Weekly Update - A publication of the Michigan Militia Corps Volume 3 Issue 36 November 14, 1996 Another UN Conference Of all recent UN conferences, this one seems at first glance to be the most innocent. It is being held on the pretext of finding ways to make sure every person has enough food to eat. I believe that the United Nations is using a putative global food "crisis" as one more justification to impose its agenda on the United States and the rest of the world. And this agenda is one that you and every other American should greatly fear. Let me share the UN's goal for you and your family at this upcoming conference. The UN wants to: - Advance an aggressive "family" agenda to reduce the world's population - the UN brand of "family planning" always includes abortion on demand. All of this would be in order to solve the real problem behind the unimagined, worldwide food shortage, which in reality does not exist. The world does not have a food production problem - it has a food distribution problem. - Encourage all nations to follow a China-like program of "Family planning" to control population levels so that there are fewer mouths to feed. The conference document praises China's population control policies, which include abortion, infanticide, and forced sterilization. - Require every country, including the U.S., to monitor and control population growth to make sure there is enough agricultural land to sustain the population. - Redistribute wealth from prosperous nations like the United States to impoverished countries in places like Africa, South America, and Asia. If the United States' UN delegation signs the World Food Summit Plan of Action, these and many other provisions may become binding an our country. Our president can then implement the Plan of Action piece by piece through the use of executive orders. In fact, the president has already done this. In 1993, he signed Executive Order #12852 to create the Council on Sustainable Development to begin to implement the UN agenda in America. Sustainable development is the deceptive term the UN uses to say that wealth and resources must be redistributed and populations must be "controlled." Part of the Council's first report issued earlier this year reads like a page straight out of the UN's World Food Summit Plan of Action. The report says, in effect, that Americans must change what we eat so that people in other parts of the world can have enough food. The report also says that the U.S. government should begin to "monitor" population growth across America. We will see many mare reports and policies like this coming out of Washington. This conference is not ultimately about ending food shortages, in fact, if you read the entire document, there is as much about population control as there is about food. The conference really should be called the World Food and Population Summit. The summit is an attack on the family. UN planners and the administration want to reduce world population through gruesome, China-style abortion policies and acceptance of childless radical feminism and homosexuality. We simply cannot allow the UN or our government to advance this godless agenda without opposition! Beverly LaHaye, Chairman, Concerned Women for America USPS: Where's the $$? By P. Samuel Foner What's the difference between the US Post Office, operating with government subsidies, and the US Postal Service, designed to operate without tax dollars? "If it surprises you that the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is not funded by tax dollars, join the crowd," says a "Postal Notes" advertising campaign that costs $12 million by mid-year. This expensive campaign is a continuing effort by the back-stage manipulators of the sale of the Post Office to disguise the real fate of the U.S. Post Office. The U.S. Post Office is the only business mandated by the Constitution - see Art. I, Sec, 8. Until August of 1970 it was run in the interests of the people. The USPS's outstanding debt as of the beginning of fiscal year 1997 was $5.9 billion, down from $9.9 billion four years ago. This includes bonds and interest from borrowing. But rub-a-dub-dub, the USPS, the Federal Financing Bank (FFB) and the Treasury are, for all intents and purposes, three men in a tub. The Treasury Department picks up all USPS notes before they hit the open market. Treasury Department debt is backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. The full faith and credit of the U.S. government is based on the government's taxing power. Title 39 U.S. Code 2006 created the USPS in August of 1970. It went into effect July 1, 1971. In 1972, the USPS floated a $250 million bond issue. It was the first and only USPS bond issue to hit the open market. The bonds were issued by underwriting houses favored by then Attorney General John Mitchell, a former prominent bond lawyer, on which the taxpayers were obligated to pay interest. Mitchell wound up in jail for illegal activities in the Nixon administration during Watergate. That first bond issue was handled by the Wall Street law firm of Mudge, Rose and Guthrie, the same firm in which then-president Richard Nixon and Mitchell had been senior partners. The initial public offering of $125 million worth of bonds with a 25- year maturity period resulted in huge profits going to both the law firm and its underwriters. The firm received $100,000 for a job USPS officials later admitted was only worth about $10,000. The bonds have since been retired. The original act creating the USPS includes a provision which obligates the USPS to notify the secretary of the treasury 15 days in advance of its intention to borrow money and the amount. The Treasury Department then has "first refusal" on the bond loan. In 1972, the secretary of the Treasury opted not to take advantage of that opportunity, and the bonds went to the open market. Subsequently, the Federal Financing Act creating the FFB, was passed. Since that time, the secretary of the Treasury has opted to pick up all USPS debt. That debt is in the hands of the FFB. Are We Misled? But the assertion by the USPS that "the U.S. Postal Service is totally self-supporting - all our operations are funded from the sale of stamps and postage, none of them from taxes" is "grossly misleading," according to J. Gregory Sidak, coauthor of _Protecting Competition from the Postal Monopoly_. According to Sidak, USPS "perks" are never mentioned; to wit: the monopoly on all non-urgent, first-class mail and control over mailboxes. (It's a federal offense for anyone other than a USPS employee to deliver anything to any mailbox and anything put into mailboxes must be official sanctioned by the USPS.) And when the USPS turns a profit, as it did in 1995, it does not have to pay corporate taxes or issue dividends. It can borrow directly from the U.S. Treasury and issue debt to third parties backed by the full faith and credit of the government. Also, the USPS is authorized to request up to $460 million from Congress for providing a "public service," a request which has not been made for 14 years. According to published reports, Postal Service spokesman Frank Brennan says his organization doesn't need the money. And, because of its government connections, the USPS is at the top of the list of those who collect from estates and bankruptcies. "Went Postal" The USPS is exempt from full compliance with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) regulations. That means that the service cannot be fined by OSHA for unsafe or debilitating working conditions for its 750,000 employees. Some pundits have opined that this is one reason USPS employees occasionally "go postal" - a term that has found its way into modern speech meaning to go berserk, usually with harmful or fatal results. According to Forbes magazine, the USPS is the ninth largest corporation in the U.S., worth $58 billion. "That doesn't sound like a corporation in the danger of going belly-up," said a USPS spokesman. According to official USPS releases, the service is more efficient than when it was a government entity, as compared to its quasi-governmental status today. But the only difference that can be documented is the money made by friends of the Nixon administration who cleaned up on the original bond issue when the changeover took place. Ultimately, it's the Treasury Department that's responsible for the fiscal health of the USPS, and it's the U.S. taxpayers who fund the government, of which the Treasury is an integral part. The USPS won't go broke as long as the Treasury Department can barrow money and collect taxes. The Treasury Department will exist as long as the U.S. government has any faith and credit. The U.S. government will have faith and credit as long as it is able to collect taxes - from you. Welfare Trap Most persons on welfare desire to support themselves and their families, but are lured into sloth by programs that make dependence and trap recipients in poverty. So goes the politically correct mantra uttered by many conservative critics of the welfare industry. But Michael Levin, a philosophy teacher at the City College of New York, contends that this is "utter bosh." Writing in the August issue of The Free Market newsletter, he argues that the "trouble with criticizing liberalism that way is that it keeps the welfare mother, the under-qualified quota beneficiary, and other official victims, at moral center stage. It assumes, as does liberalism, that the basic question is how best to help these parties, not whether they in fact deserve any special help at all. Decrying liberal policies because they hurt their intended beneficiaries reinforces the idea that the happiness of the poor is all that counts. The happiness of everyone else is irrelevant." It explains at least in part, Levin claims, why "having illegitimate children, throwing yourself on the mercy of society, and being described as 'vulnerable' in the media" has proven so successful a survival mechanism by inspiring "laws that force people to give support far welfare drones." Levin asks if we should really be surprised that the "birth-rate of the welfare cohort exceeds that of the general population?" Or that a typical welfare client in New York "can receive $32,500 in benefits after taxes" while "a working police officer in the same state makes $27,700?" Levin argues that a "fashionable but misbegotten love for the poor is a reason the Republican Congress has gotten nowhere with welfare reform. Few propose to end the plunder. Instead, we get Jack Kemp-style reforms: allow welfare 'victims' to amass more savings without threatening their handouts, shift payments from the federal level to the state level, or change the benefits formula." Levin is convinced that as long as "conservatives maintain this spurious posture of care and concern, they will be evading the crucial political point: the only good reform is one that plugs the welfare pipeline. Yet that is the one reform precluded by the 'welfare victim' morality play." He concludes that as a matter of both justice and rationality the "poor must have the mantle of victimhood lifted from them. It's time to consider the plight of wealthy producers who are being taxed to pay for redistribution and those who live in fear of the privatized welfare of crime." (Ludwig von Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama, 36849) Freshmen Lawmakers Need Your Comments The election is over, and newly elected members of Congress will be attending orientation classes instructing them on how to manage their offices, before they take their oaths. The freshmen also will go on retreats to discuss political, economic and ethics issues they can expect to face as lawmakers. As in the past, this year's sessions will be sponsored by the Heritage Foundation and Empower America. Another set of sessions will be sponsored by the Brookings Institution, the American Enterprise Institute and Congressional Research Service (CRS). These groups are essentially internationalists favoring free trade. Their positions on political and economic issues are in sync with the big banks and multinational corporations. As cheerleaders for NAFTA -- a brainchild of the Heritage Foundation - and the World Trade Organization (WTO), they played an important role in persuading lawmakers to support these essential building blocks toward the Global Plantation. There are two levels of pre-swearing-in classes, according to a staffer for Rep. George Radanovich (R-Calif.), president of the 1992 GOP freshman class. Lawmakers and congressional aides will attend sessions which run November 15, 16 and 17, Freshmen will learn "how you get an office up and put a staff together, casework, things like that," says the staffer. Another congressional aide says, "It gives them an overview of what goes on here and how to set things up, the rules of the game. Then they are on their own." A spokesman for the Heritage Foundation says its 1994 session included a reporter from the Wall Street Journal with subjects covering federal mandates, family tax relief, reducing crime and congressional reform. There was nothing on trade. The U.S. taxpayer-funded CRS, whose reputation of objectivity is largely illusory, has been more subtle, for instance, on the issue of trade. It downplayed the importance of the WTO, portraying it as just another trade agreement of little consequence that would not jeopardize the national sovereignty of the United States. The CRS responds to requests from lawmakers and their aides for books and research information. A CRS staffer says its curriculum for freshmen will focus on the economy, the federal budget, domestic programs, foreign policy and defense. Before a newly elected official assumes his duties, he raises his right hand, puts his left hand on the Bible, and swears to uphold the Constitution. This ceremonial act, all too often done by rote, was intended by the framers to be taken seriously. It is a solemn promise and a vocal affirmation of the truth of one's statements. The appeal to God as a witness is made out of the belief that a supernatural power would punish a falsehood spoken under oath. Many members, poorly educated in the fundamental principles of our nation, may even think they are taking this oath seriously, but they are, sadly, ill-equipped to perform their jobs due to their lack of knowledge. Many members of Congress have a poor understanding of the law of our land. Some are lawyers who studied case law which is based upon ever-changing public policy. Newly elected members of Congress should be learning that internationalist think tanks are not capable or providing the basic principles of populism and nationalism outlined in the Constitution and its legislative history. This means not only the test of the Constitution, but its supportive materials. The notes taken by James Madison at the constitutional convention of 1787, and the ratifying documents explaining why the states approved the Constitution are a good place to start. On the required reading list for freshmen should also be The Federalist Papers, which provided the reason why the Constitution should be ratified. The Anti-Federalist Papers argued against the creation of a federal government. There are Elliott's debates, named after publisher Jonathan Elliot, who compiled the formal discussions from the 12 states that argued over ratification of the Constitution. All of these should be required reading. If freshmen learned this, they would comprehend many issues they must vote on from a constitutional perspective. They would grasp the concept of why the Federal Reserve should be abolished and why we need an honest and lawful money system and how it would work. They would understand why operating costs of the federal government should be derived from revenues from tariffs, which are taxes on foreign nations for the privilege of exporting their products to America; an excise tax on luxury items; and customs duties, with the federal budget to be balanced through apportionment among the states. They would know that the IRS and all direct taxation by the federal government should be abolished. They would get off the "free trade bandwagon" which is based on false ideology that destroyed Great Britain's empire and which is now wrecking the economy of America. If they based their voting decisions on the principles of limited constitutional government, there would still be honest differences of opinions. They would know it is unconstitutional to place American military men and women in harm's way as occurs in UN peacekeeping missions that backfire and kill American servicemen. If a president tried to do so, Congress would vote 435-0 against this unconstitutional usurpation of power. (Ideally, that would be accompanied by a unanimous vote to impeach that president.) They would understand why the framers viewed democracy as a vile, failed form of government akin to mob rule which had been previously tried by other governments, and why they instead created a system in which citizens would entrust elected representatives to protect their individual rights. Until orientation classes on the Constitution are held for freshmen lawmakers, as a constituent, you already have great power to educate and inform your elected officials. *** To subscribe to the Weekly Update, put out weekly by Michigan Militia Corps state command, simply send a message conveying that to xxx.