JOHN ASHCROFT, THEODORE OLSON
AND THE NEW "NATIONAL SECURITY STATE"

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act."            - George Orwell   "Things are not always what they appear to be."           Paul Neuman to Sally Fields           in Absence of Malice

State Terror in the Name of National Security = Christian Terror in the Name of the "Prince of Peace"

INTRODUCTION

Recently, the nation's top lawyer appeared before the U.S. Supreme Court and argued the proposition that the government has the right to LIE to the American public in instances where "the greater good is served." What? - the government has a right to lie? Is this what George Bush's Solicitor-General, Theodore Olson, actually said? Yes! - that's EXACTLY what he said.

Of course, it's not just Olson and his entourage of Christian "legal beagles" at the Solicitor General's Office who think that it's okay to lie and hide the truth from the American public: Attorney General John Ashcroft over at the Justice Department believes pretty much the same thing - and he has gone even further by ordering a "thorough review" of which documents federal agencies release under the Freedom of Information Act, and by justifying the Defense Department's efforts to set up an office in the Pentagon that is "tasked" to plant inaccurate stories in the foreign media. [Under intense pressure, the office has been disbanded; but civil libertarians report that the various functions that the office was "tasked" to perform were simply parceled out to other agencies at the Pentagon and throughout the government in general.]

Lying to the American public is now to be regarded as "good policy" by the Bush government? My heavens! - is this the same George Bush that thousands and thousands of "born-again," evangelical Christian volunteers poured into South Carolina to save from John McCain in the fight for the Republican Party nomination of 2000? Is this the same George Bush for whom even larger numbers of Christian evangelicals - armed with homemade signs and wearing T-shirts reading "Bush Recount Team" - demonstrated for in the streets of Florida? And what about John Ashcroft? Is this the same John Ashcroft whose favorite hymn is Keep Me True, Oh Lord:

"Keep me true, Lord Jesus, keep me true.

"Keep me true Lord Jesus, keep me true.

"There's a race that I must run,

"There are victories to be won,

"Give me power every hour to be true" ?

But how is it possible to reconcile lying with honesty? - and more, how is it possible to accord "moral courage" with dishonesty? - especially from people who call themselves Christians and who claim that they have "... committed their hearts to Jesus Christ" ?

Of course, what people like these claim is that there are times when the exigencies of the moment necessitate lying. But even if that were so [and I by no means believe that it is (Rev. 21:8)], the question that immediately springs to mind is, Who determines when it's necessary and when it isn't? The government? - the same U.S. government that lied to the nation about the Gulf of Tonkin incident that got us into the Vietnam War? The same government that lied about the Pentagon Papers? The same government that lied to the nation about Iran-Contra? The same government that refuses to tell the nation what it is really up to in Columbia and Ecuador? Are they the ones who are supposed to tell us when it's okay to lie?

What Olson is proposing here - i.e., that the government has the right (and even the duty) to LIE to the American people - is just the tip of the iceberg of what's going on today in the United States, and Christians in this country seem TOTALLY unable to see what's occurring: that a vast, sophisticated, high-tech police-state based on a foundation of lies and deceit is being established in the name of "National Security" right under their very noses, and no one seems to see (or even care about) what's happening.

Most Christians know - and will readily accede to the fact - that we are approaching the "end of days," and that the Bible predicts the emergence of a vast, world-wide police-state at that time. But instead of looking for the emergence of such a police-state here in this country - by far the most obvious candidate for such a development - most American evangelicals are stubbornly looking elsewhere - to the European Community, to Romania, to Turkey, to Iraq, to Islam and the Middle East in general, to the United Nations, etc. - anywhere but here, despite the fact that the United States is the only nation on earth capable of creating such a state together with the kind of "national security" apparatus that the Bible suggests will permeate the coming police-state's social, economic and political institutions.

And it's not just that American Christians stubbornly refuse to see reality for what it actually is (while concomitantly ignoring what the Scriptures plainly teach about this coming super-state) but AMERICAN EVANGELICALS ARE ACTUALLY - AND VERY WILLINGLY - PARTICIPATING IN ITS CONSTRUCTION. [Please see our article, "In Search of Babylon, What Do The Scriptures Say?"]

And make no mistake about it, that's exactly what they are doing - and that's precisely what makes Olson's efforts at the Supreme Court so tragic. Police-states - whether of the Left or the Right - are based on a foundation of lies and deceit. Professing that they stand for the welfare of all the "people" and as a bulwark against those who would wish the "people" harm, those who man the institutions of power in a police-state know perfectly well what their real mission is: to guard against the erosion of power for the privileged few who run the state, in our case, Corporate America; THEREIN IS THE LIE! THEREIN IS THE DECEIT! And the greater the gap there is between the rich and the poor, the greater the necessity is to lie to the people, and destroy all those who might expose what the rich are really up to.

In pursuit of these ends, the police-state uses surveillance, informers, dirty tricks of all kinds, disinformation and brute force to destroy its opponents. The ultimate aim of the police state is to "atomize" the people, isolate them from each other, and reduce them to humiliated, powerless servants of the rich. All of this involves lying on a MASSIVE scale - and it is precisely for this reason that Olson appeared before the Supreme Court to justify the proposition that it is sometimes necessary for the government to lie to the people.

BUT HOW IS IT THAT CHRISTIANS GOT INVOLVED IN ALL THIS? - after all, Olson, Ashcroft, et al all claim to be "born-again" Christians! Well, their participation did not originate out of thin air. It had its genesis in the convoluted and conspiratorial thinking that engulfed Christian political activists in the mid-1990s as they struggled to rid the country of Bill Clinton.

Christians saw the Clinton presidency as the result of a malignant, secular-humanist CONSPIRACY concocted by homosexuals, radical feminists, abortionists, pornographers, militant atheists, Hollywood moguls and liberal Jews who sought their destruction. In the face of this powerful CONSPIRACY, Christians felt they had no other choice but to mount a COUNTER-CONSPIRACY against Clinton and his "lefty" pals. Fight fire with fire, so to speak. [Please see our article on the coterie of people who made up the "counter-conspiracy," "The Olson Salon."]

By the summer of 1998, the COUNTER-CONSPIRACY that Christian activists had fabricated against Clinton had proven so successful that Hillary Clinton, the president's wife, was led to exclaim that there was a "vast right-wing conspiracy" afoot in the country which aimed at the destruction of her husband's presidency. The charge by the President's wife that she and her husband were the targets of such a conspiracy was dismissed at the time as utter nonsense. Indeed, she has roundly criticized - and crudely psychoanalyzed - for uttering the dreaded "C" word (i.e., "C" for "conspiracy") and by doing so, aligning herself with "paranoid conspiracy theorists."

The fact is, however, what she was feeling was "for real:" There actually was a conspiracy that had been mounted against the Clinton White House - and it had been mounted against Clinton in the name of "Christ and the church." But there was NOTHING Christian about it. The shocking story that lies behind this so-called Christian "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" against the Clinton White House goes a long way in exposing the UTTERLY unchristian and heartless character of those who were involved in it, and helps to reveal the appalling lengths and cruel (but shadowy) methodologies that they were willing to employ in its behalf.

MOREOVER, IT UNVEILS THE REASON WHY ONE SHOULDN'T BE TOO SURPRISED THAT A "GOOD CHRISTIAN" LIKE THEODORE OLSON SHOULD NOW BE FOUND PROPOSING THE PROPOSITION THAT IT'S OKAY FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO LIE TO ITS OWN PEOPLE. The fact is, the character of those Christians who involve themselves in the dark and sinister methodologies necessary to any conspiracy is ultimately and inevitably transformed by these corrupt processes, whether they are willing to admit it or not. Lying, cheating and "dissembling the truth" is what conspiracies are all about; it's the grease that makes all the different parts of a conspiracy work. But Jesus said that all those who practice lies -

"... are of your father the devil ... When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

What's that say, then, about Olson and those who joined themselves with him in the "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" against Clinton?" It says that they are not of Christ, but of anti-Christ, and that their father is the devil, not God - despite the fact that they may have earnestly believed that what they were doing was of God. Jesus said,

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

"Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

"And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity." (Matt. 7:21-23)

The "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" that Olson and his Christian conspirators mounted against Clinton consisted of two lines of attack. The first line involved a concerted "WHISPERING CAMPAIGN" against the president and his wife; the second line involved the creation of a never-ending and incessant LEGAL CAMPAIGN which targeted not so much Clinton's policies as president (which, to a large degree, were very popular with most Americans) but him as an individual. Indeed, both the "whispering campaign" and the incessant legal challenges that were directed against him were ad homonym attacks of the most vicious and spiteful kind.

"Whispering campaigns" are "old hat" for the religious right and corporate America - and whenever one runs into one, you can "bet the farm" that behind the campaign is a Christian Right group of one sort or another, or some kind of corporate economic entity. Stay Free Magazine has collected information on a number of recent corporate "whispering campaigns:" for example, when Nike was first getting started, it hired groups of college students to go to sporting events masquerading as adoring Nike fans who would loudly extol the "magical merits" of Nike shoes. Or internet marketers would post fake queries in chat rooms such as "Who sings that song on the Home Alone 4 soundtrack? I just looooove it." Then they would answer the question under a different name later on: "Why, that was 'so and so'. I just bought their CD on Dumpman Records ..." Stay Free says that this is exactly how Christina Aguilera got famous.

Stay Free says that what is now touted by its enthusiasts as "viral" or "buzz" marketing has its roots in the "whispering campaigns" of the 1930s. A typical "whispering campaign" of that era worked like this: A company hired people to go out in public and secretly spread some rumor or blab about a promotion. For instance, a department store would hire young women to ride up and down an office elevator all day long and talk loudly enough for others to hear about all the wonderful dresses on sale down at Sanfred's Department Store.

Not surprisingly, "whispering campaigns" were used not only to promote products of one sort or another, they were also used to ATTACK their competition. For example, a rival of Chesterfield cigarettes once paid men along the Atlantic seaboard to run into stores and ask for cigarettes. When the clerk gave them Chesterfield's, the men would loudly respond, "I don't want that kind. There's a contagious disease in their plant." Christian groups like the National Union for Social Justice, the American Christian Defenders, the Defenders of the Christian Faith, and secular corporations like the Industrial Defense Association, the Edmondson Economic Service, the American Vigilant Intelligence Service, and the James True Associates - all groups that existed in the 1920s and 30s - became experts in this technique. [Please see our article, "Pat Robertson, Illuminism, and the New World Order" which touches on all these groups.]

It's this kind of "whispering campaign" - i.e., the ATTACK variety - that Theodore Olson helped to launch against Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s, and although Olson himself was probably not directly involved in any of the specific "campaigns" themselves, he surely played a part in fostering the atmosphere in which they thrived. This is what Mena, the "Vince Foster incident," "Troopergate," etc. were all about - and this is EXACTLY what the infamous and shameful "CLINTON CHRONICLES" were about: myths that the "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" got Jerry Falwell to peddle around the country, though it's doubtful that Falwell ever knew "whose water he was really carrying" - Falwell isn't the sharpest blade in the knife drawer of the Christian community's kitchen (more about this in upcoming articles.).

Theodore Olson was Kenneth Starr's mentor and SVENGALLI. [For those of you who don't remember, Starr was the former president's prosecutorial nemesis.] Their (i.e., Starr's and Olson's) association with one another went back some twenty-five years when both were partners in the Los Angeles-based law firm Gibson Dunn and Crutcher where Olson took Starr on as his "pupil" in the Byzantine and convoluted ways of today's right-wing economic and political elites. Olson himself had been tutored in these ways by Gibson senior partner William French Smith who had been President Reagan's Attorney General.

Olson played the central role in putting together Starr's staff as Special Prosecutor against President Clinton; he was responsible for the collection of career Justice Department prosecutors who were recruited for Starr's operation - all of them "Christian" civil service employees (lawyers) recruited during the Reagan-Bush (senior) presidencies. As career civil servants, they could not be fired by the Clinton Administration.

And what a group these "Christian legal experts" were! - all of them were economic Darwinists, and they all carried a heavy baggage of anti-black and anti-Hispanic prosecutions. For example, Hickman Ewing, from Memphis, Tennessee, conducted a long - but ultimately unsuccessful - vendetta against Rep. Harold Ford. Ray Jahn, from San Antonio, Texas (Starr's hometown), targeted mayor and later Clinton cabinet official Henry Cisneros; in addition, he went after Rep. Albert Bustamante and Rep. Craig Washington. Starr's deputy Jackie Bennett, from Justice Department headquarters, also went out to San Antonio to help in the Bustamante case.

Starr's office also included additional longtime federal prosecutors from Mississippi, Florida, Virginia and Los Angeles - all of them Olson prodigies with records of "going after" blacks, Hispanics and other minorities. Interestingly, almost all of the charges leveled against Ford, Cisneros, Bustamante, Washington and the others that were targeted by Olson's cabal of "Christian lawyers" were heavily ladened with sexual innuendo - which appears to be standard fare for the "Christian legal experts" that have been associated over the years with Olson. [Please see our article on how the Christian Right managed to transform their persecution of Clinton into a sexual witch hunt, "The Religious Right Panics."]

But in reality, IT WASN'T SO MUCH THE FACT THAT THE TARGETS OF THESE CHRISTIAN "LEGAL BEAGLES" WERE BLACKS AND HISPANICS PER SE, AS IT WAS THE FACT THAT CORPORATE AMERICA HAD FOR ONE REASON OR ANOTHER TARGETED THEM AS ENEMIES (OR POTENTIAL ENEMIES) OF ITS "NEW WORLD ORDER SYSTEM." The heavy sexual innuendo was included as an inducement to the Christian Right. It seems that when the economic elites include such charges against the men they have targeted for destruction, they can pretty much be assured of the support of their Christian Right allies - no matter how specious and unfounded the charges are.

Such accusations and indictments carry with them a bizarre attraction for many Christians: it seems to answer (or "satisfy") an eerie (and very occultish) kind of sexual voyeurism inherent in the "Promise Keepers" type of Christianity that permeates most churches today - a Christianity that has given itself over to a kind of "New Age" "Grail Quest" for sexual purity and moral perfection.

And God help those Christians who fall into this kind of deception: it inevitably produces in each of those who fall victim to its blandishments a deep-seated angst with regard to women that cannot help but have a destructive effect on one's marriage, and in the end leaves one a moral bankrupt - like Tristan in Tristan and Isolde, Lancelot in the Excaliber legends, and Parsifal in Parsifal. [Please see our article on "The Search For Moral Purity."]

All these people - i.e., Olson, Starr, Ewing, Jahn, Bennett, etc. - are members of a tight-knit but vast network of conservative "Christian" legal groups which includes among others the NATIONAL LEGAL CENTER FOR THE PUBLIC INTEREST (NLCPI), the WASHINGTON LEGAL FOUNDATION, the RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE, the LANDMARK LEGAL FOUNDATION, and the FEDERALIST SOCIETY. Olson sits on the Legal Advisory Councils of two of these groups: the NLCPI and the Washington Legal Foundation. ALL OF THESE GROUPS JOINED OLSON'S CABAL OF CHRISTIAN ACTIVISTS IN THE COUNTER-CONSPIRACY AGAINST CLINTON. The president's wife, Hillary, had talked about a vast NETWORK of conspirators that was arrayed against her and her husband - and that's EXACTLY what all these groups were.

Take the NLCPI, for instance: the NLCPI, is an umbrella group for a nationwide network of law firms which - while they are not all "Christian" in the strictest sense of that word - are irrevocably connected to various Christian Right causes.

The NLCPI's Legal Advisory Council includes the senior George Bush's former Attorney Generals William Barr and Richard Thornburgh, plus Judge Robert Bork. In addition to these men, Judge David Sentelle, Rep. Dan Burton (the chairman of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee), Judge Laurence Silberman, Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas, Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley, American Spectator editor Emmett Tyrell, former Bush White House Counsel C. Boyden Gray, and many other similar types are part of this network. [Interestingly, some of the people in this cabal are Jews - and, thus, would not have ordinarily been "invited" to "join" the group. But the slavish, "bootlicking" devotion of some of them to "Christian causes" over the years has gained them entrance into this select group of Conservative Christians.]

The NLCPI (together with the Washington Legal Foundation) is indirectly tied to the RUTHERFORD INSTITUTE. The Rutherford Institute was a core "player" in Olson's "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY." It is a Christian Right legal foundation associated with various so-called "Christian causes," particularly prayer in the schools. John Whitehead, the institute's founder and chief, is a disciple of the late Rousas John (R.J.) Rushdoony, the former head of the CHALCEDON FOUNDATION.

As we have indicated on previous occasions, Rushdoony is the originator of and prime mover behind the many faceted movement which has come to be called "Christian Reconstruction." Christian Reconstruction is dedicated to replacing secular law with "Biblical law," and secular states with "theocratic republics." Reconstructionism in its broadest sense describes the rebuilding by Christians of every aspect of Western Civilization according to biblical strictures, beginning first with the United States.

It is founded on the belief that God's laws, as described in the Bible, pertain to all people throughout history and comprise the only legitimate basis for culture. IT PLACES A DEMAND ON CHRISTIANS EVERYWHERE TO INVOLVE THEMSELVES IN THIS PROCESS. CHRISTIANS WHO REFUSE TO ACTIVELY PARTICIPATE IN THE REBUILDING OF AMERICA AS A "CHRISTIAN REPUBLIC" ARE DEEMED APOSTATES, AND ARE TO BE DEALT WITH ACCORDINGLY - i.e., AS THE ENEMIES OF GOD. Politically speaking, Christian Reconstructionism is to Christianity what militant Islam is to the Islamic religion. Both aim at the construction of religious states.

In addition to its ties with the Rutherford Institute, the NLCPI also has ties with the ultra right-wing FEDERALIST SOCIETY through former federal prosecutor Joseph diGenova and Eugene Meyer, both of whom are also members of the NLCPI's Legal Advisory Council. Meyer is the executive director of the Federalist Society. The Federalist Society is an organization of secular right and Christian right lawyers and legal experts. Olson himself is an activist in the Federalist Society; he chairs the Washington, D.C. chapter. The society was founded in 1982 under the guidance of Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia, who together with his fellow justice, Clarence Thomas, is a "card-carrying" member of OPUS DEI, a kind of "dominionist" Catholic-lay organization dedicated - like Rushdoony's Chalcedon Foundation - to spreading the Word of God "death squad-style" all over the world.

The "money bag" for Olson's "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" against Clinton was Richard Mellon Scaife. Scaife was to the "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" what the Medicis were to Michelangelo: ITS ULTIMATE PATRON." In addition to helping fund many of these myriad Christian legal foundations and organizations, Scaife has also provided vast amounts of money to Christian leaders like Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. Indeed, Scaife was the principal source of funds for Falwell's notorious rag sheet, the "Clinton Chronicles," which irresponsibly charged Clinton with murder and drug running - charges that even Christian Right devotee and Clinton nemesis Kenneth Starr concluded were totally and completely bogus.

Scaife is the multimillion-dollar heir of the MELLON banking fortune. GULF OIL company stock also makes up a large part of his fortune. If one were to count not just Richard Scaife's personal holdings in Gulf Oil [including his stock holdings in FIRST BOSTON BANK (a bank famous for its connections to elite business interests in Central and South America and a bank inextricably linked to the genesis of the American elite's New World Order System - please see our article on this subject, "The American Empire")], but also those of the various Scaife charitable trusts, the total would surely rank as one of the largest fortunes in the country. Scaife family entities currently include the SARAH SCAIFE FOUNDATION, set up by Scaife's mother; the ALLEGHENY FOUNDATION and the CARTHAGE FOUNDATION.

It's here - in the connection of the Christian COUNTER-CONSPIRACY to Scaife - that one begins at last to understand how fraudulent the COUNTER-CONSPIRACY's Christian credentials really were. Scaife is a foul-mouthed, mean-spirited JERK who once told Karen Rothmeyer of the Wall Street Journal that she was a "fu-king* Communist c-nt"* and warned her that she had "better watch out behind herself ..." Scaife said these things to Rothmeyer as she attempted to question him regarding his connections to the Christian Right at the Union Club in Boston after the annual meeting of the First Boston Bank Corporation; in addition, Scaife offered two supplementary, unchristian "observations" regarding Rothmeyer's "personal appearance" - he said that she was "ugly" and that her teeth were "terrible."

Rothmeyer never did find out what Scaife meant by the statement, "... you had better watch out behind you ..." - and it's probably safe to say that she doesn't want to find out. Rothmeyer now teaches at Columbia's School of Journalism. For those who don't know what the word, "c-nt"* means, we will only say that it's a disgusting and nauseating word meant to demean women in the worst possible way - if you want to know its precise definition, look it up in the dictionary; this is, of course, to say nothing with regard to the word "fu-k." *

* NOTE: We have struggled mightily with how we should treat quotes that use profanity; many have written us and suggested - sometimes in a very overweening and self-righteous manner - that we should never use quotes that contain profanity. They reference verses like Col. 3:8: "But now ye also put off all these; anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy communication out of your mouth." But this is not "communication" that comes out of our mouths; it emanates out of the mouths of the people we have quoted - AND NOT JUST ANY PEOPLE, BUT MAINLY PEOPLE WITH WHOM OUR APOSTATIZED CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP HAS ATTACHED ITSELF.

To not use the EXACT words that these elites use against their enemies in such a demeaning and debauched fashion is to allow our leaders to hide behind a mask that obscures the horrible depths to which they have been plunged in their PROFANE and UNSEEMLY pursuit of the Rich's money. The fact is, IT'S NOT SO MUCH THE SPEECH THAT IS PROFANE AND UGLY AS IT IS THE RELATIONSHIP THAT OUR LEADERSHIP HAS FORMED WITH THE RICH THAT IS PROFANE AND UGLY. Those who have criticized us have never come to grips with this fact; instead they incessantly dwell on the profanity contained in the quotes themselves. As the Bible says, these are "... blind guides, which strain at a gnat, and swallow a camel." (Matt. 23:24)

On a scholarly level, it is simply FRAUDULENT not to quote such people completely, fully and verbatim; on a biblical and theological level it is extremely misleading not to do so. The Bible certainly doesn't pull any punches with regard to such matters. For example, when the King James Version of the Bible uses the word "dung," the word conveyed at the time (i.e., 400-years ago) what the word "shit" conveys today; today the word "dung" possesses a much milder meaning. But the plain fact of the matter is, 400 years ago it meant "shit" in all of its unvarnished vulgarity - as when Paul used it in Phil. 3:8: "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but DUNG (meaning "shit"), that I may win Christ ..." To use the milder term today - i.e., "dung" - is to partially miss the nature of the extreme comparison Paul was trying to make.

Several years ago I published an article dealing with a PROMISE KEEPERS handbook by ROBERT HICKS, The Masculine Journey, Understanding the Six Stages of Manhood (Colorado Springs: Navpress Books, 1993). In the article, I made reference to Hicks' statement that Jesus was a "phallic kind of guy." Such a statement, of course, is BLASPHEMOUS; it celebrates the sex act as an act of MALE DOMINATION vis a vis women - and not just domination, but AGGRESSIVE and even VIOLENT domination, and suggests that Jesus was "into this sort of thing." Later, at a family gathering, a relative of mine, my niece, asked me for the definition of "phallic." [In case you don't know, the phallus is the erect male sexual organ.]

Now, my niece is a grown woman with a B.A. degree in linguistics from the University of California. She - along with her brothers and sister, as well as their mother and father - are all devotees of the Promise Keepers Movement. But it seems that none of them had any idea of what the term "phallus" meant, and had made no effort to find out (or if they did know, they were trying to keep it a secret). It seems, however, that it would have been important to find out what Hicks meant when he said that Jesus was a "phallic kind of guy."

When I told her what it meant, she gasped, and ran screaming from the room - and I was severely criticized by her father and mother (and her sister and brothers). But what were they angry at me for? They should have been angry with Robert Hicks and the Promise Keepers. Clearly, this was a case of killing the messenger rather than dealing with the contents of the message - which leads one to believe that maybe what they were really up to was protecting Hicks and the Promise Keepers, which I suspect is the real motive of those who have criticized us - i.e., protecting those against whom our message is directed. [It should be noted in this connection, that my niece and all her family (including her mother and father) remain devotees of the Promise Keepers, though they continue to be angry at me for explaining what Hicks meant in his use of the term "phallus." Oh well, as Jesus said, "... wisdom is justified of her (own) children." (Matt. 11:19)]

FOR THOSE OF YOU WHO ARE SO DELICATE AND DAINTY that you cannot see what we are saying here, we ask you to please bear with us, and GET OVER IT! This time - insofar as this article is concerned - we have used a dash to hide the full meaning (spelling) of the words we are quoting; but this is the last time we will do so. HONESTY DEMANDS MORE OF US AS CHRISTIANS. For those of you who cannot stand the heat in the "Antipas kitchen," you are free to leave. Don't misunderstand us here - that's not something we want you to do; but still, no one is putting a gun to your head and keeping you here. All you have to do is to cancel your subscription to our website and don't visit it anymore; that's easy enough to do.

Getting back to the matter before us, the BRAZEN and ANGRY use of the words "c-nt" and "fu-k" directed SPECIFICALLY at a woman are hardly the words (and actions) of a man one would expect to find in the company of Christian leaders like Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, R.J. Rushdoony and John Whitehead. CERTAINLY THAT WOULD BE THE CASE IF MONEY WASN'T INVOLVED! But since money IS involved, Scaife can call Rothmeyer any name he wants just so long as the money keeps flowing. One rule for the rich, and another for the poor: that's what today's Christianity is all about. But the Bible says:

"... if there come unto your assembly a man with a gold ring, in goodly apparel, and there come in also a poor man in vile raiment;

"And ye have respect to him that weareth the gay clothing, and say unto him, Sit thou here in a good place; and say to the poor, Stand thou there, or sit here under my footstool:

"Are ye not then partial in yourselves, and are become judges of evil thoughts? [i.e., have you not made distinctions among yourselves, and become judges with evil motives? (NASV)] (James 2:2-4)

Making distinctions between the rich and the poor in the community of God for the benefit of "filthy lucre" (I Timothy 3:3) - that's what Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, John Whitehead and R.J. Rushdoony were doing with Scaife. Or do you really doubt that Falwell, Robertson, Whitehead and Rushdoony didn't know what Scaife said to Rothmeyer? - after all, it was spread all over the Wall Street Journal. If you think these men didn't know, then I have some acreage in the Florida swamps that I would like to sell you for $10,000 an acre!

And more than that, do you really think that any of these men [i.e., Falwell, Robertson, Whitehead, Rushdoony (especially Rushdoony)] would let some poor "blue-collar" attendee in his congregation get away with such talk? If you do, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you, IN ADDITION to the swampland in Florida.

The Bible continues:

"Hearken, my beloved brethren, Hath not God chosen the poor of this world rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he hath promised to them that love him?

"But ye have despised the poor. Do not rich men oppress you, and draw you before the judgment seats?" [The NASB translates this verse thus: "But you have dishonored the poor man. IS IT NOT THE RICH WHO OPPRESS YOU AND PERSONALLY DRAG YOU INTO COURT?"] (James 2:5-6)

What's the Bible saying here? It's saying that we are EVIL (James 2:4) when we differentiate between the rich and the poor in our midst; when we have one standard for the rich, and another for the poor. What's that say then about Falwell, Robertson, Whitehead and Rushdoony? Plainly, it says that they are all EVIL men.

But while all these men might defer to the rich, the Bible certainly has no respect for them! On the contrary, it says:

"Go to now, YE RICH MEN, WEEP AND HOWL FOR YOUR MISERIES THAT SHALL COME UPON YOU.

"YOUR RICHES ARE CORRUPTED, and your garments are motheaten.

"Your gold and silver is cankered; and THE RUST OF THEM SHALL BE A WITNESS AGAINST YOU, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

"Behold, THE HIRE OF THE LABOURERS WHO HAVE REAPED DOWN YOUR FIELDS, WHICH YOU HAVE KEPT BACK BY FRAUD, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.

"YE HAVE LIVED IN PLEASURE ON THE EARTH, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.

"Ye have condemned and killed the just; and he doth not resist you.

"(BUT) ... THE COMING OF THE LORD DRAWETH NIGH." (James 5:1-6, 8)

Now it's not without purpose that we have dwelled at such length on the character of the men that were involved in the Christian Right's "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" against the Clinton White House. Our purpose here was NOT to defend Clinton, his policies or his character. He never really claimed to be a Christian - at least not the kind of Christian that most evangelicals would accept as being authentic. Our purpose here has been to expose the character of those people who plotted against him IN THE NAME OF CHRIST.

It's NOT people like Bill and Hillary Clinton that bring shame and infamy on the church, but rather it's people like Theodore Olson (and his late wife Barbara), Kenneth Starr (and his goulish cabal of "Christian" lawyers, i.e., Hickman Ewing, Ray Jahn, Jackie Bennett, etc.), Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, D. James Kennedy, John Whitehead, R.J. Rushdoony, etc. - these are the people who through their words and deeds bring dishonor to the church, and SHAME to the name of Christ. The Bible says:

"... For of thorns men do not gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather they grapes." (Luke 6:44)

And if that's true, how is it possible for people who can so shamelessly involve themselves in something as diabolical as Olson's "COUNTER-CONSPIRACY" against Clinton (and the lies, deceit, and hateful "whispering campaigns" that formed the basis of this conspiracy) do anything good that could possibly be connected to the Prince of Peace? And more than that, how is it possible for people who can so cavilierly take money from someone as infernal and hateful as Richard Mellon Scaife ever think they can produce ANYTHING worthy of the Kingdom of God? And, once again, if that's so, what does that say about the new "NATIONAL SECURITY STATE" they are constructing.

When people like Olson say that it's necessary sometimes for the government to lie to the American people, it would be prudent for us to sit up and take notice. I repeat, these are the very same kind of people about whom Jesus said,

"Ye are of your father the devil ... When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it." (John 8:44)

The very real fact of the matter is, the Christian COUNTER-CONSPIRACY is NOW the government, and they are using the same methodologies they used to discredit Clinton with to construct today's new "National Security State" - and it isn't as if the government they have captured is averse to the use of such methodologies. There is a history here, and it is plain enough for anyone to see who wants to see.

The truth is, the history of the government's involvement in such activity is replete with examples of how it has ROUTINELY attempted to use the rubric of "National Security" to silence its critics and stifle free speech. For example, during the Cold War, those individuals and groups that the government deemed "deserving" of its coercive and intimidating "attention" included all those who supposedly supported the so-called "Worldwide Communist Conspiracy," which by the government's hazy definition embraced anyone who threatened the elite's status quo - which included not just communists, but groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, (CORE), Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), anti-Vietnam peaceniks, labor leaders, civil rights demonstrators of all stripes, etc.

These "subversives" were to be secretly investigated and their activities disrupted. Many of the government's strategies during this period are familiar to Hollywood audiences: tapping phones, stealing files, and hiring spies to infiltrate groups. But by far, the most "creative" activities in this regard were those activities that generally fell under the rubric of "black propaganda" - faked dirty letters, poems, satirical comic books, and other "tricks of the trade" designed to pit one group of activists against another.

Take, for example, how the government tried to "manufacture" a rift between the liberal Jewish community and the black community. According to Stay Free, in 1969 the government created a fake "Wanted" leaflet with photos of Jewish radicals Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, Mark Rudd [of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)], and Paul Krassner. The four were separated on the leaflet by a large swastika, over the headline, LAMPSHADES! LAMPSHADES! LAMPSHADES! (The Nazis were said to have made lampshades out of the skin of their Jewish Holocaust victims.) The government then distributed the leaflets in black neighborhoods where it was hoped its anti-Semitic rhetoric would spark violence between the two communities (i.e., between the Jewish and black communities). There are many today who believe that this and other such government sponsored tactics which aimed at disrupting the relationship between the black and Jewish communities were the SPECIFIC origins of the modern-day rift between the two communities. The elites had an abiding fear of this alliance, which they believed was aimed at them and their continued economic domination of the country.

Then there is the matter of the "Black Panther Coloring Book." According to Stay Free, in the late 1960s the Black Panthers started a "Free Breakfast for Children" program, serving thousands of black and poor white kids (yes! - white children) across the U.S. Concerned that the program would spread anti-elite propaganda, the FBI decided to spread their own so-called "anti-government propaganda" as a pre-emptive strike. The bureau produced a 24-page coloring book, making it appear as if it had been created by the Panthers. Intended to gut public support for the Panthers, the book contained inflammatory pictures, some of which featured young black kids shooting pigs dressed as policemen.

The FBI sent copies of the coloring book to the Panthers' financial backers who supported the free breakfast program, such as Safeway and Jack-In-The-Box. In the end, the FBI succeeded in destroying the Black Panther Party's Free Breakfast Program through its disinformation, and it also succeeded in defaming Huey Newton and Bobby Seale, both of whom the FBI eventually hounded into jail on what many now believe were "trumped up" charges. Indeed, so successful was the effort that even today when people hear the word "pig" being used against the police, they think automatically of black militancy without ever realizing that this definition of the police was to a very large extent the creation of the FBI and not the militant black community.

Finally, there is the matter of what the government did to Martin Luther King, Jr. Today King is commemorated on postage stamps, telecom commercials, and middle school posters; and his legacy is celebrated in books and films. But while he was alive, the government considered him to be a dangerous "subversive."

Still, he was tolerated by the elites until he began seriously trying to "morph" his civil rights crusade from a movement that aimed merely at political inclusion for blacks into a movement which aimed at what he called "economic justice" not only for blacks, but also for poor whites. It was precisely here - in King's efforts to unite poor whites with the black community in a crusade for "economic justice," and then to unite this new, larger crusade with the anti-war movement - that the elites acted.

As far as the elites were concerned, King had gone too far. That's exactly what a 1963 memo written by Charles D. Brennan, a counterintelligence specialist, said: that King now represented a "clear and present threat" to the "ESTABLISHED ORDER" (Brennan's words) of the United States. The memo went on to allege that King was behind all the street unrest in the country, and that he was "... growing in stature day by day." Obviously, something had to be done to stop him. Brennan went on to suggest that "extra-legal" means should be employed against King to put an end to him. Brennan continued:

"... it may be unrealistic to limit (our actions against King) to legalistic proofs that would stand up in court or before Congressional Committees."

And that is precisely what the government set out to do: to stop King by any and all means available. Agents ILLEGALLY tapped his phone, bugged his rooms, trumpeted his supposed "commie connections" and his sexual proclivities, and sicced the Internal Revenue Service on him.

When it was announced in 1964 that King would receive the Nobel Peace Prize, the FBI grew desperate. Hoping to prevent King from accepting the award, the Bureau mailed him an anonymous package containing an audio tape of King's alleged extra-marital affairs and a threatening letter purporting to be from a former King supporter that read in part:

"King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own, but I am sure they don't have one at this time that is any where your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that ... [black out] ... King, like all frauds, your end is approaching. You could have been our greatest leader ... [more black out] ... But you are done. Your 'honorary' degrees, your Nobel Prize (what a grim farce) and other awards will not save you. King, I repeat, you are done ... [still more black out] ... The American public, the church organizations that have been helping ... will know you for what you really are - an evil, abnormal beast. So will others who have backed you. You are done. King, there is only one thing left for you to do. YOU KNOW WHAT IT IS. YOU HAVE JUST 34 DAYS IN WHICH TO DO (IT) ... YOU ARE DONE. THERE IS BUT ONE WAY OUT FOR YOU. YOU BETTER TAKE IT BEFORE YOUR FILTHY, ABNORMAL FRAUDULENT SELF IS BARED TO THE NATION."

King was told to commit suicide before the award ceremony in which he was to receive the Nobel Prize - 34 days later, hence the reference to the number "34." It didn't work, of course. King went to Europe to receive the prize. He was made of "sterner stuff" than the FBI had figured on.

But four years later, King was gunned down in Memphis under circumstances that had all the hallmarks of a government "MK-ULTRA" hit. Coincidence? One thing is "for certain:" a person can't be blamed for suspecting otherwise - AFTER ALL, IS IT REALLY BEYOND REASON TO SUSPECT THAT THE SAME PEOPLE WHO TRIED TO GET KING TO COMMIT SUICIDE IN 1964 WOULD HAVE HAD ANY COMPULSIONS AGAINST ACTUALLY ASSASSINATING HIM FOUR YEARS LATER IN 1968? - at a time when the demonstrations against the status quo that King had initiated in the late 1950s were just beginning to reach truly "epic proportions" - especially given the fact that these demonstrations were being gradually and very purposefully "morphed" by King into what the elites believed was "class warfare" directed against them.

Indeed, James Earl Ray, King's supposed assassin, had all the markings for the CIA's profile of a "MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE" - a "throw away assassin" who can't be traced back to anyone or connected to any ideology; a killer that can be made to appear as a "crazed lone gunmen;" a "hit man" that has been so conditioned by mind manipulation that he can't even remember why (and sometimes even if) he has committed the crime for which he is being charged. The very real fact of the matter is, Ray was what psychologist Milton Kline - the former president of the American Society for Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis and a man familiar with "MK-ULTRA" techniques - describes as a prime candidate for "depatterning" (i.e., brainwashing) and hypnosis: a ner-do-well; a drifter living on the periphery of society; a loner; a person who wasn't especially bright and who wouldn't be missed.

And that certainly was what Ray was: a down-and-out petty thief with a criminal career that was typified by such offenses as taxicab holdups and grocery store robberies for which he inevitably got caught. The question arises, then: How could such a man pull off a complicated crime such as a "sniper-fire assassination" and make his way to London via Atlanta, back again to Toronto and then on to Portugal? How could he afford the travel expenses, much less plan the convoluted getaway in advance? And how could he concoct such an elaborate scheme, yet still be dumb enough to leave the murder weapon at the scene of the crime with his fingerprint on it? The truth is, the King assassination fits perfectly the pattern of a "Manchurian Candidate" manufactured "hit" modeled on "MK-ULTRA."

Ray, who is now deceased, can't even remember the assassination, let alone traveling to Atlanta, then to London, back again to Toronto and finally on to Portugal where he was at last "ratted out" under very mysterious circumstances. He can't even remember his later "confession" which was produced under equally abstruse conditions. It's as if he had been operating in a trance, the kind of trance that "depatterning" and hypnosis produce in their "subjects;" the kind of trance that psychologist Milton Kline says that "MK-ULTRA" was designed SPECIFICALLY to produce.

There are many people who naively think that such activities ceased with the termination of the FBI's Cointelpro program of the 1960s and early to mid-1970s. However, the fact is, since 9-11, these activities have resurfaced with a vengeance. For example, according to the magazine Stay Free, the FBI has been routinely penetrating anti-globalization groups, gathering information and later arresting the anti-globalists on conspiracy charges. But what does anti-globalism have to do with 9-11? Nothing, of course. The government is simply using 9-11 as a "front" or an "excuse" to spy on and "disrupt" these groups and individuals not because they pose a terrorist threat to the country per se, but because they oppose the governing elite's "New World Order System." [Please see Nelson Blackstock's book, Cointelpro, and Jim Vander Walls's Cointelpro Papers.]

And that's exactly what the government's campaign against "Reclaim the Streets" (RTS), an activist group in New York City, is all about - using 9-11 as a ruse against an organization that opposes the elite's "New World Order System" and its economic globalization policies. RTS is currently listed on the FBI website as an example of a "left-wing TERRORIST" organization. A TERRORIST organization? Wow! And what exactly has RTS done to be listed as a TERRORIST" group? It has thrown impromptu street parties, blocking off parts of the Lower East Side and literally dancing in the streets. [RTS was formed to protest the austere and brusque anti-assembly laws in New York which tend to make illegal (except under the most draconian police supervision) the "assembly" of all organizations and groups which oppose the political and economic policies of the elites.] RTS "assemblies" and "dances" have NEVER resulted in any broken windows, in any violence, and in any brutality; it has resulted merely in very "savvy" civil disobedience.

The listing by John Ashcroft's Justice Department of RTS in New York as an example of a "TERRORIST organization" is proof positive that the government is up to its "old tricks" again in its so-called "War on Terrorism," and its targets today include all those who for ANY reason oppose ANY aspect of America's "New World Order System" (i.e., free trade, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, NAFTA, etc.). SO BEWARE!

And believe me when I say, this is no idle warning. The government of George Bush, John Ashcroft, Theodore Olson and the other "Christian politicos" of the current administration means business here. The very real fact of the matter is, Christian politicos and "true believers" (so-called) like Ashcroft and Olson are to be taken very, very seriously when they say they "mean business, just as one who lived in Spain during the era of the Inquisition three centuries ago should have taken the statements of Cardinal Torqamada seriously. There is nothing so dangerous and menacing as a Christian "true believer" (so-called) in charge of a country's security apparatus. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn says,

"To do evil a human being must first of all believe that what he's doing is good ...

"Ideology (or theology) - that is what gives devildoing its long-sought justification and gives the evildoer the necessary steadfastness and determination. That is the social (and religious) theory which helps to make his acts seem good instead of bad in his own and others' eyes, so that he won't hear reproaches and curses but will receive praise and honors."

[While Solzhenitsyn no doubt had in mind the Communist elite of the old Soviet Union when he made these comments, these comments could just as well have been directed at the activity of the Bush Administration as it seeks to install the frightening "security instrumentalities" of its new "National Security State."]

And Ashcroft is nothing if he is not exactly the kind of person that Solzhenitsyn had in mind when he made this statement. Indeed, there seems to be no question in his mind that he is "doing God's work" in his construction of America's new "National Security State." Speaking before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ashcroft said:

"To those who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty, my message is this: Your tactics only aid terrorist, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends."

Asked later by Edward Klein if he regretted making that statement, Ashcroft said,

"I haven't given it a second thought."

Wow! - not even a second thought? Surely such a MASSIVE disruption of our civil liberties deserves more consideration than that. Nat Hentoff of the Village Voice writes:

"The mainstream press only superficially examined the entrails of John Ashcroft's omnibus abridgment of civil liberties when it was overwhelmingly passed by Congress and enthusiastically signed by the President. Even less attention has been given since to its unprecedented invasions of the privacy of citizens ...

"When I recently debated Viet Dinh, Ashcroft's chief legal adviser, before a group of journalists in Washington, he made light of my citing the return in the law of what were called in J. Edgar Hoover's time, "black bag jobs" [the kind of activity we have just been discussing - editor] ... Since that meeting, I've discovered how little I knew about these ... (activities)."

Hentoff signals out as particularly dangerous what he calls the "sneak and peak" provisions of Ashcroft's raid on the Bill of Rights, and which is also designed to instill in people the fear of speaking out against what Ashcroft is up to out of concern that they might be labeled "unpatriotic."

According to Hentoff, FBI agents can now surreptitiously break into your home and office and look around, see what's on your hard drive, examine and download files, and then plant the "Magic Lantern" device on your computer. This device, also known as the key-stroke logger, creates an actual record of every time you hit a key. It logs every stroke. And it's put in a corner of your computer where you can't find it unless you're an expert on the computer's innards. Everything the "Magic Lantern" records is saved, and will be downloaded in their next secret visit when they will also remove other evidence, as they define evidence.

Moreover, Hentoff emphasizes that this "new construction" of the Fourth Amendment IS NOT LIMITED TO INVESTIGATIONS DEALING JUST WITH TERRORISM PER SE. IT IS NOW A PART OF THE REGULAR CRIMINAL CODE. In other words, the government now has the "right" to enter your home without your permission (and without you even knowing about it) and gather (or "plant") evidence against you. And don't think that we are simply being facetious here - that's EXACTLY what the government was doing in its Cointelpro operations of several decades ago. In addition, "Magic Lantern" [and other similar operations covered by the USA Patriot Act of 2001 (as well as other similar legislation covered in the Omnibus Counterterrorism Act of 1995 and the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996)] is NOT subject to Congressional oversight because it and other similar "peekaboo" devices are not communications of the sort covered by the old wiretap laws.

Hentoff says that under J Edgar Hoover's "black bag" jobs, FBI agents didn't have to go to a judge for a warrant for surreptitious entries. Now they do, but they don't have to let you know right away, like they used to. They might have a bad lead or the wrong address, and immediate notice would let you quickly challenge the break-in on those, as well as other, grounds. Evidently, the rule now is that the FBI doesn't have to let you know for up to ninety days - that's three months after their initial surreptitious entry - and in this time of "invisible enemies," the FBI can surely find a judge and get extensions of the ninety-day notice again and again. Furthermore, as Hentoff explains, if they don't find anything, they can keep going back, hoping something will turn up. [Hentoff cites as sources of this information Jim Dempsey, deputy director of the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology and Don Edwards, the now retired House Democrat from California, one of the most knowledgeable and passionate civil libertarians in the history of Congress. Hentoff recommends for further reading the Winter 2002 issue of the magazine Human Rights.]

And all this is to say nothing about the government's plans to set up community based "snitch" programs like the ones Mao set up in Communist China and Stalin set up in the old Soviet union. Indeed, this is exactly what the government is transforming the old Neighborhood Watch Program - now a fairly low-key crime prevention tool focused on break-ins and burglaries - into. Bill Berkowitz of the Progressive says that the new thrust of Neighborhood Watch is part of Ashcroft's plan to set up a whole network of citizen informants.

Nadine Strossen of the ACLU writes:

"By asking neighborhood groups to report on people who are 'unfamiliar' or who act in ways that are 'suspicious' or 'abnormal', our government is unconstructively fear-mongering."

Representative Kuchinich of Ohio says:

"It appears we are being transformed from an information society to an informant society ..."

Some Christians, of course, would retort, If a person has nothing to hide, he has nothing to fear. But ask yourself honestly, Would your life really stay the same under such a system of continual, omnipresent surveillance? If you knew you were being constantly watched, would you meet OPENLY with people you knew opposed what's going on? Would you really? Would you pass out literature opposing what's going on? Would you stand up in your church and contradict what your pastor was saying insofar as your church's involvement in this process is concerned if you knew that your pastor (or others in the church), or your employer (boss) sat on the Neighbor Watch committee? Would you really? - especially if you knew it might mean being thrown out of your church (and being cut off from your friends and loved ones) and / or putting your job in jeopardy.

Of course, there is always the chance that nothing would happen - but then, how do you really know that nothing would happen? - and that is precisely what is so intimidating about a surveillance state: Just the unspoken threat that something might happen is enough to make most people shut up and "toe the line." After all, it's not just you that you need to think about, you need to think about your family too - or at least that's the excuse most people would make under similar circumstances. It's certainly the excuse most "good Germans" used when Hitler was in power and all the Jews (and all those who opposed Hitler) were being hustled off to Concentration Camps. The Bible says, however, that such an excuse is BOGUS. It says:

"Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before my Father which is in heaven.

"But whosoever shall deny me before men, HIM WILL I ALSO DENY BEFORE MY FATHER WHICH IS IN HEAVEN." (Matt. 10:32-33)

And the Bible doesn't make provision for the Hitlers (or the Bushes, or the Ashcrofts, or the Olson's) of this world; and it doesn't make provision for your fear of such people.

Chip Pitts and Jennifer Holmes writing in the magazine, Liberty, say:

"Terrorism is an inherently political term, because it can be subjectively interpreted by those in power to support their own purposes ... The word terrorism, in other words, can clearly be politically manipulated. The problem is that, in moving toward a national security state, we're moving toward a KAFKAESQUE universe in which the mere suspicion that someone may be a terrorist means that he is then presumed to be one and is treated like one."

And that's exactly where we are headed: "TOWARD A KAFKAESQUE UNIVERSE IN WHICH THE MERE SUSPICION THAT SOMEONE MAY BE A TERRORIST MEANS THAT HE IS THEN PRESUMED TO BE ONE, AND IS TREATED LIKE ONE."

Noam Chomsky has said that among the many symbols the elites use to frighten and manipulate people like us is to label us "terrorists" in the same fashion that John Ashcroft is labeling those who refuse to "go along to get along" in his new "National Security State." Chomsky says that the term "terrorism" and "terror" are terms that the elites have confined to those who oppose the status quo - in our case, George Bush's and John Ashcroft's construction of a "CHRISTIAN TERRORIST STATE" - all in the name of the "Prince of Peace."

But historically, it's not violence by individuals and marginal groups that have been the cause of most of the world's suffering, but rather it's been officially sanctioned state violence that has been the occasion for most of the world's misery - after all, the terror and violence that Hitler, Stalin, and Mao were all involved with was state-sanctioned violence and terror. AND WHEN THIS VIOLENCE AND TERROR IS JUSTIFIED IN THE NAME OF CHRIST, THEN WE MUST STAND UP AND PROTEST. If we fail to do so, we have no right to call ourselves "Christian." Jesus said:

"Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 7:21)

And certainly it is the will of God that we protest the connection of Christ's name to what Bush and Ashcroft (together with the leadership of our church) are doing today.

Brothers and sisters in the Lord, I urge you to begin standing up NOW - in your community, among your neighbors, at work, in your family, at your church - against what's happening, AND MOST ESPECIALLY AGAINST THE LINK ALL THIS HAS WITH THE CHURCH. The truth of the matter is, what Kennedy, Robertson, Falwell, Copeland and all the rest of our apostatized Christian leadership are doing in linking the name of our precious savior to Ashcroft's and Bush's new "CHRISTIAN TERRORIST STATE" has NOTHING to do with Christ, and everything to do with anti-Christ!

I sincerely urge you to download this article (you can do it in PDF format), and pass it out. The Bible says:

"... be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh ... with meekness and fear ..." (1 Pet. 3:15)

And pray for us, your servants - and give what you can financially to help us get this word out. The fact is VERY LITTLE MONEY HAS COME IN RECENTLY, AND THE WORK OF THE MINISTRY HAS BEEN SEVERELY HAMPERED AS A RESULT - all this to say nothing of how we are getting along personally. I implore you - EACH and EVERYONE of you - to go to the Lord and ask what you can do to support us financially in this work that God has given us. Don't think that you don't have to give because surely others are giving - the fact is, though we have thousands of readers VERY FEW ARE HELPING US OUT FINANCIALLY [in fact, only a very small handful of our subscribers are doing so (indeed, I would be very embarrassed to tell you how few)] - AND THAT'S THE VERY REAL TRUTH OF THE MATTER. Believe me, when you support us financially in this way, you become every bit as much a member of this ministry as we are.

And so I TRULY say to you all -

We need your help!

More next time!
Until then, God bless you,

S.R. Shearer,
Antipas Ministries