Pridger's Blog - Pridger vs. The New World Order

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Wednesday, 30 April, 2008

OBAMA BEING BOMBED BY REV. WRIGHT
BLACK LIBERATION THEOLOGY – AN ANTI-OBAMA BOMBSHELL

Obama's campaign is a lot more about race than the media gives credit for. As Geraldine Ferraro truthfully pointed out, he simply could not have been where he is today had he had been white. It's pretty obvious that Obama has been held to a slightly different standard than a young, relatively inexperienced, white candidate would have been.

The proof of this is in the fact that it is so politically incorrect to mention such an obvious truth. Hillary immediately fired Ms. Ferraro from her campaign for it. And, of course, a black candidate can speak on certain touchy subjects with considerably more candor than a white candidate could without jeopardizing his candidacy.

Nonetheless, Obama has a serious problem. Reverend Jeremiah Wright, has become his Achilles heel. We couldn't even imagine a white candidate who belonged to anything like a "White Church" ever getting near where Obama is today. A white candidate who had chanced to attended Reverent Wright's Church only a few times, probably couldn't have got into the race?

Rev. Wright has preached some pretty politically incorrect sermons, as is his right. The problem is, he's is not only sticking to his guns, but is now firing them off indiscriminately without any regard for his parishioner, Barack HUSSEIN Obama's, presidential prospects.

Rev. Wright carefully emphasized Obama's middle name several times. He couldn't have picked a worse time to make his media grandstand. He couldn't have done his friend and parishioner any more damage had he been on Hillary or the McCain payroll.

But Obama's candidacy may survive and even come out ahead. But it is pretty certain the media would have immediately cremated a white candidate found to have such associations.

Perhaps Rev. Wright doesn't want to see Obama become the nation's first black president – at least not without publicly embracing his own, very racially charged and divisive, Black Liberation outlook.

Reverend Wright seems to want a racially divisive black president – not one that would heal the wounds and festering sores of race relations.

If he is to remain the Democratic front runner, Obama had little choice but to cave in to pressure to vigorously disown his pastor's controversial stance and rhetoric. His back has been put to the wall, and political expediency dictates that he decisively "distance himself" from a person to whom he had carefully cultivated a twenty year relationship.

It's Pridger's personal opinion that Obama probably does share some of Reverend Wright's more radical beliefs. If that were not the case, he would have left his church a long time ago. To say he was unaware of them is simply not credible – and doing so has been Obama's closest approach to outright lying on the campaign trail. (It's almost comparable to Hillary's story of her Bosnian War experience.) But he certainly cannot own up to it and survive as a presidential candidate.

Ironically (but certainly not surprisingly), both advisors and critics openly seem to agree – it's definitely better to openly lie to the American people on such matters than take a chance on losing the nomination. The goal is not truth – it's the nomination, and the presidency!

Much to his credit, Obama has thus far handled the situation as gently and gentlemanly possible under the peculiar circumstances. He remained as loyal to his friend as possible as long as circumstances permitted – until Rev. Wright seemed to try to sabotage candidacy.

And the circumstances are certainly peculiar, to say the least. Mainly (as already mentioned), it is a very strange circumstance that Obama should find himself on the brink of winning the Democratic nomination for president of the United States of America. It is also particularly peculiar that he has become so extraordinarily popular with so many white voters, both young and old alike. It's nothing short of amazing.

One of Obama's great appeals is that it actually appeared we'd "somehow stumbled" onto an honest, intelligent, and articulate, presidential candidate. That is pretty rare, whether the candidate is Black or White.

Race is unquestionably a very big factor in this. A white man could never have been as honest and forthright as Obama has been, and survived to first base. Honest and forthright white men appear to have become unelectable in American presidential politics. Our only hope for an honest man in the White House, it seems, is to elect a black president.

In spite of the fact that Obama may be the best man standing among the presidential front runners (as Pridger thinks he is) – the very fact that he is in that position he is in, seems downright farcical. At least that's how Pridger sees it. There were several other black notables available, who could have been recruited for the big push intended to deliver up the nation's first black president. Obama may be a good man, but he certainly wasn't a rational choice for the particular job being considered.

If Obama ends up as the Democratic nominee for president, his prospects for beating John McCain would seem rather weak.

Hillary's chances aren't all that great either, as Pridger sees it. But we can never tell. Everything depends on how the media handles the candidates. The winner will be the one who gets the most favorable coverage. And who gets the most favorable coverage has very little to do with who would be the best man or woman to lead the nation. It has everything to do with which emerges as the "anointed one" in view of the roadmap charted out for the nation by powerful people behind the scenes.

If popular pressures should ever manage to put the wrong person in the White House, the program will not be changed accommodate the new sitting president. Rather, he or she will simply have to buckle to the program laid out before them. If they don't, impeachment or worse, is the fore ordained solution. The vice president selected will be one who has been specially selected to fulfill the intended mission if the president is dethroned, or will be sufficiently malleable to properly adjust to the realities of the game at hand.

As we have seen, all the "dangerous" candidates (the ones who went to the heart of serious issues), were weeded out early in the game, or marginalized right out of the running. The three remaining are all considered "acceptable" candidates by the ruling establishment. This means they are already with the program, or are considered sufficiently malleable to conform to the program's major policy goals. A president may change the window dressing in the White House, but not major national policy goals.

McCain, seems to be a hundred percent with the program. He's dependable. Barack and Hillary would appear only a little less so. But both are exceedingly vulnerable, as Bill Clinton was vulnerable. When it was necessary to keep Bill from going astray, there was a whole array of personal vulnerabilities available to exploit to put pressure on him to get back in line. And when Bill got back in line, the impeachment proceedings collapsed, his problems went away, and he was reelected in a landslide.

A president who is a hundred percent with the program, like George W. Bush, can do no wrong. That's just the way it works.

SUMMING UP THE CHOICES

No two ways about it – it's a bizarre presidential race. In the mean time, the major choices seem to be limited to:

1. A relatively inexperience black man whose half-sisters and step-mothers on his father's side, are Kenyan Luos – who (despite his Moslem name), has attended a "Black Liberation" congregation for all of his political life – whose highly educated lawyer wife only became proud of her country when her husband became a Democratic presidential candidate. He's a heck of a nice guy, and his campaign isn't about race or Black Liberation, but about "Change."

2. The wife of the nation's very first X-rated president, who would very much like to spend another eight years defiling the White House. She's a woman with a lot of spunk (bravely dodged bullets in Bosnia, among other things), but her campaign is not about gender or proving anything, but about "Change."

3. The hundred percent, all American, white man – and only standing war hero. His campaign is neither about race, gender, or too much "Change," but very much about "Staying the Course" and not backing down from our national commitments – to others elsewhere.

Pridger cannot get enthused about any of the three. Neither of the "Change" candidates have brought any of the "Right Change" to the table. Their change would likely be to get us onto another wrong side-track. And the "Stay the Course" candidate promises more of the same – by staying on the present wrong track.

All other candidates – the ones who articulated the need for real, meaningful, change (even return to Constitutional principles of government) – are either already totally out of the race or are totally ignored by the media so that it seems they are out of the race.

John Q. Pridger

MORE TAINTED DRUGS FROM CHINA

Pets and people are dying from Chinese imports. Apparently that's what it takes to get people to think about what free trade is doing to us. Maybe when a few hundred people have died from tainted pharmaceuticals imported from China, it will dawn on somebody in a position of power and trust in Washington, that our whole free trade policy is tainted – and not only dangerous to our health but our entire economy.

There is no sound reason in the world why we should be depending on China to provide us with pharmaceuticals or the products used in them. There is no sound reason why we should depend on any foreign nation, whether friend or foe, for anything related to our public health.

But pharmaceuticals are just the tip of the iceberg. Their is no rationale, other than profits for multinational corporations, for us to rely on foreign imports for just about everything we need and use in our consumer society.

When will enough people wake up to what is going on to make some desperately needed policy changes? Our entire economy is on the brink of collapse, largely because of free trade policy – policies that had their roots in the present concept of globalism, going back to the beginnings of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and have since metastasized into the WTO, NAFTA, CAFTA, and a whole raft of other sneakily crafted free trade agreements.

Free Trade has turned our nation into the market of choice for producers in a host of developing nations that ought rightly to be producing for themselves rather than us – making us into a nation dependent on others elsewhere for just about everything we need for national survival.

Our nation – the richest nation in the world – can no longer produce enough real wealth to pay its own way in a poorer world. We have to depend on others elsewhere for almost everything that has become dear to us – including the financing of our increasingly conspicuous nationally consumptive life-style, not to mention the tab on our costly wars.

We're willing to send our troops to fight for freedom and liberty in Iraq and Afghanistan, under the color of fighting for peace and security there and at home, but we are no longer willing to fight or sacrifice for the independence and "real" prosperity that we once enjoyed as a nation.

Now it's "Safety and Security at any price!" rather than "Give me liberty or give me death!" And we are losing our safety, security, liberty, and the very national independence so hard won in the Revolution.

Our Washington brain trust has willfully and intentionally thrown away almost all of our natural national advantages that we had – sacrificing them on the altars of globalism and Mammon. We have produced more millionaires and billionaires, but not a prosperous and secure citizenry. And we have not become any safer, more secure, or richer in the process. We have become immeasurably poorer and less secure. But we haven't been called upon to pay up yet.

We will be called upon to pay up in due time, and we won't like the cost.

John Q. Pridger

LOSING THE COLD WAR WITH CHINA

Ronald Reagan and International Capitalism won the Cold War with the Former Soviet Union and it's particular brand of Marxist Leninism, but we have not won any war with or against Communist China. We merely congratulate ourselves that China (though it is still "Communist China"), have "seen the light" and have come over to our way of making a fast buck.

We are perhaps in a Cold War with China right now that our Washington brain trust fails to perceive. If we are, it would appear China is certain to win in the end.

PAPER TIGERS
(Excerpts from "Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung")

...I have said that all the reputedly powerful reactionaries are merely paper tigers. The reason is that they are divorced from the people. Look! Was not Hitler a paper tiger? Was Hitler not overthrown? I also said that the tsar of Russia, the emperor of China and Japanese imperialism were all paper tigers. As we know, they were all overthrown. U.S. imperialism has not yet been overthrown and it has the atom bomb. I believe it also will be overthrown. It, too, is a paper tiger. Speech at the Moscow Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties (November 18, 1957).

U.S. imperialism invaded China’s territory of Taiwan and has occupied it for the past nine years. A short while ago it sent its armed forces to invade and occupy Lebanon. The United States has set up hundreds of military bases in many countries all over the world. China’s territory of Taiwan, Lebanon and all military bases of the United States on foreign soil are so many nooses round the neck of U.S. imperialism. The nooses have been fashioned by the Americans themselves and by nobody else, and it is they themselves who have put these nooses round their own necks, handing the ends of the ropes to the Chinese people, the peoples of the Arab countries and all the peoples of the world who love peace and oppose aggression. The longer the U.S. aggressors remain in those places, the tighter the nooses round their necks will become. Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).

Imperialism will not last long because it always does evil things. It persists in grooming and supporting reactionaries in all countries who are against the people, it has forcibly seized many colonies and semi-colonies and many military bases, and it threatens the peace with atomic war. Thus, forced by imperialism to do so, more than 90 per cent of the people of the world are rising or will rise up in struggle against it. Yet imperialism is still alive, still running amuck in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In the West imperialism is still oppressing the people at home. This situation must change. It is the task of the people of the whole world to put an end to the aggression and oppression perpetrated by imperialism, and chiefly by U.S. imperialism. Interview with a Hsinhua News Agency correspondent (September 29, 1958).

Riding roughshod everywhere, U.S. imperialism has made itself the enemy of the people of the world and has increasingly isolated itself. Those who refuse to be enslaved will never be cowed by the atom bombs and hydrogen bombs in the hands of the U.S. imperialists. The raging tide of the people of the world against the U.S. aggressors is irresistible. Their struggle against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys will assuredly win still greater victories. “Statement Supporting the Panamanian People’s Just Patriotic Struggle Against U.S. Imperialism” (January 12, 1964), People of the World, Unite and Defeat the U.S. Aggressors and All Their Lackeys, 2nd ed., pp. 9-10.

If the U.S. monopoly capitalist groups persist in pushing their policies of aggression and war, the day is bound to come when they will be hanged by the people of the whole world. The same fate awaits the accomplices of the United States. Speech at the Supreme State Conference (September 8, 1958).

Over a long period we have developed this concept for the struggle against the enemy: strategically we should despise all our enemies, but tactically we should take them all seriously... In war, battles can only be fought one by one and the enemy forces can only be destroyed one by one. Factories can only be built one by one...

It is my opinion that the international situation has now reached a new turning point. There are two winds in the world today, the East Wind and the West Wind.

There is a Chinese saying, “Either the East Wind prevails over the West Wind or the West Wind prevails over the East Wind.” I believe it is characteristic of the situation today that the East Wind is prevailing over the West Wind. That is to say, the forces of socialism have become overwhelmingly superior to the forces of imperialism.

Monday, 21 April, 2008

FREE TRADE

We tend to like anything that's free. "FREE" is one of the biggest advertising pitch words – the lure of something for nothing.

Trade, of course, isn't something for nothing. It never is. It can't be. Trade is "Trade" – where something is exchanged for something else.

What the term free trade actually should mean is the "freedom to trade" if we want to. It should also mean "freedom not to trade" on unfavorable terms. Everybody, and all nations, of course, already have those rights. Trade is often desirable, but only when the trading is mutually beneficial to the trading parties.

As Ben Franklin pointed out, there is no "profit" in trade unless one party is somehow getting cheated. But there is potential benefit to the trading parties when the trade is fair. An equal trade is the ideal trade – especially when both parties feel they have "gained" by it.

Free trade is an unalienable right between mutually agreeing parties, but what we call "Free trade agreements" do not necessarily promote mutually beneficial trade. They are essentially special deals entered into by governments for the benefit of special interests.

In the case of trade between nations, the criteria considered should be the benefit to the citizens or subjects of the nations involved.

We have seen that all of our "Free Trade" agreements, such as WTO, NAFTA, and our Most Favored Trade status with China, favor multinational corporations rather than the people. Corporations have benefited, but the people have lost.

Many people are fooled, of course, and think that cheap imported Chinese made goods are an exceptionally good deal – thus "free trade" with China must be good. But the people are not apprised of the true cost of those cheap imports. The price doesn't register at the Wal-Mart checkout counter. The real price is in lost American jobs and whole industries, and in accumulating loss of our industrial base.

Our huge and increasing trade deficit costs us plenty. In effect, most of our "trade" with China is not trade at all but purchases in which our largest export is money. So the Chinese have a lot of our money – and they turn around and invest it in American Treasury instruments and American businesses, thereby gaining an inordinate degree of financial leverage over us.

But these things cost us collectively rather individually, so we, as consumers, don't notice. Workers who lose their job may notice, but they might not make the connection. The high and exponentially increasing costs of ship and port security are also costs of our "free trade." And, of course, part of the high costs of those "exceptionally good trade deals," come due every April 15th when we get our income tax bill. And what we don't pay now, because the bill is far too high, is debited to future generations of taxpayers.

In the case of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Mexican people lost big time right along with the American people. We Americans know what we lost – hundreds of thousands of good jobs, and entire industries. Mexico gained a lot of corporate millionaires and the Mexican people gained some manufacturing jobs. But just as they went to work thinking it an extraordinary good deal, they lost most of their purchasing power when the Mexican peso conveniently collapsed. Coincidentally, this loss of purchasing power to Mexican workers greatly increased profits for "American" companies operating in Mexico, because the cost of already cheap Mexican labor took a great plunge when the Mexican peso cratered.

Then, when cheap American grains began flooding the Mexican markets, as part of the deal, Mexican farmers started loosing their livelihood. In the end, thousands of them have found it necessary to leave their farms and villages and join with hundreds of thousands of their countrymen in an effort to find better prospects north of the border.

It has been a lose, lose, situation for all of us – but not for the corporations that moved south to take advantage of the cheap labor down there. They have done very well – and it has helped Wall Street. But the rest of us have lost and will continue to lose.

"Free Trade" with Mexico and China meant that American corporations were "freed" from American labor and able to utilize Mexican and Chinese labor to produce American products for American markets. This is not free trade at all, but nothing short of a massive and diabolical hoax on the American people. It's a sell-out of American labor, American industry, and American business (and Pridger is not referring to American based corporations that produce "American Products Produced Abroad" (APPA) – American industry isn't really "American" unless it produces here, employing American workers).

Free Trade Agreements totally skew trading arrangements in favor of international corporations positioned to take advantage of them. And they are positioned to take advantage of them because, that's what the agreements were about in the first place. They are geared to serve capital, but not the people. Capital's great advantage is in wide international wage differentials. Carefully crafted propaganda alone, tells us they serve our interests.

It seems nobody in Washington has noticed yet, but all of our Free Trade agreements are a sellout of American national security at the most fundamental level. We maintain the world's most powerful armed forces, but no longer maintain the manufacturing base to sustain the nation. We no longer produce the wealth required to support our own economy. We have come to depend on foreign creditors to maintain our still increasingly consumptive national life-style.

With the more prosperous nations of Europe, things are a little different. The World Trade Organization merely hamstrings us by placing trade regulatory powers in the hands of unaccountable foreign regulators at the WTO. It deprives us of "our sovereign right" to protect our own markets, industries, and workers. Yes, it deprives us of our sovereign right to favor our own workers over foreign workers! And it provides market incentives for foreign interests to purchase our national assets and take the profits home.

Another example of what "Free Trade" has done, is in the means by which most of our foreign trade is carried out. The lion's share of it is moved in ships – almost all of which are foreign owned and foreign manned. Tens of thousands of them are plying the seas with the substance that fuels our national economy, from oil to our most essential consumer goods, and an increasing percentage of the very food we eat.

We only have a very few American flagged ships carrying our goods, and even most of them are foreign owned and operated! Literally all were foreign built. Thus almost all the freight revenue generated by our huge volume of trade go to the foreign competition! And most of the profits made in the entire array of related industries, from ship building to the manufacture of the giant container cranes that work the cargo, accrue to the foreign competition.

Ideally we should carry at least half of "our trade" in our own ships, so "real" American companies, American seamen, and the American economy, would get the benefit of the freight revenues. American industries should build not only our ships and everything that goes into them, but the container cranes as well. But practically all of the freight and construction industry profits go to the foreign competition. How's that for economic and national security planning? A total lack of common "horse sense"!

Real free and beneficial trade can only be carried out on a bi-lateral basis. We should trade only what we produce in excess for what we do not or cannot produce for ourselves. And we should be able to pick and choose what is traded according to our best interests – that is, in the interests of the American people.

"Cheap goods" should not be the goal of national policy, unless they are goods that Americans simply cannot produce. A national economic policy that focuses on "cheap" imports also focuses on cheap labor. And this is true whether the labor in "over there" or "over here." The pressure is on for American labor to produce more cheaply, so we can "compete in the international free market system." It has aptly been pointed out that this ultimately results in a "race to the floor."

There was a reason why we were at the top of our national prosperity at a time when Americans both manufactured and consumed what they produced. Back then, American workers made good American wages and they had evolved into the largest, most prosperous middle class in the history of mankind. They paid American prices in their own marketplace, of course, as was only fitting. And we never had it so good.

We had a favorable balance of trade, and the United States was the world's greatest creditor nation. The nation was prosperous and the economy was unassailably strong. But all of that has been thrown away by our Washington brain trust – fixated, as it is, on a New World Order.

There is no longer any free and fair trade. "Free Trade Agreements" have destroyed it in an effort to bring about a "Wonderful New World," managed by a combination of huge corporations and regulatory regimes that do not have any loyalty to any particular nation interest, or the interests of any "people" – least of all, our own.

There has been no benefit for Americans in any of our Free Trade agreements. They have been destructive of the very fabric of our free enterprise system. They destroy national, regional, and local economics and self-reliance. Not just here but in the trading partner nations too – making them dependent on global corporate machinery. And this global machinery is subject to catastrophic breakdown!

This is not only nationally suicidal, but it has the makings of massive global economic catastrophe. We may be fooled into believing that we've never had it so good, but when the system breaks down, as it certainly must in due course, we will find that we have rendered ourselves and everybody else helpless.

If climate change and global warming are really the problem that many claim, free trade and globalism are taking us further and further from anything like viable solutions. We trade altogether too much – far too much. And most of it is as unnecessary as the Iraq War. The multiple and increasing ten thousand mile supply chains – steamship routes, rails, and truck transport, are a huge and growing source of greenhouse gases.

And the New World Order is as much about developing industrialized economies in all Third World countries as it is about ultimately downsizing the prospects of American workers. The rapid, and dirty, industrialization of India and China is no way to solve the problem of air pollution and global warming – it's the way to compound the problem several fold.

As intended, we (as consumers), are hooked on cheap imports and free trade. We're hooked to the degree that fixing the situation seems all but impossible. But the situation will have to be fixed at some point, or we will be in for some hard times that will make the Great Depression seem like a holiday at the park.

Globalism and free trade are no substitutes for national independence. "Dependence" should never be a personal or a national goal. But that's what globalism, international interdependence, and "free trade" are all about.

Every nation, and every region within every nation, should be as economically self-sufficient as is practical with the available resources available. In the end, anything else is suicidal. Trade, especially in the case of large economically viable nations with ample natural resources, should be a luxury rather than a necessity. For if it should ever become a dire necessity, the Emperor may at some point find he has no clothes.

In the case of nations such as Singapore and (to a lesser degree), Japan, trade is critical and necessary for national economic survival. But in the case of large nations such as our own, economic self-reliance, to the extent practical, should be the national goal.

We don't need Chinese, Korean, or Japanese cars, and they certainly don't need ours. And we don't need Brazilian soybeans and Argentinean, Canadian, or Australian beef. Those are things we produce very well right here. We don't need Bangladeshi made clothing. We produce the cotton here! We don't need Indian knowledge workers answering our service calls, we have plenty of unemployed people in need of jobs right here.

ISOLATIONISM AND PROTECTIONISM

Those two words have naughty words, sort of like "McCarthyism." If a presidential candidate advocated either one, he or she would be hounded out of the running in a hurry. Yet all that is really meant by them is, (1) Minding our own national business and not meddling in the affairs of other nations, and (2) Protecting our own national "owner operated" market place on behalf of those owner-operators.

If we don't look after our own interests, nobody else will. In fact, others will soon step in and be profiting while we look on as disenfranchised "former owners."

The fact is, our nation grew up and became the greatest success story in the history of nation states during our so-called isolationist and protectionist periods (which included our entire national history until the advent of globalism). Since dropping our national commitment to those fundamental principles, our national fortunes have taken a precipitous dive into debt and national dependence on others elsewhere. And our politicians continue to stoke the fires of national dependence – increasing our debt at every step of the way.

We're no longer an independent, largely self-reliant, nation. Our economy is no longer producing the wealth necessary to pay its own way, much less manufacture the array of consumer goods being consumed.

The protective tariff was as importantly critical to our industrial development and sustainability as it was as a source of government revenue. Trade protection was even more critically important to our national security than the armed forces. Now we still have the world's most powerful military defense establishment, but not the industrial machinery to sustain the economy.

We've been sold a bill of goods, and sold down the river with them. And we've fallen for the idea that military and "financial power" are viable and substantive substitutes for productive power – even as our financial position in the world has become a literal house of cards founded in shifting sands, buoyed up by foreign creditors.

Isolationism of the sort our founders sought to instill, would have kept us out of Iraq and scores of other places where we really had no business. And it would keep us from having designs on attacking Iran. It would have kept us from being distrusted by even our friends and hated by those we habitually war against or threaten.

Isolationism in the American context doesn't mean crawling into an isolated hole and ignoring the rest of the world, it only meant that we looked to our own national resources and devices for our own national needs, and left others alone to do the same.

When we were a prosperous, productive, and economically secure nation, we were actually in a position to help other less fortunate nations and peoples in meaningful and positive ways – and frequently we actually did. For the more fortunate, we should have continued to provide an example of good governance and an abundantly productive free market system. But we've thrown all that away, while trying to force the rest of the world to conform to our presently failing system – and our increasingly debauched, materialistic, and hedonistic culture.

If they don't want any of it they are termed rogue states and are chastised with economic sanctions, threats, or invasion.

THE PROTECTIVE TARIFF

Let's just take a look at what is now considered the terrible abomination of the "protective tariff."

We maintain our defense establishment (supposedly), to defend the nation from invading armies. The protective tariff protected the nation from unwanted "import invasion." It didn't prevent us from engaging in desirable trade. Initially the protective tariff kept us from continuing to depend on England and European imports for our national sustenance. Without the protective tariff, our own basic manufacturing industries would have had much less incentive to develop. Without the protective tariff, many heavy industries may not have even to come into existence at all.

Once our industries were up and running, and (in many cases), able to compete with, or out do, foreign industries, the protective tariff could be adjusted to new realities. But in cases where commodities and manufactured goods could be produced much more cheaply abroad, due to cheap labor, the tariff would be kept in place to prevent unfair competition for destroying American producers.

But, in spite of protective tariffs, we have always been a robustly and vigorous trading nation. We imported what we actually needed from abroad, and sold our excess production to those who could afford our prices. And our nation grew and prospered. Protective tariffs were applied and adjusted according to our national interests.

Here's a simple example of how a protective tariff would be constructively applied today. Take the all-American corn broom for an example. From the earliest colonial era, we were naturally nationally self-reliant in corn broom production. We had a great corn broom industry. American forests provided the sticks, American farmers provided the broom straw, and when the time came to wrap the broom head with wire, American industry provided the wire.

Say it took fifty cents worth of locally produced materials to produce one broom, and fifty cents worth of labor. The company wants a profit, naturally, so let's say that the corn broom sold for $1.25, wholesale at the factory door (a $.25 profit).

Now, suppose an enterprising individual discovers that in China, that same corn broom can be manufactured for only ten cents (say, with five cents worth of materials and five cents worth of labor) – and it can be shipped from China to the United States for fifty-cents in freight costs.

He wants to make a profit, of course, so let's say he offers it wholesale at the landing dock in LA for only $1.00 (a $.40 profit). He's a free market genius, and is on track to becoming a millionaire, since all American household need a broom or two!

Let's now suppose the government didn't want to see all the American broom makers and suppliers to go out of business, because it was believed that it's better to keep Americans working, earning a living, and paying taxes, than to put them on welfare.

So they put a protective tariff on brooms imported from China. The tariff would be assessed based on the difference in the costs of production in China and the U.S. Since The American broom costs a dollar to produce, and the Chinese broom costs ten cents. The difference is ninety cents – thus a tariff of that amount would equalize the price at the water's edge, and the Chinese product would be unable to compete with the American product in our market.

Of course, if we wanted to give Chinese broom makers a break, the tariff could be lowered considerably without totally wiping out the American industry. If we really wanted to make sure no Chinese brooms came into the country at all, the tariff could be set so high enough to effect that purpose. This would be called a "tariff wall."

Go too low on the tariff, however, and the American straw broom industry would be wiped out. Unfortunately, that's about where we stand today.

TARIFFS FOR REVENUE

Tariffs served a much larger role than protecting American industry and American workers. The American Constitution did not provide the federal government the power to lay direct taxes on citizens. The was no income tax in the United States until 1913 (except for a brief period during the Civil War when it was tried and later ruled unconstitutional). The governments primary means of raising revenue was through taxing foreign trade. Tariffs and duties were the main source of federal revenue. Section 8, A, and C of the Constitution reads:

The Congress shall have Power (A) To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts, and Excises, to pay the Debs and provide for the common Defense and general Welfare of the United States... (C) To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations...

Duties are a tax on imports and exports, and the tariff – which is a very similar tax, was a means of regulating commerce with foreign nations..

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 18 April, 2008

THE ELDORADO TEXAS NIGHTMARE

Granted, Warren Jeffs' particular brand of fundamentalist Mormonism is obviously quite bizarre, with all the earmarks of a warped personality cult. Such personality cults don't sit well with most of us who claim to operate on a strictly rational level. We are amazed that people like Jeff are able to lead whole flocks of followers into error – or what appears to be error to us.

There have been many examples of this in the past, however. There was Jim Jones and David Koresh. Then there was Hitler, Mussolini, and Stalin. It isn't too much of a stretch to put George W. Bush in this category. But all he did was to lead a nation – the world's greatest superpower – into war on totally false pretenses. And gullible people (some of them quite intelligent), fell into lock-step and followed, calling for a head on a platter. They got the head on a platter – but we haven't got out of Iraq yet.

On the other hand, what rational being with a modern liberal education, would recognize the second coming of Christ? The Messiah would be well advised to make his appearance somewhere other than in the United States. Chances are, if he started evangelizing here, he'd end up permanently institutionalized – and that only if he somehow avoided being assassinated.

Jeff erred in failing to notice that even Jesus admonished his flock to abide by the laws of the land and "render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's."

Maybe these are somewhat radical comparisons, but the principles at work are essentially the same.

As bizarre as the Yearn For Zion Ranch community may see to most of us, let's look at the raid in a strictly rational way. And let's ask this uncomfortable question: What if the YFZ Ranch cult is actually producing happier, more productive, offspring than mainstream communities are? Pridger is under the impression that nobody Jeff's numerous cult depends on welfare or food stamps.

A mysterious and unknown woman calling herself Sarah, called the authorities with a person complaint. Rather than carrying out an investigation to find Sarah, confirm her allegations, and perhaps proceed cautiously and rationally with a focused enforcement effort, some 416 children and 139 women were rounded up and summarily removed from their homes.

In spite of all good intentions, on the very face of it, the actions of the authorities amounted to a wholesale arrest and detention of all women and children in an entire community. It's magnitude could only be compared to a "police state" action, in response to a touchy, but relatively simple, "social problem." The almighty law, however, dictates that the social problem might be a case of extensive criminal activity. And the possible victims are victims whether they know it or not – and whether or not they are happy with their situation.

The raid and removal even bring to mind the tactics that were once employed during the "Indian Removal" period of our history. Perhaps it would come closer to how aboriginal children were once similarly removed from their families and communities in Australia. Those children, for their own good, were taken from their tribes, families, and homes, and placed into the "mainstream." Now those sort of actions are held to have been abominable and unjust. But is it not happening here?

Meanwhile, it's beginning to appear that "Sarah" may have been a spoiler and a crank, and her calls to the authorities a hoax – a hoax that has produced stupendous results, impacting the lives of hundreds of innocent women and children.

It should be noted that not much is being said of the men, who seem to be either invisible or elsewhere. But we can be sure they are very much in the cross-hairs of the law enforcement machine.

While the women and mothers have been released, the children remain in state "protective" custody – "for safe keeping." The rationale, of course, is that the children would still be at risk if they were allowed to return to their mothers and homes. Child Protective Services, of course, are bound to be much better at caring for them than their mothers – and loving foster homes await them beyond that.

Say what one will about the "cult," there has to be something seriously wrong with the way things are being handled here. Had the cult been suspected of human sacrifices, cannibalism, or ritual murder, it would be different. But there's no allegation or suspicion of violence or even ritual drug abuse.

The "many" abused under-age and pregnant wives, now in the process of being "saved," has turned out to be maybe five – 1.2% of the total. This is probably a lot lower than the abused and under-aged pregnant "unwed" girls in the overall outside population – and almost certainly much lower than in most our our inner city neighborhoods, and extremely backwards rural communities.

But there is another problem, and another angle. The authorities can't match up the children with their biological parents. So they are reverting to DNA testing – literally in hopes of matching birth dates to mothers who may have been under legal age at the time of their births. This, apparently, so they can go after the fathers and perhaps make them wards of the public as sex offenders. It seems the concept of a "statute of limitations" is not applicable in the case of "family affairs." Having under-aged wives may come in the category of murder, or at least statutory rape.

If "children being at risk" is the real criteria for removing children from entire communities, every community in the nation is at risk of being dismembered by the long and swarthy arm of the state – for they are all at risk.

In most of our inner city neighborhoods children are at risk of a lot more than just becoming under-age "wed" mothers, or "raped" by their husbands. They are at risk of becoming under-age "unwed" mothers, raped by "friends" as well as total strangers, hooked on deadly or debilitating drugs, and are perhaps more likely to become the victims of many other forms of abuse. The women in vast inner city neighborhoods are in danger of becoming drug users and prostitutes, and the boys are at risk of becoming drugs addicts, drug dealers, pimps, and casualties of gang-based drug turf wars.

How many of the men, women, and children in YFZ Ranch were at risk for all of those pitfalls? How many were on drugs or welfare?

The unwed pregnant girls in our greater city communities, if they don't kill their unborn children first, are in danger of becoming unwed mothers and wards of the state. And many of the boys are in danger of becoming wards of the state in state and federal penitentiaries.

All in all, it would appear that the children in cult-like religious communities, such as YFZ Ranch, have at least as many prospects of becoming productive citizens as those in the larger outside general population. The women are certainly productive, at least in the way God seems to have ordained. Who could deny that? They care for and teach their children, and keep their homes clean and wholesome. There's certainly nothing is wrong with that!

And Pridger hasn't heard any charges that the men are any less responsible and productive in providing for their families than their multiple wives in taking care of them. In fact, in spite of all the alleged abuses of Warren Jeffs, the YFZ Ranch community appears to be a very orderly and prosperous one. Certainly, nobody was clothed in rages or going hungry.

The women may marry and become mothers early, but that used to be the norm in our society – before our present multi-faceted and broad-based social malaise set in. Girls were encouraged to marry before they had a chance to "go astray." Boys were likewise encouraged to marry at a slightly older age, when they were prepared to become a good family man. While "Jeffs' women" won't likely ever become waitresses, lawyers, corporate executives, or president, they aren't likely to become prostitutes, exotic dancers, porn stars, or homeless bag ladies either.

As for the boys being ejected and discarded once they've lost their usefulness to the community (as is alleged by some "reformed" and "escaped" women), at least they go out into the world knowing how to read, write, and work – and perhaps with at least somewhat of a Christian outlook. Pridger suspects that, unlike many of the rejects from our inner city neighborhoods, few end up in jail or fathering multiple children (or abortions), by multiple unwed mothers.

So, though Pridger certainly isn't a champion of Warren Jeffs peculiar way of shepherding his flock (or any "cult" for that matter), on certain significant levels there are many more positive things that can generally be said of his "communities" than can be said of many of our own.

Texas law enforcement, and the Texas court, sure has a mess on its hands. Though the authorities will undoubtedly find excuse to lock a few individuals away, overall justice will end up being a major casualty.

John Q. Pridger

SPEAKING OF HEADS ON A PLATTER

We got Saddam's head on a platter – figuratively speaking, of course. But the main head we were supposed to be hunting, and getting on a platter, was that of Osama bin Laden, the alleged mastermind behind the 9/11 attacks.

Where is Osama? Osama is nowhere to be found. Pridger suspects he's in a comfortable penthouse somewhere – perhaps enjoying the fruits of the witness protection program. Well, maybe not, but one really never knows what is going on in this crazy, mixed up, world of great power politics. It may be a radical stretch, but it isn't beyond the realm of possibility that bin Laden is still on the CIA payroll. It may be unlikely, but it is possible. That's how much we who are out of the loop really know about things.

Of course, our main focus is on Iraq now. It's been there for five years and counting. And Iran is in our crosshairs too. Not a whole lot of time, or troops, for Osama bin Laden hunting.

From the very beginning, Pridger suspected that bin Laden accepted responsibility for 9/11 only after the fact. Since he was getting the blame anyway, taking full credit was the least he could do to enhance his image and stature. They very idea may be ridiculous conspiracy theory, of course, but what do we peasants real know? Nothing, actually.

The only knowledge Pridger can claim on such matters is his own ignorance. But things have always seemed a little fishy from his limited perspective. A lot of things seem fishy. For one thing, the "Government's" knowledge of the events of 9/11 just seemed a little too pat, too quickly – though our protectors seem to have been taken totally off guard on that particularly fateful day.

One thing is fairly certain, the American public won't get to hear much of bin Laden's testimony should he ever be captured. He'll likely be brought to justice rather swiftly, or at least kept well out of sight and hearing. We'll only hear what the government wants us to hear. They will protect us, and themselves, from Osama bin Laden's hateful lies.

Speaking of lies, the federal government really likes to prosecute citizens for lying – even those that might be termed "little white lies." Martha Stewart found out about that. Even President Clinton came under fire for a while due to lying to federal investigators. But, being a lawyer and a sitting president, he was able to outmaneuver them by challenging what the meaning of "is" is. He escaped impeachment by the skin of his teeth.

That's the way our federal law enforcement works though. If they're after you, and can't get you for some spectacular crime, they'll get you for telling a lie because you didn't want your wife to find out where you were on the particular night when the crime was committed. Clinton wasn't being impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors, or for seducing a White House intern, and causing the nation great international embarrassment. He was being impeached for trying to cover it up. He didn't want Hillary and Chelsea to know.

Oddly enough, president Bush has not been inconvenienced by using deception to maneuver us into war in Iraq. This is different. If there was any lying involved, the matter is too important to address by calling him on the carpet. Besides, it has already cost the nation over 4,000 lives of our young men and women, untold thousands of innocent Iraqis, and multiple tens of billions of dollars.

Five years ago, maybe somebody should have spoke up. Never mind, everybody knows it anyway. No point in impeaching a president with all these accomplishments to his credit. Besides, they weren't "little white lies" anyway. They weren't intended to spare himself, is wife, or his loved ones, embarrassment. This being so, the Justice Department can forgive them. Congress, of course, isn't about to suggest that the president should be impeached.

John Q. Pridger

Thursday, 17 April, 2008

CONSTITUTIONAL EDUCATION

Here's one of Pridger's treasured relics of a previous era. It was a time when our nation was the greatest, most productive, industrialized nation in the world – with an increasingly prosperous working middle class. In those wonderful days, many major American corporations tended to a great degree of civic pride and duty. Not only were they proud of their products and profits, they were proud to be able to pay their workers well so they could buy those products. One way this civic spirit was reflected and put into action was in educating workers about how our wonderful American government worked – the government that had made our prosperity possible. It was a time when America's large corporations prospered, American workers prospered too.
	The booklet shown at left, is an example of how General Motors sought to instill patriotism among its employees. It was by Philip Doren Stern, with an Introduction written by Allan Nevins, and printed in 1953, by Birk & Company, of New York. The back cover states, "Published for General Motors Men and Women, by the Personnel and Employe Relations Staff." This copy was passed on to Pridger by his late step-father, who was a life-long GM employee (interrupted only by three or four years in the Army during World War Two). It remains one of Pridger's favorite Constitutional "ready references" with side by side "original text" and "Modern Everyday Language."

Few major corporations bother with such niceties today. They have other priorities, more in line with maximizing profits while minimizing the number of employees, along with their compensation. The most profitable "American" corporations today are the ones that have moved their productive facilities to Mexico or Asia, and are outsourcing their office work to India and China.

GM is still a great automobile manufacturing company, but (as in the case of all surviving old-line American manufacturing companies), the demands and contingencies of globalization have been taking a ghastly toll, and will continue to do so into the foreseeable future. The Constitution has been forgotten in most Personnel and Employee Relations offices. And that is just as well, since the Constitution has been forgotten in Washington D.C. too.

John Q. Pridger

Wednesday, 16 April, 2008

SPEAKING OF CHURCH AND STATE

Not only is our nation having trouble articulating it's own founding creed these days, the Churches are having their own troubles. Not just the Catholic and Episcopal Churches, but others too. The homosexuals are busily breaking down church barriers "honesty and openness" to their particular brands of carnal relationships. The say, naturally enough, that their intimate relationships are just as "sacred" and "natural" to them as traditional relationships are to regular people. And God loves them too. So, as some of them have put it, "We're queer, we're here! Get used to it!"

As in the case of of the ACLU vs. the American People, the "GLBT" (Gay, Lesbian, Bi-sexual, Transsexual, et. al.) "underworld" is challenging the faithful majority – demanding that the majority come around to their way of seeing things. Their message to the majority is, "You'll see it our way, and cave to our demands, sooner or later – whether you like it or not."

In the churches, homosexuals are playing the role of spoiler, much in the same way the ACLU and other groups play the spoiler in our "Separation of Church and State" battle. Homosexuals are seeking to overrule hundreds, or thousands, of years of church tradition in matters that were once "settled doctrine."

They effectively say, "To hell with what God might have been misinterpreted as saying in the Old Testament! Jesus associated with sinners and publicans – thus there are really no sins of the flesh that Jesus recognized. And, by the way, those twelve disciples weren't such straight-laced and perfect men either – and they are the ones that went on to establish the Christian Church."

These new truths are a little difficult for most orthodox church members to swallow, of course, but anything can happen in time. After all, we're looking at a full-blown "Civil Rights for GLBTs" movement here – just like the Civil Rights struggle for Black equality under the law in the 1950s and 60s (which brought the races together into complete harmony). Get over it people "morality is relative and flexible!" There can be no such thing as sins of the flesh in a truly progressive, free and open, society!

As in the case of national politics, Justice demands that you not only love your ideological enemies, but elevate them to positions of leadership over that majority.

The Episcopal Church is on the verge of splintering over the appointment or election of openly gay ministers and Bishops. If Pridger remembers correctly, they've already gone through a similar crisis with regard to female priests. Despite a jaundiced view of openly gay clergymen, Bishop Gene Robinson became the first openly gay Episcopal Bishop and serves in New Hampshire. He makes his case for GLBT clergy, bishops, etc., in his book In The Eye of the Storm. Though Pridger has not read it, no doubt Bishop Robinson makes his case good. "Moral relativism is all the rage these days." Tradition and fixed notions of right and wrong are out.

Meanwhile, the Catholic Church apparently still doesn't quite welcome homosexuals into the clergy, but they got plenty of closeted homosexuals into the clergy anyway – apparently through a "don't ask, don't tell" policy. As an apparent result, it seems there are about 5,000 clergymen accused of pedophilia in the United States, with some 12,000 or so "victims" – the overwhelming majority of them young boys.

Pope Benedict XVI just arrived in the United States yesterday, promising to clean up the mess. He felt obliged to apologize, stating that he is acutely embarrassed and shamed by the phenomena. Nobody is openly saying that it is primarily a homosexual problem, of course. That would be politically incorrect in this increasingly enlightened age. Homosexuals are normal too, you know.

Fortunately, the Pope is conservative enough to denounce "moral relativism" that he feels is gaining way too much ground in the United States Catholic Churches. He says he hopes to upgrade the clergy in the United States – quality being superior to quantity.

Unlike Episcopalian priests, Catholic priests are supposed to remain celibate. There may not be any data "proving" that GLBTs have greater difficulty with celibacy than heterosexuals, but it would obviously seem so.

This should not be surprising. GLBTs' very identity is literally centered on, and invested in, their sex drives. That's how they define themselves, and that's what they are! That's what they celebrate – and that is why they are so intent on forcing their "normalcy" upon a resisting society – so they can openly be themselves. And because that is what they are, their sexuality is less repressible and "demands" open expression. If that were not so, they would have remained comfortably in the closet, and there would be no great problem with celibacy in the case of priests.

In a recent National Public Radio interview, Episcopal Bishop Robinson, told of one reason it is so unhandy, and sometimes downright humiliating, to be a GLBT in a straight world. He relates that when on an international flight with his "partner," the flight attendant passed out customs forms – one per family. "Partners," however, had to fill out individual forms. Imagine that! Pridger feels their pain.

John Q. Pridger

Tuesday, 15 April, 2008

THE SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE

It would seem that the federal government – "our" federal government – which is supposed to be limited in its powers by the Constitution (which in turn owes its existence and continued validity to the Declaration of Independence), would have a high stake in preserving America's most sacred heritage and the original intents our our founding fathers.

Without acknowledgement and adherence to those original intents, our entire national existence (that is, as far as we believed it to be), must ultimately be construed as nothing more than a farce and a fraud. And at some time the American people must certainly awaken to the fact that this nation and this government are no longer "theirs" in the contexts they had thought.

One would think that our collective "representatives" in Washington would have a great deal of loyalty to those who fought, died, and sacrificed for American independence. But not only are our so-called representatives allowing anti-Christian federal "jurors" and left-wing pressure groups, such as the ACLU, to redefine American values and America's religious heritage, for well over a generation they have been sacrificing American independence and America sovereignty itself – in the name of globalism.

In so doing, they are betraying not only our founding fathers and the Revolution, and those who have fought and died to preserve our freedoms for well over two centuries, but the entire living American public – and our posterity.

The "Spoilers," as Pridger calls outfits like the ACLU and Americans United for Separation of Church and State, would place government – pure government – in the position our founders very wisely reserved for God alone. Liberal judges, and the Supreme Court, of course, would very much like to negate all official reference to God and a "Higher Law," since that obviously puts them in an inferior position than the one they aspire to fill.

When will thinking Americans realize the importance of what's at stake here? Whether you are a Christian, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, agnostic, atheist, or just a Humanist, "your government" should not be allowed to usurp and occupy the throne of God – and government will do that if we permit it.

As Voltaire once pointed out, If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent Him – (and Pridger adds) – if for no other reason that to deny that position to tyrants. If you don't believe in God, it still isn't to your advantage to hand government the "ultimate" role of authority over mankind. For those who insist on denying God, the concept of "Heavenly Father" defaults to Big Brother.

Tyranny is simply in the genes of all governments. As several of our founders pointed out, all governments naturally progresses toward increased power – the ultimate destination, tyranny. So our founders put as many checks and balances into our Constitutional Republic as they could realistically devise. But the ultimate check (one which too many tend to overlook), was to acknowledge that God and a High Law, supercedes government – that governments are the creations of fallible men, but men are the Creation of an infallible and All Powerful God.

Men (and women, of course), derive their rights from God. But Governments (at least as expressed in the American Declaration of Independence), may only derive their rights and powers from governed. As our founders put it...

"...We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights... That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government..." (Declaration of Independence)

"Whenever any form of government becomes destructive (of its sacred trust)... it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government..." What gives them this right? God.

Lacking God, of course, men would have to consult the law books to find out what their rights are. And, chances are, they'd find out they have no right to alter or abolish their government – and maybe no rights at all.

In spite of a mile high stack of state statute law books and the Federal Register, we're fortunate in the fact that the "Supreme Law of the Land" is (officially), still the Constitution, which is short and concise enough for all of us to understand. And don't forget that the Declaration of Independence is actually what gives the Constitution its fundamental validity.

Statute laws have validity, of course, as long as they serve the public good; don't deprive the people of their right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; or any of their constitutionally guaranteed rights. But, in the final analysis, lawmakers can pass, and the police powers will attempt to enforce, any law the public will stand for. We've already got a lot of them the public should not stand for – but as the Declaration of Independence points out...

"...mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations... reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty, to throw off such government...."

This is not Pridger suggesting a rebellion, mind you – this is our Declaration of Independence reminding us that it is, and should always be, an option. When the checks and balances to government power brake down and no longer function, however, maybe we should give it some thought.

Some of the checks and balances still function in a very jaundiced and lackluster way BUT – right before our eyes, we see the the courts and meddling pressure groups, diligently at work removing the most important check and balance mechanism of all. And we see our so-called representatives standing by over a matter of decades, not only letting it happen, but enforcing the whims of those who effectively say, "Now that we've grown up, our nation doesn't need God any more – and our peoples and their children should no longer be distracted by fairytales."

The construction of a broad and high, brick and mortar, "Wall of Separation" between church and state, is only one issue. But it is perhaps the most fundamentally important issue of all – for it goes to the very foundation of what is not only the "American Creed" but the very deepest foundation stone in the edifice of our nation and the ideals that brought it into existence. It is the stone that connects to the bed rock beneath the soil. A lot of the sma't people just don't get it. Some of them don't get it because they don't intend to get it.

Those hacking away most vigorously at our foundation stones, use twisted history and twisted logic to deceive the American people. They intend to convince them that "they" (the enlightened spoilers), are merely shining a light on the "true" intentions of our founders – finally getting things fixed right, after over two centuries of error.

The so-called "separation clause" of the First Amendment doesn't exist. It was invented by anti-Christian spoilers who claim to know more about the First Amendment than the men who wrote and adopted it.

Those stalwart nation and culture crackers particularly like to cite Thomas Jefferson on the issue of the Separation of church and state. "Twist" is the word for what they do with Jefferson's words and intents.

What follows should make clear Jefferson's views on religious expression on the nation's commons. Please excuse Pridger for putting his two cents in at intervals down such a well written text. Pridger is in total agreement with everything in the article, but adding his two cents in is what this blog is all about:

Don't Blame Thomas Jefferson for "Separation of Church and State."
From http://www.godresolution.com
http://www.godresolution.com/t_jefferson.htm

In 1774, while serving in the Virginia Assembly, Jefferson personally introduced a resolution calling for a Day of Fasting and Prayer.

In 1779, as Governor of Virginia, Jefferson decreed a day of “Public and solemn thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God.”

As President, Jefferson signed bills that appropriated financial support for chaplains in Congress and the armed services.

On March 4, 1805, President Jefferson offered “A National Prayer for Peace,” which petitioned:

“Almighty God, Who has given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favor and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honorable ministry, sound learning, and pure manners.

"Save us from violence, discord, and confusion, from pride and arrogance, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitude brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues.

"Endow with Thy spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth.

"In time of prosperity fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all of which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen"

PRIDGER: Wow! Born-again President Bush would undoubtedly be shocked and embarrassed by such a prayer! Could you imagine public school students being exposed to this text? The sky would fall down, and the ACLU would be outraged and have a field day!

The balance of the article was written by Ben Rast, Contender Ministries, March 26, 2003:

By Ben Rast, Contender Ministries, March 26, 2003 -- “Separation of Church and State.” These are five little words that, in their misuse, have become the rallying cry of atheists, agnostics, and others who wish to remove God from the public forum. Thomas Jefferson popularized that phrase, and in so doing has become an icon to those who believe that a free expression of faith in God is incompatible with any government institution, practice, program, or official.

In this article, we will explore the birth of the “separation” phrase, the establishment clause of the U.S. constitution, and some other lesser-known things that Thomas Jefferson said. The overall picture will be one that is much different than the one painted by American Atheists or Americans United for Separation of Church and State.

In June of 2002, the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of California atheist Michael Newdow, saying that the United States Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional because it contains the words, “under God.” The decision was put on hold, pending a request that the court revisit their ruling. The appeals court refused, and school children in nine Western states will soon be stopped from reciting the pledge in school.

PRIDGER: Imagine that! In a democracy, where the majority is supposed to have the last say, an atheist – a person in the singular (with the ready and able endorsement of the "federal" 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals) – decided for the rest of the American people, that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional. How can that happen in a democracy?

The answer is that it can't. Yet that's how it goes – so maybe this is not exactly a democracy after all. In fact, the courts have taken it upon themselves to not only redefined their role, but redefine the intents of what was written into the Constitution. As Thomas Jefferson feared they would, the Supreme Court has effectively appointed itself an autocratic "more-equal" branch of government – and they've been trumping our lawmakers and founding fathers for multiple decades! The Supreme Court, not satisfied with being the "highest court" in the land, imagines itself the "Highest Law-giver" in the land – with no "Higher Law" above it.

For their part, the legislative branch of our government, the lawmaking branch, with the power to do something about it (its power having been justly derived from the people), simply lets it happen as if their hands are tied and their mouths taped. For fifty years and more they have bowed and scraped to the "High Court" and those holy "Justices." They also bow just about as cravenly to the executive branch. Where do we get such representation?

The same atheist, Michael Newdow, also filed suit against President Bush. Why? Because the prayer offered by Rev. Franklin Graham at President Bush’s inauguration was offered “in Jesus’ name.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and Americans United for Separation of Church and State have successfully sued to have displays of the Ten Commandments removed from government-owned property. They have recently attacked the governor of Alabama for having voluntary Bible studies in his office. They are leading the way in removing prayer and religious symbols from public schools. They are doing all of this under the banner of their favorite catch phrase – separation of church and state.

PRIDGER: The ACLU and "Americans United?" feel the Ten Commandments is an offensive document when posted out where a lot of people might see it. "Thou shalt not kill," steal, covet, lie, disrespect parents, etc., and other abominations – they proclaim such postings constitute obvious evidence of the cruel imposition of an official endorsement of a state religion when displayed on public property.

We the People, they tell us, don't have the right to play favorites with religious expression on "our" public property. The Ten Commandments might make a Hindu child feel rejected, and possibly shock and outrage an unstable atheist or agnostic.

The ACLU feels similarly about "common decency" rules and laws. Everything else, of course, is okay. Offensive language and smut are protected by the "smut and offensive language" clause embedded, by original intent, in the the words "freedom of speech." In this case, it doesn't matter how many people are shocked, offended, or outraged. The ACLU would have our children believe this was the intent of the founders of the Republic (and, if it wasn't their intent, they merely mention that those founders were just a bunch of self-serving elite slave owners anyway).

All of this makes one wonder just how the United States of America survived before outfits like the ACLU and Americans United? came on the scene. We must have been one heck of a backward nation. Why did so many people come here to better their lot in life and seek religious and personal freedom – particularly freedom of religion? Were they insane?

The First Amendment to the constitution addresses, among other things, religious freedom. Commonly known as the “Establishment Clause,” the First Amendment reads as follows:

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

Legal opinions have extended the meaning of the establishment clause to include not only congress, but also all branches of government. The framers of our constitution did not want the government to favor one religion or denomination above the others, and in so doing, establish a state religion. The Church of England served as an example of what the founding fathers wanted to avoid. They wanted each citizen to have the freedom to worship in whatever way he or she chose, without having religious beliefs or practices dictated to them by the government.

You will notice that “separation of church and state” is not mentioned in the first amendment.

In fact, it’s not mentioned in the constitution at all. That phrase comes from a letter that founding father and 3^rd U.S. President Thomas Jefferson wrote, that reads, in part:

“Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between man and his God, that he owes account to none other for faith or his worship, that the legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, I contemplate with solemn reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should ‘make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,’ thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”

In this letter, Jefferson is actually responding to a letter he had received from the Danbury Baptists of Danbury, CT. They were a minority denomination in that area and were subjected to persecution for their beliefs. They feared that if the government were to adopt a state religion, as it had done in England, that their minority views would be trampled, and they themselves subject to further persecution. Jefferson wrote his letter to them to reassure them that they would remain free to worship as they wished, without needing to fear government interference in their religious beliefs or practices. In fact, he borrowed the term “wall of separation” from famous Baptist minister Roger Williams.

We can see that neither the constitution nor Jefferson’s “separation” letter ever intimates that religious expression must be kept out of the public arena. Yet the ACLU and Americans United continue to lift Jefferson up as a sort of historic “town crier” for their cause. They seem convinced that Jefferson would not have permitted any political recognition of anything remotely religious. . .

PRIDGER: So there we have the damning evidence that Thomas Jefferson mentioned "a wall of separation between Church and State" – the ACLU and Americans United?'s Holy Grail unveiled, and their duplicity unfrocked, as we have the context in which it was written. We further have evidence to what lengths anti-Christians with an agenda will go to twist the meanings of words and phrases to their own ends.

. . . As is evident, Jefferson’s belief in a separation between church and state did not preclude the very mention of God under state sanction. If he were not our third president, but our forty-third, I suspect Thomas Jefferson would find himself on the receiving end of a lawsuit for his sundry official statements that specifically mention “God” and “Jesus Christ.”

Nearly 160 years after Jefferson’s death, in the case of Wallace v. Jaffree, Justice William Rehnquist offered the decision of the United States Supreme Court:

“It is impossible to build sound constitutional doctrine upon a mistaken understanding of Constitutional history….The establishment clause had been expressly freighted with Jefferson’s misleading metaphor for nearly forty years....

There is simply no historical foundation for the proposition that the framers intended to build a wall of separation [between church and state]….The recent court decisions are in no way based on either the language or intent of the framers.”

Offering his dissenting opinion on Michael Newdow’s “pledge lawsuit,” 9^th Circuit Appeals Court Judge Ferdinand Fernandez said, in part:

“My reading of the stelliscript suggests that upon Newdow’s theory of our Constitution, accepted by my colleagues today, we will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our album of patriotic songs in many public settings. “God Bless America” and “America The Beautiful” will be gone for sure, and while use of the first and second stanzas of the Star Spangled Banner will still be permissible, we will be precluded from straying into the third. And currency beware!”

Sometimes, I am left to wonder what President Jefferson would think about Michael Newdow’s lawsuits, about the work of the ACLU and Americans United. I think I found just what Jefferson might say on that matter. In 1781, he made the following statement:

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the Gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever.”

This article is from: http://www.godresolution.com/t_jefferson.htm

Pridger is neither as wise nor religious as Thomas Jefferson was, but he believes that if God had not favored America, we would never have been able to say, "What a great nation we have!" and "We've never had it so good!" Millions would not have left their homes to settle here. Immigrants would not continue to risk everything to come here.

Had we not once believed in the source of our good fortune, we would never have considered this "One Nation Under God," nor declared, "In God We Trust." But now, are we not violating the high principles upon which our nation was founded? Are we not removing the only firm basis of our liberties? Pridger reiterates what Jefferson said:

"Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; that His justice cannot sleep forever"

John Q. Pridger

Friday, 11 April, 2008

HILLARY WANTS A HUNDRED THOUSAND MORE COPS ON THE BEAT

It seems we've heard that before. It was Bill Clinton then, but now it's Hillary who has the new and refreshing idea. She says we've got to fall back on what works, and get our crime situation under control. Pridger wonders if Bill's hundred thousand cops are still on the beat? If so, that means this federal crime fighting panacea is cumulative.

But when did local law enforcement become the venue of the federal government? There's certainly no mention of it in the Constitution. It seems the federal government ought to have enough to do fighting wars and operating umpteen dozen federal regulatory and law enforcement agencies – not to mention keeping the children properly head-started dumbed down.

Come think of it, that's not in the Constitution either. In fact, few federal programs are constitutional – except, perhaps, through creative interpretations of that much maligned document.

HATE CRIMES AND SEX OFFENDERS

Hillary wants to get tough on "hate crimes" too – and sex offenders. There is absolutely nothing further from "constitution think" than the idea of "hate crimes." The very idea is repugnant to everything that we could think of as just. We punish offenders for the crime – not what the criminal was thinking before or afterwards. The very word "hate" is bantered around today as if it's a dreadful new infectious disease visiting itself on white men, and it requires federal quick fixes – vaccinations. But passion cannot be regulated or rutted out of the human psyche.

In every war we have ever fought, large numbers of soldiers were taught, or otherwise learned, to hate the enemy. Were their acts, in defense of the nation, or obedience to their leaders, then hate crimes? Was the G.I. who yelled, "Take that you dirty Jap!" or "You Kraut bastard!" as he pulled the trigger or shoved the bayonet, guilty of a hate crime?

Pridger doesn't hate very many things, other than certain raw vegetables. But he hates certain types of criminals due to long held prejudices. Like Hillary apparently hates sex offenders, Pridger particularly hates people who commit murder just for the thrill of seeing somebody suffer and die. And, like most Americans, Pridger likes movies in which the good guys, white, black, red, or brown, kill the really bad guys, whether white, black, red, or brown.

However, movies sometimes do a lot to promote hate. Take the much acclaimed Shindler's List. By ten or fifteen minutes into the movie, Pridger felt a strong hatred rising up in his breast against Germans. It looked like the only good German would have to be a dead German. So he changed to the Western channel. After all, why would one want to hate his own kindred peoples – or, for that matter, any "people" at all? The way Pridger sees it, in the name of good, Shindler's List was a hate movie.

Such movies are produced by people who wish to reinforce their own cultural creed of "Never forgive, and never forget!" rather than the Christian creed which tells us, "forgive those who trespass against us."

The Germans committed some pretty horrendous crimes during World War Two, of course – the Holocaust undoubtedly being the worst. But so did the Japanese and the Russians commit horrendous crimes. So did the British – and so did we. Yet everybody has been forgiven long ago – but not the Germans. Their guilt, for that particular crime (against those, rightly or wrongly, considered their enemy), is constantly rubbed in the world's face – until most of us are sick of the memory of the Holocaust. But it's an unofficial hate crime to say that. At best, expressing such opinions, is considered evidence of latent anti-Semitic leanings – but it's quite alright to hate the German race (that is merely being anti-evil).

Of course, the German people in general are as innocent of the Holocaust as the American public is of fire-bombing places like Dresden, Germany and Tokyo, Japan – and nuking Nagasaki and Hiroshima. War is hell, and such things become the "natural" contingencies of battle, whether morally justifiable or not. Yet we are constantly reminded that the entire German population during the Nazi era shares a "collective," and even an ongoing, guilt.

Had Germany and Japan won World War Two, would we still be watching movies demonizing the Allied powers? Maybe – especially those damned murderous Yanks and Brits, who seemed to delight in the indiscriminate fire bombing of helpless civilian populations.

Pridger would hate it if a criminal broke into his house in the middle of the night (or any other time for that matter). He might even tend to be a little scared. And there is nothing like fear to incubate and produce a feeling of hatred in a hurry. He might even temporarily lose control of his diction when confronting such a person. He might say something that he would regret.

Supposing it was an Asian dressed in a black ninja uniform with a gun – or even just a pair of briefs and throwing stars. Pridger might slip and say something like, "Take that you damned Chinese bastard!" as he pumps him full of lead. This would seem only human. But Pridger's act of self-defense could be construed a hate crime because of his impassioned slip of the tongue. Wouldn't calling an Asian a "Chinese bastard" be considered a racial slur?

Is calling somebody a n(censored)r, really worse – any more hateful – than calling him a black bastard? Is calling anybody a bastard or a bitch really all that great a thing to do? Yet those terms are extraordinarily popular. But we speak of apples and oranges, of course.

Passion often mitigates criminal acts of violence. A murder committed during a moment of passion, be it love, hate, or just naked fear, is usually treated as murder in the second degree – in a totally different class than premeditated murder "for a purpose."

Which is the worst criminal: (1) One who kills an innocent person in cold blood because he hates him for some reason, or (2) one who kills an innocent person in cold blood because he just thought it would be fun – and anyone would do?

Is a white man who kills a black man because he hates all black people worse than a white man who kills a black man because he just felt like killing somebody regardless of race? Or because he hates everybody? No, but he'll serve more time under our hateful hate laws.

In Pridger's opinion, the crime is murder – not whether the killer hated the victim's race, religion, national origin, sex, or sexual orientation, or just merely loved to kill.

There are arguably many more racially motivated murders of whites by blacks than the other way around. But hate crime laws have been passed specifically to punish whites for alleged hate crimes against blacks – not crimes of blacks against whites.

The almighty "law," and people who promote hate crime legislation, seem to lose focus on what hate really is. They "indiscriminately" tar people with an overly broad brush. They confuse the word "hate" with such words as prejudice, bias, and merely being discriminating in associations. But these are not synonyms for hate, by any stretch of the imagination. It's very possible to have a dim view of certain races or other identity groups without hating anybody. Employing a racial slur against an individual, while not being a particularly considerate thing to do, in no way implies that one hates the entire race.

In any case, hate and "thought crime" laws, do absolutely nothing to bring the races into any sort of harmony. They do just the opposite. Hate crime legislation is itself a hate crime, because it adds fire to already held resentments on the part of both whites and blacks.

What's worse (it's really no secret), whites generally fear blacks in America, though most would not say it out loud. And what is resentment and fear but the raw material of perhaps unarticulated hatred? Suppressed hatred among masses of people is downright dangerous.

Certain blacks know that whites fear them, of course, and revel in the situation – some even brag about it – the way they see it, "It serves them right!" And they intend to keep things that way. They can count on people like Hillary Clinton to help them do it

PRIDGER vs. The New World Order
John Q. Pridger's COMMENTS ON NATIONAL AND INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS Politics, economics, and social issues as seen through Pridger's mud-splattered lenses.
E-Mail pridger@heritech.com Why Pridger writes this Blog?	WHAT PRIDGER'S CRUSADE IS ALL ABOUT The question is no longer whether or not there has been a conspiracy to bring about globalism and the new international economic order (a.k.a. New World Order). Whether you believe in a grand conspiracy or not, the New World Order materialized, ready or not – whether we like it or not – and it effects all of us intimately. It arrived as a "done deal," a fait accompli, compliments of a combination of our elected misrepresentatives and unaccountable global movers and shakers. It came with no advanced public advertisements; no public assessment period; no comment period; and, of course, no up or down vote. In other words, both democratic processes and the "informed consent" of the governed were scrupulously avoided. Ignorance, apathy, and complacency, provided the only "consent" required – that, and a rush to buy cheap imports. If it was not a conspiracy, then what was it? An act of God? Little doubt there is evidence of "Intelligent Design." But, of course, the New World Order is still a work in progress – being accomplished without the informed consent of any electorate. And along with the "building" it is a process of destruction, and of burning bridges, to insure that we cannot easily correct our course or go back to what has worked well in the past, for it entails the end of local economics, and local self-reliance. Interdependence and dependence for all, self-reliance and independence for none. For all the high sounding rhetoric and possible good intentions on the part of many, the New World Order is about consolidation of global corporate hegemony, under the regulatory umbrella of United Nations agencies – world governance with international finance and capital interests in the driver's seat. This is what globalization and our current Crusades abroad are essentially all about. Pridger laments that we Americans have been sold down the river by the collective national leadership, and that the nation of our founders – of which we were rightfully proud – has effectively ceased to exist!
Pridger's Home Page Pridger's Web Host Heritech.com NAAAP Archive	The question now is: What are we going to do about it? Is there any way for We the People to regain control? And, is there any hope for a return to government of the people, by the people, and for the people? Is there even a place for government of the people, by the people and for the people anywhere in a globalized corporate world? A pretty comprehensive history of the New World Order can be read on the Overlords of Chaos web site. The material presented is very extensive, and the annotations well written. Though presented with an obvious religious bias, the facts presented stand on their own merit. Even the most pragmatic and skeptical will find the information very enlightening. (See: Why Pridger writes this Blog?)

WHAT PRIDGER'S CRUSADE IS ALL ABOUT