READ MY LIPS: NO NEW AMNESTY

An interesting post from http://www.anncoulter.com/ about the last amnesty attempt.You can get this book from amazon or your library .

This follows this post about the book Who Are We? by Samuel Huntington and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

READ MY LIPS: NO NEW AMNESTY
May 17, 2006
On the bright side, if President Bush's amnesty proposal for illegal immigrants ends up hurting Republicans and we lose Congress this November, maybe the Democrats will impeach him and we'll get Cheney as president.At least Bush has dropped his infernal references to slacker Americans when talking about illegal immigrants. In his speech Monday night, instead of 47 mentions of "jobs Americans won't do," Bush referred only once to "jobs Americans are not doing" — which I take it means other than border enforcement and intelligence-gathering at the CIA. For the record, I'll volunteer right now to clean other people's apartments if I don't have to pay taxes on what I earn.
Also, someone must have finally told Bush that the point about America being a "nation of immigrants" is moronic. All nations are "nations of immigrants" — as Peter Brimelow pointed out brilliantly in his 1992 article in National Review on immigration, which left nothing for anyone else to say (Time to Rethink Immigration? ).
Of the "nation of immigrants" locution, Brimelow says:
"No discussion of U.S. immigration policy gets far without someone making this helpful remark. As an immigrant myself, I always pause respectfully. You never know. Maybe this is what they're taught to chant in schools nowadays, a sort of multicultural Pledge of Allegiance. ... Do they really think other nations sprouted up out of the ground?"
Brimelow then ran through the Roman, Saxon, Viking, Norman-French, Welsh and Celtic immigrant influences in Britain alone.
Instead of a moratorium on new immigration, I'd settle for a moratorium on the use of the expression "We're a nation of immigrants." Throw in a ban on "Diversity is our strength" and you've got my vote for life.
Bush has also apparently learned that the word "amnesty" does not poll well. On Monday night, he angrily denounced the idea of amnesty just before proposing his own amnesty program. The difference between Bush's amnesty program and "amnesty" is: He'd give amnesty only to people who have been breaking our laws for many years — not just a few months.

(It's the same program that allows Ted Kennedy to stay in the Senate.)http://brianleesblog.blogspot.com/2009/08/perfect-alibi-ill-drink-to-that-part-ii.html.

Bush calls this the "rational middle ground" because it recognizes the difference between "an illegal immigrant who crossed the border recently and someone who has worked here for many years." Yes, the difference is: One of them has been breaking the law longer. If our criminal justice system used that logic, a single murder would get you the death penalty, while serial killers would get probation.Bush claimed the only other alternative — I assume this is the "irrational extreme" — is "a program of mass deportation." Really? Is the only alternative to legalizing tax cheats "a program of mass arrest of tax cheats"?
This is the logic of the pro-abortion zealots (aka "the Democratic Party"): Either lift every single restriction on abortion or ... every woman in America will be impregnated by her father and die in a back-alley abortion!
Those are your only two answers? Do you need another minute? How about the proposal made on Brimelow's Web site, http://www.vdare.com/ , that illegal immigrants be told they have two months to leave the country voluntarily and not have their breaking of our immigration laws held against them when they apply for citizenship from their home countries — or not leave and be banned from U.S. citizenship forever?
Or how about just not giving illegal aliens green cards — as Bush is proposing — and deport them when we catch them? Instead of choosing immigrants based on the longevity of their lawbreaking, another idea is to choose the immigrants we want, for example, those who speak English or have special skills. (And by "special skills" I don't mean giving birth to an anchor baby in a border-town emergency room.)Why not use immigration the way sports teams use the draft — to upgrade our roster? We could take our pick of the world's engineers, doctors, scientists, uh ... smoking-hot Latin guys who stand around not wearing shirts between workouts. Or, you know, whatever ...

As Peter Brimelow says in his book Alien Nation: Common Sense About America's Immigration Disaster, why not choose immigrants who are better than us? Bush thinks it's not fair to favor people with special skills — a policy evidenced by his Harriet Miers pick.
How about this: It's not fair to want to go out with someone just because that person is attractive and has a good personality because it discriminates against people who are ugly with bad social skills! That's our immigration policy.
Press "1" for English;
press "2" for a new president ...

A GREEN CARD IN EVERY POT

An interesting post from http://www.anncoulter.com/ about immigration protests.You can get this book from amazon or your library .

This follows this post about who the real NAZI's are in Arizona's enforcement debate and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

A GREEN CARD IN EVERY POT

Americans — at least really stupid Americans — believe the natural state of the world is to have individual self-determination, human rights, the rule of law and a robust democratic economy. On this view, most of the existing world and almost all of world history is a freakish aberration.
In fact, the natural state of the world is Darfur. The freakish aberration is America and the rest of the Anglo-Saxon world.
The British Empire once spread the culture of prosperity around the globe — Judeo-Christian values, tolerance, equality, private property and the rule of law. All recipients of the British Empire's largesse benefited, but the empire's most successful colony was the United States.
At the precise moment in history when the U.S. has abandoned any attempt to transmit Anglo-Saxon virtues to its own citizens, much less to immigrants, some want to grant citizenship to hordes of immigrants who are here precisely because they are fleeing cultures that are utterly dysfunctional and ruinous for the humans who live in them.
Yes, this country has absorbed huge migrations of illiterate peasants in the past — notably Italian immigrants at the turn of the last century. But also notably, half of them went back. We got the good ones. America was not yet a welfare state guaranteeing room and board to the luckless, the lazy and the incompetent from cradle to grave.
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis, immigrant and first Jewish member of the Supreme Court, said that Americanization required that the immigrant adopt "the clothes, the manners and the customs generally prevailing here" and that he adopt "the English language as the common medium of speech."
But, Brandeis said, this is only part of it. "(W)e properly demand of the immigrant even more than this — he must be brought into complete harmony with our ideals and aspirations and cooperate with us for their attainment. Only when this has been done will he possess the national consciousness of an American."
I wish our new immigrants had come to America back when the foundations of civic society and patriotism were still inculcated in all immigrants (and when half of them went home). But traitors who are citizens have destroyed all acculturating institutions. Traitors who are citizens have also destroyed all incentive for the poor to work or even keep their knees together before marriage.
Until the recipient culture is capable of doing an effective job of Americanizing immigrants, it's preposterous to talk about a massive influx of Hispanic immigrants accomplishing anything other than turning America into yet another Latin American-style banana republic. And it is simply a fact that no one is trying to turn immigrants into Americans.
To the contrary, Democrats are trying to turn new immigrants into wards of the state — and with some success! — so they will be permanent Democratic voters. Rich Republicans and their handmaidens in Washington are trying to turn immigrants into a permanent servant class.
In an astonishing exchange on Fox News last weekend, Dan Henninger of The Wall Street Journal responded to Heather MacDonald's point that Hispanics in this country have a 50 percent illegitimacy rate, the highest teen pregnancy rate of any group and the highest high school drop-out rate of any group, by asking: "Why don't we feel we are under cultural assault in New York City?
You have no sense of this at all here." You also have no sense of the existence of a middle class in New York City. The rich have hidden the evidence, transplanting all but the massively wealthy to the suburbs. Manhattan is white and getting whiter, while the boroughs are noticeably less white and more dysfunctional.
What evidence is there for the proposition that American culture will leap like a tenacious form of tuberculosis to today's immigrants? Americans display no evident desire to defend their culture, much less transmit it, and immigrants show no evident desire to adopt it. To the contrary, immigrants are replacing American culture with Latin American culture. Their apparent constant need to demonstrate is just one example.
As Mac Johnson wrote in Human Events last year, these immigrant protests represent "the colonization of America by the Latin style of politics." He listed just some of the demonstrations drawing thousands — sometimes hundreds of thousands — of protesters over the last few years in Mexico alone. Among the targets of the protests were a new regional trade pact, plans to allow private investment in the state-owned electricity industry, energy and tax reforms, and support for the mayor of Mexico City.
In 1993 — long before 9/11, before the USS Cole bombing, before the bombing of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania — the eminent Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington predicted that the greatest threat to Western civilization would come from a clash of civilizations, noting with particular concern the "bloody borders" of the Muslim world.

So it ought to be of some interest that Huntington is now predicting, in his book "Who Are We: The Challenges to America's National Identity," that America cannot survive the cultural onslaught from Latin America.
American Hispanics responded to Huntington's book with a flurry of scholarly papers and academic debates to counter his thesis that Mexicans were not assimilating. Just kidding! They called for national protests against Huntington, his publisher and Harvard University.

May 30, 2007

Yes, La Raza Really Does Mean "The Race"—And The Idea Was Invented By a Nazi Sympathizer

An interesting post from www.Vdare.com about who the real NAZI's are in Arizona's enforcement debate.This follows this post about the book Liberal Fascism that you can get from amazon or your library and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.


.Memo From Middle America (Formerly Known As Memo From Mexico),
By Allan Wall
Yes, La Raza Really Does Mean "The Race"—And The Idea Was Invented By a Nazi Sympathizer
The National Council of La Raza (NCLR) calls itself "The largest Latino civil rights and advocacy organization…" It agitates against controlling immigration and in favor of amnesty for illegal aliens.This NCLR supports driver’s licenses and in-state tuition for illegal aliens and opposes a border fence, secure voter ID and state laws that fight illegal immigration and bilingual education. And its "We Can Stop the Hate" campaign seeks to shut down your right to oppose illegal immigration. It worked on Lou Dobbs!
In short, NCLR is a radical anti-American organization. Its funding, by the way, mostly comes from corporations, with some from the federal government.
Many immigration patriots have taken to calling the NCLR the "National Council of the Race".
A white organization would never be allowed to use "the race" in its title, now would it? In this day and age, to be called "racist" (as defined by the multicultural left) is the biggest sin in American politics and can destroy your career.
But does la raza really mean "the race"?
The NCLR says it doesn’t. Here’s the organization’s official explanation
“THE TRANSLATION OF OUR NAME: NATIONAL COUNCIL OF LA RAZA: Many people incorrectly translate our name, ‘La Raza,’ as ‘the race.’ While it is true that one meaning of raza’ in Spanish is indeed ‘race,’ in Spanish, as in English and any other language, words can and do have multiple meanings. As noted in several online dictionaries, ‘La Raza’ means ‘the people’ or ‘the community.’ Translating our name as ‘the race’ is not only inaccurate, it is factually incorrect. ‘Hispanic’ is an ethnicity, not a race. As anyone who has ever met a Dominican American, Mexican American, or Spanish American can attest, Hispanics can be and are members of any and all races."Let’s assume for a moment that this explanation is correct. Let’s assume that la raza can be translated as "the people" or "the community".From the point of view of patriotic immigration reform and the defense of the historic American nation, is that any better?
If La Raza calls itself "the people" or "the community", it is certainly NOT referring to the historical American “people” or “community”.
Rather, it is setting itself and its clients up as a “people” and a “community” whose interests conflict with those of the American people.Otherwise, why would they need a separate organization to support themselves?So, back to the word "raza". What does it really mean?
I consulted the Real Academia Española. That’s the "Royal Academy of the Spanish Language", founded in 1713 in Madrid, Spain. The Royal Academy is the highest authority of the Spanish language. What does the Academy say about the term raza?The first definition given by the Royal Academy:"Casta o calidad del origen o linaje." That means "caste or quality of the origin or lineage".Sounds like a race.The second meaning: "Cada uno de los grupos en que se subdividen algunas especies biológicas y cuyos caracteres diferenciales se perpetúan por herencia." Translation: "Each one of the groups in which some biological species are subdivided and whose differential characteristics are perpetuated by inheritance."That’s race too.According to the Academy, the term la raza can refer to the "human race", or to a breed of animals (such as fox terriers or Holsteins).The term has other meanings unrelated to our discussion: "a crack", "a ray of light that penetrates an opening", "a crack that forms in a cavalry helmet", "a part of a fabric", and a general term meaning a "quality of certain things, in relation to certain characteristics that define it". These are unconnected meanings, like "horse race" or "mill race" in English.
None of the Academy-approved definitions would be translated into English as "people" or "community".Besides, there are other, perfectly good Spanish words that could mean "people" or "community"—such as pueblo, gente or communidad.
Granted, no dictionary can completely cover all the nuances of a language. And meanings of words can vary according to context and usage.But that brings us back to square one. If la raza really means "people" or "community", why then does the NCLR persist in using the word raza?Americans, after all, get hysterical about the term "race". So why does the NCLR insist upon using the Spanish equivalent?Why don’t they call their group "The National Council of the Community" or "The National Council of the People"?No, they insist upon using the term la raza. Indeed, the group’s title is actually a peculiar linguistic hybrid, combining English (The National Council of…) and Spanish (…la raza).I ask again—why do they insist upon using the term la raza?Well, my friends, there is a reason. And the NCLR tells us in the second paragraph of the aforementioned document
THE TRANSLATION OF OUR NAME:“The term ‘La Raza’ has its origins in early 20th century Latin American literature and translates into English most closely as ‘the people’ or, according to some scholars, as ‘the Hispanic people of the New World.’ The term was coined by Mexican scholar José Vasconcelos to reflect the fact that the people of Latin America are a mixture of many of the world’s races, cultures, and religions. Mistranslating ‘La Raza’ to mean ‘the race’ implies that it is a term meant to exclude others. In fact, the full term coined by Vasconcelos, ‘La Raza Cósmica,’ meaning the ‘cosmic people,’ was developed to reflect not purity but the mixture inherent in the Hispanic people. This is an inclusive concept, meaning that Hispanics share with all other peoples of the world a common heritage and destiny.Aha ! Now we have something much more concrete!By NCLR’s own admission, if we want to know what it means by la raza, we can see what Jose Vasconcelos meant by la raza.
(In a similar fashion, those who wish to know Barack Obama’s racial ideology can read Obama’s own writing, or read Steve Sailer’s book America’s Half-Blood Prince since Steve read and analyzed Obama’s autobiography.)
Jose Vasconcelos was a Mexican intellectual who lived from 1882 to 1959. He was, at various times, Mexico’s secretary of education, the president of Mexico’s national educational institution the UNAM (National Autonomous University of Mexico), and an unsuccessful candidate for president. See photos here and here.
In the 1920s Vasconcelos penned his seminal essay La Raza Cósmica (The Cosmic Race) which NCLR cites. The la raza doctrine was influential not only in Mexico—Vasconcelos traveled throughout Latin America sharing it. Several decades later, in 1948, he revised his essay and re-published it.I read the essay (in Spanish of course). I found it quite interesting. Some of it was brilliant, some was absurd, some incoherent. Vasconcelos was interested in establishing a Latin American identity. He wasn’t just interested in Mexico, but in a civilizational vision for all of Latin America.Vasconcelos saw conflict between Latin America and the U.S. as a continuation of the centuries´ long struggle between Spain and England, going all the way back to the Spanish Armada days. Throughout his essay, he uses the terms sajones, inglesas and yanquis interchangeably. Vasconcelos describes the struggle thusly,"Pugna de latinidad contra sajonismo ha llegado a ser, sigue siendo nuestra época; pugna de instituciones, de propósitos y de ideales." (The struggle of Latinity against Saxonism has come to be, and continues being in our era, a struggle of institutions, of purposes and of ideals).I think Vasconcelos was right about this. There is a centuries-long rivalry between the Latin and Anglo-Saxon cultures which from time to time has erupted in all-out war. With good leadership, open conflict could be avoided and our interests protected. But today’s U.S. leaders are in open surrender mode.What Vasconcelos says is not that different from what Samuel Huntington described as the “Clash of Civilizations”. Ironically, Huntington was lambasted as a “racist” by some of the same people who admire Vasconcelos.
In 1588, the Spanish Armada attempted to conquer England but failed. Vasconcelos called the defeat of the Armada a "disaster". Note that the Armada’s defeat paved for the way for English settlement of the 13 Colonies (beginning with Jamestown) which were the foundation of the U.S.A.I guess if you wish the U.S. had never been founded you’d retroactively root for the Armada.Vasconcelos also regretted the fact that the British won at Trafalgar, defeating a combined French/Spanish fleet. That too was another defeat for the Latins.Although Vasconcelos wished Napoleon had won in Europe, he criticized him for selling the Louisiana Territory to the U.S.—which extended the domain of the Anglo-Saxons and set up the easy conquests of Texas and CaliforniaVasconcelos writes about "the Saxon—our rival for possession of the continent", and of "the old conflict of Latins and Saxons". The Anglo-Saxons are called "our enemies".Remember that the NCLR claims to derive its understanding of the term la raza from Vasconcelos. That must mean they too see themselves as Hispanic warriors infiltrating the Anglosphere.Carlos Fuentes, Mexico’s premier living man of letters, has spoken of the Spanish language and its "silent reconquista of the United States" (not just the Southwest !) and compared it to the conquest of Mexico five centuries ago.[El español, "esperanto" de las comunidades indígenas de América, señala Carlos Fuentes, By Armando G. Tejeda, La Jornada, October 20th, 2001] (See my 2002 article Spanish and the New Conquistadors.)Mexico’s previous president, Vicente Fox, has boasted that Mexicans who speak Spanish in the U.S. are doing their patriotic duty (to Mexico, of course) and complained about Anglo-Saxons not getting with the globalization program fast enough.And how about the NCLR, self-confessed followers of Jose Vasconcelos?Well, in the 1990s, the organization's longtime president Raul Yzaguirre declared that "US English [the organization] is to Hispanics as the Ku Klux Klan is to blacks."US English, by the way, is an organization whose only goal is to promote English as our official language. What’s wrong with that? Well, if you’re part of the centuries' long struggle between the Latins and the Anglo-Saxons, and you’re on the Latin side, it makes perfect sense to oppose it.Now let´s look at the "race" thing. NCLR says that Spanish-speakers are of mixed origins, therefore "la raza" can’t mean race when it refers to them.But that assertion contradicts Vasconcelos’ doctrine.Vasconcelos divided humanity into five races (razas).The four traditional races are (1) the Negro, (2) the rojo or indio (meaning American Indian), (3) the amarillo (yellow) or mogol (mongol), and (4) the blanco (white).Then there is the fifth raza—la raza cósmica, the cosmic race. This race, says Vasconcelos, is still being formed. It is "una estirpe [stock, lineage] en formación". It is being formed in Latin America, by the mixture of the four traditional races. In the words of the essay, this new race will be "the union of all men in a fifth universal race, fruit of the previous [races] and an improvement [superación] over all the past [races]."It’s obvious that Vasconcelos saw this new fifth race as a superior form of humanity. And the genesis of the new race, this new humanity, would be accompanied by a new, Aquarian-like age of free will, beauty, jubilation and love. Mates would be chosen on the basis of emotion, beauty and joy, to bring about a superior eugenics, in which physical ugliness would be bred out of the human species.Vasconcelos went on for several paragraphs about the ugliness thing. He complained about the current state in which " it is repugnant to see these married couples who come out daily from the courts and churches [where they were married] with 90% of those contracting marriage, more or less, being ugly."Vasconcelos was presumably referring to his fellow Mexicans—saying 90% of them were ugly!But in the new age of the Fifth Race, for some unexplained reason, the ugly people will not procreate, says Vasconcelos. Dominant genes will triumph over recessive genes, monstrosities will disappear, and the offspring will be beautiful children, leading to an "infinitely superior type to all that have existed ".Vasconcelos predicted that the U.S. would be the last white empire. But he still thought that whites had an important historical role in bringing about the genesis of the cosmic race. After all, the age of exploration of whites had set up the racial mixture in Latin America.And despite the fact that Vasconcelos predicted this utopian world of love and harmony, the contributions of the four traditional races to the fifth race would not be equal. In fact, Vasconcelos said the white character would probably predominate.Vasconcelos thought the Indians needed to modernize. He didn’t talk much about the Orientals, although there has been some East Asian immigration to Latin America. However, even Vasconcelos defended Latin American restrictions on Chinese immigration. It’s not that Latins were being discriminatory like the Saxons up north. It’s just that they had to restrict Asian immigration sometimes because, he wrote, "it’s not fair that peoples like the Chinese…multiply like mice…" (Long before the "One Child" policy of course).As for blacks, Vasconcelos thought that some of their characteristics would have to be eliminated, bred out in the great race mixture taking place. Comparing the situation of American blacks and Latin American blacks, he wrote that "In the Iberoamerican world…we have few Negroes and most of them have been transforming into mulattos."Vasconcelos even wrote that"The low types of the species will be absorbed by the superior type. In this way the Negro, for example, can be redeemed and, little by little, through voluntary extinction, the ugliest stocks will be less prolific, and the better specimens will yield to the more beautiful. The inferior races, when educated, will be less prolific, and the better specimens will ascend in a scale of ethnic improvement. Their type will not exactly be the white, but this new raza, to which the white himself will have to aspire with the object of conquering the synthesis. The Indian, by means of the injection of a similar race, will make the jump of myriad years … and in a few decades of aesthetic eugenics the Negro can disappear together with the types which the free instinct of beauty will designate as fundamentally recessive and unworthy…of perpetuation."Not exactly politically correct, is it? If a contemporary American wrote this, what would the NCLR and the NAACP say about it?Vasconcelos also wrote in his essay that the ancient Egyptians were more intelligent than contemporary Anglo-Saxons. And he wrote that "any professor can prove that the groups of children and youth descended from Scandinavians, Dutch and English of the American universities are much more slow, almost clumsy, compared with the children and mestizo youth of the south."Vasconcelos predicted that Latin American civilization would contribute to world technology in a great way. That’s because much of the region lies in the tropics and they would thus be forced to invent new technologies to deal with the heat. And he said that the Amazon and Orinoco basins would become centers of great advances.It hasn’t exactly happened yet. Nor has racial mixture produced an explosion of love, harmony and brotherhood in Latin America. You certainly don’t see it in Mexico, where drug cartels are butchering each other.Vasconcelos wasn’t too clear on the fate of the four traditional races, but it seems he was predicting that they would eventually be absorbed into the fifth race and cease to exist as separate races. Presumably everybody would then speak Spanish and Portuguese.So do we have any choice in the matter? What if we don’t want our culture absorbed into the "Cosmic Race"?And here’s another thing you’re not likely to see on the NCLR website: In 1940, while World War II was already raging in Europe, on this side of the pond, in Mexico, Jose Vasconcelos was a Nazi sympathizer.Yes, that’s right. Vasconcelos was the editor of Timón, a magazine sponsored by the German embassy in Mexico. Some of the articles in that publication, written by Vasconcelos and others, were cheering on the Axis powers, attacking the Jews and quoting the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.This went on until it was shut down by the Mexican government.Today the NCLR, the Southern Poverty Law Center ($PLC) and their ilk publicize all sorts of supposed connections, tenuous though they may be, between immigration patriots and extremists, in order to discredit us and shut us down.But here is the National Council of La Raza basing its doctrine on the writings of a man who was, for a time, an open Nazi sympathizer!Is that blatant hypocrisy, or what?
American citizen Allan Wall (email him) recently moved back to the U.S.A. after many years residing in Mexico. In 2005, Allan served a tour of duty in Iraq with the Texas Army National Guard. His VDARE.COM articles are archived here; his Mexidata.info articles are archived here and his website is here.

LIBERAL Fascism

An interesting post from http://www.newsbusters.org/ about this book that you can get from amazon or your library.

This follows this post about the Strikes on May 1, 2010.This follows this post about the COST of illegal immigration and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Review of the book "Liberal Fascism"

NewsBusters Interview: Jonah Goldberg, Author of 'Liberal Fascism' (Part I)

Along with racist, the word fascist is one of the most common epithets you hear tossed around. Has the constant repetition of the word made it lose its meaning? Does anyone really know what it means? These are questions that Jonah Goldberg seeks to answer in his #1 best-selling book "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning."If you haven't picked up a copy yet, this is one book you need to buy.
As part of our tradition of bringing you in-depth interviews with America's political leaders, I took the opportuntity to speak by phone with Goldberg about "Liberal Fascism." Our conversation is quite extensive but well worth the read. Given the length of the interview (which is available in audio format as well as transcript), I've broken it down into two portions: the first in which Goldberg discusses his many leftist critics including his confrontation with comedian Jon Stewart, and the second in which Goldberg discusses conservatism and where he believes it's headed. This is the first installment.
Read the transcript below or download an audio copy.Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2008/05/13/newsbusters-interview-jonah-goldberg-author-liberal-fascism#ixzz0j7qCUa5M

NewsBusters Interview: Jonah Goldberg (Part II)The future of conservatism is something which has become something of a hot topic. It's become evident to many that the historical moment that made the so-called Reagan coalition possible has passed, raising the inevitable question: where do we go from here? Has the right lost its way? Should conservatism be dependent upon the Republican party? What sorts of ideas should 21st century conservatism project?These are just a few of the topics I asked Jonah Goldberg in Part II of our NewsBusters Interview with the author of "Liberal Fascism."
See the partial transcript below or download an audio copy.

Read more: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/matthew-sheffield/2008/05/15/newsbusters-interview-jonah-goldberg-part-ii#ixzz0j7ptgjES

Stand Up for Arizona

An interesting post from www.VDare.com about the Strikes on May 1, 2010.This follows this post about the COST of illegal immigration and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Stand Up for Arizona
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Major demonstrations are to be held in 70 cities on May 1 to protest the new Arizona law to cope with an army of half a million illegal aliens now living there.
Since Gov. Jan Brewer signed that law a week ago, Arizona has been subjected to savage attack as the modern embodiment of Jim Crow, apartheid and Nazism. Few have risen in her defense.
In San Francisco, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C., moves are afoot to boycott Arizona and cancel conventions to break the state, as it was broken when Arizona declined to set aside a holiday for Martin Luther King.
Republican leaders like Jeb Bush, Karl Rove and even the rising Marco Rubio of Florida have declared themselves "troubled" or "concerned" and washed their hands of Arizona, which suggests they have not read the law—or the party remains captive to country-club political correctness.
In a particularly offensive smear, Mexican President Felipe Calderon charged Arizona with opening the door "to intolerance, hate, discrimination and abuse in law enforcement."
And what was the reaction of the Great Apologist to this slander of an American state by the leader of a neighboring nation?
None. One wonders if Barack Obama will ever stand up to foreign leaders' abusing the nation that awarded him its highest honor. Or has he been marinated since birth in the "Blame America First" mindset of the San Francisco Democrats who sneer at the real America?
As columnist Michelle Malkin writes, there is no shortage of ammunition our president could have used to fire back at the hypocrites of Mexico City.
For where Arizona has made it a misdemeanor to be in the country illegally, in Calderon's country it is a felony that can get you years in prison. Where illegal aliens in America regularly protest under Mexican flags, no foreign resident of Mexico may demonstrate against the regime.
Where immigration is changing the ethnic balance of this country, in Mexico immigrants are not allowed in who could upset "the equilibrium of the national demographics." Where Americans demand we treat illegal aliens firmly but fairly, Guatemalans caught in Mexico are often treated with a brutality bordering on sadism.
We really do not need any lectures on morality or human rights from Mexico. But what is the matter with our leader that he will not defend his country?
As for the supposedly neo-Nazi Arizona law, what does it really say and do?
First, it brings Arizona law into conformity with federal law. As it has long been a federal crime to be in the country illegally, it is now a crime in Arizona.
Second, just as U.S. law since 1940 has required legal aliens—immigrants and guest workers—to carry their green cards or work visas at all times, Arizona law now says the same thing.
Is there something inhumane about this? If so, where have the protests been these last 70 years? Many of us in the 1950s had to carry not only driver's licenses, but draft cards.
No U.S. citizen in Arizona, however, has to carry an identity card. As for racial profiling, the new law forbids it. A police officer, it reads, "may not solely consider race, color or national origin" in stopping anyone or in determining an immigrant's status.
Before there can be a "reasonable suspicion" an individual is here illegally, there must first be a "lawful contact." This means no cop can halt and challenge a man on the street, or sitting in a restaurant or bar, or driving a car.
If an individual is caught running a traffic light, the police must first ask for his license. Only if the individual lacks a valid ID or driver's license, or his behavior causes "reasonable suspicion" he is an illegal, can he be brought in. Then, a call must be made to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine his status.
Where is the neo-Nazism here?
Is this too much to ask on behalf of the police in a state whose first city, Phoenix, in the words of Kris Kobach, co-author of the new law, has become the "kidnapping capital of North America and the hub of human smuggling into the United States"?
When one looks closely at what the Arizona law says, the hysteria it has generated seems so excessive one wonders if it is fear the Arizona law will work—as well as hatred—that is behind the over-the-top reaction.
Whatever the motivation of the left, defense of this law by conservatives is imperative. For without tools like this, the Southwestern states cannot stop the invasion from Mexico—given the U.S. government's dereliction of its duty to defend America's borders.
Conservatives must stand up for Arizona. And this is winnable. For by backing away from "immigration reform," both Harry Reid and Obama are admitting, de facto, that America is with us, not with them.
Patrick J. Buchanan needs no introduction to VDARE.COM readers; his book State of Emergency: The Third World Invasion and Conquest of America, can be ordered from Amazon.com.

Arizona’s Next Move: Exposing Illegals’ Education Costs

An interesting post from www.VDare.com about the COST of illegal immigration. This follows this post about Salary Caps and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

By Edwin S. Rubenstein
Arizona’s Next Move: Exposing Illegals’ Education Costs
The much-exaggerated "show me your papers" aspect of Arizona’s immigration law SB1070 is provoking national hysteria. But SB 1070 author, State Senator Russell Pearce, has another piece of legislation in the works that could ultimately be more devastating.
Senate Bill 1097 [PDF] will require public schools to identify and count students who are in the country illegally. The bill also requires Arizona’s Department of Education to determine the cost of educating such students and to research the "adverse impact" of their enrollment.
This apparently unexceptionable goal has Hispanic activists hyperventilating—one describes it as “the next step in Operation Wetback 2010”—and they have reason to fear.
Pearce aims to expose what is arguably the most expensive of all federal unfunded mandates: illegal alien education. In Plyler v. Doe (1982) the Supreme Court "struck down a Texas statute denying funding for education to children who were illegal immigrants." By a 5-to-4 majority the Court ruled that the law violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment, which reads: "No State shall…deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
Texas officials had argued that illegal immigrants were not "within the jurisdiction" of the state and could thus not claim protections under the Fourteenth Amendment. Chief Justice Warren Burger supported the state’s position in his dissenting opinion, and even Justice Brennan, in his majority opinion, admitted that "public education is not a ‘right’ granted to individuals by the Constitution."
Most legal scholars see Plyler v Doe as a naked usurpation of Congressional powers, an attempt to make up for the legislative branch’s inability or unwillingness to deal with the illegal alien problem. It stands as a monument to judicial activism.
A very expensive monument: Public education is by far the largest expense state and local governments incur on behalf illegal aliens. The average low-income immigrant household—a category that includes illegal aliens and their U.S.-born children—receives an estimated $7,737 each year in kindergarten through grade 12 education services.
(Household data reflects the costs associated with U.S.-born children living in illegal alien households. This is perfectly reasonable since these children would not be in the country if their parents had not been allowed to enter and remain here illegally. Thus counting the cost of K-12 services provided to these children, as well as to their foreign-born siblings, allows for a full accounting the public education costs associated with illegal immigration.)
That $7,737 is more than twice the combined annual cost of Medicaid, welfare, and other means-tested benefits for such households ($2,957.) It also dwarfs the expense of providing them with police and fire protection ($2,198), transportation ($572), unemployment insurance ($488), and sewer and utilities ($411). [The Fiscal Cost of Low-Skill Immigrants to State and Local Taxpayers, By Robert Rector, Congressional Testimony, May 17, 2007. PDF]
Children of illegal aliens (including those born in the U.S.) represented a remarkable 6.8% of total K-12 enrollment in 2008, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. [A Portrait of Unauthorized Immigrants in the United States, Pew Hispanic Center, April 14, 2009] With total public school enrollment at 48.4 million, the illegal alien component is an estimated 3.3 million (6.8% of 48.4 million.)
How many of these children are in Arizona? We won’t know for sure until school districts in that state have had a chance to implement Pearce’s new law. But we can make an educated guess using published population estimates.
About 500,000 illegal aliens, or about 4.2% of all illegals in the U.S., live in Arizona according to Pew. Multiplying this percentage times the national illegal alien enrollment figure (3.3 million), we arrive at 138,600 as a reasonable estimate of public school enrollment attributable to illegal immigration in Arizona.
Using the average expenditure reported by the U.S. Department of Education for Arizona public schools—$7,610 per pupil—we calculate the illegal alien education tab to be $1.1 billion for Arizona. This is undoubtedly too conservative: it ignores the extraordinary costs associated with English language instruction and other services which illegals are far more likely to need than the "average" student.
In the context of the Federal budget, $1.1 billion may be a trivial amount. Not so at the local level. For perspective, local police departments in Arizona spent a total of $1.4 billion in 2006-07.
Pearce’s proposed legislation contains no provisions for acting on the information it will unearth.
But by bringing home the extraordinary costs of illegal immigration, it makes further legislation politically unavoidable.
That’s why Hispanic activists, and other immigration enthusiasts generally, prefer that Arizona taxpayers, like all Americans, are kept in ignorance,

Edwin S. Rubenstein (email him) is President of ESR Research Economic Consultants in Indianapolis.

Barack Obama, America's Selective Salary Policeman

An interesting post from www.VDare.com about Salary Caps. This follows this post about Arizona' law This follows this post about contacting YOUR state government and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Barack Obama, America's Selective Salary Policeman
By Michelle Malkin
President Obama spoke the most revealing and clarifying 10 words of his control-freak administration this week: "I think at some point you have made enough money." Peddling financial regulatory reform at a rally in Quincy, Ill., Obama then ad-libbed peculiar definitions of what he called the "American way" and the profit motive: "(Y)ou can just keep on making it if you're providing a good product or providing good service. We don't want people to stop, ah, fulfilling the core responsibilities of the financial system to help grow our economy."
Fundamental lesson of Capitalism 101: Governments and bureaucrats don't make what people want and need. They only get in the way. It is individuals, cooperating peacefully and voluntarily, working together without mandate or central design, who produce the world's goods and services. They make what people desire and demand for themselves, not what Obama and his imperial overlords ordain that the masses should have.
As usual, Obama's populist demagoguery is telling in its omissions and selectivity. While he lectures on the morality of salary caps for everyone else, his own cabinet is filled with fabulously wealthy CEOs and statist creatures who have parlayed government employment (a "good" service) into private gain as lobbyists, consultants and advisers ("core responsibilities of the financial system") and then back again to public stints. Revolving doors have always grown the Beltway economy.
To wit: Austan Goolsbee, head of Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, is the 15th wealthiest member of the Obama administration, with assets valued at between $1,146,000 to $2,715,000. He also pulled in a University of Chicago salary of $465,000 and additional wages and honoraria worth $93,000, according to the Washingtonian magazine.
What "good" did he provide? The government research fellow and Obama campaign adviser was a champion of extending credit to the un-creditworthy. In a 2007 op-ed for The New York Times, he derided those who called subprime mortgages "irresponsible." He preferred to describe them as "innovations in the mortgage market" to expand the pool of homebuyers. Now this wrong-headed academic who espoused government policies that fed the housing feeding frenzy is in charge of fixing the loose-credit mess he advocated. This is the "American way"?
After 16 years in Congress, four years in the Clinton administration as budget director and chief of staff, and a lifetime of schmoozing in the halls of power, Obama's CIA director, Leon Panetta, cashed in big. He's sitting on up to $4 million in assets. While he has zero experience in intelligence matters, he has extensive experience in parlaying his past political tours of duty into lucrative speaking gigs, consulting fees and stock options. Welcome to Obama-approved entrepreneurship.
By Obama's definition, first lady Michelle Obama is a model capitalist. Remember: After serving with real estate mogul Valerie Jarrett in Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's administration, Mrs. Obama took a post at the University of Chicago Medical Center, where Jarrett was serving as vice-chair of the medical center's board of trustees. Mrs. Obama was promoted in 2005 after her husband won his U.S. Senate race with Jarrett's invaluable aid. As "vice president for community and external affairs" and head of the "business diversity program," her annual compensation nearly tripled from $122,000 in 2004 to $317,000 in 2005. Even after she went on leave in 2007 to help her husband on the presidential campaign trail, the hospital paid Mrs. Obama $62,709 in 2008, prompting one skeptic to ask: "We know this is Chicago, but isn't $63,000 quite a lot for a no-show job?"
Jarrett, of course, is now White House senior adviser to the chief spender of other people's money. And the first lady is now using her new taxpayer-funded position not only to tell folks how they should eat, but also which "good" restaurants and groceries should be built in their neighborhoods.
If there were any doubts left about the Obamas' ideological commitment to wealth redistribution and a command-and-control economy, those doubts have been thoroughly removed. We have a commander-in-chief who presumes to know when you have earned "enough," who believes that only those who provide what he deems "good" products and services should "keep on making it," and who has determined that the role of American entrepreneurs is not to pursue their own self-interest, but to fulfill their "core" responsibility as dutiful growers of the collective economy.
That famous mock-up poster of Obama as the creepy socialist Joker never seemed more apt.

Michelle Malkin [email her] is the author of Invasion: How America Still Welcomes Terrorists, Criminals, and Other Foreign Menaces to Our Shores. Click here for Peter Brimelow’s review. Click here for Michelle Malkin's website. Michelle Malkin is also author of Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild and the just-released Culture of Corruption: Obama and his Team of Tax Cheats, Crooks & Cronies.

Another Stark Example of Why Arizona’s Immigration Law Needs Expansion

An interesting post from www.DebbieSchlussel.com about Arizona' law This follows this post about contacting YOUR state government and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Another Stark Example of Why Arizona’s Immigration Law Needs Expansion
By Debbie Schlussel
In response to Arizona’s new immigration law, inept Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano is struggling to do damage control. And so, to cover up the fact that Arizona’s cops are doing the job she won’t do, Napolitano, on Tuesday, told Congress that our border
is as secure as it has ever been.
It’s a relative statement because the borders have never been very secure or as secure as they should be. However, they were far more secure before 9/11 and before political correctness ruled the roost.
But regarding her statement, tell that to the child victim of Fernando Lopez-Ramirez, who was deported TWICE and still returned to rape a kid in Maryland:
Lesbionic Woman Artwork by David Lunde/Lundesigns
Frederick County authorities say a Guatemalan man who was deported twice is awaiting trial on rape and child sex-abuse charges.
Twenty-nine-year-old Fernando Lopez-Ramirez is being held without bail following his arrest in Frederick last month. His public defender couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.
The county sheriff’s office says Lopez-Ramirez was deported in November 2008 after he was caught driving without a license in Frederick.
Three months later, he was apprehended by U.S. Border Patrol agents in Arizona and deported for a second time in February 2009.
Capt. Tim Clarke says Lopez-Ramirez is among about 650 people detained by the Frederick County sheriff’s office under an immigration enforcement program it joined in 2008.
Yup, the border “is as secure as ever,” because the illegal aliens are already inside of it. The child rape in this case is on the hands of Barack Obama and J-No.
She’s not doing her job, she’s not allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to do their jobs. And yet, she and her boss, Mr. Obama, don’t think Arizona needs to enforce its borders within the borders she refuses to enforce.
Hilarious. And oh so sad for this country.
Repeat after me: Our border is as secure as ever. Islam is a religion of peace. Universal healthcare will make you healthy. Pigs fly. And the fat lady (well, a “lady” who looks and lives like a man) sings. And lies.

RED ALERT: Massive national mobilization needed‏

An interesting post from www.Alipac.us This follows this post about contacting YOUR governor. This follows this post about Arizona's immigration law and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

RED ALERT: Massive national mobilization needed‏

The political war to save America is raging and there are several major things that need to happen today. First, we recently received word that DC insiders are trying to sneak through a bill that could grant statehood to Puerto Rico. We are told the aim is to empower Puerto Rico and Washington DC by giving them more congressional representation for the Open Borders and Amnesty Lobby. They may vote today! Pick up your phones immediately and call your members of Congress (House Only).
Here's ALIPAC's DC Directory for your convenience. http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-63874.htmlCall up and say "I'm calling to tell Congressman ______ to please vote no on H.R. 2499 because an issue as important as statehood for Puerto Rico deserves a national debate first, instead of this sneaky attempt to add a new state to America. Americans deserve to know more about this before you vote on it so please Vote NO on HR 2499 and vote NO on statehood for Puerto Rico. When you are finished calling and writing to your own member of Congress, please CALL AND WRITE others with the same message!
--- BACK ARIZONA UP NOW!
Arizona is being attacked on all sides, even though numerous polls show that between 60-81% of Americans support SB 1070. San Francisco and Mexico are politically attacking AZ along with Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio, Senator Lindsey Graham, Obama, Holder, Napolitano, and many others. Here is what you can do.
ALIPAC started the process of getting other states to take up SB 1070 several weeks back, when we helped the bill clear the AZ Legislature. You must strike now, while the iron is hot! We polled some state lawmakers in other states yesterday and our activists HAVE NOT DONE A COMPLETE JOB yet!
Many state lawmakers are in the dark about SB 1070 and hearing the same negative propaganda on CNN and MSNBC, which needs to be addressed.
TAKE ACTION NOW
1. Go to Google.com or Yahoo.com and locate your state's legislative website by searching on "(state name) legislature"
2. Access your state's government website and determine who your state Senators and Representatives are and pick up the phones and CALL, CALL, CALL. You must call, and then follow-up in writing. If you send e-mails only you will have the lowest level of impact. If you call and write you will have the highest level of impact.
3. Tell your state lawmakers "I want you to contact the media and announce that you are going to submit a version of Arizona's SB 1070 in our state as soon as possible because numerous polls indicated 60-81% public support it and that SB 1070 can save American jobs, wages, property, health, and very lives!" Here are some polls and the text of SB 1070 you should provide to your state lawmakers.
TEXT OF SB 1070 Senate Engrossed Version Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/sb1070s.htm
RASMUSSEN POLL SHOWING 70% SUPPORT IN AZ http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/elections2/election_2010/election_2010_senate_elections/arizona/70_of_arizona_voters_favor_new_state_measure_cracking_down_on_illegal_immigrationZOGBY 2005 POLL SHOWING 81% support local police http://www.immigrationcontrol.com/page7.aspx
POLL SHOWING 60% national support for SB 1070 http://www.myfoxphoenix.com/dpp/news/national/poll-arizona-immigration-law-4-26-2010
We have news reports that lawmakers in Texas, Utah, and Arkansas plan to follow Arizona's lead. Let's get more states to announce submission of this bill to give Arizona some cover ASAP! It is up to you and will depend on how many of you respond to this request and how fervently and efficiently you respond.
-------- YOU WON'T SEE THIS ON TV
Scary thing about the video we released yesterday, with the illegal alien supporter in Arizona screaming "We will take up our shovels and axes... and we will use them against you! Believe It!" is NOT RUNNING on any English media station in America.
Scarier is the fact that Univision called and they want to run it so all the Spanish media watchers in America can here the woman's cry for them to take up arms against American citizens. Here is the video, it is going viral on the web. Make sure everyone you know gets a copy.

VIDEO Illegals Threaten To Murder Americans With Axes and Shovels http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mDlutO0KK7g

If you have the time, you might want to call and write to some of these networks like FOX, CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC, etc.... They have ALL been sent copies of this video and they are ALL censoring this film at this time.
ALIPAC is sending out a SECOND NATIONAL PRESS RELEASE TODAY to try and get this warning to the American public. Here are some suggested contacts you should contact, send more copies of this film, and demand they cover it.

Glenn Beck http://www.glennbeck.com/content/program/contact/
Bill O'Reilly http://www.billoreilly.com/pg/jsp/help/help.jsp
Neil Cavuto http://www.foxnews.com/yourworld/
FOX News http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,77538,00.htm
lCNN http://www.cnn.com/feedback/MSNBC http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10285339/
CBS http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/1998/08/01/eveningnews/main15218.shtml
ABC http://abcnews.go.com/Site/page?id=3068843
NBC http://www.nbc.com/contact/general/

Our activists are ready to assist you with any questions, suggestions, or feedback at this link. http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1050644.html#1050644

Urge your Governor to Support Tough Immigration Enforcement Legislation

An interesting post from www.NumbersUSA.com about contacting YOUR governor. This follows this post about Arizona's immigration law and this post which shows that there are 30,000 openly illegal immigrants in the border town of El Paso across from the recent Juarez shooting. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

Urge your Governor to Support Tough Immigration Enforcement Legislation
This new fax has been posted based on your answers to the Interest Survey.
You can find this fax by proceeding to http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=12221

As you are probably aware, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer signed SB 1070, the immigration enforcement legislation that will allow Arizona's state and local police agencies to enforce our nation's immigration laws. Specifically, this law

allows police officers to ask for proof of residency if they suspect an individual is in the country illegally,

allows illegal aliens to be jailed and fined up to $2500,

bans "soft" immigration policies at local police agencies that prevent officers from asking about a suspect's immigration status,

allows Arizonans to sue if they feel a government agency has adopted a policy that hinders the enforcement of illegal immigration laws,

prohibits people from blocking traffic when they seek or offer day-labor services on street corners,

and makes it illegal for people to transport illegal aliens if the drivers of vehicles know their passengers are in the country illegally and if the transportation furthers their illegal presence in the country.

It is important to note that this bill does not mandate the use of E-Verify because a 2007 Arizona law already mandates its use by all employers.
Because Congress refuses to deal with America's illegal immigration problem, it is likely that more and more states will follow Arizona's lead and take matters into their own hands.

Please send your state's governor a fax and let him/her know that now is the time to pass tough immigration enforcement legislation in your state, given the national interest in Arizona's crackdown
http://www.numbersusa.com/faxes?ID=12221

The Growing Economic Crisis: A Biblical Perspective

An interesting article from www.gnmagazine.org about the bible and this economic crisis. This follows this post about the effects of Greece on the Euro and now possibly the stock market. For more interesting stories like this click here to follow this blog.

The Growing Economic Crisis: A Biblical Perspective
The recent turmoil in U.S. financial markets has drawn the attention of the entire world. What's behind the crisis? Where could it lead? A look from a biblical perspective helps us understand.
by Mario Seiglie
A look at the financial news reveals a world full of economic difficulties. Most of us are—or will be—affected in some way.
A growing crisis in U.S. financial markets led the presidential administration to propose and Congress to pass a $700 billion intervention to prevent an economic meltdown. On Sept. 19, 2008, President George W. Bush warned: "This is a pivotal moment for America's economy . . . Given the precarious state of today's financial markets . . . government intervention is not only warranted, it is essential."
When such difficulties arise, it's good to review biblical principles. Let's examine aspects of Scripture, history and prophecy that can help us gain some proper perspective.
Greed: the root of the crisis
The magazine BusinessWeek stated: "What brought down the markets? Bad choices, greed—and never learning from past mistakes" (Paul Barrett, "Wall Street Staggers," Sept. 17, 2008, online edition).
The Bible describes greed as a sin and talks about what happens when it takes over. It's well summarized in the famous quote from the movie Wall Street where the lead character Gordon Gekko says: "Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed is good."
This fictional person was based in part on the financier Ivan Boesky, who once said in a university commencement address: "I think greed is healthy. You can be greedy and still feel good about yourself." A few months later he ended up in jail for insider trading, paying a $100 million fine and banned from the stock market.
Jesus warned about greed—the lust for money or other things—in Luke 12:15: "Watch out and guard yourselves from every kind of greed; because a person's true life is not made up of the things he owns, no matter how rich he may be" (Today's English Version).
The Bible also says: "People who want to be rich fall into all sorts of temptations and traps. They are caught by foolish and harmful desires that drag them down and destroy them. The love of money causes all kinds of trouble. Some people want money so much that they have given up their faith and caused themselves a lot of pain" (1 Timothy 6:6-10, Contemporary English Version). Sadly, in today's interconnected world, the greed of many can lead to financial pain for everyone.
Let's divide this complex topic into three parts to try to clarify some of the confusion.
Why do things like this happen?
Simply put, from time to time the financial world falls victim to unbridled greed—the unchecked lust to make money in spite of great risks. True perspective is lost, as when a gambler on a roll thinks his luck will last forever. Eventually his luck runs out.
Psychologist Erich Fromm warned, "Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction."
The Roman poet Aurelius Clemens Prudentius said around 1,600 years ago, "Hunger for gold is made greater as more gold is acquired." His words are just as true today.
A Sept. 18, 2008, article in The Washington Post, "Scrambling to Clean up a Category 4 Financial Storm," provided an overview of the nation's complex financial crisis:
"What is really going on, at the most fundamental level, is that the United States is in the process of being forced by its foreign creditors to begin living within its means . . . For most of the past decade, foreigners seemed only too willing to provide U.S. households, corporations and governments all the cheap money they wanted—and Americans were only too happy to take them up on their offer.
"The cheap money was used by households to buy houses, cars and college educations, along with more health care, extra vacations and all manner of consumer goods. Governments used the cheap money to pay for services and benefits that citizens were not willing to pay for with higher taxes. And corporations and investment vehicles—hedge funds, private-equity funds and real estate investment trusts—used the cheap financing to buy real estate and other companies.
"Two important things happened as a result of the availability of all this cheap credit. The first was that the price of residential and commercial real estate, corporate takeover targets and the stock of technology companies began to rise. The faster they rose, the more that investors were interested in buying, driving the prices even higher . . . Before long, these markets could best be characterized as classic bubbles . . .
"Suddenly, in early 2007, something important happened: Foreigners began to lose their appetite for financing much of this activity . . . What should have happened at that point was that the interest rate on those loans should have increased, demand for that kind of borrowing should have decreased, the price of real estate and corporate stocks should have leveled off, takeover activity should have slowed and companies should have begun to cut back on expansion.
"Mostly, however, that didn't happen. Instead, the Wall Street banks that originally made these loans before selling them off in pieces decided to try to keep the good times rolling—and, significantly, keep the lucrative underwriting fees pouring in. Some used their own 'AAA' credit ratings to borrow more money and keep the loans on their own balance sheets or those of 'structured investment vehicles' they created to hide these new liabilities from regulators and investors.
"Others went back to the foreigners and offered to insure those now-unwanted takeover loans and asset-backed securities against credit losses . . .
"As a result, when the inevitable crash finally came, it wasn't only those unsuspecting foreigners who bought those leveraged loans and asset-backed securities who wound up taking the hit. It was also their creators—Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, Citigroup, Lehman Brothers, AIG and others—who made the mistake of doubling-down on their credit risk at the very moment they should have been cutting back.
"We are now nearing the end of the rocky process of uncovering the full extent of the credit losses of the major Wall Street banks and hedge funds. But . . . the markets have only just begun to force some financial discipline on the majority of U.S. households that relied on borrowed money to maintain their lifestyles. With nobody willing to finance those lifestyles, there are really only two choices.
"One is to turn to Uncle Sam to keep the economy and the financial system afloat. In the end, however, there is only so much the government can borrow and so much the government can do.
"The only other choice is for Americans to finally put their spending in line with their incomes and their need for long-term savings. For any one household, that sounds like a good idea. But if everyone cuts back at roughly the same time, a recession is almost inevitable . . . The inevitable second round of this financial crisis . . . still lies ahead."
What can we do?
We should first carefully analyze our own economic situation and seek sound financial advice (see, for example, "Coping With a Growing Economic Crisis,' The Good News, May-June 2008 and "Are You a Slave to Debt?" The Good News, July-August 2008). While we can hope for the best, we need to be prepared for the worst.
We also need to ask: What is our true currency, ultimately? It shouldn't be money, but faith. If we are faithful to God, He will provide. In a period of widespread famine, He fed the prophet Elijah through ravens bringing him food for many days. God can intervene in many ways to provide for His obedient and faithful servants.
As Jesus said in Matthew 6:24-33: "No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate one and love the other, or else he will attach himself to one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money . . . Look at the wild birds—they neither sow, nor reap, nor gather into barns; and yet your heavenly Father feeds them! And are not you more precious than they?
". . . Do not then ask anxiously 'What can we get to eat?' or 'What can we get to drink?' or 'What can we get to wear?' All these are the things for which the nations are seeking, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But first seek his Kingdom and the righteousness that he requires, and then all these things shall be added for you" (Twentieth Century New Testament).
We do not want to sound like all is doom and gloom, that the economy can't recover from its current battering. Too many people cry wolf at the first signs of crisis. It's good to remember that there has been at least one recession for each decade in recent years—roughly around 1973, 1982, 1992 and 2001. In any case, this should be a wake-up call for each of us to examine our financial situation and our faith.
Economic turmoil and Bible prophecy
Furthermore, as regular readers of The Good News magazine understand, we should keep in mind the framework of end-time prophecy whenever we consider the world scene.
The fulfillment of Bible prophecy can be compared to riding on a roller coaster—there are many ups and downs with world events, but eventually, according to the Bible, humanity will reach the end of the ride.
However, we don't know when that will be. So Christ told us we have to watch world events (Luke 21:36), and just as fig leaves come out as summer nears, so when biblical end-time events start to happen, we should be ready (Matthew 24:32-34).
Could the current financial crisis eventually lead to end-time events foretold in Scripture? No one knows, and it would be premature at this point to suggest this. Nevertheless we should carefully watch and analyze the long-term effect of this crisis, which is spreading to other countries. The Bible does indicate that the world will one day fall into great economic turmoil that will trigger a new world order centered in Europe and not the United States .
An end-time prophecy in Revelation 17:12 speaks of "ten kings who have received no kingdom as yet, but they receive authority for one hour [a brief period] as kings with the beast." Indications are that conditions will be so desperate and dramatic that these 10 rulers will give their authority to a powerful figure who, as head of a new global superpower, will bring order out of chaos.
The political and economic system of these rulers and a dominant leader described as "the beast" is called in biblical language "Babylon" (Revelation 18:2).
Why does it rise to power? In the midst of great turmoil, people will be desperate and in need of a savior figure. This leader will then take charge. He will share power with a deceiving religious leader called in Revelation "the false prophet" (Revelation 19:20). The merchants of the earth will be pleased because the system will bring security and prosperity (Revelation 18:3).
Remember Adolf Hitler's rise to power in the early 1930s? It was enabled by the economic depression in Germany at that time. Without it, there would have been no discontent to exploit, and Hitler probably would have gotten nowhere.
And what did he do when he took over? He introduced his program—a fascist system known as national socialism (the party name National Socialist being abbreviated as Nazi). Soon Hitler began to control the nation's economy and to rapidly build up its huge military, which gave people work. He also did much for the ordinary German citizen.
Of course, the future system need not follow exactly the same track, but there may be similarities.
Hope during troubling times
While the Bible prophets revealed what is coming, they did not know exactly when their prophecies would transpire. So it is today. We know what will happen in the future, but not exactly when significant end-time events will begin.
Also, in spite of the future difficulties foretold, the Bible gives us a message of hope. It tells us God's people will be protected through the coming turmoil. We read in Revelation 3:10: "Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth. Behold, I am coming quickly! Hold fast what you have, that no one may take your crown."
Yes, our protection and our ultimate currency is our faith—our trust, obedience and love of the truth. Those who have made wealth into an idol will be devastated. But God will provide for the faithful, and He has promised not to abandon us.
Jesus Christ asked in Luke 18:8, "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" Will we remain faithful? Will we seek God in times like this? Let's develop a strong faith! For as has been said of earlier difficult days, "These are the times that try men's souls"—testing their spiritual character and faith in God. GN
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