Nov 26, 2011 | Constitution
By Dr. Harold Pease
This is the season to be grateful and to acknowledge our many blessings, even in the midst of extreme difficult times for so many of our neighbors and friends. Even our own circumstances may have brought us beneath what we think we can endure. During such times it is sometimes hard to find things to be grateful for or to find the hand of God in anything. Finding someone whose life circumstances are much worse sometimes helps a little. One such was Martin Rinckart. He authored the beloved Christian hymnal “Now Thank We All Our God” which has given fellow Christians strength in their trials for almost 400 years.
In 1637 the Swedes and Germans were in the midst of The Thirty-Year War (Catholics vs. Protestants) and refugees from that encounter were flooding into Eilenburg, Saxony where Martin Rinckart was serving as Archdeacon of his native German town. A horrible plaque gripped the area leaving some 8,000 persons dead in a single year. Rinckart had to assist “at the beds of the sick and dying.” Although fortunately he maintained his own health during this time of death, he “had to read forty or fifty funeral services a day” including the services of two of his fellow clergymen. A fourth ran away, out of fear of getting sick, leaving him the lone church authority in this major crisis. He assisted in burying some 4,480 in all. In May of that year, his wife died. “By the end of the year, the refugees had to be buried in trenches without services.”
This horror was followed by a famine “so extreme that thirty or forty persons might be seen fighting in the streets for a dead cat or crow.” As the head of the church in his area “his door was surrounded by a crowd of poor starving wretches, who found it their only refuge.” He shared everything he had reserving “the barest rations for his own family.”
Next the Swedes returned demanding a tribute of $30,000 from the town. Such money was not available. After failing to entreat the invading general for mercy, Rinckart turned to those following him and, in the general’s presence, said “Come, my children, we can find no hearing, no mercy with men, let us take refuge with God.” He then “fell on his knees and prayed with such touching earnestness that the Swedish general relented, and lowered his demand at last to 2,000 florins.”
Apparently the words of his hymn were originally written as a grace to be said before meals but given his circumstances it became a song of strength in adversity. Listen to them. “Now thank we all our God with hearts and hands and voices, Who wondrous things hath done, In whom his earth rejoices; Who, from our mothers’ arms, Hath blessed us on our way With countless gifts of love, And still is ours today.” The first verse of this Lutheran hymnal is certainly a message of thanksgiving; the second, one of protection and guidance. “Oh, may our bounteous God Through all our life be near us, With ever joyful hearts and blessed peace to cheer us, And keep us in his love, And guide us day and night, And free us from all ills, Protect us by his might.”
Perhaps his life and song can make us stronger as well. At the very least it should give us a few extra things for which to be thankful. None of us are fighting over a dead cat or crow to eat. Despite our obstacles, deep inside we know that God still has our best interests in mind. When we next sing this song we will probably do it with more gratitude reflecting, at least for a moment, on our great blessings, as he did, rather than our trials.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Nov 18, 2011 | Economy, Taxes
By Dr. Harold Pease
Few realize that New England’s first form of government under the Pilgrims was communalism (socialism) where “each produced according to his ability and each received according to his needs,” more than two centuries before Karl Marx first penned the above script. The result of “share the wealth” then and now was, and always will be, shared poverty.
William Bradford, the colony’s governor its first 30 years, wrote of the agreement between the Pilgrim passengers and the financial “Adventurers” in his book Of Plymouth Plantation. He noted that the seven-year contract signed July 1, 1620, before leaving Plymouth England, stipulated that the Pilgrims were to pool, for common benefit, “all profits and benefits that are got by trade, traffic, trucking, working, fishing, or any other means of any person or persons…” It further noted “that at the end of the seven years, the capital and profits, viz. the houses, lands, goods and chattels, be equally divided betwixt the Adventurers and Planters…” During this time the colonists were to “have their meat, drink, apparel, and all provisions out of the common stock and goods of the said colony.” It doesn’t get more socialistic than this because the government divvied out the goods and loafers received the same as those who worked.
The first two years the result was shortages and starvation. About half the colonists died. No one did more than the minimal because the incentive to excel was destroyed. The industrious were neutralized. Bradford wrote of the scarcity of food “no supply was heard of, neither knew they when they might expect any.” The socialist experiment Bradford added, “was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to the benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labour and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men’s wives and children without any recompense….” In other words, socialism made strong men lazy. In another book written by the same author, History of Plymouth Plantation, Bradford spoke of another problem because of the government created famine—thievery. Even in this Christian community, “much was stolen both by night and day….”
After two years of such, with the survival of the colony at stake, they contemplated upon “how they might raise as much corn as they could, and obtain a better crop than they had done, that they might not still thus languish in misery.” They opted to abandon the incentive killing socialist contract in favor of the free market. And so they “assigned to every family a parcel of land, according to the proportion of their number, for that end…”
The effects were almost immediate. A delighted Governor Bradford wrote: “This had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor… could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression.” In other words, the free market is a much greater stimulus than governmental force. The Pilgrims now wished to work because they got to keep the benefits of their labor. “Instead of famine now God gave them plenty,” Bradford wrote, “and the face of things was changed, to the rejoicing of the hearts of many, for which they blessed God…. Any general want or famine hath not been amongst them since to this day.”
Secure property rights are the key to prosperity for all who wish to work. When this right is threatened by confiscatory taxation or outright confiscation of property, or by excessive government rules and regulations governing such, whether planned as in a contract enforced by the government at Plymouth, or gradual as in our day, work and production slow and can eventually stop. The answer for them was to extract socialism from their midst as it is for us today as well. May we have the wisdom to do so?
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Nov 12, 2011 | Economy, Globalism, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
Some protesters say the Occupy Wall Street mother city should move to Oakland, California as the New York branch has not shown the “stomach” needed for the more violent form of confrontation necessary for “real” change and the weather is better for maintaining the movement through the winter months. Others say that a move to Washington D. C. is critical as the Congress is the only real agent of change, and Occupy should assemble, like everybody else, in front of the capital, as did the Tea Party with their million July 4th 2010. “President Obama, Can you hear us now?” repeated three times with added emphasis each time.
But those who study special interest groups know that Occupy Wall Street needs to stay right where it is, as within blocks of Zuccotti Park, where they are assembled, is the most powerful special interest group in the United States. Unbeknown to the protesters, they are located near the nerve center of U.S. foreign policy. Important visitors to the U.S. usually make at least two scheduled visits while in the United States, one to 58 East 68th Street, New York City, the other to the White House. Yes, this one organization (which I will not identify just yet) provides at least a third of all cabinet members and the Secretary of State of every administration since the 1930s. It has, and always will, until known more fully to the American people for its vast influence over both major political parties, provided all ambassadors to Russia, China and the United Nations as well. Its members fill most of the seats on the Federal Reserve Board, from whom most of our fiscal policy is determined.
My Occupy friends, you have the power to bring attention and exposure to this semi- secret governance. You already want an audit of the Federal Reserve, and these members come from the organization just down the street. This organization in question cares nothing about you or your causes, and they are more responsible for your anger than any other single organization. Can you at least schedule a march to the address cited above and have discussion about this influence in your meetings? In your attempt to occupy colleges and cities throughout the land, would you please check out the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), not just from its sources, which you would expect to be favorable, but from the very numerous other sources fully documenting the power they hold over our media and government?
Start with conclusions three and four of the three-year, 1954 Reece Congressional Committee Report issued by the House of Representatives that identified the CFR as the special interest group of large foundations, specifically the Carnage Endowment, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, and the Rhodes Scholarship Trust (p. 169 and p. 176). “The power of the individual large foundation,” they wrote, was “enormous.” “It can exercise various forms of patronage which carry with them elements of thought control. It can exert immense influence on educational institutions, upon the educational processes, and upon educators. It is capable of invisible coercion through the power of its purse. It can materially predetermine the development of social and political concepts and courses of action through the process of granting and withholding foundation awards upon a selective basis, and by designing and promulgating projects which propel researchers in selected directions.”
After noting the power of just one large foundation such as those cited above, the House report continued, “This power to influence national policy is amplified tremendously when foundations act in concert. There is such a concentration of foundation power in the United States, operating in the social sciences and education… It has ramifications in almost every phase of research and education, in communications and even in government” (p. 16).
They noted that the productions, of what has become Wall Street’s special interest group, the Council on Foreign Relations, “are not objective but are directed overwhelmingly at promoting the globalism concept.” How powerful was it by the time Congress first discovered its influence? It had come, they wrote, “to be in essence an agency of the United States government, no doubt carrying its internationalist bias with it” (Pp. 176-177).
So my young friends, consider the possibility that you might just be a ploy to help these folks further some globalistic objective—perhaps the collapse of the economy in preparation for some world currency more easily managed by them. Extreme? Perhaps! But you are good at thinking out of the box so don’t move your headquarter and do make a visit just down the street to the real source of your concerns.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
Nov 4, 2011 | Globalism, Tea Party
By Dr. Harold Pease
In October Presidential contender Mitt Romney released the 20 names of those he had selected to advise him in foreign policy and national security matters, more than half of whom, eleven to be exact, are members of the elite, semi-secret Council on Foreign Relations. It isn’t that most of these persons are not qualified to advise, nor is it that very few of the twenty can be said to be conservative, even in a stretch, but it is the fact that for decades the CFR has been the special interest group, Think Tank if you prefer, that provided a majority of the “experts” in every administration, Democrat or Republican.
No special interest group has had more impact than the CFR over foreign policy in the 20th Century, leading many to question if we have but one political party in the United States with two arms. Indeed, many see no significant difference in foreign policy between George W. Bush and Barack Obama. Nor was there between George Bush and Bill Clinton. CFR candidate Barack Obama, probably the most anti-war candidate in a couple of decades, and so condemnatory of his predecessor in this area, as president not only continued the Bush wars but added Libya and central Africa to the list while sponsoring drone killings in Pakistan, Syria, and Somali. History will view him as having been as pro-war as his predecessor.
Obama’s Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, probably admitted more than she was supposed to in her address at the recent dedication of a branch CFR in Washington D. C. when she said that her source of direction was the CFR sub-center down the street. “I am delighted to be at these new headquarters. I have been often to the mother ship in New York City but it is good to have an outpost of the Council right here down the street from the State Department. We get a lot of advice from the Council so this will mean that I won’t have as far to go to be told what we should be doing and how we should think about the future.” See audio capture of these remarks below.
Notable political scientist Lester Milbraith observed in his work Domestic Sources of Foreign Policy, page 247, that “the influence of the CFR throughout government is so pervasive that it is difficult to distinguish the CFR from government programs.” Prominent political scientist Thomas R. Dye in his textbook Who’s Running America? The Bush Restoration, page 188, wrote “The history of CFR policy accomplishments is dazzling” then traced in detail their dominating role in foreign policy accomplishment from the 1920’s through the George Bush Administration from their own boasts of success in Council on Foreign Relations Annual Reports.
I have told my students for over 25 years that the next UN Ambassador, Secretary of State, Ambassadors to both Russia and China will be from this organization, as will a third of his/her cabinet. Not might be!! Will be!! Also no one gets to be president without their approval. No exception!! We get to choose which one of their approved party finalists we want, but the first election is theirs. I make the same prediction today for who ever becomes the republican presidential candidate. Such has been the case since the Council on Foreign Relations was founded by its Wall Street creators J.P. Morgan and all in 1921. It is the special interest group of Wall Street, supported by grants from the Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Ford foundations. Its journal, Foreign Affairs, is “considered throughout the world to be the unofficial mouthpiece of U.S. foreign policy. Few important initiatives in U.S. policy have not been first outlined in articles in this publication.”
But what is the Romney CFR connection? The current CFR membership roster does not list him as a member. In 2007, he also denied such. That said, the CFR website does have a very comprehensive and favorable outline of his policies on 22 foreign policy areas seemingly to invite support for him. They cite him as having published in their July/August 2007 magazine Foreign Affairs. Long-time readers know that no one gets published unless seen favorably by them. His selection of their organization as the source for a majority of his foreign policy and national security advisors suggests that a Romney Presidency will be managed by the CFR as with his predecessors. In fact, I can almost see the face and voice of George W. Bush as I read through Romney’s 22 foreign policy areas—a comparison that Bush would not find objectionable. No wonder the Tea Party movement, which opposes elitist semi-secret government and Bush, because such too surrounded him, is unenthused.
Dr. Harold Pease is an expert on the United States Constitution. He has dedicated his career to studying the writings of the Founding Fathers and applying that knowledge to current events. He has taught history and political science from this perspective for over 25 years at Taft College. To read more of his weekly articles, please visit www.LibertyUnderFire.org.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7WMTedOyZI&w=560&h=315]
