Ralph Nader announced on national television that he is embarked on a battle to totally destroy any possible chance the Democrats have to win the November election.
"Don't get me wrong," said Nader to interviewer Tim Russert, "I'm in the race to win. The only thing is, I know I can't win. If you think I'm stupid enough to believe I can win, you shouldn't be voting for me."
At the suggestion that he's only in the campaign to stroke his own ego, Nader snapped "How dare you? Do you have any idea who I am?"
Asked if his candidacy would mean the re-election of George Bush, Nader said "I'm afraid so, and yet, as a man of conscience, I feel I must make this run for the presidency, and condemn the American people to another four years of hell."
Democratic strategists have been huddled since the announcement, reportedly discussing the best way to kill Nader.
The centrists are suggesting an "auto accident"
They feel an "accidental" car explosion is fitting for a man of Nader's background, "and the irony is delicious" said Blaine Filamen, a young Kerry activist.
But the more liberal wing of the party is said to favor beating Nader severely with baseball bats, followed by a toss from a high, rocky cliff.
"It not only eliminates a problem" said liberal Democrat Phil Malone, "but the drama of it is instructive."
Man in the street Democrats are said to be undecided, but their attitude could best be summed up by Norman Redmond, a volunteer at Kerry headquarters who said "I don't care how they do it, as long as he dies. It's an idea whose time has come."
Meanwhile, chief Republican strategist Karl Rove has hosted several fund raising dinners asking wealthy Republicans to contribute to Nader's campaign.
"If Mr. Nader runs" said Rove, "Bush will have to do exactly nothing to win."
Nader's camp said they were unaware of any death threats, but added that even if Mr. Nader is killed, his corpse will continue to run for President.
"And he'd do a better job of it dead than Bush does alive." said Nader's cousin Marlene.
Saddam Hussein, who is currently being held captive by the Americans, is slowly going insane. This has been reported by Arab newspaper "Elaf" with a reference to members of the Red Cross organization. Saddam's physical condition is almost perfect. He is decently treated and well fed. However, not so long ago, one could read a completely different account of Hussein's captivity.
Saddam started to have mental problems. At times, he would suddenly start mumbling something irrational. Afterwards, he would sit in total silence, without uttering a single word. Doctors assume that the Iraqi leader used to consume a lot of alcohol or used drugs in the past. At the same time, the symptoms could have been caused by his far from young age as well as death of his sons. Hussein has several photographs of Udai and Kusai (his sons) in his cell. Interestingly, a portrait of Gerge W. Bush of an unknown origin also neatly hangs on the wall. This fact can be interpreted as another evidence of Hussein"s insanity. Had he been well, the former Iraqi leader would not have hung a picture of his enemy. And in case the portrait had been hung by someone other than Hussein, perhaps, the captive has gone crazy as a result of constantly staring at Bush' intellectual face. In the meantime, according to a recently conducted poll, nearly 70% of Americans in the US support the idea of public broadcast of Saddam's execution. 21% of Americans are even willing to pay for watching Osama bin Laden being executed. Another 11% would like to enjoy watching the last moments of Hussein"s life. So there you have it, a democratic society with experience.
... because, after current uproar about Kelly's suicide subsides, one morning he could find himself hanging by the neck, as many so much insane people do. So much about professional integrity among thiefs. Seemingly Unsolvable Legal Traps Face an Administration Running Out of Wiggle Room
Events in the five years following September 11th 2001 will determine the course of human history for the next five hundred years.
In looking at the tectonic pressures building during a presidential election year -- as driven by the emerging reality of Peak Oil and Gas -- it now appears that, of those five years, 2004 may well be marked by some of the greatest political, economic and military changes in history.
Much of this upheaval will have been caused by the success of independent journalists, researchers, activists, courts, and congress in challenging the actions of the US Empire at home and abroad since 9/11 and holding it accountable for its own statements, actions and documents.
This brings to mind the proverb, “Be careful of what you pray for. You just might get it.”
This beast is dangerous now and signs are abundant, from the unrealized terror scares over the holidays, to the re-emergence of Mad Cow disease, to a suddenly renewed government interest in anthrax, that nothing is beyond the pale if the beast is threatened.
Even the Washington Post's David Rothkopf planted seeds on November 24th when he suggested that a terrorist attack might “disrupt” the 2004 presidential elections.
We should not be surprised.
With attacks on US and coalition troops in Iraq having intensified since the December 14 “capture” of Saddam Hussein and with the US losing the peace in Afghanistan, as attested in a recent report from the Council on Foreign Relations, it appears that some major distractions are going to be needed to keep the American economic and political machine operating.
A December 28th story in the Post revealed that the rate of US casualties in Iraq had doubled in the four month period from September through the end of the year. There was to be no post-Saddam dividend on that account.
It's an open question whether the customary economic moves to grow the economy in advance of an election are not going to reveal some of the darker aspects of Peak Oil and Gas before the election even gets here.
As the US, Chinese and European economies expand (China's is exploding), so does energy consumption.
[b]It is a deadly game to increase oil and gas use now and risk more blackouts and price spikes before next November. [/b]
A strong breeze is hitting the house of cards.
The success of challenges to the US version of 9/11 and to the fraudulent intelligence justifying last March's invasion of Iraq has put some major obstacles in front of Wall Street's and Washington's post-9/11 agenda.
In the context of a presidential election year those obstacles will be of primary concern to the Bush administration as it seeks to hold on to its position as CEO of an emerging New World Order, and it must do everything possible to remove or neutralize all of them before then.
It is for that reason that Thomas Kean, the Republican chair of the so-called Independent Commission investigating 9/11, chose on December 17th to advance a modified limited hangout saying that the attacks could have been prevented had it not been for incompetence and intelligence failures on the part of middle managers. The timing of that announcement, just four days after the “capture” of Saddam Hussein, was a weak attempt to bury unresolved questions about 9/11 in boosted Bush approval ratings.
The fact that Kean decided to make his announcement after having subpoenaed FAA records of Air Force and government actions on 9/11, but before receiving them; and after agreeing to the tepid compromise of reviewing partial extracts of George Bush's pre-9/11 intelligence briefs, but before seeing them, is ample evidence of his political motive. Investigative bodies rarely pass public judgment before reviewing the evidence.
If backed into a corner, the neocons and the global economic system which committed its support to them in 2000 will likely resort to extreme and draconian measures which may mark the end of the façade of American democracy. 2004 is going to be a very dangerous year. The major challenges faced by the Bush administration are both legal and self-created. They reflect inevitable challenges to positions adopted and statements made by the neocons since the US embarked on a course of infinite war for oil. They call to mind another old adage once expressed by a recovering alcoholic who said, “If you don't tell a lie, you don't have to remember what you said”. The Bush administration is walking an unraveling tightrope.
[b]Cheney's Energy Task Force [/b]
FTW has long maintained that the deepest and darkest secrets of 9/11 lay buried in the records of Vice President Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group (NEPDG) which concluded its work and published a report admitting critical shortages in energy supplies in May of 2001. While those admissions were vague --- and located almost exclusively in buried sections of the report not mentioned in executive summaries or press accounts --- they clearly indicated that a major national priority was the acquisition of new sources of hydrocarbon energy against a backdrop of ever-decreasing domestic production.
Shortly after the report was submitted, a battle ensued between the House Government Reform Committee and Democrat Henry Waxman over the records of who had met with the panel and what had been discussed. While much of the early attention was focused on the participation of corporations like Enron, ExxonMobil and BP, FTW asserted that the real secrets had to do with the task force's awareness of peaking world oil and gas supplies and looming impacts on human civilization.
Since the task force had been paid for with taxpayer money, Congress rightly felt that the public had a right to know who had been invited and what had been discussed.
Initial suits by the Government Accounting Office (GAO) and citizen groups including Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club affirmed the constitutional right (imperative) of Congress and the people to have access to the files. An initial ruling in US District Court agreed and the US Court of Appeals declined to intervene after a White House appeal. As a result, a very incomplete set of records was released by agencies that assisted the task force while the White House itself, arguing executive privilege, has steadfastly refused to reveal a single page of its records.
On December 15, 2003, as reported by the Associated Press, the US Supreme Court announced that it would make a ruling in the case sometime in July 2004, just three months shy of the presidential election. This presents a real problem for the Bush administration. Legally, there is little to sustain its obviously illegal actions. And presenting the American people with another politically-tainted Supreme Court ruling just months before the election could easily rekindle debate over the Court's illegal Bush v. Gore ruling which stopped the Florida recount in 2000.
Aside from reminding the Court through widespread publication of stories about the pending decision there is little the American people can do to influence the outcome. However, the Court is already feeling enough pressure as a multitude of Bush administration extralegal positions come under increasing fire and close public scrutiny. In order for the machine to continue to function it must protect the value of the American brand name as reflected by its ability to convince large portions of the populace that the system still works. While the American people may not fully understand the implications of a Supreme Court ruling favoring the Bush administration in this case, the lawyers who make the system work and journalists who report on it most certainly will.
This is the ultimate high-stakes, must-win decision for the administration in the coming year. Full disclosure of Cheney's records would enable publications like FTW to once and for all answer for the American people and the world the single biggest question about 9/11, “What would motivate them to do such a horrible thing? What could have been so important?” In a criminal trial for murder this would be one of the three basic elements required for a conviction: the motive. The method and opportunity have already been established.
[b]9/11-RELATED TERROR PROSECUTIONS[/b]
Only one person in the entire world has been convicted of anything connected to the attacks of 9/11. Very few people have ever heard of Mounir el-Motassadeq who was arrested in Germany in November 2001 and, according to a December 16 Wall Street Journal report, convicted this year as an accessory to 3,066 murders. His conviction is about to be overturned solely as a result of the failure of a related German prosecution. That case failed recently because the US refused to produce a key witness who might have offered exonerating testimony, Ramzi bin al-Shibh.
Bin al-Shibh, reportedly captured in Pakistan a year to the day after the attacks, has been elevated to the status of principal planner in the 9/11 legend. Like one of the other alleged key planners, Khalid Shaikh Muhammad (KSM), he has yet to make a single public appearance while reams of convenient confessions from him and KSM are released by the US government to support its unsupportable version of events. Bin al-Shibh is reportedly being held at Guantanamo, outside the reach of media, lawyers and the Constitution.
The credibility risk to the US government, as it spins a tangled web of conflicting data, is that at some point, in order to maintain any credibility at all, it will have to produce real and verifiable statements from those it holds in custody. It must produce the witnesses themselves, and in the flesh.
On December 11, 2003 the German trial of a second person charged with complicity in the 9/11 attacks, Abdelghani Mzoudi, collapsed when a statement from bin al-Shibh was presented to the court exonerating Mzoudi from any knowledge of the 9/11attacks. The statement made its way into court after German intelligence defied a US request to keep the statement out of court and obeyed German law which -- like US law -- demands that any exculpatory evidence be disclosed during trial. According to stories in The Guardian and The New York Times, German intelligence had had the exculpatory material in hand before Mzoudi's trial began. This leaves open the question of why the US government had sought to illegally suppress evidence demonstrating Mzoudi's innocence.
The answer is clear.
The US needs a 9/11 conviction, any 9/11 conviction, desperately.
The German judge who dismissed Mzoudi's case opened the door for an immediate appeal and reversal in the case of Motassadeq who, like Mzoudi, was connected with members of Mohammed Atta's Hamburg cell. Both men are Moroccans and both had sought bin al-Shibh's testimony in their defense. That access had repeatedly been denied to Motassadeq's attorneys. In an omen for future 9/11 prosecutions – if they ever happen – Judge Klaus Ruhle said, as reported in the Times on December 12, “that while he had strong doubts about the reliability of the evidence, he could not properly evaluate it without testimony from bin al-Shibh.”
This leaves open the additional possibility that in order to avoid future and more dangerous exposures of its own criminal conduct, the US government created the bin al-Shibh testimony in order to prevent Mzoudi's trial from exposing even more glaring defects in the US-created 9/11 legend after it became clear that German courts were not going to yield to John Ashcroft's wishes. In a very revealing passage at the end of its report the Times' Desmond Butler seemed to acknowledge lingering worldwide questions about whether KSM and bin al-Shibh had ever actually been taken into custody. He wrote, “ According to the police's letter to the court, the witness presumed to be Mr. bin al-Shibh made his statement last month.”
If Motassadeq's conviction is overturned, renewed examination of bin al-Shibh's role in 9/11 and subsequent “capture” could risk exposure of other lies about 9/11. This is especially true with regard to the deliberately confused identity of the “paymaster” for the attacks, Omar Saeed Sheikh, and the man who ordered him to transfer $100,000 to Mohammed Atta just weeks before 9/11 -- then-Pakistani intelligence chief General Mahmud Ahmad. Ahmad was known to have close ties to CIA Director George Tenet and was in Washington during the week of the attacks, meeting with Tenet, senior members of the Bush administration and key congressional leaders like House Intelligence Chair Porter Goss and Senate Intelligence Chair Bob Graham. Zacariahs Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, jailed in Minnesota shortly before 9/11, was made famous by the legendary Rowley Memorandum, written by the FBI's Minneapolis legal affairs agent Coleen Rowley, TIME Magazine's Woman of the Year in 2002. In her memo she described deliberate, heavy-handed and successful attempts by FBI headquarters personnel, including Radical Fundamentalist Unit chief David Frasca, to suppress an investigation that might have prevented the attacks.
As time has passed it has become apparent that details in the Rowley memorandum have become enshrined – as noted by one researcher – as “holy scripture” about 9/11. But what if some of those details were part of a fabricated legend made more credible by Rowley's protestations? For an excellent analysis of this scenario please see There's Something About Omar: Truth, Lies, and the Legend of 9/11 by Chaim Kupferberg at: http://www.globalresearch.ca/... .
Since his incarceration and the filing of charges against him, Moussaoui has repeatedly sought the testimony of Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, Mustafa Ahmed Hawsawi and bin al-Shibh. As in the above cases the US government has refused to allow depositions or the questioning of witnesses that might exonerate him. A US district court eventually ordered the witnesses to be produced and depositions to be taken. As a result, Moussaoui's prosecution stalled while John Ashcroft's Department of Justice appealed to a higher court for a ruling which is not likely to come down in Ashcroft's favor.
Given the outcome in the German trials it is extremely likely that going into the November election the Bush administration will not have a single 9/11-related conviction to show the American public; a fact which will surely be mentioned by the Democratic nominee and noted in the press.
Two additional recent US court decisions have further impaired the administration's ability to keep a lid on the lies of 9/11 and seriously compounded the above problems. On December 20, the AP reported that, in two separate Appeals Court rulings, it had been decided that the US could not keep detainees held in Guantanamo Cuba indefinitely outside the US legal system (i.e. the public eye) and that American citizens like alleged dirty-bomb suspect Jose Padilla could not be denied constitutional protections because they were allegedly “enemy combatants” being held outside US territory.
The result of the first ruling is to guarantee an inevitable point in time when the US government will have to produce Khalid Shaikh Muhammad, bin al-Shibh and other key figures in the 9/11 legend for public inspection. FTW has not a single doubt that the government's credibility will undeniably collapse at that moment if even the most basic questions are asked by the world's press and defense lawyers with an IQ higher than that of a baked potato.
The result of all these precedents would make it impossible for the government to successfully maintain the credibility of its accounts of 9/11.
SADDAM HUSSEIN
What were they thinking? Assuming that it is the real Saddam Hussein that was officially taken into custody on December 14 th FTW cannot conceive of a single scenario in which the US government will ever let him come to trial. The world will not accept a secret trial.
The New York Times wrote on December 17th, “The trial of Saddam Hussein must do several things at once. It must educate Iraqis and the world about the nature of his regime, adhere to the highest international standards of fairness, and provide a mechanism for appropriate punishment. The best way to achieve those goals is by creating a tribunal inside Iraq under United Nations authority, staffed by Iraqi and international judges and prosecutors.”
But the dilemma faced by the US was made clear by the Agence France Presse which wrote on December 20th, “Controversial French lawyer Jacques Verges says he is willing to defend Saddam Hussein in court and, if he can, bring world leaders to the witness stand, in what could be a huge embarrassment for the United States, France and other countries.
“…He insisted that ‘all Western heads of state,' from the time of the 1980-1988 Iraq-Iran war to the latest Iraq conflict, should take the stand when the imprisoned former Iraqi officials go on trial… ‘When we reprove the use of certain weapons (we need to know) who sold these weapons,' he said about Iraq 's past purchase of arms from France, Britain, the United States and Russia.”
Joe Conason of The New York Observer observed on Dec 22nd that, “ An obvious prospective witness is Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who acted as a special envoy to Baghdad during the early 1980's. On a courtroom easel, Saddam might display the famous December 1983 photograph of him shaking hands with Mr. Rumsfeld, who acknowledges that the United States knew Iraq was using chemical weapons. If his forces were using Tabun, mustard gas, and other forbidden poisons, he might ask, why did Washington restore diplomatic relations with Baghdad in November 1984? There are many problems with the details of Saddam's convenient capture at a time when Bush popularity was sinking. A number of world papers from Britain to Australia have noted that Kurdish rebel groups laid claim to Saddam's capture before US sources released an official story. The Kurdish stories are credible but do not reveal the date of capture which might account for the former Iraqi dictator's disheveled appearance.
On December 21, FTW received the following unsourced photograph in an email titled “From a friend in Saudi Arabia.” The picture purports to show two US soldiers demonstrating how they lifted a Styrofoam block seal to Saddam's hiding place. The picture poses two problems for the US story. First, it clearly depicts ripened dates hanging from a tree branch. This ripening only occurs in the summer months and by December dates have either long since been harvested, rotted black on the branch or have fallen from the trees. Next to the dates is a line holding an unknown meat drying in the sun. Again, this is a process – according to Iraqi and Arab sources – which only occurs during the summer months.
A search of various news websites revealed that the photograph was an AP photo which – along with at least four others showing the ripened dates – is still posted on the CBS News website at: www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/12/14/60 minutes/rooney/main588520 .shtml . (Go to “The Capture of Saddam” and then click on “Photo Essays”).
The AP photos dispel other rumors that Saddam had been trapped under a concrete block. AP close-ups of the block above clearly indicate that it is lightweight. This is supported by the less-than-aggressive hand grips used by the soldiers in the photograph. While it is possible that bricks had been placed on top of the foam seal, it remains true that if Saddam had been captured sometime earlier, he was held a prisoner in the spider hole while his captors occupied the Spartan farmhouse above.
The timing and manner of Hussein's capture defy logic. He can only be tried in public and even if convenient confessions from him, unsupported by video or sworn testimony, allow the US to locate planted weapons of mass destruction, the cards of this poker hand are going to have to be fully disclosed at some point. The Bush administration knows this and FTW concludes that even as it announced his capture, it also had decided that Saddam Hussein would never be tried in public or allowed to defend himself. This makes his capture an incredibly ominous event. Something big will have to happen to prevent the trial from taking place.
A GRAND JURY OVER THE PLAME/WILSON CASE
Finally, a December 26th story in The Washington Post reported that a fourth prosecutor has been added to the Department of Justice team investigating who it was in the White House who leaked the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame to journalist Bob Novak last year. Plame is the wife of former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson who was dispatched on the orders of Dick Cheney to investigate documents purporting to show that Saddam Hussein had been attempting to purchase uranium from Niger. The documents were crude forgeries, yet President Bush mentioned them in his state-of-the-union address and much of his cabinet relied upon them to justify the Iraqi invasion even after Wilson had reported that they were fakes and the claims were false. According to the Post story FBI sources have indicated that a grand jury may shortly be empanelled to investigate the case. If so, Bush administration problems will multiply as more and more of the evidence appears before a body over which John Ashcroft cannot exert complete control.
The Post story added that, “On Monday [Dec. 22] the Senate minority leader and the ranking Democrat on the Armed Services committee sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft demanding more information about the probe. ‘We request that you provide us with an overall status of the investigation, including the number of people the Justice Department has interviewed, the number of briefings you have received, the general types of information you are briefed on, what conditions you have placed on the scope of these briefings to ensure the independence of this investigation, and whether you have discussed this case with senior administration officials outside the Justice Department…
“The Senators said that it is an apparent conflict of interest for Ashcroft to be briefed on the subject, and again requested a special counsel to prosecute the case…”
The Daschle-Levin letter apparently hit home. In a surprise announcement on December 30th – as reported on CNN – John Ashcroft announced that he had recused himself from any role in the investigation and that control of the case would pass to the US Attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's selection was apparently governed by nothing more than political concerns. But it should be noted that under US law, US Attorneys operate independently of the Attorney General. (See: http://www.fromthewilderness.... )
This development further weakens Bush's ability to control a legal powder keg that, like so many others, could topple his regime.
Of key interest in this investigation is a document which surfaced out of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and the fact that there have been several mysterious deaths in that unit in recent months. (FTW is currently preparing a detailed subscriber-only investigation of the links between these developments, the deaths and the fact that the CIA and the Bush administration are in a feud just short of a “shooting war”.)
If a grand jury is empanelled in this case it could – as was the case with the Watergate grand jury and Richard Nixon – spell the end of the Bush administration. The current regime has proven itself an inept manager of world affairs for the benefit of the financial system and offensive to most of the world's population. As FTW has said for a year, George W. Bush may be unbeatable in the election. He will certainly raise more money than all of his challengers and, if the three preceding years are any measure, he has demonstrated that he will go to any lengths to retain power. But that does not make him unstoppable. Richard Nixon believed that he was unstoppable and played a tough poker hand to the very end. The difference between Richard Nixon and George W. Bush is that Richard Nixon capitulated when he saw that further struggle would destroy the country. Against the backdrop of Peak oil and Gas and what lies inevitably in our future, George W. Bush may see no similar grounds for restraint.
From: "V. C." Sent: Saturday, February 21, 2004 1:04 AM Subject: Should "Marriage" Even Be Defined in Secular Law?
About 15 years ago, my former wife of 26-1/2 years, filed for divorce. We had seven children, five daughters and two sons. Our youngest at the time, our second son, was five years old.
At the time, I prepared a counterclaim to the Petition for Dissolution her attorney filed in Domestic Relations (DR) court. I met one afternoon with the head of the Maricopa County Superior Court, Marriage License Bureau, in downtown Phoenix. The marriage license bureau was headed by a young woman of about age 25. I asked her to explain to me the general and statutory implications of the marriage license. She was very cooperative, and called in an Assistant, a tall Black man who at the time was working on an Operations Manual for internal departmental use.
She deferred for most technical explanations to her Assistant. He walked through the technicalities of the marriage license as it operates in Arizona. He mentioned that marriage licensing is pretty much the same in the other states -- but there are differences. One significant difference he mentioned was that Arizona is one of eight western states that are Community Property states. The other states are Common Law states, including Utah, with the exception of Lousiana which is a Napoleonic Code state.
He then explained some of the technicalities of the marriage license He said, first of all, the marriage license is Secular Contract between the parties and the State. The State is the principal party in that Secular Contract. The husband and wife are secondary or inferior parties. The Secular Contract is a three-way contract between the State, as Principal, and the husband and wife as the other two legs of the Contract. He said, in the traditional sense a marriage is a covenant between the husband and wife and God.
But in the Secular Contract with the state, reference to God is a dotted line, and not officially considered included in the Secular Contract at all. He said, if the husband and wife wish to include God as a party in their marriage, that is a "dotted line" they will have to add in their own minds. The state's marriage license is "strictly secular," he said. He said further, that what he meant by the relationship to God being a "dotted line" meant that the State regards any mention of God as irrelevant, even meaningless. In his description of the marriage license contract, the related one other "dotted line."
He said in the traditional religious context, marriage was a covenant between the husband and wife and God with husband and wife joined as one. This is not the case in the secular realm of the state's marriage license contract. The State is the Principal or dominant party. The husband and wife are merely contractually "joined" as business partners, not in any religious union. They may even be considered, he said, connected to each other by another "dotted line."
The picture he was trying to "paint" was that of a triangle with the State at the top and a solid line extending from the apex, the State, down the left side to the husband, and a separate solid line extending down the right side to the wife, a "dotted line" merely showing that they consider themselves to have entered into a religious union of some sort that is irrrelevant to the State. He further mentioned that this "religious overtone" is recognized by the State by requiring that the marriage must be solemnized either by a state official or by a minister of religion that has been "deputized" by the State to perform the marriage ceremony and make a return of the signed and executed marriage license to the State. Again, he emphasized that marriage is a strictily secular relationship so far as the State is concerned and because it is looked upon as a "privileged business enterprise" various tax advantages and other political privileges have become attached to the marriage license contract that have nothing at all to do with marriage as a religious covenant or bond between God and a man and a woman.
By way of reference, if you would like to read a legal treatise on marriage, one of the best is "Principles of Community Property," by William Defuniak. At the outset, he explains that Community Property law decends from Roman Civil Law through the Spanish Codes, 600 A.D., written by the Spanish jurisconsults. In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a for-profit venture or profit-making venture (even though it may never actually produce a profit in operation) and as the wife goes out to the local market to purchase food stuffs and other supplies for the marriage household, she is replenishing the stocks of the business. To restate: In the civil law, the marriage is considered to be a business venture, that is, a for-profit business venture. Moreover, as children come into the marriage household, the business venture is considered to have "borne fruit."
Now, back to the explanation by the Maricopa County Superior Court, Marriage Bureau's administrative Assistant. He went on to explain that every contract must have consideration. The State offers consideration in the form of the actual license itself -- the piece of paper, the Certificate of Marriage. The other part of consideration by the State is "the privilege to be regulated by statute." He added that this privilege to be regulated by statute includes all related statutes, and all court cases as they are ruled on by the courts, and all statutes and regulations into the future in the years following the commencement of the marriage.
He said in a way the marriage license contract is a dynamic or flexible, ever-changing contract as time goes along -- even though the husband and wife didn't realize that. My thought on this is can it really be considered a true contract as one becomes aware of the failure by the State to make full disclosure of the terms and conditions. A contract must be entered into knowingly, intelligently, intentionally, and with fully informed consent Otherwise, technically there is no contract. Another way to look as the marriage license contract with the State is as a contract of adhesion, a contract between two disparate, unequal parties. Again, a flawed "contract." Such a contract with the State is said to be a "specific performance" contract as to the privileges, duties and responsibilities that attach.
Consideration on the part of the husband and wife is the actual fee paid and the implied agreement to be subject to the state's statutes, rules, and regulations and all court cases ruled on related to marriage law, family law, children, and property. He emphasized that this contractual consideration by the bride and groom places them in a definite and defined-by-law position inferior and subject to the State. He commented that very few people realize this. He also said that it is very important to understand that children born to the marriage are considered by law as "the contract bearing fruit" -- meaning the children primarily belong to the State, even though the law never comes out and says so in so many words.
In this regard, children born to the contract regarded as "the contract bearing fruit," he said it is vitally important for parents to understand two doctrines that became established in the United States during the 1930s. The first is the Doctrine of Parens Patriae. The second is the Doctrine of In Loco Parentis. Parens Patriae means literally "the parent of the country" or to state it more bluntly -- the State is the undisclosed true parent. Along this line, a 1930s Arizona Supreme Court case states that parents have no property right in their children, and have custody of their children during good behavior at the sufferance of the State. This means that parents may raise their children and maintain custody of their children as long as they don't offend the State, but if they in some manner displease the State, the State can step in at any time and exercise its superior status and take custody and control of its children -- the parents are only conditional caretakers.
He also added a few more technical details. The marriage license is an ongoing contractual relationship with the State. Technically, the marriage license is a business license allowing the husband and wife, in the name of the marriage, to enter into contracts with third parties and contract mortgages and debts. They can get car loans, home mortgages, and installment debts in the name of the marriage because it is not only a secular enterprise, but it is looked upon by the State as a privileged business enterprise as well as a for-profit business enterprise.
The marriage contract acquires property throughout its existence and over time, it is hoped, increases in value. Also, the marriage contract "bears fruit" by adding children. If sometime later, the marriage fails, and a "divorce" results the contract continues in existence. The "divorce" is merely a contractual dissolution or amendment of the terms and conditions of the contract. Jurisdiction of the State over the marriage, over the husband and wife, now separated, continues and continues over all aspects of the marriage, over marital property and over children brought into the marriage. That is why family law and the Domestic Relations court calls "divorce" a dissolution of the marriage because the contract continues in operation but in amended or modified form. He also pointed out that the marriage license contract is one of the strongest, most binding contractual relationships the States has on people
At the end of our hour-long meeting, I somewhat humorously asked if other people had come in and asked the questions I was asking? The Assistant replied that in the several years he had worked there, he was not aware of anyone else asking these questions. He added that he was very glad to see someone interested in the legal implications of the marriage license and the contractual relationship it creates with the State. His boss, the young woman Marriage Bureau department head stated, "You have to understand that people who come in here to get a marriage license are in heat. The last thing they want to know is technical, legal and statutory implications of the marriage license." (Laughter)
I hope this is helpful information to anyone interested in getting more familiar with the contractual implications of the marriage license. The marriage license as we know it didn't come into existence until after the Civil War and didn't become standard practice in all the states until after 1900, becoming firmly established by 1920. In effect, the states or governments appropriated or usurped control of marriages in secular form and in the process declared Common Law applicable to marriages "abrogated."
Please pass this information along and share it as widely as possible. Best regards from Virgil Cooper
Polygamists Outraged By Proposed Amendment Defining Marriage As "Between One Man and One Woman"
In a press conference today immediately following President George Bush's announcement that he is endorsing a new amendment that will define marriage as a union between 'one man and one woman', in essence making it illegal for same-sex marriages to occur, the United Polygamists Association, UPA, announced that this amendment would infringe upon their legal and religious rights to marry more then one woman at a time.
"I was so upset after I heard his speech," stated the President of UPA, "I know he is trying to do this so that gays and lesbians don't get married, and I'm fine with that, but the side effect of this amendment is that we won't be able to marry more then one woman. Does he understand this?"
"We will have to leave this country," stated another polygamist who wished to remain anonymous, "I will have to take my 15 wives and 300 children and move.
Do you understand the logistics involved in that? I mean, my poor 13th wife hardly gets any sleep now just preparing the lunches for all my children every day, and she needs her sleep!
She is only 15 years old and 8 months preagnant! This is the beginning of the end for freedoms in America. I just don't know what's next!"
Apparently, UPA was not aware that polygamy is actually already banned and illegal in the United States. "It is? But don't the Mormon's do that in Utah?" stated the president of UPA, "Oh. I thought it was legal. Are you sure? Why should I believe you guys anyhow? You are just reporters."
"Today, I join the rest of America in legally defining marriage," stated President Bush in a televised press conference, "We must create an amendment to the Constitution so that the institution of marriage is protected forever and no court can ever challenge it again. That is why I support this infringement upon the freedoms of innocent people that want the same rights that the rest of us, heterosexuals, have today."
Conservative groups are applauding what President Bush is doing, while liberal groups are horrified at what they heard on television today.
One of the first things I try to do every morning is to quickly skim the headlines in the newspapers and online and to catch up on intriguing articles I’ve xeroxed from magazines but never read in their entirety. One of the stories I read over today was a report on the massive crowd that assembled at the giant rally in Washington, D.C. on the anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision.
The headline for the January 22 March for Life story was, “Casting Stereotypes Aside: Young Crowd at Annual March Views Antiabortion Cause as Human Rights Issue.” Given the use of “anti-abortion” and the not-so-occasional cheap shot, we might easily conclude that the reporter is not ordinarily a bosom buddy of pro-lifers.
For example, we read, “[T]he marchers—particularly the college students—are not noticeably intolerant or doctrinaire.” Mighty big of him, wouldn’t you say?
While the picayune criticisms are annoying, from our perspective what truly matters is that he didn’t miss the big picture: the audience was overwhelmingly young, idealistic, and considered the taking of unborn life to be “an urgent human rights issue,” “an urgent social justice issue,” as one marcher put it.
As this story indirectly suggests, the biggest headache for the anti-life crew is the enlarging of the pro-life coalition. With respect to young people, their much larger public profile is the fruit of the natural idealism of youth and the vigorous outreach by pro-life organizations such as National Right to Life.
But the infusion of high school and college students is only the tip of the iceberg. It is hugely important that our Movement is gradually finding additional allies in the African-American community.
Last week, Black Americans for Life held a press conference at the Supreme Court. The following story, written by the NRLC Outreach Department, puts into perspective why more and more African Americans are saying “No!” to abortion.
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February is Black History Month, the perfect time for Black Americans for Life (BAL) to drive home the connection between the historic struggle of African Americans for equality and the devastating impact of the ultimate assault on human rights: abortion. In a February 19 press conference held on the steps of the Supreme Court, BAL Director Day Gardner linked the struggles African Americans have faced, from slavery through the fight for civil rights, with abortion.“Through all our pain and suffering,” she said, “it has always been our children who were our hope for a better future.”
Ms. Gardner and the coalition of women assembled with her believed abortion is jeopardizing that future. “It’s a somberness I feel,” Ms. Gardner explained, “because after all that we, as Black Americans, have endured and achieved, by the end of this day 1,200 Black babies- – the babies that insure our future – -will be purposefully and yet legally killed without mercy.”
Ms. Gardner emphasized the disproportionate impact abortion has had on the Black community. There are two abortions for every three live births, and statistics show that the abortion rate among Black women is three times higher than that of White women.
And this is no accident. “Over 70% of all abortion providers are in minority communities,” said Rev. Janine Simpson, another participant at the press conference. Rev. Simpson said that 94% of abortion providers are in metropolitan areas, compared with only 2% of pregnancy resource centers.
The result has been that of the 44 million unborn babies aborted since 1973, more than 14 million have been Black. “Blacks are no longer the largest minority,” Ms. Gardner said. “At this rate of abortion, our future looks dim.”
As the Director of Urban Center Development for CareNet, an organization that supports a network of crisis pregnancy centers, Rev. Simpson is working to plant new pregnancy resource centers in urban areas. “Our goal is to empower every woman to have real choices,” Rev. Simpson said. “Not just the choice of abortion… but real choices that will change their lives, strengthen our community, and empower our people to excel.”
Dr. Epps told of the devastating impact of her two abortions. Now the executive director of the Peninsula Care & Pregnancy Center, Dr. Epps works regularly with women suffering the aftermath of abortion.
“Each story is almost like a collage of painful memories, scars that last a lifetime,” Dr. Epps said. “I know their pain first-hand.”
Although the BAL-sponsored Coalition consisted of Black women of diverse backgrounds and from different organizations, all shared a common goal: to spread the word about abortion’s enormous impact on African Americans.
“Our purpose is to unite and empower Black women to break the silence and speak out,” said Day Gardner. “We have the highest abortion rate in the country, yet, Black women tend to be the most silent when it comes to this abomination. The Coalition is working to change that.”
To join the Coalition (there is no membership fee), or simply to find out more about Black Americans for Life, please e-mail dgardner@nrlc.org.
I love the cookies, but the organization has somewhat rejected moral decency.
Across America, Girl Scout cookie sales are in full swing. Last week, Girl Scouts of America officials announced a sales record for Washington, D.C. as 4.2 million boxes of Samoas, Thin Mints, and other cookies were sold in the nation's capitol.
But I'm going to be critical of the Girl Scouts. I love the cookies, but the organization has somewhat rejected moral decency.
At a recent Nobody's Fool annual meeting held at Planned Parenthood of Waco, Texas, the Bluebonnet Council of the Girl Scouts of America bestowed on Planned Parenthood chief executive Pam Smallwood the title of "Woman of the Year."
A Texas Christian radio station is urging its listeners to boycott Girl Scout cookie sales because of the Girl Scouts' close dealings with Planned Parenthood, and last Monday, parents of nine Girl Scouts in Crawford, Texas announced that their daughters will be leaving the Girl Scouts of America. Pam Smallwood is "not who I want as a role model for my daughter," announced the mother of a ten-year old Girl Scout who apparently broke into tears upon learning of Ms. Smallwood's lethal occupation. "I have to make a stand or there's no telling what else would happen," another mother told the Waco Tribune-Herald.
Sadly, more unfortunate positions have been taken by the Girl Scouts of America in recent years than parents and supporters may realize.
Rather than fight a 1992 lawsuit that challenged "God" in its Promise, the Girl Scouts broke its Promise with overwhelming support at the 1993 Girl Scouts national convention by permitting atheist and agnostic girls to use "words they deem more appropriate" in place of "God."
Since the 1970s, the Girl Scouts have been aligned with the radical feminist movement. For many years, Betty Friedan was seated on the national board of the Girl Scouts of America.
In 1972, at the urging of Friedan and other feminist leaders, the Girl Scouts dropped "loyalty" from its oath because the feminized America was one where neither men nor women were expected to commit to each other in marriage.
And for the past thirty years, the Girl Scouts have taken great pride in their anti-family sex education program, a program that has alienated Catholic churches and archdioceses as well and has drawn sharp criticism from leading pro-family organizations.
Girl Scouts sex education materials include such words as, "Some girls have sexual attractions or desires for people of the same sex."
A 1997 book entitled On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on their Scouting Experience estimated that approximately one in three adult Girl Scout professionals are lesbian and that the Girl Scouts are a positive place for lesbian relationships to develop.
Obviously, the Girl Scouts are not a lesbian organization, and different girls have had different experiences as Girl Scouts -- some good, some bad. But the organization is far from standing against homosexuality. Open lesbians are welcomed into the Girl Scouts.
In the summer of 2001, Mountain Meadow Girl Scout Camp in New Jersey was advertised as a "feminist camping experience [for] children of lesbian, gay, transgender ... and other progressive families." Children ages nine to fifteen were required to fill out an application asking name, birth date, medications, and "Gender of camper: male/female/other (please explain)."
In December 2000, President Clinton welcomed leaders of homosexual organizations to the White House to debut the Girl Scout-promoted film That's A Family! The video, produced by Women's Educational Media (WEM) to educate public schoolchildren about homosexual families, used young children to describe what it is like growing up with two moms or two dads. Girl Scout President Connie Matsui addressed the assembled crowd of homosexual activists at the controversial White House screening, explaining her enthusiasm for the film.
One might wonder why the Girl Scouts have been spared the painful attacks that have been launched upon the Boy Scouts by the Left in recent years. The reasons are simple: the Girl Scouts allow homosexuals and atheists to join their ranks, and they have become a pro-abortion, feminist training corps.
While the Girl Scouts fit comfortably in the dire realm of political correctness, the organization should not fit so comfortably in America's network of moral education. Parents should be warned that the moral content of today's Girl Scouts is no longer based in the Victorian virtues that gave it life in 1912.
Parents and supporters of the Girl Scouts must be vigilant in these matters. If the Girl Scouts of America can't get back to teaching real character, perhaps it will be time to look for our cookies elsewhere.
A growing number of young college adults today do not accept the idea of the need for violence for just and moral reasons in the defense of our country.
There are certain thought processes that parents should be aware their children may adopt when they off to college. Young adults today are exposed to countless morally void mindsets in the classroom lectures of liberal teachers in America’s institutions of higher education.
Possibly one of the most destructive trends is that a growing number of young college adults today do not accept the idea of the need for violence for just and moral reasons in the defense of our country. It's a new movement on college and university campuses, and revives the hippie ideology of the 60s. Pacifism, (or anti all-war and any act perceived as violent) is quite possibly the scariest misconception accepted on college campuses today.
Students today often find themselves being taught by morally bankrupt professors, and some college and university campuses are becoming a refuge for moral relativity and backwardness. Even students who seek out a morally advantageous atmosphere at some private and religious colleges, sometimes find themselves between a secular rock and a postmodern hard place. Separated from reality, college professors often permeate their lectures with pacifism and the appeasement philosophy. Reminiscent of the earlier hippy movements, this trend seems to be becoming a way of life for more and more young college students.
As a citizen who plans on having a family, I find this appalling. At the core of the hippie mantra is the believe that "peace," "love," and "tolerance" is the only way to resolve differences among nations. The way to peace is through love and tolerance. Love, in this case, means accepting others as they are, giving them freedom to express themselves, and not judging others. Well, isn’t that just groovy?
Disregarding all preconceived notions of what a hippie looks like physically, it is scary how many students today resemble the former hippies – philosophically. There is a good argument to be made that many Generation Xers today are even fashioning themselves to look like the distasteful hippies of the 60s, but it’s their politics that are truly distasteful.
You’ve heard the rhetoric: ''War is not the answer,'' ''War never solved anything,'' ''An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind,'' ''Make love not war,'' ''Build bridges not bombs,'' ''The way of the gun is the way of the dumb,'' ''Iraq is Arabic for Vietnam.''
Perhaps you’ve sensed the same pacifistic tendencies pervading a growing segment of Generation X. I’m not as worried about those who specifically opposed the war in Iraq as I am about those who oppose war in general to protect our nation.
To oppose all war to protect our country is to be morally and logically confused.
Communism, fascism, Nazism, and slavery are just a few of the rotten ideas crushed by just violence.
To say war never solves anything is utterly dishonest.
Now don’t get me wrong: no one wants war. We shouldn’t like war or look forward to it, for war is ugly.
Contrary to what some liberals believe, conservatives and Republicans do not wake up in the morning, take a shower, and pray that our country decides to stomp the crap out of someone.
However, we must attest that war is needed from time to time. Slavery wasn’t abolished because everyone agreed that it was a putrid idea.
Hitler didn’t step down from power because of diplomacy.
Within the lifetime of Generation Xers, if I remember correctly, Saddam didn’t leave Kuwait because Bush 41 asked him ''Pretty, pretty please with a cherry on top.''
With all that said, let’s be honest. The notion that ''War is not the answer'' or that ''Violence never solves anything” is almost too absurd to debate.
However, we must continue to fight this sophomoric philosophy because many young adults today are beginning to subscribe to it.
Newsflash: Some violence in defending our country can be good. Some violence can be just. Some violence can be moral.
Excuse me, hippies, but violence -- including war -- can sometimes be the only answer.
From the war on terrorism to issues like capital punishment, young people today are becoming less willing to support some necessary violence because it doesn’t ''feel good.''
It doesn’t ''feel good'' to engage in military operations against other human beings. It doesn’t ''feel good'' to put someone to death.
Moral lines are being blurred on college campuses, and we must fervently oppose the new hippie movement’s ignorance of the need to protect our country.
It’s easy to observe how college students have used Operation Iraqi Freedom as Generation X’s equivalent to Vietnam.
For proof of the lack of moral clarity on college campuses we need not look further than the atrocious attacks of September 11.
One would like to believe that our nation was united in identifying, hunting, and destroying the evil forces behind the deaths of over 3,000 innocent lives.
You would be wrong to make such an assumption. Some vocal college students and their college professors were singing a much different tune, like some of these quotations:
''The United States has to realize that what it’s doing with its foreign policy is just as bad, at least, as what happened last week [Sept. 11].'' -- Student, Georgetown University Schools of Foreign Service.
''To call this a just war is to ignore the mountain of injustice it is based on. People are just drunk on the cheap jingoism of the media and politicians.'' -- Student, Brown University.
''It disturbs me to see all the flags out supporting the slaughter.'' -- Student, University of Wisconsin--Milwaukee.
''[I]ntolerance breeds hate, hate breeds violence and violence breeds death, destruction and heartache.'' -- Student, University of Oklahoma.
''Just because a grotesque act was committed against this country, does not mean any response is justified; it does not grant this country special license to use the sword.'' -- Student columnist, Yale University.
''[We should] build bridges and relationships, not simply bombs and walls.'' -- Speaker, Harvard University.
''…the actions taken by the terrorists on Tuesday are not completely unwarranted. We try to forget about the way this country behaves internationally—that we too often behave as terrorists.'' -- Student, University of Michigan.
"[It is] ridiculous for us to go and kill more people because of what Bin Laden did.'' -- Student, Columbia University.
The audacity of these future leaders of America should shock you. If it doesn’t, you may have already encountered the treacherously pacifistic mindset that many young adults today are propounding.
The new hippie movement has spoken and now it is our obligation to wage intellectual war in retaliation.
The new codes that ooze from the mouths of diversity trainers have little to nothing to do with kindness and courtesy and much to do with divisiveness and bigotry.
After a six-year legal battle, a school district near San Jose has settled a lawsuit brought by six homosexual students and the American Civil Liberties Union alleging anti-homosexual discrimination by paying out $1.1 million and beginning new mandatory diversity training programs for all students and staff in the school district. The district will also designate a "compliance coordinator" to investigate reports of anti-homosexual bias and to ensure that schools demonstrate favorable attitudes toward homosexuals.
In Colorado, state university students are required to undergo diversity courses and comply with diversity standards in order to maintain student group funding. The stifling of free speech and traditional morality that has ensued caught the attention of state legislators who are now demanding an end to campus diversity programs that violate the First Amendment and infringe on the right to "speak disapprovingly against certain sexual behaviors."
Diversity training, diversity monitoring, diversity policy enforcement, diversity weeks and assemblies and conferences -- all of it has become a burgeoning multi-million dollar growth industry. Besides that, it is rapidly dividing America.
The intentions of diversity program advocates are quite good -- they seek the final salvation of human beings from the discomfort of discrimination. But they've gone about it all in a pathetically foolish way.
Instead of talking about civility and character as did Martin Luther King, diversity trainers talk about sensitivity -- toward racial, ethnic, gender, or sexual minorities only. And in place of the Golden Rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," it is as if we're told to say, "Do unto minorities as they would have them do unto you," even if our only account of a minority group's expectations comes from the mouth of the diversity trainer.
Several years ago, a Pacific Lutheran University professor named Gregory Guldin formulated what I called the Guldin Rule. Guldin drafted a report for the Puyallup (Washington State) School District (from which I graduated) recommending that it reject the idea of treating all people equally. Minorities, he asseverated, deserve special rights and treatment.
After a long lawsuit battle in the Puyallup School District featuring such dissimulations as the Guldin Report, the Puyallup Schools decided last year to pay out $7.5 million to black families who alleged that the district discriminated against racial minorities. The district also began a new half million dollar per year "Diversity Office" aimed at investigating alleged discrimination, requiring diversity curricula and diversity assemblies in schools, and mandating staff diversity training.
One diversity film called "Journey to a Hate Free Millennium" was shown at Puyallup High School my junior year with the goal of eradicating discrimination. But instead of a positive message about love and dignity, the film negatively linked three isolated "hate crimes" to widespread homophobia and racism. And instead of criticizing the Columbine killers as hate criminals, it was their peers who became the bad guys for not being tolerant of Klebold and Harris' Satanic lifestyle.
From the time I was in ninth grade until I graduated from high school, I fought against the proliferation of my school district's diversity program, which now is a suppurating effort, whether intentional or not, to dismantle traditional codes of respect and civility. The new codes that ooze from the mouths of diversity trainers have little to nothing to do with kindness and courtesy and much to do with divisiveness and bigotry.
My purpose in fighting diversity programs is that I care deeply about civility, character, and the dignity of my fellow human beings; and I care nothing for the opposite of civility: political correctness. Diversity is nothing more than a code word for extreme political correctness, which, in its typical forms these days, means that everyone must tolerate and accept and even celebrate any and every behavior under the sun.
Convincing several thousand diversity program-saturated industries and institutions that their politically correct ways are actually dangerous is no small task. But it can and must be done.
When it comes to contentious issues, and certainly when they are taken up by the courts, so much takes place out of the public eye that sometimes we might be lulled into thinking that not much is happening.
Let me just say that when it comes to defending the recently passed Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act, out of sight definitely does not mean out of mind. The Bush Administration is vigorously defending the law.
Last November the ink had barely dried when the pro-abortionists challenged the law in court. Having prevailed initially in obtaining temporary restraining orders, our benighted opposition perhaps breathed a sigh of relief.
But the Bush Justice Department has not let up from the day the courts in San Francisco and New York and Nebraska enjoined the new law. Its defense, the very model of commonsense and civility, has set the anti-life crowd to howling.
To respond to the challenge to the new law, the Justice Department asked for medical records from hospitals in New York City, Philadelphia, the University of Michigan, and Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Illinois where abortionists have performed partial-birth abortions.
Assistant United States Attorney Sheila M. Gowan is one of the Justice Department lawyers defending the ban. I read the transcript this morning of a hearing that took place in New York February 5 in front of U.S. District Judge Richard Casey. It was a real eye-opener.
Gowan told Judge Casey that the plaintiffs, the National Abortion Federation (NAF), had challenged the law on the grounds that it did not include a “health” exception. She reminded Judge Casey that Congress had concluded “that no health exception was necessary with regard to partial birth abortion because the procedure is never medically necessary to preserve the health of a woman.”
NAF had dutifully trotted out seven abortionists who claimed that there were conditions that had required a partial-birth abortion (which they call a “D&X”) to preserve a woman’s health. Okay, the Bush Administration said, remove all names and personal information (so as to protect patient confidentiality) and show us the medical records.
Gowan offered two reasons why they were needed: to determine whether the abortionists had actually performed the procedure, and “whether there was something about the maternal health that required the performance of that procedure, or was it just the doctor’s preference to perform the procedure.”
When he was questioned by reporters, Attorney General John Ashcroft, noting that “Congress has enacted a law with the president's signature that outlaws this terrible practice,” said, “We sought from the judge authority to get medical records to find out whether indeed the allegation by the plaintiffs, that it's medically necessary, is really a fact.''
Bear in mind that last November this same Judge Casey temporarily blocked the government from enforcing the ban. But his patience with the pro-abortionists’ dilly-dallying was clearly wearing thin.
Talcott Camp, representing NAF, tried to shift the blame to the hospitals for the delays. Judge Casey was not buying it.
Casey said,“[Y]ou have brought the lawsuit. They [the plaintiffs] are going to do whatever it takes to produce hospital records. I will not-–hear me out loud and clear–-I will not let the doctors hide behind the shield of the hospital. Is that clear? I am fed up with stalls and delays.” He added, "They didn't have to be plaintiffs. They chose to be, and now they are going to get it done.”
When Ms. Camp indicated she didn’t know how long it would take to produce the records, Judge Casey asked, “Would you like to have the case dismissed and bring [it back] in five years when you have time to go through the records and get them ready?”
Pro-abortionists found a more sympathetic ear in U.S. Chief District Judge Charles Kocoras of the Northern District of Illinois. He labeled the government's subpoena of records at Northwestern Memorial Hospital "a significant intrusion" of patients' privacy that would provide "little, if any, probative value" to the government's case.
Reportedly, the Justice Department is considering a possible appeal of Kocoras' ruling. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia U.S. District Judge Charles R. Weiner is considering a similar request from Hahnemann University Hospital.
Cloning is at present as much an art as a science. The success rate is very low. What really gave the Korean team an edge was that they were able to obtain 242 human eggs from 16 women volunteers who took hormone treatment to stimulate egg production.
An ethics committee in the West might have questioned this, as the women themselves got no benefit. An
American or European team would be lucky to get 20 eggs, as they are in short supply for IVF treatments, never mind ‘blue skies’ research.”
Nigel Hawkes, London Times.
“The Korean scientists, if their experiment is confirmed in other laboratories, will have proved, in principle, the viability of the first step in therapeutic cloning, that of converting an ordinary body cell back into the embryonic state. But one element in their success is simply that they were able to amass enough human eggs to get the standard techniques to work, and had no legal restrictions standing in their way.”
Nicholas Wade, New York Times.
As many of you know, a team of South Korean researchers reported in the February 13 issue of the journal "Science" that it had created a cloned human embryo from which it derived stem cells. However gussied up in over-hyped promise of future "benefit," the simple truth is that tiny human lives were manufactured to be looted for parts.
This use of cloning to create and destroy human embryos is a sign of moral regress.
In fact, the loss in human life was much more extensive than most press reports suggested.
Using the 242 human eggs, the team of veterinary cloning expert Woo Suk Hwang and gynecologist Shin Youg Moon made 213 embryos at the two-celled stage.
Forty survived to the "compacted morula" stage (3-4 days), then 30 to the blastocyst stage (5-7 days).
From this the researchers were able to get inner cell masses from 20, but established a stable stem cell line from only one.
Hwang and Moon attempted to shield themselves from criticism by arguing that they were not intending to produce a baby (so-called "reproductive cloning") but tailor-made replacement cells to assume the duties of cells damaged by disease (referred to as "therapeutic" or "research" cloning).
But this was little more than the typical ruse, as a reading of the "Q&A" written for the London Times by Nigel Hawkes demonstrates.
Referring to the South Korean work, the question was posed,
“How is this different from cloning human babies?”
The answer?
“Not very different, except that the development of the embryo is halted at an early stage, after just a week, and long before it would be recognisable as a baby,” Hawkes writes. “Technically the same process could be used to create a baby, if the developing foetus had been placed in a woman’s womb rather then being used as a source of stem cells.”
The list of ethical barriers they leapfrogged is, to put it mildly, formidable, and the inventory of moral dangers is thicker than an old Sears and Roebuck catalogue.
Before further criticizing their work, it is necessary to know in a general way what they did. As you quickly discern, this is a layman’s explanation!
As Hawkes suggested in the quote reproduced above, the research protocol used would hardly be acceptable by our standards. Sixteen women were pumped full of powerful hormones to stimulate the production of eggs (ova) which were then harvested.
The nuclei of the eggs were removed and replaced with the nuclei of cumulus cells (cells that surround a woman’s eggs).
According to the Chicago Tribune,
“Chemicals in the egg's interior, or cytoplasm, then caused it to reprogram the replacement nucleus, deactivating the adult genes and switching on embryo genes,” a kind of Rip Van Winkle in reverse.
“Researchers were able to collect embryonic stem cells from the resulting cell mass inside 20 cloned blastocysts, which are very early embryos.”
Only when the egg and the nucleus from the cumulus cell came from the same woman did the clones mature sufficiently to make stem cells.
As the "Science" article explains, eggs that received nuclei from adult cells of women other than the donor (or from adult male cells) did not produce stem cells.
But for all the eggs harvested, nuclei sucked out, and cloned blastocysts manufactured, the South Korean researchers were only able to produce a single culture of embryonic cells.
And because the South Korean team used the nucleus from a particular female body cell --the cumulus cell-- thus far the technique works only for women.
As the input-to-success ratio suggests, “Cloning is an arduous process, and using it to create tailor-made replacement cells may prove impractical,” as Gina Kolata, writing in the New York Times, explained.
“Cloning uses human eggs, and that means finding young women who agree to be donors. Dr. John Gearhart, a stem cell expert at Johns Hopkins University, estimated that even if there were eggs and even if scientists knew how to efficiently get cloned stem cells that match a patient and to turn them into replacement cells, it would take months, perhaps a year, to make cells for an individual patient.”
It is always difficult, of course, to defeat something (however theoretical in nature) with nothing. And although you'd barely know it by reading most press accounts, there are very viable alternatives.
“Some scientists say it would be more practical to use stem cells from adults,” writes Andrew Pollack for the Times News Service.
“While some experts say these cells cannot be grown outside the body as easily as embryonic stem cells and may not be as versatile [both highly debatable points], they are more predictable in what kind of cells they turn into.”
Then there is Brian Alexander, author of “Rapture: How Biotech Became the New Religion.” Alexander supports cloning, including the use of cloning to produce a live birth. In an interview with Wired.com, he made this intriguing concession.
“It's possible that there may be a better way to do this. It might be done by taking cells already in our body and switching their function,” he said.
Ironically, Alexander offered as an example actor Christopher Reeve, a vociferous proponent of the use of embryonic stem cells and cloning, who was paralyzed when he was thrown from a horse.
“He [Reeve] is somehow managing to gain some function back that people didn't think he was going to get, thanks to this intense program he's in,” Alexander told Wired.com.
“They think what's happening is some cells are being recruited and switching their jobs. It's possible his body is regenerating, in a small way....”
There are other possible options, including freezing the stem cell-rich blood from the umbilical cord of newborn babies.
Stay tuned to Today’s News & Views and National Right to Life News for ongoing stories and critiques of cloning. We need to be fully informed if we are to repel this latest foray.
Here is a look into ENGINEERING specs that is very interesting, educational, historical, completely true, and hysterical all at the same time:
The U.S. standard railroad gauge (width between the two rails) is 4 feet,8.5 inches. That's an exceedingly odd number. Why was that gauge used?
Because that's the way they built them in England, and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates. Why did the English build them like that?
Because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the pre-railroad tramways, and that's the gauge they used. Why did "they" use that gauge then?
Because the people who built the tramways used the same jigs and tools that they used for building wagons which used that wheel spacing. Okay!
Why did the wagons have that particular odd wheel spacing?
Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that's the spacing of the wheel ruts.
So who built those old rutted roads?
The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) were built by Imperial Rome for their legions. The roads have been used ever since.
And the ruts in the roads?
Roman war chariots first formed the initial ruts, which everyone else had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels. Since the chariots were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing. The United States standard railroad gauge of 4 feet, 8.5 inches derives from the original specification for an Imperial Roman war chariot.
Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. So, the next time you are handed a specification and wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right, because the Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back ends of two war horses. Thus, we have the answer to the original question.
Now the twist to the story... There's an interesting extension to the story about railroad gauges and horses' behinds.
When we see a Space Shuttle sitting on its launch pad, there are two big booster rockets attached to the sides of the main fuel tank. These are solid rocket boosters, or S.R.B.'s. The S.R.B.'s are made by Thiokol at their factory in Utah.
The engineers who designed the S.R.B.'s might have preferred to make them a bit fatter, but the S.R.B.'s had to be shipped by train from the factory to the launch site.
The railroad line from the factory had to run through a tunnel in the mountains. The S.R.B.'s had to fit through that tunnel. The tunnel is slightly wider than the railroad track, and the railroad track is about as wide as two horses' rears.
So, the major design feature of what is arguably the world's most advanced transportation system was determined over two thousand years ago by the width of a Horse's Ass!
Attendees of a national conference for abortion providers watched and listened with rapt attention as the inventor of the partial-birth abortion procedure narrated a video of the grisly procedure – and then burst into applause when the act was over and the unborn child destroyed.
The disturbing and eye-opening event, featuring abortion doctor Martin Haskell addressing members of the National Abortion Federation, was captured on audiotape.
Calmly and dispassionately describing each step of the process – up to and including the insertion of the scissors into the base of the baby's head, followed by the sound of the suction machine sucking out the baby's brain – Haskell walks his audience through the procedure that opponents hope will finally be banned during this congressional session.
At the end of the procedure, after the late-term, fully developed unborn child's life has been violently and painfully terminated, the audience breaks out into applause.
Pardon me while I go into the other room to be violently sick.
The third of the three arguments for the sake of the child says, "We should not bring a defective child into the world. If we have reasonable grounds to believe that the child will be defective, and therefore handicapped, either physically deformed or mentally retarded, it is an act of mercy not to let such a child come into the world.
He will have a miserable life, a life of anguish and suffering. We should spare him that. It is better for him that he not be born at all."
Abortion to prevent the birth of a "defective" child is not morally justified, for several reasons.
The verdict that a child in the womb will be born defective can easily be mistaken. It is hardly ever, if ever, a certain one. As a rule it is a mere probability, and not even a very high one. "There is some chance that your child will be born with a defect."
Since that is so, why not wait until birth? Why kill a child who might be defective? One may well be killing a child who is in fact perfectly healthy. So, if the reasoning is that a "defective" child should be terminated, why not wait until one knows with certainty whether she is in fact "defective." Why not wait until birth?
And kill her at birth? Does that sound horrible? But why is killing this same child before birth any different? Why is killing her at an earlier phase of her existence "all right," "an act of mercy," while killing her at a later phase such a horrible thing? The difference is purely psychological. One who favors killing before birth - called abortion - need not see the child, hear her cry, or look into her pleading eyes. The child is not seen, so she is psychologically not there as a real person with whom we identify. That says a lot about us; it says nothing of any significance about the child herself.
It is one thing if a severely handicapped person decides for himself that his life is not worth living; it is quite another if we impose such a decision on him. The same reasons, in terms of individual autonomy, that make it wrong to kill an unwanted child also make it wrong to kill a defective child.
Many handicapped people have happy lives. They find meaning and fulfillment in life through creativity and love. They are glad to be alive. The argument for aborting a defective child assumes that such a child will be unhappy. This is an unwarranted assumption, and when it is removed, the pro-abortion argument based on it collapses. Eugene F. Diamond, M.D., speaks to this point, and to the previous one:
There is no evidence that the handicapped child would rather not go on living. As a matter of fact, handicapped persons commit suicide far less often than normal persons. An interesting study was done at the Ana Stift in Hanover, Germany, a center where a large number of children with phocomelia, due to thalidomide, are cared for. Psychological testing on these children indicated that they do indeed value their lives, that they are glad that they were born and they look forward to the future with hope and pleasant anticipation.
There are numerous case histories of handicapped persons leading productive, fulfilled, meaningful lives, glad that they are alive. Each of them is a refutation of the idea that a handicapped person cannot achieve a meaningful life; or that such a person is merely a "vegetable."
In a 1973 issue of Newsweek magazine, the medical section carried an article entitled "Shall This Child Die?" It reported on the work of Drs. Raymond S. Duff and A. G. M. Campbell at the Yale-New Haven Hospital. These men permit babies born with birth defects to die by deliberately withholding vital medical treatments. The doctors are convincing the parents that these children would be a financial burden and that they had "little or no hope of achieving meaningful 'humanhood.’" The doctors understood that they were breaking the law by doing away with what they called "vegetables," but they believed the law should be changed to allow for such deaths.
Sondra Diamond, who is in private practice as a counseling psychologist and is currently completing her doctoral work, responded to the article in a letter to the editor of Newsweek...
"I'll wager . . . that you have never received a letter from a vegetable before this one, but much as I resent the term, I must confess that I fit the description of a 'vegetable' as defined in the article, ‘Shall This Child Die?'
Due to severe brain damage incurred at birth, I am unable to dress myself, toilet myself, or write: my secretary is typing this letter. Many thousands of dollars had to be spent on my rehabilitation and education in order for me to reach my present professional status as a counseling psychologist. My parents were also told, 35 years ago, that there was 'little or no hope of achieving meaningful humanhood' for their daughter. Have I reached 'humanhood'? Compared with Drs. Duff and Campbell I believe I have surpassed it!"
The term "vegetable" is one of the greatest affronts to the dignity and preciousness of each person: its use cannot be too strongly condemned. No human beings are "vegetables," they are all persons. Some lack the physical skills, mental abilities, or other capacities that we associate with "normal" persons. This does not make them nonpersons, "vegetables." If we use this term, we are failing, they are not. We fail in our response to their being as persons, as full persons, with the same dignity and rights as the rest of us.
Not all handicapped people can reach a level of achievement like that of Sondra Diamond. Meaningful human life does not require this. My father, Balduin Schwarz, told me of the moving experience he had long ago in a home for the severely mentally retarded. Though very limited in their activities, they showed by their facial expressions and gestures a deep gratitude to those who took care of them. They were capable of receiving and giving love. They appreciated what was done for them, they responded from their hearts, and in this their lives had a deep meaning.
But suppose a handicapped person is not happy, even miserably unhappy. Does that mean we should kill him? Should we kill all unhappy born persons. Why try to kill all unhappy preborn persons?
I suggest that the argument for abortion for a "fetus" diagnosed as probably "defective" rests on the assumption that the "fetus" represents a merely potential person who is not yet there, and who may therefore be terminated before he actually arrives. Hence the phrase "let us not bring into the world a defective child," as though the child were not yet here. Once the fallacy of this assumption is recognized, and it is seen that the child is already here, then anyone who reverences human life, all human persons, whether normal or handicapped, will understand the absurdity of abortion in the name of "not bringing a 'defective' child into the world." (The same point applies to the "unwanted child.")
I noted above the inappropriateness of the term unwanted as applied to children: there are no unwanted children, only unwanting adults. Some such parallel applies to the term defective, as in "defective child." It is true that there are real differences among children, between those who have the capacity to walk and those who do not, between those who can see and those who are blind, and so on. These are important differences, and the negative in each case does imply a defect. But it is not a defect of the person; it is a defect in ability and bodily state. The term "defective child" is odious because it implies that it is the child himself who is defective, rather than something about his body. "But many defective babies die naturally before birth, in the very early stages, or later by miscarriage. Nature 'takes care of them' by providing a merciful death. Where nature fails, should we not do the same: provide a merciful death? Should we not, therefore, abort defective babies?"
No. There is a world of difference between natural death and murder! If a very sick person dies of his illness, that is a natural death; it is not a moral evil, it is not murder, since no one intentionally killed him. If he is deliberately killed, "mercy killing," that is murder. What is perfectly obvious for born persons applies equally to preborn persons.
Abortion for the Sake of the Family
Abortion is sometimes advocated for the sake of family welfare. "We cannot take care of another child. It would not be fair to the other children." These, and other similar reasons, may be valid for not bringing another child into existence. But once a child is there? We have only to remember that the child in the womb is already there, as much as any born child. She is just as real as a born child and should be treated in the same way.
The reply to this abortion argument is basically twofold. One: Abortion would not be right even if it did benefit the family. As I have been stressing, we cannot benefit people by murdering someone. We cannot kill B to benefit A, not even to save A’s life, still less for other benefits.
Two: Abortion does not benefit a family. On the contrary, it has in general a disastrous effect on the family and its members in four specific ways.
First, in a society where abortion is accepted, children who survive to be born naturally wonder why they exist when many of their brothers and sisters were destroyed. Such children, Dr. Ney states, may suffer from guilt, from distrust regarding their future, and from carrying a heavy burden of expectation they may not be able to fill. "Since their fate once hung on their desirability, they tend to feel secure only when they are pleasing to their parents."
This is a heavy burden to carry, not all children succeed. In some cases it may lead to depression and suicide. Ney also explains that having abortions causes guilt leading to "antepartum depression that interferes with a mother's ability to bond." Failure to achieve bonding with the child tends to lead to child abuse, problems with subsequent pregnancies, and aversion to touching a child born later. Children who are abortion survivors, since they feel they exist only because their mothers chose them, tend to feel deeply insecure. "Since their security rests in their wantedness.... [they] keep checking. . . , 'Do you really want me?’"
Second, perhaps the deepest and most devastating effect of abortion on family life. and the other children especially, is that abortion cheapens life:
Abortion diminishes the value of all people, particularly children. When the destruction of the unborn child is socially sanctioned and even applauded, the child can't have much value. More than anyone, children realize they are becoming worth less. Thus, the rate of suicide has increased correspondingly.
"Every child a wanted child" sounds noble. When it is taken to imply the destruction of children who are unwanted, it becomes something frightening.
If society adheres to the ethic that the unborn child only has value when he is wanted, that ethic can easily be applied to small children.... If the unborn has no value and it is all right to kill him, then it is defensible to kill children who have lost value because they are now unwanted.
People do not harm what they highly value. As children decline in value, it becomes easier to neglect and dispose of them.
A third dimension of abortion on the family is its destructive effect on the structure of the family. Under current American law, a woman can get an abortion without her husband's consent, even without his knowledge. The child conceived by the man and woman together is torn from the man and put at the mercy of the woman who has the power to have him destroyed. The union of father-mother-child is destroyed; the family structure is effectively destroyed.
Or, if it survives, it does so in spite of the power, enshrined in law, of a woman to destroy her unborn child, a child that should be seen as belonging in a family rather than to an individual woman.
The same applies to the right, under current American law, of a minor to have an abortion without her parents' consent or knowledge. A child who cannot have even minor surgery without parental consent may have an abortion! Recall the hazards for women from abortion, physical and psychological. These alone should mandate the necessity for parental consent. The preborn child may be torn from the young (minor) woman; and she may be torn from her parents in her decision to abort. In no other way could the family structure be more effectively destroyed.
Noonan puts it well when he observes that making abortion legal and readily available means that a "childbearing woman ... became a solo entity unrelated to husband or boyfriend, father or mother, deciding for herself what to do with her child. She was conceived atomistically, cut off from the family structure."
Finally, abortion can be devastating to the man, and to the relation between him and the woman. The man is often the forgotten figure in the abortion drama. "What many people don't realize is that men, too, suffer from the abortion process - especially fathers of aborted children. Whether they encouraged the abortion or opposed it, they endure feelings of guilt, depression, grief, and often describe the abortion experience as bewildering and painful beyond their coping abilities."
Here is an excerpt from a pamphlet titled: "How Abortion Affects Men: They Cry Alone." Referring first to the woman, it says: "The evidence grows daily that she is, indeed, a casualty - that she is a real victim, along with her unborn baby, of this most unnatural procedure.... The purpose of the pamphlet is to point out that much the same can be said of the aborted child's father."
Dr. Vincent Rue expounds:
Sociologist Arthur Shostak observed in an article for The Family Coordinator that three out of four male respondents studied said they had a difficult time with the abortion experience and that a sizable minority reported persistent day and night dreams about the child that never was, and considerable guilt, remorse and sadness.
For men and women alike, the feeling of emptiness may last a lifetime, for parents are parents forever, even of a dead child. Emotional resolution is nearly impossible because there is no visible conclusion - just a memory. Because the unborn child was denied humanity, he or she is denied a grave or marker. The grieving process is left unfinished....
Because of the basic inequality between the partners in the abortion decision, the capacity to develop trust.... intimacy, honesty and companionship is severely restricted. This same inequality has the potential to breed displaced male aggression via child abuse, spousal abuse or self-abuse.
A woman's "right to choose" abortion, and the law that protects this, means that the father is denied any rights to protect the child. In many cases the father very much wants the child. To have his own child destroyed, at the request of the woman with whom he begot this child, is devastating.
Not all men want the child. Some in fact take just the opposite position. This too is harmful, for it is harmful to human relations. Speaking of men who support abortion, Wailing says, "Now they can pursue their pleasures without a thought about the consequences. When told of a pregnancy, they say to the woman, ‘That's your problem.' Other men do even worse - they apply great pressure on the woman, threatening to break off the relationship if she doesn't have the abortion. She must choose between the baby or the baby’s father."
Not surprisingly, abortion takes its toll on human relationships: "Researcher Emily Milling found that of more than 400 couples who went through the abortion experience, most of the relationships (70 percent) had failed within one month after the abortion."
Abortion for the Sake of Society
It is argued: "What will we do with all those unwanted babies? Abortion is needed to control population growth in the face of the threat of overpopulation," And, "it is unrealistic to say that all abortions are immoral. If we lived in a perfect world, we would not need abortion; but we do not. Killing is never good, but it is sometimes necessary, as in war time."
First, abortion is bad for society because it is bad for people! Abortion is bad for the child. The child is already in the world. She should not be excluded from membership in our society merely because she is still in a secluded place, necessary for her so that she is nourished and protected during those first formative weeks of her life. Abortion is bad because it represents frightening hazards for women, physically and psychologically. It is bad because of its effects on other children. It is bad because of its effects on the family structure. It is bad because of its effects on men. Abortion is bad because of its effects on human relations.
Many other dimensions could be added: its effect on the medical profession when doctors, committed to healing and saving, become hired killers; its effect on nurses having to reassemble the broken pieces of a baby torn apart by the abortion knife; and its effect on the society that lives in the midst of a holocaust. Abortion is a deadly plague with many victims.
Second, "What will we do with all those unwanted babies?" Often it is the pregnancy that is unwanted. The child once born, and perhaps even before birth, is very much wanted. A child unwanted now may be very much wanted later. And if a child is at first wanted, then later unwanted, does the objection imply that she should later be killed, when she is born? Adoption, not abortion. While millions of babies are killed, so many couples who want to adopt cannot.
If there are still many babies "left over," we can make room for them. We can adjust our lifestyles to take care of them. If a boat full of poor, hungry refugees were to come to our shores, begging to be allowed in, would we turn them away to their deaths? Or would we open our hearts to them? Open our gates to let them in?
Abortion is, if anything, still worse than a closed door to refugees; that is more like withholding support, as discussed in chapter 8. Abortion should be compared to killing the refugees after they land on our shores. ("The child is already in the world.")
In the worst case scenario, we return to the original question, "What will we do with all those unwanted babies?" Mass extermination, as the Nazis did with "all those unwanted people" in their society? If it would be an atrocity to kill "all those unwanted babies" after birth, would it be any less of an atrocity to kill them before birth?
It is sometimes said that abortion is cheaper than welfare; that eliminating or sharply curtailing abortion means adding welfare costs later on. This is not evident when we consider the thousands of couples eager to adopt and take care of babies. But grant the premise for the sake of argument. "Abortion is cheaper than welfare." Of course. It is always cheaper to kill a child than to feed him and clothe him! The same applies to the aged, infirm, and to handicapped persons. What follows? That we should kill people to get them out of the way?
Third, "Abortion is needed to control population growth in the face of the threat of overpopulation." The question of overpopulation is broad and complex, far beyond the scope of this book. Let me suggest three significant points in reply to this objection.
There is evidence to suggest that population growth, far from being a threat, is actually healthy. One author who argues for this is P. T. Bauer. His thesis is that as population increases the standard of living increases.
Since the 1950s rapid population increase in densely-populated Hong Kong and Singapore has been accompanied by large increases in real income and wages. The population of the Western world has more than quadrupled since the middle of the eighteenth century. Real income per head is estimated to have increased by a factor of five or more. Most of the increase in incomes took place when population increased as fast as, or faster than, in the contemporary less developed world.. . .
In both the less developed world and in the West some of the most prosperous countries and regions are extremely densely populated. Hong Kong and Singapore are probably the most densely populated countries in the world, with originally very poor land.... In the advanced world Japan, West Germany, Belgium and Holland are examples of densely populated countries. Conversely, many millions of extremely backward people live in sparsely populated regions amidst cultivable land. Examples include the backward peoples in Sumatra, Borneo, Central Africa and the interior of South America. They have ready access to vast areas of land - for them land is a free good. In South Asia, generally regarded as a region suffering from over-population, there is much uncultivated land, land which could be cultivated at the level of technology prevailing in the region....
Evidence contradicts the idea that unchecked human reproduction will fill the earth because the sheer number of people will outdistance food resources, as Malthus warned. James A. Weber argues against Malthus (and contemporary Malthusians such as Paul Ehrlich):
This Malthusian drama of despair has captured the imagination of generation after generation of population experts, including our present crop of doomsayers. However, there is one thing wrong with the scenario. It is exactly the opposite of what has happened in the past or what can be expected to happen in the future. Far from outdistancing material progress in the past, population growth has lagged far behind, as is evidenced by continuing rapid increase in per capita income that has occurred in the United States and other advanced countries since Malthus formulated his population principle.
However, based on broad trends of past and present world population growth, it is possible to suggest that world population will return to an extremely slow growth rate about the time it reaches the neighborhood of 10 billion people, which should be approximately the middle of the next century.
Jacqueline R. Kasun argues that 10 billion people is not too many for the world to sustain:
Colin Clark, former director of the Agricultural Economic Institute at Oxford University and noted author of many books on population-resource questions, classified world land types by their food-raising capabilities and found that if all farmers were to use the best methods now in use, enough food could be raised to provide an American-type diet for 35,100,000,000 people, almost 10 times as many as now exist! Since the American diet is a very rich one, Clark found that it would be possible to feed three times as many again - or 30 times as many people as now exist - at a Japanese standard of food intake. Nor would these high levels of food output require cropping of every inch of available land space. Clark's model assumed that nearly half of the earth's land area would remain conservation areas. The noted city planner, Constantin Doxiasis, arrived independently at a similar estimate of the world's ability to feed people and to provide conservation areas.
Clearly there is plenty of room on this earth for 10 billion people. "We could put the entire world population [around 4 billion] in the state of Texas and each man, woman and child could be allotted 2,000 square feet [the average home ranges between 1,400 and 1,800 square feet] and the whole rest of the world would be empty."
There is evidence to suggest that the problem, far from being a population explosion, is rather the opposite: a declining population, a population rate below replacement, leading to extinction:
Ansley J. Coale, director of the office of Population Research at Princeton University, states: "Of the 31 countries that are usually listed as highly developed, 21 now have birthrates below replacement." Coale points out that, in the U.S., "by the time the Zero Population Growth movement came along, fertility was in the midst of its steepest decline in history - 50% in 16 years. We are below replacement now and are continuing to grow only because of the age distribution of the population. If the downtrend continues, we will begin to have a shrinking population not long after the end of the century." . . .
Thus, there is no population explosion in the U.S. or in the other developed countries. Population scholars estimate that rates of growth are higher in the less-developed world, but also note evidence of declining growth rates in a majority of the countries for which data are available.
Suppose the worst, that there is a real danger from a population explosion. Are we simply going to kill off all the "extra people," a Nazi-type "final solution"? It is shocking even to mention this. The alternative is that all persons be respected, that no one be killed to get him out of the way. All persons means everyone, born or preborn.
Fourth, "Isn't an absolute ban on abortion unrealistic? We don't live in a perfect world. Killing in war is bad, but war is sometimes necessary. Isn't it the same with abortion?"
We do not live in a perfect world. We live in the pervasive presence of moral evil. Abortion as the unjust killing of small, helpless, innocent children, especially on a mass scale that makes it a holocaust, is a frightening example of this. Far from being a solution, abortion killings make the world more imperfect. And much worse than imperfect.
The destructive effects of abortion - on women, on men, on other children, on the structure of the family, on society - make abortion hardly a realistic solution, but exactly the opposite. A realistic solution is something positive, not destructive like abortion.
The argument for abortion that compares it to war is not valid. If "going to war" is a way of trying to settle disputes, the comparison is indeed apt: Both are terrible moral evils. For both are assaults on innocent people, both cause horrible sufferings, both have terrible side effects; both are fundamentally destructive. If it is the question of defense against unjust attack, war becomes a complex subject, far beyond the scope of this book. Some defensive wars are indeed unjust, and some tactics in war are unjust. Intentionally killing an innocent person is always wrong, whether by a rifle, a bomb, a saline solution, or a knife.
Abortion is indeed a war, a war on the preborn, in which they cannot defend themselves, in which they are killed in extremely cruel ways. Saying that war is not a solution applies most aptly to the war on the preborn.
It is argued: "Abortion is necessary to prevent, or at least to minimize, the terrible evil of child abuse. Anyone who has ever witnessed the absolute horror of child abuse cannot but wish that such a child had never been born."
As in the previous type of case, we must have the greatest sympathy for a child who is a victim of child abuse. We must do all we can to stop this abomination. But to kill the child before he is born?
First, abortion is not a solution for child abuse, because abortion is itself the ultimate child abuse! Recall what has been continually emphasized, the horror of the methods of abortion, such as saline burning of the skin for one to two hours or cutting the child to pieces, and the pain these methods cause to the child. Even by other "clean and painless" methods, abortion would still be child abuse because all murder is a form of abuse.
Second, abortion is not a solution for child abuse. It is simply false to assume that it is the unwanted child who will be abused while the wanted child will not. That is, abortion for this purpose, even if it were justified, would not be effective. "Many studies have demonstrated that the victim of child abuse is not the 'unwanted child.'" It IS the wanted child. In his study of child abuse, Edward F. Lenoski, M.D., found that "91% of the parents admitted they wanted the child they had abused. The mothers had also donned maternity clothing two months earlier than most expectant mothers."8 Furthermore: "A higher percentage of the abused children were named after one of the parents," indicating that they were wanted.
Third, there is another compelling reason why abortion is not a solution for child abuse. "Instead of reducing the incidence of child abuse, the evidence shows that abortion actually increases child abuse." There are a number of reasons for this:
The abused child is reduced to an object.
The abortion mentality reinforces the attitude of treating children like objects, objects that can be wanted or unwanted according to whether or not "it" satisfies parental needs ... What aborters and abusers have in common. . . is "the assumption that the rights, desires, and ideas of the adult take full precedence over those of the child, and that children are essentially the property of parents who have the right to deal with their offspring as they see fit, without interference."
The abused child is a victim of the result of guilt. "Aborted women frequently feel guilt, and 'guilt is one of the major factors causing battering and infanticide.' This guilt results in 'intolerable feelings of self-hatred, which the parent takes out on the child.’"
The abused child is a victim of the result of lowered self-esteem. "Child abusers almost invariably have a significant lack of self-esteem. Since lowered self-esteem is a well-documented aftermath of abortion, the experience of abortion may help shape an emotional environment which is conducive to the battering of other or later children." Lenoski states that if the mother sees a resemblance of herself in her child. and if "the mother has very little self-esteem, she will see in the baby a reflection of the low self-esteem she feels toward herself," making the child a potential victim of the bad feelings the mother has for herself.
The abused child is a victim of the result of failures in bonding. Dr. Philip C. Ney, an authority on child abuse, explains:
It would appear that those who abort their infants at any stage of pregnancy interrupt a very delicate mechanism and sever the developing bond that is critical for the infant's protection against the mother's carelessness or rage. It is hypothesized that, once bonding is interrupted in the primipara, there are long-lasting psychological changes which make it more difficult for the same bond to develop in subsequent pregnancies. For this reason, it is likely that abortion contributes to bonding failure, an important cause of child battering. Consequently, as rates of abortion increase, rates of battering will increase proportionately.
The abused child is a victim of the results of marital stress.
The marital stress caused by abortion increases family hostilities and thus heightens the possibility of violent outbreaks. If the father felt left out of the abortion decision or only resentfully agreed to the abortion, or if the woman felt pressured into the abortion by her mate, deep feelings of resentment and violation of trust might cause frequent eruption of emotions. In the heat of such parental disputes, children are likely to get caught in the crossfire, objects of release for the pent-up rage of adults.
The abused child is a victim of the results of abortion, because, as Dr. Ney states:
Abortion decreases an individual's instinctual restraint against the occasional rage felt toward those dependent on his or her care. Permissive abortion diminishes the social taboo against aggressing the defenseless. Abortion increases the hostility between generations. Abortion has devalued children, thus diminishing the value of caring for children. That abortion actually increases child abuse is tragically borne out by statistics.
Since Roe v. Wade, child abuse has increased proportionately with the skyrocketing rate of legal abortions. The same pattern of increased child battery following legalization of abortion has also been observed in many other countries, including Canada, Britain, and Japan. During 1975 alone, the rate of child battery in New York increased 18 to 20 percent, leading to estimates that during the 1980s there would be 1.5 million battered children, resulting in 50,000 deaths and 300,000 permanent injuries.
Other sources reveal a similar, or worse, picture of violence against children. Anne H. Cohn, executive director of the National Committee for the Prevention of Child Abuse, speaking at Brown University, March 8, 1989, told the audience that "about 2.25 million child abuse cases were reported last year, half of which required some form of treatment; 1,130 deaths were attributed to child abuse last year; the number of reported cases has risen 50 percent in the last 5 years."
Abortion and child abuse go together. Each represents the loss of reverence for a human person, the willingness to use violence against him. Even when abortion and child abuse are not practiced by the same persons, they are manifestations of the same underlying attitude of loss of respect for human persons, and thus they tend to exist together. Again, abortion is not a solution to the terrible problem of child abuse; it is part of that problem.
It is argued: "Every child should be a wanted child. We should not bring an unwanted child into the world. It is not fair to him; he is better off if he is not born. He will have a miserable life, rejected by his parents, unloved.
For his own sake, he should be spared such a life. Abortion, in such cases, is the merciful termination of a pregnancy that, if continued, will result in an unloved, miserably unhappy child. Abortion is the only humane thing to do in such a case."
We must certainly have the greatest sympathy for a child who is unloved and rejected. We should do all in our power to alleviate her suffering. We should love her in a special way, and try, as far as possible, to make up for the love she has not received. These are the things we should do - not kill her by an abortion.
"We should not bring an unwanted child into the world." But the child in the womb is already in the world! The womb is part of the world. It is a part of the woman's body, and she is surely in the world. What is in the womb is just as much already in the world as the womb itself. Thus, the child in the womb is as much here as her mother. She is merely not visible to us, and we cannot interact with her. And so we overlook her. But she is as real, and as present, as the rest of us.
As noted in the previous chapter, one cannot kill innocent person B for the sake of benefiting person A. The same is true when B is the supposed beneficiary. We cannot kill B for the sake of B. The obligation to not kill a person clearly overrides the obligation to benefit a person.
A child unwanted in his preborn phase may become wanted later. How many times have we heard of women with unplanned pregnancies, on the one hand considering abortions, on the other hand rejecting the idea of keeping the baby now and then giving him up for adoption after birth? The same child, unwanted as a baby in the womb, will then be very much wanted when he has emerged from the womb, when he can be seen and touched, when it is psychologically easier to identify with him. This is especially true when it is the pregnancy that is unwanted, and when the child is called "unwanted" because of this. There is evidence to suggest that "most women who are refused abortion will be glad that they carried the pregnancy to term."2
A child unwanted by his natural mother even after his birth may be wanted by others eager to adopt him. Thousands of couples would like to adopt babies. So few are available, and usually only after a very long waiting period. How tragic that at the same time a million and a half or more are slaughtered each year by abortion!
Can a disabled child be given up for adoption? There is a program called IMPACT, Innovative Matching of Parents And Children Together, which "places 'hard to place' children, many with multiple handicaps such as mobility impairments, hearing or vision loss, or mental retardation in adoptive or foster families."3 These are parents who have "chosen to raise disabled children." Marsha Saxton, meeting with these parents says, "What struck me was that the usual feeling of 'burden' seemed consistently to be replaced with a sense of challenge to find solutions.... To the IMPACT parents, their disabled children served as a source of enrichment, growth, challenge, joy."
Suppose, despite this, that the child remains unwanted and unhappy. Even then the argument for abortion does not hold. For it says we should kill preborn children who will be unwanted or unhappy. Should we then not also kill other children who are unwanted? If, as the pro-abortion reasoning assumes, killing the preborn child who will be unwanted is doing him a favor by sparing him a life of misery, why not grant this favor also to other children? If preborn persons should be killed to save them from a life of misery, the same logic should apply also to post-born persons.
If there seems to be a difference between killing an unwanted born person and abortion, it is, I think, largely because of the assumption that we should not bring an unwanted child into the world. To regain our perspective we have only to remember that the child in the womb is already in the world.
Perhaps an unwanted child would not want to continue living. Perhaps he would decide that life in his particular condition is not worth living. It is one thing if he decides this for himself, it is quite another if we decide this for him, if we impose this awesome life and death decision on him. How dare we force such a decision on the child, the irreversible decision that a life in an unhappy state is a life not worth living!
The person recommending abortion in such cases should ask himself how he would feel if someone else forced such a decision on him. He would want his autonomy respected. He would claim the right to make such a decision himself. The child's autonomy should also be respected, as well as his right to decide. Why is he not allowed to live until he is capable of making his own decision?
Many persons who suffered through an unhappy childhood find happiness, meaning, and fulfillment later in life, through creativity, love, and many other things. The present argument for abortion assumes that an unwanted child will be an unhappy person. This is an unwarranted assumption, and when it is removed, the pro-abortion argument collapses.
The term unwanted seems to be an adjective modifying child. It is not. The child does not change her characteristics if she is first unwanted then wanted, or the reverse. We change. We should change from unwanting to wanting people.
So the whole problem of the unwanted child is our problem. There is nothing wrong with an unwanted child, no reason why she should be destroyed. There is very much of a problem with unwanting parents and an unwanting society. The changes that are called for to solve this problem are changes in us, not changes in the so-called unwanted child, from being alive to being destroyed.
There is no such thing as an unwanted child - there are only unwanting people among those who are born.
It's no news to the very sharp, very perceptive people who read that it is simply amazing how much you can learn by reading the other side or their legions of sympathetic journalists who use news articles and online essays as a way of offering [semi-]disguised advice on strategy.
To take one of many examples there is an extraordinary piece that appeared at www.slate.com February 5 written by Liza Mundy. (Ms. Mundy is described as "the recipient of a Kaiser Media Fellowship in Health to report on ethics and reproductive technology." I assume she is the same Liza Mundy who used to write for the Washington Post.)
The piece begins as a thinly-disguised assault on the President's Council on Bioethics (described in the piece as the "Kass Commission," after its chairman Leon Kass) which has done some good work and--from the pro-abortion set's perspective--threatens to do more.
Mundy describes the "pro-choicers'" fear: that the Kass commission "intends to use [an upcoming] IVF [in vitro fertilization] report as part of a back-door anti-abortion mission, further eroding abortion rights by granting the embryo enhanced moral standing." But then, without warning, Mundy abruptly takes the reader in a different direction: "But privately, what has pro-choicers unnerved is their own failure to face up to the issues posed by the profitable and ever-growing field of high-tech baby-making."
What's intriguing for us is what Mundy describes as the "internal tensions" within "pro-choice" groups such as NARAL and Planned Parenthood. Let me offer a lengthy quote that puts the dilemma in a nutshell:
"Some of these [internal tensions] came to light last summer, when a Newsweek article on the 'fetal rights' movement pointed out that the latest reproductive technologies--providing, as they do, the ability to see embryos sooner and cultivating, as they do, an atmosphere in which pregnant women happily scrapbook those early ultrasounds--have created a real image problem for the pro-choice movement.
As Kirsten Moore, the president of the Reproductive Health Technologies Project, put it, the piece 'kind of prompted us to realize, oh my God, our movement's messages suck.'"
That is what a member of the pro-abortion inner sanctum is saying: our spiel is hopelessly out of date.
Consider this in light of yesterday's discussion of the corner into which pro-abortionists have painted themselves by staunchly opposing Unborn Victims of Violence laws (formerly called "fetal homicide" laws).
They do so even when public opinion polls consistently show that most self-identified "pro-choicers" understand that when a pregnant woman is assaulted and her baby is injured or killed, there are two victims.
According to Ms. Mundy, the "reproductive-rights community" has held "a series of quiet conversations" to address the disconnect between their abortion-now-and-forever rhetoric and the fact that "a woman desperately hoping for a positive pregnancy test has a whole new attitude toward the embryo.
'Women in their 20s and 30s are probably more worried that their eggs are going to age than whether they're going to be able to obtain an abortion,' Moore acknowledges."
We learn that consultants were then called in. They "urged abortion rights groups to 'reframe the debate' and 'take back' words like 'baby' and 'mother.'"
Just how seriously the "reproductive-rights community" takes all this is shown in this quote from Paul Root Wolpe, a bioethicist from the University of Pennsylvania.
Wolpe told Mundy, "Unless Planned Parenthood can grapple with the bioethical issues of reproductive life in the 21st century, it's going to be left behind."
Mundy writes, "Supporting abortion rights is one thing when it involves a desperate woman or girl. What about when it involves a fertility doctor implanting five embryos to raise his own clinic success rates, knowing he can then use selective reduction, which is essentially abortion by toxic injection, to winnow them down?"
Mundy put it succinctly: If you are Planned Parenthood, must you feel "OK" with any and every scenario?
Last point: Mundy argues that "the abortion-rights groups" and the "infertility-patients groups" would "seem to be natural allies." However a "real standoff" looms. Why? Because their agendas are NOT synonymous.
Pamela Madsen, the head of the American Infertility Association, snarls at the very thought of federal authorities taking a closer look at the reproductive technology industry, which is almost completely unregulated.
But Madsen also tells Mundy, "We're about creating life, not ending it....We're the put them in people, not the take them out of people."
They are caught yet again in their own pregnant-woman-as-propert y-owner worldview.
But as Mundy writes, pro-abortionists are responding. They are taking their consultants' advice to "reframe the debate" and "take back" words like "baby" and "mother."
I once wrote about what I described as the pro-abortionist's "impoverished moral imagination." I meant by this that in order to blind their consciences to abortion's wretched violence, our opponents have chosen to wear self-imposed blinders. And understandably so, I suppose, for without these flaps they might be compelled to look at abortion, as it were, straight in the eye.
Since abortion remains legal, the temptation is for them to believe that padlocking their hearts and throwing away the key is a proven strategy. But it is exacting a price that, I suspect, most abortion advocates would never have anticipated.
What I mean by this will be discussed today and tomorrow. But the overarching point is that pro-abortionists have made several disastrous miscalculations.
For one, they have persuaded themselves that the sun will set on legal abortion if there is any recognition that killing the unborn (outside of the abortion context) is wrong, regardless of one's position on abortion. They fear this could/would be a catalyst for a deeper reexamination of the justice of taking the life of any unborn child.
In fighting rear-guard battles against Unborn Victims of Violence measures, pro-abortionists have not exactly comported themselves with unflinching honesty. Worst yet (from their perspective), in insisting that an injured or murdered unborn child is not a second victim, the Abortion Lobby finds itself wildly at odds with the results of three major tests of public opinion taken in 2003.
It is important to remember that many self-identified "pro-choicers" are able to see that when a pregnant woman is attacked and her baby is injured or killed there are two victims.
But, alas, not so the Abortion Establishment, which fiercely opposes what even many in their own camp favor.
As the 31st anniversary of the Supreme Court's Roe vs. Wade decision arrived late last month, U.S. newspapers will ran a few stories about America's quietly continuing abortion plague.
But in India, where cars stop for sacred cows but abortion or infanticide of little girls is rampant, the problem is very visible on streets where young men without women prowl.
Skewed birth statistics tell the story. For example, look at the district-by-district birth figures for areas surrounding the ancient pilgrimage region of Madurai in south India. Usilampatti in December 2002 had 910 male births and only 690 female ones. Chellampatti had 848 male births and 623 female ones. And so it goes: Boy babies are desired, girl babies despised and, probably one out of four times, killed.
Most Indians desire male sons for both theological and economic reasons. Only sons can perform the funeral rites that purportedly help give souls safe passage to good rebirths. Only a son can snag a dowry from the family of a bride that must provide cash or cattle to have him take the daughter off its hands.
What one journalist (The Hindu, July 24, 2003) called "the fear of giving birth to female babies" now has technological teeth. Health officials say that many parents still obtain sex ID scans despite legal pressure on doctors not to provide such information. When one mark on the screen is missing, abortion beckons. Among those not so technologically adept, infanticide of just-born little women remains a threat. (Once the right to abortion is secured, why not view infanticide merely as a late abortion?)
All of this occurs despite the anti-abortion messages inscribed in Hinduism's sacred texts. For example, in the 10th volume of the ancient Rig Veda, the 162nd aphorism advocates the safety of pregnancy and strongly protests against abortion: "O! Pregnant women: Whichever monster approaches you with the evil intention to destroy your pregnancy/Whoever approaches your womb/Let fire destroy him ..."
The hymn continues, "O! Pregnant women: Whichever devil kills the pregnancy that lives in your womb/ Whichever monster kills the fetus that is taking human shape by three months/ Whoever intends to kill the baby that is evolved in 10 months/ I destroy him in the presence of this sacred fire. ... Whoever carries you to a dreamy state of a fool and tries to abort your pregnancy, tries to kill your baby/ I destroy him in the presence of this holy fire."
Today, though, abortionists are not destroyed. Indian feminists don't like sex-selective abortion, but they do like the availability of abortion generally, so most don't speak out both for fear of upsetting the applecart and out of general principle: If a woman has "the right to choose" and chooses to abort an unborn girl because she's not a boy, what's wrong with that?
It's obviously wrong for the individual child who is killed. Some writers equate the pro-life movement now with the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s or the Dalit ("untouchable") rights movement in India now, but the situation of unborn children in the United States or India now is even worse, since an unborn child has only subjective rights: If she's "wanted" by the mother, she is protected; but if "unwanted," she has no rights.
Abortion is also wrong for nations. European countries that provide equal-opportunity abortion -- boys and girls are killed in approximately the same numbers -- face a general birth dearth that is jeopardizing their governmental pension systems. India has millions of mateless young men who may provide eager cannon fodder for neo-fascist demagogues ready to rumble with Pakistan.
Solutions? Maybe bards can deal with the problem better than politicians have. The great 17th century Indian poet Tukaram wrote, "That man is true/ Who takes to his bosom the afflicted. ... The heart of such a man is filled abrim/ With pity, gentleness and love/ He takes the forsaken for his own."
The National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League (NARAL) is softening its pro-abortion identity by promoting 'choice' as part of its new name.
Thirty years after the Supreme Court legalized abortion, NARAL now fears that the Republican-dominated White House and Congress are plotting to roll back Roe v. Wade.
In response, the pro-abortion group has plotted a massive mobilization campaign and added the words "Pro-Choice America" to the end of its name. The group now refers to itself as NARAL Pro-Choice America.
"'Pro Choice America' ... is a statement of what we are and what we must ensure that anti-choice politicians do not take away," said NARAL-PCA president Kate Michelman.
"NARAL Pro-Choice America's mobilization will awaken the pro-choice majority, educate them about the threats from the White House, Congress as well as their state capitals, and enlist them all in the fight to protect our rights."
NARAL-PCA intends to mobilize its aging pro-abortion "citizens' army" by enlisting a new generation of young women who have never known an America without the "right to choose."
NARAL-PCA has targeted key battleground states for an intensive grassroots campaign that includes taking its agenda door-to-door. Pro-abortion activists in more than 15 states will knock on doors in an attempt to sign up 2 million new NARAL-PCA members and add "tens of thousands" of names to a petition supporting Roe v. Wade.
The mobilization also will include millions of dollars in radio and television ads to educate Americans about what the group sees as threats to "reproductive rights." The ads, according to NARAL, will "persuade" Americans "to act on their pro-choice beliefs."
"The most important social changes in our nation's history have come from outside Washington," said Michelman. "Civil rights, workers' rights, and women's suffrage were all achieved when Americans organized community by community, ultimately bringing their views and their values to Washington, forcing elected officials to take heed."
'Automatic news slant'
Wendy Wright, senior policy director with Concerned Women for America, said NARAL-PCA's name change is significant because it signals to pro-lifers that abortion is a polarizing issue for NARAL.
"Groups generally pick names that they think present what they do in a way that is positive for them," agreed Jim Naureckas, a spokesman for Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
Naureckas said both pro-life groups and pro-abortion groups attempt to define the abortion debate in a way they believe will promote their agenda.
"People generally do have the right to name their organization or their party or their country what they want to be called," Naureckas said. "People do pick names that spin their cause."
David J. Garrow, a legal historian at Emory University who studies abortion law, told the New York Times that NARAL-PCA's new name automatically inserts a pro-abortion slant into news copy.
"It's a free way of getting 'pro-choice' into a news story, even if editors don't allow the words to be used in the reporter's voice," Garrow said.
Wright said it is typical of pro-abortion groups to dictate abortion terminology and which euphemisms are acceptable for use in the media.
"You see that all the time whenever partial birth abortion is mentioned in a news item," Wright said. "The New York Times will often say 'so-called' partial birth abortion; or they'll put it in quotes; or they'll say 'as abortion opponents prefer to call' partial birth abortion."
Average Americans key to NARAL's survival
A Zogby poll conducted after the 2002 mid-term elections indicates that NARAL-PCA has its work cut out for it. The poll showed that more than one-fifth of the Americans surveyed have a less favorable opinion of abortion today than they did one decade ago. The poll further noted that pro-life support nearly doubled, compared with the number of people who more closely identify with the pro-abortion agenda.
Concerned Women for America's Wendy Wright said the mid-term elections proved to NARAL-PCA it can no longer neglect America's voters if it wishes to preserve Roe v. Wade.
"The only way the pro-abortion movement has been able to get their agenda passed is through the courts," Wright said. "It's not been through a democratic avenue; it's not through a majority vote either of representatives or of the people themselves.
"They've pretty much ignored or haven't needed the average person out there," Wright said. "They're realizing that that neglected group is pretty important, because they're the ones who vote."
According to Wright, NARAL-PCA is pitching its pro-abortion message to America's youth - using scare tactics to attract the support of people born after Roe v. Wade by telling tales of a bygone era when abortion was illegal in America. But Wright countered that growing up in an age of legal abortion has been far more harmful to America's youth.
"They've seen their peers get abortions and they've seen the effects on their peers," Wright said. "A lot of them recognize that they're missing siblings, they're missing friends who were aborted before they got a chance to know them."
Wright said NARAL-PCA might be misguided in its efforts to target an audience that has already experienced the emotional hardships of abortion.
"While NARAL is focusing on rights, the [younger] generation sees the implications of a rather selfish approach to the issue," Wright said. "The implication is that even though this is maybe a decision the woman made for herself, that decision has a ripple effect on all those around her, particularly her family."
Time was, folks calling themselves progressives dismissed any attempts to quantify -- or even qualify -- the value of human life as inherently right-wing. Whether fighting child labor in Pennsylvania or battling Franco in Catalan, advocating for women's suffrage in Britain or exposing Hitler's eugenics program to an unwilling world, it was progressives who argued that human beings had a value intrinsic to their mere existence. That we didn't need a God or a king to grant us value -- we possessed it by the mere fact that we lived.
And that we had obligations to one another; that to threaten any of us was to threaten us all. That no one ever had a right to inflict harm on another except in self-defense.
Those days are, sadly, long gone. In fact, the term "progressive" is hardly recognizable anymore what with so many who claim the heritage of the Left instead advocating policies drawn from the furthest reaches of the right.
From abortion to assisted suicide, there is a steady erosion of leftist support for the value of human life.
Especially on the issue of abortion, where the mass of those claiming to be of the Left offering vociferous support for a "woman's right to privacy."
But there is nothing at all progressive about abortion -- it is as reactionary a practice as one could imagine.
Indeed, its main early proponent in the United States was an open admirer of Adolf Hitler. Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, proposed many of the same policies Hitler implemented.
It was Sanger, in her 1922 book "Pivot of Civilization," who called for sterilizing blacks, Asians and Latinos. It was Sanger who, in 1934, called for a one-child policy in China -- not to improve the lives of the Chinese, but to stop "the incessant fertility of [the Chinese] millions spread like a plague."
The only difference between "Mein Kampf" and Sanger's book is that Hitler has been disgraced by history, while Sanger remains respectable.
So respectable, in fact, that even her more outrageous suggestions are now becoming accepted policy.
Many self-proclaimed "progressives" now advocate "assisted suicide" for those with a "diminished quality of life."
But when asked to define that quality of life, it inevitably comes down to consumerist values right out of the Brady Bunch: being physically or mentally disabled in such a way that one is no longer seen as normal or enjoying the material benefits of modern society.
Or worse, lives are deemed unworthy of living when they can be sustained only through dependancy on others.
But is it not the open and honest recognition that we are ALL interdependent that is at the heart of a progressive value system? That none of us can exist without our brothers and sisters? That, indeed, no man is an island?
It is the exact opposite that is the basic philosophy behind abortion: I am an island, sovereign to myself, with no obligations to the greater society around me. I can do with my body what I like and nobody has a right to say otherwise.
It is, in fact, the same right-wing individualism (often dressed up today as libertarianism) that drives the militia movement. It is the same set of reactionary values that was used to justify slavery, child labor and treating women as property. We've gone from "It's my plantation, I can do what I want with it" to "It's my factory, mind your own business" right up through "This is my home, you have no say how I treat her" to the present "It's my body and I can do what I want."
Whether one agrees with the sentiment or not, it is clearly not one based on the progressive values of community, interdependency and respect for one another.
What it does have in its favor at a political level is its appeal to the consumerist mentality of the ruling white middle class. Two generations of American bourgoise have been conditioned by Madison Avenue (through television and glossy magazines) to believe that they have a god-given right to full material happiness -- and anything (or anyone) who gets in the way of that is shit out of luck.
And it's that class that populates and runs the national media and university faculties.
What is shameful is that many progressives believe as I do -- that abortion is simply another manifestation of social inequality and America's inclination to solve all problems with violence -- yet don't speak out. With the Politically Correct movement acting as all fascists do and bullying anyone who dares to question or challenge, too many progressives have allowed themselves to be silenced out of fear.
An unwanted pregnancy? No different than an unwanted CD player -- simply get rid of it and go on to the next commodity.
When abortion opponents warned 25 years ago that Roe vs. Wade would result in a steady erosion of societal value for human life, they were scoffed at. Today we have Jack Kevorkian killing off people whose primary illness is depression and driving around L.A. with their organs in an ice chest, hawking them to the first taker.
This is progressive?
It is fascism, born of the same American shallowness that gave us child labor and chattel slavery. Twenty-five years after we legalized killing our own unborn offspring, we now have the government imposing the death penalty on children and the retarded, doctors proposing that we withhold food from handicapped infants, and parents suing hospitals for NOT aborting their children.
Where's Josef Mengele when you need him?
Out here in California, the two most "liberal" candidates for higher office (Barbara Boxer and Gray Davis) in 1998 both ran on a consistent death ethic: they support the death penalty, abortion and welfare reform.
This is progressive?
To be sure, there are remnants of the old-style Left still out there fighting for the little person. Maya Angelou and Nat Hentoff, for instance. Phillip and Daniel Berrigan. Martin Sheen. Eunice and Sargent Shriver.
But the vast majority of those claiming to be leftist are far too busy marketing their politics of materialism to the white middle class to be bothered with defending the voiceless.
In the face of a much ballyhooed multiculturalism, Catholicism is distinct, if not unique, in its insistence on the priority of an authoritative moral community not of one's own choosing.
Catholicism can stand up to multiculturalism and the ideology of radical individualism that underlies it.
Q: What is multiculturalism, and how does it end up subverting culture?
Multiculturalism: means different things to different people. If I had to identify a common ground that unites all self-proclaimed multiculturalists, it would come down to two points.
First, all cultures are equal in value and have an equal right to flourish free from external constraints; and second, the greater good of humanity -- defined in terms of peace, love and understanding -- is best served by people living within or directly experiencing as many different cultures.
The irony or contradiction within this ideal of diversity lies in the historical reality that all of the traditional cultures celebrated in the multiculturalist literature were able to flourish and develop their unique beauty precisely because of a degree of isolation now judged to be the incubator of intolerance.
The peoples of the South Pacific islands developed their unique cultures largely due to their separation from the mainland of Southeast Asia and from each other.
The Hurons and the Iroquois of North America maintained distinct cultures in large part because they were sworn enemies. Sustained contact between cultures transforms -- that is, undermines the integrity of -- each culture.
The demand on the part of multiculturalists for a constant engagement with difference betrays a very elitist, cosmopolitan vision of culture in which each individual is free to sample the cultures of the world and piece together their own idiosyncratic, personal "culture." By the standards of most of the cultures in world history, this is simply cultural consumerism.
Q: Where are the roots of multiculturalism?
The roots of multiculturalism lie, appropriately enough, in the idea of culture.
For 19th-century Europeans, the idea of culture, in either the aesthetic sense of high art or the social sense of a whole way of life, arose as an antidote to the social fragmentation bequeathed by the French Revolution and industrialism.
Interestingly, the longing for social unity and wholeness fostered a romantic longing for the Catholic Middle Ages as a period that exemplified harmonious social relations and the ideal integration of art and life. This Catholic romanticism could only go so far, due in large part to the contempt of secular and Protestant intellectuals for the real living Catholics, particular those of the immigrant and working class variety.
By the early 20th century, intellectuals began to look elsewhere for ideals of unity. Anthropologists, particularly the Columbia University school led by Franz Boas, questioned the Victorian notion that European high culture provided the single standard of excellence by which all cultures of the world should be judged.
Work in the field led these anthropologists to see that the so-called primitive cultures of the non-Western world were not simply at a lower level on an evolutionary scale, but that each had an integrity, a pattern all its own. The cultures of Africa were not inferior to that of Europe, but simply different.
This notion of cultural relativism quickly became a humanist rallying cry with which to attack the racist ideologies of certain strains of fascism, particularly Adolf Hitler's anti-Semitic national socialism.
Q: Is this something in American culture that especially fosters multiculturalism?
With respect to racism, the war against fascism certainly induced a kind of shock of recognition among many Americans, most clearly with respect to the historic treatment of African-Americans, but also the lingering refusal to accept the legitimacy of the European cultural groups that descended from the great waves of immigration in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Since World War II, America has officially embraced peoples of all cultures, but the terms of that embrace remain unclear.
The civil rights movement was in many ways an effort to incorporate African-Americans into the society and culture of mainstream white America. By the mid-1960s, advocates of black power began to question whether social equality required cultural assimilation.
This tension between equality and diversity still drives much of the debate over multiculturalism today.
Q: How can Catholicism be a bulwark against individualism and the balkanization of culture?
I believe that Catholicism really offers an alternative "road less traveled" for those concerned with reconciling equality and difference.
Like Martin Luther King, the secular and religious leaders of American Catholicism had a dream deeply rooted in the American dream -- that is, they embraced democracy, equality and opportunity. Still, they embraced democracy from within the deeper religious and cultural context of a community that existed as in many ways a separate world within America.
Perhaps the best way to contrast the African-American and Catholic engagements with democracy is to look at education.
During the 1950s, civil rights leaders came to see equal access to a quality public school education as a kind of litmus test for racial equality, while Catholic leaders continued their 100-year struggle to maintain a separate, but equal, parochial school system.
The maintenance of Catholic faith and communal culture took priority over the promise of individual freedom offered by America through the public schools.
In the Catholic tradition, a certain degree of balkanization is understood as the only bulwark against individualism. Still, Catholic separatism managed to peacefully coexist with patriotism and a sense of civic responsibility to a broader political community comprising non-Catholics and Catholics alike.
Q: What insights does Catholicism share with other critiques of liberalism? In what does it differ?
Catholicism shares with other critics of liberalism a deep suspicion of the ideology of "individualism." There are, however, different reasons for this suspicion.
The social democratic tradition, which includes advocates of the welfare state, criticizes economic individualism ultimately only for failing to live up to its professed ideals. For social democrats, state intervention and regulation of the economy is necessary to ensure much the same kind of libertarian freedom that conservatives insist the unregulated free market will provide.
The secular communitarian tradition goes beyond this by taking the claims of communal obligation as legitimate in their own right, but still tends to understand community as a kind of warm and fuzzy voluntary association in which obligations are freely consented to and ultimately nonbinding.
Catholicism is distinct, if not unique, in its insistence on the priority of an authoritative moral community not of one's own choosing. To use a religious metaphor, Catholic community proceeds from infant baptism, while secular communitarianism requires some kind of "born again" experience.
Q: How can the Church undermine the societal myth that Catholicism oppresses, while Protestantism and secular modernity liberate?
That's a tough one. The first order of business might be simply to complicate the progressive historical narrative in which modernity liberates the world from medieval "Catholic" ignorance, superstition and violence.
If the Church bears responsibility for the Crusades and the Inquisition, then moderns -- including good liberals -- bear responsibility for the revival of slavery, the extermination of Native Americans, the imperial domination of the non-Western world, the Holocaust and Gulag, and the rape of nature by modern industrialism. Let's be generous and call it a draw.
Still, by the standard of freedom celebrated in mainstream American society today, it is hard to deny that the Church is "oppressive." Oppression and liberation are, however, relative to particular conceptions of truth, and the question of truth is one that moderns -- in the great tradition of Pontius Pilate -- consistently bar from the discussion of culture.
Catholics are again distinct, if not unique, in insisting on the inescapability of questions of ultimate truth in any discussion of the ethical problems facing society.
Q: Have American Catholics in general been affected by the same myth? And if so, what needs to be done to overcome this?
My own sense is that Catholics have pretty much accepted American libertarian ideals as the ultimate truth and have little awareness of the conflict between these ideals and their faith -- except maybe on a few hot button issues, such as abortion. Even on that issue, Catholics seem about evenly divided between the Church teaching and American cultural norms.
The only way to turn this around is to shore up the local Catholic communities -- that is, parishes -- necessary to create the kind of separate cultural space in which a communally oriented faith could flourish.
The increasing assaults of the media, particularly through satellite TV and the Internet, make this more difficult than at any time in human history. Turn off your televisions and go down to the parish hall. Not as catchy as "workers of the world unite," but it's a start.
Q: Is Europe facing the same problem of multiculturalism? How is that continent handling the phenomenon?
I don't know enough about Europe to say much more than that they are becoming more like America in every way, including hostility to immigrants.
European countries have traditionally been tolerant of cultural and linguistic minorities in a way that contrasted sharply with American nativist demands for 100% Americanism.
The most pressing question of diversity in Europe today seems less a matter of ideology than demographics. The native European population is dying off, with population growth at below-replacement levels.
Immigrants from Asia and the Middle East may well be the ones setting the tone for any European multiculturalism we are likely to see in the future.
Two leading Catholic intellectuals came out in strong support of the decision by a Midwest bishop to ask pro-abortion Catholic politicians in his diocese to refrain from receiving Communion.
In an article published by National Review Online, professors Robert George and Gerard Bradley defended the actions of then La Crosse Bishop Raymond Burke (now archbishop of St. Louis).
The professors wrote: "Having made every effort to persuade pro-abortion Catholic legislators to fulfill their obligations in justice to the unborn, Bishop Burke articulated the obvious: Any Catholic who exercises political power to expose a disfavored class of human beings to unjust killing sets himself against the very faith he claims to share. The Church cannot permit such a person to pretend to share in the faith he publicly defies. By receiving Communion -- the sacrament of unity -- pro-abortion Catholics are pretending exactly that. The bishop has called a halt to the pretense."
Robert George is McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence and director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions at Princeton University. Gerard Bradley is professor of law at the University of Notre Dame and president of the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars.
The two professors expanded on their analysis.
Q: One newspaper report quoted Wisconsin State Senator Julia Lassa, the recipient of Bishop Burke's letter, as saying: "I'm concerned that the bishop would pressure legislators to vote according to the dictates of the Church instead of the wishes of their constituents because that is not consistent with our democratic ideals."
Is the bishop's letter really interference in the democratic process?
Bradley: Senator Lassa paints a sorry and mistaken picture of legislators.
She worries which of two external pressures upon them is more consistent with democratic ideals: the Church's "dictates" or their constituents' "wishes."
Even in a democratic system, it is the obligation of legislators to exercise moral leadership and sound judgment in fulfilling the requirements of solidarity, justice and the common good.
George: The first responsibility of those exercising public authority is to protect the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable members of the human family.
Still, the Church cannot "dictate" to anyone.
Everyone -- including Senator Lassa -- is legally free to reject Catholic teaching, including the Church's teaching on the sanctity of human life and the inherent dignity of each and every human being.
Episcopal authority cannot force a politician to oppose abortion, slavery, the exploitation of labor, or any other injustice.
But bishops can and should make it clear to politicians and others who publicly collaborate in and promote grave injustices such as abortion that they have broken communion with Christ and the Church.
Q: Many politicians say they are elected to represent all people in their district and therefore cannot impose Catholic beliefs on the entire population.
Is this a valid position?
Bradley: This sounds much like what presidential candidate Senator John Kerry is quoted as saying in a recent newspaper article.
He says that he accepts Church teaching on abortion as a matter of personal faith, but would not impose his faith upon society.
This is an evasion of the basic issues of justice and human rights that are at stake in the debate over the fate of the child in the womb.
The damning flaw in Kerry's logic can be brought into focus effortlessly by substituting the word "slavery" or the words "racial discrimination" for the word "abortion."
To act consistently with the Church's teachings about the equality and dignity of each member of the human family --whether the issue is abortion, slavery, segregation or any other form of injustice -- is not to "impose Catholic dogma."
It is to uphold justice and basic human rights.
George: The Church's understanding of when a human being comes to be -- namely, at conception -- forms the basis of its anti-abortion teaching.
This understanding derives from the indisputable facts of human embryogenesis and intrauterine human development. It is not something anyone is asked to accept merely "on faith."
There is nothing whatsoever in the Church's teaching -- in its expression, in its factual presuppositions, in the arguments advanced in its favor -- that depends upon special revelation, private knowledge, or strictly religious sources of any kind.
What Senator Kerry and other pro-abortion Catholic politicians need to face up to is their strict obligation in justice to respect and protect the human rights of all, the unborn not excluded.
The claim that they cannot fulfill this obligation without "imposing" their faith on others is exactly what Professor Bradley says it is: an evasion.
Q: Is it fair to single out just one issue, abortion, on which to judge a Catholic politician instead of looking at a wider range of issues?
Bradley: As Pope John Paul II has made abundantly clear, [b]abortion is the most pressing human rights issue of our time[/b].
It is fundamental. It places countless lives in peril. Indeed, many millions of tiny human beings have already been killed in the United States alone since abortion was legalized in 1973.
Bishop Burke has made it clear to pro-abortion Catholic politicians that they are placing their souls in jeopardy by grave injustices they are committing against vulnerable members of the human family.
At the same time, he has reminded the entire Catholic faithful of his diocese of their obligations in solidarity and justice to the unborn. He worries -- quite rightly in my view -- that many Catholics do not fully understand the gravity of the injustice of deliberate feticide.
Public opinion polls say that self-identified Catholics support abortion at about the same rate the general population does, and Catholics probably resort to abortion as often as do others. Part of the reason for this scandalous collapse of moral understanding and resolution surely is the bad example set by prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians.
George: There is a profound issue here of the responsibility of the diocesan bishop. Bishop Burke acted because he believed that his duty as a bishop required him to act. My view is that he is right about that. The prevalence of prominent pro-abortion Catholic politicians is a grave scandal.
Given the life-destroying and soul-imperiling consequences of the scandal, I do not see how it can be considered merely optional for bishops to speak and act. Of course, different bishops may make different prudential judgments about whether individual persons guilty of exposing the unborn to abortion should be addressed on the issue of sacramental communion publicly or only privately.
But I do not see how a bishop can fulfill his duties without at least a public statement of the fact that Catholic promoters of abortion have by their persistence in grave injustice broken communion with Christ and the Church.
Especially now that Archbishop Burke has taken the lead, I think that any bishop or archbishop who says nothing publicly about Catholics in his diocese who support abortion needs to consider the message he will be interpreted as sending. Silence in the face of injustice is always a potent teacher -- a teacher of bad lessons.
Q: Do you agree, Professor Bradley, that bishops have a duty to act, that it is, as Professor George says, "not optional"?
Bradley: I have given the matter a great deal thought, and have arrived at the same judgment: It is not optional.
It is now 30 years since the Supreme Court, in its Roe v. Wade vision, blew down the barriers to abortion on demand, using as the essential rationale a constitutional right of privacy that the court had discovered less than eight years earlier.
Since 1973 roughly 40 million abortions--that seems to be the generally accepted number--have been performed in America, and 40 million children banished from life.
Forty million. There isn't a country in the world with an army that big.
Many don't have a population that big. Among the 40 million were, as romantics like to point out, a Leonardo, a Dr. Salk, the man who'd make the rocket to Mars and perhaps the first American pope.
But there were men and women among the 40 million who would have grown up to be destructive too, and cruel. It seems realistic to assume the 40 million would have included your average mix of heroes, villains and those undistinguished by recognizable gifts.
But actually I wonder about that. It has seemed to me over the years that so many of the 40 million were the children of bright or educated or affluent parents, lucky young people and, in the way of things, might likely have gone on to--well, we might have lost more curers of cancer than we know.
In any case, whatever these individuals would have become, they were all unique, blessed. They all deserved the same thing, life, and all suffered the same fate.
Looked at in this way, abortion might seem not a completely private choice but one that has had a profound public impact on our country.
If you want to be cold and actuarial about it, you can note that in the next five to 10 years tens of millions of baby boomers will retire, and their futures would be more secure if they were benefiting from the financial support of the missing 40 million, many of whom would be paying into Social Security right now. But they're gone, so they can't help.
If you want to be less actuarial than cultural in your thinking, it's hard to believe that we don't all know, down deep, that abortion has not made our country a gentler place.
I believe we haven't begun to appreciate the effect on our children and their developing understanding of life that they are told every day, on television and in magazines, in advertisements and news stories, that we allow the killing of children.
It's not good for them to know that, not good for them to be told over and over that they live in a place where life is not necessarily respected and inconvenient life can be whisked away. Knowledge like that has a chilling effect on the soul.
I think, as many do, that Roe v. Wade was as big a travesty as the Supreme Court decision on Dred Scott, which in 1857 declared that descendants of slaves could not become U.S. citizens.
All Americans would now see that decision as terribly wrong, but back then the Court had spoken and Dred Scott was forced to continue to live in slavery.
I think also that if the legal status of abortion, a long-settled issue that was inevitably forced into play by the cultural revolution of the '60s and the rise of the women's movement, had to be redecided, it should have been done politically, not judicially.
That it was not, that a huge and radical change in law was forced on the entire country by black-robed fiat, caused avoidable and continuing unrest. It has contributed more than any decision in my lifetime to the national breakdown of faith in our institutions.
If it had been left up to the states, New York, California and other places would have legal abortion (as they already did in 1973).
Utah, Louisiana and other places would have voted pro-life. The outcome would have been mixed and the argument would have continued, but not with quite the same citizen-hating-citizen level of intensity or quite the damage to our trust in the law and the law givers.
The antiabortion movement isn't going to go away. It will fight on until the day our country ends if that day comes.
And it is making progress. Two recent polls, which the mainline media largely ignored, are revealing of that progress.
A Wirthlin poll released last week reported 68% of respondents support "restoring legal protection for unborn children," and almost the same number said they would favor future Supreme Court nominees who supported protections.
That poll was commissioned by pro-life groups, but then came a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll in which 70% of respondents said partial-birth abortion should be outlawed, 78% backed a mandatory 24-hour waiting period for all abortions, 73% supported parental consent for girls under 18 seeking abortions, and 88% said they favor a law directing doctors to inform patients of alternatives to abortion before it is performed.
These data suggest the country may be slowly but surely turning, and looking at the question in a new way, and inching closer back to the old idea that abortion is tragedy, tragic for the baby and tragic for us.
It is no good, we know it, it is avoidable, there are options, such as hundreds of thousands if not millions of Americans eager to adopt.
Why haven't our courts and lawmakers made greater progress in protecting the unborn when polls suggest public support is there?
Lots of reasons, but one that I think is not sufficiently appreciated is this: Abortion is now the glue that holds the Democratic Party together.
Without abortion to keep them together, the Democrats would fly apart into 50 small parties--Dems for free trade, Dems for protectionism; for quotas, for merit.
All parties have divisions, the Republicans famously so, but Republicans have general philosophical views that keep them together and supported by groups that share their views.
They're all united by, say, hostility to high taxes, but sometimes they have different reasons for opposing tax increases.
The Democratic Party, in contrast, has exhausted its great reasons for being, having achieved so many of them during the past 75 years.
The Democrats often seem like the Not Republican Party, no more and no less. It is composed not of allied groups in pursuit of the same general principles but warring groups vying for money, power, a louder voice, the elevation of their particular cause.
The one thing they agree on, that holds them together and finances their elections, is abortion.
The abortion-rights movement packs huge clout in the party; it can make or break a candidacy with contributions and labor and support. It has such clout that at the 1992 Democratic convention the party wouldn't even let Gov. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, a popular liberal from a state with 23 electoral votes, give an afternoon speech.
He was officially a nonperson at his party's convention because he was pro-life.
The Republicans, on the other hand, still have arguments over abortion. Whether pro- or anti-, it is understood you are not banned from a convention podium on that basis. The Republicans can still have a conversation, albeit with occasionally loud voices. But better a loud voice than no voice at all.
Democratic officeholders either agree with and fear the clout of the abortion-rights groups or disagree with and fear them.
So the pro-abortion forces keep the party together, but they also tie it down. They keep the Democratic Party on the defensive--the lockstep pro-abortion party that won't even back parental notification, the party of unbending orthodoxy that will fight tooth and nail against banning abortions on babies eight months old, babies who look and seem and act exactly like human beings because they are.
No party can long endure, or could possibly flourish, with the unfettered killing of young humans as the thing that holds it together. And so a prediction on this grim anniversary: Someday years from now we will see abortion's final victim, and it will turn out to be the once-great Democratic Party, which was left at the end deformed, bloody and desperately trying to kick away from death, but unable to save itself.
If you walk through the downtown area of a large city, you see them standing in pairs on street comers, usually not smiling. They hold up copies of Awake! or The Watchtower. They'd like you to purchase a copy, but they'll give you one for free if you ask. They're the Jehovah's Witnesses.
Fifty years ago they numbered fewer than 100,000. Now there are several million of them around the world. They don't have churches; they have what are called Kingdom Halls. Their congregations are uniformly small, numbering usually less than two hundred. Most Witnesses used to be Catholics or Protestants.
Let's look a little at their history, because that will help us understand their singular doctrines.
The sect now known as the Jehovah's Witnesses was started by Charles Taze Russell, who was born in 1852 and worked in Pittsburgh as a haberdasher.
He was raised a Congregationalist. At the age of seventeen he tried to convert an atheist to Christianity and ended up being converted himself instead--not to outright atheism, but to agnosticism.
Some years later he went to an Adventist meeting, was told that Jesus would be back any time, and got interested in the Bible. The leading light of Adventism had been William Miller.
Miller predicted the world would end in 1843. When it didn't, he discovered an arithmetical error and said it would end in 1844. When his prediction again failed, many people became frustrated and withdrew from the Adventist movement, but a remnant, led by Ellen G. White, went on to form the Seventh-Day Adventist Church.
It was this diminished Adventism which influenced Russell who took the title "Pastor" even though he never got through high school. He began the Watch Tower--what would later be known as the Jehovah's Witnesses-- in 1879. In 1908 he moved its headquarters to Brooklyn, where it has remained ever since.
Before he got well underway in his religious career, Russell promoted what he called "miracle wheat," which he sold at sixty dollars per bushel. He claimed it would grow five times as well as regular wheat. In fact, as established in court when he was sued, it grew slightly less well than regular wheat. Later he marketed a fake cancer cure and what he termed a "millennial bean" (which a wag has said probably got that name because it took a thousand years to sprout).
Their Unusual Doctrines
Doctrines peculiarly identified with the Witnesses and taught by Russell include the non-existence of hell and the consequent annihilation of unsaved people, the non-existence of the Trinity (only the Father, Jehovah, is God), the identification of Jesus with Michael the Archangel, the Holy Spirit not thought of as a Person but just as a force, the mortality (not immortality) of the soul and the return of Jesus in 1914.
When 1914 had come and gone, with no Jesus in sight, Russell modified his teachings and claimed Jesus had, in fact, returned to Earth, but his return was invisible. His visible return would come later.
Russell died in 1916. He was succeeded by "Judge" Joseph R Rutherford. Rutherford, born in 1869, had been brought up as a Baptist and became the legal adviser to the Watch Tower. He never was a real judge, but took the title because, as an attorney, he at least once substituted for an absent judge.
At one time he claimed Russell was next to St. Paul as an expounder of the Gospel, but later, in an effort to have his writing supplant Russell's, he let Russell's books go out of print.
It was Rutherford who coined the slogan, "millions now living will never die." By it he meant that some people alive in 1914 would still be alive when Armageddon came and the world was restored to a paradisaical state.
In 1931 he changed the name of the sect to the Jehovah's Witnesses. An organizer, he equipped missionaries with portable phonographs, which they took door to door. They didn't have to say much when they came calling; all they had to do was put on Rutherford's record.
Rutherford displayed a marked hatred for Catholicism on his radio program and in pamphlets he wrote. Later his successors tempered the sect's anti-Catholicism, but Awake! and The Watchtower still carry anti-Catholic articles every other issue or so, though the tone is subtle, not, as in Rutherford's day, lurid.
Rutherford said that in 1925 Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and the prophets would return to Earth, and for them he prepared a mansion in San Diego. Into this mansion Rutherford himself moved and he died there in 1942.
Trained to Give Testimonies
He was succeeded by Nathan Homer Knorr, who was born in 1905 and died in 1977. Knorr joined the movement as a teenager, working his way up through the ranks. He got rid of the phonographs and insisted that the missionaries attend courses and be trained in door-to door techniques. The Witnesses now have a reputation as skillful deliverers of "personal testimonies."
Since the Bible as preserved through the centuries did not support the peculiar doctrines of the Witnesses as strongly as they might have desired, Knorr chose an anonymous committee to produce the New World Translation, which is used by no sect other than the Witnesses. It buttresses their beliefs through tendentious renderings. For example, to prove that Jesus was only a creature, not divine, John 1:1 concludes this way: "and the Word was 'a' god" [italics added]. Every other translation, Catholic and Protestant--not to mention the Greek original-- has "and the Word was God."
What Happened to Armageddon?
Knorr was succeeded by the current head of the Jehovah's Witnesses, Frederick Franz, who is in his late nineties. He had been the Witnesses' leading theologian, and his services were often on call. For some years the sect's magazines had been predicting that Armageddon would occur in 1975. When it didn't, Franz had to find an explanation.
Witnesses believe that Adam was created in 4026 B.C. and that human beings have been allotted 6000 years of existence until Armageddon and the beginning of the millennium. Simple arithmetic gives 1975 as the year Armageddon would arrive.
Franz explained that Armageddon would actually come 6000 years after Eve's creation. We don't know how long after Adam's creation she came on the scene, said Franz-- maybe it was several years. In any case we'll just have to wait, knowing the end is just around the comer.
When the final battle does occur--remember, it will be during the lifetime of "millions" of people alive in 1914, which means it can't be too far off--Jehovah will defeat Satan and the elect will go to heaven. But only 144,000 will go there as spirit persons (without resurrected bodies). The remaining faithful will live forever on a renewed Earth in resurrected bodies. The unsaved will cease to exist at all.
Jehovah's Witnesses live under a strict regimen. They may be "disfellowshipped" for a variety of reasons, such as attending a Catholic or Protestant church or receiving a blood transfusion.
Disfellowshipping is the sect's equivalent of excommunication. A disfellowshipped Witness may attend Kingdom Hall, but he is not allowed to speak to anyone, and no one may speak to him. The others are to act as though he no longer exists. This applies even to his family.
How They Make Converts
Most religions welcome converts. The Witnesses' very reason for existence is to make converts. To accomplish this they follow several steps.
First they try to get a copy of one of their magazines into the hands of a prospective convert. They lead off with a question such as this: "How would you like to live in a world without sickness, war, poverty, or any other problem?" If the prospect is willing to speak with them, they arrange what's known as a "back call"--that is, they return in a week or so for more discussions. This can be kept up indefinitely.
At some point the missionaries invite the prospect to a Bible study. This is not the usual sort of Bible study, which may resemble a free-for-all. The Bible study is given in the home of a Jehovah's Witness and is directed along lines mandated by the officials in Brooklyn. The prospect is there to learn, not to teach. If he progresses well, he's invited to a larger Bible study, which may be held at a Kingdom Hall.
About this time he's invited to attend a Sunday service. The service is quite unlike the standard Protestant service, which consists of hymn singing, prayers, and a sermon. At the Kingdom Hall, which resembles not so much as church as a small lecture room, the prospect hears a Witness discuss a few verses which can be conveyed to non-Witnesses.
Sharing Techniques
The prospect gets still more of this if he proceeds to the next step, which consists of going to meetings on Wednesday or Thursday nights. At those meetings Witnesses trade stories, explaining how they've done that week in going door to door, giving advice to one another, figuring out better ways to get the message across, logging their hours. (Each month each Kingdom Hall mails to Brooklyn a detailed log of hours spent proselytizing and the number of converts made.)
If the prospect goes through all these steps, he's ready for admission to the sect. That involves baptism by immersion and agreeing to work actively as a missionary. Many missionaries take only part-time jobs so they can devote more time to their religious work. It's not uncommon for a Witness to log more than 150 hours monthly in house calls.
Although not every Witness can put in so many hours, every Witness is expected to do what he can by way of missionary work. The Witnesses believe, following Luther's teaching on the universal priesthood of believers, that each of them is a minister, and they act on this belief.
There is no separate, ordained ministry as is found in Protestant churches. Their main task is to enlarge the rolls. Their sect operates no hospitals, sanitariums, orphanages, schools, colleges, or social welfare agencies. Why bother, since it will all disappear in a few years anyway?
They recognize the legitimacy of no governmental authority, since all earthly authority is of Satan. They will not serve in the military, salute the flag, say the "Pledge of Allegiance," vote, run for office, or serve as officials of labor unions.
Everything they do is focused on the imminent end of Satan's rule and the establishment of the Kingdom of God here on Earth. No matter how peculiar their doctrines, they deserve to be complimented on their determination and single-mindedness.
Which famous 19th-century American, referring to the practice of abortion, wrote, "I deplore the horrible crime of child-murder"? Well, you might think it was someone like the eloquent minister Henry Ward Beecher. Or maybe it was the fiery abolitionist, William Lloyd Garrison.
But surprise: The person I'm talking about is Susan B. Anthony, the famous women's rights pioneer, and she was as staunchly pro-life as they come. Anthony understood something modern feminists don't seem to grasp: That abortion is actually an assault on the dignity of women.
Most of us first heard of Susan B. Anthony in the late '70s, when the feminist lobby persuaded the government to mint a dollar coin bearing Anthony's profile. It was about the same size as a quarter, so people tended to confuse them. After a brief two-year run, the coin was pulled from circulation. But it had accomplished what the feminists hoped for. The coin vaulted their heroine, Susan B. Anthony, into the public consciousness.
But what feminists kept under wraps was Susan B. Anthony's pro-life convictions. In that goal, they've been less successful-mainly because another group of women has made a point of advertising that aspect of Anthony's beliefs. These woman have formed the Susan B. Anthony List, a political action committee that raises money for the purpose of electing pro-life women to national office.
The List was formed a few years ago as a pro-life counterpart to Emily's List, which raises money to elect pro-abortion women to office.
Jane Abraham, wife of Michigan Senator Spence Abraham, is the president of the Susan B. Anthony List. As Mrs. Abraham says, "[Putting] pro- life women in Congress helps counterbalance the false image of women as being monolithically pro- abortion." "By electing pro-life women to positions of political prominence," she says, "we can show women . . . that it's okay to believe in women's rights and still be against abortion."
The group's use of Anthony's name highlights the fact that equating women's rights with legalized abortion is historically inconsistent.
Frederica Matthews-Green, who is on the board of the Susan B. Anthony List, explains that equating women's rights with legalized abortion is intellectually inconsistent as well.
"The initial fallacy," she says, "is that women have to kill their children to succeed in their careers and in life. This makes women and their own children into mortal enemies."
"But that's not true," Matthews-Green says. "Killing her own child hurts the woman. It's heartbreaking to her. The loss of her own child," Matthews-Green concludes, "is the biggest tragedy a woman could go through."
Matthews-Green is right, and we Christians ought to help expose the inconsistency of abortion advocates who equate women's rights with abortion rights.
The group gives money to Republicans and Democrats alike-so long as they're pro-life. And the next time you see one of those rare dollar coins with Susan B. Anthony's profile, grab it and show it to your friends-especially your women friends. It's a chance for them to see the unflinchingly pro-life face of a true feminist.
TURN your attention upon yourself and beware of judging the deeds of others, for in judging others we labor vainly, often make mistakes, and we easily sin; whereas, in judging and taking stock of ourselves we doe something that is always profitable.
We frequently judge that things are as we wish them to be, for through personal feeling true perspective is easily lost.
If God were the sole object of our desire, we should not be disturbed so easily by opposition to our opinions. But often something lurks within or happens from without to draw us along with it.
Many, unawares, seek themselves in the things they do. They seem even to enjoy peace of mind when things happen according to their wish and liking, but if otherwise than they desire, they are soon disturbed and saddened.
Differences of feeling and opinion often divide friends and acquaintances, even those who are religious and devout.
An old habit is hard to break, and no one is willing to be led farther than he can see.
If you rely more upon your intelligence or industry than upon the virtue of submission to Jesus Christ, you will hardly, and in any case slowly, become an enlightened man. God wants us to be completely subject to Him and, through ardent love, to rise above all human wisdom.
Another year, and another record number of abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics.
Over three quarters of a billion dollars in revenue, a good portion of it coming from abortion. A steady drumbeat of complaints about the Bush administration and the trumpeting of a historic vote by Planned Parenthood’s membership to get involved in the upcoming presidential election.
Just a few of the “highlights” from the latest annual report released by the Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA).
The 2002-2003 annual report, entitled “Tell Your Story, Change the World” has babies on the cover and pictures of smiling kids sprinkled throughout the text.
However, Planned Parenthood clinics are hardly a welcome place for children. Planned Parenthood continues to be the nation’s largest abortion chain, with 125 affiliates, 866 “health centers, and “a presence in all 50 states” and the nation’s capital, and there is every indication that it intends things to stay that way.
More Than Just Numbers
There were 227,375 abortions performed at Planned Parenthood clinics in 2002, over fourteen thousand more than the previous year when PPFA set its previous record.
This means that over 17% of all abortions in America, or more than one out of every six, is done at a Planned Parenthood clinic.
According to statistics released by the Alan Guttmacher Institute (AGI), Planned Parenthood’s “special affiliate” for “reproductive health research,” abortions have declined in the U.S. every year but one from 1990 to 2000 (the last year for which national statistics were available), with an overall decrease of 18% in those eleven years.
By contrast, since 1990 PPFA abortions have increased in 11 of the 13 years Planned Parenthood has reported statistics, with an overall increase of 76% during the period.
Statistics for 2002 show that Planned Parenthood is far more committed to abortion than to parenthood.
Planned Parenthood did see 15,860 prenatal clients in 2002, but against the more than two hundred thousand abortions, this is relatively very small.
Combining the two figures one sees that only 6.5% of those clients receiving pregnancy-related services received prenatal care – the rest received abortions.
The record with adoption services is even worse. Planned Parenthood lists no adoption services being performed in house, but says it did 1,963 adoption referrals in 2002.
To put things in perspective, that translates into nearly 116 abortions at Planned Parenthood clinics for every adoption referral.
Your Tax Dollars at Work: Where the money comes from
Despite what PPFA President Gloria Feldt called a “tough year,” Planned Parenthood reported $766.6 million in total revenues for the fiscal year ending June 30,2003.
Of that total, $288.2 million (about 36%) came from “Clinic Income.” The proportion that came from abortion is hard to determine, because Planned Parenthood clinics advertise and perform different types of abortions at different stages, with later abortions and certain kinds of procedures costing more.
But if one took the figure of $372 given elsewhere by AGI as the going rate for a standard, first-trimester suction curettage abortion and assumed all abortions reported at PPFA clinics were that type, Planned Parenthood would have taken in at least $84.5 million of that for abortion alone. Undoubtedly, the real figure is higher.
At $254.4 million, tax-payer dollars in the form of “Government Grants and Contracts” accounted for about a third of Planned Parenthood’s income.
While federal money comes with restrictions prohibiting its use for abortion (some state money does not), every dollar Planned Parenthood receives from the government frees up other funds for the performance and promotion of abortion.
Planned Parenthood fights to keep that revenue stream flowing.
The annual report notes that “PPFA helped achieve a funding increase of $10 million, for a total of $273 million, for Title X, America’s family planning program, despite anti-family planning efforts to cripple the program.”
“Private Contributions and Bequests” of $228.1 million accounted for the remaining 30% of PPFA income in fiscal 2003.
Big name donors such as the David and Lucille Packard Foundation, the Open Society Institute (founded by international financier George Soros) kicked in funding for special PPFA initiatives such as the “Mifepristone Affiliate Readiness Project” which trained Planned Parenthood employees and helped cover advertising for chemical abortions using RU486.
That project, Planned Parenthood proudly details, involved some 48,500 abortions at 172 of its clinics and at well over half (74) of its 125 affiliates.
Where the money goes
On the expense side of the ledger, $463.7 million went toward “Medical Services,”which would theoretically include such things as pregnancy tests, abortionist salaries, etc.
The pages the annual report cites in reference to the $39.5 million in expenses devoted to “Public Policy” refer to efforts at preserving Title X (see above), protecting Roe v. Wade, and projects such as the “Power the Promise Campaign” and the “Pro-Choice Organizing Project” which were “to preserve and expand access to all reproductive services and to urge the pro-choice majority of Americans to voice their views.”
“Services to the Field of Family Planning” at $23.5 million, and “Services to Affiliates,” at $18 million appear to include Planned Parenthood’s considerable media spending on publications, advertising, and the internet. The plannedparenthood.org website, logging more than 720,000 visits a month, promotes and defends Planned Parenthood services like abortion, containing “fact sheets” and media releases on abortion, as well as full contact information for local Planned Parenthood affiliates.
“Action alerts” from the Planned Parenthood Action Network and “Legislative Action Center” provide “activists an easy way to contact members of Congress via e-mail, fax, or postal mail.” Last year’s action network included some 365,000 “activists.”
According to the PPFA annual report, Planned Parenthood’s teenwire.com website gives the approximately 400,000 teens who visit the site each month “honest and medically accurate sexuality and relationship information – in their own language – so they can make healthy, responsible choices.”
This includes not only abortion “information” ignoring or downplaying abortion’s physical and psychological risks, but instructions on how teens in states with parental notification laws may be able to avoid telling their parents if they’re having an abortion.
As is customary with the Saudis, any competition when it comes to ruling Islam is crushed to the best of their ability.
They have all but obliterated the moderate Muslim voice in the United States and elsewhere in the world, and now with millions of relatively secular Muslims free from Saddam Hussein's tyranny, the Saudis are thirsting to inseminate the seeds of Wahhabism into Iraq.
Wahhabism is the Kingdom's lifeblood — should Iran (or democracy) gain hold of a sizeable majority of Iraq's population, the Saudis' attempts to dominate Islam would be compromised.
Frightened of this prospect, the Saudis have begun a campaign to enable their proselytization to be as effective as possible, first by demonizing non-Muslims entering the country.
Abdullah al-Turki, Secretary-General of the Saudi-owned Muslim World League, issued a warning last month to Arab and Muslim countries: "Non-Muslim organizations are preparing to enter Iraq to start their activity under the cover of providing humanitarian aid, as they normally exploit crises, wars and tragedies."
By "non-Muslim," Turki means "Christian missionaries." These xenophobic statements by Turki are typical of the Wahhabis, who with no intellectual way to spread their hard-line brand of Islam, instead rely on force and bullying.
The Muslim World League, the largest Muslim charity in the world, the Saudi Red Crescent, and other Saudi charities have a long history of upsetting relief workers, non-Muslims, and Muslims for their callous and arrogant attempts of providing aid.
When Ethiopia was suffering from its famous terrible drought in the 1980s, governments and peoples from all over the world came to country's aid. The drought was indeed a challenge to humanity as a whole and the response was overall positive.
Indeed, the relief efforts surpassed anything seen before, and they very much helped overcome the catastrophe. In the Western world, Ethiopia has the image of being a Christian island amongst a sea of Muslims, because the surrounding countries are mostly Muslim majority countries, such as Egypt and the Sudan. In actual fact, however, the population of Ethiopia is largely Muslim.
As a result, in the Arab and Muslim world, the media campaign was appreciable, and there was a remarkable outpouring of donations from the public. Organizations like the Muslim World League began their relief efforts. The Saudi Red Crescent, as well as the Kuwaiti Red Crescent, became active in Ethiopia in a way unknown of them before.
Yet, complaints about these organizations were there from the start, mainly because of an overemphasis on religion in the camps where people's main concern was physical survival.
These people needed food and clothes to sustain their immediate needs, not religion. To be fair, some of the Christian organizations were not innocent of missionary endeavors, and their proselytization efforts were met with a hue and cry from the Muslim side.
Availing themselves of the opportunity to denigrate non-Muslim relief work, the Islamists then became active campaigners against all relief work with a link to churches. In a fit of hypocrisy, they propagated the idea that the drought was used for Christianization.
This propaganda was so fierce, that it interfered with the work of some European relief organizations. In order to be successful, humanitarian work often requires considerable trust and confidence of the people for which it is destined.
The Saudis demonstrated their apathy to true relief work in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.
Rather than sponsoring doctors and relief workers to aid the wounded in Afghanistan, the Saudis funded the Jihadist party under the leadership of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now a designated terrorist by the United States.
Hekmatyar pursued a hideous policy of liquidating the country's elite and replacing it with a new one coming from its party ranks, analogous to what the Khmer Rouge did under Pol Pot.
This drove Afghan medical doctors into exile, creating in Afghanistan what can best be described as a medical desert.
European relief agencies entered Afghanistan to fill the void created by Hekmatyar's rampage. One such example was Dr. Angel Pitoni, leader of Italian resistance fighters against the German occupation of Italy during World War II, and who later became a fervent champion of Afghan resistance to the Russian occupation.
Dr. Pitoni and his friends traveled to Afghanistan to provide maimed children rehabilitation treatment in Europe. A deeply secular person, Dr. Pitoni had made it a condition that no Christianization attempts would be undertaken on children brought to Europe for treatment.
In response to Dr. Pitoni's work and the work of others like him, some Islamists accused Dr. Pitoni of working for the CIA with a hidden agenda.
These same people, however, copied photos from his brochures for use in their own publications, such as the Muslim World League magazine.
Indeed, the Islamists had no compunctions of claiming for themselves the relief work that had actually been done by Dr. Pitoni and others. At the same time, they campaigned against the West for allegedly misusing the plight of the Afghans in order to win them for Christianity.
It seems as though almost anywhere the Saudis perform relief work, the reactions of the Muslims receiving the "relief" was everywhere more or less the same.
The people complained that the Wahhabis concentrated too much on ritual niceties, treating the suffering people as if they were not proper Muslims, whom they had to teach Islam from scratch.
This complaint became loudest in Bosnia, where many people said angrily that they did not want to be taught a new religion; their own old Islam was good enough.
Others put it slightly differently, complaining that the children in the camps needed above all love, but from Saudi-funded organizations all they got was disdain, not affection.
One particular incident in Bosnia came to symbolize the problem vicariously for many other instances. In a camp for Bosnian refugees in Austria, members of a Saudi-run relief organization distributed scarves for the women to cover their heads — not traditional garb for Bosnian Muslims.
When the Bosnians told the Saudis that they would prefer blankets for their babies, they scolded them for having become lax in their religious observance, an accusation that made the Bosnians thoroughly angry.
They found the Wahhabi attitude inhuman, and ever since, the label "Wahhabi" has become a term of derision among them.
Saudi Arabia has spent huge amounts in Bosnia on the construction of pompous mosques, but it did not win the hearts of the people.
Some of the Wahhabization the Saudis promote under the label of Islamization falls under the category of retraditionalization, which is quite a universal phenomenon and observable in very diverse cultures.
All the same, there is a substantial difference of opinion with regard to Islamic priorities. For example, most Muslims agree that memorizing the Koran is a meritorious task as it has been for centuries. Yet at a time when many Muslims still have to overcome a developmental lag, many would like education to emphasize more secular aspects than Saudi-sponsored schools usually do.
There is a general complaint that the Wahhabis are given to overemphasize the externalities of religion over its contents, just as they emphasize politics at the expense of ethics. Quite often, deeply religious Muslims argue that this is a distortion of Islam and an insult to the intelligence of the believers who are being treated like immature children.
The point here is that Iraq's children must not be made Saudi, Iranian, or American. The Iraqis have their own history and their own Islam.
Successful relief work in Iraq must be progressive but at the same time allow the people to draw from their rich, beautiful cultural heritage.
The Saudis and the Iranians look to Iraq as an opportunity to spread their would-be empires. When facing the imminent threat from the Islamists, the Iraqi people need to remember that, above all, they are Iraqi. — Khalid Durán, a former chairman of the Solidarity Committee for the Afghan People, is currently president of the Ibn Khaldun Society, a cultural association and intellectual forum of independent Muslims.
He began his career at Pakistan's Islamic Research Institute and the University of Islamabad, and later taught at half a dozen universities in Europe and the United States. Josh Devon is a senior analyst at the SITE Institute, based in Washington, D.C.
“Odious debt” left over from rotten regimes cripples the developing world.
A neighborhood bully takes over your home, ties you up, locks you in your own basement, then runs off with your credit cards.
He goes on a wild spending spree, buying luxury items for friends and family but also picks up a number of expensive goodies that will be employed to make your basement confinement even more unpleasant.
During his fiscal binge, the folks extending him all that credit are well aware that the person using your card has locked you away in the basement and is regularly brutalizing you.
When your tormentor has finally been run off or captured by the police, could any reasonable person expect you to pay off debt acquired under such circumstances?
That is precisely what folks in Argentina, Indonesia, South Africa, and many other developing nations are asked to do.
Their homegrown despots may be deposed, but their debt lingers on, and now the people who were targets of oppression as debt accumulated—debt, in fact, that may have been assumed to buy the military hardware specifically deployed in their oppression—are being asked to pay up before further development aid will be released to them.
These international obligations are known as “odious debts,” and according to many economists, they’re strangling the developing world. Perhaps one fifth of all debt owed by the world’s poorest countries began as dubious loans to compliant dictators during the Cold War.
The principle of odious debt was codified in the early 20th century by a Russian political theorist, Alexander Nahum Sack.
He argued that “dettes odieuses”—debts generated not in the interest of the state or its citizens but during the maintenance of a despotic regime—were “not an obligation for the nation; it is a regime’s debt, a personal debt of the power that has incurred it, consequently it falls with the fall of this power.”
And Sack had little sympathy for bankers who extended credit to odious regimes or financed their corrupt deals, figuring they had to accept the risk and the loss associated with the quality of their business partners.
Perhaps the world’s best known odious debt today is owed by the citizens of the new Iraq.
They remain responsible for more than $200 billion run up by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen in vigorous campaigns of self-enrichment, wars against Iran, reparations to Kuwait, and in debt and contractual obligations to Russia and France.
Apparently surprised by the high cost of America’s reconstruction effort in Iraq, the Bush administration hopes to renegotiate Iraq’s foreign debt with the aim of forgiving as much of it as possible using the principle of odious debt. That effort has run into two major difficulties.
In a geopolitical vex, the Pentagon has barred companies from nations who did not materially support the Iraqi incursion from bidding on the nearly $19 billion in reconstruction contracts currently pending.
That leaves nations like Russia and France with little incentive to restructure Iraqi debt, though, at press time at least France appears willing to do so anyway.
But worse is the United States’ own unwillingness to acknowledge the odious debt owed to this nation and its bankers after years of doling out the dough to global thug-ocracies, including Saddam Hussein’s. It’s difficult to take a moral stand on an issue you are energetically dodging yourself.
Over the past decade the church has championed debt restructuring or outright cancellation. It argues that the payment of debt cannot be obtained at the cost of the failure of a country’s economy and that no international authortity can morally demand reductions in a nation’s social services that assualt human dignity in order to pay down a foreign debt.
Thatinternational debt can’t be written off as the distinct responsibility of a specific nation. Global debt must be appreciated as a responsibility shared in solidarity between both rich and poor nations—a mutual dilemma, if not addressed, with potentially devastating consequences for both rich and poor countries alike.
Willing to accept the costs of war and reconstruction in Iraq, the U.S. is at least as capable of forgiving the odious debt owed us from Iraq and elsewhere.
Otherwise the complicated and treacherous future we already confront offers hazards for both debtor and lender that are odious indeed.
Secretary of State Colin Powell thinks "it's a little odd" for the United States to be telling our Saudi allies that they should "muzzle dissent, . . . muzzle those [in Saudi Arabia] who are speaking out against us" and our campaign in Afghanistan.
But the main public critics of the United States in Saudi Arabia are no ordinary "dissenters."
They are the Islamofascist imams and muftis of the Wahhabi sect, the ideological arm of the Saudi royal dictatorship.
Secretary Powell's solicitousness for the rights of these extremists seems to be based on two unfortunate misconceptions.
One is that the Saudi regime is, and should be, part of an alliance with the United States.
The other combines a misplaced belief that American standards of free speech should extend to those who plot our destruction, with obliviousness to the global reach of the Wahhabi-Saudi network.
As Powell should be aware, the Wahhabi-Saudi establishment subsidizes terrorism while seeking to control Muslim religious institutions and activities around the world.
Saudi influence reaches even the overwhelming majority of mosques in the United States.
The issue, therefore, is not muzzling the Wahhabis, but removing the muzzle from their victims, over whom they exercise an abusive control.
There are many critics of Wahhabism-Saudism among American Muslims, but few who are willing to speak out by name for the record.
Most have been intimidated into silence. In addition, among the enemies of the Wahhabi-Saudi conspiracy, some of the angriest, most knowledgeable, and most forthcoming with information are not pro-American; they are Saudi mischief.
Sheikh Hisham Kabbani of the Islamic Supreme Council of America is one critic of Wahhabism who falls into neither of these problematic categories.
He is an eloquent public opponent of Wahhabi efforts to regiment American Muslims; and he fully supports American democratic values, as well as a peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.
In 1999, Kabbani warned that 80 percent of mosques in the United States are subject to Wahhabi manipulation, through financial subsidies.
More recently he wrote of the spreading influence of Wahhabis, who often go by the cover name "Salafis":
"Supported by certain regimes pursuing specific ideologies, 'Salafis' are taking over the mosques built in Europe and North America, mostly by Indian and Pakistani immigrants, by means of elections and funding."
But Wahhabi domination involves much more than control over money and the elected governing assemblies of mosques; it also means dictating the curriculum for the training of imams, setting the tone and content of sermons, deciding what books and periodicals may be read in mosque libraries or sold in mosque bookshops, and excluding or otherwise suppressing dissenters.
Wahhabism is based on the justification and promotion of violence against all, including Muslims, who do not share the Wahhabi outlook.
Kabbani has called this its "most harmful legacy to society." Pious youths from Muslim countries, sent to be educated in the Gulf states, are brainwashed.
On returning to their homes, they brusquely reject the traditional Islam of their parents. Further, they are taught to abstain from all participation in society outside Wahhabi mosques and organizations.
For American Muslims this means, Kabbani notes, that they must not vote, serve on juries, or join in interfaith activities.
Such strictures prevented the numerous imams and activists associated with Wahhabi mosques in the United States from joining forces with Jews, Christians, and others in behalf of the Muslim victims of the Balkan wars.
The Wahhabi worldwide offensive does not end with such manipulations. Rather, it comprises, in Kabbani's words, "heavy financing, deviant teaching, Internet and book publishing, and biased editing." The Wahhabis are particularly known for the free distribution and dumping on the book market of their literature, including tendentious translations of the Koran, the Islamic scripture.
Such materials have included the writings of a Wahhabi bigot, Hamd ibn 'Abd al-Muhsin, who demanded that women who drive automobiles in Saudi Arabia be charged as prostitutes.
Dr. Gibril Fuad Haddad, a Lebanese writer and opponent of Wahhabism-Saudism, has placed nearly the whole Islamic establishment in America and other Western countries on the roster of Saudi-subsidized propagandists.
This includes the functionaries who stood alongside President Bush at the Washington Islamic Center soon after September 11.
Haddad's condemnation encompasses the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) and the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which exercise immense influence over mosques, the World Assembly of Muslim Youth, and numerous other incarnations of this hydra-headed beast.
According to one informant who requested anonymity, Wahhabi imams in American mosques until recently received salaries of between $2,000 and $4,000 a month from the Gulf states.
Indeed, the multifarious Wahhabi entities spend money like, well, a Saudi oil prince--some of it on political lobbying.
In 1999, the Saudi embassy in Washington announced a grant by the Islamic Development Bank of $250,000 to the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) for the purchase of land in Washington, to be used in the construction of "an education and research center."
CAIR is, without doubt, the most obnoxious front for terrorist apologetics to be found in the United States; even since September 11, it has relentlessly sought, on the pretext of promoting "sensitivity," to dictate how Islam may be discussed in American media.
Its methods are anything but subtle, usually featuring peremptory demands and even threats, and until recently it was notably successful. (CAIR, incidentally, is but a minor line item in the Wahhabi budget. The Saudi embassy statement announcing the grant to CAIR also reported gifts of $395,000 for the construction of a school in Tanzania and $30 million for "Islamic associations in India.")
Wahhabi-Saudi lobbying is nothing if not bold. In 1999, Saudi "relief agencies" were on the scene in Kosovo within a month of the end of the NATO intervention, showering money for Wahhabi indoctrination.
The Saudi embassy in Washington proudly declared, on that occasion, that a goal of the effort was "promoting Islamic curricula as a mandatory component in Kosovo schools."
But while Kosovar Albanians are Muslims in their majority, they include a significant Catholic minority, especially prominent in intellectual life.
It was no wonder, then, that on December 29, 1999, the Kosovapress news agency, media arm of the former Kosovo Liberation Army, issued a strong denunciation of the infiltration of Wahhabi-Saudi missionaries.
It declared, "For more than a century, civilized countries have separated religion from the state. . . . We now see attempts, not only in Kosovo but everywhere Albanians live, to introduce religion into public schools. . . .
Supplemental courses for children have been set up by foreign Islamic organizations who hide behind assistance programs.
Some radio stations . . . now offer nightly broadcasts in Arabic, which nobody understands and which lead many to ask, are we in an Arab country?
It is time for Albanian mosques to be separated from Arab connections and for Islam to be developed on the basis of Albanian culture and customs."
The Saudis also use their control over the city of Mecca--destination of the hajj pilgrimage that is one of the five pillars of Islam, obligatory for all who can afford it--as an opportunity for political shenanigans. In their hands, the hajj frequently becomes a paid junket useful for recruitment purposes.
In 2000, the Muslim World League (much overdue for a full investigation into its funding of Osama bin Laden, but omitted from the president's list of groups whose funds have been frozen) hosted 100 prominent American Islamic personalities on hajj.
They were accompanied by a delegation of 60 Latin American "academics and specialists."
All expenses for the latter were paid by Prince Bandar Ibn Sultan Ibn Abdul Aziz, Saudi ambassador to the United States.
Last year the Saudis advertised their subsidy of 1,500 pilgrims from Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America. In 1999, the Saudis paid for 100 influential American Muslims to "make hajj." The list of such expenditures seems limitless.
Resentment of this religious colonialism is rife among American Muslims, however subdued its expression now. One authoritative source who also asked to remain nameless but who was long courted by the Islamic Society of North America told me, "American Muslims are getting real sick of Wahhabi domination." Others, however, note that ISNA has recently feigned openness to non-Wahhabi Muslims, just as its leaders portrayed themselves as "anti-terrorist" to President Bush.
For Wahhabis everywhere, the party line is laid down in Riyadh, which simultaneously foments terrorist teaching and disclaims any responsibility for Wahhabi atrocities, exemplified by those of bin Laden. Saudis corrupt Muslims abroad in exactly the way that the Soviet Union once bought the loyalty of foreign intellectuals, labor leaders, and guerrilla fighters, and for the same ends. This worldwide subversion can be combated only as fascist and Communist sedition were once fought: with courage and determination, and in full solidarity with the Muslim heroes in the forefront of resistance to it.
May Allah bless an protect the noble Mufti Hajj Ahmad Kadirov
for his clear and uncompromising words and actions in defense of Islam. May Allah, 'Azza wa Jall, help us to learn from his worthy example. Insha Allah, we ask Muslims to support him and his Mujahiddin with du'ahs.
Because of lack of reliable information, some Muslims are supposing that the Chechen people are involved in "jihad" against Russia. The reality is quite different: all the area of Muslim former-Soviet Republics has become a central point in the project of Wahhabi expansion. Because of the inner weakness of most of those countries, some Wahhabi terrorists are trying to conquer them by force, and to install there a Khawarij, Taliban-like dictatorship. Those people are, as always, trying to extinguish Allah's light, and to export Wahhabism in countries where it never existed before.
Chechnya has become a battlefield since Wahhabis want to occupy it "spiritually", by corrupting the Islamic 'aqidah and impose heresy by force. Sunni Muslims are - as in many other cases - the main victims of this tragedy. May Allah Ta'ala help them to free themselves from this menace, and may He grant them relief after hardship.
Praise be to Allah and Allah knows best.
May Allah accept your fast and salawat and grant you a Ramadan mubarak.
Wa-s-salamu 'alaykum wa rahmat-Ullahi wa barakatuH.
Note: This message was written during (Ramadan 1420). Nowadays (Safar 1421) the situation in Chechnya has changed again. Mashkadov betrayed both his Din and his people, and allied himself with the Wahhabi terrorists. He was deposed, and replaced by Bislan Gantamirov, who retired after some months. To read a recent interview with Shaykh Kadirov click here.
Moscow News (Sept. 14-20): CHECHNYA’S MUFTI: “THIS WAS NO JIHAD; IT WAS A DECEPTION”
Sanobar Shermatova Last week, Hajj Ahmad Kadirov, the Mufti of Chechnya, had a talk with Russian Premier Vladimir Putin. The mufti happened to be in the Government House, along with other spiritual leaders from North Caucasian republics, but he was introduced to the Premier as the “head of the spiritual administration of independent Chechnya.” The fact that the interview took place at all is sensational: Russian officials have long avoided negotiations with Chechen representatives, and Chechen representatives have avoided any kind of situation in which Chechnya could be treated as just another North Caucasian member republic. Why did the Mufti ignore this tacit tabu? The answers are in this interview.
KADIROV. I had come to Moscow for a meeting of the Coordinating Council of the Muslims of the North Caucasus, and as a member of the Council I attended a reception in Government House. The conversation [with Putin] was a comprehensive one. I said to Prime Minister Putin: “Let’s divide the blame for the war in Dagestan in half: half for you, the other half for the Chechen side. If we couldn’t cope with the job of throwing out those, so to speak, outsiders, you also saw what was happening.” The Premier couldn’t object. Neither the Chechen nor the Dagestani people want this war. But there are people who want it—on both sides. There are a lot of questions about this war, questions to which I personally can’t find any answers. I told Putin that if Russia had recognized our independence, this war would never have happened. Putin didn’t agree with me, but that’s my opinion anyway.
MN: What is your attitude to the jihad Basayev and Khattab proclaimed in Dagestan?
KADIROV: It’s a deception. I spoke on Chechen television right after the events in Dagestan began. I reminded all those who had forgotten that our neighbor’s [Dagestan’s] mosques were open and functioning at a time when our republic did not have a single mosque. Chechens went to their neighbors to find out on what day they should start celebrating religious holidays. And then, to go over there, and proclaim a “jihad”?! On television, I said:
“I swear, by the name of Allah, this is no jihad! Go and bring your deluded sons home from their units. Stop them.” Who had ears to hear, heard.
I reminded everyone: We announced that our republic would be based on Sharia. But it isn’t yet. What do we have to teach anyone else? Let’s put our own house in order, and then we can say: Look, brothers, see what a paradise we are living in! But nobody wants the kind of paradise we are actually living in. The whole world knows what is going on here. And now we are introducing “order” next door. Right. Thousands of refugees,whole villages destroyed...
But Russian leaders have to share the blame. Fine, let’s say, Russia does not interfere in Chechnya’s affairs, we are independent, we live the way we want to. But Dagestan is a part of the Russian Federation, and two Dagestani villages being bombed today two years ago introduced their own Islamic order, in no way compatible with the Constitution of Dagestan or Russian law.
MN: Do you consider the guerrillas who are fighting in Dagestan to be religious?
KADIROV. I find it hard to consider them Muslims. They reject everything new that has been created after the Prophet, calling it all bid’ah [innovation]. Well, for us, THEY are bid’ah: we never had them before! It’s useless to try to have a dialogue with them; they don’t listen to your arguments. They have concrete goals; a mission; a program. And that’s it.
MN: Are there any unarmed Wahhabis? Do you reject the idea that there may be people who share their views, but don’t plan to go to war with anybody?
No. All these people are armed. In order to attain their goals, they deceive people, bribe them. And who supplies THEM? All these people went through Russian territory to get to Chechnya; and they travelled in groups. Where was the visa control looking? Customs? I asked Putin that. There are so many questions here. Who backs them, and what do they want? Jihad? If the Dagestanis had overthrown their leaders, as we did in Chechnya, and troops were brought in, and everybody rose to fight, that would be one thing. But they are content to live with Russia, well, let them live with Russia, they’re not stupid. They lead a normal life, nobody forbids them to pray. You want a mosque? Fine, you’ve got one. You want a madrasah [Islamic school]? Fine, you’ve got one. And here we come, imposing an Islamic state on them. No, that’s politics, that’s all nonsense.
MN. Are you saying the guerrillas have no religious goals? KADIROV. I don’t see any. In the modern world, nobody imposes his religion on others. After the wars in the time of the Prophet, it was said that Islam had won all the space it required. And later it was said, “in faith there can be no compulsion.” And then,there is a political side to this question.
Islam says you should honor treaties and agreements. If the guerrillas had said, we are tearing up the Khasavyurt Agreements and we are declaring war on Russia, we could understand . But they didn’t do that.
MN. You are considered close to Maskhadov, yet your position differs from the official position of the Chechen authorities.
KADIROV. No, that’s not true. Chechnya’s official authorities have the same views I do. Remember, official Chechen army units are not fighting in Dagestan. Those that are fighting there are not under Maskhadov’s control. But the authorities should have spoken out and condemned the attack before I did. They didn’t.
MN: Why not?
KADIROV. Good question.
MN: What must be done to stop this war?
KADIROV. Uproot this evil, which cloaks itself in Islam. Keep it from being spread in all the republics that want to live in peace.
Updates about the administration of the Republic of Chechnya Courtesy of Tevere News (Rome) on Novosti releases
Fifty fighters are going to quit Chechnya's Vedeno Gorge and lay down their weapons in the next few days, head of the Chechen civil administration Akhmad Kadyrov predicted for Interfax on Friday July 7, 2000.
These people have no relation to the Wahhabites and have been fighting for the independence of Ichkeria (Chechnya), Kadyrov said.
Kadyrov said he believes that those fighters who have not been involved in kidnapping and murder have accepted his guarantees of security.
Head of the administration of the Chechen Republic Akhmad Kadyrov may work in the Federation Council but with a deliberative vote, Chairman of the commission of parliament's upper chamber for regulations and parliamentary procedures Nikolai Merkushkin said in an interview with RIA Novosti.
He explained this by the provisions of the law On the Procedure for Forming the Federation Council which is now in force: "He will have the same conditions as the other members of the Federation Council with the exception of a decisive vote", Merkushkin specified.
According to him, the commission is prepared to submit a respective proposal to the July 26 meeting of the chamber.
Former commander of the Chechen militia Bislan Gantamirov has been tapped to be first deputy to the leader of Chechnya's civil administration Akhmad Kadyrov.
Chief of the Russian General Staff Anatoly Kvashnin introduced Kadyrov's new deputy in Gudermes on Tuesday, Gantamirov's press service told Interfax.
Gantamirov will supervise all the Chechen Republic's armed structures, the press service said.
Agreement on Gantamirov's appointment was reached with the federal centre, presidential envoy to the Southern federal district Viktor Kazantsev and the Russian military, high-level Interfax sources have said.
Thursday afternoon Vladimir Putin held a meeting at the Kremlin with representatives of the ministries and head of Chechnya's provisional administration Akhmad Kadyrov, the presidential press office told RIA Novosti.
The meeting considered the matters related to "law enforcement regulation in the Chechen Republic", indicated the press office.
The meeting was attended by plenipotentiary representative of the President in the Southern federal district Viktor Kazantsev, Defence Minister Igor Sergeyev and Minister of Interior Vladimir Rushailo, General Prosecutor Vladimir Ustinov, Director of the Federal Security Service Nikolai Patrushev, Chief of the General Staff of the RF Armed Forces Anatoly Kvashnin.
The Prime Minister of the Russian federation Mikhail Kasyanov met the head of the Chechen administration Akhmad Kadyrov, Kasyanov told journalists.
According to him, agreement to hold a meeting was reached immediately after Kadyrov was appointed to his post. Kasyanov and Kadyrov will discuss current problems connected with the restoration of the economy in Chechnya, normalisation of life conditions and the transfer of affairs from the Russian government's mission in Chechnya to the administration of the Chechen Republic.
Kasyanov believes that "people whom Kadyrov will invite to work should be competent, and the Finance Ministry and other federal department should render assistance in this." The implementation of decisions connected with the allocation of financial resources and technical equipment to Chechnya will also be discussed at today's meeting. "The main thing is that there should be no delays in the work which was done by the Russian government's mission in Chechnya up to this day," Kasyanov said.
Kasyanov did not support the proposal made by the Chelyabinsk Region governor to the effect that constituent members of the Federation should stop rendering financial assistance for the restoration of the republic's economy in connection with the death of militiamen from the Chelyabinsk Region in Chechnya. "The Chechen people is not guilty for this, old men and children should receive help, housing and have the necessary conditions for life," the premier pointed out. "We cannot deprive people of having their minimal requirements satisfied", he added.
At a briefing at the Russian Information Centre today, First Deputy Chief of Staff Colonel General Valery Manilov said that a meeting this week between the head of the administration of Chechnya, Akhmad Kadyrov, and the republic's Muslim religious leaders testified to the fact that bandits enjoy neither spiritual or social support. According to Manilov, Imams from all the 18 republic's eighteen regions were present at the meeting.
Manilov stressed that the Chechen Ulema worked out their position at the meeting to demand that Maskhadov cease in his resistance and seek the forgiveness of the Chechen people for their misfortune and suffering.
The only possible topics for negotiations between the federal centre and Aslan Maskhadov, leader of the former regime of Ichkeria, are surrender and the fighters ending their resistance, the Russian presidential aide Sergei Yastrzhembsky has said.
"Maskhadov's address does not contain anything new." Yastrzhembsky said in comments on Maskhadov's video-address in a Monday interview with Interfax.
"It is larded with traditional threats to Kadyrov, the Russian military and the federal authorities," he said.
"Threats are mixed with direct hints that only with him, Maskhadov, is it possible to do business in Chechnya," he said.
"I can repeat that any negotiations with Maskhadov are possible only on the issues of surrender and stopping the resistance," Yastrzhembsky concluded.
A house was fired on in the Gudermes district of Chechnya where head of the administration of Chechnya Akhmad Kadyrov was expected to be. RIA Novosti was informed at the mobile detachment of the Russian Interior Ministry that in Mozdok militants in two Zhiguli cars (6th model) fired on, Sunday evening. The militiamen did not manage to stop the militants'car. The mobile detachment also reported that on the same day three servicemen were killed and 21 wounded as a result of the shooting out from the automatic weapons and grenade launchers of the road block of the interior troops in the village of Koshkeldy, Gudermes district. The militants fired from forest.
On July 2, near the bakery, six staffers of the Gudermes district interior department tried to stop Kamaz. The truck did not stop on the signal of the militiamen and continued moving with large speed. The militiamen began pursuing Kamaz when shots came from it at the militiamen. The company's unit commander of the Gudermes district interior department, senior sergeant of militia was killed. A large truck was not stopped again.
In the evening, the road block of the consolidated militia detachment of the main interior department of Moscow was shelled. It is situated in the town of Gudermes. The shelling was conducted from the automatic weapons and grenade launchers from the distance of 200-250 metres. One staffer of the militia consolidated detachment was killed, four wounded.
In early November 1999, Chechen Mufti A. Kadyrov declared the Sunni Chechen district of Gudermessky, Nozhai-Yurt and Kurchaloevsky a "WAHHABISM-FREE AREA." In several Chechen settlements, where self-defense units have already been formed, local inhabitants have been able to push the foreign Wahhabi mercenaries out. Kadyrov still relies on The Islamic Regiment commander Yamadayev, who is in charge of the Gudermes Front.
The head of the Russian Information Center, Mikhail Margelov, has described as "the long-awaited beginning of political settlement in Chechnya" the latest developments in Gudermes, whose inhabitants expressed their willingness to talk with federal authorities and cooperate in quitting the Wahhabi sedition and bringing life in Chechnya back to normal. In an interview with RIA Novosti, Margelov confirmed that Mufti Akhmed Kadyrov, delegated by Chechnya's Gudermes community to represent the Chechen people at negotiations with the federal government, is arriving in the Russian capital on Wednesday.
Kadyrov's mission in Moscow, if it is carried out, attests to the fact that they are beginning to see the light in Chechnya, Margelov pointed out. This is an essential condition for the beginning of a political process in the republic. We must come to realize the importance of the event--the "peaceful transfer of power in Gudermes, which is a symbol of Moscow's new policy in Chechnya, if you will," our interviewee said.
Following the event, all talk about the search for partners to negotiate with seems weird, said the Russian Information Center chief. Real negotiations with real people tired of living under bandits are already underway. These are serious negotiations since power has been trasferred peacefully as a result, he pointed out.
This is where the main difference lies between the Gudermes dialogue and the talks with Aslan Maskhadov, Margelov said. As he sees it, all that the negotiations with Maskhadov could lead to was the Khasavyurt agreements, with the federal government now having to deal with their consequences. He said Maskhadov is in no position to fulfill one simple condition for talks to begin--to extradite the terrorists--as he cannot or does not want to resist them.
The latest events in Gudermes mark the long-awaited beginning of political settlement, the interviewee noted. There will be negotiations with representatives of the Chechen people rather than foreign Wahhabi puppets. The federal center sees no alternative to what is now being done by its forces in Chechnya. A majority of Russia's population understands and supports its government's present policy vis-a-vis the republic, opposing the prospect of talks with Maskhadov, the Russian Information Center chief told RIA Novosti in conclusion.
A short biography: Al-Hajj as-Shaykh Ahmed Kadirov, hafazah-Ullah, is 49 years old. After getting a diploma from the Bukhara Madrasah, he graduated from the Islam International University in Tashkent. In 1989 he opened the first Islamic Institute in the North Caucasus, and was its rector until the Russian-Chechen war began in 1994.
He fought as a volunteer against the Russian federal forces. In 1995, in Vedeno, he was appointed Mufti of Chechnya.
He has been known for his uncompromised loyalty to the 'aqidah of Ahlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jama'ah, and for his opposition to the Wahhabi heretic sect.
In the past three years there have been three attempts on his life. During the last attempt, a number of his bodyguards were killed, three of whom were his own relatives. May Allah Ta'ala open for them the gates of al-Firdaws.
According to Tom Carter, Wahhabism is a puritanical form of Islam that teaches intolerance of anyone who does not conform to its worldview, Muslims and non-Muslims alike.
Terrorist attacks can shake the foundations of our biggest buildings, but they cannot touch the foundation of America. These acts shattered steal, but they cannot dent the steel of Americans resolve.
America was targeted for attack because we’re the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world. And no one will keep that light from shining”. -- President George W. Bush
It was reported on June 27, 2003 that al- Qaeda’s second highest-ranking member and also his spokesman were being held in Iran. Ayman al- Zawahiri, known to be Osama bin Laden’s right hand man and third ranked Saif al- Adel were captured by Iranian authorities before the terror attack in Riyadh on May 15th of this last year.
This is a great example of how the American media now works. Before 9-11 none of this would be on the radar screen. Terrorists under arrest and attacks in foreign countries never made it into a news event, until the attack on the USS Cole. To this day the media still has not reported on President Clinton’s lack of attention toward Osama bin Laden. The New York Times and other liberal sources have even praised our past President as an expert in international relations. The media was well focused on the NATO victory in the Eastern Europe tour while the world’s largest genocide in Rwanda was occurring. (By the way: parts of Eastern Europe like Iraq still have no electrical power.)
Not only was President Clinton a “failure” in Africa, he was also a “failure” on the War on Terror. I don’t hear any of the Democratic candidates out on the campaign trail tearing into this topic like they do toward President Bush. Many people believe the War on Terror started on 9-11-2001, but in all reality it started during President Clinton’s watch.
On December 29, 1992 Osama bin Laden and his “posse” started the war of global terror. Their targets were two large hotels that they believed symbolized the Western culture. Not only were civilians from all over the world occupying these hotels but they also housed the United States military stationed in the city of Aden, Yemen.
The attack was a huge success and a strong morale booster for Osama bin Laden and his growing terror network. In many reports the Adel bombings were the first strikes for Osama bin Laden and his small terror group. Luckily many of the American soldiers checked out of the hotel a few days prior to the attack. Unfortunately within hours of the terrible bombing our troops were ordered by President Clinton to withdraw from the area, leaving Osama bin Laden and his supporters to celebrate. This was the birth of the global terror network called al- Qaeda.
If you examine the organization that Osama bin Laden uses to fund and funnel money to al- Qaeda. It also indicates other organizations with which al- Qaeda is known to be associated. These are the first and most obvious links of al- Qaeda to Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabi extremists.
“Wahhabism is a puritanical form of Islam that teaches intolerance of anyone who does not conform to its worldview, Muslims and non-Muslims alike. This is taught in Saudi schools and preached in tens of thousands of government-supported mosques, ” according to Tom Carter of the Washington Times. Saudi Arabia was at one time dependent on the Wahhabi religion to protect them from foreign invaders and to keep other Muslim sects under control. Not only would they attack Jews and Christians but also fellow Muslims that they felt are not true believers. “Wahhabis believe it is their duty to kill infidels and heretics, polytheists -- believers in more than one god -- and apostate rulers who defile the land of the two holy cities. That last phrase -- the land of two holy cities -- is what Al Qaeda calls Saudi Arabia because they are so angry at the Saudi royal family and the westernized Saudis they won't even use the name,” writes John Gibson of Fox News.
There is still a strong connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, through Ansar al Islam located in northern and central Iraq. Ansar al Islam has been associated with al Qaeda through transferred funds and strong Saudi Wahhabi ties. Saddam may have used this terror group to keep the Kurds from the north from rebelling and braking away from Iraq. I also suspect Ansar al Islam has been connected to many Kurdish murders during Saddam’s genocide back in the year 2000.
Today al- Qaeda is a “Pit Bull” that Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iraq can no longer control. There have been well-planned bombing attacks on western interests that exist within Saudi Arabia’s boarders.
This death squad of hate is now targeting Turkey with a recent attack on this Muslim country. They are now are going after the only pure democratic Muslim country in the world. Their plan is to scare countries and governments from uniting together to fight this hatred. It is up to us to see that we are successful in this constant struggle between good and evil. Only the future knows our fate, instead of waiting for it lets write it out for ourselves.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty. -- President John F. Kennedy
A TREATISE ON HUMAN LIFE: An Unalienable Right by Harold D. Kletschka, M.D. Reviewed 28 January 2004
Dr. Kletschka traces the history of how ancient societies up through the common law treated abortion, and explains how the Roe v. Wade decision is utterly incompatible with this progression.
“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…..” The American Declaration of Independence, 1776
In his introduction to this well-documented book, A Treatise on Human Life by Dr. Harold Kletschka, Dave Racer states that “when the U.S. Supreme Court handed down its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision it wiped clean multiple centuries of legal precedent.
From universal condemnation of abortion to the Court’s sanctioning of legal abortions, the Court had rendered stare decisis moot.
Instead, by the whim of seven justices, the foolishness of interest-group politics was substituted for the wisdom of the ages.
As tragic is the loss of millions of human lives through abortion, the Court’s substitution of man’s will for immutable law has wreaked an even more far-ranging devastation on freedom and liberty; it has rendered futile a predictable future.”
Dr. Kletschka’s book is divided into three sections.
He begins Section I by stating that “When the sperm and ovum unite in conception a zygote – a unicell – is formed.
This unicell has life, but it also carries the Homo sapiens genetic code.
Thus, it is human life.” (p I-3)
He then proceeds to discuss the difference between a human being and property.
He quotes a Dr. J. Lejeune: “Property can be discarded….a human being (zygote/embryo) needs custody” (paraphrased from Testimony in Davis v. Davis, et al., Cir.Ct.Blount Co.,Tenn.,Equity Div. (Div. I), No. E. 14496, 1989. (p I – 7)
In Section II Dr. Kletschka discusses ancient and common law governing abortion.
Through his extensive research into primary documents he is able to state:
“In the historical and apocryphal works, dating back thousands of years B.C., we find that human life was considered to be sacred from the moment of conception, and that prevention of that life or its destruction in utero was continuously condemned in an unbroken chain of laws and precedents comprising the common law inherited by America.
Even in pagan, uncivilized, and barbaric societies this sacredness of human life was recognized.”
It is well-known that the Catholic religion has steadfastly opposed abortion.
Less well-known is the fact that the Catholic religion “formed the basis of the common law developed by the kings of England in governing abortion……
England lived under these laws in communion with the Catholic Church for almost 1500 years……
Even after Henry VIII broke from allegiance to the Catholic faith during his reign from 1509 to 1547, the common law remained in place as the common law of that nation.” (II – 70)
Legal scholars Bracton and Coke also confirm that “the very earliest controlling precedents regarding abortion had been continuously recognized without change, save for reducing the degree and type of punishment meted out for commission of the crime.
But the seriousness of the crime was never disputed, always being considered as murder or as barely less than murder, depending on the circumstances.” (II – 70)
Dr. Kletschka next establishes the connection of the common law precedents concerning abortion to the establishment of similar laws in America.
He also thoroughly discusses the Otis-Henry doctrine in which “the supremacy and permanency of common law precedents became recognized and firmly entrenched in development of the law of the newly formed country.” (p II – 67)
Section III is Dr. Kletschka’s analysis of Roe v. Wade.
He particularly shows how the justices not only departed from previous case law (stare desisis), the Constitution, and the Declaration of Independence in their infamous decision, but especially documents the Court’s egregious departure from Common Law precedents.
He further documents actual errors in scholarship and research which the justices had used to justify their decision.
Dr. Kletschka concludes: “For the courts to continuously find a legal basis for abortion, in the face of the clear established common law prohibiting such practice, amounts to misbehavior by failing to enforce the law and to uphold the constitutional guarantees protecting the rights of the unborn.
Unless the established law is enforced as recited in this treatise it means we will have become a nation of men instead of laws.
It will mean we are in a state of anarchy which will, if not arrested now, promise to spread in scope along with its venal consequences.
Ultimately, tyranny can be expected to surface because all rights find their foundation in the right to life. Preservation of the sacred right to life is the prime barrier against tyranny. If that right disappears then all other rights can be expected to eventually vanish as well.” (III – 68)
Dr. Kletschka’s book is a valuable addition to the libraries of those seeking to understand the underlying issues involved with Roe v. Wade.
Even though there is extensive quoting of primary sources, which should prove invaluable to legal scholars, Dr. Kletschka provides helpful commentary so that even the most uneducated reader can easily understand the legal, historical and moral issues involved.
The military historian John Keegan--Sir John Keegan, mind you--has a fascinating piece in the "Daily Telegraph". Having just completed a study of the uses of intelligence in warfare, Keegan wonders just what an investigation of the intelligence that Tony Blair received could possibly reveal.
Which of course leads one to wonder just what an investigation of the intelligence that George Bush received could possibly reveal.
Intelligence, Keegan argues, is always open to interpretation. During the Second World War, for example, the British received good intelligence that the Germans were developing a pilotless rocket.
Churchill set up a committee to examine the intelligence. The committee decided it must be flawed. Why?
Because a pilotless rocket was simply...impossible.
As Keegan writes: "More than 1,500 V2s landed on London, killing thousands, at a time when Hitler was also trying to develop a nuclear warhead.
The whole pilotless weapons episode demonstrates that, even under threat of a supreme national crisis, and in the face of copious and convincing warnings, intelligence officers can disagree completely about the facts and some can be 100 per cent wrong."
What Mr. Bush appears to have forgotten is that the overwhelmingly dominant cultural edifice in Iraq is Islam, and Islam is not compatible with freedom or democracy.
Rush Limbaugh always used to say that the purpose of the military was to kill people and break things.
Just about anyone who has served in the armed forces will probably agree with him. However, today’s Army, or for that matter Navy or Air Force seems to be less interested in the goals Limbaugh articulated and more interested in being socially conscious.
The present war in Iraq where we try to spare the civilian population and liberate them from an oppressive regime is an excellent case in point.
Yet, someone eventually had to bring a competing viewpoint to the fore, and on April 1, 2003 someone did.
He was Paul Sperry writing for World Net Daily. His commentary entitled The Folly of “Liberating” Muslims hits hard at the notion that in the long run our human rights orientation and socially conscious goals of building a new nation in Iraq may well be impossible to achieve under the prevailing circumstances.
Consider one simple fact. President Bush has predicated his social policy goals on the idea that Iraq is ready for democracy, and it only needs a catalyst to bring it about.
What Mr. Bush appears to have forgotten is what Mr. Perry points out; the simple fact that the overwhelmingly dominant cultural edifice in Iraq is Islam, and Islam is not compatible with freedom or democracy.
This trait appears whenever Islam becomes a dominant force in the political social structure.
In Indonesia and Malaysia democracy has only a tenuous hold, and in Pakistan the democratic process is often subject to subversion, and in some cases it is ignored all together along with the rights of those who believe differently.
If this is difficult to believe, examine the remains of the 3000 year old Buddha statues which were blown up a few years ago because the Pakistani minister of culture believed that God would not forgive him of allowing them to remain; historical, artistic and other considerations notwithstanding.
Today Iran, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula show some of the worst examples of autocracy backed by theocracy ever seen.
One might suggest in some cases that it is the Spanish Inquisition reborn and worse. No Muslim dominated nation is a true democracy today.
One experiment occurred a few years ago in Algeria when elections were held resulting in the Islamic party being placed in power.
Their first acts were to outlaw all other parties, declare that they would rule by Islamic law, and finally to state that this decision was irrevocable for government and for the people.
Fortunately, the military intervened. We have always been taught that a democracy had the right to change its mind and elect new leaders to replace the ones it doesn’t like. Apparently in Muslim countries this is not true.
What quickly becomes obvious to anyone who studies Islam in depth is that it cannot be called a religion in the western sense.
Rather, it is a system of life, a total integrated framework, which regulates all aspects of life, personal relationships, law, politics and even the family.
One might also consider it to be in ideology operating along similar lines to those Communism once followed.
Essentially, if it is doctrine it cannot be questioned. One writer, Abd al-Masih put it this way: “Anyone who prostrates himself before Allah 34 times a day is not free or a person.
According to Islam, everyone is a slave to Allah. No one is free.”
Paul Sperry put it slightly differently: “[F]reedom and democracy are incompatible with Islam. There is no room for western values.” He also notes several important facts among which are:
1) in Afghanistan people went right on with the same way of life after the Taliban government was removed, and
2) Kuwait did not go democratic after it was liberated from Iraq.
Sperry also asserts that if President Bush had suggested liberating Iraq as a response to September 11, people would have told him to “jump in a lake.”
Sperry may well be correct. What remains then is the question of what we can do, if anything to change this situation.
In the end there can be only one answer. It is not enough to free the Iraqi people from the bonds of Saddam. It is also necessary to free their minds.
The major reason why Iraqis did nothing about Saddam was as much a part of Islamic behavior as their prayers.
They submited to Saddam in the same way as they submit to Allah.
It is the same in the other countries of the region. Until these people are able to clearly see that they have options, they will not be able to free themselves.
This is why Muslim countries deny their people access to Christian missionaries, Bibles, etc., and destroy the artifacts of other beliefs.
Their religion demands that there be no choices, no freedom of thought, and no questioning of the order of things. While the main targets may be religious, the impact is political as well.
The people of Iraq are like an animal, raised in a zoo, which knows nothing of the world outside the cage.
If allowed to leave it will more readily return to the life and the confines it knows, than accept freedom and the unknown and uncertain.
This same thing happened in Russia after the Soviet government collapsed. Many people wanted a new communist government, having lived that way all their lives.
Freedom of choice was too alien a concept to them. It is the same way with most Islamic people. It is, in the end, an aspect of ultimate submission.
It sounds Orwellian, but to them, freedom is found only in enslavement to Allah, and ignorance of anything else is their strength.
Until this is changed, there will be no real democracy in the Arab world and President Bush’s good intentions may well be doomed to failure.
Judge Moore is not the Congress, nor is he establishing religion. Welcome to the liberal version of the Constitution.
Like most people who watch the nightly news, I'd been following the story of Alabama Chief Justice Roy Moore for weeks, and his struggle with higher authorities to keep a Ten Commandments monument on display at the Supreme Court building in that state.
At first I was going to write an article specifically concerning that story, but it wasn't long before I concluded that the so called "separation of church and state" issue was not what I really wanted to discuss--at least not entirely.
I'm sure there are a thousand people out there writing op-eds about Judge Moore's tribulations, so I'll leave that particular case to them.
I will, however, say this: our federal Constitution relates that the U.S. Congress is prohibited from making laws that concern an establishment of religion or that prevent people from practicing the religion of their choice.
That seems pretty straightforward doesn't it? I mean, I didn't have to read the words "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion" twice to understand that they mean exactly what they say.
I take them literally, but apparently liberals interpret this aspect of the First Amendment in a somewhat different way.
They obviously believe those words to mean that the people of a particular state should not be allowed to exhibit any religious text or symbol on public property, even though that property may have nothing to do with Congress.
It also doesn't seem to matter to them that the simple act of displaying something like the Ten Commandments does not equate to actually establishing a religion.
This should come as no surprise to anyone familiar with the convoluted logic of those who call themselves liberals though.
After all, these are the same people who believe that the abortion issue is exclusively about a woman's right to choose what she can do with her own body, hence their use of the term 'pro choice.'
It apparently never occurs to the liberal mind that the other human body involved might be something to consider as well, or that the obvious question to be asked is when does a fetus become a human life, worthy of the same protections as every other individual.
Not to burrow too deeply into this particular subject, but in my opinion, the people who wish to commit abortion should be required to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that even a one-day-old fetus is not a human life before they kill it, since it is inarguable that at some as yet undetermined point in our development all of us become human beings, and simply taking a wild guess at when that moment in time maybe isn't consistent with the concept of justice.
Then again, expecting liberals to embrace true justice is rather like expecting chickens to start laying square eggs.
They're just not built that way. You see, to believe in justice requires that one believe in the inalienable rights of the individual.
With those rights comes personal responsibility, and justice is concerned with holding individuals responsible for their actions.
Liberals are not prone to individualism, and the concept of personal accountability almost seems repugnant to them--unless it's a Republican being held to account.
They are, in many ways, more likened to pack animals than human beings, because they tend to think in terms of groups, not individuals.
That is why it's difficult not to regard them in that very manner, as a group. They seem to view everyone else that way, so that's the way they should be viewed in my opinion.
Think about it, have you ever noticed that whenever liberals concoct a plan that ostensibly promotes fairness and equality, it usually begins with the identification of everyone involved by their race, sex, religion, political affiliation or whatever aspect is the most divisive at the time?
You're never just a person to them, you're a stereotype to be labeled and manipulated.
You are rewarded with freebies at the expense of other people when you agree with them, and punished with character assassination when you don't.
Your individuality is a threat to their world view, and they cannot afford to let the well of collectivism be poisoned by droplets of non-conformity.
Keep in mind though that liberals are not necessarily stupid, far from it. Some of them are very smart indeed, a few having matured into outspoken and truly brilliant advocates of liberty.
Take David Horowitz for example. This is a man who was as radical a leftist as any of his generation.
He was a Communist who was raised by Communists to be a Communist, yet at some point in his life he came to realize the folly inherent in that system of beliefs.
No one I know well would seriously assert that he is an idiot, and neither are many other people I've come to accept in my life who are liberals to this day.
No, the deficit of the liberal lies not in his mind, but in his personality. Generally speaking, liberals are, to use the vernacular, control freaks.
They are so sure their ideas are the right ones that they feel compelled to force everyone else to accept them.
They genuinely want to SAVE you from yourself. They are every bit the crusaders that televangelists are, only instead of Christianity, their religion is Communism, and to them, hell is the rejection by the masses of their dogma.
Liberals want you to accept what they say at face value and respect what they do without carefully considering the destructive practices they adopt or the divisive rhetoric they utter.
They expect you to understand that, because they feel their motives are virtuous, you would have to be a cretin not to want to follow them blindly down whichever road they choose to lead you.
They believe in parental figures controlling everyone else's lives, which is why they're so popular with people who think of themselves as victims in life.
Victims need protectors, and who better to protect you than your parents? The liberal masses seem to want to be told what to do and how to live, and this is where the leftist mommy and daddy figures come in.
Whatever is wrong in your life can be made right, but not by you, but by the pseudo-intellectuals who make up the liberal elite.
And believe me, they are more than happy to oblige their followers on that score. You will be granted every sort of entitlement and be taken care of from cradle to grave just as long as you let them control everything.
The leaders of the leftist movement "feel your pain" and will gladly relieve you of the burden of being responsible for yourself.
Of course, they also want to relieve you of your guns and any other weapons you may have which could potentially be used against them.
They may seem portentous or condescending but they're not really. They're just right, so don't go thinking you know better than they do about the way things should be.
They will feel perfectly justified in saying and doing the most hateful things to you if you dare to stand up to them, because to these ideologues you are like a belligerent child.
You need to be corrected, and correct you they will if given half the chance. After all, it's for your own good.
Very often the cultural and socialist agenda does not favor the family or the mission of parents.
Furthermore, many couples would like to have more children, but are forced to give up because of economic difficulties. The assistance of public organizations, though appreciable, is often insufficient.
The need is felt for a more comprehensive policy in support of the family."
The family is the "fundamental unit of society. Within the family, life must always be promoted, defended and protected.
This Day for Life reminds everyone of this fundamental duty.
We must not resign ourselves to the attacks against human life, first among them abortion.
I renew my appreciation for the courageous support that the Movement for Life gives this cause, and I exhort all communities to support its initiatives and services.
Efforts must be increased in order to affirm the right to life of children not yet born, not against mothers but together with mothers."
There is no doubt that one of the greatest need today is to ensure that the sacred institution of marriage, willed by God in the very act of creation, with its concomitant of stable family life, is affirmed and supported.
Both civic and religious leaders of all denominations must work together towards this end. Many cultural, social and political factors are in fact conspiring to create an increasingly obvious crisis of the family.
The tragedy of divorce desolates family life and harms communities and individuals, especially children.
The scourge of abortion, in addition to violating the essential dignity of human life, often causes untold emotional and psychological pain to the mother who herself is frequently a victim of circumstances contrary to her deepest hopes and desires.
Faced with these afflictions, I again remind civil leaders that they have a duty to make courageous choices to protect life through legislative measures and to uphold the values and demands of the family through effective social policies. I also appeal to the Christian community to bear steadfast witness to the sublime beauty of the intimate communion of life and love which defines the family and brings joy to human society.
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, JAN. 20, 2004 (Zenit.org).- Archbishop Alfred Hughes has declared that lawmakers who support abortion and assisted suicide should no longer receive holy Communion.
The New Orleans archbishop stopped short of banning priests from giving Communion to such politicians.
"When Catholic officials openly support the taking of human life in abortion, euthanasia or the destruction of human embryos, they are no longer faithful members in the Church and should not partake of Holy Communion," Archbishop Hughes wrote in his weekly column in the archdiocesan paper, the Clarion Herald.
He also warned Catholic voters about neglecting their duty to uphold the culture of life. "Moreover, citizens who promote this unjust taking of human life by their vote or support of such candidates share in responsibility for this grave evil," he wrote
Archbishop Hughes' declaration comes in the wake of a decree by Bishop Raymond Burke of La Crosse, Wisconsin, who banned Catholic lawmakers who support abortion and euthanasia from receiving Communion.
If Sen. John Kerry were to stand in Archbishop Raymond L. Burke's Communion line Sunday, Burke would bless him without giving him Communion.
Kerry, a Catholic, has voted to support abortion rights, contrary to the Catholic Church's long-held teaching of opposing abortion.
"I would have to admonish him not to present himself for Communion," said Burke. "I might give him a blessing or something," he said. "If his archbishop has told him he should not present himself for Communion, he shouldn't. I agree with Archbishop O'Malley."
Kim Molstre, a Kerry campaign spokeswoman, said Friday: "The archbishop has the right to deny Communion to whoever he wants, but Senator Kerry respectfully disagrees with him on the issue of choice."
Archbishop Sean O'Malley of Boston, Kerry's archdiocese, has individually told Catholic elected officials who favor abortion rights that they should not be receiving Communion and should refrain on their own volition.
Last summer, O'Malley issued a statement saying that a Catholic official who favors abortion rights should not receive Communion. He did not ban priests from giving it.
In his former diocese of La Crosse, Wis., Burke sent an official episcopal notification to the diocesan priests to refuse Communion to three Catholic Wisconsin lawmakers who had refused to talk with him about their pro-abortion rights votes.
On Wednesday in St. Louis, Kerry said in an interview that "what I believe personally as a Catholic as an article of faith is an article of faith."
But as a public official, he said, it was not "appropriate in the United States for a legislator to legislate personal religious beliefs for the rest of the country."
Burke has said that if a St. Louis Catholic legislator disagreed with the church teachings on abortion or capital punishment, he would ask him to sit down and talk to him.
"On life issues, this is a serious issue for bishops, a grave problem for the church, which has to be addressed," Burke said.
Burke spoke about the issue in response to Post-Dispatch questions at a taping of "Extra Edition," a weekly half-hour news show produced by the Post-Dispatch and KMOV (Channel 4) and hosted by Jamie Allman.
I clipped this from the Oregonian just because I thought it was interesting, and because I liked the film when I saw it 20 years ago. Also I like Bill Murray and Harold Ramis.
Your spiritual guide . . . Bill Murray?
02/02/04
NANCY HAUGHT
Before Bill Murray was "Lost in Translation," he was stuck in "Groundhog Day," doomed to relive Feb. 2 over and over in Punxsutawney, Pa., until enlightenment dawned on him as sure as 6 a.m., Sonny and Cher and a few lines of early morning DJ banter:
"OK, campers, rise and shine! And don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there."
From Our Advertiser
"It's cold out there every day. What is this, Miami Beach?"
The 1993 movie, directed by Harold Ramis and co-starring Andie MacDowell, recently kicked off "The Hidden God: Film and Faith," the current exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. It turns out, curators say, that religious scholars from many different traditions have used the movie for years to teach fundamental spiritual themes. Who knew?
Well, Ramis, who co-wrote the screenplay with Danny Rubin, knew.
"The first ones who went public were Hasidic Jews," Ramis says in a telephone interview. "They were walking back and forth in front of the theater with signs, not to protest, but asking, 'Are you living the same day over and over again?' "
In the next few weeks, he heard from Buddhists, other Jews, fundamentalist Christians and Jesuit priests and even from therapists, who used the film to illustrate different theories of human development.
"OK, campers, rise and shine! And don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there."
"It's cold out there every day. . . ."
Even as he worked on the picture, Ramis says, he knew the story wrestled with some of life's big questions. Since the movie's debut, he has read more about the major religions of the world and thinks "Groundhog Day" is no idle comedy, that it does pack a faith-filled punch.
"Almost all religions start with a metaphysical inquiry: Where do we come from and what is God?" he says. "And they all end in some notion of service to others." He runs through a partial list:
"The temple in Jerusalem was destroyed when (the Jews) stopped caring for widows and orphans.
"Jesus represents selflessness and service.
"Mohammed was in rebellion with the selfishness of his time and called for a life of service.
"Buddhism began with a spiritual inquiry about the nature of existence and found an answer in the bodhisattva of compassion."
"OK, campers, rise and shine! And don't forget your booties 'cause it's cold out there."
In Portland, Matt Becker, a theology professor at Concordia University, thinks "Groundhog Day" has a lot to say about the Christian idea of repentance, or change.
"Murray doesn't understand why this is happening to him, and he wonders if he isn't a god because he knows what's going to happen before it does." But the film itself criticizes that notion, Becker says.
"He comes to a recognition of his limits, precisely coming down to the reality of who he is and who other people are. It's then that he's freed from living this one day over and over again.
"(The movie) stresses this notion of dying to self every day, of being reborn to a new and better life, a new and better existence, an opportunity to die and be reborn. . . . He finally gets it. He finally understands about humility and real love and service."
"OK, campers, rise and shine! And don't forget your booties . . ."
Eric Marcoux, a Tibetan Buddhist lama who lives in Portland, says "Groundhog Day" is a good illustration of how human beings are sometimes caught up in never questioning their own behavior and beliefs.
"Unquestioned grasping, unquestioned aggression, unquestioned aversion, unquestioned indifference toward things, toward experience, lead inescapably to more of the same results," he says.
"The root cause is the -- again, unquestioned -- ignorant belief that things -- thoughts, feelings, people, phenomena in general -- are solid and unchanging, that they can be successfully held onto without their slipping way."
To accord things too much importance leads to suffering, he says.
"All experience is inescapably marked by suffering until we stop trying to hold on to our culturally and tribally conditioned beliefs, which keep us in the same unquestioning loop. Thursday (or Groundhog Day) keeps happening over and over."
"OK, campers, rise and shine . . ."
Catholics have used "Groundhog Day" to talk about purgatory, where souls that aren't ready for heaven may spend time. Some Falun Gong practitioners see the film as an illustration of how one must learn from past mistakes in order to move on. Wiccans equate it with Imbolc, their first spring celebration.
But first, according to Ramis, were the Jews, who linked the film to their concept of tikkun olam, "the repair of the world." It matters to him that spiritual people still find a healing truth in this film.
"I've always felt as a Jew that my mission is to do what I can to heal the world," he says. "And Buddhism says that the world is saved one person at a time."
The New Anti-Semitism, is being perpetrated in the name of anti-racism and anti-colonialism. The New Anti-Semite cannot by definition be an Anti-Semite, because he or she ostensibly speaks on behalf of oppressed peoples.
In fact, however, western intellectuals are leading the “Islamic Mob.” I now find it necessary and sane to think tribally as well as internationally. . .to think not only with justice for all but also with the survival of American and of the Jewish people.”
The breakdown of the language of third world liberation into a jargon legitimating violence is also a failure of politics.
The framework where differences may be discussed and compromises arrived at no longer seems to work. The western intellectual has failed to distinguish between the voice of violence and the voice protesting violence.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Think about what the 2nd Amendment actually relates. First it CONTENDS that it is necessary to the security of a free state to allow for a well regulated militia. Then it DEMANDS that the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, for the aforementioned reason. It does not, however, necessarily exclude from consideration all other reasons for the people to keep and bear arms, merely because it only cites that which is arguably the most important reason for them to do so.
And just what exactly IS the reason mentioned in the text? Consider this, if we add the qualifier "because" to the beginning of the 2nd Amendment and change the word "being" to "is" (both of which mean "a state of existing"), we get the following sentence.
Because a well regulated Militia is necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed.
Why the 2nd Amendment wasn't written this way is fairly obvious to me. Back in 1791, they didn't write or speak exactly as we do today, and James Madison, the Amendment's author must have felt that his meaning would be clearly understood by future generations. But no matter the reason, the 2nd Amendment obviously conveys a need for the private ownership of fire[arms] in reference to a militia... but in what way exactly?
I feel that President Madison was guaranteeing the people the right to keep and bear arms in case they needed to form a militia in order to fight the government itself. After all, how can the people possibly form an armed militia if they are not allowed by the government to possess firearms in the first place? And if citizens were only supposed to have guns in order to fight FOR the government, there would certainly be no need to afford "the people" not already in the military the Constitutional right to possess them.
At this point you should ask yourself a key question. What was the drafter of the 2nd Amendment concerned with when he wrote the words "shall not be infringed"? What entity is capable of infringing upon the rights of the people? The answer is obvious... THE GOVERNMENT! The very reason you are afforded rights under our Constitution is to protect you from the potentially despotic rule of the government. Madison once wrote in the "Federalist Papers", the following passage in reference to a standing federal army.
"To these would be opposed a militia amounting to near half a million of citizens with arms in their hands, officered by men chosen from among themselves, fighting for their common liberties..."
Some have argued that "well regulated" means controlled by governmental agencies, but that is not necessarily the case. The fact is that the term in question was commonly understood to mean 'properly functioning' back in the 18th century. A passage from the Oxford English Dictionary of the day provides the example "as in a well regulated clock" in reference to it. It is only in recent times that people automatically associate those words with the government.
The fact of the matter is that the man who wrote the 2nd Amendment knew all too well that governments often grow to be more powerful than they should be, and recognized the necessity of affording "the people" the means with which to overthrow the powers that be if the need should arise. If you doubt that contention, then you should familiarize yourself with the Declaration of Independence.
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security."
To those people who think that the aforementioned Amendment means that we are only supposed to have guns for the sole purpose of fighting for the federal government, I have only this to say. Nowhere in the 2nd Amendment is the federal government even mentioned. The right outlined therein is inarguably afforded to "THE PEOPLE"! The amendment being discussed is a part of the Bill of Rights, which was designed specifically for the purpose of defining the unforfeitable rights of average American citizens. Keep that in mind the next time a bunch of politicians in Congress tell you that they have the authority to infringe upon your Constitutional right to keep and bear arms. THEY DON'T!
As far as state governments are concerned, although the 2nd Amendment mentions that the people are afforded the right to keep and bear arms in order to secure a free State, one has to consider what a free state really is. By "free State" is Madison talking about any state government or the people of any state? Consider this, if he was only talking about a state government, how then would the people of any state defend themselves against the potentially despotic rule of such a state government if they were not allowed to keep and bear arms individually? The answer is obvious, they wouldn't be able to.
The long and short of the matter is that the term "well regulated" was not added to the amendment in question as a means of enforcing any particular standard, but rather as a means of qualifying the statement "being necessary to the security of a free State".
In order for a "free state" (free people) to exist, the people must be afforded the ability to form a well regulated militia. A militia which is not well regulated (well trained and drilled) would be incapable of fighting a well regulated federal or state army. That's the ONLY reason the term "well regulated" is mentioned. The first part of the amendment simply relates the reasoning behind the author declaring the second part, which is the actual right being discussed. It is NOT ambiguous!
Our Republic was founded upon certain principles regarding the individual and his/ her relationship to our government. First and foremost, primary consideration is, and has always been afforded to the unalienable rights of the individual! The day that agencies within our government decide to place the importance of the government before that of individual liberty, is the day that our nation ceases to be a Republic of the people, by the people and for the people.
The eradication of the 2nd Amendment would be tantamount to a crime against the people of this country, and indeed humanity, perpetrated by a despotic and tyrannical group of people who seek nothing but dominion over their fellow human beings!
Some have referred to the Constitution of the United States of America as simply a political or a legal document, but it is far more than that! It is a HUMANIST document, which asserts the necessity for self determination above and beyond all other human constructs. It embraces a philosophy which has guided this nation to pinnacles of advancement and achievement in every meaningful sphere of life, the likes of which have not otherwise been evinced throughout the recorded history of this planet! To refer to it merely as a political/legal document is to ignore its raison d'être.
RU486 Deaths Revealed in Britain By Randall K. O'Bannon, Ph.D., NRL-ETF Director of Education & Research
Just a few months after news that the death of American teenager Holly Patterson was associated with the abortifacient RU486, word comes from across the Atlantic that at least two deaths in Britain may have been connected to the abortion pill. It brings to five the number of women who "have died due to bleeding or infection linked to the drug in France and the United States since its introduction in 1988," according to the [London] Telegraph (1/08/2004).
Yet even while acknowledging the deaths of two RU486 patients in Britain, the government has hedged about the abortion pill's responsibility.
"The reporting of suspected adverse drug reaction does not necessarily mean that the drug was responsible," The Telegraph quoted British public health minister Melanie Johnson saying. "Many factors, such as the medical condition that is being treated, other pre-existing illnesses or other medication might have contributed."
British pro-life leaders were not satisfied by the public health minister's tepid admission. "I hope this serves as a warning to women on just how dangerous these powerful drugs are," Jack Scarisbuck, national chair of the British group Life told The Telegraph. "Why haven't we been told this before, though?"
"There's a good chance that if these two women had not taken RU-486, they would not have died, and given how unreliable the reporting system is, if two deaths have been reported there are probably 20 others that went unreported," Scarisbrick told The Telegraph.
Reporters for The Telegraph noted how the revelation of the two deaths comes just four months after The British Pregnancy Advisory Service, backed by the Family Planning Association, petitioned the government to ease restrictions on RU486's use by reducing the number of visits a woman would need to make. Currently, women using the abortion pill in Britain make three visits to the abortionist.
British women currently receive RU486 at the first visit, the effect of which is to shut down the baby's life support system. They return two days later to take misoprostol, the prostaglandin which initiates the contractions to expel the child. Women then return a week or so later for a third visit to confirm that there was a "complete" abortion.
Though similar to the protocol put in place by the FDA in the U.S., British abortion groups want to drop the second visit and give the woman the prostaglandin at the first visit to take and administer to herself at home. Many clinics in the U.S. are already doing this without government approval, according to the Washington Post.
Such a move could easily lead to more deaths. Eliminating the second visit means the initiation of the most bloody, painful, and dangerous part of the abortion procedure when a woman is all alone-- or at least would be absent the observation of professional medical help who possess training and knowledge about RU486's risks and side effects.
Women may call the clinic on the telephone, or even visit their local ER, but there is no guarantee that the person on the other end of the line, or even the emergency room physician, will recognize the seriousness of the medical situation until it is too late if they're expecting a "normal" bloody, painful chemical abortion.
Dr Donna Harrison, an American gynecologist in Michigan, told the Telegraph in an earlier interview, "Regardless of their views on abortion there are many doctors who are concerned about the safety of RU486.There are so many things than can go wrong. There can be bleeding serious enough for transfusions to be needed. There is also a serious risk of infection."
Dr. Harrison concluded, "If you don't want to see a Holly Patterson in Britain you should reject any moves to relax medical supervision of these drugs."
Holly Patterson received RU486 from her local Planned Parenthood on September 10, and died a week later at the Pleasanton Valley Medical Center from a massive septic infection brought on by retained fetal tissue, her father told the San Francisco Chronicle (9/20/03). (This conclusion was supported by the local coroner who "concluded that she had died from 'septic shock, due to endomyometritis [inflammation] due to therapeutic, drug-induced abortion,'" the Washington Post reported on November 3.)
Four days after she took the RU486, Holly experienced such severe bleeding and cramping, according to the Chronicle, that her boyfriend rushed her to the emergency room at the Valley Care Medical Center. The emergency room physicians who saw Holly gave her painkillers and released her, Holly's father told the San Jose Mercury News (9/20/03).
Holly's parents said they never even knew she was pregnant until they were called to the emergency room on the day Holly died.
Of the three North American women known to have died following the use of RU486, two died of infections and a third from an untreated ectopic pregnancy. Other women have nearly died. The New York Times reported (according to Danco, the pill's U.S. sponsor and distributor), that, all told, at least 264 women who had taken RU486 in the first three years that it had been on the American market have suffered from what Danco described as "adverse reactions."
According to the San Francisco Chronicle, Danco's Richard Hausknecht puts the number of adverse events reported by the company to the FDA at about 400.
Howard Dean may garner the votes of the Unitarian-Universalists and the Jesse Jacksons of the world, but he will never get the votes of sincere Catholics, Evangelicals, and other Christian denominations that adhere to the Bible.
With US President George W. Bush, along with wife, Laura, openly testifying to their evangelical Christian faith, Howard Dean must have concluded it’s time to give religion a go. Therefore, according to FoxNews, Dean is coming through with his own Amen Corner.
However, no matter what Dean says about his religious faith, it will never square with those biblically in the know, particularly devout Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Never. Why?
Because his political causes such as pro-choice and pro-practicing homosexual lifestyles are anti-Scripture.
Therefore, if anything, Dean will garner the votes of the theologically liberal, such as the Unitarian-Universalist Society. But he won’t gather any votes from the fundamentalists nor evangelicals, let alone those Catholics who adhere to traditional Catholic morality.
With that, Dean will cast himself either as a totally sincere theological liberal or a mock-up touting religion for political opportunism.
Now Dean is particularly focusing on the south for votes. All the more, the south is overrun with evangelicals, for example those of the Baptist persuasion. The Southern Baptist layperson and clergy can spot a theological liberal several miles away. And when they do, Dean’s not in their hallelujah camp. Not at all. He’d not make it to the back pew. Therefore, if Dean is going to start his Amen Corner by courting the southern churchgoer, he’d better switch over to pro-life and anti-homosexual lifestyle in one hurry kick.
Dean presently is a member of a congregational church while his wife and children are Jewish. He once belonged to the Episcopal Church but pulled out of the local congregation in Vermont over a disagreement regarding a bike path.
"Howard Dean can never get it straight," said Steve Murphy, campaign manager for Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt. "I mean, first, he said that, you know, that southerners shouldn't vote on guns, God and gays, and now he says he's going to use religion more. First, he said, you know, that he was going to be the candidate of people with confederate flag decals, and then he apologized for that. You never know what Howard Dean is going to say. If you don't like it, just wait a little while, he'll change it."
So expect Dean to be pro-life on Monday, pro-choice on Tuesday, pro-gay on Wednesday, and anti-openly gay on Thursday. Well, not really. Dean cannot make that kind of end of one spectrum to another without falling flat on his theological face.
But he might try. After all, one never knows about Howard Dean.
Joe Lieberman's "rethinking" of Roe v. Wade is chilling in several ways.
People are always commenting how kids are growing up faster and faster these days. Last week presidential candidate Joe Lieberman let us know that this process begins before birth.
"Lieberman says it's time to rethink Roe vs. Wade," said the headline. Sounded promising, almost believable, given Lieberman's reputation for integrity and religious faith. But the letdown wasn't long in coming. Lieberman explained that advances in medical science are pushing back to earlier and earlier stages the point at which a baby in utero (fetus, to you Democrats) can be sustained outside the womb. This means, said Lieberman, that what we once thought of as "early" abortions, in the beginning of the first trimester, before viability, really aren't as early as we thought, and that it may be time to abandon Roe's trimester-based division of abortions into "early" (good) and "late" (bad).
No doubt, Lieberman thought he was practicing his vaunted Thoughtfulness and Integrity. But it's hard to think of a more chilling statement than the one he gave the papers. Chilling in several ways, in fact. For he was telling us that the point at which a baby becomes human is not determined by any law, by any human right, by any rudiment of morality: it is purely determined by what level of medical skill we have at the moment. And he was acknowledging, albeit unintentionally, that we have been killing humans all along. The nature of babies has not changed; only how well we can (or will) take care of them. And, most chilling of all, Sen. Lieberman seemed completely unaware that he was pulling aside the pretty veil of Choice, exposing the bloody mess behind. Blissfully ignorant of the heinousness of the idea, he was calmly discussing how we can select the point in time when babies begin to have human rights.
Today we laugh at the medieval theologians' debate about how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. But the joke is on us moderns. The abortion lobby makes pretzels of themselves, trying to draw distinctions which cannot be made. Distinctions such as when a baby is too old to kill, and who may decide to kill it, and when to stop calling it a fetus and begin calling it a baby. Sophistries like wanting abortion to be "safe, legal, freely available, but rare." Evasions, euphemisms, circumlocutions, and half-truths like calling partial-birth abortion "very late-term abortion," or even "so-called" partial birth abortion.
When the advocates of an action won't call it by its plain name, you may be sure that it is ugly and wrong, and that they know it. Abortion is the Democrats' Love That Dare Not Speak Its Name, but since they can't stop talking about it, we are left with the spectacle of Joe Lieberman debating how many fetuses can dance on the head of a laboratory pipette. Meanwhile, we can take some consolation in looking up from the paper to see our own children, and knowing that they've been human longer than Joe thought.
Ralph Nader announced on national television that he is embarked on a battle to totally destroy any possible chance the Democrats have to win the November election.