THE WATCHERS
ARE WATCHING YOU

INTRODUCTION

On March 28, 2004 a white cop killed an unarmed black man at a traffic stop in Portland, Oregon. The cop's name was Jason Sery; the black man's name was James Jahar Perez. Sery shot Perez three times in the chest, killing him where he sat. The cop says Perez resisted arrest. Witnesses say no. The coroner's report cited high levels of cocaine in Perez's system, plus bags of "apparent drug material" found in his mouth and in his pockets; but the Portland Oregonian and other local media have since found evidence that throw the drug tests on Perez's corpse into question and indicate that the drugs found in his mouth and in his pockets were planted by the police. One thing's for sure, as Kristin Williams reports for Counter Punch Magazine: "White Cops killed an UNARMED black person - AGAIN!"

According to Williams, the shooting of Perez came less than a year after a remarkably similar case. On May 5, 2003, Portland Police officer Scott McCollister shot and killed Kendra James, a 21-year-old black woman, as she attempted to leave a traffic stop. James was NOT armed. Again, witnesses report that there was absolutely no reason for the shooting. But - as in the case with Perez - witness testimony was discounted.

Then there was Jose Mejia, a Latino man who was boarding a public bus in Portland when he suffered an epileptic seizure and became unresponsive. The driver flagged down a passing squad car and the cops removed Mejia from the bus; then - for no apparent reason - they began beating on him in front of witnesses for being "non-responsive." [Of course he was! - he was in an epileptic coma.]

Mejia was finally "arrested" and placed in a mental ward. Two days later he escaped from his room, and refused to return, saying that the police had had no business arresting him, and no reason for confining him to a mental ward. He was simply an epileptic trying to cope with his affliction - and he wanted to go home. When the police arrived, Mejia confronted them with an aluminum rod he had removed from a door. Officer Jeffrey Bell shot and killed Mejia in the hospital corridor. Astonished onlookers at the hospital said that there was no justification for the killing: Mejia was too far away from the police to be a threat; it was a cold-blooded murder. But - as with the cases of Perez and James - witness testimony was ignored.

The police MURDER of "people of color" seems to be "common place" in Portland where, during the period January 2001 to April 2004, the police shot 23 people and killed nine. Eleven of those the police shot were blacks and Hispanics. That's almost 50 percent of those shot in a town where "people of color" amount to no more than 20 percent of the population. And one should bear in mind that all this occurred in Portland, Oregon, a town considered by most to be "black friendly," not in "unfriendly" New York, Boston, Houston, or L.A. (all of which have similar "whacked-out" statistics), which seems to indicate that the violence the police in the United States are visiting on "people of color" like Perez, James and Mejia is ubiquitous and pervasive, and not at all confined to the nation's "big city ghettos" - and the facts plainly indicate this!

POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST THE BLACK COMMUNITY

For example, ONE OUT OF EVERY THREE BLACK MALES are (or have been) in jail in recent years, and that's not counting the huge number of blacks who at any one given time are under some other form of "judicial restraint" - estimated to be as high as twice the amount of black men who are actually in jail. These facts pretty much correlate to what's happening in Portland. Now unless one has bought into the LIE perpetrated by racists like Richard Herrnstein, Charles Murray, Arthur Jensen, William Schockley, Linda Gottfredson, Thomas Bouchard, and Richard Lynn - i.e. that race predisposes one to crime - then this should be a very SHOCKING statistic. [Please! - for those who have not read our article on race and poverty, we URGE you to read it; it is entitled "Racism and Right-Wing Christianity."]

These statistics don't make any sense, especially in light of the fact that most blacks are in jail because of drug related crimes; but drug usage in suburban white communities is actually higher than drug usage in poor black neighborhoods. Why, then, are blacks being incarcerated at such a higher rate? - unless they are being PURPOSEFULLY targeted for other reasons.

BLACKS ARE BEING TARGETED

And that seems to be EXACTLY what's happening - the fact that both Kendra James and James Perez were killed during traffic stops lends credence to this belief: According to the police's own data, black drivers are 2.6 times more likely to be pulled over than are white drivers. These numbers, according to Williams, resonate with Perez's own record. Since 1994, he received 19 citations. In eight of these cases (42%) the only charges were driving without a license or with no insurance - VIOLATIONS THAT WOULD NOT BE EVIDENT PRIOR TO THE STOP, WHICH MEANS, OF COURSE, THAT PEREZ WAS BEING PURPOSEFULLY TARGETED BECAUSE HE WAS BLACK.

The tendency of most "mainstream" civil rights advocates is to chalk up what's happening to "nothing more" than racism run amuck - a crude repeat of Jim Crow harassment that's been going on in the United States since time immemorial. But there seems to be more than just that that's involved here. Something different! Something NEW! - and the evidence seems to bear this suspicion out. THE "OUT-OF-WHACK" INCARCERATION STATISTICS FOR BLACKS AS OPPOSED TO WHITES IS A BRAND NEW PHENOMENON.

It's not something that's been going on for a very long time. While that may surprise you, that's, nonetheless, what the Washington D.C.-based Sentencing Project has discovered. For instance, in 1954 there were 98,000 black males in prison; by 1974 that figure had crept up to 153,000; by 1994, it had grown fourfold to 635,000; and in 2002, it had risen to a record high of 884,500 - and, again, that's not counting those blacks who are on "work-release" or parole.

TREATING BLACKS AS "ENEMY COMBATANTS"

In other words, something happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s that led to the EXPLOSION of the black incarceration rate in the United States - AND WHAT HAPPENED BODES ILL FOR WHITES IN THIS COUNTRY. That time frame is precisely when the elites launched their "War on Drugs" which was nothing more than an euphemism for a CLASS WAR against the black community. The elite's war on the black community was necessitated by Martin Luther King's efforts to transform the Civil Rights Crusade into a "Poor People's Crusade" against the elites.

King was killed for this, and the black community that he had led was targeted for destruction using the "War on Drugs" as the means to first CRIMINALIZE blacks, and then DESTROY them. [Please see our article for what happened to King, "The Utility of Police Brutality in the Elite's War Against the Poor;" please also see our article "MK-ULTRA and the Search for the Manchurian Candidate."]

Specifically, what the supposed "War on Drugs" allowed the elites to do is treat the black community's so-called "revolutionary" organizations (e.g., the Black Panther Party, the Congress for Racial Equality (CORE), the Black Muslims, etc.) as CRIMINAL SYNDICATES, surveil their memberships, INCARCERATE their leadership, and generally treat blacks as "ENEMY COMBATANTS," and black neighborhoods as "ENEMY TERRITORY" to be OCCUPIED and BRUTALIZED much in the way the Nazis occupied and brutalized the Ukrainians, the Poles, the Russians, the Greeks, etc. during the Second World War. How else can one rationally explain the skewered statistics insofar as black incarceration rates are concerned? How else can one rationally explain what happened to Kendra James, Jose Mejia and James Perez in Portland, Oregon?

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ME?

The fact is, to call what's being done to the black and Latino communities in the United States "policing" is simply not honest. Of course, you might ask, What does this have to do with me? I'm not black and I don't live in the ghetto. I feel sorry for these people, but their plight doesn't really affect me.

Oh really? - well, whether white Americans realize it or not, they are only an hair's breadth away from being treated in EXACTLY THE SAME FASHION as blacks have been treated in the elite's new "War on Terrorism."

TYRANNY BEGINS AT THE FRINGES
AND WORKS ITS WAY INTO THE CENTER

Brothers and sisters, listen to me here: Tyranny normally begins on the fringes of society and is first directed against those who do not possess the power to defend themselves (such as blacks in this country and Jews in Nazi Germany), and then it works its way in towards the center; it first targets those members of the community that nobody cares about, and then moves its way up the "food chain." If we are to arrest the spread of tyranny, we must attempt to do so early on; otherwise we will find ourselves engaged in an "exercise in futility."

This is what Pastor Martin Niemoeller tried to convey many years ago when he talked about his experience in Hitler's Third Reich:

"First the Nazis came for the Communists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist.

"Then they came for the Jews and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.

"Then they came for the trade unionists and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.

"Then they came for the Catholics and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant.

"Then they came for me, but by that time, no one was left to speak up."

Sadly, the process that Pastor Niemoeller describes here has been going on in the United States for some time now and has probably already progressed to the point where it is now unstoppable - and if you don't recognize what's been happening, it's probably because you are white, middle-class, have a relatively good education, and you live in the suburbs. But, as we have already indicated, if you're black and if you live in South-Central L.A., or in the Bronx, or in Liberty City, Florida you know perfectly well what we're talking about.

NOW IT'S THE TURN OF THE WHITE COMMUNITY

The truth is, for over thirty years, whites have stood aside while members of the black community have been treated like "enemy combatants" - just as Niemoeller and his friends stood aside and watched as the Nazis rounded up first the Communists, then the Jews, then the trade unionists, and so forth - pretending all the while that they (i.e., the whites) didn't see what was happening to the black community, though what was occurring was plain enough to see: THAT BLACK WORKERS WERE BEING MERCILESSLY DISGORGED FROM THE ECONOMY AND THEIR COMMUNITY CRUELLY ATTACKED UNDER THE RUBRIC OF THE SO-CALLED "WAR ON DRUGS." [Again, please see our article on what's been happening to the black community, "The Utility of Police Brutality in the Elite's War Against the Poor."]

Now it's the turn of the white community to suffer the way the black community has been suffering. And why is that? - because, as the elites ship more and more jobs off to cheap labor factories (i.e., "out-source" them) in China, Indonesia, etc. (and pocket the difference between what they would have paid American workers as opposed to the pittance they are now paying workers in India, Thailand, etc.), THERE ARE SIMPLY NOT ENOUGH MEANINGFUL JOBS BEING GENERATED IN THE UNITED STATES FOR MOST WHITES TO STAY ANCHORED ANY LONGER TO THE MIDDLE CLASS.

WHITES ARE NOW BEING DISGORGED FROM THE
ECONOMY JUST AS BLACKS WERE THIRTY YEARS AGO

White workers in the United States are discovering what black workers found out thirty years ago: that their welfare is superfluous to the elite's prosperity - a fact that is being driven home to white youths as they graduate from college saddled with college-related debt and little chance of paying it off with the "dead-end" jobs available to them now - and no chance of bankrupting against these debts. [Please see our article, "Making Men Cogs in a Machine: The Reformation of the Bankruptcy Laws."]

And while this may not yet be happening to college grads at elite schools like Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford, it surely has been occurring to the sons and daughters of the middle class as they graduate from schools like Ohio State, Indiana State, Iowa State, the University of Washington, Arizona State, etc. THIS IS "GLOBALIZATION" WRIT LARGE ON THE BACKS OF AMERICA'S YOUTH.

As a result, it's no accident that white college young people make up the great majority of those who have been at the forefront of the anti-globalization demonstrations in Seattle, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., New York, etc., just as it was no accident that white young people (mostly college-age youth) made up the bulk of the anti-war movement in the 1960s. It was their ox that was being goaded by the draft in the 1960s and early '70s, just as it is their ox that is being goaded today by the elite's policy of "outsourcing." [Please see our articles on these demonstrations - Seattle: "The WTO and the Masses;" Miami: "The Utility of Police Brutality in the Elite's War Against the Poor;" and Cancun: "Lee Kyang: the Rich and the Poor! America and God."]

THE ELITES: TURNING THEIR WRATH ON THE
SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF THE MIDDLE CLASS

In opposing the process of globalization that the elites have unleashed on the world (and - ipso facto - in trying to save a place for themselves in the middle class), these white youths have come to constitute a genuine threat to the elite's ability to continue to plunder the rest of the world on behalf of Corporate America.

Indeed, there is a real danger that if the elites don't act soon, they could - like other elites before them - be inundated. The truth is, with the passage of time, the anti-globalist demonstrations of the "Great Unwashed" are growing larger and ever more ominous, making the meetings of the world's "moneyed worthies" tiresome and tedious affairs rather than the cheery, joyous proceedings the elites think they should be (e.g., the meetings of the G-8, the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, Davos, etc.); meetings which - thanks to the disruptions of the so-called "rabble" - now have to be held behind barbed wire and in obscure locations like Qatar. The elites cannot let this kind of defiance go on forever unchecked.

That's what the elite's so-called "War on Terrorism" (i.e., "Homeland Security") is all about. Like the elite's fake "War on Drugs" - which, again, is nothing more than a fig leaf behind which the elites have waged "CLASS WARFARE" against the black community for thirty years - "Homeland Security" is little more than a facade behind which the elites are planning a war of intimidation against those who oppose globalization; specifically, the sons and daughters of America's white middle class.

HOMELAND SECURITY: A TROJAN HORSE

That's what Douglas Valentine, author of the book, The Phoenix Program, thinks; he writes:

"... HOMELAND SECURITY IS, SIMPLY STATED, A TROJAN HORSE through which Bush will unleash his ideological stormtroopers on America and exploit his ill-gotten power to achieve personal and political gain." [Please see our article on this matter, "$3 Trillion and the Bush, Kerry Campaigns for the Presidency: What It Portends for Us as Christians."]

And it's happening even now; indeed, the restrictions imposed on Americans through the oppressive instumentalities of "Homeland Security" have already had a telling effect: our right to travel where and when we please without being hampered has been circumscribed; we are increasingly being surveilled in all aspects of our lives; our police forces have been "militarized;" the government has arrogated unto itself the right to wiretap our phones, monitor our email and internet usage, search our homes and businesses, and seize documents all without a warrant; the government can now arrest people without charges and hold them indefinitely (i.e., "disappear" people); and the list goes on and on.

These acts, taken together, have established - as two-time Nobel Prize winner Johan Galtung has said - a "LEGALLY CRIMINAL SOCIAL STRUCTURE" in the United States. By "legally criminal" Galtung means that what Bush and his elite cronies have been doing is legalizing their otherwise criminal acts of oppression directed against the American population.

WHAT HOMELAND SECURITY IS REALLY ALL ABOUT

You don't believe it? Well, ask yourself, Why do the rights of ordinary citizens have to be constricted if the purpose of these restrictions is merely to contain the activities of Al Qaida and the rest of Osama bin Laden's minions? Why is it that the government finds it necessary to roll back the rights of individual American citizens if all the government is targeting is Muslim extremists? The answer, of course, is that Muslim extremists are not the elite's real targets. Valentine suggests the real reason:

"Homeland Security is [nothing more than] an euphemism for 'INTERNAL SECURITY' [i.e., the establishment of a 'National Security State']." [Again, please see our article, "$3 Trillion and the Bush, Kerry Campaigns for the Presidency: What It Portends for Us as Christians."]

This is PRECISELY what the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) thinks as well. In a chilling report released recently (August, 2004) entitled, "The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Business and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society," the ACLU documents exactly how the elites are planning to keep tabs on dissidents in the United States, and - if necessary - terrorize them into compliance to their wishes much as they have been doing for years to the black community in the U.S., and to the populations of America's client-states. [Please see our article, "The Horror of John Dimitri Negroponte and Everything He Represents."]

The strategy that the elites have devised to protect themselves from the fury of the "mob" (i.e., those who oppose them) calls for the creation of a "Surveillance Society" not unlike Hitler's Third Reich where everyone is enlisted as WATCHERS, and everyone is WATCHED. Anthony D. Romero, the American Civil Liberties Union's Executive Director, writes:

"Acting under the broad mandate of the 'War on Terrorism', the U.S. security establishment is making a systematic effort to extend its surveillance capacity by PRESSING THE PRIVATE SECTOR INTO SERVICE TO REPORT ON THE ACTIVITIES OF [OTHER] AMERICANS. These efforts ... run the gamut from old-fashioned efforts to recruit individuals as eyes and ears for the authorities, to the construction of vast computerized networks that systematically feed the government a steady stream of information about our activities."

A MASSIVE EFFORT

The ACLU labels this -

"... a MASSIVE effort ... to turn regular Americans into ... government MONITORS who, pressed by constant urgings for vigilance and suspicion ... are asked to report to the authorities anything they think is 'unusual or suspicious' ... The new warnings are enormously vague and broad, yet frightening and intense. Unlike 'wanted' posters and other traditional public appeals, they are based not on crimes that have already been committed, but on the prospect or suspicion that an individual might be planning something bad ... The government's constant exhortations to micro-vigilance ... will create an atmosphere of CONFORMISM and mistrust that encourages abuse and divides Americans from one another ..."

And just how massive this effort is can be surmised from the government's initial and rather clumsy attempt to create such a system: The January 2002 effort by John Ashcroft's Justice Department to impose on the American public the now "defunct" program called the "Terrorism Information and Prevention System," or TIPS. [Please see our articles, "John Ashcroft, Theodore Olson and the New National Security State."]

Billed as a "national system for concerned workers to report suspicious activity," the program would have recruited "millions of truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees" and "others" as government informants. The recruitment of utility workers and "others" (e.g., plumbers, electricians, pest control operators, computer repair people, etc.) was particularly insidious - it would have left, in the words of the ACLU report -

"Homeowners to wonder if anything in their home might draw suspicion whenever a cable or utility worker comes in to do a repair."

One can only imagine the "scurrying about" this program would have necessitated whenever home, cable, or computer repairs were needed: left-wing magazines would have to be hidden, hard disks on computers would have to be removed, posters on walls might have to be taken down, the children would have to be coached on what not to say, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

The proposed scope of this project was stunning - it would have recruited, in its pilot program alone, one million informants in just 10 cities - or 1 IN EVERY 24 AMERICANS LIVING IN THOSE CITIES.

THIS IS AN OLD GESTAPO TRICK

The ACLU report continues:

"The recruitment of informants [i.e., WATCHERS, both individuals and corporations] for particular investigations has long been a key tool of law enforcement, BUT ONLY UNDER THE MOST OPPRESSIVE GOVERNMENTS HAVE INFORMANTS EVER BECOME A WIDESPREAD, CENTRAL FEATURE OF LIFE [as they are now becoming in the United States]."

"The East German Stasi, for example, not only employed 91,000 full-time workers, but also recruited from among the citizenry more than 170,000 non-professional informants, or as many as one in every 50 citizens, to spy and report on their fellow citizens. Stasi agents even used blackmail and other pressure tactics to get people to spy on their own family members." [NOTE: it should be noted that the ratio of "WATCHERS" to "WATCHED" in the system that TIPS was aiming for was one in every 24 - more than double the Stasi ratio - and there is no indication that this ratio has been abandoned by any of the more sophisticated successor systems to TIPS that the government has now set up.]

The Stasi system was patterned after the Gestapo (Geheime Staats Polizei) of Hitler's Third Reich, an ever present system of surveillance designed to - as Edward Crankshaw describes it - "... create a LEGEND OF TERROR ..." calculated to paralyze people with fear and prevent them from speaking out against the government.

Heinrich Mueller, chief of Hitler's Gestapo, commenting on the efficacy of this kind of system, said that there is -

"... nothing quite as efficient as an internal spy system (i.e., citizens spying on other citizens) for isolating the individual by making it impossible for anybody to trust anybody else."

That's what Crankshaw thinks as well; he reiterates what Mueller says almost word for word:

"There is nothing like the voluntary informer for creating a general atmosphere of unease and apprehension ... his information is usually valueless in any specific sense; but since every human being at some time commits some indiscretion, he enables the secret-police to appear where it is least expected and give the desired impression of possessing an all-seeing eye."

THE CITIZEN CORPS: ORGANIZING
"AMERICAN WATCHERS" GESTAPO-STYLE

This is especially true when one takes this system of voluntary WATCHERS and organizes it hierarchically, as the Department of Homeland Security is now doing through a new government program called "CAT EYES" (the Community Anti-Terrorism Training Institute). The program is centered on doubling the size of the nation's old "Neighborhood Watch" programs (which were loosely organized, independent neighborhood groups on the "look-out" for burglars, robbers, and other "home-intruders") and transforming them into HIGHLY ORGANIZED, TIGHTLY-CONTROLLED instruments of government surveillance replete with "Block Watchers," "Block Captains," "Neighborhood Coordinators," "District Coordinators," etc. who will - according to the institute's literature - "act as the eyes and ears of law enforcement and report any suspicious activity [relating to terrorism]" to the government. The new transformed "Neighborhood Watch" program is called the "CITIZEN CORPS."

This is EXACTLY what the Nazis did in Germany in the 1930s where, according to Crankshaw, the Gestapo organized a similar system of groups into -

"... a cell system which enrolled quantities of ordinary citizens as honorary part-time members of the Gestapo ... Thus there was the Blockwart, the concierge, who had to report on the activities of every tenant in his apartment building [and so on from apartment building to block warden, to neighborhood warden, to ward captain, to district warden, ad nauseum until the whole city was covered by a hierarchical system of Nazi 'WATCHERS'] ..."

According to the ACLU report, all tips received from the "CITIZEN CORPS" - however raw -

"... will be cross-referenced through federal, state, and local databases. There is no mention of whether the name of an innocent person who is the subject of a tip will ever be purged from the database. In fact, according to the report, it is far from clear what any of these programs do with information about 'suspicious' individuals that they receive - how reports are recorded, shared and stored in domestic intelligence or law enforcement databases or what is done to ensure that innocent individuals who are the subjects of raw suspicions and rumors will not have a permanent black mark associated with their names in some government database."

CHANGING ONE'S BEHAVIOR AND PSYCHOLOGY

The ultimate purpose behind all this WATCHING is to create, as Valentine suggests, "... ANXIETY ..." in the American population, and most especially among those who might otherwise oppose the elite's American New World Order System; a pervasive atmosphere of -

"... CONSTANT UNCERTAINTY whenever people are in a situation where an informant might be present, enormously amplifying the effect of government surveillance on individual behavior and psychology."

And no doubt about it, this kind of "UNCERTAINTY" has the capacity to change one's behavior and psychology, that's for sure - after all, who wants to be targeted as a "terrorist suspect" these days? [That's what the elites are calling those who in any way oppose them: "TERRORISTS."] The consequences are enormous insofar as one's job, one's family, one's "credit worthiness," etc. are concerned. One's credit worthiness? Yes! - even one's "credit worthiness," as one so-called FBI "suspect" found out recently when he received a letter from his bank after his name (i.e., "Algabri") "popped up" on a "government WATCH list," a letter which read in part:

"We regret to inform you that we have decided that it is not in our best interest to continue your banking relationship with us." [Letter from Fleet Bank to Algabri, an American citizen.]

PROLIFERATING FROM LIST TO LIST

Algabri was unable to ascertain how or even why his name appeared on the list. Moreover, as Algabri found out, once one's name "shows up" on a "government WATCH list" it appears impossible to remove it. Not only that, it seems that one's name will then begin proliferating on other "WATCH lists" - jumping from one list to the next like some kind of deadly virus jumping from one cell in the body to the next, spreading like a cancer until all the cells of the body are infected, and the "host" collapses and dies.

And it's not just Algabri. Take what happened to those whose names appeared on a "Project Lookout" list, a program that is extant today. The list was circulated by the FBI among a supposedly restricted number of corporations who shared and re-shared the list with other corporations. As a result, the list quickly took on a life of its own - with damaging consequences for those on it: The companies started checking their customers against the list and began discontinuing their relationship with those who appeared on it.

Unfortunately, the list was later discovered to be riddled with inaccuracies and contained the names of many people with whom the Bureau simply wanted to talk, but by the time the mistakes were found, there was no way to remove innocent people from the list because the distribution had spun beyond the FBI's control. The ACLU reports that -

"No one knows how many innocent people have been denied jobs or suffered other harm because of the list."

To make matters worse, the ACLU reports that most people who appear on a government WATCH list don't even know that they are on it - until, that is, they begin to suffer the kind of consequences described above. And even then, they can only surmise their presence on the list - the government will never admit to it. As a result, there is no recourse for those who have been placed on such lists: one is left with only vague suspicions and a sense of utter helplessness. And don't think - even for a minute - that the government wants to mitigate what's occurring here. It doesn't! The fact is, it's precisely this kind of ambiguity and insecurity that the government is aiming to instill in the population - THE KIND OF VAGUENESS THAT MAKES PEOPLE THINK THAT AT ANY MOMENT A SHADOW CAN STEP OUT OF THE NIGHT AND SNATCH THEIR LIVES AWAY.

RETREATING INTO A LIFE OF CONFORMITY

Given these facts, imagine the lengths to which one might go (i.e., the kind of life-altering changes one might decide to take) in order NOT to elicit the suspicion of some "secret informant" lurking in the shadows; for example, friends that one might feel it best to avoid now because of their political beliefs; books and magazines one wouldn't want to be caught reading anymore; discussions one might want to avoid participating in; clubs and organizations one might feel it best to "drop out of," ad nauseum - after all, who knows who might be WATCHING? Your neighbor next door? Your co-worker on the job? Your golf partner? Your sister or brother? Even your own spouse? [And, sadly, that - i.e., spouses spying on their spouses - occurred much more often than one might imagine in the old Stasi-controlled state of East Germany.]

The truth is, those who are given to WATCHING others are normally suspicious, bigoted and narrow-minded people by nature. Better to be safe than sorry, and avoid ALL situations which might draw the suspicion of these WATCHERS, which means retreating back into a very bland, non-controversial life-style and keeping your mouth shut. Nobody wants to receive a letter like Algabri received! How does one operate in society, at least in a modern context, if one cannot find a bank willing to offer him credit, let alone refusing to let him open a simple bank account? No, these questions are real-life questions; they are not hypothetical ones; real people are involved. Algabri is a REAL person, and so are those whose names appeared on the "Project Lookout" WATCH list (see above). And it's not just "Project Lookout," but countless other similar programs like "Eagle Eyes," "Talon," "Cat Eyes," "Marine Watch," "Highway Watch," "Real Estate Watch," "Florida TIPS," ad nauseum).

YES! - YOU ARE BEING WATCHED

Yes, dear Christian, YOU are being WATCHED! Moreover, the government wants you to know that you are being WATCHED; it wants you to know that it is surveilling your every move; a ubiquitous, methodical WATCHING directed at creating, as Valentine says (and as we have already suggested) -

"... A PERVASIVE SENSE OF MISTRUST THAT PREVENTS CITIZENS FROM SHARING THEIR COMPLAINTS WITH EACH OTHER, GAINING STRENGTH FROM CONNECTING WITH OTHERS OF LIKE MIND AND CHALLENGING THOSE WHO ARE IN POWER."

What the government is hoping for is that all this WATCHING will induce in you a sense of anxiety so great THAT IT WILL CAUSE YOU TO BETRAY YOUR CONVICTIONS, especially insofar as those convictions are at odds with the purposes of the state, and - insofar as Christians are concerned - as you find yourself at odds with the church's apostate alliance with America's New World Order System. [Please see our article on the "interplay" between the Religious Right in this country and the state, "A Woman Riding a Beast Going Forth Conquering and to Conquer;" please also see chapter 15 of the Antipas Papers, "The Woman of Revelation 17;" finally, please see our article, "Political Christianity."]

And just how broad a net the government is casting here to "catch" such dissidents is evidenced by the wording of one government WATCH program called "Eagle Eyes:"

"ANYONE can recognize elements of potential terror planning when they see it."

ANYONE? My heavens, what's that mean? Does that mean someone who doesn't fly the flag high enough on the front of his home? Someone who doesn't sing the National Anthem with enough gusto at a public event? Someone who questions the role of the American military in Iraq? Someone who speaks out on the way American multinational companies "carry on" in the Third World? MAYBE EVEN SOMEONE WHO DOESN'T ATTEND CHURCH REGULARLY? It could mean all these things - and one must remember here, it's not so much "left-wingers" who will be tattling on their neighbors, but "patriots" committed to the concept of America as God's "REDEEMER NATION."

These are the people - i.e., the people who believe that America is God's "REDEEMER NATION" (not "left-wingers") - who support Bush's New World Order System, people like Paul Crouch, Jack Hayford, Charles Stanley, D. James Kennedy, Tim LaHaye, the late John Wimber, Juan Carlos Ortiz, C. Peter Wagner, Beverley LaHaye, Ern Baxter, Kenneth Copeland, the late Kenneth Hagin, Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Chuck Colson, David Yonggi Cho, Robert Stearns, Mike Bickle, Reuven Doron, Che Ahn, Frank Hammond, Cindy Jacobs, Bill Hamon, John Eckhardt, Bobbie Byerly, Dutch Sheets, Jim Goll, John Paul Jackson, James Ryle, Frank Damazio, Ed Silvoso, Carlos Annacondia, Claudio Freidzon, Roger Mitchell, Ted Haggart, Paul Cain, Chuck Pierce, Rick Joyner, Kingsley Fletcher, Jim Laffoon, Barbara Wentroble, ad infinitum, ad nauseum. [Please see our articles, "A Woman Riding a Beast Going forth Conquering and to Conquer," and "Today's Church" Making Zombies out of Christians - The Prophets and Apostles Movement."]

If you fail to please these WATCHERS (see above), and - as the pathology of WATCHING really takes hold, and the alliance between the church and the state strengthens - if you fail to attend church regularly (or, for those of you who have not yet "converted" and found a church to attend regularly, if you fail to "convert" and find such a church), and if you fail to shout out the appropriate "amens" and "hallelujahs" during your pastor's sermons at the appropriate places and at the appropriate times (don't laugh; this isn't funny; you're going to have to learn to do that along with all the accompanying "holy handwaving" and "ecstatic staring" that goes along with it if you are going to survive), your name will eventually find itself on someone's WATCH list; and from there onto government data bases; and from there onto private corporate WATCH lists which will then be shared and re-shared with other corporations; your credit will dry up, your job prospects will atrophy, you will be dropped from your membership in various clubs and other associations, your neighbors will begin to avoid you - and all with little or no explanation. [This is precisely the kind of "holiness" to which Oliver North and his CIA cronies had to adjust their lives while working with evangelical Christians in the Contra training camps in Honduras during the "Contra Wars" of the 1980s (please see our articles, "The Death Squads: Bringing in the Kingdom of God through Terror, Torture and Death," and "Evangelicals and the Death Squads: Oh What a Tangled Web We Are Weaving for Ourselves").]

OPENING YOURSELF UP
TO A "NEW PARADIGM"

Brothers and sisters in Christ: I realize that what we are saying here is difficult to accept - not so much from a factual or a Scriptural standpoint (after all, the facts and the Scripture are there for anyone to see who really wants to see), but because if we accept these things for real, it will cause us to DRASTICALLY change our lives; it will force us to enter a "NEW PARADIGM."

Now I realize that most Christians rebel at the use of this supposed "New Age" term, but the term is appropriate here. The phrase, "new paradigm" means a "new reality;" a "new pattern of thinking" - and it is relevant here because most so-called Christians in the United States have been living in a FALSE paradigm; one that is NOT BIBLICAL and one that is NOT REAL - and it is easy to see why. The truth is, for Christians to admit, for example, that what's been going on in the black community is the result of a WAR that has been purposefully launched against them by the elites, one that has been willfully designed to SUPPRESS blacks and prevent them from ever coalescing again as a REVOLUTIONARY force for social and economic change in the country as they did during the Civil Rights Movement, is tantamount to opening one's self up to a NIGHTMARE; a PHANTASM that - if believed - cannot help but sweep away the comfortable conceits around which most white Christians have constructed their lives: Specifically, that the world they live in is basically a "good" world; that the elites they have allied themselves with are "good" people who have acquired their wealth as the result of "hard work" and "good deeds;" people who want nothing more than to help the Christian community "establish righteousness" in the world and bring in the "Kingdom of God." But this is a LIE, and an easily pierced lie at that.

THE WHOLE WORLD LIETH IN WICKEDNESS

The Bible says:

"... the whole world lieth in wickedness." (1 John 5:19)

Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? Totally? Completely? Without reservation? - OR do you, perhaps, believe that's something of an exaggeration; that the Bible is "overstating" to make a point. If you believe that - i.e., that the Bible is "expanding" the truth a little here - then you are living in a FALSE paradigm, one that utterly prevents you from seeing the truth.

The Bible says that "... the whole world lieth in wickedness." That's the WHOLE world! To believe anything less than that is to construct your "reality" - your "paradigm" - on a foundation of LIES, which is EXACTLY what Christians in the United States have done, a FALSE "paradigm" that prevents you from seeing the world (and - ipso facto - the United States) for the NIGHTMARE it really is, NO MATTER WHAT FACTS ARE PRESENTED TO YOU, AND NO MATTER WHAT THE SCRIPTURES SAY.

And more than that, it is a paradigm that prevents Christians from seeing the richy-riches with whom they have allied themselves for what they really are: small-minded, greedy, avaricious, grasping, rapacious, twisted little gnomes who are driven by only one thing: the LUST for MONEY; people about whom the Bible says serve -

"... divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." (Titus 3:3)

These are people like those who gathered earlier this year for the meeting of the Kappa Beta Phi (not Phi Beta Kappa) "fraternity" at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City to flaunt their wealth and power, people like Alan Greenberg, former chief executive of Bear Stearns; Richard Grasso, former head of the New York Stock Exchange; Kenneth G. Langone, chairman of the exchange's compensation committee; Martin Lipton, a founding partner of Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, the powerful Wall Street law firm; David H. Komansky, the former chairman and chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch; Sanford I. Weill, the chairman of Citigroup; Laurence D. Fink, the chief executive of Black Rock, the investment management company; Thomas G. Maheras, the head of the fixed income group at Citigroup; Leslie Goldwasser, a top bonds executive at Bear Stearns; J. Ira Harris, a former senior partner and mergers and acquisitions banker at Lazard Freres; Lawrence Zicklin, the retired chief executive of Neuberger Berman, the asset management company and so forth and so on.

These are PRECISELY the kind of people the Bible condemns "as living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another." (Titus 3:3)

It wasn't without reason that Balzac said of these people:

"Behind every great fortune, there is a great crime."

Indeed, the Bible says:

"... they that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts, which DROWN men in DESTRUCTION and PERDITION." (1 Tim. 6:9)

And certainly that would include all of these people!

Pretty heavy - i.e., that the rich are "drowning in destruction and perdition!" But, again, that's what the Bible says! That's the "paradigm" in which the TRUTH of the Word of God exists. And, naturally enough, it's a paradigm that - even if you have trouble seeing - the poor of the earth don't have any trouble recognizing.

LIVING OUTSIDE OF CHRIST

To doubt this "paradigm" is tantamount to living outside of what the Bible calls TRUTH, which is to say, OUTSIDE OF CHRIST; after all, one cannot separate truth from Christ. Jesus said of Himself,

"... I am the way, the TRUTH, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

For a Christian to live outside of this "biblical Paradigm" (which is to say, if he doesn't really believe that "the WHOLE world lieth in wickedness") is tantamount to saying that such a Christian is LIVING OUTSIDE OF CHRIST. Jesus said:

"... for this cause came I into the world, that I SHOULD BEAR WITNESS TO THE TRUTH. Every one that is of the truth heareth my voice [i.e., lives in the paradigm that Christ has established]." (John 18:37)

If YOU are not bearing witness to the TRUTH (i.e., if you are not living in the biblical paradigm), you are none of Christ's, and the Christianity that you embrace is a FALSE kind of Christianity, that bears witness to a FALSE Christ and a FALSE Gospel (2 Cor. 11:4); a kind of Christianity that attracts -

"... false apostles, deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ." (2 Cor. 11:13)

WHICH PARADIGM DO YOU LIVE IN?

Which paradigm do you live in? Sadly, I know of many so-called Christians who are living outside of the biblical paradigm; for instance, one dear brother in Christ recently wrote me and "righteously" berated me for calling the United States "Babylon the Great." [I wonder what country he would nominate? - Zambia? Mozambique? Costa Rica? Maybe the E.C.? (Please see our article, "The Search for Babylon; What Do the Scriptures Say?" Please also see our article, "Reducing Europe to the Status of Greece in the Days of Rome."]

He went on to scold me for saying that our rights as citizens have been severely restricted; that our right to assemble and protest the policies of the government is being hampered to the point where it no longer has any practical meaning; that our right to travel when and where we please is being abridged; that the draft is imminent; that the police are being "militarized;" that the country is headed for a dictatorship; and so on and so forth. He concluded, "Where is your proof? ... Where do you find the evidence to support all of your facts?"

WHAT? - I suppose that he would call confining protesters to "DEMONSTRATION PENS" as was done recently in Boston and New York, and not allowing marchers to get anywhere close to where the "richy-riches" are meeting is making provision for average people to "assemble and protest" the actions of the government? I suppose that he thinks it's okay when the police arrest thousands of demonstrators, most of whom were NOT violent, despite what the mainline media says? [Arrests on this scale NEVER occurred in the 1960s and early '70s - and I know what I am talking about here; I was a member of the 515th Counter-Intelligence Group at the time.]

Moreover, I suppose that's what the government is doing insofar as airline travel is concerned (especially placing people without their knowledge on "green," yellow," and "red" WATCH lists without any recourse) is not having our right to travel hampered? Nor is what the government planning to do in limiting our right to travel by train, bus and car in its new CAPPS II program a restriction on our right to travel and move about the country? Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

It's as if he has never read ANYTHING on our website, though he says that he has. He doesn't see any of these things, because the paradigm in which he lives prevents him from seeing them. The facts of the matter have nothing to do with his not seeing. The truth is, he is simply not disposed to seeing what's happening.

MONEY AND SUCCESS CHANGES OUR PERSPECTIVE

Now I know this brother very well. He lived with me while I helped pastor a "Jesus People"-kind of church in Washington D.C. in the early 1970s. He was just a teenager then, and he lived in the same "commune" I lived in, in Arlington, and later in Georgetown. He was a very humble and loving brother at the time, and while most of what I have been given by the Lord to preach today was then only embryonically formed in my mind, he embraced it with all of his heart. He was poor; we all were poor - and none of us had any trouble then seeing the world for what it really was. [I URGE you, if you haven't already, to read about those years and the Jesus Revolution that I was a part of in my article, "The Jesus Revolution and the Search for Community and the Church-Life." While most of those who participated in the "Jesus Revolution" of those years consider them to have been "wasted years," I still hold them as being very, very precious - a lesson well-learned and cherished.]

Later the movement broke up, and most of us went our separate ways, many off to the world and to what is termed "success" in this "present evil world" (Gal. 1:4); this brother was no exception. Today he lives in a beautiful home in Manassas (a suburb of Washington D.C.), has a successful business, and a happy marriage. While there have been "ups and downs" in his life, life is certainly good to him now. Sadly, however, this so-called "success" has blinded him to the reality of this "present evil world" (Gal. 1:4). The biblical paradigm he once embraced concerning the world has been exchanged for a FALSE paradigm that UTTERLY and COMPLETELY prevents him from seeing what we are talking about on the pages of our website, so that in him is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah which says by -

"... hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand; and seeing ye shall see, and shall not perceive ..." (Matt. 13:14)

WEALTH SHIPWRECKS OUR FAITH

Success in the world has "shipwrecked" his faith. He cannot see even if he wanted to see now. He is as blind as the Christians in Laodicea about whom the Lord said,

"And unto the angel of the church of the Laodiceans write; These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God;

"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot.

"So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue (VOMIT) thee out of my mouth.

"Because thou sayest, I am (materially) rich, and increased with (material) goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art (spiritually) wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked ..." (Rev. 3:14-17)

The wealth that the Christians at Laodicea possessed had blinded them to the reality in which they were living. They had embraced a "paradigm" that UTTERLY prevented them from seeing their real condition, and the real condition of the world that surrounded them. And so it is with this particular brother. There is NOTHING that can be done for him anymore! There is simply no way that the TRUTH can break through and save him. He could not hear the truth about the world today even if someone "rose from the dead" and went to see him.

THE RICH YOUNG RULER

He is possessed by the same FALSE paradigm that possessed the "rich man" in Luke 16:19-31:

"There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:

"And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,

"And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.

"And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;

"And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.

"And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.

"But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

"And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence.

"Then he said, I pray thee therefore, father, that thou wouldest send him to my father's house:

"For I have five brethren; that he may testify unto them, lest they also come into this place of torment.

"Abraham saith unto him, They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.

"And he said, Nay, father Abraham: but if one went unto them from the dead, they will repent.

"And he said unto him, If they hear not Moses and the prophets, NEITHER WILL THEY BE PERSUADED, THOUGH ONE ROSE FROM THE DEAD." (Luke 16:19-31)

DON'T THINK THAT THERE IS GOING TO BE A SECOND CHANCE

Sadly - very sadly - this brother is gone. He can no longer be "persuaded" by the TRUTH. Only prayer can help him now, and one should NOT think that our praying will accomplish much for him. The fact is, the kind of mindset that now possesses this brother and others like him causes Christ to WRETCH. That's what the Bible says (Rev. 3:16).

And listen here, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, don't think that the Lord will necessarily go back for those who have embraced this kind of paradigm. He didn't do it with the "rich man" who said he wanted to follow Jesus, but refused to give up his wealth to do so; Jesus just let him go:

"And, behold, one came and said unto him, Good Master, what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?

"And he said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God: but if thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments.

"He saith unto him, Which? Jesus said, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness,

"Honour thy father and thy mother: and, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

"The young man saith unto him, All these things have I kept from my youth up: what lack I yet?

"Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come and follow me.

"But when the young man heard that saying, he went away sorrowful: for he had great possessions.

"Then said Jesus unto his disciples, Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven." (Matt. 19:16-23)

Please don't make the error of thinking that the Lord will chase after such people. I somberly warn you, you are making a big mistake in "testing" the Lord in that way. The Bible says:

"... Today if ye will hear his (i.e., God's) voice,

"Harden not your hearts, as in the provocation, in the day of temptation in the wilderness:

"When your fathers tempted (i.e., tested) me, proved me, and saw my works forty years.

"Wherefore I was grieved with that generation, and said, They do alway err in their heart; and they have not known my ways.

"So I sware in my wrath, THEY SHALL NOT ENTER INTO MY REST.

"TAKE HEED, BRETHREN, LEST THERE BE IN ANY OF YOU AN EVIL HEART OF UNBELIEF, IN DEPARTING FROM THE LIVING GOD." (Heb. 3:7-12)

So, again I warn you, Do not think that the Lord will come back for you. He may not!

As for me, I refuse to squander my time with such people! - they've already made up their mind. Why should I waste my time arguing with them? Nor is there any purpose in trying to "find common ground" with such people, which is - as far as I am concerned -tantamount to compromising the truth.

THE PERIL OF "SEEKING COMMON
GROUND" WITH YOUR ADVERSARIES

The fact is, those who "seek common ground" with their adversaries are not people given very much to their beliefs. They don't have the courage of their convictions, and - as a result - they are willing to compromise their beliefs in order to maintain their friendships and life-styles. These are the kind of people who would recoil at the words of Christ when He said:

"He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth abroad." (Matt. 12:30)

The truth is, there are too many people in this world who in fact are open to the TRUTH to waste time on those who aren't.

I realize that that's precisely the kind of attitude that gets me labeled a "Jim Jones," but any "teller of the truth" is going to be labeled that these days. So what? The truth about the U.S. is there for anyone who wants to see it, and the truth about what's going to happen to those who stay in the U.S. is also there for anyone who wants to see it. People act as if - somehow or other - they have hurt me by not agreeing with me. They've not hurt me; they are the ones who someday will be hurt, not me.

DANGEROUS TIMES

Brothers and sisters, these are very DANGEROUS times in which we are living, and the Bible warns you that you should -

"... take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with [the] ... CARES OF THIS LIFE (as this brother very plainly is), and so that day come upon you unawares." (Luke 21:34)

Our faith is on the line, and we shall see whether it is for real or not. We are going to be tested, and the test is not going to be a hypothetical one; it is going to be for REAL. [We urge you to read Chapter 11 of the Antipas Papers, "Tribulation and Judgment," for a scriptural explanation of the coming "test."]

The question to be answered is this: Are you the kind of person who has the courage of your convictions? Or are you the kind of person who - like Nicodemus who came to Jesus BY NIGHT because he was afraid of the "authorities" - are willing to associate with us only from afar (John 3:2)? And why would that be? Well, obviously, the government can't approve too much of your association with Antipas; after all, the material on our website can't be scoring too many points with Bush and his Religious Right cronies? - and don't think for a moment that the government isn't WATCHING those of you who associate with us; that it isn't able to trace the support checks you mail us, the emails you send us, and so forth. If you think that the government can't do all these things, and that they aren't doing it right now, then I have some swampland in Florida I would like to sell you. As a result, there are a lot of people who - while they avidly read the material on our websites - are, nonetheless, too afraid to contact us or do anything about what they have read, financially or otherwise. They are cowards, plain and simple. They simply do not have the courage of their convictions.

There will, however, be a reckoning someday. This life doesn't go on forever - and after that, the Judgment (Heb. 9:27). In the light of that, we would do well to remember the words of Christ when He said,

"... whosoever shall deny me before men, him will I also deny before my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 10:33). [And do not think that your supposed "Christianity" will spare you here; that God will overlook your cowardice. He won't!]

More next time!

Until then, God bless you,

S.R. Shearer,
Antipas Ministries