Wednesday, October 14, 2009

New chaplain felt called to La Grange


10/12/2009

La Grange – When hospital chaplain Colleen Narbone moved to Western Springs, she knew immediately she wanted to work for Adventist Midwest Health.

“I felt the hand of God leading me here,” Narbone said. “My grandmother passed away at Adventist Hinsdale Hospital in 2004 and I was very moved by the spiritual care our family received there. The nurses and chaplains prayed with us during a very difficult time.”

Narbone became a chaplain at Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital on Aug. 31, following the deployment of hospital chaplain Garry Losey to northern Iraq to support the troops of the 90th sustainment brigade. Losey is a U.S. Army Reservist.

From 1998 until 2005, Narbone worked as a paralegal in California and Chicago, but gravitated toward ministerial type projects in her community and church. In 2005, while continuing to work as a paralegal, Narbone enrolled in Loyola University Chicago’s pastoral counseling program and served as a chaplain intern there.

She earned her master’s degree in pastoral counseling from Loyola in 2007 and stayed on there as a student chaplain and became a member of the organization’s “on-call crisis response team,” which she found very fulfilling. She also is a licensed professional counselor.

Narbone praised Adventist La Grange Memorial Hospital’s cooperative and holistic approach to patient care and is eager to further her education in pastoral counseling as she learns the nuances of hospital ministry from her colleagues.

“It’s profoundly moving to see people come together like this in a time when people are hurting,” Narbone said. “I plan to care for each individual and help them in whatever way I can. I know everyone has different needs, but I pray I can be a hint of God to them while they are in the hospital.”

John B. Rapp, regional vice president of ministries and mission at Adventist Midwest Health, welcomed Narbone to the hospital’s pastoral care team.

“Chaplain Narbone brings a strong academic background and rich experience in ministry from her time in the ministries department at Loyola University,” Rapp said. “Her certifications and extra training she has received over the years will add another component to our already talented regional pastoral care staff of Adventist Midwest Health.”


Source:http://www.keepingyouwell.com/News/NewsArticle/tabid/191/ItemID/3169/srcmid/71292/Default.aspx
P.S. Bolds and Highlights added.
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Church/politics power play

Published: Sunday October 11, 2009
Garnett Roper, Contributor


Students of the history of Christianity in Jamaica and the Caribbean are intrigued at the interesting shifts that are taking place in terms of the balance of power and influence among Christian denominations. The Seventh-day Adventist (SDA) movement over the 165 years of its history has never disguised its intention to replace Sunday worshippers as the dominant religious force. The key area in which that shift was to be discerned is in the extent to which Saturday replaced Sunday as the national holy day. Adventists have never been closer to the realisation of that goal than they are in Jamaica today.

It is well-known that in 313 AD, when Roman Emperor Constantine became a convert to Christianity and declared Christianity religio lecita, or the national religion of the Roman empire, Sunday became the mandatory day off from work. When the Seventh-day Adventist founder Ellen G. White claimed a vision of the Ten Commandments in 1844, she claimed that the fourth commandment, the Sabbath law, was circled. Her understanding was that it was God's desire that Saturday replaced Sunday as the national holy day, or in other words, Adventism should become religio lecita, the religion of empire.

The pursuit of that goal has been admirable, single-minded and relentless. Many Seventh-day Adventists, therefore, saw the rise of former SDA head Patrick Allen to become governor general of Jamaica as the nunct dimitis of Seventh-day Adventism. It was their moment of glory, equivalent roughly to the eighth century when Charlemagne, the Roman pope, crowned the emperor. The joy, rather than trepidation, with which Adventists welcomed their political endorsement by the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) is, at best, ironic. SDAs have always regarded the endorsement by Emperor Constantine, of the Christian religion, as a corrupting influence, but they missed the danger that lurked for themselves, and the temptation that comes with power.


Sir Patrick Allen, governor general, gives his first Independence Day inspection of the guard of honour during celebrations at King's House this year. - Rudolph Brown/Chief Photographer

divide and rule

One of the first things that has happened is that there has been the use of the habit of power, called divide and rule. A wedge has been driven between Seventh-Day Adventism and the rest of the Christian Church. Two recent incidents illustrate the way this division has begun to become apparent: the first, the proposed introduction of Sunday horse racing which has raised the ire and caused consternation among Christian denominations, especially those of fundamentalist persuasion. It has understandably not troubled Seventh-day Adventists because since horse-racing was always held on Saturday, their holy day, what they see are signs that Sunday has begun to be treated like Saturday has always been treated. Even though gambling is something to which SDAs are fundamentally opposed, the defeat of the stranglehold on power by Sunday worshippers is more important to them.

The other incident is the visit of a team of our athletes that performed so well in Beijing and in Berlin, to Portmore. The athletes were hosted by an SDA Church two Saturdays ago. Importantly, no other church in Portmore was advised or invited to participate in the event. One does not begrudge the Seventh-Day Adventists their moment in the sun, as it is said 'every dog has his day and every puss his 4 o' clock'. On the contrary, one is seized by the danger.

role of the church

What the quarrel about minor things, like who is on top, or who is in touch and who is the point of ready reference disguises, is that the real struggle is about what role a church or a given denomination wants to play in the society as a whole.

Historically, the Church, the collective Christian presence, has chosen between either of two roles and responses to things as they are, to the status quo: either the church has played the role of legitimation of things as they are, of the existing power relations, even the oppressive use of power, or the church has played the role on the side of liberation, as the agent of liberation for those who have been the butt of the stranglehold of power. It seems to me that when all is said and done the Church is fighting for the wrong things when it is preoccupied with its own privilege in the society and power and influence within the society.

From the day Christianity came to these shores in the late 1700s, this is the choice that has confronted the Church. In the earliest expression, the majority church, through the Church of England and the Roman Catholic Church, placed itself on the side of empire against the poor African enslaved people. They not only excused what power did, including chattel slavery and the accompanying brutality, but they interpreted scripture in ways that sacralised the oppressive use of power.

Even when the early missionaries came, among them Baptists and Methodists and Moravians, they came to pour oil on troubled water. The mass of the population rejected their enslavement and oppression, they were rebellious and mutinous. The missionaries came with a message for them to accept their lot, to become submissive and docile. It was the indigenous leadership, including the enslaved Africans, the African cultural retentions like Myal first and to a lesser extent with George Leile, Moses Baker and then Sharpe, Bogle, and Gordon that helped the church find the voice of resistance and made it a liberating, rather than a legitimating force. The masses saw, in their reading of the Bible a notion of equality and a notion of justice and righteousness that did not allow them to continue to accept their lot and so they organised themselves through prayer meetings and class meetings into becoming forces of resistance.

It is out of the movements of the Native Baptists, Myal, Pocomania, Revivalism that the modern church in Jamaica has emerged. What has happened is that power has granted favours and given privilege to the church in exchange for its complicity, collusion and silence. It did first to the Church of England (Anglicans), and then to all the mainline churches. Since the late 1970s and with the publication of the Santa Fe document, it has sought to privilege the new line churches, the churches with long names, and those that have single congregation bishoprics, of the fundamentalists, Evangelical and Pentecostal brands.

PRIVILEGE AND SIDESHOWS

Now it is seeking to privilege Seventh-day Adventism. What power, influence and endorsement by the power brokers have done for others it will do for the SDAs as well. It is a matter of time, but the signs of the damage done have already began to emerge.

The sideshows about abortion or even gaming and even casino gambling are culture wars, the impetus for which originates in the metropole. They are not the real issues. The real issues have to do with the entrenchment of inequality, the destruction of the dignity and autonomy of the community, the exploitation and manipulation of the masses, and the climate of violence and insecurity with which our people are forced to live.

The issue, therefore, is not who is in and who is not, but on whose side is the Christian Church. There are signs that the Church is in danger of forgetting its history and its mission and abandoning the people. On the issues that have profound effect on the lives of so many in the society the Church has lost its voice. It has not been silenced, it has chosen not to speak.

What prevents the Church from raising its voice of protest to say to Government, do the right thing and extradite the wanted man. If the US authorities are to be believed the accused man imports, controls and distributes guns across the length and breadth of this country. What national good can come from dithering and engaging in esoteric discussions about rights of citizens, instead of letting the law take its course. Does the fact of the expansion of violence matter to the Church? What has prevented the Church, the collective Christian presence, from being unequivocal on this matter?

fiscal responsibility

Once again a choice is being made to throw people out of their jobs, so that we can show fiscal responsibility, or, as some have put it, prove that we are transformational leaders. We are not willing to increase the tax on the interest earned by the rich, to show fiscal prudence. No, we must threaten public servants, leaving the rich safely ensconced with their millions, but box bread out of the mouths of the children of the poor by taking all they have from them. Where is the voice of the Church, in the selective prosecuting or wrongdoing. Why should we be allowed to prosecute some people's corruption and make up excuses for the corruption by other people?

The Church would rather engage in quarrels about side issues, because it does not ever want power to believe that it is not on its side.

It is time the Church, the collective Christian presence, put its privileges at risk and reposition itself as a liberating, rather than a legitimating, force.

Garnett Roper is pastor of the Portmore Missionary Church and president of the Jamaica Theological Seminary. Feedback may be sent to columns@gleanerjm.com.


Source: http://www.jamaica-gleaner.com/gleaner/20091011/focus/focus4.html

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Churches join forces to ‘meet real world needs’


Volunteers gather to give back to St. Joseph
by Marshall White Monday, October 12, 2009




Three years ago, a local church came to the conclusion that while it did a good job meeting members’ spiritual needs it wasn’t dealing with real world needs.

The church was neglecting many needs of people, said the Rev. Micah Fries, pastor at Frederick Boulevard Baptist Church.

Talking with other church leaders encouraged the pastor and others to consider developing a service program that would be interdenominational. In each of St. Joe Serve’s three years, the number of churches participating has grown.

“We can’t fix everything, but this is a start,” the Rev. Fries said.

Three years later, the program has continuing city government support and more churches and is accomplishing something good for the entire community, the pastor said.

About 30 volunteers turned out to paint one house and strip another in preparation for painting Sunday afternoon.

“I’m here because it supports the community and serves people as Christ would,” said Kelly Schmidt, a Frederick Boulevard volunteer.

More than 50 volunteers from Hope Fellowship, Brookdale Presbyterian, Wyatt Park Baptist and other churches were at Saxton/Riverside Care Center on Sunday morning, said Rev. Earnestine Blakley, pastor at Hope Fellowship.

There was a musical performance, interactive games and time for spiritual fellowship, the pastor said.

About 30 volunteers from Hope, Brookdale, Wyatt Park and Wellspring Community churches paired up with 40 children at the Bartlett Center.

The children were entertained by Saved By Grace, a group of praise dancers, and then the volunteers assisted the children with improving their reading skills, the Rev. Blakley said.

Three Angels Seventh Day Adventist Church had a group of volunteers prepare 100 sack lunches stuffed with turkey sandwiches, fruit, chips, muffins, drinks and other surprises on Saturday.

Sunday, a group of five women from the church were at the Open Door Food Kitchen to give out the lunches, prizes for the children and articles of clothing and other materials that people might need.

“A lot of people work to keep it going,” said Donna Noland, one of the volunteers.

The church accepted the challenge to provide the Sunday lunches every other month and has been successful for some time, Mrs. Noland said.

Saturday, Frederick Boulevard gave away winter clothes for four hours to people in need. Some churches such as Frederick Boulevard will work for several weeks to complete their projects. The city selects the homes and provides some paint for the volunteer workers.

Marshall White can be reached

at marshall@npgco.com.



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P.S. Bolds, Highlights, and Italics added.

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He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross


Philippians 2


1If there be therefore any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any bowels and mercies,

2Fulfil ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind.

3Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.

4Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

5Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:

6Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:

7But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:

8And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.

9Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name:

10That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;

11And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
12Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

13For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

14Do all things without murmurings and disputings:

15That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world;

16Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

17Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all.

18For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me.

19But I trust in the Lord Jesus to send Timotheus shortly unto you, that I also may be of good comfort, when I know your state.

20For I have no man likeminded, who will naturally care for your state.

21For all seek their own, not the things which are Jesus Christ's.

22But ye know the proof of him, that, as a son with the father, he hath served with me in the gospel.

23Him therefore I hope to send presently, so soon as I shall see how it will go with me.

24But I trust in the Lord that I also myself shall come shortly.

25Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.

26For he longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard that he had been sick.

27For indeed he was sick nigh unto death: but God had mercy on him; and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow.

28I sent him therefore the more carefully, that, when ye see him again, ye may rejoice, and that I may be the less sorrowful.

29Receive him therefore in the Lord with all gladness; and hold such in reputation:

30Because for the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me.


King James Version (KJV)
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Tuesday, October 13, 2009

Update on the latest news, sports, business and entertainment:...


Oct 13 2009 5:02PM
Associated Press
Update on the latest news, sports, business and entertainment:

health care OVERHAUL Senate panel approves health care reform measure

Washington (AP) A pivotal Senate committee has approved a sweeping remake of the country's health care system, delivering a long-sought boost to President Barack Obama's goal of expanding coverage.

The 14-9 vote in the Senate Finance Committee sets up a historic debate on the Senate floor and moves health care overhaul closer to reality than it has been for decades.

Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine was the only Republican to join 13 committee Democrats in voting "yes." The 10-year, $829-billion plan approved Tuesday is aimed at extending coverage to millions more Americans, holding down costs and improving health care for all.

The Finance Committee was the last of five congressional committees to act. It produced a centrist-leaning compromise bill.

HEALTH CARE-BAUCUS Baucus wasn't sure how Snowe would vote

WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Max Baucus says he didn't know for sure that Republican Senator Olympia Snowe would vote in favor of his health care overhaul bill until she actually did so.

The Montana Democrat said he had a strong sense that Snowe wanted to support the legislation but that she hadn't told him what she'd do.

He made his comments in an interview Tuesday with The Associated Press shortly after his Senate Finance Committee passed his sweeping health care bill. Snowe was the only Republican to vote "yes." The other four congressional committees that have passed health care bills have done so without a single GOP vote.

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Snowe told him this morning she'd be bucking her party to support Baucus' bill.

HEALTH CARE-SNOWE Republican Snowe is voting for Democrats' health care bill

WASHINGTON (AP) Although she voted with Democrats today to support a health care reform bill, Republican Sen. Olympia Snowe of Maine says she won't necessarily vote with them the next time.

She says the bill that emerged from the Finance Committee today tries to rein-in rising costs, and that it bolsters what works in the health care system.

Still, her support could give Democrats the 60th vote required to overcome Republican objections to the bill.

Snowe is the only Republican so far to vote for any of the health-reform bills before Congress. She joined 13 Democrats today in approving a 10-year, $829-billion overhaul plan. The committee's other nine Republicans voted against it.

Democrats have spent months addressing her concerns, and the president has sought her vote in phone calls and meetings.

MILITARY RECRUITING Pentagon: Recruiting last year was best since 1973

WASHINGTON (AP) The Pentagon says it has just finished the best recruiting year since the all-volunteer military was established in 1973.

Defense Department head of personnel Bill Carr says all services met their goals for active duty and reserve recruiting and that the quality of recruits improved during the budget year that ended Sept. 30.

He told a Pentagon press conference that it's because the department continued to spend strongly on finding recruits as fewer jobs were available in the civilian world due to the nation's economic problems.

Carr says an example of the higher quality of recruits is that nearly 95 percent of those coming into the Army were high school graduates, an 11 percent improvement over the previous year.

RUNAWAY CONVERT Florida judge to order runaway convert to return home

ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) A Florida judge says he plans to order the teenager who ran away from Ohio to Florida because she feared physical harm for converting from Islam to Christianity sent back to Ohio.

The Orlando judge said Tuesday that he will sign the order when he gets the documents on 17-year-old Rifqa Bary's (RIF'-kuh BEHR'-ee) immigration status.

Bary has been in foster care in Orlando while her case was being reviewed. The judge says he will likely turn over the case to an Ohio court in the next few weeks.

Bary ran away from her parents' Columbus-area home in July, saying she feared being killed for changing religions. But a Florida Department of Law Enforcement investigation found no credible threats to Bary.

WALL STREET Stocks recede from highest levels of 2009

NEW YORK (AP) Stocks are ending mostly lower after a mixed earnings report from Johnson & Johnson put a damper on hopes that sales were rebounding at big U.S. companies.

The health care products maker said its sales fell more than expected. Investors are nervous that other major companies posting quarterly numbers this week will tell a similar story.

Financial stocks also fell Tuesday after an analyst lowered her rating on Goldman Sachs Group Inc. to "neutral" from "buy." The Dow is down 14 at 9,871. The Standard & Poor's 500 index is down 3 at 1,073. The Nasdaq composite index is up 1 at 2,140.

Three stocks fell for every two that rose on the New York Stock Exchange, where volume came to 1.1 billion shares compared with 946.8 million Monday.

FORD RECALL Ford adds 4.5 million vehicles to defective switch recall

DETROIT (AP) Ford Motor Co. says it will add 4.5 million older-model vehicles to the list of those recalled because a defective cruise control switch could cause a fire.

Ford says 1.1 million Ford Windstar minivans will be recalled for repairs due to a small risk of fires.

The company says another 3.4 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles with the same switches also will be recalled even though there have been no reports of fires. Those vehicles mainly are trucks and SUVs.

All vehicles covered by the recall are from the 1992 to 2003 model years.

Sherwood says this is Ford's seventh recall due to the Texas Instruments speed control switches. The recalls cover a total of 14.3 million vehicles and combined are the largest in Ford's history.

WILDFIRES-STORM Some residents told to evacuate

DAVENPORT, Calif. (AP) Officials are asking residents to leave their homes in California's Santa Cruz Mountains, where summer wildfires have made conditions ripe for mudslides.

Heavy rain is falling across much of the state, and emergency officials are alerting residents in Davenport to leave. The voluntary advisory affects about 60 homes.

Residents in other areas that were burned are watching for floods and mudslides.

People living around the burn areas near the 250-square-mile Station Fire in Angeles National Forest are being warned of possible flows of mud, ash and debris.

Los Angeles County fire department Inspector Frederic Stowers says, "It's something we prepare for every year." He says thousands of sandbags have been distributed to fire stations throughout Los Angeles County, and teams are ready to help with possible evacuations.

UCLA STABBING UCLA student charged with attempted murder

LOS ANGELES (AP) A UCLA student has been charged with attempted premeditated murder in the slashing of a classmate's throat during a chemistry lab.

The district attorney's office says 20-year-old Damon Thompson will be arraigned Tuesday. He is being held on $1 million bail.

Thompson is accused of attacking a female student he was standing next to during the lab at the University of California, Los Angeles. Prosecutors say the attack on Thursday was unprovoked, and that he stabbed her five times.

Witnesses say Thomas walked calmly into a student information office after the attack and told a staff member he had stabbed someone.

The victim was taken to a hospital in critical condition. Her condition has been improving.

NJ GOVERNOR-INDEPENDENT NEW: Independent gets noticed in tight NJ gov's race

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) It's been a swift rise for Chris Daggett, the independent candidate in New Jersey's race for governor.

He was the guy nobody heard of back in July, before he raised the amount needed to qualify for 2-to-1 matching funds. Then the 59-year-old former environmental protection commissioner delivered a strong performance in the first debate.

On Sunday, New Jersey's largest newspaper, The Star-Ledger of Newark, snubbed the major-party candidates, Gov. Jon Corzine and Republican challenger Chris Christie, to endorse the long shot.

Daggett believes he can win the Nov. 3 election. Political analysts are doubtful given his lack of money and the state's poor showing of independents.

Daggett is polling at about 12 percent, about 30 percentage points behind the other two.

(Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.) APNP 10-13-09 1550CDT


Source: http://www.kxmd.com/getArticle.asp?ArticleId=452505


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LA hospital exposed patients to high radiation


(AP) – 3 days ago

LOS ANGELES — California public health officials are investigating medical errors at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in which 206 patients were exposed to high doses of radiation during CT brain scans.

The report came as the FDA issued an alert to hospitals nationwide, warning them to review their safety procedures for CT scans. But the alert did not specifically name Cedars-Sinai.

"The magnitude of these overdoses and their impact on the affected patients were significant," the FDA said, warning that undetected overdoses put "patients at increased risk for long-term radiation effects."

Cedar-Sinai hospital officials said Friday that the patients got eight times the regular dose of radiation during CT scans, which are used to diagnose strokes.

State radiology inspectors are investigating the overdoses, California Department of Public Health spokesman Al Lundeen said.

The hospital said they found out about the overdoses in August when a patient reported hair loss after a scan.

Officials determined the machine had been set to a higher level since February 2008. The problem went undetected for 18 months and other patients also suffered temporary hair loss and skin-reddening.

"Since this is not a common side-effect from CT brain perfusion scans, Cedars-Sinai immediately began in investigation of the equipment involved and of the protocols," the hospital said in a statement.

Hospital staff notified state hospital inspectors and any patients who had that type of CT scan.



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Homeless Population in Shelters Hits Record High

This year is the "worst on record"

By VICTORIA CAVALIERE
Updated 4:15 PM EDT, Tue, Oct 13, 2009



Getty Images


There number of homeless people using city shelters each night has reached an all time high -- a 45 percent increase since Mayor Bloomberg took office eight years ago, according to a new report.


The statistics, released today by the advocacy group Coalition for the Homeless, find that over 39,000 homeless people -- including 10,000 homeless families -- check in to city shelters every evening.


In 2002, about 31,000 people were using city shelters -- and those numbers have steadily increased each year, the group said.


This year has turned out to be "the worst on record for New York City homelessness since the Great Depression," they said.

The 10,000 families sleeping in shelters each night includes 16,500 children. That's an increase of 12 percent from last year, the data suggests.


City officials have a slightly lower tally. According to the New York Department of Homelessness, its daily census for October 8 found 37,912 total homeless individuals in New York.


Either way, the numbers appear to indicate a problem for Mayor Bloomberg -- even in light of the recession. In 2004, the mayor vowed to slash homelessness in the city by two-thirds over five years and end "homeless as we know it."


Critics, like the Coalition for the Homeless, said Bloomberg has "resoundingly failed to achieve its primary goal" of slashing the number of people using city shelters.


Still, the city has gone to some creative lengths to move out the chronically homeless -- including buying one-way plane tickets for homeless families to other cities -- under the agreement that they won't return.


The city's shelter system costs $36,000 a year per family, the city said.


More than 550 families have left New York since 2007.


First Published: Oct 13, 2009 2:29 PM EDT


Source: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Homeless-Population-in-Shelters-Reaches-Record-Levels-64124597.html

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THE UNITED NATIONS


THE UNITED NATIONS

by Rousas J. Rushdoony



Any discussion of the United Nations is inevitably a religious discussion, for the principles which that organization embodies are not merely political and economic but inescapably religious. As a result, an historical study, however valuable in its own sphere, is inappropriate to our concern. The failures of the U.N. are real and they are many, but it can perhaps be legitimately argued that, as a young institution, it needs time to mature and that its errors are the accidents of youth rather than the diseases of old age. The more basic question is this: Is it established on a solid foundation, or is it built on sand? Is it a boon to humanity, or a menace? It is thus a matter of principles more than of specific incidents and histories.

The religious connotation of the U.N. is apparent in most discussions thereof. Its opponents attack it as anti-Christian and anti-American, and, with no small heat, the proponents of the U.N. defend it as man's great hope for peace and true social order and see its critics as wicked, hate-filled heretics whom they denounce with conspicuous heat and hate.1 It would be the course of wisdom for both sides to recognize that there is no lack of intelligence on both sides, and to concede the earnest faith of both parties, by recognizing that what divides them is not a matter of stupidity and "mental illness" but sharply contrasted articles of faith.

The U.N. thus must be seen in the context of its religious presuppositions. It is, historically, an outgrowth of Enlightenment concepts and of the religion of humanity.2

First of all, the U.N. holds as its basic premise a thesis which has a long history in both religion and in politics, the doctrine of salvation by law. It believes that world peace can be attained through world law.3 In Article I, Section 2 of Chapter I, "Purposes and Principles" of the Charter of the United Nations, it is declared that the purpose is

To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace.4

The Charter makes clear that this purpose, while central, is not the only one. It has, however, received central attention from many proponents. Thus, Eichelberger held in 1955 that "The purpose of the United Nations is the maintenance of peace."5 The problem of the U.N., he held, is political. i.e., methodological, for "The nations can agree upon a foolproof system of disarmament if a political agreement or series of political agreements clears the way."6 "Universal enforceable disarmament with collective security is the final answer to the threat of atomic destruction."7 In other words, remove by force an aspect of man's environment, atomic weapons, and peace will follow. The U.N. needs to be strengthened to this end, he held. "The United Nations is in the shadowy area between an organization of states and a world government."8 In 1960, Eichelberger reaffirmed his stand: "The purpose of the United Nations is to prevent war."9 Its purpose, moreover, is to establish an international society for this purpose:

The fundamental question could be stated in another way: is the United Nations the foundation of international policy or an instrument which nations can use or reject as short-sighted self-interest dictates?

An examination of the Charter's Preamble, purposes and principles leads to the inescapable conclusion that the framers of the United Nations contemplated a dynamic international society. The world was at war. The peoples of many nations were serving together and making terrible sacrifices to win the war. They believed that with peace would come an international society strong enough to prevent war and build a just international order. The Atlantic Charter expressed this belief.10

The responsibilities of this international society must be "Planet Earth as a whole. And Planet Earth must be a moral and legal entity."11

This first premise, salvation by law, is a venerable one, with extensive religious support. It is, clearly, the basic doctrine of Judaism, and it is extensively present in traditional Christianity as in Thomism and Arminianism. It is the dominant doctrine of modernistic, social gospel Protestantism. Two aspects of this premise have already become manifest: First, that the hope and salvation of man and of society is through world law, and, second, that the essence or at least the primary factor in peace is environmental rather than personal. The environment must be altered by the removal of atomic weapons and by the addition of enforceable world law. This is a faith which many hold who are politically and economically conservative, as witness Senator Barry M. Goldwater, who holds that the U.N. needs re-direction, not abolition. The same is true of Felix Morley.12 This position, however, cannot be consistently held by one who is a conservative or orthodox Christian because of its radical conflict with basic biblical doctrine. For the orthodox Christian, the law cannot save; it can only condemn. The law cannot create true peace and order; it cannot save man and society from the consequences of their sins. Christ alone is the prince and principle of peace and of order, man's only savior and mediator. Neither introduction of law nor the removal of a part of man's environment are basic to the problem of peace, but rather regeneration through the saving work of Christ, His vicarious sacrifice, and sanctification in and through Him. Wars are not environmental in sources and origin but human. "From whence come wars and fightings among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?" (James 4:1). Thus war is caused by sin, not by environment. Moreover, not all who are involved in war are equally sinners. Some are unjustly attacked and must defend themselves, so that peace as such is not always a virtue and can be as evil as any war. More accurately, war in itself cannot be called evil, for sin resides in man himself rather than in things, so that to seek the abolition of war is to evade the basic issue, the sin of man. And man's need is regeneration, which is not the function of the state. For the state to presume to save man is for the state to assume the prerogatives of the church. The Preamble to the Charter of the United Nations declares in part, "We the peoples of the United Nations determined to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war... to unite our strength to maintain international peace and security, and to ensure, by the acceptance of principles and the institution of methods, that armed force shall not be used, save in the common interest... have resolved to combine our efforts to accomplish these aims." The U.N. is thus "determined to save"; it is thus possessed with all the sense of inevitability and missionary fervor that any religious group possesses. It deserves to be regarded as a crusading missionary organization and to be respected for its idealistic faith, but, at the same time, regarded by orthodox Christians as a false and deadly faith, all the more deceptive because its idealism is premised on an anti-Christian faith. Inescapably, the hostility between the U.N., with its doctrine of the salvation of man and society by law, and orthodox Christianity is no less intense and bitter now than when the Sanhedrin felt that the future of the people and of their Temple required the death of Jesus (John 11:49-52).

A second basic premise of the U.N. is closely related to the first. Believing as it does in world peace through world law, it assumes that this world rule of law is necessarily the rule of morality. This illusion has been clearly expressed by Dean Roscoe Pound: "The real foe of absolution is law."13 Yet the "courts are creatures of the political community," one advocate of this position affirms.14 Is absolutism then really the enemy of law? Is not all positivistic law dedicated to absolutism? If no higher law is recognized, and if law is what man says it is, is not either the law or man absolutized, and, in either case, the controlling powers invested with total power? John Foster Dulles, in championing the U.N., clearly affirmed this same equation of "agreed law" and morality:

It is generally agreed that a stable world order depends most of all upon the existence of an adequate body of international law which can be administered so as to secure justice. There is no such body of law today. Without it certain other steps cannot be taken. It is not safe to give coercive power to the Security Council or to any other international body unless that body is bound to administer agreed law. Without law, power is despotism. We ought not to try to impose international despotism upon others; neither should we consent to have it imposed upon ourselves.15

But the U.S.S.R. is both a despotism and has an agreed law. It is moreover democratic in structure. According to the Chairman of the U.S.S.R. Supreme Court:

In the USSR justice is administered only by the courts, and all citizens are equal before the law and the court., irrespective of social or property status, office, nationality, race or religion.

All courts in the USSR are elective. Every citizen of the USSR who enjoys the right of suffrage is eligible for election as judge or people's assessor. There is no property or other qualification; all that is required is that the candidate shall have attained the age of 25.16

The Soviet Constitution affirms the rule of law, of Soviet law, from whence comes all true power and law. As Article 3 affirms, "All power in the U.S.S.R. belongs to the working people of town and country as represented by the Soviets of Working People's Deputies."17 Why not then accept the U.S.S.R. as an area of freedom, because ruled by law, rather than a despotism? And yet even Socialists have been ready to apply such terms as "lynch procedure" to Soviet law.18 What would constitute "agreed law" for Dulles? Soviet scholars believe their society to be more truly concerned with the individual and with true humanism than "anti-humanist . . . monopoly capitalism."19 Dulles, as an earnest and even sanctimonious champion of modernist Christianity, had much to say about the righteous foundations of peace.20 Dulles defined the basis of law:

Fundamentally, world peace depends upon world law, and world law depends upon a consensus of world opinion as to what is right and what is just. If there is wide disagreement about what is right and just, there will always be risk of war. Human nature is such that men always have believed — and I trust always will believe — as President Wilson put it in his war message to Congress, "The right is more precious than peace."

Experience in the United Nations shows that there is considerable agreement about what is right. That is particularly true between those who are influenced by one or another of the great religions· All the great religions reflect to some degree the moral or natural law, and that makes it possible to find many common denominators of right and wrong.

The great difficulty today is that the Communist rulers, who control so much of the world, are animated by an atheistic creed which denies the existence of a moral law or a natural law. To them, laws do not reflect justice, but are ways whereby those in power win their class war. For their beliefs and ours, it is impossible to find a common denominator. They do, however, pay attention to other people's sense of right and justice, because that affects what they will do and how they will act in any given situation. That is always of interest, even to despots.21

Three points are here apparent. First, Dulles, holding that "world peace depends upon world law," grounds that world law on no more than "a consensus of world opinion as to what is right and what is just." This consensus includes what the great religions have to say, and, if there be "wide disagreement," then "there will always be a risk of war." Dulles' foundation is thus purely immanent, a consensus or general will, and, because agreement is so important, it is logical to urge the world religions to suppress their differences or at the least to make them unessential to their position Second, Dulles made the very questionable assumption that all "great religions" are extensively agreed "about what is right." Orthodox Christianity would not accept this assumption. Third, Dulles held that, because Communism is atheistic, "it is impossible to find a common denominator" with respect to "a moral law or a natural law." One would logically assume that Dulles felt that the Communist states and all atheistic states have no place in the U.N. This, however, was not the ease. In fact, Dulles in 1950 called for the recognition of Red China as a necessity if that government retained power "over a reasonable period of time."22 How was this rationalized, when no moral common denominator exists, according to Dulles? There is another common denominator, power:

At the present stage of world development we should try to evolve a world organization that will form moral judgments and reflect as adequately as possible the quantity, quality, and intensity of power which will back these judgments.

. . . Some persons would like to throw out Soviet Russia because we disagree with their representatives and they with us. A world organization without Soviet Communists would be a much more pleasant organization. But they have power in the world, and if the United Nations gets away from that reality it becomes artificial and exerts less influence. The United Nations should mirror more accurately, not less accurately, the reality of what is.23

The world must be saved by law, and law reflects power rather than morality. Indeed, the United Nations must be beyond good and evil:

I have now come to believe that the United Nations will best serve the cause of peace if its Assembly is representative of what the world actually is, and not merely representative of the parts which we like. Therefore, we ought to be willing that all the nations should be members without attempting to appraise closely those which are "good" and those which are "bad." Already that distinction is obliterated by the present membership of the United Nations.24

How can Dulles affirm the primacy of world law based "upon what is right and just" and then deny the validity, in that world order, of any appraisal of "good" and "bad" nations? The answer may lie in his central moral conviction:

Our greatest need is to regain confidence in our spiritual heritage. Religious belief in the moral nature and possibilities of man is, and must be, relevant to every kind of society, throughout the ages past and those to come. It is relevant to the complex conditions of modern society. We need to see that, if we are to combat successfully the methods and practices of a materialistic belief.25

Orthodox Christianity affirms as the "greatest need," intellectually, the true recognition of the nature of Christ and of his saving power. The religion of humanity, which Dulles affirmed, found the nature of Christ irrelevant or at best a peripheral issue to "religious belief in the moral nature and possibilities of man." But for orthodox Christianity, man is a sinner, not the object of faith. Dulles felt it was a triumph of the U.N. that religious differences are regarded as irrelevant: "They mingle together on a basis of social and intellectual equality, irrespective of nation, race, sex, or creed." This, he held, was "genuine fellowship,"' practiced at the U.N. "more than anywhere else."26 But for an orthodox Christian, who denies the equality of all creeds, this fellowship is anathema. All of these assumptions by the U.N., Dulles, and others, adds up to a simple equation: the rule of law is the rule of morality, which is faith in man. And this, in its own way, is a faith which Marxism emphatically holds. The world problem again appears, in this focus, not as a need for regeneration but for re-organization, not a change in man's nature but a change in ,man's legal and institutional environment. And this, of course was the Enlightenment hope.27

The goal of the U.N. is thus a humanistic order rather than a moral order in the sense of a transcendental law and the categories of good and evil. Humanism itself is equated with morality, and no other category can have any relevance. The Preamble makes clear that its allegiance is to "fundamental human rights," not to fundamental moral or religious rights or principles. The charter in stating its "Purposes and Principles," speaks clearly and plainly on this matter, affirming as a purpose and principle of the U.N.

To achieve international cooperation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.28

It is moreover stated that "The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all Members."29 This is at least an unrealistic statement in view of the veto power granted to certain members. Again it is stated that the United Nations shall promote:

a. higher standards of living, full employment, and conditions of economic and social progress and development;

b. solutions of international economic, social, health, and related problems; and international cultural and educational cooperation; and

c. universal respect for, and observance of, human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion.30

A third premise of the U.N. is thus clearly in view: it is a humanistic order, equalitarian and socialistic as well as totalitarian. It is denied that economics or religion are separate law spheres; both are subordinate to politics, to world politics, which must govern to secure "conditions of economic and social progress and development." Religious differences are denied any validity, for no distinction as to religion is permitted. Not the freedom of economic law and religious activity but world legislation with respect to both is in view. Here is a position radically at odds with historic, orthodox Christianity. It is at odds also with the constitutional heritage of the United States. It is in power today, however, in both the U.N. and the United States. William O. Douglas, a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, has declared, "We believe that the extinction of any civilization, culture, religion, or life-ways is a loss to all humanity."31 This of course immediately renders guilty every universal religion, i.e., every faith which believes that it is the hope of every man's salvation, because every such faith seeks to destroy by conversion every false faith. It renders guilty every American who longs for and works for the destruction of Communism. It is a demand for total tolerance because of total acceptance. Faith is in humanity as such, not in a transcendental moral and spiritual order. It is not "In God We Trust," but "In Man We Trust." According to Douglas, "As Mr. Justice Holmes once said, 'Universal distrust creates universal incompetence.'"32 The biblical mandate, "Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?" (Isa. 2:22) and " . . . beware of men" (Matt. 10:17), is set aside, not on any empirical grounds of evidence, but on religious grounds. This strange new doctrine we are now told is the truly Christian and the truly American doctrine! Harry Dexter White, in his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee on August 13, 1948, affirmed this faith and said, in part, "My creed is the American creed ... I am opposed to discrimination in any form, whether on grounds of race, color, religious, political belief, or economic status."33 According to this position, there can logically be no discrimination against religious polygamy or cannibalism, or against communism. V. Frank Coe, on the stand on May 15, 1956, objected to being questioned as to his alleged Communist allegiance during a stated period, stating "that he should not be questioned about his political beliefs."34 The logic of this is that there can be no challenge to what the humanistic world powers declare to be the status quo. As Lenny Bruce has stated it, "The religious leaders are 'what should be' . . . Let me tell you the truth. The truth is 'what is.' If 'what is' is, you have to sleep eight, ten hours a day, that is the truth. A lie will be: People need no sleep at all. Truth is 'what is.'"35 Everything that exists, perversions, murders, and the like stands at least on an equality with good character as truth. Whatever this humanistic world order therefore declares to be "what is" is therefore "the truth." But it is a violation of orthodox Christian faith to see the state as the order of truth, which the Charter of the U.N. makes it to be. We need not go to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt had a major part, to substantiate this. The Charter itself makes clear that this universal equalitarianism is the true faith for all mankind. It is, moreover, an absolute order, binding on all mankind. "In the United Nations, as 'in my Father's house,' there 'are many mansions.'"36 What does this mean? The Charter is explicit, as Cohen points out:

The Charter of the United Nations is a treaty, but not an ordinary treaty. The Member States which subscribe to the Charter not only commit themselves to act in pursuance of the purposes and in conformity with the principles of the Charter, but authorize the Organization to ensure that non-Member as well as Member States act in accordance with the principles of the Charter, so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security. The Charter looks toward, if it does not establish, a world-wide community of nations dedicated to the purposes and principles of the Charter.37

Lest it be assumed that this is merely Cohen's personal opinion, let us examine the Charter at this point:

The Organization shall ensure that states which are not Members of the United Nations act in accordance with these Principles so far as may be necessary for the maintenance of international peace and security.38

As a result, any act or agency of the U.N. which that body declares to be in accordance with its principles, such as UNESCO or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted near midnight, December 10, 1948, when the General Assembly met in Paris), is enforceable by armed force on any member or non-member state. That the U.N. intends to exert such force whenever and wherever it is able to do so can be safely assumed. In the meantime, certainly the constituent states are not lacking in politicians who are dedicated to "peaceful coexistence" as "a first step" towards "a staging area from which further advances toward the ideal global order can be launched."39 To gain this peaceful coexistence, "The building of greater confidence and trust thus becomes a first objective of peaceful coexistence."40 Again, faith in man is a basic perspective. Certainly the U.S. has dedicated itself to an attempt, no less zealously than the U.S.S.R., to create a world order and world peace.

This is in evidence in the State Department, as in the U.N., and also in NATO, which is defined as "not merely a military alliance . . . it equally envisages permanent common action in the political and economic fields."41

These human rights which are to be imposed on all societies are basically hostile to every society. There is no country without a religious and racial orientation. In the U.S.S.R., the old Christian faith maintains its vitality underground. Each Soviet Republic is outwardly governed by men of its own racial origin. Thus, "in the Lithuanian Republic 90.6% of the judges are Lithuanians, and in the Armenian SSR 95% are Armenian.42 Indeed, charges of anti-Semitism are leveled against the U.S.S.R., Jacobson charging that a high percentage of criminal executions involve Jews.43 Others, like Bishop James A. Pike, have stated the reverse, namely, that the "Russians extend the melting pot idea to the point of persecution. In Russia, they say one can't be different. They say, 'We won't allow you to have cultural and religious separateness."'44 Whether either position is accurate is at least a matter of debate and probably questionable. Nonetheless, it can be safely said that it is likely that some race or races are the object of prejudice and discrimination in the U.S.S.R., and all historic religions as well. Certainly India discriminates against races and faiths alien to itself, as does Israel, Yemen, Ghana, and virtually every state in existence. Each properly represents the order of a particular people and a general or specific faith. The U.N. Charter gives grounds for the interference of that body into every national and religious state in existence in the name of total equality.

The U.N. position, ostensibly anti-racist, is no less racist than the most fervent champions of race in history. Indeed, the liberal, religion of humanity, faith is simply a form of racism. There are two kinds of racism today. For the first, to belong to a particular race, white or black, Jewish or Arab, is all-important. Membership in a particular group is itself the mark of distinction and discrimination, and constitutes the dividing line. For the second form of racism, to belong to the human race is all-important. For both positions, racial membership is the test, the ticket of admission and the guarantee of status. Against this expanded or liberal form of racism, as against all forms of racism, orthodox Christianity enters a dissent. For the Christian, character, born of faith, is the test of man, not a particular race or the human race. Racial differences are recognized as real and as God-given, but the determinative fact concerning man is his relationship to God, not his fact of humanity. This is the biblical position; it is also the position which makes for progress by emphasizing quality. Quality is sought out and emulated. A people, discriminated against at one time, by emulation advance themselves, as witness the Irish in America. Therefore, in no uncertain terms, the orthodox Christian must regard the universal racism of the U.N. as a menace, destructive of the faith and detrimental to man.

The humanism of the U.N., as has been already indicated, rests on a religious doctrine of man, the fourth premise of its position. Because man must be trusted, and, because humanity as such is its standard apart from all distinctions of race or creed, idealism is held to be workable. All men, insofar as they are divorced from the alienating faiths of nationalism and supernatural religion, are assumed to seek peace and to desire it. Man is good, except when perverted by limited allegiances of country and faith. But idealism is one of the worst enemies of orthodox Christianity, in that it denies the doctrine of original sin and asserts that man's works and law can overcome the effects of sin and sin itself. It assumes that men's motives are good: they seek peace and progress when not perverted by outside influences. But orthodox Christianity says that men seek rather death and destruction apart from Christ. "All they that hate me love death" (Prov. 8:36). The idealism of unregenerate man is self-defeating and self-deceiving.

But the presupposition that man can save himself and his society by his own works and law rests not only on the assumption that man's basic problems are environmental rather than ethical and religious, i.e., due to a fallen nature, but also on the assumption that all human differences are of degree only, and not of kind. Hence they can be remedied or reconciled by man. Man must therefore seek relief, not from God but from himself magnified into the form of a world state. Orthodox Christianity, by its insistence on the sovereignty of God in salvation as in all things, cannot give assent to this faith.

But, in this perspective of the religion of humanity as incarnated in the U.N., the human problem is one of proper management and direction rather than a change of nature. What man needs thus is not the divine act but human engineering and planning.

By its failure to reckon with the fact of sin as the reality of human nature rather than an accident of environment and training, the U.N. is not only incompetent to deal with sin but especially prone to it. No legislative body is immune from the fact of sin. Every kind of institution, civil, religious, educational or otherwise, with any history of any length, has been characterized at some time or other, sometimes and often chronically, by corrupt practices, including graft and bribery. But in those bodies where a strong and active Christian faith prevails, that faith conditions and governs the limits of corruption, although it does not expect perfection this side of heaven. In the U.N., lacking in Christian faith and subscribing to an idealistic humanism, there is no such limitation. The voting is almost strictly in terms of the most corrupt kind of power politics and bribery.45

By failing to reckon with the fact of sin, the U.N. falls into the same fallacy as Marxism, that of seeing the backward peoples not simply as backward because of false faith and bad character but as victimized. The consequences of this position are favoritism for the backward and the delinquent (as well as the criminal), and the penalizing of the advanced. "Burden-sharing" is imposed on the advanced in the form of extensive grants in aid to other nations.46 These nations are not termed backward or degenerate but rather "the less developed members."47 Progress is seen as an accident of environment and opportunity, not as a consequence of religious character.

It is possible to cite at length the political consequences of the false premises of the U.N. A few will suffice. The Charter provides for centralization of power and vastly expands the powers of state. Its officials are appointed. Property rights and trial by jury are omitted from the Charter. The U.S. Constitution, on the other hand, both separates and limits the powers and the branches of the federal government. It provides for elected officials, protects property rights, and protects the right of trial by jury. The Constitution denies to the federal union any jurisdiction over religion; the Charter forbids all religious distinctions, which is tantamount to abolishing all religions save the religion of humanity. Established to keep the peace, it has failed to keep the peace.48 While talking much of human rights, as in The Covenant on Human Rights, its "every statement of right places in government hands unlimited authority to define the right and to restrict every exercise of it."49 It has been consistently a threat to historic liberties.50 The U.N. has been characterized in its brief history by one sorry scandal after another, and one failure after another: the Bang-Jensen case, Hungary, Tibet, Palestine, Goa, the Congo, Angola, and many, many more.51

The U.N. believes in salvation by law, but in no historic sense does it have law. The two central definitions of law are (1) the binding custom or practice of a community, or (2) the commandments or revelations of God. The U.N. has no community of law, nor any revealed religious basis. As a result, its decisions, as well as those of the World Court, are bound to be an injustice to most men. Law, however, can also be the rule of conduct and action prescribed by a supreme governing authority and enforced thereby. Such law from early times has been called tyranny. The laws of the U.N. thus, however well-intentioned, and the decisions of the World Court, however much informed by a zeal for humanity, are inescapably a tyranny to most men. To impose the laws of Islam upon a Jain and a Christian is surely tyranny, even as would be the imposition of Jewish law upon a Moslem. Law can be as much an instrument of invasion and tyranny as can bayonets; alien laws strike at the heart of a culture and at its vitals. In the name of defending all cultures, the U.N. is a new humanistic culture aimed at destroying all others by means of the imperialism of world law and a world police. It is not surprising that the U.N. is unpopular with many, and this distaste for the U.N. is no doubt a factor among others in the financial delinquency of many members with respect to dues. The U.S. is paying "nearly half of the U.N. peacekeeping operations," among other things.52

While weak in many areas, the U.N. is clearly strong in the support it gains from certain religious circles, especially where the religion of humanity is clearly in view. During World War I, the European World Conscience Society distributed to the clergy in the English-speaking world a book dedicated to affirming "the spiritual unity of man" as a scientific fact, "Proclaiming his social unity," and "preaching the gospel of political unity."53 The oneness of all races, religions, and states was the new gospel of this agency.

During World War II, the joint operation of all religions to create the new world order was urged through a Federal Council of Churches Commission. Everett R. Clinchy urged, "Let Protestants, Catholics and Jews and those of other religious faith live to prove that men can together build the natural world without and the intellectuals and moral world within so that the united peoples of the world shall create a prosperity, as Lincoln suggested, whose course shall be forward and which as long as the earth endures shall never pass away.54

The National Council of Churches has repeatedly called for support of the U.N. In its 1963 Philadelphia Assembly message, after calling for "racial brotherhood and justice," the "National Council's Message to the Churches" went on to say, in terminology common to the religion of humanity:

As churches, we must actively support the United Nations and adequate aid for developing nations; must press for significant steps toward disarmament and for diversion of enormous resources now devoted to the arms race to a frontal attack on the unmet needs of mankind;

and must recognize that revolutionary movements of our time may be new thrusts for human dignity and freedom.55

These general terms could serve to give dignity to any revolutionary movement, for which do not claim to seek "human dignity and freedom?"

On April 10, 1963, Pope John XXIII addressed an encyclical, "Pacem in Terris," to the Roman Catholic Church and "to all men of good will," calling for a world community without Christian faith as its premise.56 Although some churchmen sought to give the encyclical a conservative perspective, others, like Father Joseph Walsh, C.S.P., saw in it radical directions:

I personally never thought I would see the day when a Pope would talk about the human family having entered upon an advance towards limitless horizons — this, from the successor of a Pope who, a hundred years ago, was condemning liberalism with its claims of man's capacity to grow and perfect himself as somehow opposed to the innate limitations of humanity. This change is of great significance for the way in which Catholicism and Catholics in general will view the future and the problems of mankind. Man is now looked upon as capable of advancing towards limitless horizons. The Pope very much wants to immerse his institution in that advance.57

Some men have openly called for a world religion, or a United Religions order comparable to the United Nations. Thus, Dr. Luther H. Evans, Dartmouth College professor of political science and ex-director general of UNESCO has said, "The peace of the world demands not only the existence of the United Nations, but also a United Religions."58 But "conflict, not peace will be the consequence of pressures for religious unity."59

The religious tension and conflict between orthodox Christianity and the religion of humanity, to mention no others, cannot be reconciled. Orthodox Christianity sees the problem of man as "a disruption between man and God ... the troubles man has are due to a broken relationship with his Maker." The religion of humanity points instead "to the disruption within human personality. It is said that ideally man is a 'whole' person and that breakdowns in this wholeness cause the troubles man experiences." Here the basic problem is not "a disruption between man and God" but "the basic problem is rather a disruption within — and between man and man" requiring, among other things, the restoration of "the dimensions of brotherhood."60 Dr. Franklin Littell has stated the aim of the faith is "the renewal of the social structure...not the saving of individual souls," for "God wants to restore responsibility to a rebellious and broken social order."61

This is a revolutionary, messianic, and anti-historical religious faith, for its goal is the end of history in the perfect social order. As one man has stated it, "The realm of childhood is, by nature, a real democracy. Children do not know the past; they live in the present; they have no anguish of the future."62 Not only must all men and all religions be equal, but apparently all times and ages as well!

Certainly, this faith offers an easy equalization of all standards. When the Rev. Adam Clayton Powell, Negro Congressman and civil rights leader, was criticized for his moral conduct, his answer was forthright and rigorously honest. "I know what they're saying, 'You should be better than other people because you might embarrass the civil rights struggle.' Why should I be better than other people? Hell, man, I'm fighting for equality!"63

A one world order requires a one world religion in order to be undergirded by a living fabric of faith and law. The issue will be joined, accordingly, in the arena of Christian faith rather than in political action, for the dynamics of action are in the realm of faith. For the one world order to advance, it must wage war against religion, orthodox Christianity in particular. There is thus no escaping the fact of religious warfare. Those who refuse to offer incense to the new caesars will face both hostility and persecution. But even more certainly, they will have from their faith the assurance of victory (I John 5:4,5).



Footnotes:

1See Gordon H. Hall: The Hate Campaign Against the U.N., One World Under Attack. Boston: Beacon Press, 1952.

2See R. J. Rushdoony, This Independent Republic. Nutley, N.J.: Craig Press, 1964.

3See Grenville Clark and Louis B. Sohn: World Peace Through World Law. Cambridge: Harvard, 1958.

4For a commentary on this, see Hans Kelsen: The Law of the United Nations, A Critical Analysis of its Fundamental Problems, pp. 27 ff. New York: Praeger, 1950.

5Clark M. Eichelberger: U.N.: The First Ten Years, p. 8. New York: Harper, 1955.

6Ibid., p. 51.

7Ibid., p. 52.

8Ibid., p. 89.

9Clark M. Eichelberger: U.N.: The First Fifteen Years, p- 8: cf. p. 4.

10lbid., p. 125.

11Ibid., p. 147.

12Barry M. Goldwater: Why Not Victory? p. 99 f. New York: Macfadden, 1962. Felix Morley wrote, "On the whole, the Charter is workmanlike and will be workable, if resolute popular will to that end is manifest in this and other countries": The Charter of the United Nations, An Analysis, p. 55. New York: American Enterprise Association, January, 1946.

13Roscoe Pound: Justice According to Law, pp. 87-91; New Haven: Yale, 1951, cited in Victor G. Rosenblum: Law as a Political Instrument, p. 81; New York: Random House, 1962.

14Rosenblum, idem. Raymond Swing equated the U.N. developed into world government, as law and national sovereignty as lawlessness and anarchy, Raymond Swing: In the Name of Sanity, p. 116; New York: Harper, 1946.

15John Foster Dulles: War or Peace, p. 198. New York: Macmillan, 1950. On Dulles, see James J. Martin: Meditations Upon the Early Wisdom of John Foster Dulles; Mercer Island, Washington, 1958.

16Alexander Gorkin, "Guilty or Not Guilty — Who Decides?" in USSR Soviet Life Today, p. 17, December, 1963.

17Robert Le Fevre: Constitutional Government Today in Soviet Russia, The Constitution of the U.S.S.R. Annotated and explained, p. 19. New York: Exposition, 1962.

18Julius Jacobson, "Russian Law Enters the 'Final Stages of Communism' — 1," in New Politics p. 19-42, Fall, 1963, vol. II. no. 4.

19"See Y. A. Zamoshkin, "Bureaucracy and the Individual," The Soviet Review, August, 1961, vol. 2, no. 8, pp. 20-38 and Nikolai Gei and Vladimir Piskunov, "Abstract Humanism and Socialist Humanism," The Soviet Review, June, 1961, vol. 2, no. 6, pp. 39-55.

20See John Foster Dulles, "The American People Need Now to be Imbued with a Righteous Faith," in Dulles, etc.: A Righteous Faith for a Just and Durable Peace, pp. 5-11. New York: Commission to Study the Bases of a Just and Durable Peace, Federal Council of Churches, 1942. For Dulles' piety, see Margaret Dulles Edwards, "Tomorrow's Legacy," Bible Society Record, vol.' 109, no. 1 January, 1964. p. 12 f.

21Dulles: War or Peace, p. 187.

22Ibid., p. 190.

23Ibid., p. 188.

24Ibid., p. 190. Alexander Dallin concurs with this opinion in The Soviet Union at the United Nations, An Inquiry into Soviet Motives and Objectives, p. 212 f.; New York: Praeger, p. 213. Soviet hopes from the U.N. are cited by Dallin, p. 192.

25Ibid., p. 261.

26bid., p. 65. While talking of equality, the U.N. is the most elitist of organizations. The General Assembly has no power but can only recommend action. The Security Council is vested with the actual power, while the Court executes its legal will. The Security Council can order against any country such measures as it deems including war, or total blockade, or "complete or partial interruption o£ economic relations, and of rail, sea, air, postal, telegraphic, radio and other means of communication" Charter, chapt. VII, articles 41, 42.

Dulles affirmed his belief in man. It is well remember who the politicians are who have most often spoken of the need for such faith. Thus, it was Senator John C. Spooner, who, at the beginning of the 20th century, defended himself and other corrupt politicians, saying, "There is no treason in the Senate! The one man I despise most is he who takes upon his lips in blasphemy the good character of a woman; next to that is the man who will tear down the character of the man in public life. Above all things, my brothers, believe in your republic and in the general fidelity of your public servants." Faith in man is the constant plea of corrupt men. David Graham Phillips: The Treason of the Senate, p. 51. Stanford: Academic Reprints (1906 in original Cosmopolitan publication).

27See Louis I. Bredvold: The Brave New World of the Enlightenment. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961.

28Charter of the United Nations. Chapt. I, Article 1, Sect. 3.

29Charter, I, 2, 1.

30Charter IX, 55.

31William O. Douglas: Democracy's Manifesto, p. 44. Garden
City, New York: Doubleday, 1962.

32Ibid., p. 28.

33Nathan I White: Harry Dexter White, Loyal American, p. 11 f.; of. 22 f.; 41 f. published by Bessie (White) Bloom, Waban, Mass., 1956. White's "creed" is becoming U.S. Supreme Court law. Thus, in 1952, (343 U.S. 250) in Beauharnais v. Illinois, the Court "sanctioned state antihate legislation which imposed criminal sanctions on persons guilty of publishing statements which exposed the citizens of any race color, creed, or religion to contempt, derision, or obloquy." Paul G. Kauper: Civil Liberties and the Constitution, p. 58; Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 1962. Subsequently, the Illinois FEPC ruled that the Motorola Co. stop using ability tests for job applicants on the ground that the test was discriminatory and unfair in failing to make allowance for "culturally deprived and disadvantaged groups" and for "inequalities and differences in environment." See Human Events, vol. XXIV, no. 14, April 4, 1964, pp. 4, 13. In other words, the incompetent must be made privileged, and the competent penalized to equalize men in the name of democracy.

34Ibid., p. 408.

35Lenny Bruce, "How to talk dirty and influence people," Playboy, vol. 11 no. 1 January 1964, p. 182.

36Benjamin V. Cohen: The United Nations, Constitutional Developments, Growths, and Possibilities, p. 101. The Oliver Wendell Holmes Lectures, 1961. Cambridge: Harvard, 1961.

37Ibid., p. 2 f.

38Charter, I, 6. See also Eichelberger: U.N.: The First Fifteen Years, pp. 106-8; Kelsen, p. 75 f.

39Arthur N. Holcombe, chairman: Peaceful Coexistence, A New Challenge to the United Nations, p. 37. Twelfth Report, Commission to Study the Organization of Peace, Research Affiliate of the American Association for the United Nations New York: 1960.

40Ibid., p. 19.

41North Atlantic Treaty Organization Information Service: The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, p. 7 f.; cf. p. 52. The NATO Handbook. Paris, 1962. See also John Fischer: Master Plan U.S.A., An Informal Report on America's Foreign Policy and the Men Who Make It; New York: Harper. 1951; Nelson A. Rockefeller: The Future of Federalism New York: Atheneum, 1963; see the Department of State Foreign Policy Briefs for numerous instances; see President Lyndon B. Johnson's State of Union Message of January 8, 1964, S. F. Examiner, Thursday, January 9, 1964 p. 14

42Gorkin, idem.

43Jacobson, p. 34 ff.

44S. F. Examiner, Tuesday, January 7, 1964, p. 9.

45For one instance, see Alfred Lilientahal: What Price Israel?, pp. 61 ff., with reference to Palestine; Chicago: Regnery, 1953. This, however, is merely one case among many.

46See Pierre Uri: Partnership for Progress, A Program for Transatlantic Actions, p. 45. Published for the Atlantic Institute by Harper and Row, New York, 1963.

47Eichelberger: The U.N.: The First Fifteen Years. p. 130 f.

48See "There is No Peace — 18 Years 57 Wars," The Indianapolis News, Monday, April 29, 1963.

49V. Orval Watts: Should We Strengthen the United Nations? p. 29, Colorado Springs: The Freedom School, 1961.

50Alice Widener: Behind the U.N. Front. New York: Bookmailer, 1962. Widener has an interesting chapter on the U.N. advocate, Clark M. Eichelberger pp. 87-94.

51See U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary: The Bang-Jensen Case, Washington: Government Printing Office, 1961: Julius Epstein: "The Bang-Jensen Tragedy," American Opinion, vol. III, no. 5, May, 1960; Congo July 1960 Evidence. Statement by Mr. Merchiers, Belgian Minister of Justice; 46 Angry Men, The 46 Civilian Doctors of Elisa-bethville Denounce U.N.O. Violations in Katanga, Belmont, Mass., 1962; On the Morning of March 15, Boston: Portuguese-American Committee on Foreign Affairs, n.d.; On the double role of Lt. General Vasiliev, with the U.N. and with the North Korean invasion. in the Korean War, see U.S. Department of Defense, Office of Public Information, release no. 465-54, Saturday, May 15, 1954; Michel Sturdza: World Government and Internal Assassination, Belmont, Mass., 1963, p. 18, cites Professor Hans Morgenthau of Chicago as stating that "The International Government of the United Nation, stripped of its legal trimmings, then, is really the International Government of the United States and the Soviet Union acting in unison;" the citation is from Hans J. Morgenthau, "The New United Nations, What It Can't and Can Do." Commentary, November 1958, vol. 26, no. 5, p. 376. Morgenthau, who favors the U.N., points out that the U.N.'s legal power is in the Security Council, which has "only two . . . really great powers," the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. When these two work in unison, they are the U.N.; "if they are disunited — there will be no international government at all." One can conclude, therefore, from the activities of the U. N. that there is a growing range of action in unison.

52Oakland (Calif.) Tribune, "Showdown in the U.N." editorial, p. 23 Wednesday, January 8, 1964.

53Walter Walsh: The World Rebuilt, p. 27. London: Allen and Unwin, 1917.

54Everett R. Clinchy, "Christians Must Seek the Cooperation of Other Faiths" in Dulles, etc.: A Righteous Faith, p. 36. f. On the National Council, see The Dan Smoot Report, vol. 10, no. 2, January 13, 1964, "National Council of Churches."

55"National Council's Message to the Churches," Presbyterian Life, vol. 17, no. 1, January 1, 1964, p. 26.

56The New York Times, Western Edition, Thursday. April 11, 1963, pp. 1, 5-7, Arnoldo Cortesi, "Pope Urges Formulation of World Nation to Insure Peace and the Rights of man."

57"Pacem in Tetris: an unexpected ally," interview with Father Joseph Walsh, in new university thought, Summer, 1963, vol. 3, no. 1, p. 17. For a contrary opinion of the encyclical, from a conservative, see Sister M. Margaret Patricia, "Justice Has Sprung From The Earth," 1963.

58Hector Pereyra-Suarez, "Blueprint for Religious Union," in Liberty, September-October, 1963, vol. 58, no. 5, p. 8.

59Ibid., p. 11, the concluding comment of Hector Pereyra-Suarez.

60Editorial, "A Story of Two Sermons," The Presbyterian Journal, vol. XXII, no. 33, December 11, 1963, p. 10.

61G. Aiken Taylor, "A Theology for the NCC," The Presbyterian Journal, vol. XXII, no. 35, December 25, 1963, p. 8.

62Sigmund Livingston: Must Men Hate? p. 1. Cleveland: Crane Press, 1944, revised edition.

63Claude Lewis: Adam Clayton Powell, p. 124. New York: Gold Medal Books, 1963. Lewis a Negro and a Newsweek reporter, speaks of Powell as "a brilliant man who might have become a Messiah." p. 127. Lewis, lacking the consistency of thought which characterizes Powell, fails to recognize the logic and integrity of Powell's position, which one can surely dissent with, while recognizing its clarity of structure and thought.



Copyright 1965, Rousas John Rushdoony. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved. Originally found in The Nature of the American System.
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Wall St. and the corrupt U.S. Bank


CHAPTER TWELVE

Conclusions



We have demonstrated with documentary evidence a number of critical associations between Wall Street international bankers and the rise of Hitler and Naziism in Germany.

First: that Wall Street financed the German cartels in the mid-1920s which in turn proceeded to bring Hitler to power.

Second: that the financing for Hitler and his S.S. street thugs came in part from affiliates or subsidiaries of U.S. firms, including Henry Ford in 1922, payments by I.G. Farben and General Electric in 1933, followed by the Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiary payments to Heinrich Himmler up to 1944.

Third: that U.S. multi-nationals under the control of Wall Street profited handsomely from Hitler’s military construction program in the 1930s and at least until 1942.

Fourth: that these same international bankers used political influence in the U.S. to cover up their wartime collaboration and to do this infiltrated the U.S. Control Commission for Germany.

Our evidence for these four major assertions can be summarized as follows:

In Chapter One we presented evidence that the Dawes and Young Plans for German reparations were formulated by Wall Streeters, temporarily wearing the hats of statesmen, and these loans generated a rain of profits for these international bankers. Owen Young of General Electric, Hjalmar Schacht, A. Voegler, and others intimately connected with Hitler’s accession to power had earlier been the negotiators for the U.S. and German sides, respectively. Three Wall Street houses — Dillon, Read; Harris, Forbes; and, National City Company — handled three-quarters of the reparations loans used to create the German cartel system, including the dominant I.G. Farben and Vereinigte Stahlwerke, which together produced 95 percent of the explosives for the Nazi side in World War II.

The central role of I.G. Farben in Hitler’s coup d’ état was reviewed in Chapter Two. The directors of American I.G. (Farben) were identified as prominent American businessmen: Walter Teagle, a dose Roosevelt associate and backer and an NRA administrator; banker Paul Warburg (his brother Max Warburg was on the board of I.G. Farben in Germany); and Edsel Ford. Farben contributed 400,000 RM directly to Schacht and Hess for use in the crucial 1933 elections and Farben was subsequently in the forefront of military development in Nazi Germany.

A donation of 60,000 RM was made to Hitler by German General Electric (A.E.G.), which had four directors and a 25-30 percent interest held by the U.S. General Electric parent company. This role was described in Chapter Three, and we found that Gerard Swope, an originator of Roosevelt’s New Deal (its National Recovery Administration segment), together with Owen Young of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Clark Minor of International General Electric, were the dominant Wall Streeters in A.E.G. and the most significant single influence.

We also found no evidence to indict the German electrical firm Siemens, which was not under Wall Street control. In contrast, there is documentary evidence that both A.E.G. and Osram, the other units of the German electrical industry — both of which had U.S. participation and control — did finance Hitler. In fact, almost all directors of German General Electric were Hitler backers, either directly through A.E.G. or indirectly through other German firms, G.E. rounded out its Hitler support by technical cooperation with Krupp, aimed at restricting U.S. development of tungsten carbide, which worked to the detriment of the U.S. in World War II. We concluded that A.E.G. plants in Germany managed, by a yet unknown maneuver, to avoid bombing by the Allies.

An examination of the role of Standard Oil of New Jersey (which was and is controlled by the Rockefeller interests) was undertaken in Chapter Four. Standard Oil apparently did not finance Hitler’s accession to power in 1933 (that part of the "myth of Sidney Warburg" is not proven). On the other hand, payments were made up to 1944 by Standard Oil of New Jersey, to develop synthetic gasoline for war purposes on behalf of the Nazis and, through its wholly owned subsidiary, to Heinrich Himmler’s S.S. Circle of Friends for political purposes. Standard Oil’s role was technical aid to Nazi development of synthetic rubber and gasoline through a U.S. research company under the management control of Standard Oil. The Ethyl Gasoline Company, jointly owned by Standard Oil of New Jersey and General Motors, was instrumental in supplying vital ethyl lead to Nazi Germany — over the written protests of the U.S. War Department — with the clear knowledge that the ethyl lead was for Nazi military purposes.

In Chapter Five we demonstrated that International Telephone and Telegraph Company, one of the more notorious multi-nationals, worked both sides of World War II through Baron Kurt von Schroder, of the Schroder banking group. I.T.T. also held a 28-percent interest in Focke-Wolfe aircraft, which manufactured excellent German fighter planes. We also found that Texaco (Texas Oil Company) was involved in Nazi endeavors through German attorney Westrick, but dropped its chairman of the board Rieber when these endeavors were publicized.

Henry Ford was an early (1922) Hitler backer and Edsel Ford continued the family tradition in 1942 by encouraging French Ford to profit from arming the German Wehrmacht, Subsequently, these Ford-produced vehicles were used against American soldiers as they landed in France in 1944. For his early recognition of, and timely assistance to, the Nazis, Henry Ford received a Nazi medal in 1938. The records of French Ford suggest Ford Motor received kid glove treatment from the Nazis after 1940.

The provable threads of Hitler financing are drawn together in Chapter Seven and answer with precise names and figures the question, who financed Adolf Hitler? This chapter indicts Wall Street and, incidentally, no one else of consequence in the United States except the Ford family. The Ford family is not normally associated with Wall Street but is certainly a part of the "power elite."

In earlier chapters we cited several Roosevelt associates, including Teagle of Standard Oil, the Warburg family, and Gerard Swope. In Chapter Eight the role of Putzi Hanfstaengl, another Roosevelt friend and a participant in the Reichstag fire, is traced. The composition of the Nazi inner circle during World War II, and the financial contributions of Standard Oil of New Jersey and I.T.T. subsidiaries, are traced in Chapter Nine. Documentary proof of these monetary contributions is presented. Kurt yon Schrader is identified as the key intermediary in this S.S. "slush fund."

Finally, in Chapter Ten we reviewed a book suppressed in 1934 and the "myth of ’Sidney Warburg.’" The suppressed book accused the Rockefellers, the Warburgs, and the major oil companies of financing Hitler. While the name "Sidney Warburg" was no doubt an invention, the extraordinary fact remains that the argument in the suppressed "Sidney Warburg" book is remarkably close to the evidence presented now. It also remains a puzzle why James Paul Warburg, fifteen years later, would want to attempt, in a rather transparently slipshod manner, to refute the contents of the "Warburg" book, a book he claims not to have seen. It is perhaps even more of a puzzle why Warburg would choose Nazi von Papen’s Memoirs as the vehicle to present his refutation.

Finally, in Chapter Eleven we examined the roles of the Morgan and Chase Banks in World War II, specifically their collaboration with the Nazis in France while a major war was raging.

In other words, as in our two previous examinations of the links between New York international bankers and major historical events, we find a provable pattern of subsidy and political manipulation.


The Pervasive Influence of International Bankers

Looking at the broad array of facts presented in the three volumes of the Wall Street series, we find persistent recurrence of the same names: Owen Young, Gerard Swope, Hjalmar Schacht, Bernard Baruch, etc.; the same international banks: J.P. Morgan, Guaranty Trust, Chase Bank; and the same location in New York: usually 120 Broadway.

This group of international bankers backed the Bolshevik Revolution and subsequently profited from the establishment of a Soviet Russia. This group backed Roosevelt and profited from New Deal socialism. This group also backed Hitler and certainly profited from German armament in the 1930s. When Big Business should have been running its business operations at Ford Motor, Standard of New Jersey, and so on, we find it actively and deeply involved in political upheavals, war, and revolutions in three major countries.

The version of history presented here is that the financial elite knowingly and with premeditation assisted the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 in concert with German bankers. After profiting handsomely from the German hyper-inflationary distress of 1923, and planning to place the German reparations burden onto the backs of American investors, Wall Street found it had brought about the 1929 financial crisis.

Two men were then backed as leaders for major Western countries: Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States and Adolf Hitler in Germany. The Roosevelt New Deal and Hitler’s Four Year Plan had great similarities. The Roosevelt and Hitler plans were plans for fascist takeovers of their respective countries. While Roosevelt’s NRA failed, due to then-operating constitutional constraints, Hitler’s Plan succeeded.

Why did the Wall Street elite, the international bankers, want Roosevelt and Hitler in power? This is an aspect we have not explored. According to the "myth of ’Sidney Warburg,’" Wall Street wanted a policy of revenge; that is, it wanted war in Europe between France and Germany. We know even from Establishment history that both Hitler and Roosevelt acted out policies leading to war.

The link-ups between persons and events in this three-book series would require another book. But a single example will perhaps indicate the remarkable concentration of power within a relatively few organizations, and the use of this power.

On May 1st, 1918, when the Bolsheviks controlled only a small fraction of Russia (and were to come near to losing even that fraction in the summer of 1918), the American League to Aid and Cooperate with Russia was organized in Washington, D.C. to support the Bolsheviks. This was not a "Hands off Russia" type of committee formed by the Communist Party U.S.A. or its allies. It was a committee created by Wall Street with George P. Whalen of Vacuum Oil Company as Treasurer and Coffin and Oudin of General Electric, along with Thompson of the Federal Reserve System, Willard of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, and assorted socialists.

When we look at the rise of Hitler and Naziism we find Vacuum Oil and General Electric well represented. Ambassador Dodd in Germany was struck by the monetary and technical contribution by the Rockefeller-controlled Vacuum Oil Company in building up military gasoline facilities for the Nazis. The Ambassador tried to warn Roosevelt. Dodd believed, in his apparent naiveté of world affairs, that Roosevelt would intervene, but Roosevelt himself was backed by these same oil interests and Walter Teagle of Standard Oil of New Jersey and the NRA was on the board of Roosevelt’s Warm Springs Foundation. So, in but one of many examples, we find the Rockefeller-controlled Vacuum Oil Company prominently assisting in the creation of Bolshevik Russia, the military build-up of Nazi Germany, and backing Roosevelt’s New Deal.


Is the United States Ruled by a Dictatorial Elite?

Within the last decade or so, certainly since the 1960s, a steady flow of literature has presented a thesis that the United States is ruled by a self-perpetuating and unelected power elite. Even further, most of these books aver that this elite controls, or at the least heavily influences, all foreign and domestic policy decisions, and that no idea becomes respectable or is published in the United States without the tacit approval, or perhaps lack of disapproval, of this elitist circle.

Obviously the very flow of anti-establishment literature by itself testifies that the United States cannot be wholly under the thumb of any single group or elite. On the other hand, anti-establishment literature is not fully recognized or reasonably discussed in academic or media circles. More often than not it consists of a limited edition, privately produced, almost hand-to-hand circulated. There are some exceptions, true; but not enough to dispute the observation that anti-establishment critics do not easily enter normal information/distribution channels.

Whereas in the early and mid-1960s, any concept of rule by a conspiratorial elite, or indeed any kind of elite, was reason enough to dismiss the proponent out of hand as a "nut case," the atmosphere for such concepts has changed radically. The Watergate affair probably added the final touches to a long-developing environment of skepticism and doubt. We are almost at the point where anyone who accepts, for example, the Warren Commission report, or believes that that the decline and fall of Mr. Nixon did not have some conspiratorial aspects, is suspect. In brief, no one any longer really believes the Establishment information process. And there is a wide variety of alternative presentations of events now available for the curious.

Several hundred books, from the full range of the political and philosophical spectrum, add bits and pieces of evidence, more hypotheses, and more accusations. What was not too long ago a kooky idea, talked about at midnight behind closed doors, in hushed and almost conspiratorial whispers, is now openly debated — not, to be sure, in Establishment newspapers but certainly on non-network radio talk shows, the underground press, and even from time to time in books from respectable Establishment publishing houses.

So let us ask the question again: Is there an unelected power elite behind the U.S. Government?

A substantive and often-cited source of information is Carroll Quigley, Professor of International Relations at Georgetown University, who in 1966 had published a monumental modern history entitled Tragedy and Hope.1 Quigley’s book is apart from others in this revisionist vein, by virtue of the fact that it was based on a two-year study of the internal documents of one of the power centers. Quigley traces the history of the power elite:

... the powers of financial capitalism had another far reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole.

Quigley also demonstrates that the Council on Foreign Relations, the National Planning Association, and other groups are "semi-secret" policy-making bodies under the control of this power elite.

In the following tabular presentation we have listed five such revisionist books, including Quigley’s. Their essential theses and compatibility with the three volumes of the "Wall Street" series are summarized. It is surprising that in the three major historical events noted, Carroll Quigley is not at all consistent with the "Wall Street" series evidence. Quigley goes a long way to provide evidence for the existence of the power elite, but does not penetrate the operations of the elite.

Possibly, the papers used by Quigley had been vetted, and did not include documentation on elitist manipulation of such events as the Bolshevik Revolution, Hitler’s accession to power, and the election of Roosevelt in 1933. More likely, these political manipulations may not be recorded at all in the files of the power groups. They may have been unrecorded actions by a small ad hoc segment of the elite. It is noteworthy that the documents used by this author came from government sources, recording the day-to-day actions of Trotsky, Lenin, Roosevelt, Hitler, J.P. Morgan and the various firms and banks involved.

On the other hand, such authors as Jules Archer, Gary Allen, Helen P. Lasell, and William Domhoff, writing from widely different political standpoints2 are consistent with the "Wall Street" evidence. These writers present a hypothesis of a power elite manipulating the U.S. Government. The "Wall Street" series demonstrates how this hypothesized "power elite" has manipulated specific historical events.

Obviously any such exercise of unconstrained and supra-legal power is unconstitutional, even though wrapped in the fabric of law-abiding actions. We can therefore legitimately raise the question of the existence of a subversive force operating to remove constitutionally guaranteed rights.


The New York Elite as a Subversive Force

Twentieth-century history, as recorded in Establishment textbooks and journals, is inaccurate. It is a history which is based solely upon those official documents which various Administrations have seen fit to release for public consumption.


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Table: IS THE EVIDENCE IN THE "WALL STREET" SERIES CONSISTENT WITH RELATED REVISIONIST ARGUMENTS PRESENTED ELSEWHERE?


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But an accurate history cannot be based on a selective release of documentary archives. Accuracy requires access to all documents. In practice, as previously classified documents in the U.S. State Department files, the British Foreign Office, and the German Foreign Ministry archives and other depositories are acquired, a new version of history has emerged; the prevailing Establishment version is seen to be, not only inaccurate, but designed to hide a pervasive fabric of deceit and immoral conduct.

The center of political power, as authorized by the U.S. Constitution, is with an elected Congress and an elected President, working within the framework and under the constraints of a Constitution, as interpreted by an unbiased Supreme Court. We have in the past assumed that political power is consequently carefully exercised by the Executive and legislative branch, after due deliberation and assessment of the wishes of the electorate. In fact, nothing could be further from this assumption. The electorate has long suspected, but now knows, that political promises are worth nothing. Lies are the order of the day for policy implementors. Wars are started (and stopped) with no shred of coherent explanation. Political words have never matched political deeds. Why not? Apparently because the center of political power has been elsewhere than with elected and presumably responsive representatives in Washington, and this power elite has its own objectives, which are inconsistent with those of the public at large.

In this three-volume series we have identified for three historical events the seat of political power in the United States — the power behind the scenes, the hidden influence on Washington — as that of the financial establishment in New York: the private international bankers, more specifically the financial houses of J.P. Morgan, the Rockefeller-controlled Chase Manhattan Bank, and in earlier days (before amalgamation of their Manhattan Bank with the former Chase Bank), the Warburgs.

The United States has, in spite of the Constitution and its supposed constraints, become a quasi-totalitarian state. While we do not (yet) have. the overt trappings of dictatorship, the concentration camps and the knock on the door at midnight, we most certainly do have threats and actions aimed at the survival of non-Establishment critics, use of the Internal Revenue Service to bring dissidents in line, and manipulation of the Constitution by a court system that is politically subservient to the Establishment.

It is in the pecuniary interests of the international bankers to centralize political power — and this centralization can best be achieved within a collectivist society, such as socialist Russia, national socialist Germany, or a Fabian socialist United States.

There can be no full understanding and appreciation of twentieth-century American politics and foreign policy without the realization that this financial elite effectively monopolizes Washington policy.

In case after case, newly released documentation implicates this elite and confirms this hypothesis. The revisionist versions of the entry of the United States into World Wars I and II, Korea, and Vietnam reveal the influence and objectives of this elite.

For most of the twentieth century the Federal Reserve System, particularly the Federal Reserve Bank of New York (which is outside the control of Congress, unaudited and uncontrolled, with the power to print money and create credit at will), has exercised a virtual monopoly over the direction of the American economy. In foreign affairs the Council on Foreign Relations, superficially an innocent forum for academics, businessmen, and politicians, contains within its shell, perhaps unknown to many of its members, a power center that unilaterally determines U.S. foreign policy. The major objective of this submerged — and obviously subversive — foreign. policy is the acquisition of markets and economic power (profits, if you will), for a small group of giant multi-nationals under the virtual control of a few banking investment houses and controlling families.

Through foundations controlled by this elite, research by compliant and spineless academics, "conservatives" as well as "liberals," has been directed into channels useful for the objectives of the elite essentially to maintain this subversive and unconstitutional power apparatus.

Through publishing houses controlled by this same financial elite unwelcome books have been squashed and useful books promoted; fortunately publishing has few barriers to entry and is almost atomistically competitive. Through control of a dozen or so major newspapers, run by editors who think alike, public information can be almost orchestrated at will. Yesterday, the space program; today, an energy crisis or a campaign for ecology; tomorrow, a war in the Middle East or some other manufactured "crisis."

The total result of this manipulation of society by the Establishment elite has been four major wars in sixty years, a crippling national debt, abandonment of the Constitution, suppression of freedom and opportunity, and creation of a vast credibility gulf between the man in the street and Washington, D.C. While the transparent device of two major parties trumpeting artificial differences, circus-like conventions, and the cliche of "bipartisan foreign policy" no longer carries credibility, and the financial elite itself recognizes that its policies lack public acceptance, it is obviously prepared to go it alone without even nominal public support.

In brief, we now have to consider and debate whether this New York-based elitist Establishment is a subversive force operating with deliberation and knowledge to suppress the Constitution and a free society. That will be the task ahead in the next decade.


The Slowly Emerging Revisionist Truth

The arena for this debate and the basis for our charges of subversion is the evidence provided by the revisionist historian. Slowly, over decades, book by book, almost line by line, the truth of recent history has emerged as documents are released, probed, analyzed, and set within a more valid historical framework.

Let us consider a few examples. American entry into World War II was supposedly precipitated, according to the Establishment version, by the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Revisionists have established that Franklin D. Roosevelt and General Marshall knew of the impending Japanese attack and did nothing to warn the Pearl Harbor military authorities. The Establishment wanted war with Japan. Subsequently, the Establishment made certain that Congressional investigation of Pearl Harbor would fit the Roosevelt whitewash. In the words of Percy Greaves, chief research expert for the Republican minority on the Joint Congressional Committee investigating Pearl Harbor:

The complete facts will never be known. Most of the so-called investigations have been attempts to suppress, mislead, or confuse those who seek the truth. From the beginning to the end, facts and files have been withheld so as to reveal only those items of information which benefit the administration under investigation. Those seeking the truth are told that other facts or documents cannot be revealed because they are intermingled in personal diaries, pertain to our relations with foreign countries, or are sworn to contain no information of value.3

But this was not the first attempt to bring the United States into war, or the last. The Morgan interests, in concert with Winston Churchill, tried to bring the U.S. into World War I as early as 1915 and succeeded in doing so in 1917. Colin Thompson’s Lusitania implicates President Woodrow Wilson in the sinking of the Lusitania — a horror device to generate a public backlash to draw the United States into war with Germany. Thompson demonstrates that Woodrow Wilson knew four darts beforehand that the Lusitania was carrying six-million rounds of ammunition plus explosives, and therefore, "passengers who proposed to sail on that vessel were sailing in violation of statute of this country."4

The British Board of Inquiry under Lord Mersey was instructed by the British Government "that it is considered politically expedient that Captain Turner, the master of the Lusitania, be most prominently blamed for the disaster."

In retrospect, given Colin Thompson’s evidence, the blame is more fairly to be attributed to President Wilson, "Colonel" House, J.P. Morgan, and Winston Churchill; this conspiratorial elite should have been brought to trial for willful negligence, if not treason. It is to Lord Mersey’s eternal credit that after performing his "duty" under instructions from His Majesty’s government, and placing the blame on Captain Turner, he resigned, rejected his fee, and from that date on refused to handle British government commissions. To his friends Lord Mersey would only say about the Lusitania case that it was a "dirty business."

Then in 1933-4 came the attempt by the Morgan firm to install a fascist dictatorship in the United States. In the words of Jules Archer, it was planned to be a Fascist putsch to take over the government and "run it under a dictator on behalf of America’s bankers and industrialists."5 Again, a single courageous individual emerged — General Smedley Darlington Butler, who blew the whistle on the Wall Street conspiracy. And once again Congress stands out, particularly Congressmen Dickstein and MacCormack, by its gutless refusal to do no more than conduct a token whitewash investigation.

Since World War II we have seen the Korean War and the Vietnamese War — meaningless, meandering no-win wars costly in dollars and lives, with no other major purpose but to generate multibillion-dollar armaments contracts. Certainly these wars were not fought to restrain communism, because for fifty years the Establishment has been nurturing and subsidizing the Soviet Union which supplied armaments to the other sides in both wars — Korea and Vietnam. So our revisionist history will show that the United States directly or indirectly armed both sides in at least Korea and Vietnam.

In the assassination of President Kennedy, to take a domestic example, it is difficult to find anyone who today accepts the findings of the Warren Commission — except perhaps the members of that Commission. Yet key evidence is still hidden from public eyes for 50 to 75 years. The Watergate affair demonstrated even to the man in the street that the White House can be a vicious nest of intrigue and deception.

Of all recent history the story of Operation Keelhaul6 is perhaps the most disgusting. Operation Keelhaul was the forced repatriation of millions of Russians at the orders of President (then General) Dwight D. Eisenhower, in direct violation of the Geneva Convention of 1929 and the long-standing American tradition of political refuge. Operation Keelhaul, which contravenes all our ideas of elementary decency and individual freedom, was undertaken at the direct orders of General Eisenhower and, we may now presume, was a part of a long-range program of nurturing collectivism, whether it be Soviet communism’ Hitler’s Naziism, or FDR’s New Deal. Yet until recent publication of documentary evidence by Julius Epstein, anyone who dared to suggest Eisenhower would betray millions of innocent individuals for political purposes was viciously and mercilessly attacked.7

What this revisionist history really teaches us is that our willingness as individual citizens to surrender political power to an elite has cost the world approximately two-hundred-million persons killed from 1820 to 1975. Add to that untold misery the concentration camps, the political prisoners, the suppression and oppression of those who try to bring the truth to light.

When will it all stop? It will not stop until we act upon one simple axiom: that the power system continues only so long as individuals want it to continue, and it will continue only so long as individuals try to get something for nothing. The day when a majority of individuals declares or acts as if it wants nothing from government, declares it will look after its own welfare and interests, then on that day power elites are doomed. The attraction to "go along" with power elites is the attraction of something for nothing. That is the bait. The Establishment always offers something for nothing; but the something is taken from someone else, as taxes or plunder, and awarded elsewhere in exchange for political support.

Periodic crises and wars are used to whip up support for other plunder-reward cycles which in effect tighten the noose around our individual liberties. And of course we have hordes of academic sponges, amoral businessmen, and just plain hangers-on, to act as non-productive recipients for the plunder.

Stop the circle of plunder and immoral reward and elitist structures collapse. But not until a majority finds the moral courage and the internal fortitude to reject the something-for-nothing con game and replace it by voluntary associations, voluntary communes, or local rule and decentralized societies, will the killing and the plunder cease.

Footnotes:

1Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope, op. cit.

2There are many others; the author selected more or less at random two conservatives (Allen and Lasell) and two liberals (Archer and Domhoff),

3Percy L. Greaves, Jr., "The Pearl Harbor Investigation," in Harry Elmer Harnes, Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace, (Caldwell: Caxton Printers, 1953), p, 13-20.

4Colin Simpson, Lusitania, (London: Longman, 1972), p, 252.

5Jules Archer, The Plot to Seize the White House, (New York: Hawthorn Book, 1973), p. 202.

6See Julius Epstein, Operation Keelhaul, (Old Greenwich: Devin Adair, 1973).

7See for example Robert Welch, The Politician, (Belmont, Mass.: Belmont Publishing Co., 1963).



Source: http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/wall_street/chapter_12.htm#Is the United States Ruled by a Dictatorial Elite?
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