in 1993, were all working on one project, one particular project which was shrouded in great mystery and secrecy.
The Excel Mortgage Project
Instead of litigation, Lincoln along with all other first year associates, were temporarily to work with the "Structured Finance Department" on preparing the registration statement of Excel Mortgage. Lincoln's role was to review and assess a series of some 1500 Arizona residential properties in relationship to state and federal environmental law and geographic issues, such as cultural resource management, and other points relating to the entire history and possible condition and liabilities of these properties.
The 1500 or so properties, subject of his study, were earmarked as assets being "deposited" into the Excel Mortgage Bond Fund, along with promissory notes originated by a number of creditors on homes conforming to a certain size and value profile, but having no other relationship. These were not part of the same communities, not part of a single development project, not built by a common builder, or anything else. This struck Lincoln as strange. Why "pool" all these unrelated properties together? And would be in the completed "pool?" Why was the Bank of New York underwriting this project?
Enter the Securitized Derivative
Excel Mortgage, a highly valued client of CWT was about to become part of history, doing something that had never been done before: registering a bond for sale to the public, which bond was based on pooled notes, a hybrid of debt and equity interests in and contingent claims to realty. This type of financial instrument had never before been sold to the public, though it had existed for about 25 years in the "private placement" market.
Lincoln was unwittingly participating in the first initial public offering (IPO) of a bond, a debt instrument, derived in part from promissory notes, 'debts,' and in part from contingent pledges of title, 'secured equity,' in residential real estate.
Securitized derivatives were being born at 100 Maiden Lane.
Bernard Madoff, who founded the NASDAQ when he was 33, was a prominent client of CWT, walking the floors of Cadwalader late at night.
The entire staff of CWT, underwritten by the Bank of New York, supporting Excel, were charged getting these new-fangled "derivative" instruments past examination by the Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC).
This was an arduous, and expensive task, necessitating a "lint-picking" review, before these 'derivative instruments' could be packaged under the name of Excel Mortgage and offered both on the NYSE and NASDAQ. An SEC Registration Statement is an application for Federal Blessings affirming investing in a certain stock, bond, or "other instrument or obligation" is a reasonable investment for an average investor to make.
Supposedly "sophisticated investors" can do whatever they want to do, so long as it's not expressly fraudulent or otherwise illegal. But the average grandmother investing for her grandkids' college needs Federal Protection. Like "Social Security", the concept of "Security" in the "Securities and Exchange Commission" is essentially a matter of "Trust us, We're the Government."
SEC Registration Statements require, prior to sale of any debt or equity instrument to the public, disclosure of all a companies' assets and liabilities along with the qualifications of its officers and directors, and more.
Nobody outside of the law firms who prepare such things and SEC staff, would ever read this, but preparing the registration would bring CWT millions of dollars.
Excel Mortgage, however, was not selling stock in itself as an enterprise or an entity: it was selling a pooled collection of utterly unrelated and unconnected and barely similar promissory notes with contingent interests in, and access to, equity ownership of real property owned by 1500 different people and subject to 1500 separate notes and mortgages.
1993 – Anomalies, and Questions, Emerge
Who was to supervise its operation after "Registration"? What coherence did this "enterprise" have ASIDE FROM the Registration Statement? Would anyone ever recognize it as a "business?" If so, how and why? Lincoln was puzzled and perplexed, and not satisfied with any of the answers he was getting.
The SEC did not appear to inquire into post-issuance management or maintenance of the pool of assets. Once "securitized" the notes would still be handled by individual originators or assigned to servicers. Lincoln asked "what was there left to be assigned or handled once the notes and mortgages were pooled?"
The SEC is charged with protecting small individuals and the corporate investor.
The SEC is expected to be involved in examining and making inquiries about a company's claims for potential and predictions of earnings or profitability.
On what opinion or data would these be based for the Excel Mortgage Pool, since there weren't any?
The opinions used were based on the "normal statistical performance of similarly credit rated and similarly valued mortgages in similar markets from studies of a group at MIT Sloan School of Management headed by a then no-name professor Frank J. Fabozzi. Fabozzi, with close ties to the Bank of New York, was also among the occasional Night walkers at Cadwalader.
The process of preparing an SEC registration statement is a gold-mine for lawyers inclined to highly detailed work. Such a process for registration can normally require Lincoln said, over a thousand individual revisions. The Excel Mortgage registration would be subject to over 2,000 revisions, but in all this there was still no attention given to claims of ownership, transfer of title, the laws of agency and fiduciary duty of managers, any of the concerns which normally plague the corporate world and frame the concern of SEC examiners and securities lawyers.
What's In It for CWT?
The careers of young associates, and even older partners, at firms such as Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft, Chadbourne & Park, Sullivan & Cromwell, or Skadden, Arps, depend upon work measured in billable hours. Cadwalader had a "billing goal" of multiple millions of dollars for the Excel Mortgage registration project.
Lincoln recalls three relevant details:
First, the firm was never able to reach it's own goal of billable hours by the time the project was complete.
Second, the firm sent constant "internal memoranda" by e-mail to all employees, down to the lowliest legal secretaries and paralegals, to work harder and BILL MORE HOURS. It was simply inconceivable that Cadwalader might have to refund any part of enormous retainer paid for the Excel Mortgage, SEC Registration Statement project. The money for this had all been advanced by BNY, who counted on Cadwalader to do the job which needed to be done.
Third, the practical purpose of any billable hours stood quite above and beyond any possibility of doubt or question. In fact, any and all billings, however described, so long as they were assigned to the Excel Mortgage Registration Statement Account, were welcomed.
Lincoln was therefore able to unleash his curiosity, delving late at night after hours into issues which ranged far, far afield from the environmental history, condition, and culturally or historically significant use or contents of the subject properties.
Despite some losses during the 2007-2008, CWT was in 1993-1994, and remains today, the top firm representing the creators and implementing the designs of "structure finance and derivative securitization" world wide. Lincoln wanted to understand what he was doing, and what he was involved in creating. The more he found out, the more troubled he became.
As an entry-level associate at Cadwalader Lincoln received his own office and secretary and paralegal. Little time was spent interacting with others in the office. A quick question might be asked but friends did not come quickly. Each associate knew what mattered was the hours billed, and friendly socialization was hard to itemize even on the Cadwalader charts. Hanging over the heads of all new associates was the goal of "making partner."
As an anthropologist, Lincoln saw immediately the subculture of the law firm had its own standards, values, and mandates. The firm had high standards for dress which included ties which remained in place all day, regulations for tie clips or tie pins and cufflinks and belts and, of course, shoes, whether white or "normal."
Standards for women included skirts below the knee and mandated the length for sleeves and the height of necklines and collars. Even the length of hair, for women, was described and outlined in the firm guide, although one paralegal from the litigation department was granted a special exemption, for cause. Known to and noted by everyone in the firm, for his ponytail and paisley shirts, the associate was hired from SDS in California as "our eyes and ears to the lower classes," as the senior partners consistently and uniformly described him.
Lincoln, as an undergraduate, had twice been voted, "best dressed man on campus", but the whole Cadwalader atmospheric ethos of bloodless conformity, as noted above, was for him one of stifling suffocation.
The anomalies which began to intrude on Lincoln's consciousness during his late hours trying to understand the "entity" being sold almost as if it were a company or entity, without actually being one, became an obsession. At first, this lead only to more billable hours, but the trip down the rabbit hole became increasingly disconcerting.
All questions of real value or reasonable expectations, lead the inquirer to the Bank of New York's Heart, ending any questions.
The Disconnect between Law and Derivatives
Lincoln's law school classes, under the University of Chicago's Andrew M. Rosenfield, William Landes, Geoffrey Parsons Miller, and Richard A. Posner, and from his further and ongoing research as a Law Clerk with Ryskamp and now at Cadwalader, had considered the question of real value and reasonable expectations.
Issuing and selling securities, debt or equity, takes place when a company, or group of people who have control over assets they planned to use to make money, or with which they were already doing something generally profitable, or wanted to raise new capital and/or liquidate their ownership and interests in an ongoing and successful venture.
This did not come close to describing what Bank of New York had underwritten for Cadwalader to prepare for Excel Mortgage.
This SEC Registration Statement gave birth to new type of "debt-equity-derivative debt instrument" which had none of the elements or characteristics of a traditional enterprise at all. It was PAPER MADE FROM PAPER, SECURED BY PAPER.
Indeed, the Excel Mortgage Bond, which was soon to be popped onto the market with an SEC certification of Federal conformity was a creation of the lawyers, by the lawyers, for the lawyers.
As one of the most senior associates, now firm Chairman, Christopher White explained to Lincoln when he asked him, "Who will own the interests in these notes once they are securitized?" He grinned boyishly from ear-to-ear and said, "we will, because everyone will have to pay us to tell them."
Without any unifying manager or common owner for these properties, the pool of notes struck Lincoln as like nothing so much as "res nullius" in Ancient Roman Law—the legal category of "property belonging to no one", e.g. virgin forests, wild beasts and undomesticated fur and game animals of every kind, the un-owned and un-ownable creatures of the deep.
Excel Mortgage was going to pool all these "derivative" real estate mortgage interests, whose only commonalities marking them as similar were the price, promissory note, range, size and "single-family home-residential" nature of the properties, and the credit or FICO scores of the owners.
Having "pooled" these "cherry picked" assets, Excel was going to create a strange creature without an owner until either default or foreclosure moved someone to homestead these unownable notes back to control and "ownership" again.
In essence, the concept was, "everything belongs to everyone in common" and "debt is not individual but collective."No one owes his or her debt to any person, but everyone owes it to everyone to pay. This concept seemed, even to Lincoln in 1994, strangely reminiscent of Aldous Huxley's "Brave New World."
The Excel Mortgage Bond to be securitized reflected an artificial "derivative" interests in a non-coherent, uncontrolled mass of wealth, which could and would have to be tamed individually, just like hunting the wild game of the woods.
There would be only a pretense of relationship between the notes originated and the notes collected upon.
There was no one to oversee the transfers, no one to audit the exchanges of values; there were quite simply no responsible parties anymore than anyone can take charge of wheat chaff thrown into the wind or the by-products of a paper mill dumped into a river, yet these "derivative by-products" were being STRUCTURED into something said to have value.
Around 1500 or 2000 properties had been collected together and placed in a basket or pool. But no single plan of real estate development or construction or sales was involved, nor was any contemplated. Nothing joined these properties as a class. Most were not new, but merely resales.
Raising the Issues
Lincoln dug in further, producing and circulating to all his fellow associates and the senior partners at Cadwalader his own memoranda: lengthy studies and analysis on issues such as the fiduciary obligations in the Law of Agency.
Fiduciary responsibility of issuers of securities to purchasers, holder in due course doctrine, implied covenants of good faith and fair dealing between parties to a contract, privity of contract itself, and commercial paper doctrines such as endorsement and ownership as holder, and the comparative rights and priorities of "naked" holders vs. "perfected" holders.
As Lincoln's months stretched out among the whirring circular brushes which polished the green and white marble floors of CWT, he spent more-and-more time with the partners of real estate department, which seemed to understand his worries and concerns better than others, certainly better than the Fourth or Fifth year associate in charge of coordinating the Excel Mortgage Project who kept explaining "this is my road to partner; if I can finish this and make it happen, I won't have to worry about how to live on these lousy six figure salaries anymore, I'll finally be making millions, and that's why we all came here, isn't it?"
Questions Find Answers
Since it was not why Lincoln had arrived at 100 Maiden Lane this presented a dead end for him.
The real estate connection, and an aborted plan to open a CWT office in California, permitted him to compare the Excel Mortgage project with another, more traditional real estate development Sacramento, California.
An extremely prominent CWT client based in Los Angeles was complaining and encountering major problems because of a parallel but separate and distinct set of misapplications of the law of agency, fiduciary duty, and obligation, also originating from the same historical "Cadwalader Memorandum" on transfer of interests which had triggered the explosion of derivative innovations in the securities realm.
With CWT acting as counsel for an old and distinguished California family and collection of enterprises, the Ahmansons, tracts totaling several dozen suburban "townships" in El Dorado, Placer, Sacramento, Sutter, Yolo, and Yuba Counties had sold by the Ahmanson family to a Japanese firm and retained an "Ahmanson Construction Group."
The intention was to build a resort in the area for the benefit of the Japanese owners acting as "construction agents."
Normally construction is performed pursuant to agreements with "independent contractors" who make estimates but are not obligated to continue working if their estimated budgets prove insufficient to complete a project. The Japanese investors were seeking to securitize all the sales in this immense, almost unimaginable project.
Involved, were the Bank of New York, with Cadwalader's long-time California based H.F. Ahmanson holding Company, parent company both to Ahmanson Construction and the since failed Home Savings of America Bank.
The "construction agency relationship" which Cadwalader had created imposed devastating duties and obligations on Ahmanson. As agents, Ahmanson Construction was obligated to use its own money to achieve the ends of the principal, in this case the Japanese company which had purchased the real estate but woefully underfunded the construction of the vast tracts of homes. Ahmanson could not make a profit or even break even. In effect, they had become slaves to the Japanese and might never be compensated.
Lincoln, having reviewed the facts, pointed out to Stephen Meyer, Richard C. Field, and John McDermott, the partners most closely associated with Ahmanson, that by not only failing to protect Ahmanson, but in fact, selling them into quasi-slavery as agents under a contract without guarantees of adequate funding to execute agency obligations, the firm had made a ghastly mistake amounting to nothing less than legal malpractice. This was a breach of fiduciary duty in and of itself.
Lincoln was told, "This firm has a policy of doing no wrong. Therefore, you are wrong. The firm is never wrong. You should reevaluate your conclusions."
This happened in 1994, only two and a half years after the sensational October 1991 confirmation hearings for Justice Clarence Thomas. The Paula Jones allegations against the new President Clinton, were beginning. "Sexual harassment" became a great boogie-man haunting law firms all over America.
Consequences are Clarified
After reading his memorandum on the Ahmanson project, these senior partners asked Lincoln to leave the room.
When they called Lincoln back in, they told him, very solemnly,
"you know you need to keep your nose clean around here. We have all received reports that you have taken your secretary Alex to lunch more than once and what's more you gave Holly, the Senior Secretary in recruitment & personnel, flowers for her birthday and Valentines Day. So just remember: never ever do anything, anything at all, that you would not want to see published on the front page of the New York Times. Anything here can be, you know, and anything will be, at the drop of a pin, because everyone is very sensitive to questions of decorum these days, and, after all, you are a married man."
Lincoln reports he did not even bother to ask how they happened to think of this only after a three hour meeting concerning the Ahmanson contract of construction agency, when he had never heard about any concerns of this nature before.
At work, Lincoln continued to pile up daunting billable hours doing research on a growing list of issues, each going back to the dissection of the elements of value, which were being "deposited" into the derivative pool. He was determined to understand what was really happening. Why were they doing this?
Confirming what Christopher White had told him before, a Properties Department attorney named Stephen Meyer, advised Lincoln to keep his mouth shut, this happening shortly before Lincoln was asked to resign. Both men had made it clear, in nearly the same words, that Lincoln should be careful about questioning or criticizing firm's plan for transforming the economy of the Western World, "this is how things are being done these days. We do because we get to charge everybody. This is how the whole world will be managed by 2020, we have a plan."
As Lincoln was to discover, there was a plan. A book called "Cadwalader 2020" contained a comprehensive manifesto of how the world would be changed by the year 2020. Unsecuritized individual debt would no longer exist.
During Lincoln's entire time at CWT, the firm maintained a high level of security over the Excel Mortgage work, work which finally involved everyone at the firm. All who worked at the firm had to submit to a frisk on leaving work. No papers or laptop computers or diskettes, this still the era of 3.5 inch diskettes, were to be taken home or removed from the premises, and no external e-mail was allowed connecting to firm e-mail. All firm e-mail was in fact carefully monitored.
To entirely use up the retainer on the Excel work, Lincoln and all the other first and second year associates found themselves in a large conference room supervised by some of the partners pasting labels on files.
The partners had to review the signature pages before officers of Excel would sign the documents, and the associates were there to prepare and affix signature tabs, saying "sign here, Mr. So-and-So, on to the final pages of Statement before final submission.
Lincoln said it seemed odd to use attorney billable time to prepare, double-check, and verify signature tabs, even on a super important document until you considered the driving desire of CWT to maximize their billable hours.
Billing rates were $150.00 an hour for new associates, $60 – 80 an hour for paralegals, and $40 – 50 an hour for secretaries. On being told that he had failed to bill his secretary's and paralegals' time for bringing him after hours meals and snacks, Lincoln asked the senior associate in charge of organizing the Excel Mortgage Project how much the firm billed out for the hourly operators of the automated circular marble floor polishers which whirred seemingly ceaselessly day and night throughout the offices. Epstein just glared at Lincoln silently. Those hours were not billable.
CWT was determined to drain every possible penny from the work done for Excel Mortgage, and did. This appeared to be consistent with the Bank of New York's plan in financing the project in the first place.
As Lincoln's research continued, the business plan being followed by Excel Mortgage also emerged, in all of its complexity and disturbing detail. The company had seen the potential to redefine a debt, recreating it as equity, and equity can be used as collateral for originating and extending more debt, which can be hybridized with contingent interests in an ever expanding pyramid of debt, doubled into equity, doubled into debt…. And again, this was the CWT-BNY plan for perpetual inflation.
There was quite simply no plan other than to pool and securitize the notes to issue X millions of dollars in bonds. These would be sold on the major stock exchanges, generating equity. The equity would be used to extend or originate more money to the borrowing public who then "sell" or give their new notes. This then generates more equity through debt, a constantly pooling and production of derivatives then sell to continue the cycle.
Ponzi Scheme Emerges
After his first month of painful research, it took Charles an additional 6 weeks to figure out and map the nature of the pyramid, another 6 weeks to check his work and accept the results, and then he started writing memoranda, one after the other, each one critiqued by other associates or the senior partners and getting longer and longer.
His first memorandum was entitled "The Law of Fiduciary Duty in Agency."
His second was "Transfer and acceptance of instruments by endorsement and receipt: who is responsible?"
There were at least four others, the longest of which was over 500 pages.
Lincoln's conclusion was breathtakingly simple: "merger of identities destroys the identities merged, there is no individual liability for debt in the absence of privity of contract, and no privity of contract without individual identity of contracting parties."
It was clear from the elated attitude of the Senior Partners that designing and implementing the Excel Registration Statement, as the first IPO of its kind, stood in their minds as their most important contribution to western civilization, as envisioned through the world of "Cadwalader 2020".
Finally, Lincoln was asked to resign, about six weeks shy of his first anniversary. His questions and concerns had not ended and the Partners were becoming hostile.
Leaving with a not quite "Golden Parachute" consisting of a $50,000 severance payment, he had vocally identified a series of challenges which the management of Cadwalader had no intention of addressing. It was now clear to Lincoln these were not any kind of mistake or oversight.
Lincoln's final memorandum at Cadwalader opined, perhaps overestimating general knowledge of the law, "no mortgage note included in the Excel mortgage pool will ever be lawfully collected in the event of borrower/credit-debtor default, because the pooling of identities obliterates individual obligations and rights, and discrete transactions lie at the foundation of our system of contract and debt."
At the meeting where he finally resigned, the Senior partners, perhaps understanding the American public better than Lincoln, said to him, "Who is ever going to notice lack of privity of contract besides you? They teach you all those archaic "Elements of Law" at the University of Chicago, we know all about it, but nobody does business that way anymore. The economy of the future is now, nobody cares about endorsements and signatures anymore, it's all going to be electronic, anyhow."
Lincoln responded, "well, then, you're going to have to change the law." And the masters of the CWT universe said, "Don't let the door hit you on your way out, we write the law, we interpret the law, we tell everyone in America what the law means, that's what we do.
The Price Paid
The next nineteen years of Lincoln's life have been filled with constant attacks from the legal establishment from directions and in ways which exacted a hideous toll on him and those he loves. He has repeatedly learned what it is to be hated, rejected, despised, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. In those two decades he lost his wife, his birth family, and his son, all his inherited property, including several homes and a gigantic private library and personal collections of fossils, numismatic, painted, and sculptural art, his law licenses in three states and even his own not-at-all-insubstantial investments.
Lincoln notes that, after what can only be called a blessed beginning in life with his loving grandparents supporting him, an exceptional education, and basically a privileged and charmed first three decades of life, his consistent pattern of loss only began when he was 33-34 years with his entry into private law practice at Cadwalader, in what, quite simply should have been "the best of all possible worlds."
Left with nothing, he refused to quit.
All of these events began after those critical months, less than a year, that he had spent at Cadwalader, Wickersham, & Taft.
As historical events unfolded, parallel to his own life, his worst projections regarding the impact of the new market in mortgage derivatives proved to be frighteningly accurate. Lincoln began to research how the runaway Ponzi Scheme could be halted, and reversed.
A Solution
According to Lincoln, for the past ten years, his life has been entirely shaped by the mortgage crisis and its origin in securitization. The question which, he says, drove him is how private property and integrity of contract could restored in the face of the "New World Order" Plan. This is the plan Lincoln first became aware from the internal firm booklet "Cadwalader 2020," while he was working at CWT in 1993-1994.
Lincoln believes such restoration is possible. The systemic fraud has not gone unnoticed, as CWT and BNY clearly thought would be the case. Their concern is registering through the rising wave of settlements which are now extinguishing the cases they deem most threatening. These cases are now settling on the courthouse steps for significant amounts and return of the real estate, free and clear of mortgage related liens.
Banks understand the ominous possibilities they face if juries realize what really happened. And today, it is not just Cadwalader. Nearly every major financial law firm in the United States who is involved, directly or indirectly, in the implementation, defense, or coverup of securitization is potentially liable.
This potential for liability makes the settlements paid out by cigarette companies seem like chump change.
As long as such settlements are few and remain outside the view of the courts, the banks are safe. But the moment juries hear the facts, and see the reality, the banks are toast, and they know it.
And here, Lincoln said, is the leverage point from which change can be enacted. More cases must be litigated using the facts so cases won in the light of day can become case law and precedent. The war can be won, but will be costly. This challange requires, along with several lines of attack, the means for funding litigation.
One possible solution is to solicit private direct investment in litigation for individual cases in exchange for a share of the awards by the jury. Another is to design an "anti-derivative derivative" plan which bundles and pools both investments and potential awards, allowing Americans at all income levels to invest in the effort.
For this derivative, investors would understand both the risk and the benefits of investing.
Lincoln's team, they know, cannot fund its efforts as the banks do, by an out of control pyramid scheme piling debt on equity to create more debt, but Lincoln sees a certain symmatry achieved by using the weapons created by the originators of the problem against them.
Either solution, Lincoln says, lies directly in the hands of Americans. If the money is available, litigation can go forward. He and the team see a build out across the country, with litigation taking place in every state as attorneys sign on and funds are available.
They have already begun. Lincoln's team is now working with homeowners and the currently small number of attorneys willing to litigate. They have no illusions. They are aware they are going up against the most powerful institutions in the world. But they also know that, if they are successful, the crack now forming in the protections constructed by CWT, BNY, and so many others, makes it possible to reverse the ominous trends in the American housing market while proving it is possible to enact accountability for a corrupt establishment and good for the people.
If houses now held by banks go on the market, or are returned to their owners, the heavily inflated prices of homes will drop to its natural market level based on supply and demand. Communities will stabilize, as will the lives of Americans.
The America which emerges from this crisis can be very different. No stability will ever result from the current expectations of perpetual economic growth relying on perpetual inflation and perpetual motion in the market place, and the resultant social instability.
The 99% need to bring the 1% home to live with the rest of us in peace, Lincoln says.
Given the propensity of the legal establishment to go after activist attorneys, Lincoln admits this will not be without risk, but public involvement can help here, too. He remains confident, many will step forward. They did so in 1775 and in other times of crisis in America.
Failing to act, he said, means abandoning Americans to the cartels and monopolies who are responsible for what has happened to our country.
Lincoln and other members of the team believe strongly most attorneys and judges, when asked to make a choice in the light of day, will do the right thing.
The effort has already begin in New Jersey. Right now he has a case in motion in the Garden State, just across the river from Manhattan, where Cadwalader still holds sway at the ominously named "One World Financial Center."
Now, they are looking for more attorneys who love and respect the law, and investors who know what matters most and want to make a difference. His website is, homeownersjustice.com.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster will soon begin her new weekly radio program on Surviving Meltdown. The program examines how government can be brought into alignment with the spiritual goal of decentralizing power and localizing control and links also to America Goes Home americagoeshome.org, a site dedicated to providing information and resources.
She is also the author of GREED: The NeoConning of America and A Tour of Old Yosemite. The former is a novel about the lives of the NeoCons with a strong autobiographical component. The latter is a non-fiction book about her father and grandfather.
Her blog is at: http://howtheneoconsstolefreedom.blogspot.com/ She is the founder of the Arthur C. Pillsbury Foundation. She is the mother of five children and three grandchildren.
Melinda Pillsbury-Foster is a regular columnist for Veracity Voice