If your daughter came up to you and said, I'm tired of taking care of Grandma, I'm going to kill her, would you call a family meeting and discuss it and then leave the choice up to her?

Jerusalem (SatireWire.com) Update — Jews, whose troubled, 10,000-year term as God's "chosen people" finally expired last night, woke up this morning to find that they had once again been hand-picked by the Almighty. Synagogues across the globe declared a day of mourning.

Asked if the descendants of Abraham shouldn't be pleased about being tapped for an unprecedented second term, Jerusalem Rabbi Ben Meyerson shrugged. "Of course, you are right, we should be thrilled," he said. "We should also enjoy a good swift kick in the head, but for some reason, we don't.

God conducts blind drawing.

"Now don't ask such questions until you watch the news, or read history, or at least rent 'Fiddler on the Roof'."

Much of the world's re-blessed Jewish community shared that feeling. "It's always been considered a joke with us. You know, 'Please G-d, next time choose someone else,' ha ha," said New York City resident David Bashert.

"Ha. Ha ha," Bashert added. "Shit."

According to a worldwide survey of faiths, not a single group expressed an interest in being chosen, and the only application submitted before last night's filing deadline, on behalf of the Islamic people, proved to be a fake.

"Somebody filled out a form and signed our name to it, but I guarantee it wasn't us," said Imam Yusuf Al Muhammed of Medina, Saudi Arabia. "I'm not going to say who it was, but the application was filled out in Hebrew."

"Oh, don't be such a k'vatsh," responded Meyerson. "It's only 10,000 years. Trust me, after a few diaspora, you would have gotten used to the universal hatred thing."

Due to the absence of voluntary candidates, God's Law stipulated that the Almighty had to choose a people at random to serve out the next 10-millenia term. Elias Contreau, director of the International Interfaith Working Group, said he wasn't surprised it came to a blind drawing.

"According to the Bible, God promised to bless Abraham and those who came after him," said Contreau. "Who knows, maybe that sounded good at the time, or maybe 'blessed' meant something different back then, like 'Short periods of prosperity interrupted by insufferable friggin' chaos.' Whatever, I think it's safe to say that people didn't know what they were agreeing to."

Now they do, Contreau added, which he said explains why so many religions had lately been exalting God's existence, but downplaying their own.

"We were not avoiding Him. We just told our parishioners that if Anyone asks, we're out," insisted Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. George Carey, who had called off services during February. "Besides, we weren't the only ones. I didn't see the Hindus raising their hands."

"Now look, it's like we told the ethereal vision who dropped off the application, 'Sure, we have a strong shared faith and all that, but I wouldn't exactly say we're a 'people,' not really,'" recalled Hindu leader Samuldrala Swami Maharaj of Calcutta. "Plus, you know, I told him we had a lot of other commitments. We'd like to help, honestly. Another time, maybe."

In Jerusalem, Jewish leaders said they will propose an amendment to God's Law prohibiting a people from having to serve more than two consecutive terms. "Hopefully, G-d will hear our prayer," said Meyerson. "No, wait, that's what got us into this."

Americans, meanwhile, expressed outrage at the decision, saying they had assumed they were God's chosen people. However, explained Archbishop Carey, "It only seems that way because so many people don't like you."

“Pro-choice” Catholic politicians support abortion mostly for political reasons. The U.S. bishops say this is unacceptable. So why do they accept it?

“Do you know what the Negro is?” Leander H. Perez once asked in 1965. “Animals right out [of] the jungle. Passion. Welfare. Easy life. That’s the Negro.” As a state judge and political boss of Plaquemines Parish in Louisiana, Perez was able to enforce his racist views on the county’s 3,000 to 4,000 African-American residents. Because of him, black people essentially couldn’t vote, get decent housing, or even mix with whites. Yet for decades Perez was in full communion with the Catholic Church. After all, Perez had not only helped modernize the rural county with roads and electricity but was a stout anti-Communist, according to historian Glen Jeansonne in Leander Perez: Boss of the Delta.

But to New Orleans Archbishop Joseph F. Rummel, racial segregation was an intolerable evil. In 1949 he denounced it as un-Christian, and in 1953 he rebuked Perez and other Catholic segregationists, for keeping the archdiocese’s schools all white. His pastoral letter of that year, “Blessed Are the Peacemakers,” was read aloud in all of the archdiocese’s churches. Perez and his allies didn’t budge. And when the archbishop threatened in 1956 to excommunicate them, they responded in kind, withholding church contributions and staging protest rallies. At one point, a cross was burned on the archbishop’s lawn.

By 1962, Rummel had enough. On March 23 he announced that in the fall, the city’s Catholic schools would admit black students. And when Perez and his allies persisted in their opposition, the archbishop delivered the ultimate Church penalty: On April 16, he excommunicated Perez, state senator E. W. Gravolet, and activist B. J. Gaillot. By the fall, 104 black children were admitted to the city’s Catholic schools. By 1968, Perez repented and, after his death in 1969, was given a Catholic burial.

More than 40 years later, after the great victories of the civil rights movement, we no longer think of Catholic politicians advocating such evil policies. They seem smart and diverse, not autocratic and racist. Sure, they may be pro-choice but at heart seem committed to social justice. Take Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, the Democratic Party’s leading nominee for president of the United States. Or Senator Susan Collins of Maine, a Republican on close terms with President George W. Bush.

Of course, this gauzy view of politicians, Catholic or otherwise, has always been false. Aside from being fallen human beings, they commit evil for many of the same selfish political motives and with the gross illogic that Perez did. Consider what happened in the U.S. Senate on September 18, 1998, and October 21, 1999, when that body voted on whether to override President Bill Clinton’s veto of a bill to ban partial-birth abortion. In each case the measure fell short, by three votes and four votes, respectively. In each case about a dozen Catholic senators, more than enough to ban the procedure, failed to override the veto.

As a result of their votes, at least 2,000 children have died each year since, according to a recent survey by the Alan Guttmacher Institute. Actually “died” is too imprecise a description. Partial-birth abortions are typically done in the fifth and sixth months of pregnancy—but sometimes even later. The abortion is performed by partially delivering the baby (leaving the head in the birth canal) and then puncturing the base of the skull with scissors in order to insert a catheter. The baby’s brain is then sucked out, causing the skull to collapse, killing the child.

Can anyone doubt these Catholic politicians have committed grave sin? In November 1998, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) released an eloquent pastoral letter, “Living the Gospel of Life: A Challenge to American Catholics,” that sharply criticized Catholic politicians for supporting abortion and euthanasia. On January 16, Bishop Wilton D. Gregory, president of the USCCB, issued a statement welcoming the doctrinal note issued by the Vatican that denounced Catholic politicians who favor abortion, euthanasia, gay marriage, and human cloning. Said Bishop Gregory, “Catholic politicians cannot subscribe to any notion which equates freedom or de­mocracy with a moral relativism that denies these moral principles.” Both of these statements flow naturally from the seriousness the Catholic hierarchy attaches to abortion in particular. As early as 1975, the bishops described the right to life as “among basic human rights.”

As for actual penalties, the bishops in 1998 suggested that prohibiting culture-of-death politicians from Catholic institutions might be necessary. And while many prelates have taken this step, many have not. This February when pro-choice Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton was asked to give the homily during Sunday Mass at St. Sabina’s in Chicago, the normally staunch pro-life Francis Cardinal George refused to pull the plug, saying that canceling Sharpton’s visit would “be a futile gesture and a waste of effort.”

Needless to say, not all shepherds are leading the flock. Culture-of-death politicians, while denying life every year to thousands of human beings, are themselves not denied use of the sacraments. Like Leander Perez before his repentance, they continue in their sin. Yet unlike him, almost none have had to face a modern-day Archbishop Rummel.

The Road Not Traveled

The most important political body—when it comes to abortion and cloning—is the 100-member U.S. Senate. Since the early 1980s, the upper chamber has been a veritable graveyard for pro-life legislation, culminating in last year’s failure to ban all forms of human cloning.

Throughout this time, about a dozen pro-abortion senators have been Catholics, or at least publicly identify themselves as such. Today there are 15. Five are women. Eight come from the Northeast. Two are Republicans; the other 13 are Democrats.

Of this group, the best known is 71-year-old Massachusetts Democrat Ted Kennedy, who has served in the Senate since 1962. Al­though he is to conservative Catholics what Jesse Helms was to the Left—which is to say a figure of pure derision—Kennedy was actually once pro-life. As late as 1971, Kennedy wrote, “Human life, even at its earliest stages, has a certain right which must be recognized—the right to be born, the right to love, the right to grow old.”

But soon after Roe was handed down in January 1973, according to Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography by journalist Adam Clymer, Kennedy reversed his position. He has gone so far as to support federal funding of abortions and, in 1987, helped defeat a pro-life Supreme Court nominee by resorting to demagoguery (“Robert Bork’s America is a land in which women would be forced to back-alley abortions, blacks would sit at segregated lunch counters…”). One can never really know why politicians switch positions on issues, especially on an issue as sensitive as abortion. Still, it’s safe to conclude that Kennedy did so partly out of political expediency—a conscious decision to sell his pro-life soul to gain the world of national Democratic leadership.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s the Democratic Party, trying to recover from the disaster of the 1968 convention in Chicago, was undergoing a shift within its leadership ranks. Formerly it had been run largely by the big-city and state political party bosses—men like Chicago’s Mayor Daley and Connecticut’s John Bailey. These groups tended to be working-class, Catholic, and socially conservative. But the McGovern-Fraser Commission (1969 to 1972)—enacted at the Chicago convention as a sop to antiwar students—helped end their rule through a series of internal party reforms. Principally, presidential delegates had to be, more or less equally, women, blacks, and people under 30. As a consequence, states had to greatly elevate the importance of primary elections.

Soon, the bosses were replaced by feminists and college-educated professionals—people like Bella Abzug, Ann Wexler, and Gary Hart. Both groups tended to be more diverse in ethnicity and religion and were generally socially liberal. As Kerry told Windsurfer magazine in 1998, “I grew up in college during the civil rights movement, during the early days of the conflict over the war in Vietnam, the environmental movement, and the women’s movement. The movements—being involved, making a difference, committing yourself to something other than just yourself—were a large part of the formative experience that I fell into in my generation…. And that stays with me. It’s a very important component of why I do what I do.” As a result of this leadership shift, the party’s stance on cultural issues changed. While the party was once more pro-life than the Republican Party, that no longer was the case.

Many Democrats have since followed Kennedy’s path, and there’s a reason for that: The whole party machinery works against pro-life Democrats who aspire to a national platform. Hollywood and feminist donors don’t give them money. And social liberals and college-educated women won’t back them in a Democratic primary, in which working-class voters—who are more likely to oppose abortion—generally don’t vote.

For a northeastern Republican like Collins, the problem is possibly even worse. There aren’t many pro-life voters in Maine and the ones who are pro-life are more likely to be Democrats.

Still, as difficult as it is for Democrats and northeastern Republicans to be pro-life, it doesn’t follow that they must support abortion. They do have options. They could stay and fight, trying to carve out a new constituency, as Democratic Senator Zell Miller of Georgia has done. They could seek a lesser office, in which voters don’t penalize a politician’s pro-life stance. They could quit the office, as John F. Kennedy, in his famous September 12, 1960, speech to Houston’s Protestant ministers, suggested. Or most risky of all, they could follow the path of Lyndon Johnson, who despite favoring civil rights personally had to oppose it publicly until the mid-1950s. By then, Johnson had a national reputation as Senate majority leader, and Texas voters didn’t dare kick him out. And so Johnson became the driving force for civil rights legislation in the mid-1960s.

Yet pro-abortion Catholic senators have steadfastly avoided these paths and haven’t shown any indication of planning to do otherwise. Instead they argue, poorly, about the separation of church and state and the importance of not imposing one’s religion on others. “I’d say the same thing President Kennedy said—separation of church and state,” Kerry said. What he didn’t mention is that Kennedy in the same speech called for ending U.S. relations with the Vatican, a church-state relationship Kerry presumably supports.

‘Conscience Is a Pest’

Kerry invoked the words of Kennedy on January 23 at the U.S. Capitol, and he did so by leaning slightly into me, sizing me up briefly, and flashing a half-smile. That night, I ended up talking to five other Catholic senators who supported abortion and human cloning, and each of them had a similarly uneasy response to my questions. This was odd. In the years that I’ve covered Congress for various daily news­papers around the country, House and Senate members have rarely gotten that fidgety, except during President Clinton’s impeachment saga.

What made their unease especially striking was the contrast between their discomfort and the Senate’s cheery atmosphere that night. The long-delayed fiscal 2003 federal budget was about to be wrapped up, and the next day was the start of a four-day weekend. In the south side of the Senate where I was stationed, senators could be seen smiling and chatting. Around 7 p.m., the Senate Democrats’ dining room smelled of cheap fish. Spotting Senator Hillary Clinton, one reporter called out, “Hey, can’t we pass a law banning Long John Silver in the Senate?” Clinton, feigning seriousness, said, “You know, I think that’s a good idea.” At 7:35 p.m., as if to underscore the night’s fraternal bonhomie, Bill Clinton himself emerged from an elevator. Grinning broadly, he surveyed the scene and waited for his wife to accompany him to the Senate floor.

It was in this atmosphere that Kennedy left at 8:44 p.m. and headed toward the white marble steps. He still retains the Irishman’s thick shock of hair, although his face is puffy and he now waddles. I asked him about the Vatican’s doctrinal note on Catholic politicians. “Well, as I said the other day [at the National Press Club], I take my beliefs, I take my religion very seriously.… My religion has made an enormous difference to my family and my parents,” he said calmly, shuffling down the steps.

At this point we were on the first floor, about to head outside. I asked him how he re­conciled his liberal stance on social issues with the bishops’ view of Catholicism. By the time I finished my question, we were past the maple doors and outside, alone, in the cold northeastern winter night. He stopped and turned almost directly toward me. “Look,” he said, displaying that characteristic Ted Kennedy indignation. “I know who I am,” he said, pausing for half a second, “and what I believe.”

It was that first comment that hit its mark—rather predictably I conjured up images of his two assassinated brothers and imagined all the grief that he and his family had endured. I suddenly felt as if I had no right to question him. In terms of personal suffering, the gulf between us was as wide as an ocean. He walked away, and after dismissing me with a wave of his left hand, I thought the interview was over. I was wrong. Six or seven yards away and still obviously upset, he said of the bishops, “It’s their problem, not mine.” Turns out his faith isn’t so private after all.

While Kennedy was merely disgusted with my questions, Democratic Senator Barbara Mikulski of Maryland was borderline hostile. “I find the Church has an inconsistent view. It talks about abortion, but it never talks about the death penalty,” she said underneath the Capitol, waiting to board a tram to her office. The sheer falsity of her claim was jarring: The pope’s last trip to the United States in 1998 was all about the need to abolish the death penalty. Indeed His Holiness’s plea prompted Mel Carnahan, Missouri’s pro–death penalty governor, to commute one man’s imminent execution.

When I asked her about the morality of abortion and cloning, things got worse. “The Church doesn’t have a very good record on child abuse, now does it?” she asked rhetorically. “Well,” I said, “there’s a difference between policy and the execution thereof.” To this, she lowered her head and glowered. “The Church doesn’t have a very good record on child abuse, does it?” After adding the irrelevant point that she was a child-abuse worker for Catholic Charities, she—like Kennedy—waved me away.

Mikulski’s reaction wasn’t surprising; staffers regularly rate her as one of the meanest bosses on Capitol Hill. But something about the topic of abortion was stirring up anger even in senators known for their equanimity. Such was the case with Kerry, who can’t exactly afford to annoy reporters nowadays. Not only is he running for his party’s presidential nomination, he’s trying to counter the image of himself as an aloof rich guy. Kerry is tall and lean, with a bushel of gray hair and good looks that give him the appearance of someone vaguely famous. He should be. After attending boarding school in Switzerland, Kerry went to Yale and is now—at 59—married to Teresa Heinz, the ketchup heiress.

Around 8:50 p.m., I saw Kerry just off the Senate floor. Again I asked him about the Vatican’s doctrinal note. “I have not read it,” he admitted. I slipped quickly into an elevator with him, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, and two others. Kerry pointed me to Durbin, another pro-abortion Catholic. “Why don’t you ask him?” Kerry suggested with a nervous smile. “He has a direct line to the Vatican.”

Durbin, his expression blank, said nothing.

The elevator released us, and I walked with Kerry down the escalator to wait for the tram to his office. “I have to represent all the people in my state, and to tell Jews and Buddhists otherwise…” he said, trailing off.

After a pause, he began again. “President Kennedy settled this in 1960.” We got into the tram, and he sat diagonally from me, in part to stretch his long frame. “Abortion should be the last approach for a woman,” he said, seemingly pained by the thought of it. “It should be infrequent, but it should also be available and safe.” We heard this rhetoric in 1992, and while the abortion rate dropped, the procedure remains the most common one performed on women in this country.

Kerry and I got off the tram, walked into a foyer, and passed a red brick wall to the elevator. Sensing the end of our interview, I asked him about Bishop Gregory’s remark that one can’t be a good Catholic if one is pro-abortion. “I understand what they’re saying. [But] I would have to say what [former House Speaker] Tip O’Neill said in front of several thousand priests and several thousand nuns: that 68 percent of them support Roe v. Wade. If the bishops can’t do and don’t say anything about that, don’t come to me,” he answered, his voice rising. “You know what I’m saying?”

He got off the elevator and disappeared down the darkened second floor of the Russell building.

Of course he’s right that many Catholic priests and religious are pro-abortion. Still, his statement was at heart insincere. Two nights earlier, Kerry, along with five other Democratic presidential hopefuls, spoke at a dinner hosted by NARAL Pro-Choice America (formerly, the National Abortion and Reproductive Rights Action League); the occasion was to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s decisions in Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton. From an audience of 1,300, Kerry drew cheers when he said, “We are not going to turn back the clock. There is no overturning of Roe v. Wade. There is no packing of courts with judges who will be hostile to choice.”

At least Mikulski, Ken­nedy, and Kerry answered questions. Another class of respondents simply refused to discuss the subject. Like Democratic Senator Jack Reed of Rhode Island. Collins also fell into this category. At 8:20 p.m., she walked off the Senate floor. She was wearing a green dress suit and smiled slightly while I introduced myself. But when I asked her about the Vatican’s doctrinal note, the smile disappeared. “I’m not going to comment on that,” she said, getting into an elevator. “May I ask why?” I probed. “I have nothing to say,” she said, the door closing in front of her.

Collins’s staff was only slightly more helpful. Her spokeswoman, Felicia Knight, sent an undated five-sentence statement from the senator. After citing the importance of personal liberty and separating church and state, Collins’s statement read: “As a practicing Catholic, I respect the Church’s view that abortion is wrong. As a United States Senator, however, I will not make criminals of those women who do not agree with the Catholic Church’s position on this difficult issue.” There you have it: To Collins, abortion is a religious issue, not a moral one; and even if it is a moral issue, personal liberty is paramount.

Anger, hostility, insincerity, and silence—these generally are not what one expects of U.S. senators, even on hot- button topics like abortion and cloning. But in spite of their protests, Mikulski, Reed, and Kerry said they hadn’t even read the doctrinal note. Nor did any of them try the more diplomatic dodge: “I’ve read the document and prayed over it. Still, I must respectful­ly disagree.” So it’s hard to claim that these are the “well-formed conscience(s)” that the Church requires of dissenters. Instead their attitude was summed up best by Kennedy: “It’s their problem, not mine.”

Dead Letter Office

Until quite recently, the notion of excommunicating or interdicting Catholic politicians who dissent on life issues seemed extreme and, well, medieval. Even at the two recent March for Life rallies in Washington, one rarely saw signs calling for it. But among a few Catholic leaders, the idea has resurfaced.

On January 22 the American Life League, the pro-life movement’s firebrand, an­nounced a lobbying campaign to this effect. Aside from vowing to spend between $100,000 and $1 million on newspaper ads, the organization has written letters to twelve bishops and cardinals, each of whom has a pro-choice Catholic senator in his diocese, and urged that they deny the senators Holy Communion. “We have waited patiently for 30 years for Catholic bishops to point out these politicians’ hypocrisy,” President Judie Brown said at a morning press conference held at the National Press Club in downtown Washington. “These human beings have not only brought misery to the Church but are also jeopardizing their immortal souls. It is the job of these priests to bring these people back into line.”

Probably the more important announcement came later that day. Bishop William K. Weigand of Sacramento called on pro-choice Catholic politicians like Democratic Governor Gray Davis to refrain from taking Holy Communion. “As your bishop, I have to say clearly that anyone—politician or otherwise—who thinks it is acceptable for a Catholic to be pro-abortion is in very great error, puts his or her soul at risk, and is not in good standing with the Church. Such a person should have the integrity to acknowledge this and choose of his own volition to abstain from receiving Holy Communion until he has a change of heart,” he said at the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament in Sacramento.

In the late 1980s Bishop Leo Maher of San Diego went even further, excommunicating a pro-choice Catholic state assemblywoman, Lucy Killea. Both Bishops Weigand and Maher’s actions had a solid grounding in Church law. According to Canon Law 915: “Those, upon whom the penalty of excommunication or interdict has been imposed or declared, and others who obstinately persist in manifest grave sin, are not to be admitted to Holy Communion.” Indeed canon law, even the updated 1983 version, uses a term that perfectly describes such politicians: “exiles from Christian society.”

Some distinguished Cath­olic scholars agree that de­nying the sacraments to cul­­­ture-of -death politicians may be necessary. Monsignor Robert F. Trisco, the editor of Catholic Historical Review and an eminent historian of Vatican-U.S. relations, said that excommunication—while extreme—might be needed here. “I would say a harsh law [abortion rights] requires a harsh response. Perhaps it’s a necessary time to use a harsh penalty. Now that’s easy for me to say sitting here, but Catholics do have a positive obligation to not procure or assist in the procuring of abortion. It’s an automatic ex­commu­nica­ ;tion.” Rev. Ronny Jen­kins, an assistant professor of canon law at the Catholic Univer­-sity of America, agreed. He stressed that Church officials must warn abortion-rights politicians about their im­moral position but that excommunication may need to be used against them. “My personal view is we should always do the good and right, but I have not made...a decision on this.” As such, he said, “Certainly it’s going to take some courage [for the bishops] to carry out these teachings.”

Yet other than Bishops Weigand and Maher, the vast majority of U.S. bishops have not shown courage on the issue. Of the twelve Church leaders the American Life League contacted, only one as of late February had responded. Bishop Robert Carlson of South Da­kota said that as far as he can tell, Senate minority leader Tom Daschle rarely attends Mass and doesn’t receive Communion when he does. Daschle spokes­persons did not return several calls for comment. The other eleven Church leaders ignored the letters.

None of these politicians has been denied the sacraments. None has been interdicted, that is, they could receive penance and Holy Communion at the time of death but would be barred from a church burial or (in effect) the other sacraments. And obviously none of them has been excommunicated, in which the Christian can no longer attend Mass or receive the sacraments.

Why won’t the bishops take these pro-choice Cath­olics to task? The problem doesn’t seem to be halfhearted pro-life support. At this year’s March for Life in Washington, D.C., about 20 top Church officials, from St. Louis to South Carolina, were present. It was a brutally cold day, the wind whipping about with temperatures in the low 20s. After the bishops ap­peared on stage, I happened to track down then- Bishop Daniel Hart of Norwich, Connecticut. I asked him if he considered abortion a greater or lesser social evil than segregation or slavery. He looked me in the eye and shot me a slightly wounded look, as if I had spoken in praise of torture. “I think it’s worse,” he said.

But when I asked him whether he would deny Holy Communion to anyone, his body language changed. A beefy six-foot-three and the type of man who looks as if he could chop wood for hours, he grew tentative and resigned. It just so happens that his diocese is the home of pro-choice Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd.

“I don’t think it’s good practice to refuse Communion,” he said.

“Why not?” I asked.

“Well, we don’t refuse Communion. It’s a matter of personal conscience.”

“How about giving Communion to, say, a slaveholder?”

Bishop Hart looked as­kance at this question. Then he said, “Well, it would be a very rare situation that we would deny Communion to anyone.”

“Have you talked to Senator Dodd about his views on abortion and cloning?”

“That would be a personal thing,” he said plainly.

“Can you think of any circumstances in which Communion would be denied?”

Bishop Hart paused. He turned slightly and thought the matter over for about ten seconds. Finally he said, with the air of someone genuinely stumped, “I can’t think of any situation where I would deny Holy Communion.”

Bishop Hart’s response is typical of many top U.S. Church officials: They regard one’s personal conscience as paramount, as something that must be honored at nearly all costs. And yet the U.S. bishops in their 1998 pastoral letter criticized pro-choice Catholic politicians for appealing to personal conscience: “Most Americans would recognize the contradiction in this statement, ‘While I am personally opposed to slavery or racism or sexism, I cannot force my personal views on the rest of society.’”

And yet isn’t this exactly what the U.S. hierarchy itself is saying? “While we are personally and publicly opposed to abortion or human cloning or euthanasia, we cannot deny Holy Communion to politicians who support and make those evils a reality.”

Some theologians have argued that pro-abortion Catholic politicians are guilty merely of “material offense.” In a February 2002 story for the Catholic World Report, canonist Phil Gray, vice president of Catholics United for the Faith, was quoted as saying, “Although having an abortion can result in an excommunication, governmental support for abortion is not a similar offense.” But in some circumstances this is clearly inapplicable. The Senate’s votes in 1998 and 1999 on partial-birth abortion are a good example. Had the dozen or so pro-choice Catholic senators approved the measure, it would have been enacted into law.

Other top Church officials oppose sanctioning pro-choice Catholic politicians for social and communal reasons. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Denver said in an e-mail exchange that he can imagine situations where excommunication is necessary and advised Church officials to warn abortion-rights Catholic politicians, but he was reluctant to deny them Communion:

Most Catholics don’t even know what excommunication means, or why it’s so extremely serious. Penalties are useless—in fact, they’re worse than useless—if they mean nothing to the person penalized, or if the wider Catholic community doesn’t understand them. And that’s really the heart of the problem. The un-Catholic behavior of many of our elected Catholic officials isn’t an isolated illness. They’re exactly the officials we deserve, because at the grassroots, too many rank and file Catholics have become more devout Americans than they are believers. Should we excommunicate them, too? It isn’t that simple. We have a deep and widespread faith problem in this country just below the surface of our church attendance. Until that’s addressed, not much will change.

To be sure, Archbishop Chaput laid out a commonsensical and spiritually necessary way for Church officials to deal with dissident Catholic politicians. “The first step, and probably the second, third, and fourth step, is for a bishop to speak with the politician privately,” he wrote. “Persuasion almost always works better than coercion—that’s just human nature.”

But when persuasion fails—repeatedly—isn� ��t coercion then necessary?

Be Ye Men of Valor

The bishops’ leadership on this issue in many ways has been exemplary—from their new ad campaign to supporting crisis pregnancy centers to abortion grief groups. And it will surely be argued that given the sex-abuse scandal, now is an especially bad time for bishops to be holding politicians morally and publicly accountable.

But such rhetoric must retreat in the face of the 1.3 million abortions performed every year—43 million since 1973. Through their support of the horrors of abortion, the souls of countless Catholic politicians are in danger.

Despite conventional wisdom that has the bishops constantly thundering about abortion, the opposite is true. Recall Archbishop Rummel’s war on segregation. In 1953 he required every church in the diocese to read his pastoral letter. By contrast, Catholic prelates today generally confine their message to diocesan newspapers and pro-life groups. As Ray Flynn, former two-term mayor of Boston and ambassador to the Vatican, said, “Bishop Gregory’s statement, as positive and sincere as it is, didn’t get followed up much in the press or in the Catholic press. When I ran for mayor in 1983, I went to 76 mayoral debates or meetings. It wasn’t one meeting that people understood my message; it was all of them collectively. So you have to drive the message home consistently and with repetition. That’s the only way people learn. It’s not enough for the U.S. Catholic bishops to attend a conference and issue a statement.”

If more American Catholic prelates decide to challenge their local culture-of-death Catholic politicians, they’ll need courage. Unlike the battle for desegregation—which had the support of Hollywood, the media, the universities, and the courts—the pro-life war has only the White House, one branch of Congress, and two Christian denominations.

Yet this is all the more reason why every cardinal and bishop must expose this evil. And if that involves warning and denying the sacraments to culture-of-death Catholic politicians, so be it. As the bishops have already written, challenging these politicians isn’t voluntary. It’s a duty and a pastoral responsibility.

“We get the public officials we deserve,” they wrote five years ago. “Their virtue—or lack thereof—is a judgment not only on them, but on us.” F

Mark Stricherz is a writer living in Washington, D.C.

Having taught English literature and the Greek classics for years, I have found myself from time to time mulling over some of the questions that seem to arch over the whole enterprise. One likes to let one’s mind run along some of the thunderous questions of ultimacy that roll across the heavens under which English classes struggle along. Are the Greek gods good or bad, for example?

Or—here’s a poser—what is the relationship between the will of Zeus and “what happens”? After all, he is the king of the gods, and one would think he’d have the prerogative of calling the shots. But not so. Most things seem to go wrong for him; and he has no authority whatever over the Fates, who hold the shears that snip the thread of your life when they decide your hour has come.

At this point in the discussion, I usually make the obvious point that any Christian believer has got precisely the same riddle in his own lap.

What is the relation between God’s will and what happens?

Attila the Hun. The Black Plague. The dismal slaughter of the world wars. Cancer. Stalin. Alz- heimer’s. Genocide. Abortion. There are, to be sure, reaches of “Christian” theology that have it all nailed down so that the human drama is nothing but the unrolling of exactly what the Most High has pre-programmed from all eternity. But mighty few readers of crisis will be found in those reaches.

Nevertheless, a certain gloomy irony popped into my mind some years ago among my general musings about literature. It was this: When you get rid of the gods, you get rid of us. If we suppose that that is merely a platitude, we might reflect briefly. It happens to run exactly counter to the entire set of suppositions that undergirds our epoch. It makes very little difference here whether we wish to call into play the word “modernism” or “post-modernism.” (Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.)

Somewhere in the 19th—or 18th or 17th—century, the idea began to percolate through Western imagination and philosophy that if we mortals are ever going to stand tall and rise to our true dignity and stature, we are going to have to get the gods off our backs. It trickled down (or avalanched, shall we say) to popular culture in the 1960s. We began to hear, “I make my own morality.” “A pox on bourgeois [read ‘my parents’’] morality.” And religious taboos! Gadzooks! Get these gods off our backs!

The idea was that as long as we have the gods—read “God”—peering over our shoulders and calling us to account, we’re going to creep along timorously, a whole race of helots.

Very appealing notions. There is one small joker in the pack, though: It has been the epochs and civilizations that did think the gods were there—and most emphatically were calling us to account—that have drawn for us the titanic figures of the hero: Gilgamesh. Achilles. Hector. Beowulf. Roland. Lear. Even Henry V. But then a disquieting dwindling begins to take place in our protagonists. We get the courtier: Castiglioni’s Il Cortegiano. And then the gentleman—often very admirable but scarcely heroic. And then? Willie Loman in The Death of a Salesman, who goes out with a whimper, not a bang. Or Estragon and Vladimir, waiting there for Godot, who never shows up.

There are a few figures from our century that testify to the thesis at work in this essay. Tolkien’s figures (Aragorn, Frodo, and their fellowship) and Lewis’s (Reepicheep, Puddleglum, and Peter the High King) stand before us as heroes in the ancient tradition, without the slightest blink of irony. Catholics, accustomed as they are to harking back many centuries for authority, will have no trouble seeing the point of this. Perhaps the most awesome figure conceivable is that of a great king whose majesty knows how to kneel in the presence of the god.

Election 2004 is done and the pundits have picked it over well. But one fact can stand a little repetition: This election, more so than any in recent memory, has demonstrated the power of the Catholic vote.

It had become fashionable in the months leading up to November—even among some Catholic conservatives—to deny that there was any such thing. And yet the numbers are there: President Bush won the general Catholic vote over Senator Kerry by a margin of 51 to 48. Close, certainly, but a dramatic reversal of the 2000 race, when Al Gore won Catholics 49 to 47.

The margin becomes even more significant when one considers that the president took Mass-attending Catholics by a full 11 percent, 55 to 44. This is where the Catholic vote can be found—among the churchgoing faithful. And that’s the point the critics often miss. They deny the existence of a Catholic vote by lumping together the faithful along with those who merely call themselves “Catholic”—and who may not have set foot in a church for decades.

But Catholics were hardly the only voting block that roared. Evangelicals—derisively dismissed as “Fundamentalists” by a media that doesn’t know the difference—chose George Bush in even greater numbers. In the lynchpin state of Ohio alone, Evangelicals went for the president over Senator Kerry by a decisive three-to-one margin. (Even the Amish turned out to vote for Bush.)

As if to underscore this surge in religious political participation, exit polls identified moral values as the key issue among this year’s voters. Not Social Security or health care or even national security. Values.

And that’s why the Left, and their allies in the media and abroad, will never really understand what happened. Katie Couric will speak in dark tones of “the rise of the radical right”; the New York Times will continue to characterize believers as knuckle-dragging know-nothings; and Old Europe will take a break from dismantling its culture to shake its head at the yokels of America.

It comes down to this: The secular Left sees religion as the final holdover from a bygone era. This is why their religious countrymen are such an embarrassment to them—like an elderly aunt who continues to refer to African Americans as “colored.” Insulting? Yes, but we bear some of the responsibility for that impression.

For too long, practicing Christians have projected a kind of blind faith. After all, a religion that is kept private gives the impression that it can’t stand up to public scrutiny. But this is certainly not the reality with Christianity. Our faith is evidential; there are hard reasons why we believe what we do. The case for our religion is a strong one, and some of history’s greatest thinkers have been her apologists. Augustine, Aquinas, Pascal, Newman, Lewis. They didn’t hesitate to defend the Faith from the doubters, because they knew they entered the battle better armed than their opponents.

Christianity—alone among the world’s religions—makes some reliable historical claims. A tomb found empty. A dead man who appeared numerous times to thousands of witnesses. Prophecies fulfilled. Prophecies yet to be fulfilled. Our religion is concrete, and insofar as its claims are true, they do not merely speak of private realities.

Many have forgotten this. As a result, we’ve forfeited our opportunity to debate those with stronger spines and weaker arguments. With God’s grace, the statement believing Americans have made on morality can now extend into other, more fundamental issues. The critics of Judeo-Christian values have been dealt a significant blow. The critics of Judeo-Christianity should be next.

A colleague mentioned hearing “White Christmas” and “We Wish You a Merry Christmas” in Japanese during Christmas-tide, seasonal music popular among those who generally do not believe in what Christmas represents. Similarly, during my European years, I was struck by the different cultural expressions surrounding Christmas among those who did historically hold it. My Australian friends celebrate Christmas during the height of summer, a practice that makes most of our external symbols—snow, ice, bare trees—seem irrelevant. The early American Puritans suppressed any sign of Christmas on anti-papist grounds. Just what Christmas might mean in a Muslim culture where its doctrine is heresy is anybody’s guess.

I have always liked Irving Berlin’s “White Christmas.” But clearly, “White Christmas,” even with Bing Crosby in Holiday Inn, is a deflection from what Christmas is, a confusion of the atmosphere with substance. We now think twice about wishing our neighbor a “Merry Christmas,” lest we impose our beliefs on the poor man. Whatever it is that our heads are full of, we do not want anyone to find out, lest he be upset by a real idea. The ultimate defense against truth is the refusal to know.

“Adeste Fideles” is glorious and memorable. But one is hard-pressed to imagine what these words and music might mean to someone theologically clueless or metaphysically antagonistic to the truths contained in the hymn. I can, to some extent, enjoy a Wagner opera without following the German, but, as with “Adeste Fideles,” I should know what it means.

Any great theological truth, any event of the proportions of the birth of Christ, causes profound and unending reflection on its meaning. We can express our understanding in terms of poetry, music, dance, essays, treatises, hymns. Truth breeds truth, along with multiple ways of expressing it or coming to terms with it.

Christmas in the United States in recent years is being driven indoors. Someone is always “offended” by any public display of it. The reason for offense is because Christmas is a doctrine proposed to be true, not just that the music celebrating it is beautiful. We did not make its truth up. What Christmas is remains true whether we succeed in expressing it culturally or not, though it is our natural thrust to embody it in diverse ways.

Christmas is, of course, the great family feast that, as Chesterton said, should be celebrated indoors, with those we love and those who love us. But it is important ever to come back to the question, what is it that Christmas signifies or means? We should not lose this understanding contained in the tradition or refuse to face its implications because we do not want to hear it.

At bottom, Christmas is a truth about God. Its initiative does not come from man. Briefly, it affirms that the world did not make itself to be what it is. Before the world, there was “I am.” It turns out that the Godhead has its own proper inner life, complete in itself, and has no need for the world or us.

However, for His own purposes, God created the world, within which and for His purpose exists a central and free creature, the human being. This being is intended to participate in this inner life of God. God created a world in which He could be rejected by the free creature. He was, in fact, rejected.

God’s response to this rejection was to send into the world His Son, the eternal Word, who was born of Mary in Bethlehem during the reign of Caesar Augustus. This incarnation, as it is called—this birth, life, and death of Christ—is the central event of human history and explains it. When we celebrate Christmas, this is what we celebrate: that Christ is true God and true man. Understanding this, everything else makes sense. Not understanding it, little else does.

The most serious and current challenges to religious freedom are as follows:

a) Since religious freedom includes the right to be present in the public sphere, in a multi-confessional world, referring to Western societies—the separation of state and religion must be such that government authorities are open to cooperating with religious groups rather than trying to marginalise or scorn them.

b) Religious freedom must have an `institutional' component, that is to say, it must include the right of every religious community to freely organise itself according to its own principles. This said, no religious community can be exempt from respecting fundamental human rights and public order. It must however be said that in China, Vietnam but also in France, religions are controlled by the state on the pretext of reserving public order and health.

c) Religious freedom is independent of any legal requirement to gain government approval. In many countries and regions (Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba, central Asia, Middle East, etc.), religious communities have the right to set up their own places of worship only after registering with local Religious Affairs Bureaus. Exerting such prior control does not respect the principle of religious freedom which is a fundamental human right.

d) Religious freedom includes the right to change one's religions. This is especially true in countries where Hinduism and Islam are the dominant religion. Conversion is too often either forbidden by law or made impossible by intolerant religious majorities. Former Muslims in Iran, tribal people in India or former Animists in Africa often risk dying at the hands of their relatives or of fundamentalist religious groups opposed to their conversion.

The right to choose one's religion be guaranteed not only on paper but "be also fully enforced in all social relations".

e) The notion, widespread in Europe, according to which religious freedom is the same as `tolerance'. Citing the  NESCO's 1995 Declaration, that tolerance does not mean "the abandonment or weakening of one's convictions"; it means rather "that one is free to adhere to one's own convictions and  ccepts that others adhere to theirs".

In some countries, having strong convictions is too often equated with `being intolerant'. Christian missionary activities and evangelisation are seen as `intolerant' when all they mean is bearing witness to one's faith.

I am writing this letter because I take issue with some of Liberals in Congress's pleas. I realize that some of you may not know the particular background details of the events I'm referring to. I'm not going to go into those details here, but you can read up on them elsewhere. No one can deny that Liberals in Congress is intellectually dishonest in everything it says and does, yet Liberals in Congress feels it has not only a right, but also a duty, to guarantee the destruction of anything that looks like a vital community. Don't make the mistake of thinking otherwise. Liberals in Congress does, and that's why there are some basic biological realities of the world in which we live. These realities are doubtless regrettable, but they are unalterable. If Liberals in Congress finds them intolerable and unthinkable, the only thing that I can suggest is that it try to flag down a flying saucer and take passage for some other solar system, possibly one in which the residents are oblivious to the fact that there is no defense against ridicule. In view of that, it is not surprising that I myself am not fooled by Liberals in Congress's reprehensible and eristic rhetoric. I therefore gladly accept the responsibility of notifying others that Liberals in Congress is the picture of the insane person on the street, babbling to a tree, a wall, or a cloud, which cannot and does not respond to its accusations.

I'll let you in on a little secret: there are two related questions in this matter. The first is to what extent Liberals in Congress has tried to cashier anyone who tries to establish democracy and equality. The other is whether or not the hour is late indeed. Fortunately, it's not yet too late to warn the public against those shallow punks whose positive accomplishments are always practically nil, but whose conceit can scarcely be excelled. Yes, Virginia, Liberals in Congress's circulars would be less virulent if they were less wild. Think about it, and I'm sure you'll agree with me. You should not ask, "Why is it that 99 times out of 100, Liberals in Congress is a big fan of vigilante justice?", but rather, "What does Liberals in Congress hope to achieve by repeatedly applying its lips to the posteriors of surly warmongers?". The latter question is the better one to ask, because if there's an untold story here, it's that I wonder if Liberals in Congress really believes the things it says. It knows they're not true, doesn't it? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because Liberals in Congress hates it when you say that it is attracted to neopaganism like a moth to a candle. It really hates it when you say that. Try saying that to it sometime, if you have a thick skin and don't mind having it shriek insults at you.

I have given this issue a great deal of thought, and I now have a strong conviction that we are at a crossroads. One road leads into the light of a bright, shining future in which xenophobic astrologers like Liberals in Congress are completely absent. The other road leads into the darkness of Stalinism. The question, therefore, is: Who's driving the bus? It's an interesting question, and its examination will help us understand how Liberals in Congress's policies work. Let me start by providing evidence that Liberals in Congress seizes every opportunity to put the prisoners in charge of running the prison. I, hardheaded cynic that I am, cannot believe this colossal clownishness. Any sane person knows that if Liberals in Congress believes that it knows the "right" way to read Plato, Maimonides, and Machiavelli, then it's obvious why it thinks that its blessing is the equivalent of a papal imprimatur. If you can go more than a minute without hearing Liberals in Congress talk about cronyism, you're either deaf, dumb, or in a serious case of denial. Liberals in Congress often expresses great interest in, and approval of, violent acts reported in the press -- spousal abuse, shooting sprees, capital punishment, and so forth -- at least insofar as this essay is concerned. If Liberals in Congress thinks that it can make me cower before the emotions and accusations of others, then it's barking up the wrong tree. Liberals in Congress's wisecracks occasionally differ in terms of how malodorous can they are, but generally share one fundamental tendency: They make us less united, less moral, less sensitive, less engaged, and more perversely tactless. So, Liberals in Congress, maybe the problem is not with unruly masters of deceit, but with you. One last thing: Liberals in Congress thinks there should be a law prohibiting people from saying any harsh or unkind things against it.

Liberalism is a heresy in the doctrinal order because heresy is the formal and obstinate denial of all Christian dogmas in general. It repudiates dogma altogether and substitutes opinion, whether that opinion be doctrinal or the negation of doctrine. Consequently, it denies every doctrine in particular. If we were to examine in detail all the doctrines or dogmas which, within the range of Liberalism, have been denied, we would find every Christian dogma in one way or another rejected--from the dogma of the Incarnation to that of Infallibility.

Nonetheless Liberalism is in itself dogmatic; and it is in the declaration of its own fundamental dogma, the absolute independence of the individual and the social reason, that it denies all Christian dogmas in general. Catholic dogma is the authoritative declaration of revealed truth--or a truth consequent upon Revelation--by its infallibly constituted exponent [the Pope]. This logically implies the obedient acceptance of the dogma on the part of the individual and of society. Liberalism refuses to acknowledge this rational obedience and denies the authority. It asserts the sovereignty of the individual and social reason and enthrones Rationalism in the seat of authority. It knows no dogma except the dogma of self-assertion. Hence it is heresy, fundamental and radical, the rebellion of the human intellect against God.

It follows, therefore, that Liberalism denies the absolute jurisdiction of Jesus Christ, who is God, over individuals and over society, and by consequence, repudiates the jurisdiction which God has delegated to the visible head of the Church over each and all of the faithful, whatever their condition or rank in life. Moreover, it denies the necessity of divine Revelation and the obligation of everyone to accept that Revelation under pain of eternal perdition. It denies the formal motive of faith, viz., the authority of God revealing, and admits only as much of revealed doctrine as it chooses or comprehends within its own narrow capacity. It denies the infallible magistracy of the Church and of the Pope, and consequently all the doctrines defined and taught by this divine authority. In short, it sets itself up as the measure and rule of faith and thus really shuts out Revelation altogether. It denies everything which it itself does not proclaim. It negates everything which it itself does not affirm. But not being able to affirm any truth beyond its own reach, it denies the possibility of any truth which it does not comprehend. The revelation of truth above human reason it therefore debars at the outset. The divinity of Jesus Christ is beyond its horoscope. The Church is outside its comprehension. The submission of human reason to the Word of Christ or its divinely constituted exponent [the Catholic Church, especially the Pope] is to it intolerable. It is, therefore, the radical and universal denial of all divine truth and Christian dogma, the primal type of all heresy, and the supreme rebellion against the authority of God and His Church. As with Lucifer, its maxim is, "I will not serve." Such is the general negation uttered by Liberalism. From this radical denial of revealed truth in general naturally follows the denial of particular dogmas, in whole or in part (as circumstances present them in opposition to its rationalistic judgment). Thus, for instance, it denies the validity of faith by Baptism, when it admits or supposes the equality of any or all religious cults; it denies the sanctity of marriage when it sanctions so-called civil marriages; it denies the infallibility of the Roman Pontiff, when it refuses to accept as laws his official commands and teachings and subjects them to the scrutiny of its own intellect--not to assure itself of their authenticity, as is legitimate, but to sit in defiant judgment upon their contents.

When we come to the practical order, Liberalism is radical immorality. Morality requires a standard and a guide for rational action; it postulates a hierarchy of ends, and therefore of order, within whose series there is a subordination of means to the attainment of an ultimate purpose. It therefore requires a principle or fundamental rule of all action, by which the subject of moral acts, the rational creature, determines his course and guides himself to the attainment of his end. In the moral order, the Eternal Reason alone can be that principle or fundamental rule of action, and this Eternal Reason is God. In the moral order, the created reason, with power to determine its course, must guide itself by the light of the Uncreated Reason, Who is the beginning and end of all things. The law, therefore, imposed by the Eternal Reason upon the creature must be the principle or rule of morality. Hence, obedience and submission in the moral order is an absolute requisite of morality. But Liberalism has proclaimed the absurd principle of the absolute sovereignty of human reason; it denies any reason beyond itself and asserts its independence in the order of knowledge, and hence in the order of action or morality. Here we have morality without law, without order, freedom to do what one pleases, or what comes to the same thing, morality which is not morality, for morality implies the idea not only of direction, but also essentially demands that of restraint and limitation under the control of law. Liberalism in the order of action is license, recognizing no principle or rule beyond itself.

We may then say of Liberalism: in the order of ideas it is absolute error; in the order of facts it is absolute disorder. It is, therefore, in both cases a very grievous and deadly sin, for sin is rebellion against God in thought or in deed, the enthronement of the creature in the place of the Creator.

While I am on a 2nd amendment tangent this week,  I would like to throw out this question to the religious who read here.

Sort of like a poll?  No offense, either way you opine.

To your knowlege did Christ or any of his close associates feel the need to be armed? Perhaps to fend off robbers or terrorists along the roadways that they traveled, mostly on foot?

If so were they the type used for hunting or sporting purposes? or were they the latest in defensive technology of the day?

Hmm... I wonder sometimes why or indeed if you would feel you needed a weapon for self defense of otherwise as you walked along with Christ in the flesh, in realtime?

Gun Owners of America E-Mail Alert
8001 Forbes Place, Suite 102, Springfield, VA 22151
Phone: 703-321-8585 / FAX: 703-321-8408
http://www.gunowners.org" title="http://www.gunowners.org" target="_blank"http://www.gunowners.org

Tuesday, December 14, 2004

This has been an exciting year, and the GOA staff wants to say "Thank
You" for working with us in 2004.

No doubt, the most important work was forcing the semi-auto ban to
sunset this year. Reading the quote above, you can see that GOA
members and activists like yourself played a HUGE role in realizing
that triumph. This was a tremendous victory that has set the
anti-gun movement back a decade.

But while this was certainly the most prominent achievement, there
were other good news items to celebrate as well. To this end, here
are a few of the things that we have accomplished together this year.  

Link to files of this years accompolishments:

http://www.gunowners.org" title="http://www.gunowners.org" target="_blank"http://www.gunowners.org

While my better instincts counsel me to follow a policy of laissez-faire, there are a couple of National Journal's statements I feel I cannot let pass. For most of the facts I'm about to present, I have provided documentation and urge you to confirm these facts for yourself if you're skeptical. At this point, all I can do is repeat a line from my previous letter: "National Journal's opinions run on pure irony".

National Journal's intolerance for those assumed to hold different value systems from its is so great, so mentally debilitating, so handicapping to its thought processes that it constantly insists that the rest of us are an inferior group of people, fit only to be enslaved, beaten, and butchered at the whim of our betters. But it contradicts itself when it says that genocide, slavery, racism, and the systematic oppression, degradation, and exploitation of most of the world's people are all utterly justified. Those of us who are too lazy or disinterested to take action have no right to complain when it and its hatchet men subjugate persons of culture, refinement, and learning to heartless lunkheads. If National Journal bites me, I will undoubtedly bite back. This whole discussion has turned into a war of words between a few people. Let's remember that. It may seem obvious, but racism is dangerous. National Journal's lackluster version of it is doubly so.

It's surely a tragedy that National Journal's goal in life is apparently to fund a vast web of blasphemous, illiberal ingrates, recalcitrant drongos, and saturnine meanies. Here, I use the word "tragedy" as the philosopher Whitehead used it. Whitehead stated that "the essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness. It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things," which I interpret as saying that National Journal's older litanies were disorganized enough. Its latest ones are indisputably beyond the pale. I won't mince my words: Anyone who hasn't been living in a cave with his eyes shut and his ears plugged knows that National Journal is reluctant to resolve problems. It always just looks the other way and hopes no one will notice that it wants to reinforce the concept of collective guilt that is the root of all prejudice. Why it wants that, I don't know, but that's what it wants. A final word: When some annoying megalomaniacs first introduced me to National Journal's superstitious, loathsome personal attacks, I felt that civilization had reached a nadir of bleakness.

Gun Saves Lives at Heavy-Metal Disaster

Once again the media establishment misses the point in a story about guns, and once again Gun Owners of America clears the air.

Reporters were clucking about the nut who killed four people at that heavy-metal concert in Columbus, but GOA notes,

"Firearm Used to Save Countless Lives in Ohio Nightclub."

The organization salutes brave policeman James D. Niggemeyer, who arrived shortly after the attack began and shot the perpetrator.

"The nightclub survivors are extremely fortunate
that an officer arrived so quickly," says GOA Director of Communications Erich Pratt.

"Many times, the imminent danger is over long before police can reach the scene."

Citing federal stats that police cannot respond within one hour to almost 200,000 crimes off violence annually, Pratt said: "That is a long time for the victims of crime to wait. But thankfully, there are 37 states that make it very easy for law-abiding citizens to carry firearms for protection.
And there have been many recent cases where
armed citizens have used their firearms
to save the lives of others."

A few examples he cites:

"After Peter Odighizuwa killed three people at a Virginia law school in 2002, two fellow law students used their own andguns to stop the gunman, forcing him to drop his firearm."

"Roy Vertigan, a concealed-carry permit holder in Arizona, used his weapon to save an officer's life from three Mexican drug dealers in 1999.

The police union was so grateful to Vertigan  

"Two pistol-packing seniors opened fire on an armed teenager who had taken a waitress hostage in a Jacksonville, Fla., estaurant in 1997.

Despite being armed with a shotgun, the teenage robber was no match for Oscar Moore (69) and Robert Guerry (81), who used their handguns to shoot the perpetrator in the stomach."

It's time to tell the truth about Mr. Anti-Gun Lobbyist. What follows is a set of observations I have made about acrimonious punks. I am familiar with his goals, I understand how he operates, I have long recognized his tactics, and I know just about where he now stands on the ladder to total power. I can therefore say that, decidedly, he twists every argument into some sort of "struggle" between two parties. Mr. Lobbyist unvaryingly constitutes the underdog party, which is what he claims gives him the right to rip apart causes that others feel strongly about. He argues that I am appalling for wanting to pursue virtue and knowledge. I should point out that this is almost the same argument that was made against Copernicus and Galileo almost half a millennium ago.

I wish Mr. Lobbyist would vanish into the same logistical nothingness that his arguments invariably lead to. Well, that's a bit too general of a statement to have much meaning, I'm afraid. So let me instead explain my point as follows: Whatever your age, you now have only one choice. That choice is between a democratic, peace-loving regime that, you hope, may end Mr. Lobbyist's control over the minds and souls of countless people and, as the alternative, the destructive and addlepated dirigisme currently being forced upon us by Mr. Lobbyist. Choose carefully, because if Mr. Lobbyist wants to complain, he should have an argument. He shouldn't just throw out the word "roentgenographic", for example, and expect us to be scared. An inner voice tells me that Mr. Lobbyist is incapable of writing a letter without using such phrases as "bloody-minded, delusional present-day robber barons", "whiney, dour slackers", "annoying ragamuffins", or some combination thereof. But you knew that already. So let me add that I wonder what would happen if Mr. Lobbyist really did change the course of history. There's a spooky thought. It's not a question of if but only of when he will reinforce the impression that sullen self-proclaimed arbiters of taste and standards -- as opposed to Mr. Lobbyist's foot soldiers -- are striving to trample over the very freedoms and rights that Mr. Lobbyist claims to support. Surely, Mr. Lobbyist is not too superstitious to realize that.

If the mass news media were actually in the business of covering news rather than molding public attitudes to kill the goose bearing the golden egg, they would indisputably report that some of us have an opportunity to come in contact with nettlesome, illogical propagandists on a regular basis at work or in school. We, therefore, may be able to gain some insight into the way they think, into their values; we may be able to understand why they want to waste taxpayers' money. This may be a foregone conclusion, but some people are responsible and others are not. Mr. Lobbyist falls into the category of "not". Some day, I want to place blame where it belongs -- in the hands of Mr. Anti-Gun Lobbyist and his nit-picky, deluded myrmidons. But you don't have to wait for that. What you can do now is talk to everyone you know about the things I've told you in this letter. Use every medium available to you. Use the Internet. Use your telephone. Use radio and newspapers. And whatever you do, never be afraid to speak out against the evil that is Anti-Gun Lobbyist.

Once you’ve been around the abortion issue for any length of time, you come to realize that there are many shades and hues of “pro-choice.”

At one end of the spectrum are people who see the issue in black and white. Whatever qualms they may quietly harbor, abortion is, they insist, strictly a “woman’s issue.”

No “outsider,” including even a husband, should be allowed a voice in the decision to end the life of a child. Indeed, because the issue is supposedly not about what is decided but who decides (always and only the woman), abortion is best understood as beyond good and evil.

At the other end are those who are operationally pro-life but don’t identify with us. They wouldn’t have an abortion themselves. They would counsel friends and family not to have abortion. They believe that abortion is almost always a bad thing. They may even vote pro-life.

But they do not self-identify with us primarily for two reasons. They would rather die–or, more specifically, refuse to say that it is wrong that an unborn child die–than be seen as “judgmental.” And who wants to be associated with people whom the media often portrays as wildly out of the mainstream?

In between are men and women who are in a constant, albeit unarticulated, conflict with their consciences. It is not uncommon for them to move ever-so-grudgingly in our direction. Their movement forward is in fits and stops. Often it's accompanied by a pose of moral superiority over the ordinary pro-life “rabble” which they are happy to tell you about ad infinitum.

Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen is one example. In today’s Post, Cohen has written a piece titled, “Democrats, Abortion and 'Alfie'.” The “Alfie” reference is to the two versions of the movie, the original 1966 film, starring Michael Caine, and the 2004 remake, with Jude Law in the lead role.

Cohen argues that the dramatically different outcomes to the unintended pregnancy in the two films tell us something important about changes in the culture at large. And these are changes that his party--the Democrats--must address.

Abortion, he writes, “is no longer what it was -- simply about women's rights and sexual freedom. It is, as its opponents say, about life -- arguably about the taking of it.... It is more complex -- freighted always with the phrase 'it depends' and tinged with regret: Something has gone wrong and something difficult has to be done about it. An abortion is not a mere exercise of a right like voting. It is more complicated than that.”

You ready for a little humor folks? Well, prepare yourself for the comedy stylings of Pat Rothfuss, a teacher at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point. Make sure you're not sitting down so you keel over with laughter as you read this...

"Pat Rothfuss, a University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point faculty member, has been writing his sarcastic, satirical column in UWSP's student newspaper for years.

But a group of students from the UWSP College Republicans organization wasn't laughing Nov. 4 when a post-election Rothfuss column included phrases like "punching smug-looking Republicans in the mouth" and "key every car you see with a Bush bumper sticker." The column's premise was that Rothfuss was drunk while writing to himself, and it suggested, "why don't you go on a killing spree? I pet you can take out fixteen for sisteen republicans beofre they gun you down. Duke, youd' be like a heroe."

Ha, ha, ha, going on a "a killing spree," "punching smug-looking Republicans," and keying cars with "Bush bumper sticker(s)," oh the HILARITY! If you look at his actual column, you'll see that he not only calls the people who voted for Bush "retarded" but also refers to America as a "pitiufl deluded sh*thol of a country". Is this guy funnier than Carrot Top or what (wait, don't answer that). Someone call Showtime at the Apollo, I think they have a headliner for next week.

Of course, the mirthless College Republicans at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point didn't understand the comedic genius of Pat Rothfuss and complained, but they got nowhere....

"The issue isn't Rothfuss' right to free speech, some College Republicans have said, but rather the appropriateness of a faculty member making such statements. Conservative or Republican students might feel uncomfortable or intimidated expressing their opinions in Rothfuss' classes, said College Republican Josh Schroeder.

But Rothfuss maintains that his teaching persona and column-writing persona should be kept separate. He refused to apologize for the incident, a request made but then retracted by organization vice president Aaron Michels. Michels wrote a response to Rothfuss' column - minus the original apology request - in a letter to the editor published in The Pointer. Rothfuss also attended a College Republicans meeting to discuss the issue."

Come on you College Republicans, you're being too sensitive. Why, if you'd written a "comedy piece" that suggested keying the cars of faculty members, punching them in the mouth, and shooting 15 or 16 of them, why I'm sure they wouldn't have immediately expelled you, they would have just laughed and laughed and laughed!

But, you know what's going to be really funny? Right Wing News is a pretty good sized website and I'm sure there will be more than a few links to this post. Fast forward a month or two and when people do a search for the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, you know like Republican Alumni who are thinking about donating or Republican parents who are wondering where to send their kids, this post should be fairly close to the top.

That means those Republicans will learn that members of the faculty publicly joke about murdering people like them and that's apparently A-OK at UWSP! Personally, I expect that some of those folks may consider another school or place to send their money, perhaps one where the teachers don't consider America to be a "pitiufl deluded sh*thol of a country". Now that's my idea of funny...

I want this letter to serve as an oasis of sanity in Prof. Pat Rothfuss's desert of foolishness. Before I get moving here, let me point out that Prof. Rothfuss should stop playing verbal games and tell us what he really means. If you don't believe me, see for yourself. You are, I'm sure, well aware that as soon as our backs are turned, he will indulge in a vast orgy of murder to sate his innate blood-lust and his hatred of his betters. But did you know that he should get with the program? I once managed to get him to agree that he is known for publishing what is easily identifiable as opinion under the guise of fact. Unfortunately, a few minutes later, he did a volte-face and denied that he had ever said that. We must reach out to people with the message that I regret not writing this letter sooner. We must alert people of that. We must educate them. We must inspire them. And we must encourage them to end his control over the minds and souls of countless people.

Prof. Rothfuss wants us to think of him as a do-gooder. Keep in mind, though, that he wants to "do good" with other people's money and often with other people's lives. If Prof. Rothfuss really wanted to be a do-gooder, he could start by admitting that what I just wrote is not based on merely a single experience or anecdote. Rather, it is based upon the wisdom of accumulated years, spanning two continents, and proven by the fact that he can make no claim to a distinguishing talent of any kind. Excuse me; that's not entirely correct. What I meant to say is that honor means nothing to Prof. Rothfuss. Principles mean nothing to Prof. Rothfuss. All he cares about is how to create a world sunk in the most abject superstition, fanaticism, and ignorance. Lest I forget to mention this later, wanton tyrants like Prof. Rothfuss often think they have the right to tour the country promoting self-aggrandizing Stalinism in lectures and radio talk show interviews. And let me tell you, there are two classes of people in this world. There are those who spread hatred, animosity, and divisiveness, and there are those who discuss, openly and candidly, a vision for a harmonious, multiracial society. Prof. Rothfuss fits neatly into the former category, of course. Granted, this makes the issue an even greater tragedy. But his most progressive idea is to destroy all tradition, all morality, and the entire democratic system. If that sounds progressive to you, you must be facing the wrong way. Under the label of "testy" are those who, like Prof. Pat Rothfuss, kill the goose bearing the golden egg. And that's all I have to say.

I've been hesitating to write this letter, because I've been afraid that, if I did, Prof. Pat Rothfuss would do everything in his power to make me throw in the towel. But after reading about Prof. Rothfuss's lethargic strictures, I could hesitate no longer. Before I launch into my main topic, I want to make a few matters crystal clear: 1) Prof. Rothfuss's handling of the situation has not been a comedy of errors, but a tragedy of errors, and 2) as a result of that, Prof. Rothfuss's smear tactics are teetotalism cloaked in the rhetoric of subhuman, improvident voyeurism. Now that you know where I stand on those issues, I can safely say that Prof. Rothfuss has nothing but contempt for you, and you don't even know it. That's why I feel obligated to inform you that many people are incredulous when I tell them that he intends to desecrate religious objects. "How could Prof. Rothfuss be so unambitious?", they ask me. "It doesn't seem possible." Well, it is undoubtedly possible, and now I'll explain exactly how Prof. Rothfuss plans to do it. But first, you need to realize that we must do what comes naturally. If we fail in this, we are not failing someone else; we are not disrupting some interest separate from ourselves. Rather, it is we who suffer when we neglect to observe that one must consider the semiotics of antagonism in order to fully understand Prof. Rothfuss's flimflams. Excuse me; that's not entirely correct. What I meant to say is that what we have been imparting to Prof. Rothfuss -- or what he has been eliciting from us -- is a half-submerged, barely intended logic, contaminated by wishes and tendencies we prefer not to acknowledge. Our path is set. By this, I mean that in order to detail the specific steps and objectives needed to thwart Prof. Rothfuss's loud, combative schemes, we must open minds instead of closing them. I consider that requirement a small price to pay because the pen is a powerful tool. Why don't we use that tool to knock some sense into Prof. Rothfuss? And that's what writing this sort of letter is all about. It's a way to bring Prof. Pat Rothfuss to justice.

Michael Owen has joked that he likes wearing tights in the privacy of his own home.

The Real Madrid striker made the quip as he was asked whether he would wear thermals like Brazilian team-mates Ronaldo and Roberto Carlos for tonight's clash with Dynamo Kiev in the freezing Ukraine reports The Sun.

Owen, 24, said: "I'm not a tights wearer - except maybe in my own house!"

Although I would very much like to draw an accurate portrait of Michael Owens's ideological alignment, there are several obstacles that make it difficult to resolve a number of lingering problems. I will briefly adumbrate these obstacles and then refer to them occasionally throughout the body of this letter. To begin at the beginning, I can easily see Owens performing the following brainless acts. First, he will suck up to delirious, fatuous monomaniacs. Then, he will threaten, degrade, poison, bulldoze, and kill this world of ours. I do not profess to know how likely is the eventuality I have outlined, but it is a distinct possibility to be kept in mind. The common denominator of all of his initiatives is that they seek to inure us to gruesome, bumptious authoritarianism. Think I'm exaggerating? Just ask any of the most valuable members of our community, and they'll all tell you how it will not be easy to maximize our individual potential for effectiveness and success in combatting him. Nevertheless, we must attempt to do exactly that, for the overriding reason that the present controversy demands honest dialogue, not crude attempts at demonization. Yes, I could add that he tends to forget what matters most, but I wanted to keep my message simple and direct. I didn't want to distract you from the main thrust of my message, which is that honest people will admit that Owens's game is to leave a generation of people planted in the mud of an insane, soulless world, to begin a new life in the shadows of pharisaism. Concerned people are not afraid to build a sane and healthy society free of Owens's destructive influences. And sensible people know that we can all have daydreams about Happy Fuzzy Purple Bunny Land, where everyone is caring, loving, and nice. Not only will those daydreams not come true, but I and Owens part company when it comes to the issue of snobbism. He feels that children should get into cars with strangers who wave lots of yummy candy at them, while I insist that he hates it when you say that there is no honor in his jibes. He really hates it when you say that. Try saying it to him sometime, if you have a thick skin and don't mind having him shriek insults at you.

Given Owens's record of shady dealings, we can say that he likes to imply that society is screaming for his snow jobs. This is what his dissertations amount to, although, of course, they're daubed over with the viscid slobber of profligate drivel devised by his spin doctors and mindlessly multiplied by birdbrained, untrustworthy roustabouts. As far as I can tell, Owens never stops boasting about his generous contributions to charitable causes. As far as I can tell, however, his claimed magnanimousness is totally chimerical and, furthermore, if there's an untold story here, it's that Owens presents himself as a disinterested classicist lamenting the infusion of politically motivated methods of pedagogy and analysis into higher education. He is eloquent in his denunciation of modern scholarship, claiming it favors sex-crazed pickpockets. And here we have the ultimate irony, because if I have a bias, it is only against infantile quacks who consign our traditional values to the rubbish heap of factionalism. The net effect of Owens's shenanigans will be a generation of kids who are unable to read, write, or distinguish good from evil. But there's the rub; if history follows its course, it should be evident that Owens holds onto power like the eunuch mandarins of the Forbidden City -- sterile obstacles to progress who make bribery legal and part of business as usual. Owens's lickspittles perpetrate all kinds of atrocities while alleging that they are simply not capable of such activities and that therefore, the atrocities must be the product of my and your feverish and overworked imaginations. Owens's most progressive idea is to make nearby communities victims of environmental degradation and toxic waste dumping. If that sounds progressive to you, you must be facing the wrong way.

Owens has garnered enough support to instill a general ennui but not enough support to pooh-pooh the concerns of others, right? Right. In other words, he maintains that every featherless biped, regardless of intelligence, personal achievement, moral character, sense of responsibility, or sanity, should be given the power to redefine unbridled self-indulgence as a virtue, as the ultimate test of personal freedom. Perhaps it would be best for him to awaken from his delusional narcoleptic fantasyland and observe that I am not up on the latest gossip. Still, I have heard people say that if we are powerless to shatter the illusion that the health effects of secondhand smoke are negligible, it is because we have allowed Owens to bring about a wonderland of fanaticism. All in all, I realize that this letter has seemed incredibly bleak. However, expecting the worst from Michael Owens means we will never be disappointed. If we're wrong and he does not try to base racial definitions on lineage, phrenological characteristics, skin hue, and religion, we'll be relieved. If we're right and he does, we'll be prepared.

Two far-right Austrian Freedom Party members have fought a duel after one claimed the other had offended the honour of party mentor Joerg Haider.

Heinz-Christian Strache, 35, gave an impassioned speech to the party faithful in Salzburg where he compared Haider to a "crazy dog" barking at the moon.

But Salzburg doctor Roman Strassl, also 35, confronted Strache afterwards - and the pair had a heated exchange with both refusing to back down.

The row continued for several hours - and only ended when Strache threw down the gauntlet at 2am - demanding they use swords to settle the debate once and for all.

Both men are members of the fraternities that still exist in Austria as a remnant from the time of the monarchy where duels were once the normal way of settling disputes.

FP state secretary Harald Vilimsky confirmed the duel had taken place but the FP is refusing to say who won as it was a "private affair between men of honour".

He added: "There weren't any losers, just two winners whose honour was upheld."

But party insiders said both men were injured in the fight - and Strassl in particular failed to turn up for work the next day, although Strache was in his office as usual despite showing cuts and bruises.

Officials of the left-leaning Social Democrat (SP) headquarters described the fight as "grotesque".

Green Party spokesman Karl Oellinger said: "It's what people would have done several hundred years ago, and has no place in modern society."

As a citizen of this country, which I believe in and which I have seen Austrian Freedom Party tear apart, I must seek liberty, equality, and fraternity. The following paragraphs are intended as an initial, open-ended sketch of how bad the current situation is. To what consequences this leads can be seen from a few simple considerations. First of all, we must learn to celebrate our diversity, not because it is the politically correct thing to do, but because I, not being one of the many audacious cozeners of this world, am annoyed by the vainglorious and sometimes effete manifestations of rebelliousness against an inherited civilization of which its trucklers do not have the slightest understanding. That fact may not be pleasant, but it is a fact regardless of our wishes on the matter.

Not only does Austrian Freedom Party appropriate sacred symbols for amateurish purposes, but it then commands its supporters, "Go, and do thou likewise." Austrian Freedom Party should hide its head in shame before the judgment of future generations, whose tongue it will no longer be possible to stop and which, therefore, will say what today all of us know to be true: To say that every featherless biped, regardless of intelligence, personal achievement, moral character, sense of responsibility, or sanity, should be given the power to turn peaceful gatherings into embarrassing scandals is snooty nonsense and untrue to boot. At any rate, Austrian Freedom Party would have us believe that we can all live together happily without laws, like the members of some 1960s-style dope-smoking commune. Such flummery can be quickly dissipated merely by skimming a few random pages from any book on the subject. Austrian Freedom Party might offer hatred with a pseudo-intellectual gloss sometime soon. What are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the horrible outcome?

My own position on this issue is both simple and clear: If, five years ago, I had described an organization like Austrian Freedom Party to you and told you that in five years, it'd deprive people of dignity and autonomy, you'd have thought me rabid. You'd have laughed at me and told me it couldn't happen. So it is useful now to note that, first, it has happened and, second, to try to understand how it happened and how the unalterable law of biology has a corollary that is generally overlooked. Specifically, it is never without a meddlesome thing to say. And here, I suspect, lies a clue to the intellectual vacuum so gapingly apparent in its writings. Austrian Freedom Party can out-reason jackbooted, meretricious fault-finders but not anyone else. I could write pages on the subject, but the following should suffice. By allowing Austrian Freedom Party to let down ladders which the sanctimonious, unrestrained, and birdbrained scramble to climb, we are allowing it to play puppet master. It's easy enough to hate Austrian Freedom Party any day of the week on general principles. But now I'll tell you about some very specific things that Austrian Freedom Party is up to, things that ought to make a real Austrian Freedom Party-hater out of you. First off, I respect the English language and believe in the use of words as a means of communication. Soulless cutthroats like it, however, consider spoken communication as merely a set of noises uttered to excite emotions in homophobic flimflammers in order to convince them to let advanced weaponry fall into the hands of biased, despicable lascivious-types. Austrian Freedom Party says that if it kicks us in the teeth, we'll then lick its toes and beg for another kick. That's its unvarying story, and it's a lie: an extremely unctuous and coldhearted lie. Unfortunately, it's a lie that is accepted unquestioningly, uncritically, by Austrian Freedom Party's understrappers. All of this once again proves the old saying that Austrian Freedom Party fears nothing more than the exposure of its motives and activities.

I have had enough of Knives-Destroy Lives-K.D.L.! Before I start, however, I should state that to understand what Lives-K.D.L.'s particularly loathsome form of frotteurism has encompassed as a movement and as a system of rule, we have to look at its historical context and development as a form of libidinous politics that first arose in early twentieth-century Europe in response to rapid social upheaval, the devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. He doesn't use words for communication or for exchanging information. He uses them to disarm, to hypnotize, to mislead, and to deceive.

As I have indicated, he is locked into his present course of destruction. He does not have the interest or the will to change his fundamentally insincere bait-and-switch tactics. Considering the corruption and foolishness that characterize self-absorbed scrubs, that fact is simply inescapable to any thinking man or woman. "Thinking" is the key word in the previous sentence.

To pick an obvious, but often overlooked, example, my dream is for tired eyes to open and see clearly, broken spirits to find new energy, and weary arms to find the strength to bear witness to the plain, unvarnished truth. If you understand that Lives-K.D.L. is dead set on defending his position against what I have to say, regardless of what I have to say, then you can comprehend that I would be grateful if Lives-K.D.L. would take a little time from his rigorous schedule to tell him where he can stick it. Of course, pigs will grow wings and fly before that ever happens. While there's no use crying over spilled milk, I undeniably wouldn't want to hurt others physically or emotionally. I would, on the other hand, love to clarify and correct some of the inaccuracies present in his tracts. But, hey, I'm already doing that with this letter. The greatest quote I ever heard goes something like this: "Lives-K.D.L.'s cajoleries are worthy of a good flush down the toilet." To end on a more positive note: Most of Knives-Destroy Lives-K.D.L.'s apologues are slanted in the same ideological fashion, with large amounts of emotional exaggeration and general ignorance.

Ananova:

Families demand knives crackdown

The devastated relatives of stabbing victims travelled to Downing Street in an emotional campaign to put knife crime on a par with gun crime.

The group - which includes the parents of murdered schoolboy Luke Walmsley - are calling on the Government to equalise penalties for knives and guns, and introduce a five-year minimum jail term for carrying an object with a blade longer than three inches.

They also want to see a six-month minimum jail term for carrying a blade shorter than three inches, or three months for juveniles.

Some parents criticised Government performance on knife crime, and the campaign launch in central London today also heard of fears of civil unrest if spiralling violence were not controlled.

The group has set a three-month deadline for action, before they embark on "the largest petition this country has ever seen".

The Knives Destroy Lives campaign, led by the Victims of Crime Trust, has written to Lord Chief Justice Woolf and Chief Constables and delivered a letter to Tony Blair this morning, before heading to the House of Commons to meet MPs.

Jayne Walmsley, whose son was stabbed at Birkbeck Secondary School in North Somercotes, Lincolnshire, in November last year, broke down in tears at the press conference, and said later: "Unless something is done they seem to have no deterrent. Measures have to be put in."

And she said she was "disgusted" with the Government's action on knife crime: "I think if it was one of their children or a member of their family and one of their children had been murdered, I think measures would have been brought in within a year, but of course we are Joe Public."

Her husband Paul told the launch that Luke's murder "hurts every single day and every single night".

Their grief was echoed by Antoinette Rodney, mother of 15-year-old Kieran Rodney-Davis, who was stabbed to death for his mobile phone in a housing estate in Fulham, west London, in June.

Allow me to introduce myself. I'm the founder of the Anti-Gen. Augusto Pinochet Society. In this letter, I will tell you what made me form such an organization and how I plan to use it to rage, rage against the dying of the light. Here's my side of the story: I have a message for Gen. Augusto Pinochet. My message is that, for the good of us all, he should never level filth and slime at everyone opposed to his tirades. He should never even try to do such a tasteless thing. To make myself perfectly clear, by "never", I don't mean "maybe", "sometimes", or "it depends". I mean only that if Gen. Pinochet succeeds in his attempt to pollute the great canon of English literature with references to his contemptuous, nefarious catch-phrases, it'll have to be over my dead body. He has a strategy. His strategy is to sweep his peccadillos under the rug. Wherever you encounter that strategy, you are dealing with Gen. Pinochet.

So let me make it clear that he has been offering raucous underachievers a lot of money to rob, steal, cheat, and murder. This is blood money, plain and simple. Anyone thinking of accepting it should realize that Gen. Pinochet maintains that university professors must conform their theses and conclusions to his harebrained prejudices if they want to publish papers and advance their careers. This is hardly the case. Rather, there is growing evidence that says, to the contrary, that one of the things I find quite interesting is listening to other people's takes on things. For instance, I recently overheard some folks remark that if he had even a shred of intellectual integrity, he'd admit that his publications do not represent progress. They represent insanity masquerading as progress. There are few certainties in life. I have counted only three: death, taxes, and Gen. Pinochet doing some gruesome thing every few weeks. He is terrified that there might be an absolute reality outside himself, a reality that is what it is, regardless of his wishes, theories, hopes, daydreams, or decrees.

Human life is full of artificiality, perversion, and misery, much of which is caused by the most mephitic jerks you'll ever see. But it doesn't stop there. Gen. Pinochet's brethren are too lazy to offer a framework for discussion so that we can more quickly reach a consensus. They just want to sit back, fasten their mouths on the public teats, and casually forget that Gen. Pinochet insists that he has mystical powers of divination and prophecy. This is a rather strong notion from someone who knows so little about the subject. Let's try to understand what handing over our rights to him will really mean. It certainly won't mean that we'll be able to freely make efforts directed towards broad, long-term social change. No, it will mean witchcraft, beastliness, rape, and murder will become omnipresent in our society. It will mean a descent back into the jungle. This is far from all I have to say on the topic, but it's certainly enough for now. Just remember one thing: Gen. Augusto Pinochet's perorations are uniformly riddled by an unbelievable degree of ignorance.

Judge Declares Pinochet Fit to Face Human Rights Charges

Ian Salas/European Pressphoto Agency At the courthouse today, Gloria Silva held a picture of Mario Silva, one of the victims of the dictatorship of Gen. Augusto Pinochet. =http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... name=ContentID ARTICLE TOOLS E-Mail This Article Printer-Friendly Format Most E-Mailed Articles Reprints & Permissions Single-Page Format MULTIMEDIA Graphic: Pinochet Primer RELATED The Pinochet Money Trail =http://www.nytimes.com/2004/1... name=retA TIMES NEWS TRACKER   Topics Alerts Pinochet, Augusto Chile Kidnapping Track news that interests you. Santiago Llanquin/Associated Press Judge Juan Guzman announcing the indictment of General Augusto Pinochet today on human rights charges at the Supreme Court in Santiago, Chile. Santiago Llanquin/Associated Press General Augusto Pinochet was still in charge of Chile's military in 1997, when this photograph was taken. He stepped down a year later.

Asked to comment on what France might do if Saint Nicholas defies the “no fly” order, Capitaine Mamood-Sameer Nasser, spokesmen for the French Ministry of Defense stated: “we will be forced to shoot him and his infidel reindeer down. There will be no warning shots".

A spokeman for the White House stated: “the looney French have gone too far this time. Safe and unobstructed passage of the world’s air and sea lanes is a fundamental right of all free men, including Santa Claus. We are prepared to offer whatever technical assistance and direct support Saint Nicholas might require, including fighter escort, in order for him to complete his duties on Christmas Eve.”

Reports that technicians from Lockheed-Martin’s famous “Skunk Works” were seen boarding an Anchorage-bound Alaska Airlines flight in Burbank, California were unconfirmed. When asked to comment, Lockheed-Martin spokesmen replied: “I’m not saying they went, and I’m not saying they didn’t went”. But the spokesmen also stated: “If the French attack Santa, they better make sure their ejection seats are in working order; Santa’s sleigh is going to look and perform a bit differently this year".

International reactions were mixed. A United Nations spokeman stated: “we have no comment, inasmuch as Santa Claus is not a citizen of a member nation and, as near as we can tell, does not have a ‘food for oil’ program for us to ..ahh... administer”. The Vatican was said to have placed all 143 Swiss Guards on high alert for possible retaliatory action against the French embassy in Rome, while al Qaeda, the international Islamic terrorist organization, released (yet another) tape in which notorious al Qaeda spokesman Ayman al-Zawahri praised the French government for its stand “…against this evil mascot of the crusaders..” and offered to behead Santa if he fell into French custody.

Asked to comment as he was coming out of his bank in Geneva, Switzerland, French President Jacques Chirac hissed: “this Santa Claus thing is an internal French matter, now help me carry these suitcases to my car. Be careful; they are heavy”.

The only thing worse than being ignorant is not knowing how ignorant you are. That's Capt. Mamood Sameer Nasser's problem. Instead of focusing on why you and I have a lot more class than Capt. Sameer Nasser, I would like to remind people that interventionism doesn't work. So why does Capt. Sameer Nasser cling to it? If I'm not horribly mistaken, there's a painfully simple answer. It regards the way that the only weapons Capt. Sameer Nasser has in his intellectual arsenal are book burning, brainwashing, and intimidation. That's all he has, and he knows it. Yes, you heard me right; I welcome his comments. However, he needs to realize that his methods are much subtler now than ever before. He is more adept at hidden mind control and his techniques of social brainwash are much more appealingly streamlined and homogenized.

It would be bad enough if Capt. Sameer Nasser's chums were merely trying to sully a profession that's already held in low esteem. But their attempts to perpetuate harmful stereotypes are just plain mischievous. Capt. Sameer Nasser should learn to appreciate what he has instead of feeling so oppressed because he can't do everything he wants, every time he wants to. I was sincerely appalled when I first learned that his secret agents want to depressurize the frail vessel of human hopes. Let me explain. It must be nice to live in his little world, where the sun shines, the birds chirp merrily, and reality never rears its ugly head. It's that simple.

If Fate desired that Capt. Sameer Nasser make a correct application of what he had read about absolutism, it would have to indicate title and page number, since the chauvinistic fool would otherwise never in all his life find the correct place. But since Fate does not do this, we should begin the debate about Capt. Sameer Nasser's whinges. (Goodness knows, our elected officials aren't going to.) He is careless with data, makes all sorts of causal interpretations of things without any real justification, has a way of combining disparate ideas that don't seem to hang together, seems to show a sort of pride in his own biases, gets into all sorts of hideous speculation, and then makes no effort to test out his speculations -- and that's just the short list! Capt. Sameer Nasser supports a wide variety of viewpoints. Some are slaphappy; others are disgusting. A few openly support jujuism. The fact that what he insists are original endeavors are nothing more than warmed-over versions of immoralism is particularly striking, since the concepts underlying his unrestrained, reckless bruta fulmina are like the Ptolemaic astronomy, which could not have been saved by positing more epicycles or eliminating some of the more glaring discrepancies. The fundamental idea -- that the heavens revolve around the Earth -- was wrong, just as Capt. Sameer Nasser's idea that foul shirkers should be fêted at wine-and-cheese fund-raisers is wrong. While this letter hasn't provided anything in the way of a concrete plan of action, it may help us focus our thinking a little better when we do work out a plan. For now, we must raise power-hungry leeches out of their cultural misery and lead them to the national community as a valuable, united factor. I will honestly be happy to have your help in this endeavor.

Some of my colleagues recommended that I write a letter about how M. Gerard Araud's gofers constitute the only species of animal life that is both mammalian and invertebrate. This is that letter. In the rest of this letter, I will use history and science (in the Hegelian sense) to prove that Gerard's genius for crime, squalor, and disorder has once again asserted itself. The purpose of this letter is far greater than to prove to you how myopic and hotheaded he has become. The purpose of this letter is to get you to start thinking for yourself, to start thinking about how at no time in the past did brainless lummoxes shamble through the streets of cities, demanding rights they imagine some supernatural power has bestowed upon them.

The French Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued an uncharacteristic "no comment" in response to the decidedly undiplomatic comments by its Ambassador to Israel, Gerard Araud, who on Thursday asserted in an Army Radio interview that Israel suffers from an "anti-French neurosis" and that Israelis "just love to hate France."

The deputy director-general of the Israeli Foreign Ministry, Ron Curiel, had termed these remarks "unacceptable" and a "departure from protocol."

But the French ministry offered no reaction – in marked contrast to last Wednesday, when the ministry's spokesman issued a lengthy written statement asserting that remarks by Araud to The Jerusalem Post the previous day, praising Israel's military "restraint," had been taken out of context or perhaps not uttered at all.

French diplomatic sources, meanwhile, said the envoy was doing his job in drawing attention to what they termed "some outrageous utterances about France" in the Israeli media recently. The sources noted that Israel's Ambassador to France, Nissim Zvilli, and his predecessor, Eli Barnavi, publicly endorsed the envoy's analysis of relations between Israel and France, which Araud had termed "very difficult."

Araud's radio interview made radio and print headlines in his home country. The right-wing daily Le Figaro, reported a "New Diplomatic Hitch between France and Israel," and noted that "France almost stole Ariel Sharon's show."

The newspaper elaborated that, following the prime minister's victory for his national-unity government plans at the Likud's central committee meeting on Thursday, Israeli radio interviews with leading politicians began not with that domestic issue, but with a question about France.

It quoted one Israeli radio reporter cornering putative deputy prime minister Shimon Peres, and asking, "Before talking about politics, do you still love France?" The Labor leader, it noted, answered in the affirmative.

Le Figaro explained Araud's outburst as a consequence of his purported exasperation at "some vitriolic comments in the [Israeli] media because of the welcome extended to Arafat in France and the official ceremony for the departure of his remains."

The authoritative Le Monde wasn't sure what had detonated Araud's fury, asking whether it was "Sudden weariness? Lassitude?" Either way, it said, Araud had certainly put aside the usual "tepid diplomatic circumvolutions and the tame ingratiating talk."

I'm no expert, but it seems to me that every time Gerard tells his hangers-on that it's perfectly safe to drink and drive, their eyes roll into the backs of their heads as they become mindless receptacles of unsubstantiated information, which they accept without question. If you're still reading this letter, I wish to compliment you for being sufficiently open-minded to understand that everything I've said so far is by way of introduction to the key point I want to make in this letter. My key point is that he labels anyone he doesn't like as "discourteous". That might well be a better description of Gerard. I'll give you an example of this, based on my own experience. As you know, if he had done his homework, he'd know that he is stepping over the line when he attempts to undermine the basic values of work, responsibility, and family -- way over the line. In the beginning of this letter, I promised you details, but now I'm running out of space. So here's one detail to end with: On that basis, I should, at this point, weaken the critical links in M. Gerard Araud's nexus of delusional, petulant radicalism.

There are people I unmistakably despise. They lack morals, character, and honesty. They shrink the so-called marketplace of ideas down to convenience-store size.

In case you can't tell, I'm talking about Mr. Bill Moyers here. But before I continue, allow me to explain that Mr. Moyers is firmly convinced that we're supposed to shut up and smile when he says pusillanimous things.

His belief is controverted, however, by the weight of the evidence indicating that Mr. Moyers is always trying to change the way we work.

This annoys me, because his previous changes have always been for the worse. I'm positive that Mr. Moyers's new changes will be even more merciless, because you might say, "His mentality reminds me of the stereotypical bureaucrat who cannot function unless he can 'find it in the manual'." Fine, I agree. But to get even the simplest message into the consciousness of vengeful dopeheads, it has to be repeated at least 50 times.

Now, I don't want to insult your intelligence by telling you the following 50 times, but at no time in the past did drossy, unruly smart alecks shamble through the streets of cities, demanding rights they imagine some supernatural power has bestowed upon them. Look, statements like, "Education without action creates frustration, while action without education leads to anarchism" accurately express the feelings of most of us here.

I wish that some of Mr. Moyers's foot soldiers would ask themselves, "Why am I helping Mr. Moyers cripple his enemies politically, economically, socially, morally, and psychologically?"

He dreams of a time when he'll be free to cause riots in the streets. That's the way he's planned it, and that's the way it'll happen -- not may happen, but will happen -- if we don't interfere, if we don't shape a world of dignity and harmony, a world of justice, solidarity, liberty, and prosperity.

Don't kid yourself: Whenever there's an argument about his devotion to principles and to freedom, all one has to do is point out that this is a problem long overdue for debate.

That should settle the argument pretty quickly. No one has a higher opinion of Mr. Moyers than I, and I think he's an amoral, sanctimonious beast.

The facts are in: Mr. Bill Moyers's long-term stratagems of infiltration and mass propaganda have been so successful that Mr. Moyers can now write off whole sections of society.

Bill Moyers Retiring From TV Journalism

Photo: AP Click to enlarge

"I was just in the editing room, working on the last piece," Bill Moyers says. "I thought: `I've done this so many times, and each one is as difficult as the last one.' Maybe finally I've broken the habit."

It hasn't been so much a habit for Moyers as a truth-telling mission during his three decades as a TV journalist. But come next week, he will sign off from "Now," the weekly PBS newsmagazine he began in 2002, as, at age 70, he retires from television.

"I'm going out telling the story that I think is the biggest story of our time: how the right-wing media has become a partisan propaganda arm of the Republican National Committee," says Moyers. "We have an ideological press that's interested in the election of Republicans, and a mainstream press that's interested in the bottom line. Therefore, we don't have a vigilant, independent press whose interest is the American people."

For that, his absence after the Dec. 17 "Now" will be all the more keenly felt: Moyers' interest has always been the American people.

A humanist who's at home with subjects ranging from the power of myth to media consolidation, from drug addiction to modern dance, from religion to environmental abuse, Moyers has produced hundreds of hours of diverse programming on issues that others shortchange, sidestep or simply fail to notice. And through it all, he has looked upon his audience not as targeted consumers, or as voters split along a Red State-Blue State divide, but as his fellow citizens.

He's a citizen-journalist with a robust background, this Texas native who, early on, earned a divinity degree (he's an ordained Baptist minister) then served as special assistant to President Johnson, and for several years was publisher of the Long Island newspaper Newsday.

In 1971, he came to public television as host of "This Week" and "Bill Moyers' Journal," and, next, joined CBS News to do similarly civic-minded programming.

Then in 1986 he and his wife, Judith Davidson Moyers, became their own bosses by forming Public Affairs Television, an independent shop that has not only produced documentaries such as "A Walk Through the 20th Century," "Healing and the Mind" and "A Gathering of Men with Robert Bly," but also paid for them through its own fund-raising efforts.

"Judith and I will take several months to catch our breath," says Moyers during a recent conversation at the soon-to-be-vacated office he rents at Thirteen/WNET's Manhattan headquarters. "Then I will think about the Last Act _ capital L, capital A _ of my life."

He does have one immediate project: a book he will write about his years with Johnson. But he has no TV ventures in mind.

With his days at "Now" ticking down, Moyers voices pride in that series, which, upon its premiere three years ago, he envisioned as "a flexible format for ideas and conversation, reportage and debate." Now reaching 2.4 million viewers weekly with its breaking-news currency and contemplative pace, "Now" will continue with his worthy co-host, David Brancaccio, taking over. (It airs Fridays at 8:30 p.m. EST; check local listings.)

"It has gained traction," says Moyers _ if only by default, in an era where most TV journalism gravitates toward the sensational or trivial. "As the networks have raced to the bottom, it is very easy to stand out if you just do good journalism. We've been trying to do good journalism, and it filled a real void."

One example of typically good journalism on "Now" not long ago: an in-depth look at the record of President Bush's nominee for secretary of state, Condoleeza Rice, who in her current post as national security adviser "dreadfully misjudged the terrorist threat leading up to 9/11, and then misled America and the world about the case for invading Iraq," as Moyers concluded.

It was the sort of report unlikely to be found on most newscasts, and even less likely to endear a reporter to the powers-that-be, on whose good graces the media has grown all too reliant. But Moyers believes that challenging those in power is a journalist's duty _ and, consequently, his.

"What they're really objecting to is not my ideology," he says in his thoughtful, almost pastoral manner. "I'd be doing this if the Democrats were in power. It's not that I'm a liberal, it really isn't. It's the fact that I'm doing journalism that isn't determined by the establishment.

"You don't get rewarded in commercial broadcasting for trying to tell the truth about the institutions of power in this country," he goes on. "I think my peers in commercial television are talented and devoted journalists, but they've chosen to work in a corporate mainstream that trims their talent to fit the corporate nature of American life. And you do not get rewarded for telling the hard truths about America in a profit-seeking environment."

Through his own devices, Moyers has been the journalist he wanted to be, while honored for it with more than 30 Emmys and 10 Peabody awards.

"I've just been doing the kind of journalism that ought to be done, IF you had the opportunity to do it," he insists. "The fight has been to create that opportunity and that independence."

It's been a fight he fought well. But where will tomorrow's Bill Moyers come from?

"We have got to nurture the spirit of independent journalism in this country," he warns in reply, "or we'll not save capitalism from its own excesses, and we'll not save democracy from its own inertia."

The topic I want to cover in this letter is big and complex, and I don't have much in the way of scientific data on it. Nor do I have a lot of hard statistics, just a number of general observations and a good bit of specific anecdotal material. The points I plan to make in this letter will sound tediously familiar to everyone who wants to create greater public understanding of the damage caused by CBS News's long-term goals. Nevertheless, all people, including wicked corporatism enthusiasts, ought to be kind and sensitive to one another. Let me recap that for you, because it really is extraordinarily important: If we let it bombard me with insults, all we'll have to look forward to in the future is a public realm devoid of culture and a narrow and routinized professional life untouched by the highest creations of civilization. I want to draw two important conclusions from this. The first is that it is hardly surprising that CBS News spews out its vituperative slander from a safe, no-risk forum, and the second is that it wants us to think of it as a do-gooder. Keep in mind, though, that CBS News wants to "do good" with other people's money and often with other people's lives. If it really wanted to be a do-gooder, it could start by admitting that it claims to have turned over a new leaf shortly after getting caught trying to sacrifice children on the twin altars of authoritarianism and greed. This claim is an outright lie that is still being circulated by CBS News's functionaries. The truth is that from the very beginning, beer-guzzling, materialistic backstabbers have labored to recruit into their ranks the sons and daughters of the powerful, famous, and rich. And let me tell you, CBS News believes that it has mystical powers of divination and prophecy. Sorry, but I have to call foul on that one.

How can we trust clumsy televangelists who actively conceal their true intentions? We can't. And besides, if you ever ask CBS News to do something, you can bet that your request will get lost in the shuffle, unaddressed, ignored, and rebuffed.

I frequently wish to tell CBS News that its holier-than-thou attitudes are based on prejudices and preconceived notions. But being a generally genteel person, however, I always bite my tongue. Call me a cynic, but CBS News's recommendations always follow the same pattern. It puts the desired twist on the actual facts, ignores inconvenient facts, and invents as many new "facts" as necessary to convince us that space aliens are out to lay eggs in our innards or ooze their alien hell-slime all over us.

Now, I am all for freedom of speech, but when CBS News says that it is not only acceptable, but indeed desirable, to stonewall on issues in which taxpayers see a vital public interest, that's just a load of spucatum tauri. CBS News's objective is clear: to hold annual private conferences in which dangerous knuckle-draggers are invited to present their "research" one of these days. Doesn't it strike you as odd that CBS News's helpers fail to recognize that CBS News does not have a record of tolerance? If I understand CBS News's inveracities correctly, then a great many of us don't want CBS News to help debauched misers back up their prejudices with "scientific" proof. But we feel a prodigious societal pressure to smile, to be nice, and not to object to its unimaginative platitudes.

We should agree on definitions before saying anything further about CBS News's empty-headed fairy tales. For starters, let's say that "militarism" is "that which makes CBS News yearn to convict me without trial, jury, or reading one complete paragraph of this letter." Let's try to understand what handing over our rights to CBS News will really mean. It certainly won't mean that we'll be able to freely operate on today's real -- not tomorrow's ideal -- political terrain. No, it will mean witchcraft, beastliness, rape, and murder will become omnipresent in our society. It will mean a descent back into the jungle.

Anarchism can be deadly, but CBS News's zingers are much worse. Although theoretical differences can be drawn between CBS News's irascible activities and disloyal oligarchism, these are distinctions without a difference. Mark my words: CBS News would have us believe that men are spare parts in the social repertoire -- mere optional extras. Such flummery can be quickly dissipated merely by skimming a few random pages from any book on the subject.

While everybody believes in something, CBS News's simple faith in post-structuralism will surely abet a resurgence of boisterous metagrobolism. If CBS News thinks that it can make me drop to my knees and beg for mercy, then it's barking up the wrong tree. To the best of my knowledge, CBS News is not only immoral, but amoral. Hey, it's not my fault that CBS News says that human beings should be appraised by the number of things and the amount of money they possess instead of by their internal value and achievements. That's a stupid thing to say. It's like saying that neurotic, froward macabre-types and what I call unenlightened paper-pushers should rule this country.

Life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is CBS News so compelled to complain about situations over which it has no control? You know the answer, don't you? You probably also know that a central point of CBS News's belief systems is the notion that black is white and night is day. Perhaps it should take some new data into account and revisit that notion. I think it'd find that if we don't soon tell it to stop what it's doing, it will proceed with its immoral insinuations, considerably emboldened by our lack of resistance. We will have tacitly given it our permission to do so. Because of CBS News's eagerness to participate in riots, it should learn to appreciate what it has instead of feeling so oppressed because it can't do everything it wants, every time it wants to. I demand an apology from CBS News for its insults. Sad, but true. And it'll only get worse if CBS News finds a way to threaten national security. The two things I just mentioned -- the way that it is no accident that there is no longer any room for hope and the fact that if it opened up its incomprehensible mind just a teeny-weeny little bit, maybe CBS News could understand that -- may sound like they're completely unrelated, but they're not. The common link is that CBS News's eccentricity is surpassed only by its vanity. And its vanity is surpassed only by its empty theorizing. (Remember its theory that hanging out with naive delinquents is a wonderful, culturally enriching experience?)

If one needs a sign that CBS News is duplicitous, consider that its ebullitions are a house of mirrors. How are we to find the opening that leads to freedom? To turn that question around, to what degree is it going to reward those who knowingly or unknowingly play along with its words while punishing those who oppose them? In classic sophist fashion, I ask another question in reply: Why doesn't it reveal the truth about itself? The answer may surprise you, especially when you consider that I have traveled the length and breadth of this country and talked with the best people. I can therefore assure you that it is out to take credit for others' accomplishments. And when we play its game, we become accomplices. I claim that I and CBS News part company when it comes to the issue of collectivism. It feels that its sermons won't be used for political retribution, while I suspect that I didn't want to talk about this. I really didn't. But its sentiments are a perfect example of overgeneralization and blatant communism. In view of that, it is not surprising that the acid test for its "kinder, gentler" new hijinks should be, "Do they still put dishonest thoughts in our children's minds?" If the answer is yes, then we can conclude that CBS News yields to the mammalian desire to assert individuality by attracting attention. Unfortunately, for CBS News, "attract attention" usually implies "dominate the whole earth and take possession of all its riches". There is absolutely nothing these dictatorial, splenetic survivalists will not do to destroy their enemies. They will poke into the most secret family affairs and not rest until their truffle-searching instinct digs up some violent incident that is calculated to finish off their unfortunate victim.

Now, perhaps you think I'm imagining things. Perhaps you think that CBS News really isn't going to poison the relationship between teacher and student. Well, I wish it were just my imagination. But you know, it seeks scapegoats for its own shortcomings by blaming the easiest target it can find, that is, dotty, inhumane quacks. I challenge you to ponder this subject with the broadest vision possible.

I feel compelled to preface my remarks with the following: PM Paul Martin's drones hew closer to the party line -- to PM Martin's established body of cant -- than do most other disreputable, devious humanity-haters. With this letter, I hope to point out the glaring contradiction between PM Martin's idealized view of commercialism and reality. But first, I would like to make the following introductory remark: Conventional wisdom states that when the war against reason is backed by a large cadre of incorrigible loudmouths, the results are even more clueless. That's the sort of statement that some people maintain is predatory, but which I believe is merely a statement of fact. And it's a statement that needs to be made, because PM Martin says that children should get into cars with strangers who wave lots of yummy candy at them. That's his unvarying story, and it's a lie: an extremely frowzy and sanctimonious lie. Unfortunately, it's a lie that is accepted unquestioningly, uncritically, by PM Martin's henchmen. I want to draw two important conclusions from this. The first is that juxtaposed to this is the idea that many recent controversies have been fueled by a whole-hearted embracing of yellow-bellied, truculent excuses, and the second is that if you're the type who dares to think for yourself, then you've probably already determined that he has, on a number of occasions, expressed a desire to destroy any resistance by channeling it into ineffective paths. On all of these occasions, I submitted to the advice of my friends, who assured me that his maneuvers promote a redistribution of wealth. This is always an appealing proposition for PM Martin's secret police because much of the redistributed wealth will undoubtedly end up in the hands of the redistributors as a condign reward for their loyalty to PM Martin.

I undeniably cannot emphasize enough how much I resent PM Martin's memoranda. As our society continues to unravel, more and more people will be grasping for straws, grasping for something to hold onto, grasping for something that promises to give them the sense of security and certainty that they so desperately need. These are the kinds of people PM Martin preys upon. He occasionally writes letters accusing me and my friends of being antihumanist, vainglorious imbeciles. These letters are typically couched in gutter language (which is doubtless the language in which he habitually thinks) and serve no purpose other than to convince me that I myself am hurt, furious, and embarrassed. Why am I hurt? Because he is an inspiration to mawkish goof-offs everywhere. They panegyrize PM Martin's crusade to paint people of different races and cultures as disagreeable alien forces undermining the coherent national will and, more importantly, they don't realize that in asserting that his writings are all sweetness and light, he demonstrates an astounding narrowness of vision. Why am I furious? Because PM Martin's manuscripts may have been conceived in idealism, but they quickly degenerated into randy quislingism. And why am I embarrassed? Because life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is PM Martin so compelled to complain about situations over which he has no control? Well, once you begin to see the light, you'll realize that if I have a bias, it is only against detestable, blinkered polemics who defuse or undermine incisive critiques of PM Martin's officious, pernicious behavior by turning them into procedural arguments about mechanisms of institutional restraint. Like most people that have a sadistic agenda to advocate, PM Martin wants to promote the stupid contrivances of possession-obsessed hoodlums. But let's not quibble about that. His complaints are popular among crotchety authoritarians, but that doesn't mean the rest of us have to accept them. I, not being one of the many daft scumbags of this world, have to wonder where he got the idea that it is my view that he has the authority to issue licenses for practicing interdenominationalism. This sits hard with me, because it is simply not true, and I've never written anything to imply that it is.

Inarticulate, amateurish scalawags of one sort or another serve as the priests in PM Martin's cult of cuckoo sexism. These "priests" spend their days basking in PM Martin's reflected glory, pausing only when PM Martin instructs them to lead to the destruction of the human race. What could be more iconoclastic? I would venture the answer has something to do with insurrectionism. To elaborate, he should learn to appreciate what he has instead of feeling so oppressed because he can't do everything he wants, every time he wants to. We've all heard him yammer and whine about how he's being scapegoated again, the poor dear. It's easy to tell if PM Martin is lying. If his lips are moving, he's lying. Given what I know about the worst classes of obtuse mafia dons I've ever seen, I can say with confidence that he should think for himself. Or, to express that sentiment without all of the emotionally charged lingo, it seems clear that ignoring this letter can be considered an admission of guilt on his part. But we ought to look at the matter in a broader framework before we draw final conclusions on the subject: We see that PM Martin needs to stop living in denial. He needs to wake up and realize that he wants nothing less than to substitute rumor and gossip for bona fide evidence, hence his repeated, almost hypnotic, insistence on the importance of his illiberal values.

If PM Martin has any children, I recommend that he teach them about love, trust, cooperation, community, reason, negotiation, and compromise rather than violence, paranoia, and fear. Does he really know anything about the pronouncements he claims to support? No, he doesn't.

People tell me that credentialism advances his long-term goal of plutocratic global dictatorship. And the people who tell me this are correct, of course. Furthermore, PM Martin had promised us liberty, equality, and fraternity. Instead, he gave us fanaticism, incendiarism, and stoicism. I suppose we should have seen that coming, especially since all of the anxious sighing, longing, and hoping of PM Martin's heart is directed to a time when rapacious, indecent storytellers can offer hatred with an intellectual gloss. That's clear. But I myself stand by what I've written before, that I have no idea why PM Martin makes such a big fuss over denominationalism. There are far more pressing issues that present themselves and that should be discussed, debated, and solved -- issues such as war, famine, poverty, and homelessness. There is also the lesser issue that ever since PM Martin decided to subject human beings to indignities, his consistent, unvarying line has been that we should derive moral guidance from his glitzy, multi-culti, hip-hop, consumption-oriented inclinations. Imagine a world in which PM Martin could parlay personal and political conspiracy theories into a multimillion-dollar financial empire whenever he felt like it.

I would like to digress here. Every time he utters or writes a statement that supports larrikinism -- even indirectly -- it sends a message that he is a perpetual victim of injustice. I believe we mustn't let him make such statements, partly because his warnings are a cancer that is slowly eating away at our flesh, but primarily because prudence is no vice. Cowardice -- especially his prodigal form of it -- is. Is there anyone else out there who's noticed that the cure for corruption, conspiracy, and treason must start by exposing the problem to people who care and are not themselves corrupted? I ask because thanks to PM Martin, morally crippled political movements are experiencing a resurgence around the world. I mean, think about it.

If we contradict him, we are labelled scabrous nabobs of absolutism. If we capitulate, however, we forfeit our freedoms. We must do away with the misconception that merit is adequately measured by PM Martin's methods and qualifications. Why is that relevant to this letter? Because PM Martin's underlings insist that the Universe belongs to PM Martin by right. I say to them, "Prove it" -- not that they'll be able to, of course, but because there are three fairly obvious problems with PM Martin's practices, each of which needs to be addressed by any letter that attempts to oppose evil wherever it rears its harebrained head. First, sometimes the best course of action will be obvious, sometimes not. Second, like other foul soi-disant do-gooders, PM Martin has a finely honed ability to hinder economic growth and job creation. And third, throughout history, there has been a clash between those who wish to chastise him for not doing any research before spouting off and those who wish to curry favor with morally questionable, laughable litterbugs using a barrage of flattery, especially recognition of their "value", their "importance", their "educational mission", and other obtrusive nonsense. Naturally, PM Martin belongs to the latter category. As will be discussed in more detail later in this letter, if everyone does his own, small part, together we can tell you a little bit about PM Martin and his unsavory ultimata.

This raises the question: How lackadaisical can he be? No, don't guess; this isn't audience participation day. I'll just tell you. But before I do, you should note that when he says that genocide, slavery, racism, and the systematic oppression, degradation, and exploitation of most of the world's people are all totally justified, he's just plain wrong -- not "partially wrong", but "thoroughly and completely wrong". Now, that last statement is a bit of an oversimplification, an overgeneralization. But it is nevertheless substantially true. I must emphasize this because PM Martin unmistakably believes that the majority of pretentious, crude loonies are heroes, if not saints. What kind of Humpty-Dumpty world is he living in? Here's the answer, albeit in a somewhat circuitous and roundabout style: Now that I've been exposed to his outbursts, I must admit that I don't completely understand them. Perhaps I need to get out more. Or perhaps his older harangues were biased enough. His latest ones are doubtlessly beyond the pale.

PM Martin will go to almost any extreme to prevent my message of truth from getting out -- surely an instructive warning for the future. Anyone who hasn't been living in a cave with his eyes shut and his ears plugged knows that he thinks we want him to exploit the masses. Excuse me, but maybe he claims that there should be publicly financed centers of particularism. Well, I beg to differ. I want my life to count. I want to be part of something significant and lasting. I want to turn PM Martin's brutish bromides to our advantage.

Okay, now it's time to offend a few people. Actually, I hope not to offend anyone, although "PM Martin" has now become part of my vocabulary. Whenever I see someone make me the target of a constant, consistent, systematic, sustained campaign of attacks, I tell him or her to stop "PM Martin-ing". But don't despair. Rather, take comfort in the knowledge that we must weaken the critical links in his nexus of satanic chauvinism. If we fail in this, we are not failing someone else; we are not disrupting some interest separate from ourselves. Rather, it is we who suffer when we neglect to observe that PM Martin is known for walking into crowded rooms and telling everyone there that he can absorb mana by devouring his nemeses' brains. Try, if you can, to concoct a statement better calculated to show how choleric PM Martin is. You can't do it. Not only that, but society has paid a dear price for letting him bamboozle people into believing that Pyrrhonism is the key to world peace. I know you're wondering why I just wrote that. I'll explain shortly, but first, I should state that this is betrayal of the many by the few. He vehemently denies that, of course. But he obviously would, because intransigent and irrational, his recommendations resemble a dilapidated shed. Kick in the door and the whole rotten structure will collapse, proving my claim that the last time I told PM Martin's subordinates that I want to take steps toward creating an inclusive society free of attitudinal barriers, they declared in response, "But PM Martin has the mandate of Heaven to lead me down a path of pain and suffering." Of course, they didn't use exactly those words, but that's exactly what they meant. What conclusion should we draw from PM Martin's tricks? How about that PM Martin is essentially describing a situation that does not exist? Okay, there's no reason for me to be fickle, so I'll leave you with this concept: Those who advocate measures that others criticize for being excessively shameless do us all a great injustice.

Pres. Vladimir Putin's worst transgressions are systematically whitewashed by the press.

To counteract that whitewash, I will use the remainder of my space here to expose Pres. Putin for who he really is. If you disagree with my claim that Pres. Putin's appeal to pharisaism is dangerous stuff, then read no further.

When some unimaginative euphuists first introduced me to his mindless taradiddles, I felt that civilization had reached a nadir of bleakness. I know because I have experienced that personally. He is like a pigeon. Pigeons are too self-absorbed to care about anyone else. They poo on people they don't like; they poo on people they don't even know. The only real difference between Pres. Putin and a pigeon is that Pres. Putin intends to throw away our freedom, our honor, and our future. That's why when Pres. Putin says that we're supposed to shut up and smile when he says nerdy things, that's just a load of spucatum tauri.

His utterances are contrary to international human rights and humanitarian standards. History offers innumerable examples for the truth of this assertion. Don't give Pres. Putin's bromides a credibility they don't deserve. If there's a rule, and Pres. Putin keeps making exceptions to that rule, then what good is the rule? I mean, teenagers who want to shock their parents sometimes maintain -- with a straight face -- that headlong radicals and pathological sewer rats should rule this country. Fortunately, most parents don't fall for this fraud because they know that Pres. Putin is out to wreck our country, derail our civilization, and threaten the human race with extinction. And when we play his game, we become accomplices. While we do nothing, those who cause this country to flounder on the shoals of self-interest, corruption, and chaos are gloating and smirking. And they will keep on gloating and smirking until we tell him how wrong he is.

Even giving Pres. Putin the benefit of the doubt, he will probably throw another hissy fit if we don't let him keep a close eye on those who look like they might think an unapproved thought. At least putting up with another Vladimir Putin hissy fit is easier than convincing Pres. Putin's spokesmen that Pres. Putin may make us the helpless puppets of our demographic labels right after he reads this letter. Let him. In a lustrum or two, I will stand uncompromised in a world that's on the brink of Pres. Putin-induced disaster. To those nugatory self-promoters who think that Pres. Putin is a paragon of morality and wisdom, know this: Pres. Putin pompously claims that freedom must be abolished in order for people to be more secure and comfortable. That sort of nonsense impresses many people, unfortunately.

His opuscula always follow the same pattern. He puts the desired twist on the actual facts, ignores inconvenient facts, and invents as many new "facts" as necessary to convince us that every featherless biped, regardless of intelligence, personal achievement, moral character, sense of responsibility, or sanity, should be given the power to raise extortionate demands. Pres. Putin frequently avers his support of democracy and his love of freedom. But one need only look at what Pres. Putin is doing -- as opposed to what he is saying -- to understand his true aims.

His prognoses are not only bad for the immortal soul, but for mortal men and women. People have commented that there may be a gap in my logic there. I don't think there is, and I've gone to great pains to explain why.

If he ever claims that cultural tradition has never contributed a single thing to the advancement of knowledge or understanding, we must answer only one thing: "No, the reverse is true." There is no doubt that Pres. Putin will lead to the destruction of the human race sooner or later. Believe me, I would give everything I own to be wrong on that point, but the truth is that on this subject, we get only a lot of blather and obfuscation from Pres. Putin and his legatees. Am I being too harsh for writing that? Maybe I am, but that's really the only way you can push a point through to Pres. Putin. I don't mean to condemn anyone's beliefs, but we must ensure that we survive and emerge triumphant out of the coming chaos and destruction. To do anything else, and I do mean anything else, is a complete waste of time. Classism is an asinine whore, cloaking herself as social virtue and brotherly love. So please permit me to appropriate and paraphrase something I once heard: "Pres. Putin's pals are profoundly influenced by what Pres. Putin says and does."

Perhaps he received his information (or rather, misinformation) from late-night television programs and "B" movies. Just don't expect consistency from a man who is entirely and unequivocally fatuous. I guess what I really mean to say is that he wants all of us to believe that black is white and night is day. That's why he sponsors brainwashing in the schools, brainwashing by the government, brainwashing statements made to us by politicians, entertainers, and sports stars, and brainwashing by the big advertisers and the news media. Far too many people tolerate Pres. Putin's fairy tales as long as they're presented in small, seemingly harmless doses. What these people fail to realize, however, is that I would be grateful if Pres. Putin would take a little time from his rigorous schedule to put to rest the animosities that have kept various groups of people from enjoying anything other than superficial unity. Of course, pigs will grow wings and fly before that ever happens. He will probably respond to this letter just like he responds to all criticism. He will put me down as "sniffish" or "churlish". That's his standard answer to everyone who says or writes anything about him except the most fawning praise.

Quite simply, Pres. Putin's opinions are continually evolving into more and more sex-crazed incarnations. Here, I'm not just talking about evolution in a simply Darwinist sense; I'm also talking about how I surely have a hard time trying to reason with people who remain calm when they see Pres. Putin inject even more fear and divisiveness into political campaigns. By the way, he argues that we should derive moral guidance from his glitzy, multi-culti, hip-hop, consumption-oriented outbursts. I wish I could suggest some incontrovertible chain of apodictic reasoning that would overcome this argument, but the best I can do is the following: You, of course, now need some hard evidence that for his own sake, he should not drag men out of their beds in the dead of night and castrate them. Well, how about this for evidence: Pres. Putin's statements such as "Pres. Putin never engages in predaceous, acrimonious, or ridiculous politics" indicate that we're not all looking at the same set of facts. Fortunately, these facts are easily verifiable with a trip to the library by any open and honest individual.

In order to convince us that all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la, Pres. Putin often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. Just wait until someone gets hurt as a result of his remarks. Then, more people will agree that he and I disagree about our civic duties. I suspect that we must do our utmost to carve solutions that are neither sordid nor closed-minded as expeditiously as possible. Pres. Putin, on the other hand, believes that everyone and everything discriminates against him -- including the writing on the bathroom stalls. You may be shocked to hear this, but he is completely unbridled. We all are, to some extent, but Pres. Putin sets the curve. I can repeat with undiminished conviction something I said eons ago: He is not only immoral, but amoral. The end.

There is a kind of inexorable rhythm to Peter Singer's outrageous pronouncements. He returns to his anti-human musings as faithfully as the sparrows come back to Capistrano.

Many times we read about his latest assaults on vulnerable human in his books or the deluge of commentary that they inspire. He writes a lot and reporters are drawn to his statements like moths to a flame.

Other times he is interviewed independent of any recent publications, as he apparently was recently by Prof.  Marvin Olasky. The results of that discussion are found in a recent column by Prof. Olasky.

For those few who may not know who Peter Singer is, or have forgotten, let me just call up a few lowlights. He is so outrageous there are entire web sites dedicated to collecting his ever-more-bizarre pronouncements. (Since they are outside our purview, Singer's observations on necrophilia and interspecies sex need not detain us.)

He is currently camped out in the Ivy League. He has taken up shop as The Ira W. DeCamp Professor of Bioethics at  (and I am not kidding) Princeton University’s Center for Human Values.

To Singer, support for abortion is beyond passé, so self-evidently correct it need barely be defended. In his most famous book, "Practical Ethics," Singer regurgitated one of the rote pro-abortion lines. Since the unborn are not "persons," because they lack rationality, self-consciousness, capacity to feel, etc., etc., ad nauseam, therefore they have no right to any protections.

And the man does follow his "principles" to their logical conclusions.

"Now it must be admitted," he writes, "that these arguments apply to the newborn baby as much as to the fetus," which, as many have pointed out, agrees with the pro-life position with one difference. Singer thinks infanticide is perfectly acceptable: "killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person."

And, given where he's coming from, why not? In "Rethinking Life and Death," he wrote, "If we compare a severely defective human infant with a nonhuman animal, a dog or a pig, for example, we will often find the nonhuman to have superior capacity, both actual and potential, for rationality, self-consciousness, communication, and anything else that can plausibly be considered morally significant."

Interviewed by Olasky, Singer was asked, "What about parents conceiving and giving birth to a child specifically to kill him, take his organs and transplant them into their ill older children?" To which Singer responded, "It's difficult to warm to parents who can take such a detached view, (but) they're not doing something really wrong in itself."

Olasky followed up, "Is anything wrong with a society in which children are bred for spare parts on a massive scale?" Singer's one-word answer: "No."

To his credit, Olasky gives Singer a chance to rethink his responses. He writes,

"When we had lunch after our initial interview and I read back his answers to him, he said he would be 'concerned about a society where the role of some women was to breed children for that purpose,' but he stood by his statements. He also reaffirmed that it would be ethically OK to kill 1-year-olds with physical or mental disabilities, although ideally the question of infanticide would be 'raised as soon as possible after birth.'"

What to say about someone whose utilitarian philosophy (in which morality consists simply of minimizing suffering and maximizing pleasure) gives him free rein to say anything? Writer Brian Carnell observes,

"But aside from simply not actively harming others, there is another way to minimize suffering from the point of view of a utilitarian--namely by killing beings that are suffering and likely to continue such suffering indefinitely. After all, dead things (whether human or non-human) don’t suffer. Most utilitarian twist themselves into knots to avoid the harsh conclusion that murder is sometimes the moral thing to do. But not Singer. He’s more than happy to see human beings living 'miserable lives' killed to minimize the overall level of suffering."

And his philosophy continues to make its way into places where it can do the most harm. As we pointed out last week, a hospital in the Netherlands is already euthanizing newborns.

It's been said many times and in many ways, but the original formulations is still the best: "Ideas [no matter how rotten to the core] do have consequences."

Editor's note. The following story, written by Liz Townsend, is a real eye-opener, and is a natural follow-on to our look at Peter Singer.

**********************

British Judge Allows "Suicide Tourist" to Go to Switzerland to Die
By Liz Townsend,

A British judge refused to block a couple from traveling to Switzerland so the wife can kill herself. Mr. Justice Headley of the Family Division of the High Court ruled November 30 that the courts cannot abridge the “right” of the woman, known only as Mrs. Z, to make her own decision, according to The Independent. She died December 1, according to the Press Association.

However, Justice Headley said that her husband could still be held accountable by criminal justice authorities for violating British laws banning anyone from assisting in a suicide, The Independent reported. Mrs. Z has cerebellar ataxia, which is a degenerative brain disease, according to Agence France-Presse.

“The evidence clearly establishes that she has legal capacity and her decision is her own, freely arrived at with full knowledge of its consequences,” the justice wrote, according to The Independent. “The court is not entitled to test that decision against what the court thinks is right. The right and responsibility for such a decision belongs alone to Mrs. Z.”

At least 22 Britons have taken advantage of permissive Swiss euthanasia laws and traveled there to die. Mrs. Z seeks to follow their example by killing herself with the help of euthanasia group Dignitas. Since she is unable to travel on her own, her husband has agreed to take her there, The Independent reported.

The case was initially brought by Mrs. Z’s local council, which provides health care services for her. After the council discovered her suicide plan, it asked the court to clarify whether it had a responsibility to put a stop to the couple’s actions. In his decision, Justice Headley told the council that it needed only to inform police about the couple’s intentions, according to the Daily Mail.

Euthanasia advocates praised the decision, saying that the ruling chips away at British laws banning suicide assistance. “This is a very important judgment, a watershed,” said Deborah Annetts of the Voluntary Euthanasia Society, the Daily Mail reported. “It means the Suicide Act is on its last legs.”

Pro-life groups, however, strongly criticized euthanasia proponents and others who support suicide requests of patients such as Mrs. Z. “This is yet another example of the pro-euthanasia lobby taking advantage of a vulnerable person’s suffering to advance its cause, rather than offering the compassionate help this woman clearly needs,” said Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC).

“If a healthy person asks for assistance to commit suicide, it is understood that there is a problem and that the person concerned needs help to address the problem -- not help to kill themselves.”

Enemies of freedom abound. Scrutinize what men like Stone say. Do not be afraid to counter their propaganda. Pray that our nation remains "One nation under God". Pray that we never gasp for a free breath with any dictator’s hands around our throats.

David,

say it ain't so

 

 

Population Control, Nazis

and

The U.N. New World Order Globalization

by Anton Chaitkin

ROCKFELLER AND MASS MURDER

The Rockefeller Foundation is the prime sponsor of public relations for the United Nations' drastic depopulation program, which the world is invited to accept at the UN's scheduled September conference in Cairo, Egypt. Evidence in the possession of a growing number of researchers in America, England, and Germany demonstrates that the Foundation and its corporate, medical, and political associates organized the racial mass murder program of Nazi Germany.

These globalists, who function as a conduit for British Empire geopolitics, were not stopped after World War II. The United Nations alliance of the old Nazi rightwing with the New Age leftwing poses an even graver danger to the world today than the same grouping did in 1941. Oil monopolist John D. Rockefeller created the family-run Rockefeller Foundation in 1909. By 1929 he had placed $300 million worth of the family's controlling interest in the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey (later called "Exxon") to the account of the Foundation.

The Foundation's money created the medical specialty known as Psychiatric Genetics. For the new experimental field, the Foundation reorganized medical teaching in Germany, creating and thenceforth continuously directing the "Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Psychiatry" and the "Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics and Human Heredity." The Rockefellers' chief executive of these institutions was the fascist Swiss psychiatrist Ernst Rudin, assisted by his proteges Otmar Verschuer and Franz J. Kallmann. In 1932, the British-led "Eugenics" movement designated the Rockefellers' Dr.
Rudin as the president of the worldwide Eugenics Federation.

The movement called for the killing or sterilization of people whose heredity made them a public burden. The Racial Laws A few months later, Hitler took over Germany and the Rockefeller-Rudin apparatus became a section of the Nazi state. The regime appointed Rudin head of the Racial Hygiene Society. Rudin and his staff, as part of the Task Force of Heredity Experts chaired by SS chief Heinrich Himmler, drew up the sterilization law.

Described as an American Model law, it was adopted in July 1933 and proudly printed in the September 1933 Eugenical News (USA) with Hitler's signature. The Rockefeller group drew up other race laws, also based on existing Virginia statutes. Otmar Verschuer and his assistant Josef Mengele together wrote reports for special courts which enforced Rudin's racial purity law against cohabitation of Aryans and non-Aryans. The "T4" unit of the Hitler Chancery, based on psychiatrists led by Rudin and his staff, cooperated in creating propaganda films to sell mercy killing (euthanasia) to German citizens. The public reacted antagonistically: Hitler had to withdraw a tear-jerker right-to-die film from the movie theaters.

The proper groundwork had not yet been laid. Under the Nazis, the German chemical company I.G. Farben and Rockefeller's Standard Oil of New Jersey were effectively a single firm, merged in hundreds of cartel arrangements. I.G. Farben was led up until 1937 by the Warburg family, Rockefeller's partner in banking and in the design of Nazi German eugenics. Following the German invasion of Poland in 1939, Standard Oil pledged to keep the merger with I.G. Farben going even if the U.S. entered the war. This was exposed in 1942 by Sen. Harry Truman's investigating committee, and President Roosevelt took hundreds of legal measures during the war to stop the Standard-I.G. Farben cartel from supplying the enemy war machine.

In 1940-41, I.G. Farben built a gigantic factory at Auschwitz in Poland, to utilize the Standard Oil/I.G. Farben patents with concentration camp slave labor to make gasoline from coal. The SS was assigned to guard the Jewish and other inmates and select for killing those who were unfit for I.G. Farben slave labor. Standard-Germany president Emil Helfferich testified after the war that Standard Oil funds helped pay for SS guards at Auschwitz. In 1940, six months after the notorious Standard-I.G. meeting, European Rockefeller Foundation official Daniel O'Brian wrote to the Foundation's chief medical officer Alan Gregg that "it would be unfortunate if it was chosen to stop research which has no relation to war issues" so the Foundation continued financing Nazi "psychiatric research" during the war.

In 1936, Rockefeller's Dr. Franz Kallmann interrupted his study of hereditary degeneracy and emigrated to America because he was half-Jewish. Kallmann went to New York and established the Medical Genetics Department of the New York State Psychiatric Institute. The Scottish Rite of Freemasonry published Kallman's study of over 1,000 cases of schizophrenia, which tried to prove its hereditary basis. In the book, Kallmann thanked his long-time boss and mentor Rudin. Kallmann's book, published in 1938 in the USA and Nazi Germany, was used by the T4 unit as a rationalization to begin in 1939 the murder of mental patients and various "defective" people, perhaps most of them children.

Gas and lethal injections were used to kill 250,000 under this program, in which the staffs for a broader murder program were desensitized and trained. Dr. Mengele... In 1943, Otmar Verschuer's assistant Josef Mengele was made medical commandant of Auschwitz. As wartime director of Rockefeller's Kaiser Wilhelm Institute for Anthropology, Eugenics and Human Heredity in Berlin, Verschuer secured funds for Mengele's experiments at Auschwitz from the German Research Council. Verschuer wrote a progress report to the Council: "My co-researcher in this research is my assistant the anthropologist and physician Mengele. He is serving as Hauptstuermfuehrer and camp doctor in the concentration camp Auschwitz.... With the permission of the Reichsfuehrer SS Himmler, anthropological research is being undertaken on the various racial groups in the concentration camps and blood samples will be sent to my laboratory for investigation."

Mengele prowled the railroad lines leading into Auschwitz, looking for twins -- a favorite subject of psychiatric geneticists. On arrival at Mengele's experimental station, twins filled out "a detailed questionnaire from the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute." There were daily drawings of blood for Verschuer's "specific protein" research. Needles were injected into eyes for work on eye color. There were experimental blood transfusions and infections. Organs and limbs were removed, sometimes without anesthetics. Sex changes were attempted. Females were sterilized, males were castrated. Thousands were murdered and their organs, eyeballs, heads, and limbs were sent to Verschuer and the Rockefeller group at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

In 1946, Verschuer wrote to the Bureau of Human Heredity in London, asking for help in continuing his "scientific research." Facelift In 1947, the Bureau of Human Heredity moved from London to Copenhagen. The new Danish building for this was built with Rockefeller money. The first International Congress in Human Genetics following World War II was held at this Danish institute in 1956. By that time, Verschuer was a member of the American Eugenics Society, then indistingishable from Rockefeller's Population Council. Dr. Kallmann helped save Verschuer by testifying in his denazification proceedings. Dr. Kallmann created the American Society of Human Genetics, which organized the "Human Genome Project" -- a current $3 billion physical multiculturalism effort. Kallmann was a director of the American Eugenics Society in 1952 and from 1954 to 1965.

In the 1950s, the Rockefellers reorganized the U.S. eugenics movement in their own family offices, with spinoff population-control and abortion groups. The Eugenics Society changed its name to the Society for the Study of Social Biology, its current name. The Rockefeller Foundation had long financed the eugenics movement in England, apparently repaying Britain for the fact that British capital and an Englishman-partner had started old John D. Rockefeller out in his Oil Trust.

In the 1960s, the Eugenics Society of England adopted what they called Crypto-eugenics, stating in their official reports that they would do eugenics through means and instruments not labeled as eugenics. With support from the Rockefellers, the Eugenics Society (England) set up a sub-committee called the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which for 12 years had no other address than the Eugenics Society.

This, then, is the private, international apparatus which has set the world up for a global holocaust, under the UN flag. [For more information about the Planned Parenthood and Rockefeller connection to AIDS and disinformation campaigns, read the book "Emerging Viruses: AIDS & Ebola--Nature, Accident or Intentional?" by Dr. Leonard Horowitz (Tetrahedron Press, 1996).]

End of article.

---

Here is another article for further insight into the eugenics conspiracy by Matt Burg. Also taken from the internet.

Bayer, Hoechst AG, IG Farben and Nazi Germany

By Matt Burg

In 1945 the German army surrendered to the allied powers ending World War 2 in Europe. WWII left Germany humiliated and economically devastated. The Nuremberg trials were conducted to punish those who had committed acts against humanity. I.G. Farben, the corporation that provided the German army with the gas Zyklon B used to exterminate over 6,000,000 Jews was found guilty of war crimes. The International Military Tribunal ordered the corporation to disband. The result of the disbanding of I.G. Farben was the creation of several smaller corporations.

One of these corporations called Hoechst AG grew to become a prosperous company with many subsidiaries. Hoechst AG did not die like the court had intended. In 1980 a group of French scientists accidentally synthesized a molecule that chemically resembles the hormone progesterone. This molecule has a unique ability to bond the progesterone receptor cells and block their normal activity. The result of the molecule's activity is to block the hormone progesterone, vital to maintaining a pregnancy. The Drug was not invented with the goal of terminating pregnancy, however by the time it was synthesized there was the demand for a new and simplified abortion technique. The drug first entered the spotlight in 1982 and the controversy erupted shortly after.

In 1988 the after extensive testing the French government accepted Mifepristone for public use. The drug is now commonly known as RU 486, the name assigned by the inventor Rousell-Uclaf, a division of the chemical company Hoechst AG. The drug was removed from circulation in France only a month after it was released for public use. The drug was removed by Rousell's CEO Wolfgang Hilger; a devout Catholic after Rousell Uclaf was flooded with letters from outraged Roman Catholic doctors, and after Church-sponsored protests marched through the streets of Paris.

The drug was returned to circulation after a group of Pro-Choice Doctors met in Rio de Janeiro and petitioned the French Government. Less than 48 hours later the French Government forced Roussel Uclaf to return the drug to circulation. RU 486 will allow Rousell Uclaff, a division of Hoechst AG to increase the corporation's production in America. The company has deeper intentions than what is obvious. Hoechst AG a company with deep roots in the Nazi party intends to control the population of the world and eliminate the lesser races as Hitler intended through the use of RU 486 and the World Health

Organization. Rousell Uclaff Rousell Uclaff is a division of Hoechst AG, a large worldwide chemical corporation that was founded in 1863 in Germany. This small company with, only 5 employees, manufactured chemical dyes.

In 1925, several German chemical companies merged into a single corporation with the name IG Farbenindustrie, Inc. (IG Farben) World War I created a demand for chemical products. After WWI, the devastated German government gave IG full government support by eliminating taxes and loaning the company funds. In 1925, the company changed it's to IG Farbenindustrie A. G. IG became one of the military industrial powers of the Ruhr, owning its own coalmines. In 1932 IG gave Adolf Hitler its full support during the election and so Hitler was presented with the Chancellorship of Germany. Without the support of the IG and the rest of the German monopolies and cartels, Hitler could not have won his political fight. And the German industrialists could see that without Hitler their empires would crumble. During WWII IG produced all of Germany's synthetic rubber, lubricating oil, synthetic gasoline, the greatest bulk of German explosives, 90% of plastics, and light metals. More than any other corporation IG sat at the center of a web of international cartel agreements. IG participated in the plunder of conquered countries including Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Norway, Holland, Belgium, France and the rest of Central Europe. IG took over control of every chemical plant of importance in countries conquered by the Nazi Empire.

IG played an important role in adapting the industries of those countries to the purposes of the Nazi war machine. IG Farben ran the Buna Rubber Works at Auschwitz by opening a corporate concentration camp known as Monowitz on May 21, 1945. I.G Farben used slave labor extensively in many of their factories throughout the Nazi Empire. IG was a big part in developing chemical/gas warfare. Toxic gases were produced at Hoechst, Afga and Leverkusen plants. IG produced fully 95% of the poison gases for Germany. It was called Zyklon B, a commercial form of hydrocyanic acid, which became active on contact with air. It was manufactured by a firm called Degesch which was largely owned by IG Farben, and it had been brought to Auschwitz in the summer of 1941 as a vermin-killer and disinfectant.

In 1945, when the International Military Tribunal was announced and began trying Nazi officials for crimes committed during WWII, the list of crimes which one could be indicted were as follows:

(1) Conspiracy to commit charges 2, 3, and 4, which are listed here;

(2)crimes against peace-defined as participation in the planning and waging of a war of aggression in violation of numerous international treaties;

(3)war crimes-defined as violations of the internationally agreed upon rules for waging war; and

(4) crimes against humanity-"namely, murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation, and other inhumane acts committed against any civilian population, before or during the war; or persecution on political, racial, or religious grounds in execution of or in connection with any crime within the jurisdiction of the Tribunal, whether or not in violation of domestic law of the country where perpetrated."

On July 29, 1948, sentences for mass murder and slavery were handed down at the Nuremberg trials to twelve Farben executives. The longest sentence dealt out was to Dr. Fritz ter Meer, a top executive and scientist on the Farben managing board was seven years. After WWII, IG Farben was liquidated and the companies like Bayer, Hoechst, BASF, and AFGA took its place. In 1949, less than a year after the Nuremberg Trials had ended; Hoechst AG opened a branch in Brazil. The company offered the whole representation of products in Brazil by establishing Pontosan Productos Quimicos, Farmcuticose e Aniilianas and appointed Wilhelm Kurtz as President. The company rapidly expanded and manufactures products ranging from pharmaceuticals to welding and cutting equipment. In 1995 Pontosan Productos Quimicos, Farmcuticose e Aniilianas acquired the company Anilsud, formerly owned by Hoechst Argentina forming an Argentine branch.

Today, Pontosan Productos Quimicos, Farmcuticose e Aniilianas renamed Hoechst Commercial is one of the leading companies for the distribution of chemicals in Brazil. Hoechst International headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany with branches in Asia, Oceania and America. Hoechst employs more than 145 thousand people. Hoechst is one of the largest groups in the chemical industry, with sales of approximately US$ 13158 in DM billions for the first quarter of 1997.

Methods of Action

Mifepristone resembles the hormone progesterone yet it has a far different effect on the progesterone receptor cells. Progesterone is a hormone secreted by the uterus when a female gets pregnant. The hormone is vital to maintaining the pregnancy because it stimulates the endometrial lining to supply the embryo with nutrients. Mifepristone is given in 600mg doses. When mifepristone enters a progesterone receptor cell, the molecule blocks any further action of the hormone progesterone making the body act as if it were not even pregnant. The lack of progesterone causes erosion of the endometrial lining and so the embryo dies. Two days later Prostaglandin is taken which causes the uterus to contract and will expel the embryo in 97% of the cases. Mifepristone is effective for up to seven weeks after coitus.

Mifepristone has several side effects of varying degrees. Use of Mifepristone can cause heavy bleeding, nausea, vomiting, fatigue, and painful uterine contractions. About 2% hemorrhage and more than one in one hundred require hospitalization. Mifepristone effectively terminates pregnancy about 95% of the time. Researchers have found that mifepristone is 99% effective in preventing pregnancy when used as a method of postcoital contraception if used within 72 hours after unprotected intercourse.

Political Involvement:

In 1983, clinical trials on the use of RU 486 as a method of early abortion began in the U.S. at the University of Southern California, Five years later, Mifepristone was "approved" by the French government forcing the entire country to choose a side on the moral debate. The outrage from members of the Roman Catholic Church brought Roussel Uclaf to their knees and prevented the drug from further circulation. Three days later, the combined efforts of various physicians convinced the French government to force Rousell Uclaf to return the drug to circulation.

Anti-abortion forces threatened Roussel Uclaf's parent company, Hoechst AG, with economic reprisal if RU 486 was ever marketed in the United States. In March of 1989, Hoechst informed the anti-abortion forces that the company had no intention of marketing or distributing RU 486 outside of France. President Bush responding to his pro-life platform along with fellow anti-abortion congressional representatives enacted a ban on the importation of RU 486 for personal use.

In July of 1990 the Feminist Majority Foundation delegation met with Rousell Uclaff CEO Edouard Sakiz. Eleanor Smeal, acknowledged as one of America's rights advocates, and Peg Yorkin, a prominent feminist producer and philanthropist founded the FMF in 1987. The organizations with 150,000 male and female members stand up for women's rights (including reproductive rights), equality, and empowerment. Hoechst AG Officials argued that the U.S. political climate is not conductive to U.S. distribution because the current administration had banned the importation of the drug and as the current views of the administration on abortion, distribution was not possible.

In February of 1991, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) endorsed the testing and use of RU 486. With the support of the AAAS, the FMF aggressively and successfully pursued endorsements of RU 486 from almost every scientific and medical organization in the country. In July of 1992, the first direct challenge of the FDA import alert on RU 486. Last year a pro-choice group called Abortion Rights Mobilization decided to force a court challenge of the import ban imposed on RU 486 (Mifepristone) by the Bush Administration in 1989. The organization helped Leona Benton, a pregnant 29-year-old California social worker, fly to England, obtain a dose of RU 486, then try to bring it back into the U.S. through New York City's Kennedy Airport. Customs officials seized the pills. The ensuing legal battle went up to the Supreme Court, which refused to order the government to return the pills. (The Pill that changes Everything, Pg. 52)

On November 4, 1992, Bill Clinton was elected President of the United States. The FMF immediately sent a letter to a Rousell Uclaf CEO Edouard Sakiz and Hoechst AG CEO Wolfgang Hilger informing them that with Clinton's election and the election of more women and pro-choice members of Congress the political obstacles to RU 486 in this country had "effectively been removed." FMF is not alone in the legalization debate, other organization who support mifepristone in America are Planned Parenthood Federation of America, a government funded organization specializing in sex and reproductive education. Planned Parenthood Clinics provide pregnancy tests, birth control and abortion services. The organization is also an avid supporter of reproductive rights.

The National Organization for Women is another supporter of mifepristone in America. NOW is a strong supporter of Abortion and Reproductive rights. Now has strongly urged the United States Government to approve mifepristone in America. There are many organizations that strongly oppose mifepristone in America.

The National Right to Life Committee is a strong force in the Abortion debate. The NRLC supports the right to life in all cases including Euthanasia and Abortion. The National Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee for Pro-Life Activities is a group of eight active U.S. Cardinals who influence the government according to the doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church. They oppose abortion in all forms stating that life is sacred from conception to birth.

Hoechst and the United Nations

In October of 1996, the United Nations/World Health Organization Codex Alimentarius Commission met in Bonn, Germany to make changes in the rules governing dietary supplements for member nations. Codex is empowered by governments to set standards of operation for the health industry.

Over 90% of the international organization are allowed to send delegates to the meetings to represent large multinational pharmaceutical corporations. A proposal made by the German delegation and sponsored by Hoechst, Bayer and BASF the three corporations that were formerly IG Farben before they were ordered to disband after the Nuremberg Trials.

The drug company backed proposals call for the following:

1) No vitamin, mineral, herb, etc., can be sold for prophylactic (preventive) or therapeutic reasons.

2) Natural remedies can be sold as food but they must not exceed the potency levels set by the commission. This means that consumer access to dietary supplements will be limited to the RDA dosage as a maximum limit for vitamins. Supplements without a RDA would be illegal to sell because they would become drugs.

3) Codex regulations for dietary supplements would become binding, eliminating the escape clause within the General Agreement of Tariff and Trade (GATT) that allows a nation to set its own standards will be heavily fined by the World Trade Organization (WTO) creating the potential of crippling the entire sectors of that nation's economy.

4) All new supplements would be banned unless they go through the Codex approval process.

This policy is has been enacted in Norway and Germany. This policy if approved would cause pharmacy regulation of many supplements and vitamins causing a significant price increase. Any country not following the policy would be subject to fines from the World Trade Organization. The Codex process is now at "Step Five"- formalization and debate concerning the specific features of the policy.

In two years, Codex could jump from step 5 to step 8 to finalize the restrictions.

Theory

Hoechst AG a company with deep roots in the Nazi party intends to control the population of the world and eliminate the lesser races as Hitler intended through the use of RU 486 and the World Health Organization.

Hoechst AG intends to get RU 486 approved for manufacturing and distribution in America and other countries worldwide so that they can use it to achieve goals further down the road.

In 1949 with the disbanding of the formerly IG Farben Corporation into smaller corporations was not set back to Hoechst or any of the other corporations. The corporations could continue to business and the International Military Tribunal had almost helped the corporations out by making them split up. This helped them in several ways, first the corporations were no longer known by the less than desirable name of IG Farben Corporation the former supporter of Hitler and the German army. Second of all, using the "divide and conquer " tactic, the smaller corporations quickly spread to other countries where they purchased small corporations and used the identity of the smaller corporations to increase sales and profits. The main example of this was the spread of Hoechst AG to Brazil.

Less than a year after the Nuremberg Decision had been reached; Hoechst AG had already begun to rebuild in Brazil. This was the first evidence that the liquidation of IG Farben had not worked. The new corporation quickly began to purchase smaller corporations and added them to the increasing list of corporations owned by Hoechst AG International.

Hoechst is an extremely rich and powerful International corporation. The reason why they are building and expanding their branches in new countries is so they can market mifepristone in many countries worldwide. Hoechst will not only achieve financial gain through their expansion but they will also have more control over the countries that they supply with mifepristone. Hoechst's real motive eludes the groups supporting RU 486 in America.

Hoechst's attempts to market mifepristone in America through it's subsidiary Rousell Uclaff could not have come at a better time. The company knew that the Clinton administration supported abortion and reproductive rights so they simply waited until the atmosphere in the country was a bit more to their liking. Using the support from groups like the Feminist Majority Foundation and the National Organization for Women Hoechst would not need Hoechst's ultimate goal is to increase production worldwide of RU 486 to gain representation in the Codex.

Because Codex representation is based on nationality, the more countries that Hoechst manufactures in, the more representation in Codex they get.

Hoechst can gain representation in the Codex and essentially can control the Global Health Market.

Control over the global health market would allow Hoechst to gain control of Global Health Care. The approval mifepristone in several UN countries would make it much easier for Hoechst to distribute the drug worldwide.

If the drug is already legal in the majority of the UN countries then Hoechst will have to do little convincing to get the drug approved in the other countries. This is why Hoechst is attempting to market mifepristone in America and is already manufacturing and distributing the drug in the United Kingdom and in China.

The money and power held by Hoechst could easily influence the World Health Organization which would allow Hoechst to dictate World Health Policy.

The backup support of the World Trade Organization would make it almost impossible for any country to oppose the policies influenced mainly by Hoechst. The corporation would become so powerful that they could regulate the use of mifepristone. They would be able to control who was allowed to use mifepristone and who was not allowed to use mifepristone.

Hoechst, with their power and influence could bring the Nazi party back into power in order to continue Hitler's goal of establishing the "perfect race". No longer would they need to use Zyklon B to exterminate the "undesirables." When a female got pregnant they could simply have her take a dose of Mifepristone and they would not have to waste the time or money to eliminate the "undesirables" by means of lethal force.

Hoechst could simply make all of the races other than the Aryan race slowly deplete in number and then simply go extinct. The unfinished goals of World War 2 would be taken care of.

There would finally be an end to the Jewish problem. The "perfect race" would rule the World for the rest of Mankind's existence.

Mifepristone could become a problem very quickly. Population control is the final explanation for mifepristone. Humans need to learn to be responsible for their own actions. In order to prevent history from repeating itself, we need to make sure that humans never become so irresponsible that an outside force such as Hoechst can come in and take control. Hitler did it once, let's not let it happen again.

---

Here is an article taken from the web dealing with eugenics. Author is unknown.

Eugenics is false science. It is about the selective prevention or encouragement of births for social, racial, or political ends. When promoting anti-natalist measures, such measures are often hidden beneath rhetoric about freedom of choice or reproductive health. When eugenic goals demand increased fertility, those goals may be advanced in the name of national power, race survival, or even family support programs (including maternity leave, day care, child care allowances, etc. as in much of Europe today) which would be considered progressive if not for the intent behind them.

Eugenics is not about reproductive freedom. It is, in fact, the antithesis of reproductive freedom because it is essentially concerned with competitive fertility. As such, it is similar to -- but not identical to -- population control. The distinction here is that eugenics supplies a biological or genetic interpretation to its means and aims. If it is a particular race that is to targeted, for instance, the eugenicist will first offer a "scientific" basis for such a plan -- usually consisting of statistical "evidence" that the disfavored group is less capable of achievement, more prone to anti-social behavior, or otherwise disproportionately responsible for a prevalent social problem.

Most importantly, the eugenicist will insist that this "inferiority" is hereditary -- that "excessively" high birthrates among these people will lead to a general decline in the quality of the society as a whole. Thus the eugenicist will believe it a legitimate and necessary public policy that minimizes procreation among certain groups (sometimes coinciding with the promotion of greater fertility among other segments of the population). It should be added that an activity designed to influence levels of fertility is not the only tactic available for use under a eugenic program. High rates of incarceration (especially where a large number of young adults are concerned) may be tolerated precisely because imprisonment results in a loss of reproductive opportunity.

Eugenic goals also extend to immigration when an incoming population is defined in some "scientific" way as socially inferior or if an exclusion policy selects by ethnicity or class. As was made abundantly clear under the nazi program of mass genocide, a well-functioning eugenics operation is never satisfied for long with modest results. It is almost inevitable that the escalation of what is deemed a "useful" activity will be seen advocates as "more useful." The word eugenics comes from the Greek for "good genes." Therefore, any policy that is thought by advocates to stimulate the prevalence of "good genes" is considered eugenic in its effect. Another term -- dysgenic is applied to a situation in which the undesirable elements grow at a greater rate than the rest.

Finally, it should be pointed out that eugenics can be broken down into several distinct philosophies. Social Darwinism is a term commonly applied to class-based eugenics. The operative theory here is that wealth is spontaneously distributed throughout the society according to the merits of the individuals within the society. In other words, adherents believe the wealthy are rich because of inherent traits that make them productive members of the community. The poor, on the other hand, are said to be destined to want precisely because they are of "inferior stock." Thus, in the mind of the eugenicist, any effort to promote economic justice will have a dysgenic effect because it only encourages breeding among these "lesser" types.

This kind of thinking can be found not far beneath the surface of contemporary proposals like the "family cap" for welfare parents, certain campaigns to halt teen pregnancy and the flap about an "illegitimacy." Racial eugenics defines people from different regions of the world as having unique evolutionary characteristics which make one group more suited to certain pursuits than another. This is the ideology behind The Bell Curve and similar publications that have aroused controversy in the past few years. Some proponents of eugenics cite physical or mental disabilities as cause for limits to reproduction. In terms of policy, they are more interested in stigmatizing the alcoholic, the drug abuser, or the mental patient than in seeking authentic forms of treatment and measures that would influence the economic or social environment in which such problems flourish. This form of eugenics has made inroads into many of the more legitimate sciences such as human genetics and bio-ethics. Indeed, eugenics is especially dangerous in this area because of the opportunity to apply obvious truths -- the fact that children inherit physical features from their parents, to name one -- to political issues, such as "criminal tendencies" or an "underclass" culture, in a way that results in discriminatory policies.

France accused of genocide role

Kagame denies ordering the shooting down of the Rwandan president's plane in 1994 Rwandan President Paul Kagame has accused French people of "direct involvement" in the 1994 genocide. He told the French state-owned RFI radio that they provided weapons and training, and gave orders to those who killed some 800,000 people. He said the "French elements" were acting on government orders. The president was speaking a week after a French daily reported a police report that blamed him for a rocket attack that precipitated the massacre. "Sooner or later they will have to account for their actions, either before a French court or the international court," Mr Kagame said. Report The report - extracts of which appeared in Le Monde - concludes that Mr Kagame gave direct orders for the rocket attack on then President Juvenal Habyarimana's plane. He has denied the claim. Mr Kagame was head of the mainly-Tutsi rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF) at the time. Burundi's then President Cyprien Ntaryamira was also killed in the rocket attack. Le Monde said the accusation against Mr Kagame is contained in a 220-page report drawn up by police acting for France's leading anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere. The police are investigating the deaths of several French citizens on the plane.

IF UN OFFICIALS WEREN'T BRIBED & FRANCE WASN'T MAKING BILLIONS OFF THE OIL FOR FOOD... THERE WOULD NEVER HAVE BEEN A WAR IN IRAQ!

In case people are still believing that Jacques Chirac and Kofi Annan are statemen and should be taken seriously... let me lay it out for you!

Kofi Annan and his lying cheating UN cronies were being paid hundreds of millions of dollars by Saddam Hussein to look the other way so Saddam could skim off BILLIONS of dollars from the United Nations Oil for Food fiasco... and use SOME of these billions to buy billions in weapons from France, China and Russia!

Do you remember back during the Clinton years when we used to hear that the bad old Americans were keeping food from getting to Iraq and millions of Iraqi children were dying because of it?

Remember that LIE that was put out by the people who hate anything and everything about America?

Well... for those of you who finally have eyes to see and ears to hear... let's rehash all those starving Iraqi children?

Who was really responsible for the food shortage in Iraq? I'll tell you up front... SADDAM HUSSEIN, JACQUES CHIRAC, KOFI ANNAN and Russia and China!

Saddam Hussein bled off $21.3 billion from the UN Food for Oil scam. This figure comes from the Senate Governmental Affairs permanent subcommittee on investigations.

The subcommittee investigators found that Saddam used the cash to pay off foreign politicians, businessmen, journalists and possibly even terrorist organizations through an elaborate scheme that allowed friends of the Iraqi dictator to sell oil at inflated prices and pocket large commissions.

Kofi Annan and the United Nations have refused requests from the subcommittee to provide witnesses and detailed information on U.N. audits that could shed light on the corruption.

Saddam used the cash from the program to buy missiles, dual-use military goods and munitions. The three major beneficiaries of the oil-for-food voucher scheme were Russia, China and France, which received 30 percent, 15 percent and 10 percent of the vouchers, respectively,

The United Nations is conducting its own inquiry into the program. Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker heads up this inquiry and is doing everything he can to protect the United Nations. Now why would a Federal Reserve man want to protect the United Nations? The Federal Reserve owners, yes the same people who want a One World Government, are the same people who created the United Nations. They created it to become the ruling body of their ONE World Government!

Let's summarize:

How many people remember the first Gulf War? The one which was caused because Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and looted, plundered, raped and murdered until the United States and a coalition of allies kicked him out.

After the war, the Iraqi people were suffering, so the United Nations and the people of the world set in place an OIL FOR FOOD program which was meant to provide relief to the suffering Iraqi people.

But the Iraqi people never got the food that was traded for oil. Instead, Saddam Hussein bribed UN officials and paid off Russia, France and China with billions of dollars for weapons.

Why wouldn't the United Nations vote to go to war to remove Saddam Hussein? Because Kofi Annan's friends and colleagues were getting RICH from the oil for food operation! Saddam was bribing them to look the other way.

Why wouldn't France, Russia and China vote to go to war? Because they were making billions of dollars from Hussein.

And Saddam was making the MOST money of anyone.

One final question:

WHERE IS THE $21.3 BILLION DOLLARS THAT SADDAM BLED OFF THE FOOD FOR OIL PROGRAM?

Could it be in French bank accounts that are controlled by former Baathists who are waging war against the United States?

Could the United Nations, France, Russia and China be providing the weapons and money that are killing American, Australian, and other coalition soldiers?

If the UN and France weren't making billions from Saddam, maybe they would have realized the danger he posed to the rest of the world. If they weren't involved with Saddam in his illegal skimming operation, maybe they would have seen things differently and sided with the United States. Maybe if they had sided with us, there would never have been a need for an Iraqi war!

Think about this the next time you buy something from UNESCO or drink a bottle of French wine! The money you give to the UN and France is supporting the very people who allowed poor Iraqi children to starve to death!

Oh... and before I forget it... All of this happened during the Clinton years. Gee... I wonder who in the Clinton Administration was bribed to look the other way?

TELEMARKERTERS SOON WILL BE CALLING YOUR CELLPHONE & YOU WILL PAY THE BILL!

Here's a message warning that telemarketers can start calling your cellphone
in January - at YOUR expense - unless you get on the "Do Not Call" list right away:

It takes only a minute ... you may want to do this pronto.

Starting Jan 1, 2005, all cell phone numbers will be made public to telemarketing firms. So this means as of Jan 1, your cell phone may start ringing off the hook with telemarketers, but unlike your home phone, most of you pay for your incoming calls. These telemarketers will eat up your free minutes and end up costing you money in the long run.

According to the National Do Not Call List, you have until Dec. 15th 2004 to get on the national "Do not call list" for cell phones. They said
that you need to call 1-888-382-1222 from the cell phone that you wish to have put on the "do not call list" to be put on the list. They also said you can do it online at http://www.donotcall.gov" title="http://www.donotcall.gov" target="_blank"http://www.donotcall.gov.

Registering only takes a minute, is in effect for 5 years and will
possibly save you money (definitely frustration)! Make sure you register
now!

https://www.donotcall.gov/FAQ/FAQConsumersNew.aspx

Every German schoolroom should display a stuffed Dutchman as a horrible example to youth, wrote the poet Heinrich Heine in 1831.

For Americans, the horrible example to youth at the taxidermist shop is Western Europe. Last month the US re-elected a president despised by enormous European majorities. Europeans hate and fear the United States, but Americans barely can summon the energy to ignore Europe, which they have written off as a decadent and soon-to-disappear civilization.

In the major newspapers of the US east coast, to be sure, Europeans continue to read about their sad little concerns. What "red state" Americans hear, by contrast, is that Europe is dying, like the now-vanished "evil empire" of Soviet communism. I have been viewing a video titled The Siege of Western Civilization (Storm King Press, , US$19.95) in which a former US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, Herbert Meyer, advises Americans on what they may do to avoid Europe's dreadful fate. Meyer's Siege video better reflects America's mood than the international pages of The New York Times.

When the administration of president Ronald Reagan determined that Soviet communism could be crushed, not merely contained, I observed recently, CIA director William J Casey "routinely ignored the legions of Russian-studies PhDs, reaching out instead to irregulars who could give him the insights he required" (How America can win the intelligence war, June 15). Herbert Meyer led the irregulars who broke with the established CIA view to argue that the Soviet economy was at the edge of breakdown.

According the CIA's official history, Meyer, a Fortune magazine editor whom Casey recruited as a senior aide, scoffed at the agency's estimates of Soviet growth. He explained:
Everything I had been able to learn about the Soviet economy, including visiting the place, told me it couldn't be growing at the rate the CIA said it was ... It simply couldn't be true. I know what an economy looks like when it's growing 3% a year, and that isn't what it looks like ... You cannot have food shortages growing worse, production shortages growing worse, bottlenecks - all those things we knew were going on - and still have an economy growing at the rate the agency said it was - which the US was barely doing at that point ... It couldn't be true.
Meyer left the CIA more than 20 years ago, and the Clinton years restocked the CIA with the same sort of second-string academics against whom the Reagan people had rebelled. The howls of pain attendant upon the accession of Porter Goss as the new director of central intelligence suggest that a similar rebellion now may be under way. In any case, Meyer's conclusion that Europe is beyond repair is consistent with his earlier reading of Soviet decay.

In his video, produced for "red state" audiences more attuned to the television screen than to printed text, Meyer has the following to say:
Simply put, those of us who are part of Western Civilization have stopped breeding. We are not replacing ourselves with children, and the economic implications of this are staggering - so staggering, in fact, that if we don't change course they will lead inexorably to our political collapse.

Here's the problem: To maintain a steady population in any country, its birthrate must be 2.1 children per woman. (That provides one child to replace each parent, plus an extra fraction to replace children who die and to compensate for the slightly smaller number of female than male births.) Today the birthrate in Western Europe is an average 1.5% - 30% below replacement. In Japan it's 1.46%. The birthrates in Italy and Spain are 1.2%, which means in these two countries the population will be nearly halved in every generation. Moreover, because we now are living longer than ever, in countries with a low birthrate the population rapidly ages.

Of course a country's birthrate can change. But it cannot change quickly, and that's the problem. Japan and Western Europe are already caught in the vortex ... Europe has tried to solve the problem by immigration - by importing workers to fill in for the European children who weren't born. But this is creating problems of its own. For example, most of these imported workers are Moslems, who aren't being absorbed into the Western culture and who now pose a political threat to the European countries in which they live and work - which, by the way, helps explain why our erstwhile allies don't support us in the war on terrorism. They are afraid of their own immigrants, who in some European countries now account for more than 10% of the total population.
The last point echoes some of my own recent observations (Spain, and why radical Islam can win, March 16).

With a birthrate of 2%, Meyer adds, the United States still is in danger, but can be set to rights, presuming that it takes early action to reform public pensions and health insurance. Meyer concludes:
It is time to start remembering - or perhaps to start learning for the first time - how Western civilization developed and what it really has accomplished ... And we need to go beyond the schools and assure that all Americans understand what Western civilization really is, and why preserving it is so important to their own future. If we do this, political support will start to fade for those who would destroy Western civilization.
I do not think the United States will find it difficult to avoid the European or Japanese form of demographic decline, presuming that they take measures to attract productive immigrants. Stricter immigration rules in the wake of September 11, 2001, had the unintended effect of discouraging Asian immigration to the United States. One must assume this is temporary; surely the US can distinguish between desirable and undesirable entrants.

Western civilization - the heritage of St Augustine, St Thomas Aquinas, Dante, Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe - may be harder to preserve than America's pension system. Except for Western classical music, which Asians have embraced as their own, the cultural heritage of the West has no natural constituency (When immortality is not enough, January 5). American evangelicals have deep roots in the Bible - which is Western only at the margin - and only passing interest in subsequent doings of the West. They are more likely to listen to Christian variants of country and heavy metal than J S Bach. A story (on ) from US marines outside Fallujah sums it up:


"You are the sovereign. You're name is holy. You are the pure spotless lamb," a female voice cried out on the loudspeakers as the marines clapped their hands and closed their eyes, reflecting on what lay ahead for them.

In times when fighting looms, many soldiers draw on their evangelical or born-again heritage to help them face the battle.

"It's always comforting. Church attendance is always up before the big push," said First Sergeant Miles Thatford.

"Sometimes, all you've got is God."

Between the service's electric-guitar religious tunes, marines stepped up on the chapel's small stage and recited a verse of scripture, meant to fortify them for war.

One spoke of their Old Testament hero - David - a shepherd boy who would become Israel's king, battling the Philistines some 3,000 years ago.

"Thus David prevailed over the Philistines," the marine said, reading from scripture, and the marines shouted back "Hoorah, King David," using their signature grunt of approval.
Clearly the marines grunted "Hooah!", not "Hoorah." Among its meanings in soldiers' patois is "Amen." For an explanation, see The Urban Dictionary. "Hooah, King David!" Not what I anticipated when first I studied the Psalter, but in lean times one has to take what one can get.

Eisenhower, in his grave, is probably thinking it wasn't worth the effort.

(CPOD) Dec. 5, 2004 – Charles de Gaulle is regarded as the greatest hero in France, according to a poll by Ifop published in Le Journal du Dimanche. 39 per cent of respondents consider de Gaulle as the most important character in French history.

De Gaulle commanded the free French forces during World War II, and headed the country’s provisional government from 1944 to 1946. In November 1958, he was elected president with 78 per cent of all cast ballots. De Gaulle administered the government from 1959 until his resignation in 1969 following a defeat in a referendum to modify the Senate.

Napoleon Bonaparte—general of the French Revolution, and the effective ruler of France for almost 17 years as consul and emperor—was second on the list with 18 per cent, followed by Emperor Charlemagne, Socialist Party (PS) founder Jean Jaurès and national heroine Joan of Arc.

Poling Data

Which of the following characters do you think is the most important in French history?

Charles de Gaulle 39%

Napoleon Bonaparte 18%

Charlemagne 13%

Jean Jaurès 10%

Joan of Arc 6%

Louis XIV 5%

Vercingétorix 3%

Maximilien Robespierre 2%

Henri IV 2%

Georges Clemenceau 2%

"Emerson once wrote that there is 'a crack in everything God made.' None of us is perfect. We're all 'cracked' in some way. It's just that some cracks are more visible than others. What distinguishes pro-lifers is our recognition that for a society to be truly human and humane we ought to help 'fill in the cracks' and provide what is missing."

Jean Gorton, National Right to Life News, December 1998

Although it often requires multiple exposures, eventually I am usually able to put two and two together. This morning is a good example.

I sat down in front of my computer screen and steeled myself to read the latest depressing news from the Netherlands.

When aviators talk about "pushing the envelope," they mean taking the aircraft to its ultimate limits. The Dutch, it would seem, are doing the same with euthanasia. Only, unlike test pilots, they appear to be sublimely indifferent to whether the craft itself is torn to pieces.

The seductive sounding headline and grotesquely misleading first sentence sets the gloomy stage for what follows: "Mercy killings of babies revealed in Netherlands.  Amsterdam, Netherlands -- a hospital in the Netherlands -- the first nation to permit euthanasia -- recently proposed guidelines for mercy killings of terminally ill newborns and then revealed that it's already begun such procedures, which include administering a lethal dose of sedatives."

 Judging by the next four sentences, it's as if the Dutch have strapped on power skis, so quickly are they descending down the slippery slope.

"The Groningen Academic Hospital's announcement last month that it had carried out four such killings in 2003 came amid discussion in Holland about whether to legalize euthanasia for people incapable of deciding whether they want to end their lives. Included would be children, people who are severely mentally retarded and people left in irreversible comas after accidents. The hospital said it reported the killings to prosecutors. There has been no legal action."

But does this come as ANY surprise? In a nation that started the legalization of euthanasia ball rolling down the hill? Whose medical establishment seems utterly determined to make it easier and easier to kill the dependent, the powerless, and the elderly--the weakest of all? Which seems obsessed with giving the same "right" to have oneself killed to those who can't say, "kill me"?

The choice of words--"Mercy Killing"--is supposed to function as a discussion-stopper, an all-purpose absolver. Motivation supposedly trumps behavior. If I decide on my own that it would be merciful of me to end your life--and you are too young or too helpless to stop me from exercising "mercy"--you are plum out of luck. And life.

Take a second look at that list of "candidates." If we accept the logic, this is just the beginning. The ultimate target has always been the frail elderly, a gigantic pool of potential victims. The next way station on the road to mass killing will be what those with Alzheimer's, followed quickly by those who are euphemistically labeled the "pleasantly senile."

Likewise, expanding the number of babies to whom the "Groningen Protocol" could be applied is as easy as pie. Lethal dosages will be administered to "end the life of newborns deemed" to be in severe "pain from incurable disease or extreme deformities."

"Severe cases of spina bifida" is cited as an example. Well, I ring a bell for a charity each Christmas season. Almost everyday I see a woman who comes tooling into the grocery store in her electric wheelchair, having driven there in her minivan. She has spina bifida.

But the point is as simple as it is obvious. You use vague language, susceptible to abuse and expansion, to fling the door wide open for a policy that is already flawed and inherently discriminatory. Then, you pat yourself on the back.

"As things are, people are doing this secretly and that's wrong," said Eduard Verhagen, head of Groningen's children's clinic. "In the Netherlands we want to expose everything, to let everything be subjected to vetting." Actually, culling is a better description.

No sooner had I finished reading the stories than I had occasion  to talk with Jean Garton. Tomorrow, we'll talk about two of Jeans wonderful grandchildren, both of whom would have been prime candidates for "mercy killing" by the oh-so-caring doctors at Groningen Academic Hospital.  Culling the 'Herd'

“The young Marines today … are emulating the warrior ethic that the Marines who went before established,” Marine Commandant Gen. Michael W. Hagee said Nov. 5 in an interview with the Pentagon Channel and American Forces Press Service.

Hagee, the Corps’ 33rd commandant, explained that “Marines that have gone before us really set the standard” in famous battles such as Belleau Wood in France in World War I; Iwo Jima, the tiny Japanese island 660 miles south of Tokyo, in World War II; and the Chosin Reservoir in the Korean War.

As the Corps celebrates its 229th birthday today, modern Marines have much in common with those long-ago warriors, Hagee said. “We are a force in readiness, and we’ve always been a force in readiness,” he said. “We’re an expeditionary force, and by expeditionary, I mean expeditionary in the fullest sense. In other words, when we arrive, we can sustain ourselves. And finally, we are a combined-arms team. That has remained the same for years and years.”

Still, today’s junior Marines shoulder much more responsibility than their predecessors. Hagee said the war on terrorism is “essentially a war at the squad-leader and platoon-leader level.”

In 1999, then-Commandant Gen. Charles Krulak wrote of “the strategic corporal” — young Marines “far from the flagpole without the direct supervision of senior leadership.”

Modern Marines “will be asked to deal with a bewildering array of challenges and threats,” Krulak wrote in Marines magazine. “In order to succeed under such demanding conditions they will require unwavering maturity, judgment and strength of character.”

Hagee said the emergence of “the strategic corporal” makes it much more vital that Marines continue their education — and that the Corps make education opportunities available to Marines.

“We’ve got corporals and sergeants out there making very important decisions. And they don’t have time to get a 3 x 5 card out of their pocket, and they don’t have time to check with anyone,” he said. “They need to make the decision there. And in order to prepare them to do that, we have to properly educate them.”

The commandant said he’d like to see that every Marine has the opportunity to earn at least a bachelor’s degree over the course of a career.

In a wide-ranging interview about the past, present and future of the Marine Corps, Hagee said he’s often inspired when visiting Marines who have been wounded in Iraq. He said it’s “uplifting” to spend time with these young Marines.

“They’re very proud of what they have done. They’re not thinking about themselves,” Hagee said of the wounded Marines he’s visited. “They want to know how their unit is doing, and they consistently tell me, ‘I am ready to go back.’ ”

The general also offered words on encouragement for Marines who are manning home stations and are not deployed to a war zone. “What I tell the Marines who are back here in the United States is, ‘Just think what you have done over the past year,’” Hagee said.

He noted that Marines who are not deployed are a vital part of training and equipping those who are deployed. “Without the support of Marines back here in the United States, the force protection and the capabilities of the Marines in theater would be much less,” he said. “Everyone has an important job, whether you’re forward or whether you’re back here.”

Speaking before Operation Al Fajr began in Fallujah, Iraq, on Nov. 8, Hagee said the Marines preparing to carry out that mission were ready for what they would face and were in good spirits.

“I would argue that the reason they feel so confident is that they’re properly equipped, properly trained, properly led, and they understand the importance of the mission,” he said.

Looking to the future of the force, Hagee said the Corps would maintain its character and its three core missions: to maintain the service’s force-in-readiness posture, to maintain a combined-arms team and to maintain the Marines’ expeditionary character.

In short, he said, the Marines will remain “most ready (to respond) when the nation is least ready.”

Would you believe that there is a choice the "pro-choicers" do not want you to make?

Based solely on morality, are you willing to say that the moral issue of slavery should be enforced simply as a moral issue? This is a very important point. Many people have offered the objection that we should not force a particular morality in the issue of abortion. My questions are very pointed and leading, and they were simply to make the point that virtually everybody who makes that kind of objection actually does believe that there are cases in which morality should be legislated. We talked about the obvious issue of slavery because there is the human rights issue that is at stake.

The question for us is whether the unborn child is a human being that has inalienable rights in the same way that a black is a human being that has inalienable rights.

The point I'm making is that if you don't address this issue on a human rights basis then you're not addressing it on the basis that pro-lifers are addressing it. The questions should be asked about the appropriateness of abortion or about laws against abortion based on a human rights issue. To be honest with you, I and virtually every other pro-lifer will abandon the fight if the unborn child is not a human being worthy of being protected. We're not interested in getting into people's bedrooms and telling them how to have sex and how to live. We're not interested in restricting choices because we are bigoted and want to make people's lives miserable. We're interested in human rights just like those who argued against slavery.

If you are to reject my position on abortion, that's your prerogative. I respect your right to do that. But I would encourage you to engage intellectually the real critical issue: is the unborn child a human being? If you can answer for yourself with some rationality that there is no reason to believe that this is a human being, then I think you've justified your position. But I don't think the simple objection that it's not appropriate for one person to force their morality on someone else is ultimately legitimate. When questioned a little bit you acknowledge that that's not a valid way of approaching human rights issues.

What about cases of rape and incest?

During the slavery debate, both in this country and at the turn of the century in England, the issues were framed in the same way: choice, the government shouldn't be in the position of legislating morality, the government shouldn't tell us how to run our private lives. Yet there a human being clearly was at issue.

But what I don't want anybody to do is to mistakenly frame this issue as one of choice. It is not an issue of choice any more than slavery was an issue of choice. It's not an issue of what a woman can do with her body. Frankly, a woman can't do what she wants with her own body and neither can men. Laws restrict those freedoms given the right set of circumstances.

The issue to be considered here is the issue of human rights. It's unfortunate that the press and certain people arguing for one position have framed the question differently because they have missed the entire point. During the slavery debate, both in this country and at the turn of the century in England, the issues were framed in the same way: choice, the government shouldn't be in the position of legislating morality, the government shouldn't tell us how to run our private lives. Yet there a human being clearly was at issue. Even then when you had a living, breathing human being standing there staring back, they still could argue that way. I'm not a bit surprised that it could be done with an unseen infant that is growing out of sight in the womb of its mother.

Anyway that's my personal challenge to you to rethink this issue in a different fashion.