If I had a Hammer- Peter, Paul & Mary 1963
Monday, May 20, 2013
Sunday, May 19, 2013
The Surveillance State: Is This the Price of Living in a 'Free, Safe' Society?
By John W. Whitehead, The Rutherford Institute, May 15, 2013
“If you’re not a terrorist, if you’re not a threat, prove it. This is the price you pay to live in free society right now. It’s just the way it is.”—Sergeant Ed Mullins of the New York Police Department
Immediately following the devastating 9/11 attacks, which destroyed the illusion of invulnerability which had defined American society since the end of the Cold War, many Americans willingly ceded their rights and liberties to government officials who promised them that the feeling of absolute safety could be restored.
In the 12 years since, we have been subjected to a series of deceptions, subterfuges and scare tactics by the government, all largely aimed at amassing more power for the federal agencies and extending their control over the populace. Starting with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, continuing with the torture of detainees at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and coming to a head with the assassination of American citizens abroad, the importing of drones and other weapons of compliance, and the rise in domestic surveillance, we have witnessed the onslaught of a full-blown crisis in government.
Still Americans have gone along with these assaults on their freedoms unquestioningly.
Even with our freedoms in shambles, our country in debt, our so-called “justice” system weighted in favor of corporations and the police state, our government officials dancing to the tune of corporate oligarchs, and a growing intolerance on the part of the government for anyone who challenges the status quo, Americans have yet to say “enough is enough.”
Now, in the wake of the Boston Marathon bombing, we are once again being assured that if we only give up a few more liberties and what little remains of our privacy, we will achieve that elusive sense of security we’ve yet to attain. This is the same song and dance that comes after every tragedy, and it’s that same song and dance which has left us buying into the illusion that we are a free, safe society.
The reality of life in America tells a different tale, however. For example, in a May 2013 interview with CNN, former FBI counterterrorism agent Tim Clemente disclosed that the federal government is keeping track of all digital communications that occur within the United States, whether or not those communicating are American citizens, and whether or not they have a warrant to do so.
As revelatory as the disclosure was, it caused barely a ripple of dismay among Americans, easily distracted by the torrent of what passes for entertainment news today. Yet it confirms what has become increasingly apparent in the years after 9/11: the federal government is literally tracking any and all communications occurring within the United States, without concern for the legal limitations of such activity, and without informing the American people that they are doing so.
Clemente dropped his bombshell during a CNN interview about authorities’ attempts to determine the nature of communications between deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his widow Katherine Russell. In the course of that conversation, Clemente revealed that federal officials will not only be able to access any voicemails that may have been left by either party, but that the entirety of the phone conversations they had will be at federal agents’ finger tips.
“We certainly have ways in national security investigations to find out exactly what was said in that conversation,” stated Clemente. “All of that stuff [meaning phone conversations occurring in America] is being captured as we speak whether we know it or like it or not.” A few days later, Clemente was asked to clarify his comments, at which point he said, “There is a way to look at all digital communications in the past. No digital communication is secure.”
In other words, there is no form of digital communication that the government cannot and does not monitor—phone calls, emails, text messages, tweets, Facebook posts, internet video chats, etc., are all accessible, trackable and downloadable by federal agents.
At one time, such actions by the government would not only have been viewed as unacceptable, they would also have been considered illegal. However, government officials have been engaged in an ongoing attempt to legitimize these actions by passing laws that make the lives of all Americans an open book for government agents. For example, while the nation was caught up in the drama of the Boston bombing and the ensuing military-style occupation of the city by local and federal police, Congress passed a little-noticed piece of legislation known as the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). The legislation, which the House of Representatives approved by an overwhelming margin of 288-127, will allow internet companies to share their users’ private data with the federal government and other private companies in order to combat so-called “cyber threats.”
In short, the law dismantles any notion of privacy on the internet, opening every action one undertakes online, whether emailing, shopping, banking, or just browsing, to scrutiny by government agents. While CISPA has yet to clear the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, the spirit of it is alive and well. In fact, officials in the Obama administration have for some time now been authorizing corporate information sharing and spying in secret through the use of executive orders and other tactics.
The Justice Department, for instance, has been issuing so-called “2511 letters” to various internet service providers like AT&T, which immunize them from being prosecuted under federal wiretapping laws for providing the federal government with private information. Despite federal court rulings to the contrary, the Department of Justice continues to assert that it does not require a warrant to access Americans’ emails, Facebook chats, and other forms of digital communication.
While it may be tempting to lay the full blame for these erosions of our privacy on the Obama administration, they are simply continuing a system of mass surveillance, the seeds of which were planted in the weeks after 9/11, when the National Security Agency (NSA) began illegally tracking the communications of American citizens. According to a Washington Post article published in 2010, the NSA continues to collect 1.7 billion communications, whether telephone, email or otherwise, every single day.
The NSA and Department of Justice are just two pieces of a vast surveillance network which encompasses and implicates most of the federal government, as well as the majority of technology and telecommunications companies in the United States. For the past two years, the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court has approved literally every single request by the federal government to spy on people within the United States. There have been some 4,000 applications rubberstamped by the court in the past two years, applications which allow federal officials to monitor the communications of any person in the United States, including American citizens, if they are believed to be in contact with someone overseas.
These government-initiated spying programs depend in large part on the willingness of corporations to hand over personal information about their customers to government officials. Sometimes the government purchases the information outright. At other times, the government issues National Security Letters, which allow the government to force companies to hand over personal information without a warrant or probable cause.
Some web companies, such as Skype, have already altered their products to allow government access to personal information. In fact, government agents can now determine the credit card information and addresses of Skype users under suspicion of criminal activity. Aside from allowing government agents backdoor access to American communications, corporations are also working on technologies to allow government agents even easier access to Americans’ communications.
For example, Google has filed a patent for a “Policy Violation Checker,” software which would monitor an individual’s communications as they type them out, whether in an email, an Excel spreadsheet or some other digital document, then alert the individual, and potentially their employer or a government agent, if they type any “problematic phrases” which “present policy violations, have legal implications, or are otherwise troublesome to a company, business, or individual.” The software would work by comparing the text being typed to a pre-defined database of “problematic phrases,” which would presumably be defined on a company-by-company basis.
The emergence of this technology fits in well with Google chairman Eric Schmidt’s view on privacy, which is that “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Unfortunately, this is not just the attitude of corporate benefactors who stand to profit from creating spy technology and software but government officials as well.
Additionally, police officials throughout the country have become increasingly keen on monitoring social media websites in real time. Rob D’Ovido, a criminal justice professor at Drexel University, has noted that, “The danger of this in light of the tragedy in Boston is that law enforcement is being so risk-averse they are in danger of crossing that line and going after what courts would ultimately deem as free speech.”
For example, Cameron Dambrosio, a teenager and self-styled rap artist living in Metheun, Massachusetts, posted a video of one of his original songs on the internet which included references to the White House and the Boston bombing. While the song’s lyrics may well have been crude and ill-advised in the wake of the Boston bombing, police officers exacerbated the situation by arresting Dambrosio and charging him with communicating terrorist threats, a felony charge which could land him in prison for twenty years.
Unfortunately, cases like Dambrosio’s may soon become the norm, as the FBI’s Next Generation Cyber Initiative has announced that its “top legislative priority” this year is to get social media giants like Facebook and Google to comply with requests for access to real-time updates of social media websites. The proposed method of encouraging compliance is legal inquiries and hefty fines leveled at these companies. The Obama administration is expected to support the proposal.
The reality is this: we no longer live in a free society. Having traded our freedoms for a phantom promise of security, we now find ourselves imprisoned in a virtual cage of cameras, wiretaps and watchful government eyes. All the while, the world around us is no safer than when we started on this journey more than a decade ago. Indeed, it well may be that we are living in a far more dangerous world, not so much because the terrorist threat is any greater but because the government itself has become the greater threat to our freedoms.
The Naturalistic Assumptions of Evolution and Modern Science!
by Dennis Edwards:
Very few people today realize that modern science is based on naturalistic assumptions. Modern science is based on the philosophy or belief system of naturalism. Naturalism is the belief or philosophy which states the following:
1. Only the natural exists. There is no metaphysical or supernatural.
2. Everything can be explained as a result of random natural causes.
The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary states it in a similar way: “a theory denying that an event or object has a supernatural significance; specifically: the doctrine that scientific laws are adequate to account for all phenomena.”[1]These are the foundation stones upon which naturalism is built and of which the General Theory of Evolution is the outgrowth.
In the past science was defined as knowledge, or the search for knowledge or the search for the truth of the how and the why of nature and the physical world around us. Using the search for knowledge and truth as their definition of science, scientist of the past did not separate their belief in God from their science. In fact, their science was an outgrowth of their belief in God.
If there was a rational God who created a rational world then, scientists reasoned, they could search and find out the rationale that God used to uphold His creation. Like Kepler said, “We were merely thinking God’s thoughts after Him.”[2] Because scientists believed in a rational creator, they searched for the rationale behind the creation. Their belief in a Divine Creator did not deter their scientific investigation, but rather justified and enhanced their scientific inquiry. Indeed, their scientific inquiry was a result of their belief system and their belief system justified scientific inquiry and predicted the results: scientific discoveries of the laws of nature, physics, chemistry etc. Kepler went on to say, “I had the intention of becoming a theologian… but now I see how God is, by my endeavors, also glorified in astronomy, for ‘the heavens declare the glory of God.’”[3]
Today we see how the definition of science has shifted in favor of the naturalistic interpretation of life. The Merriam-Webster on-line dictionary defines science as “a: knowledge or a system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through the scientific method. b: such knowledge or such a system of knowledge concerned with the physical world and its phenomena.”[4]
But how can we examine the events of life’s origins through the scientific method? We cannot to go back in time and watch the beginning events and put them through experimentation. Rather, we speculate about the past and do our science in the present, where it only can be done. We then extrapolate backwards in time and see if our speculation matches the data or evidence from the past, which we have here in the present. Both scientists who believe in creation and those who believe in evolution use speculation about past events in their science. Some scientists prefer to name such speculative science as historical or origins science. It is philosophical in nature because it starts with philosophical assumptions which then affect the interpretation of the data or evidence.
However, in a purely naturalistic world, why should we expect that there be any laws of nature, if everything is a result of random, non-caused processes as evolutionist claim? C.S. Lewis, the famous author and atheist turned Christian, put forth the following question. “If the solar system was brought about by an accidental collision, then the appearance of organic life on this planet was also an accident, and the whole evolution of Man was an accident too. If so, then all our present thoughts are mere accidents - the accidental by-product of the movement of atoms. And this holds for the thoughts of the materialists and astronomers as well as for anyone else's. But if their thoughts - i.e., Materialism and Astronomy - are mere accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true? I see no reason for believing that one accident should be able to give me a correct account of all the other accidents. It's like expecting the accidental shape taken by the splash when you upset a milk-jug should give you a correct account of how the jug was made and why it was upset.”[5] In other words, naturalism does not make sense. It doesn´t give us the deep answers that we seek for. Nevertheless, it appeals to man’s baser instincts and therefore it took hold on the hearts and minds of men wanting to be free from the moral constraints of formalized religion and a God of retribution.
Throughout history we see reactions against the moral constraints placed upon society by religious institutions. The Reformation and the political revolutions that followed were an outgrowth of the political, social and moral restrictions placed on European man by the Catholic Church during the Dark Ages and its Inquisition. As a result of the new Protestantism, another set of moral restrictions fell upon the shoulders of man. Cromwell in the 17th century had even tried to change laws in accordance to Biblical principles. The Swiss had also tried their hand at Protestant political and social rule under John Calvin and others in the mid-1500’s.
By the end of the 18th and the beginning of the 19th century, learned men wishing to free themselves from the shackles of religiosity, began to oppose Biblical interpretations of nature. The opposition to the Bible was an outgrowth of the Age of Reason or Enlightenment, as opposed to the previous ages where men accepted things by faith, because that is what the Church had taught. Therefore, it was before and during the political and social upheavals of the 18th century, the French and American Revolutions, when enlighten thinkers began to promote naturalism, in both science and theology.
Thomas Paine’s booklet the Age of Reason was published in 1794. In it he laid out his personal creed which was available to the elite of that day and was influential in France, England and the USA. On page fifty of the booklet he states the following:
I believe in one God, and no more; and I hope for happiness beyond this life.
I believe in the equality of man; and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy, and endeavoring to make our fellow-creatures happy.
But, lest it should be supposed that I believe many other things in addition to these, I shall, in the progress of this work, declare the things I do not believe, and my reasons for not believing them.
I do not believe in the creed professed by the Jewish Church, by the Roman Church, by the Greek Church, by the Turkish Church,(He mentions the Turkish Church because this was during the period of the Ottoman Empire.) by the Protestant Church, nor by any church that I know of. My own mind is my own church.
All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian or Turkish, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit.
I do not mean by this declaration to condemn those who believe otherwise; they have the same right to their belief as I have to mine. But it is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what he does not believe.[6]
We can see that by the late 1700’s and early 1800’s naturalism made headway in the scientific and theological or intellectual community. Scotland’s James Hutton had published his book The Theory of the Earth in 1788 which promoted uniformitarianism, the belief that only natural processes happening in the present could be used to explain the world around us and its past history. Hutton’s mantra was “the present is the key to the past.” Later, Charles Lyell’s Principles of Geology published in 1830 built on Hutton’s ideas and propagated his naturalistic interpretations as the correct way to do science and interpret the world around us. Lyell’s goal was to get Moses out of science, and he greatly succeeded. His geological tome was the most important scientific geological work of the first half of the 19th century. Hutton and Lyell’s ideological opinions had affected their scientific beliefs, observations and conclusions and the society as a whole.
Before long the idea that all of life and natural occurrences could be explained by unguided natural forces became the accepted scientific and theological doctrine. No longer was there need to solicit the supernatural for explanations. Naturalistic theology began to dominate Biblical interpretations of past events. By 1855, four years before Charles Darwin published the Origins of the Species, we see Charles Spurgeon, the famous British Baptist evangelist admitting his acceptance of naturalistic assumptions and millions of years. He said, “Can any man tell me when the beginning was? Years ago we thought the beginning of the world was when Adam came upon it. But we have discovered that thousands of years before that God was preparing chaotic matter to make it a fit abode for man, putting races of creatures upon it, who might die and leave behind the marks of his handiwork and marvelous skill, before he tried his hand on man.”[7]
It was the Scottish theologian Thomas Chalmers, in the 1830’s, who first popularized the gap theory mainly for the purpose of accommodating the great ages demanded by uniformitarian geologists like Hutton.[8] Hutton’s natural geology opposed the tradition Flood geology. Chalmers’ new theology was called natural theology and placed the millions of years demanded by the uniformitarian view between Genesis verses 1 and 2, contrary to the Bible–based Flood geology of the past and the traditional literal interpretation of Genesis as just a 6-day creation where no millions of years were required.[9]
Gap creationism became increasingly attractive because it allowed religious geologists (who composed the majority of the geological community at the time) to reconcile their faith in the Bible with the new authority of science. According to the doctrine of natural theology, science was in this period considered a second revelation, God's word in nature as well as in Scripture, so the two could not contradict each other.[10] Whereas in the past, scripture had been before science, now science came before scripture. Science became the ultimate authority over the Bible.
Gap creationist Thomas Chalmers was also “a professor at the University of Edinburgh, and founder of the Free Church of Scotland. His Bridgewater Treatise, in the series On the Power, Wisdom and Goodness of God as Manifested in the Adaptation of External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Constitution of Man, appeared in two volumes in 1833 and went through 6 editions. These books effectively represent an encyclopedia of pre-evolutionary natural history, commissioned and published whilst Charles Darwin was on board The Beagle. In the area of natural theology and the Christian evidences Chalmers advocated the method of reconciling the Mosaic narrative with the indefinite antiquity of the globe.”[11] So we see a large part of the intellectual and religious society in Britain prior to Darwin had already capitulated to accepting the millions of years necessary for evolution.
In 1981 the atheistic evolutionist Derek Ager commented on the pre-evolution period of history when he wrote, “My excuse for this lengthy and amateur digression into history is that I have been trying to show how I think geology got into the hands of the theoreticians (Hutton, Lyell and Chalmers amongst others) who were conditioned by social and political history of their day more than by observations in the field…” “In other words, we have allowed ourselves to be brain-washed into avoiding any interpretation of the past that involves extreme and what might be termed ‘castastrophic’ processes!” [12]
Dr. James Shea, editor of the Journal of Geological Education, wrote in 1982: “Furthermore, much of Lyell’s uniformitarianism, specifically his ideas on identity of ancient and modern cause, gradualism, and constancy of rate, has been explicitly refuted by the definitive modern sources as well as by an overwhelming preponderance of evidence that, as substantive theories, his ideas on these matters were simply wrong.”[13]
Evolutionist Stephen Jay Gould (1941-2002) when writing about the Great Scablands debate, an argument of whether or not an ancient flood had caused the Scabland deposits, said something similar. “The ‘establishment,’ as represented by the United States Geological Society (a modern day scientific organization), closed ranks in opposition (to a scientist’s interpretation of a geological feature, the Great Scablands, because it hinted of Biblical Flood Geology)…. Instead of testing Bretz’s flood (module) on its own merits, they rejected it on general principles… Bretz stood against a firm, highly restrictive dogma (belief system-uniformitarianism) that never had made any sense: the emperor had been naked for a century. Charles Lyell, the godfather of geological gradualism (uniformitarianism), had pulled a fast one in establishing the doctrine of imperceptible change (uniformitarianism).”[14]
Therefore, we see that it was not scientific dating methods that gave us the millions of years, not scientific observations in the field, but theoreticians who had rejected the traditional Biblical analysis of the geological column. The acceptance of millions of years came before any modern day scientific dating methods were developed and was not a result of observation in the field but was a doctrinal decision made before viewing and interpreting the strata.
The dating methods also came after the fact and were in a way similar to the experiment of early 17 century Flemish physician and chemist Dr. Jan Baptista von Helmont. Dr. von Helmont developed an experiment to justify the idea of spontaneous generation which Aristotle in the 4th century B.C. had embraced. In his classic experiment the Dr. describes proof that mice were spontaneously generated from dirty underwear and wheat over a period of two weeks.[15] The experiment verified Aristotle’s conclusion without really delving into the obvious problems of spontaneous generation. “Trying to prove what other scientists already believe is actually bad science. It leads to an artificial body of knowledge, which becomes self-supporting and circular in its proofs.”[16] It wasn’t until 1668, 28 years after von Helmont’s death that Dr. Francesco Redi, an Italian physician and scientist, proved spontaneous generation wrong with his cheesecloth over the rotting meat experiment. Later in 1859, the same year in which the Origins was published, “Louis Pasteur, the French chemist, began a series of experiments with the intention of ending the various opinions of his day regarding spontaneous generation. With his experiments, he refuted the theory of spontaneous generation”[17], though Neo-Darwinians have raised it back to life with their abiogenesis theory.
Today’s modern dating methods all too often appear like von Helmont’s experiment which was made only to justify an already believed dogma. The dating methods are not carefully calculated and analyzed for their possible faults. The evolutionary scenario of millions of years is believed to be true and therefore a confirmation of such is sought out. The dating methods are accepted because they confirm the already believed dates. The initial assumptions are not looked at critically and therefore bias results could and do occur as has been discovered by the recent RATE report amongst many others. See the following link: http://www.icr.org/article/fluctuations-show-radioisotope-decay/.[18] Richard Mauger writing about K-Ar dating method ages given to rocks stated, “In general, dates in the correct ballpark are assumed to be correct and are published, but those in disagreement with other data are seldom published, nor are the discrepancies fully explained.”[19]
A real scientist would be open to looking at the data and assumptions of differing scientist to test their theories in order to verify their validity and find out why such above discrepancies exist. Modern evolutionary scientists today often mock the creation scientists rather than carefully considering their work. Evolutionists will not accept the Biblical assumptions as true and therefore reject creation science outright. An objective scientist would not see the creation scientist’s assumptions as any different from an evolutionary scientist’s assumptions and would be willing to give them both due considerations. However, since evolutionary assumptions are of a religious nature and evolutionist’s religious beliefs are being threatened, the evolutionary scientist does not take lightly to giving creation science any due objectivity. As a result we end up with ideological prejudice and not real objective scientific thinking.
An interesting documentary on objective scientific thinking, ideological prejudice and academic freedom is Ben Stein’s Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed, found on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5EPymcWp-g. Dr. William Lane Craig’s comments about the film further pursue the ideas of naturalism and the ideological prejudices and lack of academic freedom in the American Academic Community: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kstf4qeDsMA. It is interesting that Dr. Craig notices how the atheist Richard Dawkins is willing to accept that there is design in nature. Dawkins goes on to say that the design we see may be a result of aliens “seeding” the first life forms on planet earth and not an act of God. He emphasizes that of course the alien life itself was a result of Darwinian or naturalistic processes. In other words, he is saying that “intelligent design” that we see in nature is not an indication of an intelligent God creator/designer, but the result of random causeless natural processes, naturalism. As a true atheist Dawkins holds steadily to his naturalistic assumptions necessary to negate God’s existence.
It was back in the beginning of the 19th century when Biblical interpretations began to be seen as unscientific. Naturalism became accepted as the philosophy of science and religion, as we have discussed above. Men began to reject traditional Biblical interpretations, although few men admitted that it was because of the restrictive moral implications forced on society by the religious institutions. However, from the time of the French Revolution there was a new awakening in man’s desire to be a free moral agent, following his own dictates rather than those imposed upon him by ancient institutions as we have seen in the writings of Thomas Paine. With the new catch phrases ‘liberty, equality and fraternity’ men wanted to be free from the laws of touch not, taste not, think not, etc. Religion was seen by many as a hindrance to intellectual progress and, therefore, political and scientific progress.
Naturalism was embraced because it eliminated God from scientific inquiry and at the same time freed man from the moral confines that religion demanded. If the world around us could be explained by purely naturalistic means, man would not need to invoke the help of the supernatural and could in a sense free himself from its moral restrictions. Man could be free to act and behave according to his own dictates and not to those of a Book written thousands of years before to an entirely different culture and people. These underlining reasons helped lead to the rejection of Biblical interpretations and were well present during the time of the American and French Revolution at the end of the 18th century.
Later in the 20th century, we see an interesting confession by Aldous Huxley, the grandson of Thomas Huxley. Thomas Huxley was called ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ and was his close friend. He did much to help defend the evolutionary theory at its beginnings. He is also credited with winning the famous Evolution/Creation debate against abolitionist William Wilberforce. Huxley did more to defend evolution than Darwin himself and invented the word ‘agnostic’ to describe his own religious beliefs.[20] However, it is interesting to note that he was not totally convinced of Darwin’s mechanism for evolution, as neither was Charles Lyell, much to Darwin’s dismay.
In 1960, grandson Aldous Huxley, one of the most influential liberal writers of the 20th century and author of The Brave New World spoke honestly about his hidden sexual agenda. He said, "I had motives for not wanting the world to have meaning, consequently assumed it had none, and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption. The philosopher who finds no meaning in the world (and this is what evolution ultimately teaches) is not concerned exclusively with a problem in pure metaphysics; he is also concerned to prove there is no valid reason why he personally should not do as he wants to do (moral freedom is the goal, to be free from religion’s restrictive confines). For myself, as no doubt for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation. The liberation we desired was simultaneously liberation from a certain political and economic system and liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom."[21]
So here we see Aldous Huxley confessing that his rejection of a creator and his support of atheistic/naturalistic philosophy stemmed from his desire for sexual liberty. The Apostle Peter in prophetic words had said the following some 1900 years before: “Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,(sexual liberty) and saying, ‘Where is the promise of his coming? For since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.’ (Uniformitarianism teaches that the present natural processes are the same continuous processes that have acted in the past.) For thus they are willing ignorant of (or refuse to see) that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished.”[22] In other words, they are willingly ignorant of the creation act by God and the historical global catastrophic flood of Noah.
What has happened down through the centuries is that the false hypocritical religious systems have driven men from God. As men rejected God, they became proud in mind and their foolish hearts became darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they in fact became fools believing in the illogical and contradictory. They invented new religious myths, clothed in scientific jargon, which proposed to bring them freedom but in the end brought them into a new bondage. As Apostle Peter has said, “While they promise them liberty, they themselves are the servants of corruption: for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he brought into bondage.”[23] Being freed from the religious hypocrisy of the past, man has been forced into the heartless arms of naturalistic philosophy and has been brought into a new bondage to relative morality and life without meaning, purpose or goal.
Instead of man being made in God’s image, we have become descendants of creeping things, birds and four-footed beats, the Theory of Evolution. Saint Paul prophetically predicted the very same in his letter to the Romans. “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and four-footed beats and creeping things.”[24]
At this point, I would like to look at the speech of evolutionist Julian Huxley, Aldous’ older brother,“a zoologist and one of the scientific founders of the Neo-Darwinian synthesis, the modern version of Darwin’s theory. He was also the promoter of a naturalistic religion called evolutionary humanism, and the founding secretary general of UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. In short, Julian Huxley was one of the most influential intellectuals of the mid-twentieth century, and 1959 (the 100 year anniversary of Darwin’s book) was the high-water mark of his influence. Here are some excerpts from Huxley’s remarks at the centennial:”[25]
“Future historians will perhaps take this Centennial Week as epitomizing an important critical period in the history of this earth of ours-the period when the process of evolution, in the person of inquiring man, began to be truly conscious of itself…. This is one of the first public occasions which it has been frankly faced that all aspects of reality are subject to evolution, from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to human societies and values-indeed, that all reality is a single process of evolution……In the evolutionary pattern of thought there is no longer either need or room for the supernatural. The earth was not created, it evolved. So did all the animals and plants that inhabit it, including our human selves, mind and soul as well as brain and body. So did religion.”[26]
Phillip Johnson makes the following comment in his book Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds in reference to the above quote: “In short, the triumph of Darwinism implied the death of God and set the stage for replacing biblical religion with a new faith based on evolutionary naturalism. That new faith would become the basis not just of science but also of government, law and morality. It would be the established religious philosophy of the modern world.”[27] Indeed, this is what has happened.
Most people today do not realize they have bought into naturalistic assumptions by accepting the Big Bang and the General Theory of Evolution. Naturalism is so strongly accepted into our society, we no longer reject its tenants conscientiously. Naturalistic assumptions have become the framework for our modern thinking and educational system. We do not realize that the scientific modules that we are taught as truths are those modules that assume naturalistic assumptions and steer clear of Biblical ones. These modules assume there is no metaphysical. They assume that past events can be explained by random natural forces happening today.
Let’s look at the Big Bang for a moment. Do we realize that the postulating of the theory of the Big Bang was done in a way to eliminate any assumptions that could appear to uphold a Biblical worldview? That is why when scientists talk about the expansion of the universe they make clear to state that the universe is not expanding from any one point. If it were expanding from a set point, that point could be given significant importance. The Biblical history of the creation week puts the earth in a position of importance in the universe. Modern scientists have formulated the Big Bang theory in a way to purposely avoid having any position in the universe more important than any other position in the universe.
When talking about the Big Bang module, internationally renowned Astrophysicist George F. R. Ellis has said, "People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations….For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center,(like the Biblical module) and you cannot disprove it based on observations….You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that.( He is saying he does not think it is wrong to exclude a module on philosophical grounds, because that is what he does when he excludes any element in the module that correlates to a Biblical module.) What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that."[28] But at least he confesses up to what he does.
An interesting alternative to the Big Bang theory is Dr. Russell Humphreys’ module. He uses the same mathematical equations and the same physics as the evolutionary scientist but starts with different assumptions, ones that are in line with the Biblical interpretation of creation rather than the naturalistic assumptions. It can be seen on the YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCK8y4RBeWI.
But are the naturalistic assumptions justified. We need to review the first tenant of the philosophy of naturalism.
1. Only the natural world exists. There is no metaphysical.
Is this a true statement? Does the metaphysical or supernatural exist? I believe most people in the world today, even after many years of evolutionary indoctrination will still say that the supernatural exists. I believe that most people reading this will agree that they believe in the supernatural to some extent. They may not have had a supernatural experience themselves, but they know someone who has or have heard of someone who has. The New Testament is a whole book written by men each of whom claimed to have had a supernatural experience. The New Age Movement and all the religions of the world are founded on the tenant that there is a supernatural. They have been founded by men who claimed to have experienced it and who try to relate their experience to others.
But, as a reaction against the false superstitions of the past and the religious hypocrisy and moral restrictions of the religious element placed upon society, modern man has changed the definition of science to mean only the natural processes by which we can explain the world around us. Modern day science has thereby eliminated God from the discussion and conned mankind into accepting its naturalistic philosophy without mankind even realizing it.
Mankind is left with Science as God. We even see in the New Age Movement the tendency to use scientific terminology when talking of the supernatural. They may use terms like the ‘universal life force,’ a kind of scientific spirituality. People are more open to accept a new belief system if it is scientifically robed. Mankind has faith in Science. However, in the end, mankind’s new faith, scientific naturalism, answers not his questions of meaning and purpose in life and the reason for death. He hungers for he knows not what, only knowing that his new found faith, though having granted him sexual license, has not filled that aching void within his heart. He is left filled with froth, but empty deep within. It may cause him to commit suicide, or become a terrorist or live a life of debauchery. Or, he may just conform to a meaningless existence while deep down within his heart aches and cries for answers. Will anyone hear his cry?
Few people realize a war is taking place. It is a spiritual war for the hearts and minds of men. In 1905 the document called the Protocols containing the plans for World Government was made public in a Russian publication. Members of the Illuminati, who believe that Lucifer is the true son of God and that Jesus is the counterfeit, have forged a plan for the eventual takeover of the planet. Henry Ford, the famed auto pioneer said, “The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on. They are at least sixteen years old, and they have fitted the world situation up to this time. They fit it now.”[29]
I do not want to get into the Protocols too deeply at this time as they are a large subject in themselves. However, here is a quote to get your interest and to further confirm what I have argued above. “The masses are not guided by practical use of unprejudiced historical observation, but by theoretical routine without any critical regard for consequent results. (In other words, the masses are led by theories and not critical thinking or historical observations.)We need not, therefore, take any account of them-let them amuse themselves until the hour strikes, or live on hopes of new forms of enterprising pastimes, (TV, computer games, sports) or on the memories (old movies?)of all they have enjoyed. For them, let that play the principal part which we have persuaded them to accept as the dictates of science. (We have persuaded them to accept the dictates of science by the press which we control.) It is with this object in view that we are constantly, by means of the press, arousing a blind confidence in these theories. The intellectuals of the masses will puff themselves up with their knowledge and, without any verification of them, (like the evolutionary theory and men like Stephen Hawking and Richard Dawkins) will put into effect all the information available from science, which our special agents (Unless Hawking and Dawkins are the special agents?) have cunningly pieced together for the purpose of educating their minds (the minds of the masses) in the direction we want. Do not suppose for a moment that these statements are empty words: think carefully of the successes we arranged for Darwinism, Marxism, Nietzche-ism. (Darwin’s success was not an accident, but part of the plan.)To us, at any rate, it should be plain to see what a disintegrating importance these directives have had upon the minds of the masses.”[30]
Dr. Henry Morris wrote in his classic book The Long War Against God, “The one thing that all of the influences brought to bear on Charles Darwin seemed to have in common, however, was their strong opposition to biblical Christianity, both before and after publication of the Origins. If there really was a conspiracy involved, therefore, it must have been spiritual.” He goes on to say, “It is nothing less than a new and critical phase in the age long conflict between the only two basic world views. One is centered in the Creator of the world and his redemptive work on behalf of the lost world; the other is centered in the creatures of that world, not only man and his self-oriented goals, but also in the devil himself, who is ultimately behind all rebellion against God.”[31] Apostle Paul said something similar in his letters to the Ephesians, “We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”[32] Please take heed and become informed.
Do you know the God who created the universe? Have you met Jesus? Call upon Him with all your heart and He will reveal Himself to you. He says, “Call upon me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things that you know not of.”[33] Paul goes on to tell us, “God that made the world and all things therein, seeing that he is Lord of heaven and earth, dwells not in temples made with hands; neither is worshiped with men’s hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he gives to all life, and breath, and all things; and has made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all face of the earth, and has determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation; that they should seek the Lord, if haply they might feel after him, though he be not far from every one of us: for in him we live, and move, and have our being.”[34]
Please call upon Jesus if you have not done so yet. He stands at the door of your heart waiting to come in and give you peace of mind, heart and spirit. “Behold, I stand at the door and knock: if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.”[35] He wants to have daily fellowship with you and lead you by the hand through the perilous days that are ahead. If you have not received Jesus as yet, you could say a prayer similar to the following: “Dear Jesus, I realize I have gone my own way for these many years. I confused you with the hypocritical false religious system. I sincerely open my life to you. I want to know the truth, no matter how difficult it is for me to receive. I do not want to live in delusion. Open my heart and mind to you, to the Holy Spirit, to your word. Please forgive me for the offenses I have made in my life by being selfish and unloving to others. Cleanse me of all in my life that is not pleasing to you. Help me to follow you where you lead. In Jesus name, I pray.”
If you have prayed this prayer or one similar, Jesus has answered and has come into your heart. He will continue to work in you as you yield to him. Please pick up a New Testament and make a commitment to read it through. Meditate on its words as you do and let them affect change in your mental habits and ways of thinking. There are answers to those deep questions you have had about life. You do not need to be in confusion or doubt or despair. If you need any help in your spiritual quest and growth, I will be glad to share what I have learned and help you to grow in love and in the knowledge of the word of God and its truth. Jesus said, “If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; and ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.”[36]
Footnotes:
2. Morris, Men of Science-Men of Faith, pg.13.
3. James Perloff, Tornado in a Junkyard, pg.242 as quoted from John Hudson Tiner’s Johannes Kepler: Giant of Faith and Science, 1977, i.
6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Age_of_Reason, Thomas Paine, pg 50.
7. http://books.google.pt/books?isbn=1614581894,The Spurgeon Series 1855 & 1856: Unabridged Sermons In Modern Language , pg 78.
8. http://www.icr.org/article/826/174/ John Morris
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gap_creationism Gap Theory
10. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chalmers
11. Ibid
12. Derek Ager, The Nature of the Stratigraphical Record, Macmillan, 1981, pg. 46 & 47.
13. James H. Shea, “Twelve Fallacies of Uniformitarianism,” Geology 10 (Sept. 1982): 456.
14. Stephen Jay Gould, The Great Scablands Debate, Natural History, Vol. 87:7 (Aug.Sep 1978) pg. 12-14.
15. Dr. Carl Werner, Evolution the Grand Experiment, Audio Visual Consultants, 2007, page 12.
16. Ibid, pg. 22.
17. Ibid, pg. 16-19.
19. Richard Mauger, K-Ar ages of biotich from tuffs in Eocene rocks of the Green River, Contributions to Geology, University of Wyoming, vol 15:1, 1977, pg.37.
21. Aldous Huxley, "Confessions of a Professed Atheist," Report: Perspective on the News, Vol. 3, June 1966, p. 19.
22. 2 Peter 3:3-6, the New Testament.
23. 2 Peter 2:19, the New Testament.
24. Romans 1:21-23, the New Testament.
25. Phillip E. Johnson, Defeating Darwinism by Opening Minds, IVP, 1997, pg. 98.
26. Ibid, pg. 98-99.
27. Ibid, pg. 99.
28. W. Wayt Gibbs, "Profile: George F. R. Ellis," Scientific American, October 1995, Vol. 273, No.4, p. 55; http://www.big-bang-theory.com/.
29. Henry Ford, New York World, February 17, 1921; quoted by Des Griffin, Fourth Reich of the Rich, Emissary Publications, 1976, pg. 209.
30. Ibid, pg. 213.
31. Dr. Henry Morris, The Long War Against God, Master Books, 2000, pg.198 & 199.
32. Ephesians 6:12
33. Jeremiah 33:3
34. Acts 17:24-28
35. Revelation 3:20
36. John 8:31-32
Saturday, May 18, 2013
The Secret of Joy
Quotations of faith and hope in the midst of suffering
Compiled and edited by M. Fontaine
It’s easy to see why we need happy experiences and times of joy, peace, and contentment to encourage us through this life. But it can be a dilemma when we try to understand the need for suffering, sickness, loneliness, or grief.
It’s the contrast between the positive things and the negative ones that gives us a true perspective. Light is appreciated and valued because we’ve experienced darkness. Hope is truly valued after we’ve experienced despair. Our blessings bring us the greatest joy because we’ve experienced life without them at times. We value health because we’ve experienced sickness, and we understand the value of being loved because we know what it’s like to feel loneliness.
I don’t think there is anyone in their right mind who enjoys the suffering, the difficulties, the sickness, the pain and hardships of life, yet Paul tells us in the Bible that he is determined to glory in his infirmities that the power of God may rest upon him.[1] It’s when we can look to Him in whatever life brings that His power can rest on us and give us the strength we need to walk through it, the faith we need to trust Him, and His understanding to gain all the good that He has promised to bring.
Here are a few thoughts from people just like you and me, people who were deeply aware of their own deficiencies and inabilities. They discovered profound truths because they turned to God in times of trouble and He walked by their side through it all.
Thankfulness is the secret of joy.—Author unknown
We human beings instinctively regard the seen world as the “real” world and the unseen world as the “unreal” world, but the Bible calls for almost the opposite.—Phillip Yancey
I am just as loving and good on cloudy, stormy days as I am when the sun is shining. If each drop of rain or flash of lightning makes you lose faith and doubt My love, how will you stand? Praise Me through the bad, find the good, and give Me the blessing and honor of your trust even when you don’t understand.—Jesus in prophecy
Every truth about suffering can be twisted into a weapon for or against God. Most often suffering speeds us in the direction we are already heading—whether toward or away from God.—David McKenna
Don’t shake your head when you see a mom or dad with a Down syndrome child and say, No way could I face that. Most likely you couldn’t. Which is precisely why God hasn’t asked you to. Instead, take time to seriously consider how you will remain joyful within your own particular, unique, individual situation. Accept your circumstances as a gift from His hand. Dare to thank Him for them.—Joni Eareckson Tada
Think of your worst moments, your sorrows, your losses, your sadness, and then remember that here you are, able to remember them. You got through the worst day of your life. You got through the trauma, you got through the trial, you endured the temptation, you survived the bad relationship, you’re making your way out of the dark. Remember the bad things ... then look to see where you are. When we remember how difficult life used to be and how far we have come, we set up an explicit contrast in our mind, and this contrast is fertile ground for gratefulness.—Reverend Peter Gomes
When you praise Me in the midst of a difficulty, your praise isn’t how you feel about the situation; it’s how you feel about Me. You’re not glorifying the bad situation, you’re glorifying Me, telling Me that despite this situation, you know I’m still there and that because I am there, everything is going to be okay.—Jesus in prophecy
There is a mindset in the prosperous West that we deserve pain-free, trouble-free existence. When life deals us the opposite, we [suppose that we] have a right not only to blame somebody or some system and to feel sorry for ourselves, but also to devote most of our time to coping, so that we have no time or energy left for serving others.—John Piper
In suffering—pray that the trial increases your capacity for faith.—Bob O’Bannon
Don’t pray for a lighter burden. Pray for a stronger back.—Author unknown
Whenever you feel yourselves weak, do not say, “I am weak,” but seek the remedy—for it is God’s Word.—John Calvin
When is the devil being beaten? Well, not when we feel great and confident, when it looks like wonderful things are happening, when the ministry is going well. (And I speak to all of us, because we are all in the ministry. We all have an area of responsibility given to us by God.) No. The devil is being defeated when we are feeling attacked and under the gun, when we feel weak and helpless and do not know what to do, when we are not sure how to respond, when in our perplexities and sense of weakness we come before the Lord and plead with him for strength to go on one more day, and for grace to help us stand.—Ray Stedman
In times of trouble say, first: He brought me here; it is by His will I am in this strait place: In that I will rest. Next: He will keep me here in His love, and give me grace in this trial to behave as His child. Then: He will make the trial a blessing, teaching me the lessons He intends me to learn, and working in me the grace He means to bestow. Last: In His good time He can bring me out again—how and when He knows. Say: I am here (1) by God’s appointment (2) in His keeping (3) under His training (4) for His time.—Andrew Murray
God is not concerned about our plans; He doesn’t ask, “Do you want to go through the loss of a loved one, this difficulty or this defeat?” No, He allows these things for His own purpose. The things we are going through are either making us sweeter, better, and nobler men and women, or they are making us more critical and fault-finding and more insistent on our own way. The things that happen either make us evil or they make us more saintly, depending entirely on our relationship with God and its level of intimacy.—Oswald Chambers
There is still peace to be found in a troubled world. It resides in that quiet place of rest in My arms, which you can travel to in spirit any time, no matter what’s happening around you. If you find yourself having a hard time finding that special place, take some time to practice going there. Get familiar with the route that takes you there, and the more you go there, the easier it becomes, and it can be a blessed way to escape when things get too intense or your spirit needs respite.—Jesus in prophecy
Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord;
Once it was the feeling,
Now it is His Word.
Once His gifts I wanted,
Now the Giver own;
Once I sought for healing,
Now Himself alone.
Once ’twas painful trying,
Now ’tis perfect trust;
Once a half salvation,
Now the uttermost.
Once ’twas ceaseless holding,
Now He holds me fast;
Once ’twas constant drifting,
Now my anchor’s cast.
Once ’twas busy planning,
Now ’tis trustful prayer;
Once ’twas anxious caring,
Now He has the care.
Once ’twas what I wanted,
Now what Jesus says;
Once ’twas constant asking,
Now ’tis ceaseless praise.
Once it was my working,
His it hence shall be;
Once I tried to use Him,
Now He uses me.
Once the power I wanted,
Now the Mighty One;
Once for self I labored,
Now for Him alone.
Once I hoped in Jesus,
Now I know He’s mine;
Once my lamps were dying,
Now they brightly shine.
Once for death I waited,
Now His coming hail;
And my hopes are anchored,
Safe within the veil.—A. B. Simpson
[1] 2 Corinthians 12:9.
Friday, May 17, 2013
Thursday, May 16, 2013
History Lessons the West Refuses to Learn
By Patrick Cockburn, Counterpunch, May 13, 2013
In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain and France famously created the modern Middle East by carving up what had been the Ottoman Empire. The borders of new states such as Iraq and Syria were determined in keeping with British and French needs and interests. The wishes of local inhabitants were largely ignored.
Now, for the first time in over 90 years, the whole postwar settlement in the region is coming unstuck. External frontiers are no longer the impassable barriers they were until recently, while internal dividing lines are becoming as complicated to cross as international frontiers.
In Syria, the government no longer controls many crossing points into Turkey and Iraq. Syrian rebels advance and retreat without hindrance across their country’s international borders, while Shia and Sunni fighters from Lebanon increasingly fight on opposing sides in Syria. The Israelis bomb Syria at will. Of course, the movements of guerrilla bands in the midst of a civil war do not necessarily mean that the state is finally disintegrating. But the permeability of its borders suggests that whoever comes out as the winner of the Syrian civil war will rule a weak state scarcely capable of defending itself.
The same process is at work in Iraq. The so-called trigger line dividing Kurdish-controlled territory in the north from the rest of Iraq is more and more like a frontier defended on both sides by armed force. Baghdad infuriated the Kurds last year by setting up the Dijla (Tigris) Operations Command, which threatened to enforce central military control over areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.
Dividing lines got more complicated in Iraq after the Hawaijah massacre on 23 April left at least 44 Sunni Arab protesters dead. This came after four months of massive but peaceful Sunni protests against discrimination and persecution. The result of this ever-deeper rift between the Sunni and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is that Iraqi troops in Sunni-majority areas behave like an occupation army. At night, they abandon isolated outposts so they can concentrate forces in defensible positions. Iraqi government control in the northern half of the country is becoming ever more tenuous.
Does it really matter to the rest of the world who fights whom in the impoverished country towns of the Syrian interior or in the plains and mountains of Kurdistan? The lesson of the last few thousand years is that it matters a great deal. The region between Syria’s Mediterranean coast and the western frontier of Iran has traditionally been a zone where empires collide. Maps of the area are littered with the names of battlefields where Romans fought against Parthians, Ottomans against Safavids, and British against Turks.
It is interesting but chilling to see the carelessness with which the British and French divided up this area under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The British were to control the provinces of Baghdad and Basra and have influence further north. The French were to hold south-east Turkey and northern Syria and the province of Mosul, believed to contain oil. It turned out, however, that British generosity over Mosul was due to Britain having promised eastern Turkey to Tsarist Russia and thinking it would be useful to have a French cordon sanitaire between themselves and the Russian army.
Sykes-Picot reflected wartime priorities and was never implemented as such. The British promise to give Mosul to France became void with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and the Bolsheviks’ unsporting publication of Russia’s secret agreements with its former French and British allies. But in negotiations in 1918-19 leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, only the most perfunctory attention was given to the long-term effect of the distribution of the spoils.
Discussing Mesopotamia and Palestine with David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, who was not very interested in the Middle East, said: “Tell me what you want.” Lloyd George: “I want Mosul.” Clemenceau: “You shall have it. Anything else?” Lloyd George: “Yes, I want Jerusalem too.” Clemenceau agreed with alacrity to this as well, though he warned there might be trouble over Mosul, which even then was suspected to contain oil.
Those negotiations have a fascination because so many of the issues supposedly settled then are still in dispute. Worse, agreements reached then laid the basis for so many future disputes and wars that still continue, or are yet to come. Arguments made at that time are still being made.
Not surprisingly, the leaders of the 30 million Kurds are the most jubilant at the discrediting of agreements of which they, along with the Palestinians, were to be the greatest victims. After being divided between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, they sense their moment has finally come. In Iraq, they enjoy autonomy close to independence, and in Syria they have seized control of their own towns and villages. In Turkey, as the PKK Turkish Kurd guerrillas begin to trek back to the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq under a peace deal, the Kurds have shown that, in 30 years of war, the Turkish state has failed to crush them.
But as the 20th century settlement of the Middle East collapses, the outcome is unlikely to be peace and prosperity. It is easy to see what is wrong with the governments in present-day Iraq and Syria, but not what would replace them. Look at the almost unanimous applause among foreign politicians and media at the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, then look at Libya now, its government permanently besieged or on the run from militia gunmen.
If President Bashar al-Assad did fall in Syria, who would replace him? Does anybody really think that peace would automatically follow? Is it not far more likely that there would be continued and even intensified war, as happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003? The Syrian rebels and their supporters downplay the similarities between the crises in Iraq and Syria, but they have ominous similarities. Saddam may have been unpopular in Iraq, but those who supported him or worked for him could not be excluded from power and turned into second-class citizens without a fight.
US, British and French recipes for Syria’s future seem as fraught with potential for disaster as their plans in 1916 or 2003. In saying that Assad can play no role in a future Syrian government, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, speaks of the leader of a government that has still only lost one provincial capital to the rebels. Such terms can only be imposed on the defeated or those near defeat. This will only happen in Syria if Western powers intervene militarily on behalf of the insurgents, as they did in Libya, but the long-term results might be equally dismal.
In the aftermath of the First World War, Britain and France famously created the modern Middle East by carving up what had been the Ottoman Empire. The borders of new states such as Iraq and Syria were determined in keeping with British and French needs and interests. The wishes of local inhabitants were largely ignored.
Now, for the first time in over 90 years, the whole postwar settlement in the region is coming unstuck. External frontiers are no longer the impassable barriers they were until recently, while internal dividing lines are becoming as complicated to cross as international frontiers.
In Syria, the government no longer controls many crossing points into Turkey and Iraq. Syrian rebels advance and retreat without hindrance across their country’s international borders, while Shia and Sunni fighters from Lebanon increasingly fight on opposing sides in Syria. The Israelis bomb Syria at will. Of course, the movements of guerrilla bands in the midst of a civil war do not necessarily mean that the state is finally disintegrating. But the permeability of its borders suggests that whoever comes out as the winner of the Syrian civil war will rule a weak state scarcely capable of defending itself.
The same process is at work in Iraq. The so-called trigger line dividing Kurdish-controlled territory in the north from the rest of Iraq is more and more like a frontier defended on both sides by armed force. Baghdad infuriated the Kurds last year by setting up the Dijla (Tigris) Operations Command, which threatened to enforce central military control over areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.
Dividing lines got more complicated in Iraq after the Hawaijah massacre on 23 April left at least 44 Sunni Arab protesters dead. This came after four months of massive but peaceful Sunni protests against discrimination and persecution. The result of this ever-deeper rift between the Sunni and the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad is that Iraqi troops in Sunni-majority areas behave like an occupation army. At night, they abandon isolated outposts so they can concentrate forces in defensible positions. Iraqi government control in the northern half of the country is becoming ever more tenuous.
Does it really matter to the rest of the world who fights whom in the impoverished country towns of the Syrian interior or in the plains and mountains of Kurdistan? The lesson of the last few thousand years is that it matters a great deal. The region between Syria’s Mediterranean coast and the western frontier of Iran has traditionally been a zone where empires collide. Maps of the area are littered with the names of battlefields where Romans fought against Parthians, Ottomans against Safavids, and British against Turks.
It is interesting but chilling to see the carelessness with which the British and French divided up this area under the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. The British were to control the provinces of Baghdad and Basra and have influence further north. The French were to hold south-east Turkey and northern Syria and the province of Mosul, believed to contain oil. It turned out, however, that British generosity over Mosul was due to Britain having promised eastern Turkey to Tsarist Russia and thinking it would be useful to have a French cordon sanitaire between themselves and the Russian army.
Sykes-Picot reflected wartime priorities and was never implemented as such. The British promise to give Mosul to France became void with the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 and the Bolsheviks’ unsporting publication of Russia’s secret agreements with its former French and British allies. But in negotiations in 1918-19 leading up to the Treaty of Versailles, only the most perfunctory attention was given to the long-term effect of the distribution of the spoils.
Discussing Mesopotamia and Palestine with David Lloyd George, Georges Clemenceau, the French Prime Minister, who was not very interested in the Middle East, said: “Tell me what you want.” Lloyd George: “I want Mosul.” Clemenceau: “You shall have it. Anything else?” Lloyd George: “Yes, I want Jerusalem too.” Clemenceau agreed with alacrity to this as well, though he warned there might be trouble over Mosul, which even then was suspected to contain oil.
Those negotiations have a fascination because so many of the issues supposedly settled then are still in dispute. Worse, agreements reached then laid the basis for so many future disputes and wars that still continue, or are yet to come. Arguments made at that time are still being made.
Not surprisingly, the leaders of the 30 million Kurds are the most jubilant at the discrediting of agreements of which they, along with the Palestinians, were to be the greatest victims. After being divided between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria, they sense their moment has finally come. In Iraq, they enjoy autonomy close to independence, and in Syria they have seized control of their own towns and villages. In Turkey, as the PKK Turkish Kurd guerrillas begin to trek back to the Qandil mountains in northern Iraq under a peace deal, the Kurds have shown that, in 30 years of war, the Turkish state has failed to crush them.
But as the 20th century settlement of the Middle East collapses, the outcome is unlikely to be peace and prosperity. It is easy to see what is wrong with the governments in present-day Iraq and Syria, but not what would replace them. Look at the almost unanimous applause among foreign politicians and media at the fall of Colonel Gaddafi in 2011, then look at Libya now, its government permanently besieged or on the run from militia gunmen.
If President Bashar al-Assad did fall in Syria, who would replace him? Does anybody really think that peace would automatically follow? Is it not far more likely that there would be continued and even intensified war, as happened in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003? The Syrian rebels and their supporters downplay the similarities between the crises in Iraq and Syria, but they have ominous similarities. Saddam may have been unpopular in Iraq, but those who supported him or worked for him could not be excluded from power and turned into second-class citizens without a fight.
US, British and French recipes for Syria’s future seem as fraught with potential for disaster as their plans in 1916 or 2003. In saying that Assad can play no role in a future Syrian government, the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, speaks of the leader of a government that has still only lost one provincial capital to the rebels. Such terms can only be imposed on the defeated or those near defeat. This will only happen in Syria if Western powers intervene militarily on behalf of the insurgents, as they did in Libya, but the long-term results might be equally dismal.
Russia Upset About "Bee Apocalypse"
EU Times, May 10th, 2013
The minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leader’s outrage over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse.”
At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.
So grave has this situation become, the MNRE reports, the full European Commission (EC) this past week instituted a two-year precautionary ban (set to begin on 1 December 2013) on these “bee killing” pesticides following the lead of Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, all of whom had previously banned these most dangerous of genetically altered organisms from being used on the continent.
Two of the most feared neonicotinoids being banned are Actara and Cruiser made by the Swiss global bio-tech seed and pesticide giant Syngenta AG which employs over 26,000 people in over 90 countries and ranks third in total global sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market.
Important to note, this report says, is that Syngenta, along with bio-tech giants Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and DuPont, now control nearly 100% of the global market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.
Also to note about Syngenta, this report continues, is that in 2012 it was criminally charged in Germany for concealing the fact that its genetically modified corn killed cattle, and settled a class-action lawsuit in the US for $105 million after it was discovered they had contaminated the drinking supply of some 52 million Americans in more than 2,000 water districts with its “gender-bending” herbicide Atrazine.
How staggeringly frightful this situation is, the MNRE says, can be seen in the report issued this past March by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) wherein they warned our whole planet is in danger, and as we can, in part, read:
“As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.
“It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.
“A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,” Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the oldest neonicotinoid—called imidacloprid—can fatally poison a bird. And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”
The new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both surface- and ground water in the United States and around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates.”
Quickly following this damning report, the MRNE says, a large group of group of American beekeepers and environmentalists sued the Obama regime over the continued use of these neonicotinoids stating: “We are taking the EPA to court for its failure to protect bees from pesticides. Despite our best efforts to warn the agency about the problems posed by neonicotinoids, the EPA continued to ignore the clear warning signs of an agricultural system in trouble.”
And to how bad the world’s agricultural system has really become due to these genetically modified plants, pesticides and seeds, this report continues, can be seen by the EC’s proposal this past week, following their ban on neonicotinoids, in which they plan to criminalize nearly all seeds and plants not registered with the European Union, and as we can, in part, read:
“Europe is rushing towards the good ol days circa 1939, 40… A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”
It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.”
This MRNE report points out that even though this EC action may appear draconian, it is nevertheless necessary in order to purge the continent from continued contamination of these genetically bred “seed monstrosities.”
Most perplexing in all of this, the MRNE says, and which led to Putin’s anger at the US, has been the Obama regimes efforts to protect pesticide-producer profits over the catastrophic damaging being done to the environment, and as the Guardian News Service detailed in their 2 May article titled “US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse” and which, in part, says:
“The European Union voted this week for a two-year ban on a class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that has been associated with the bees’ collapse. The US government report, in contrast, found multiple causes for the collapse of the honeybees.”
To the “truer” reason for the Obama regimes protection of these bio-tech giants destroying our world, the MRNE says, can be viewed in the report titled “How did Barack Obama become Monsanto’s man in Washington?” and which, in part, says:
“After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center. As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.”
Even worse, after Russia suspended the import and use of an Monsanto genetically modified corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage this past September, the Russia Today News Service reported on the Obama regimes response:
“The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week—including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.
The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.
The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.”
On 26 March, Obama quietly signed this “Monsanto Protection Act” into law thus ensuring the American people have no recourse against this bio-tech giant as they fall ill, and many millions will surely end up dying in what this MRNE report calls the greatest agricultural apocalypse in human history as over 90% of feral (wild) bee population in the US has already died out, and up to 80% of domestic bees have died out too.
The minutes relating to President Putin’s meeting this past week with US Secretary of State John Kerry reveal the Russian leader’s outrage over the Obama regimes continued protection of global seed and plant bio-genetic giants Syngenta and Monsanto in the face of a growing “bee apocalypse.”
At the center of this dispute between Russia and the US, this MNRE report says, is the “undisputed evidence” that a class of neuro-active insecticides chemically related to nicotine, known as neonicotinoids, are destroying our planets bee population, and which if left unchecked could destroy our world’s ability to grow enough food to feed its population.
So grave has this situation become, the MNRE reports, the full European Commission (EC) this past week instituted a two-year precautionary ban (set to begin on 1 December 2013) on these “bee killing” pesticides following the lead of Switzerland, France, Italy, Russia, Slovenia and Ukraine, all of whom had previously banned these most dangerous of genetically altered organisms from being used on the continent.
Two of the most feared neonicotinoids being banned are Actara and Cruiser made by the Swiss global bio-tech seed and pesticide giant Syngenta AG which employs over 26,000 people in over 90 countries and ranks third in total global sales in the commercial agricultural seeds market.
Important to note, this report says, is that Syngenta, along with bio-tech giants Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and DuPont, now control nearly 100% of the global market for genetically modified pesticides, plants and seeds.
Also to note about Syngenta, this report continues, is that in 2012 it was criminally charged in Germany for concealing the fact that its genetically modified corn killed cattle, and settled a class-action lawsuit in the US for $105 million after it was discovered they had contaminated the drinking supply of some 52 million Americans in more than 2,000 water districts with its “gender-bending” herbicide Atrazine.
How staggeringly frightful this situation is, the MNRE says, can be seen in the report issued this past March by the American Bird Conservancy (ABC) wherein they warned our whole planet is in danger, and as we can, in part, read:
“As part of a study on impacts from the world’s most widely used class of insecticides, nicotine-like chemicals called neonicotinoids, American Bird Conservancy (ABC) has called for a ban on their use as seed treatments and for the suspension of all applications pending an independent review of the products’ effects on birds, terrestrial and aquatic invertebrates, and other wildlife.
“It is clear that these chemicals have the potential to affect entire food chains. The environmental persistence of the neonicotinoids, their propensity for runoff and for groundwater infiltration, and their cumulative and largely irreversible mode of action in invertebrates raise significant environmental concerns,” said Cynthia Palmer, co-author of the report and Pesticides Program Manager for ABC, one of the nation’s leading bird conservation organizations.
“A single corn kernel coated with a neonicotinoid can kill a songbird,” Palmer said. “Even a tiny grain of wheat or canola treated with the oldest neonicotinoid—called imidacloprid—can fatally poison a bird. And as little as 1/10th of a neonicotinoid-coated corn seed per day during egg-laying season is all that is needed to affect reproduction.”
The new report concludes that neonicotinoid contamination levels in both surface- and ground water in the United States and around the world are already beyond the threshold found to kill many aquatic invertebrates.”
Quickly following this damning report, the MRNE says, a large group of group of American beekeepers and environmentalists sued the Obama regime over the continued use of these neonicotinoids stating: “We are taking the EPA to court for its failure to protect bees from pesticides. Despite our best efforts to warn the agency about the problems posed by neonicotinoids, the EPA continued to ignore the clear warning signs of an agricultural system in trouble.”
And to how bad the world’s agricultural system has really become due to these genetically modified plants, pesticides and seeds, this report continues, can be seen by the EC’s proposal this past week, following their ban on neonicotinoids, in which they plan to criminalize nearly all seeds and plants not registered with the European Union, and as we can, in part, read:
“Europe is rushing towards the good ol days circa 1939, 40… A new law proposed by the European Commission would make it illegal to “grow, reproduce or trade” any vegetable seeds that have not been “tested, approved and accepted” by a new EU bureaucracy named the “EU Plant Variety Agency.”
It’s called the Plant Reproductive Material Law, and it attempts to put the government in charge of virtually all plants and seeds. Home gardeners who grow their own plants from non-regulated seeds would be considered criminals under this law.”
This MRNE report points out that even though this EC action may appear draconian, it is nevertheless necessary in order to purge the continent from continued contamination of these genetically bred “seed monstrosities.”
Most perplexing in all of this, the MRNE says, and which led to Putin’s anger at the US, has been the Obama regimes efforts to protect pesticide-producer profits over the catastrophic damaging being done to the environment, and as the Guardian News Service detailed in their 2 May article titled “US rejects EU claim of insecticide as prime reason for bee colony collapse” and which, in part, says:
“The European Union voted this week for a two-year ban on a class of pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, that has been associated with the bees’ collapse. The US government report, in contrast, found multiple causes for the collapse of the honeybees.”
To the “truer” reason for the Obama regimes protection of these bio-tech giants destroying our world, the MRNE says, can be viewed in the report titled “How did Barack Obama become Monsanto’s man in Washington?” and which, in part, says:
“After his victory in the 2008 election, Obama filled key posts with Monsanto people, in federal agencies that wield tremendous force in food issues, the USDA and the FDA: At the USDA, as the director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, Roger Beachy, former director of the Monsanto Danforth Center. As deputy commissioner of the FDA, the new food-safety-issues czar, Michael Taylor, former vice-president for public policy for Monsanto. Taylor had been instrumental in getting approval for Monsanto’s genetically engineered bovine growth hormone.”
Even worse, after Russia suspended the import and use of an Monsanto genetically modified corn following a study suggesting a link to breast cancer and organ damage this past September, the Russia Today News Service reported on the Obama regimes response:
“The US House of Representatives quietly passed a last-minute addition to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill for 2013 last week—including a provision protecting genetically modified seeds from litigation in the face of health risks.
The rider, which is officially known as the Farmer Assurance Provision, has been derided by opponents of biotech lobbying as the “Monsanto Protection Act,” as it would strip federal courts of the authority to immediately halt the planting and sale of genetically modified (GMO) seed crop regardless of any consumer health concerns.
The provision, also decried as a “biotech rider,” should have gone through the Agricultural or Judiciary Committees for review. Instead, no hearings were held, and the piece was evidently unknown to most Democrats (who hold the majority in the Senate) prior to its approval as part of HR 993, the short-term funding bill that was approved to avoid a federal government shutdown.”
On 26 March, Obama quietly signed this “Monsanto Protection Act” into law thus ensuring the American people have no recourse against this bio-tech giant as they fall ill, and many millions will surely end up dying in what this MRNE report calls the greatest agricultural apocalypse in human history as over 90% of feral (wild) bee population in the US has already died out, and up to 80% of domestic bees have died out too.
