Former CBS News president Richard Salant (1961 - 64 and 1966 - 79) explained the major media's role: "Our job is to give people not what they want, but what we decide they ought to have." ...and to this very day most Americans haven't noticed they're being brained washed! ~ N. Hooben
Saturday, November 15, 2008
Friday, November 14, 2008
The Greatest Analogy Ever Told - and you still don't get it! Wake up citizens before we are no longer!
Cross posted from http://plancksconstant.org/blog1/2008/11/bearophobia_and_the_coming_holocaust.html
Bearophobia and the Coming Holocaust
Posted by Bernie on November 13, 2008 09:10 PM
My name is Bernie and I am a bearophobe. I do not hate bears but I do fear meeting one Mano-a-Urso in the woods. Having a healthy fear of bears is not a prejudice against the species and I should think sane people would agree.
But some readers will object. They'll point out that there are very few people killed each year by bears and that perhaps we should have more fear of cars given that each year tens of thousands of Americans die from auto accidents. However, after a short examination we find this argument specious. Let me explain: considering the volumes involved, millions of drivers and hundreds of billions of car-miles, there are relatively few fatalities, only 1.37 per 100,000,000 miles driven which is the lowest level in decades. [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration]
What this means is that millions of us can spend a lifetime coming in contact with hundreds of thousands of cars without worrying about getting killed; however, all that's needed for a deadly bear attack is one or two incidents. The chances of getting killed by a car if you see one on the road is less than a trillion to one so there is very little to worry about. If you come face to face with a bear in the woods there is a good chance you'll be killed.
Of course, one can always find a nut-job who makes fun of bearophobes like me; take for example, Timothy Treadwell, whose book, Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska
, advanced the theory that fear of bears is over-exaggerated. It should be noted that Treadwell often received citations for violating Park Service rules; even worrying authorities by refusing to install an electric fence around his camp or carry bear spray as a deterrent. Who needs that when bears are such pussy cats, eh?
In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, a physician assistant, Amie Huguenard, visited Katmai National Park in Alaska. On Sunday, 5 Oct 2003, Treadwell spoke with an associate in Malibu, California by satellite phone. Treadwell mentioned no problems with any bears. The next day, October 6, the bodies of Treadwell and Huguenard were discovered by Willy Fulton, the Kodiak air taxi pilot who arrived at their campsite to pick them up. Treadwell's disfigured head, partial backbone, and left forearm and hand still wearing his wrist watch were recovered at the scene. Huguenard's partial remains were found near the encampment somewhat buried in a mound of twigs and dirt. In the 85-year history of Katmai National Park, this was the first incident of a person being killed by a bear. [Wiki]
The first bear-caused fatality in the 85-year history of the park and one that would not have occurred if Treadwell were simply a bearophobe instead of a bears-are-harmless moron. I can assure you that if I were stupid enough to camp near bears, I would have had an electric fence and something stronger than pepper-spray for defense. There are those who make fun of bearophobes and there are those who are alive and bear-fearful.
Seven decades ago, very intelligent people from a culture that spawned operas, great literature, and scientific genius closed their eyes to the evil unfolding before them, refusing to believe that intelligent, civilized, cultured fellow Germans could be capable of unspeakable brutality. By their blindness, their tolerance for wickedness and savagery, they allowed a military system with religious overtones bent on world domination to take control of their country. Had I been living back then, criticizing Nazi ideology, I would have been called a Nazi-phobe, a fearmonger, a spreader of hatred for people who are different from me.
Of course, by the 1940s I would have been proven right for fearing Nazis, for calling them barbaric and brutal. But it was not Hitler who killed tens of millions of people but normal, ordinary volk who were blind to the monstrous evil so obvious to us now.
Those who were 20 or 30 years old when Hitler rose to power are now 98 to 108 years old, so there are very few left who remember how easily they accepted the lie that Hitler is just like any other national leader; that if we don't make waves, if we tolerate his silly demands, if we acquiesce to his requests for accommodation, if we simply appease, bend in submission, then everything will be OK - we will have peace in our time.
How soon we forget. Young Americans who are 20 to 30 years old and who think Islam is just another religion will one day learn otherwise: that a world Caliphate is not just the dream of fanatics but the aspiration of every faithful Muslim. I have never advocated harming any Muslim in this country; likewise if this were America 1930 I would not suggest that we shoot Nazis in the street. However I certainly would be demanding that my government not allow them to come into our country.
Many people come here precisely because of our religious freedoms. This does not mean we should tolerate those who believe in human sacrifice as did the Aztecs, for example. If a cult sprang up in Chicago that proclaimed that they are Aztecs and that they have a right to sacrifice a few virgins each year and we should allow them to do so because of religious freedom, no sane person would tolerate it. Not even complete morons like Al Franken.
Yet we tolerate a backward, barbaric, primitive, savage, vile, evil military system known as Islam because we misguidedly call it a religion similar to Christianity and Judaism. I will give bare props to Mohammed for pretending that Islam is merely a continuation of the faith of Moses and Jesus by sprinkling the Quran with a few stories from the Old Testament and a few paragraphs on Mary and Jesus. Amazingly, Mohammed praises the People of the Book, as Christians and Jews are called by Muslims, all the while exhorting the faithful to convert, subjugate or kill them. It's worthy of a Kafka novel.
Hitler, should have said his inspiration came directly from Gott, sprinkled a few stories about Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus into Mein Kampf and called it a Holy Book. Had he done so, he could have killed Christians and Jews with impunity as do Muslims now and no one dare criticize his followers because, after all, it's a religion just like all others. Had Hitler done that, I bet American Liberal Jews who lost more than 90% of their families in the Holocaust, would be denouncing anyone who criticizes Nazism, calling them Naziphobes and intolerant bigots just as today they call me an Islamophobe (and I am a proud Islamophobe) and an intolerant bigot.
On a wall in Dachau there are words in five languages all saying "Never Again". It seems that most of the world just does not understand what that means. Worse, Jews have completely forgotten the lessons of the Holocaust. Look at how we appease Muslims in America and how Europeans cannot scrape their knees enough to fellate them. In a few years when my generation is gone, if Liberals have their way, then young people will look at the photo above and ask, "What were pizza ovens doing in a prison camp?"
Never again? More like, here we go again.
My name is Bernie and I am a bearophobe. I do not hate bears but I do fear meeting one Mano-a-Urso in the woods. Having a healthy fear of bears is not a prejudice against the species and I should think sane people would agree.
But some readers will object. They'll point out that there are very few people killed each year by bears and that perhaps we should have more fear of cars given that each year tens of thousands of Americans die from auto accidents. However, after a short examination we find this argument specious. Let me explain: considering the volumes involved, millions of drivers and hundreds of billions of car-miles, there are relatively few fatalities, only 1.37 per 100,000,000 miles driven which is the lowest level in decades. [National Highway Traffic Safety Administration]
What this means is that millions of us can spend a lifetime coming in contact with hundreds of thousands of cars without worrying about getting killed; however, all that's needed for a deadly bear attack is one or two incidents. The chances of getting killed by a car if you see one on the road is less than a trillion to one so there is very little to worry about. If you come face to face with a bear in the woods there is a good chance you'll be killed.
Of course, one can always find a nut-job who makes fun of bearophobes like me; take for example, Timothy Treadwell, whose book, Among Grizzlies: Living with Wild Bears in Alaska
In October 2003, Treadwell and his girlfriend, a physician assistant, Amie Huguenard, visited Katmai National Park in Alaska. On Sunday, 5 Oct 2003, Treadwell spoke with an associate in Malibu, California by satellite phone. Treadwell mentioned no problems with any bears. The next day, October 6, the bodies of Treadwell and Huguenard were discovered by Willy Fulton, the Kodiak air taxi pilot who arrived at their campsite to pick them up. Treadwell's disfigured head, partial backbone, and left forearm and hand still wearing his wrist watch were recovered at the scene. Huguenard's partial remains were found near the encampment somewhat buried in a mound of twigs and dirt. In the 85-year history of Katmai National Park, this was the first incident of a person being killed by a bear. [Wiki]
The first bear-caused fatality in the 85-year history of the park and one that would not have occurred if Treadwell were simply a bearophobe instead of a bears-are-harmless moron. I can assure you that if I were stupid enough to camp near bears, I would have had an electric fence and something stronger than pepper-spray for defense. There are those who make fun of bearophobes and there are those who are alive and bear-fearful.
Seven decades ago, very intelligent people from a culture that spawned operas, great literature, and scientific genius closed their eyes to the evil unfolding before them, refusing to believe that intelligent, civilized, cultured fellow Germans could be capable of unspeakable brutality. By their blindness, their tolerance for wickedness and savagery, they allowed a military system with religious overtones bent on world domination to take control of their country. Had I been living back then, criticizing Nazi ideology, I would have been called a Nazi-phobe, a fearmonger, a spreader of hatred for people who are different from me.
Of course, by the 1940s I would have been proven right for fearing Nazis, for calling them barbaric and brutal. But it was not Hitler who killed tens of millions of people but normal, ordinary volk who were blind to the monstrous evil so obvious to us now.
Those who were 20 or 30 years old when Hitler rose to power are now 98 to 108 years old, so there are very few left who remember how easily they accepted the lie that Hitler is just like any other national leader; that if we don't make waves, if we tolerate his silly demands, if we acquiesce to his requests for accommodation, if we simply appease, bend in submission, then everything will be OK - we will have peace in our time.
How soon we forget. Young Americans who are 20 to 30 years old and who think Islam is just another religion will one day learn otherwise: that a world Caliphate is not just the dream of fanatics but the aspiration of every faithful Muslim. I have never advocated harming any Muslim in this country; likewise if this were America 1930 I would not suggest that we shoot Nazis in the street. However I certainly would be demanding that my government not allow them to come into our country.
Many people come here precisely because of our religious freedoms. This does not mean we should tolerate those who believe in human sacrifice as did the Aztecs, for example. If a cult sprang up in Chicago that proclaimed that they are Aztecs and that they have a right to sacrifice a few virgins each year and we should allow them to do so because of religious freedom, no sane person would tolerate it. Not even complete morons like Al Franken.
Yet we tolerate a backward, barbaric, primitive, savage, vile, evil military system known as Islam because we misguidedly call it a religion similar to Christianity and Judaism. I will give bare props to Mohammed for pretending that Islam is merely a continuation of the faith of Moses and Jesus by sprinkling the Quran with a few stories from the Old Testament and a few paragraphs on Mary and Jesus. Amazingly, Mohammed praises the People of the Book, as Christians and Jews are called by Muslims, all the while exhorting the faithful to convert, subjugate or kill them. It's worthy of a Kafka novel.
Hitler, should have said his inspiration came directly from Gott, sprinkled a few stories about Abraham, Noah, Moses and Jesus into Mein Kampf and called it a Holy Book. Had he done so, he could have killed Christians and Jews with impunity as do Muslims now and no one dare criticize his followers because, after all, it's a religion just like all others. Had Hitler done that, I bet American Liberal Jews who lost more than 90% of their families in the Holocaust, would be denouncing anyone who criticizes Nazism, calling them Naziphobes and intolerant bigots just as today they call me an Islamophobe (and I am a proud Islamophobe) and an intolerant bigot.
On a wall in Dachau there are words in five languages all saying "Never Again". It seems that most of the world just does not understand what that means. Worse, Jews have completely forgotten the lessons of the Holocaust. Look at how we appease Muslims in America and how Europeans cannot scrape their knees enough to fellate them. In a few years when my generation is gone, if Liberals have their way, then young people will look at the photo above and ask, "What were pizza ovens doing in a prison camp?"
Never again? More like, here we go again.
Fraud and Virus Warning
Cross posted from: http://www.ups.com/content/us/en/about/news/service_updates/fraud.html| Fraud and Virus Warning |
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Wednesday, November 12, 2008
Goodbye America...our last best hope on earth
The night we waved goodbye to America... our last best hope on Earth
This is Peter Hitchens' Mail on Sunday column
Anyone would think we had just elected a hip, skinny and youthful replacement for God, with a plan to modernise Heaven and Hell – or that at the very least John Lennon had come back from the dead.
The swooning frenzy over the choice of Barack Obama as President of the United States must be one of the most absurd waves of self-deception and swirling fantasy ever to sweep through an advanced civilisation. At least Mandela-worship – its nearest equivalent – is focused on a man who actually did something.
I really don’t see how the Obama devotees can ever in future mock the Moonies, the Scientologists or people who claim to have been abducted in flying saucers. This is a cult like the one which grew up around Princess Diana, bereft of reason and hostile to facts.
Proper books, recording his sordid associates, his cowardly voting record, his astonishingly militant commitment to unrestricted abortion and his blundering trip to Africa, are little-read and hard to find.
If you can believe that this undistinguished and conventionally Left-wing machine politician is a sort of secular saviour, then you can believe anything. He plainly doesn’t believe it himself. His cliche-stuffed, PC clunker of an acceptance speech suffered badly from nerves. It was what you would expect from someone who knew he’d promised too much and that from now on the easy bit was over.
He needn’t worry too much. From now on, the rough boys and girls of America’s Democratic Party apparatus, many recycled from Bill Clinton’s stained and crumpled entourage, will crowd round him, to collect the rich spoils of his victory and also tell him what to do, which is what he is used to.
Just look at his sermon by the shores of Lake Michigan. He really did talk about a ‘new dawn’, and a ‘timeless creed’ (which was ‘yes, we can’). He proclaimed that ‘change has come’. He revealed that, despite having edited the Harvard Law Review, he doesn’t know what ‘enormity’ means. He reached depths of oratorical drivel never even plumbed by our own Mr Blair, burbling about putting our hands on the arc of history (or was it the ark of history?) and bending it once more toward the hope of a better day (Don’t try this at home).
I am not making this up. No wonder that awful old hack Jesse Jackson sobbed as he watched. How he must wish he, too, could get away with this sort of stuff.
And it was interesting how the President-elect failed to lift his admiring audience by repeated – but rather hesitant – invocations of the brainless slogan he was forced by his minders to adopt against his will – ‘Yes, we can’. They were supposed to thunder ‘Yes, we can!’ back at him, but they just wouldn’t join in. No wonder. Yes we can what exactly? Go home and keep a close eye on the tax rate, is my advice. He’d have been better off bursting into ‘I’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony’ which contains roughly the same message and might have attracted some valuable commercial sponsorship.
Perhaps, being a Chicago crowd, they knew some of the things that 52.5 per cent of America prefers not to know. They know Obama is the obedient servant of one of the most squalid and unshakeable political machines in America. They know that one of his alarmingly close associates, a state-subsidised slum landlord called Tony Rezko, has been convicted on fraud and corruption charges.
They also know the US is just as segregated as it was before Martin Luther King – in schools, streets, neighbourhoods, holidays, even in its TV-watching habits and its choice of fast-food joint. The difference is that it is now done by unspoken agreement rather than by law.
If Mr Obama’s election had threatened any of that, his feel-good white supporters would have scuttled off and voted for John McCain, or practically anyone. But it doesn’t. Mr Obama, thanks mainly to the now-departed grandmother he alternately praised as a saint and denounced as a racial bigot, has the huge advantages of an expensive private education. He did not have to grow up in the badlands of useless schools, shattered families and gangs which are the lot of so many young black men of his generation.
If the nonsensical claims made for this election were true, then every positive discrimination programme aimed at helping black people into jobs they otherwise wouldn’t get should be abandoned forthwith. Nothing of the kind will happen. On the contrary, there will probably be more of them.
And if those who voted for Obama were all proving their anti-racist nobility, that presumably means that those many millions who didn’t vote for him were proving themselves to be hopeless bigots. This is obviously untrue.
I was in Washington DC the night of the election. America’s beautiful capital has a sad secret. It is perhaps the most racially divided city in the world, with 15th Street – which runs due north from the White House – the unofficial frontier between black and white. But, like so much of America, it also now has a new division, and one which is in many ways much more important. I had attended an election-night party in a smart and liberal white area, but was staying the night less than a mile away on the edge of a suburb where Spanish is spoken as much as English, plus a smattering of tongues from such places as Ethiopia, Somalia and Afghanistan.
As I walked, I crossed another of Washington’s secret frontiers. There had been a few white people blowing car horns and shouting, as the result became clear. But among the Mexicans, Salvadorans and the other Third World nationalities, there was something like ecstasy.
They grasped the real significance of this moment. They knew it meant that America had finally switched sides in a global cultural war. Forget the Cold War, or even the Iraq War. The United States, having for the most part a deeply conservative people, had until now just about stood out against many of the mistakes which have ruined so much of the rest of the world.
Suspicious of welfare addiction, feeble justice and high taxes, totally committed to preserving its own national sovereignty, unabashedly Christian in a world part secular and part Muslim, suspicious of the Great Global Warming panic, it was unique.
These strengths had been fading for some time, mainly due to poorly controlled mass immigration and to the march of political correctness. They had also been weakened by the failure of America’s conservative party – the Republicans – to fight on the cultural and moral fronts.
They preferred to posture on the world stage. Scared of confronting Left-wing teachers and sexual revolutionaries at home, they could order soldiers to be brave on their behalf in far-off deserts. And now the US, like Britain before it, has begun the long slow descent into the Third World. How sad. Where now is our last best hope on Earth?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Prelude To War...I guess nobody cares.
Preface: From an e-mail. Name has been changed to protect the innocent.
Here they go, making more plans to control us. These people are building the system used by the "Beast". We need to see it for that. Also, our leaders are participating in it as well. Our labor is being used to formulate this system world-wide. Our tax dollars are spent globally establishing the very system which will enslave us and the rest of the world.
This link is to the people, and organization, which is controlling the moves on this earth. They are responsible for setting up this system. These people are on the devil's side! - Xyz
www.cfr.org/publication/17709/previewing_bretton_woods_two.html
Thank you Xyz.
While reading this I get the distinct feeling that these people are setting policy and speaking with blatant authoritative voices...like they are in charge or as you say, "...making more plans to control us." Further...and you know what? We didn't vote for these guys!
Previewing 'Bretton Woods Two'
| Interviewee: | Peter B. Kenen, Adjunct Senior Fellow for International Economics, CFR |
|---|---|
| Interviewer: | Lee Hudson Teslik, Associate Editor, CFR.org |
November 11, 2008
Can you give your general preview of the summit meeting and what sorts of policy you think will come of it?
I really doubt that the summit leaders are going to come out with a set of policy proposals. They're more likely to come out with a declaration calling for some policy reforms without being very specific. After all, these are not economists or even finance ministers, although some of them have been. Their main message, I think, will be that reforms are needed, without being terribly specific. It's not clear to me whether they plan to convene a so-called Bretton Woods Two to hammer out a set of reform proposals, or whether as they look at the situation they will discover that the reforms needed in one place are different from the reforms needed in others, and that a grand conference to try and negotiate common reforms, or create new institutions, is a bit unrealistic.
So perhaps some of the expectations that have been pinned on this are a little bit overblown at this point.
I think they are.
Given the abandon with which the phrase "Bretton Woods II" is being thrown around, could you give a little historical perspective on exactly what happened there, and how this might be different?
First of all, Bretton Woods was not a meeting of heads of state. It was a meeting of finance officials, and some central bankers, but mainly finance ministry people. And they had a fairly specific mandate, which was the creation of the International Monetary Fund [IMF], and as a sort of afterthought, the creation of the World Bank. There had been preparatory meetings going on between the United States and the UK. It was a considerable battle between the U.S. Treasury and the British as to how such an arrangement, such institutions, should be structured. The British were led by Lord [John Maynard] Keynes, the Americans by [economist and U.S. Treasury official] Harry White. Ultimately the weight of facts and economic power led to an IMF much more conservative in its powers than Keynes had wanted. The American view did prevail. And then, as I say, the charter of the World Bank was also drafted, but drafted rather quickly, as the membership recognized that postwar reconstruction and subsequent development were going to require public financing.
But the fund itself, as created, was simply a pool of national currencies, plus some gold, which could be used for short- to medium-term lending. Most of the early lending was to developed countries, but even that was restricted, since countries which were receiving Marshall Plan Aid in 1948 and thereafter were excluded from drawing on the IMF, at least temporarily. The IMF itself, of course, experienced a radical transformation in the years that followed as the ex-colonies became members, and as Latin America and Asia and Africa joined the fund, until it now has some 185 members. It was initially a pretty small body in terms of the number of members, but it did include all of the major countries except for Germany and Japan, with which we were still at war. They joined afterwards. The Russians at first indicated interest, but then pulled out and pulled a couple of their satellites out with them. But it was carefully structured-Keynes and White had been negotiating bilaterally for at least two years, probably longer, on the structure of the fund. And ultimately the U.S. view of the fund, as a pool of national currencies available for lending, prevailed. Here, if the summit comes up with at least a set of objectives for subsequent negotiation, I think it will achieve a remarkable purpose. But I'm not even sure at this stage that anyone quite knows what they are really aiming at achieving.
On a basic level, do you think the global financial system is best regulated by global institutions or by local institutions with increased global coordination?
I'm going to equivocate and say both. For example, a lot of the re-regulation that may be necessary is national and not global. If we decide to do something about the business model of the rating agencies, that's going to be national, because the rating agencies of which we are concerned, though they do international business, are U.S. firms. There are certain to be some tighter regulations, perhaps even the prohibition of some kinds of financial instruments. But it is not going to be a massive reorganization of the monetary system, which is what the [International Monetary] Fund was concerned with. It's going to be essentially an attempt to restructure regulation of the private financial sector. And there is, as I said, this disagreement lurking as to just how that should be done. But the distinction that I would draw is the fund was concerned with the monetary system, and this conference, if it focuses at all, will be concerned with financial markets. And those are not the same.
Do you think the IMF as it currently stands is adequate? Should there be new institutions, or simply modifications to the IMF?
I don't know which way it's likely to go. I'm not even quite sure how it should go, though I have skepticism about the extent to which the fund was presently equipped to do this job-my friends at the fund disagree, but that's natural enough.
Let me put it this way. The ideal outcome would be a fairly short list of commonly needed regulatory changes: increases in bank capital; restructuring of the credit rating agencies; tightening and restructuring of the mortgage market, not only in the United States but in some other countries as well, to discourage the issuance of mortgages to people who are unlikely to pay; and perhaps also some arrangements for rescuing homeowners who have gotten in over their heads. I'm not quite clear in my own mind how far we might go toward what I think I would like-the trading of derivative instruments on organized exchanges. That would provide financial backup to some of those derivatives, and also some standardization. The trouble is the derivative instruments are tailor-made to the needs of individual clients, and therefore if you were to standardize the instruments, they would lose some of their value to the customer. But I still believe that exchange-traded derivative instruments would be more sensible than the terribly elaborate and unique instruments we have. And I would hope that the summit meeting, if it makes any specific recommendations, will look at the question of the origination and the trading of derivative instruments, particularly the credit-default swaps, as well as higher standards for mortgage lending. But again, the problem here is that [using the term] Bretton Woods raises the expectation that we will somehow derive a whole set of new rules for the system, and perhaps new institutions for the system, and you just can't do that in a day. And what the follow-up will be is not clear.
Do you think you could do it granted a longer time frame? Or are there just existential problems here to any sort of global financial regulator?
There are obviously existential problems, and most countries are not going to want to delegate authority over their own financial markets to international supervisors. But in any case, it is a long and tough process because an awful lot of issues have to be covered. Even in respect to individual instruments, such as whether they should be exchange-traded or not, and what are the terms and conditions for these instruments? Some standardization is needed, and the role of individual investment banking firms in the tailor-making of these instruments has to be seriously reconsidered.
If you want to call it that...here's some more good news!
Will it be REVOLUTION before the big one? Hard to say...but one way or another we're headed there sooner than you think.
And in a somewhat related story ( see below ) ...the more they knead into the dough (pun intended), the greated the rise...in turmoil from the masses.
...another message from the innocent.
"OMG!!!! Pray this doesn't happen!!! If it does, we are doomed." - Wxy
I understand Wxy. But what will be, will be. The American people are asleep on this issue...but worse yet, the people in charge are still out to lunch and do not have a clue as to what they're doing. Deep in their troubled and corrupt minds they really know it's all their fault and are really grasping sail boat fuel (wind in the air) to fix a problem that requires ECO 101 vs "Islamic Finance 101".
GAFFNEY: Treasury submits to Shariah
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. - Nov 04, 2008
The Washington Times
The U.S. Treasury Department is submitting to Shariah - the seditious religio-political-legal code authoritative Islam seeks to impose worldwide under a global theocracy.
As reported in this space last week, Deputy Secretary of the Treasury Robert Kimmitt set the stage with his recent visit to Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich Persian Gulf states. His stated purpose was to promote the recycling of petrodollars in the form of foreign investment here.
Evidently, the price demanded by his hosts is that the U.S. government get with the Islamist financial program. While in Riyadh, Mr. Kimmitt announced: "The U.S. government is currently studying the salient features of Islamic banking to ascertain how far it could be useful in fighting the ongoing world economic crisis."
"Islamic banking" is a euphemism for a practice better known as "Shariah-Compliant Finance (SFC)." And it turns out that this week the Treasury will be taking officials from various federal agencies literally to school on SFC.
The department is hosting a half-day course entitled "Islamic Finance 101" on Thursday at its headquarters building. Treasury's self-described "seminar for the policy community" is co-sponsored with the leading academic promoters of Shariah and SCF in the United States: Harvard University Law School's Project on Islamic Finance. At the very least, the U.S. government evidently hopes to emulate Harvard's success in securing immense amounts of Wahhabi money in exchange for conforming to the Islamists' agenda. Like Harvard, Treasury seems utterly disinterested in what Shariah actually is, and portends.
Unfortunately, such submission - the literal meaning of "Islam" - is not likely to remain confined long to the Treasury or its sister agencies. Thanks to the extraordinary authority conferred on Treasury since September, backed by the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP), the department is now in a position to impose its embrace of Shariah on the U.S. financial sector. The nationalization of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Treasury's purchase of - at last count - 17 banks and the ability to provide, or withhold, funds from its new slush-fund can translate into unprecedented coercive power.
Concerns in this regard are only heightened by the prominent role Assistant Treasury Secretary Neel Kashkari will be playing in "Islamic Finance 101." Mr. Kashkari, the official charged with administering the TARP fund, will provide welcoming remarks to participants. Presumably, in the process, he will convey the enthusiasm about Shariah-Compliant Finance that appears to be the current party line at Treasury.
As this enthusiasm for SCF ramps up in Washington officialdom, it is worth recalling a lesson from "across the pond." Earlier this year, the head of the Church of England, Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, provoked a brief but intense firestorm of controversy with his declaration that it was "unavoidable" that Shariah would be practiced in Britain. Largely unremarked was the reason he gave for such an ominous forecast: The U.K. had already accommodated itself to Shariah-Compliant Finance.
This statement provides an important insight for the incumbent U.S. administration and whomever succeeds it: Shariah-Compliant Finance serves as a leading edge of the spear for those seeking to insinuate Shariah into Western societies.
Regrettably, SCF is not the only instrument of the stealth jihad by which Shariah-promoting Islamists are seeking to achieve "parallel societies" here and elsewhere in the West. The British experience is instructive on this score, too. Her Majesty's government has allowed the establishment of at least five Shariah courts to hear (initially) family law cases. Polygamists in the U.K. can get welfare for each of their wives (as long as all the marriages beyond the first were performed overseas).
Thus far, we in this country may not have reached the point where evidence of this sort of creeping Shariah is so manifest. But Treasury's accommodation to SCF demonstrates that we are on the same trajectory - the one ordained and demanded by the promoters of Shariah, one to which we serially accommodate ourselves at our extreme peril.
After all, the object of Shariah is the supplanting of our government and Constitution, through violent means if possible and, until then, through stealthy ones. Islamists, having secured footholds via their parallel societies, inevitably use those to extend their influence over Muslims who have no more interest in living under authoritative Islam's Shariah than the rest of us do. Inexorably, it becomes the turn of non-Muslims to accommodate themselves to ever more intrusive demands from the Islamists. It is known as submission, or dhimmitude.
Soon - possibly as early as this Wednesday - the Treasury Department and the other federal agencies will be taking orders from representatives of Barack Obama or John McCain. It may be that the outgoing administration's determination to advance the Islamist agenda via "Islamic Finance 101," and what flows from it, may be the first, far-reaching policy decision inherited by the new president-elect. If he does not want to have his transition saddled with an implicit endorsement of submission to Shariah, the winner of the White House sweepstakes would be well-advised to pull the plug on Thursday's indoctrination program and the insidious industry it is meant to foist on the "policy community," our capital markets and our country.
Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.
November 12, 2008 - Rupert Wright
[1] The National (UAE)
Wednesday, Nov 12, 2008
Among the captains of industry, spin doctors and financial advisers accompanying British prime minister Gordon Brown on his fund-raising visit to the Gulf this week, one name was surprisingly absent. This may have had something to do with the fact that the tour kicked off in Saudi Arabia. But by the time the group reached Qatar, Baron David de Rothschild was there, too, and he was also in Dubai and Abu Dhabi.
Although his office denies that he was part of the official party, it is probably no coincidence that he happened to be in the same part of the world at the right time. That is how the Rothschilds have worked for centuries: quietly, without fuss, behind the scenes.
“We have had 250 years or so of family involvement in the finance business,” says Baron Rothschild. “We provide advice on both sides of the balance sheet, and we do it globally.”
The Rothschilds have been helping the British government – and many others – out of a financial hole ever since they financed Wellington’s army and thus victory against the French at Waterloo in 1815. According to a long-standing legend, the Rothschild family owed the first millions of their fortune to Nathan Rothschild’s successful speculation about the effect of the outcome of the battle on the price of British bonds. By the 19th century, they ran a financial institution with the power and influence of a combined Merrill Lynch, JP Morgan, Morgan Stanley and perhaps even Goldman Sachs and the Bank of China today.
In the 1820s, the Rothschilds supplied enough money to the Bank of England to avert a liquidity crisis. There is not one institution that can save the system in the same way today; not even the US Federal Reserve. However, even though the Rothschilds may have lost some of that power – just as other financial institutions on that list have been emasculated in the last few months – the Rothschild dynasty has lost none of its lustre or influence. So it was no surprise to meet Baron Rothschild at the Dubai International Financial Centre. Rothschild’s opened in Dubai in 2006 with ambitious plans to build an advisory business to complement its European operations. What took so long?
[2]
The answer, as many things connected with Rothschilds, has a lot to do with history. When Baron Rothschild began his career, he joined his father’s firm in Paris. In 1982 President Francois Mitterrand nationalised all the banks, leaving him without a bank. With just US$1 million (Dh3.67m) in capital, and five employees, he built up the business, before merging the French operations with the rest of the family’s business in the 1990s.
Gradually the firm has started expanding throughout the world, including the Gulf. “There is no debate that Rothschild is a Jewish family, but we are proud to be in this region. However, it takes time to develop a global footprint,” he says.
An urbane man in his mid-60s, he says there is no single reason why the Rothschilds have been able to keep their financial business together, but offers a couple of suggestions for their longevity. “For a family business to survive, every generation needs a leader,” he says. “Then somebody has to keep the peace. Building a global firm before globalisation meant a mindset of sharing risk and responsibility. If you look at the DNA of our family, that is perhaps an element that runs through our history. Finally, don’t be complacent about giving the family jobs.”
He stresses that the Rothschild ascent has not been linear – at times, as he did in Paris, they have had to rebuild. While he was restarting their business in France, his cousin Sir Evelyn was building a British franchise. When Sir Evelyn retired, the decision was taken to merge the businesses. They are now strong in Europe, Asia especially China, India, as well as Brazil. They also get involved in bankruptcy restructurings in the US, a franchise that will no doubt see a lot more activity in the months ahead.
Does he expect governments to play a larger role in financial markets in future? “There is a huge difference in the Soviet-style mentality that occurred in Paris in 1982, and the extraordinary achievements that politicians, led by Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy, have made to save the global banking system from systemic collapse,” he says. “They moved to protect the world from billions of unemployment. In five to 10 years those banking stakes will be sold – and sold at a profit.”
Baron Rothschild shares most people’s view that there is a new world order. In his opinion, banks will deleverage and there will be a new form of global governance. “But you have to be careful of caricatures: we don’t want to go from ultra liberalism to protectionism.”
So how did the Rothschilds manage to emerge relatively unscathed from the financial meltdown? “You could say that we may have more insights than others, or you may look at the structure of our business,” he says. “As a family business, we want to limit risk. There is a natural pride in being a trusted adviser.”
It is that role as trusted adviser to both governments and companies that Rothschilds is hoping to build on in the region. “In today’s world we have a strong offering of debt and equity,” he says. “They are two arms of the same body looking for money.”
The firm has entrusted the growth of its financing advisory business in the Middle East to Paul Reynolds, a veteran of many complex corporate finance deals. “Our principal business franchise is large and mid-size companies,” says Mr Reynolds. “I have already been working in this region for two years and we offer a pretty unique proposition.
“We work in a purely advisory capacity. We don’t lend or underwrite, because that creates conflicts. We are sensitive to banking relationships. But we look to ensure financial flexibility for our clients.”
He was unwilling to discuss specific deals or clients, but says that he offers them “trusted, impartial financing advice any time day or night”. Baron Rothschilds tends to do more deals than their competitors, mainly because they are prepared to take on smaller mandates. “It’s not transactions were are interested in, it’s relationships. We are looking for good businesses and good people,” says Mr Reynolds. “Our ambition is for every company here to have a debt adviser.”
Baron Rothschild is reluctant to comment on his nephew Nat Rothschild’s public outburst against George Osborne, the British shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer. Nat Rothschild castigated Mr Osborne for revealing certain confidences gleaned during a holiday in the summer in Corfu.
In what the British press are calling “Yachtgate”, the tale involved Russia’s richest man, Oleg Deripaska, Lord Mandelson, a controversial British politician who has just returned to government, Mr Osborne and a Rothschild. Classic tabloid fodder, but one senses that Baron Rothschild frowns on such publicity. “If you are an adviser, that imposes a certain style and culture,” he says. “You should never forget that clients want to hear more about themselves than their bankers. It demands an element of being sober.”
Even when not at work, Baron Rothschild’s tastes are sober. He lives between Paris and London, is a keen family man – he has one son who is joining the business next September and three daughters – an enthusiastic golfer, and enjoys the “odd concert”. He is also involved in various charity activities, including funding research into brain disease and bone marrow disorders.
It is part of Rothschild lore that its founder sent his sons throughout Europe to set up their own interlinked offices. So where would Baron Rothschild send his children today?
“I would send one to Asia, one to Europe and one to the United States,” he said. “And if I had more children, I would send one to the UAE.”