Weekly Update - A publication of the Michigan Militia Corps Volume 3, Issue 35 November 7, 1996 Bankers Meet to Collect Debt; US to Pay Up US officials have caved-in to international bankers who want you to buy goods from coolie-labor Third World debtor countries, so that they can stay current on their interest payments, which you have guaranteed in any event. The World Bank met in Washington just prior to its formal session with the International Monetary Fund, and, in collaboration with the United Nations, called for sending countless billions of American tax dollars all over the globe. At the same time, the seven leading industrialized nations, the Group of Seven, agreed to reach deeper into the pockets of American taxpayers by forgiving debts to poor nations, mostly in Africa. By "forgiving" the poor, taxpayers will enrich the rich. International financiers make heavy investments in backward countries, exploiting slave-wage labor without the burdens of fringe benefits, cheep land, and rich natural resources. The IMF and World Bank, the major conduits for sending American tax dollars overseas, make loans to the un-creditworthy nations so they can buy the products of the financiers' investments. When they can't pay, the loans, are forgiven and you pay. The G-7 nations agreed to forgive $7.7 billion in debts to 20 poor countries. Of this, $1.2 billion comes from the IMF. The United States provides approximately one-fourth of the IMF's lending money and the rest is underwritten by the other 180 member nations. Another $2 billion comes from the World Bank and, again, the United States is its biggest benefactor. Another $2.1 billion comes from other regional development banks entangled with American funds. Another $2.5 billion in debt relief comes from more wealthy countries. Picking up the cues from meetings of The Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg group in recent years, the World Bank called for ending poverty on this earth while spending many billions more on the environment. Although these are noteworthy ambitions, whose money do they plan to use to achieve these goals? Obviously, not theirs. Isn't it strange how financiers can justify spending our hard-earned money? "A thriving rural economy will generate benefits far beyond the boundaries of any local area," said Ismai Serageldin, the bank's vice president for environmental sustainable development. "The plight of the world's poor should be viewed with the same moral outrage as people had for slavery when it was widely legal," Serageldin said at what he described as a "global village meeting." [Ed Note: Is this the same village that it is supposed to take to raise our children?] "People looked at slavery and said it was monstrous and unconscionable and they were known as abolitionists," he said. "Today, the condition of hunger in the world is equal and we must become the 'new abolitionists.'" He called for more help for "developing countries" and "greater support" for the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research - a joint creature of the UN and World Bank. Since he made no mention of specific dollar amounts, a staff assistant was asked if this would mean billions (not millions) more American dollars to be sent abroad. "Of course," he replied. The World Bank again, in collusion with the UN and the Bilderberger- Trilateral clique - called for more spending on the environment. On both these issues, as with all other programs, the ultimate goal is to build international institutions so powerful that they will function authoritatively as departments of the emerging world government. "Environmental problems pay no respect to borders - regional and global problems require regional and global actions," says the World Bank's report on the subject. The bank is now spending $11.5 billion for environmental projects in 62 countries. Of this amount, $7.2 billion has been committed since the Rio Earth Summit in 1992, including $1.6 billion for 20 projects in the past year. Total spending to tidy up the "Global village" is now $26 billion - and growing. "Look how cruel it could be not to spend more to feed the hungry," said a State Department official familiar with the schemes. "But the appetite they are really trying to satisfy is their own hunger for power." Similarly, he said, "there will be more exhortations about dirty air and water respecting no borders, so sending America's resources to a remote African country is only patriotic." BY James P. Tucker Jr. "Peace Blossom" Lady Liberty "Give me your tired, your hungry, your poor; your new age adepts yearning to breathe free; Your sari-clad gurus from Bangalore..." Although this rewrite of Emma Lazarus' New Colossus does not really adorn the walls of the Statue of Liberty museum on Ellis Island, it very well could if the disciples of Sri Chinmoy have their way. On August 27th, Chinmoy, an Indian mystic who presides over the United Nations meditation group, dedicated the Statue of Liberty as a "Peace Blossom." With the approval of the National Park Service, Chinmoy's followers placed a plaque inscribed with one of the guru's poems in an alcove of the Statue's lobby. Lady Liberty thus joins more than 900 prominent sites around the world - including Grand Coulee Dam and Alaska's Mt. McKinley - that have been designated "Peace Blossoms" by Chinmoy's "spiritual family." In addition to his supposed role as an avatar or "god consciousness," Chinmoy is said to be an accomplished weight lifter and prolific artist and writer. He claims to have authored 750 books and composed more than 17,000 poems. "America's Proudest Vision-Pride," the Chinmoy composition which greeted recent visitors to Ellis Island, reads as follows: O Polestar Statue of Liberty! Earth-heart's pinnacle-Divinity, America's proudest Vision-pride - Her Beauty's cosmos-fragrance ride - Freedom-smile-bestower is your Soul. World-peace-hunger's nectar-flooded Goal According to Nishtha Baum, the Chinmoy disciple who secured permission for the poem to be displayed on Ellis Island, the Statue's "Peace Blossom" designation is "a very deep, meaningful thing, something that I hope will be inspiring to other people the way it is to us." National Park Service spokesman Manny Strumpf shares Baum's enthusiasm and breezily dismissed potential complaints that Chinmoy's followers are using America's most frequently visited tourist attraction to proselyte: "It's a sign of peace more than a matter of converting others to their faith. What greater symbol is there for peace and freedom than the Statue of Liberty? It's totally appropriate." The supposedly "non-religious" nature of the "Peace Blossom" designation was also emphasized by Diane Dayson, superintendent of the Statue of Liberty/Ellis Island National Monument, who granted official approval to Chinmoy's display. Dayson emphasized to the New York Times that while a request for a religious plaque would have earned an immediate rejection, Chinmoy's message of "world peace"' was safely apolitical and commendable on its face. Nevertheless, Dayson claimed to have been smitten by the "spirituality" of the guru and his followers: "I recognized that there was much more to them, that they were on a higher plane, that they had spiritual roots." Indeed, Dayson and the Park Service apparently regard the "Peace Blossom" designation as a significant honor. On August 27th, the Park Service issued a press release which quoted from Dayson's rhapsodic speech at the ceremony: "With this initiative, the Statue of Liberty now belongs not only to America, but to the whole world. What better symbol than 'Lady Liberty' to lead us all to the light of peace and harmony?" But the Park Service's ardor for Chinmoy cooled rapidly following a gust of negative public reaction, and suddenly what had been an honor became a major public relations liability. A mere three weeks after the dedication the Park Service quietly announced that it had removed Chinmoy's plaque from the museum pending specific approval from the service's director or Congress. A wire service report explained that this decision was made in response to negative public reaction to the plaque. But the Park Service has yet to concede that the Chinmoy group's notion of "world peace" is something other than a benign "apolitical" message, "Peace," from Chinmoy's perspective, is a product of submission to the "Absolute Supreme," which may be embodied either in himself, another vessel of "god-consciousness," or the United Nations. By William Norman Grigg, The New American / Oct 14, 1996 Al Gore and His "Eco-Terrorists" By Maureen Kennedy Salaman Environmental misinformation threatens to destroy our economy and the hard-won freedoms of our forefathers. Vice President Al Gore Jr., a self- proclaimed environmental activist who has openly stated his desire to create a socialist society, is at the forefront, Our country is becoming a socialist state run by greedy politicians, rich corporations and fanatical zealots. Parents are horrified to realize that the brainwashing extends to their children. These young skulls full of mush come home from school with unscientific and inaccurate principles ingrained into their brains. How do you tell your child a whole educational system is wrong? In the face of popular propaganda, what chance do we have to teach them what is right? The ecological movement, meritorious on the surface, is based on speculation, not science. Instead of working with the people involved, it chooses to view conflicts in the extreme, creating hardship and loss of liberty. Cases of well-meaning citizens bankrupted, incarcerated and persecuted by bureaucratic fiat in the name of environmentalism are too many to be ignored, with situations so incongruous as to make them seem like fiction. The examples are legion. Here are a few: - Ocie Mills and his son Carey of Santa Rosa County, Florida, were sentenced to 21 months in the federal penitentiary and fined $5,000 for cleaning out a drainage ditch and replacing it with dirt on their half-acre lot in order to build a house for the younger Mills. The state environmental agency authorized their actions, but the federal government prosecuted the father and son for "destroying wetlands." - John Pozsgai, a self-employed mechanic, served 27 months in prison and was fined $202,000 for "defiling" a nonexistent wetland on his private plot of land in Morrisville, Pennsylvania. - Mark Groenendyk purchased a 284-acre farm in Iowa. With the blessing of the Soil Conservation Service and the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, he cleared and converted a flood plain into highly productive grain farms. Not long after, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proclaimed he had destroyed wetlands and ordered him to obtain a permit or face the standard $25,000-a- day fines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service also charged that the farmer had "impacted" more than 100 acres of wetlands. The ensuing court battle nearly cost Groenendyk his property. These examples of federal wetlands policy as practiced in the early years of the Bush administration are cases of bureaucracy run amok. There is little law today that provides due process to federal jurisdiction over wetlands. The wetlands program is very largely a contrivance of federal bureaucrats, sometimes working with friendly courts to expand Section 404 of the Clean Water Act. The act makes no mention of "wetlands" and is designed to regulate only direct dumping into, and pollution of, the nation's "navigable waters," rivers, harbors, canals, etc. In a 1975 decision (Natural Resources Defense Council v Callaway), a Washington, D.C. district judge ruled that federal jurisdiction applied beyond navigable waters to any wetlands that might remotely feed into such rivers and harbors. The judicial example has grown to include more and more governmental regulations to a point where small business owners and private citizens often feel targeted by the federal government. The excuse for this judicial and executive imperialism is Article 1, Section 8, Paragraph 5 of the Constitution, which gives Congress the right "to regulate commerce...among the several states." To assert this power on isolated and local wetlands, the EPA and the Army Corps or Engineers engaged in such creative flights of fancy as declaring ducks and geese "interstate waterfowl." This led to what some call the "glancing goose test" which determines that an area is a wetland if an interstate goose pauses to consider it. In a brutal display of naked power, the EPA and the Department of the Army plunged ahead in a "Wetlands Enforcement Initiative" designed to bring 24 high visibility defendants to justice. A December 12, 1990 memorandum asked all regional administrators to produce a "cluster" of new cases to be announced in an April "first 'wave' of publicity...to provide an early deterrent to potential violations which might otherwise occur during the 1991 spring and summer construction season." This year Gore announced a $5.1 billion, 7-year plan to "recover" more than 100,000 acres of Everglades, funded mostly by a one percent levee on sugar growers. [Ed. Note: I believe this proposition was shot down by Florida voters in the recent election.] Critics contend these actions constitute a government "taking." These actions are illegal, grounded in the Fifth Amendment and the Constitution, which says that the government cannot take private property for public use without paying for it. Other laws go on to say that when the government regulates private property, if the regulations go so far as to deny the landowner reasonable use of his or her land, that, too, may amount to a "taking." Under these circumstances, the government must pay the landowner for the economic value that is being lost. Enforcement of these laws is dependent on the victimized landowner who must file suit against the government in order to achieve restitution. Also, citizen rights organizations are beating back the government by organizing in favor of the private landowner. The American Agriculture Movement, a progressive farm organization, has joined the mainstream farm groups in opposing extension of the definition of wetlands and supporting new laws. The Maryland-based Fairness to Land Owners Committee (FLOC) boasts a membership of more than 8,000. FLOC defines itself as "a national organization dedicated to fight for our constitutionally protected property rights. We will fight for our right to use our land prudently. We will fight 'till they recognize the difference between conservation and confiscation. We will not accept their 'taking' of our land without just compensation." FLOC lobbies against legislation that would further erode private landowners' rights, or even the playing field in favor of landowners. Through its newsletter, FLOC informs its membership of bills to look for. Abolish The Fed By John F. McManus, The New American, Oct. 28, 1996 On September 24th, the Federal Reserve announced that it would not be changing interest rates for the nation, as Fed watchers had guessed it would. Observers speculated that the money masters saw no immediate need either to "heat up" or "cool down" the economy. What few experts did was question the power of the Fed to set the nation's interest rates in the first place. How did these few members of the Fed's Open Market Committee acquire the absolute power to tell us that a 5.1 percent "inflation" rate is just what the doctor ordered? Why is it granted that the Fed should be empowered to heat up or cool down the economy? More important, where in the U.S. Constitution is power delegated to a central bank to control the nation's money supply, set interest rates, and preside over the nation's economic vitality? The Fed has assumed power (with the acquiescence of a supine Congress) to decide how much currency is introduced into the system. Any increase the Fed chooses to issue is created out of thin air. The result: Every dollar, insurance policy, retirement fund, etc., you own loses value. The U.S. Constitution grants Congress alone the power to "coin money and regulate the value thereof..." and prohibits the states to "coin money [or] emit bills of credit..." (At the time, the term "bills of credit" was the common expression for paper money.) The federal government was given no authority to be a money creator, and the states were expressly denied such power. So where did the Fed get all of its power? Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan responded to this very question, put to him in 1993 by a Pennsylvania congressman. The Fed chief pointed to a Supreme Court determination which holds that states cannot issue currency. Correct! But he added that this prohibition applies "only to the states and not to the federal government." Therefore, according to the logic he employed, the federal government can do whatever it is not expressly prohibited from doing. The Constitution states that the only powers given to the Congress are "herein granted" in the document itself. It also states that the only proper powers of the federal government are those "vested by this Constitution" in the government. But the Fed (which is not federal) and the political leaders of this nation have turned the Constitution on its head. They completely suppress two foundational constitutional principles: 1) If power to engage in any activity is not specifically granted in the Constitution, no federal department or agency may assume it; and 2) whatever power is granted to any branch of the federal government may not be delegated to another branch or to a central banking cartel. Everyone knows that a dollar will buy less today than it did last year, and the year before, and the year before that. That disappearing value was absorbed by the Fed and transferred to the steadily increasing amount of currency it issues. Anyone holding currency, insurance policies, retirement funds, etc., is being robbed. And confusion-spreading politicians, economists, and reporters from coast to coast continue to keep the Fed's victims buffaloed. The nation must return to the kind of completely free banking and money issuance envisioned by the Founders - who knew what freedom meant.