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Economic News Release

Current Employment Statistics - CES (National) THE EMPLOYMENT SITUATION -- MAY 2011
Nonfarm payroll employment changed little (+54,000) in May, and the unemployment rate was essentially unchanged at 9.1 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Job gains continued in professional and business services, health care, and mining. Employment levels in other major privatesector industries were little changed, and local government employment continued to decline. Household Survey Data The number of unemployed persons (13.9 million) and the unemployment rate (9.1 percent) were essentially unchanged in May. The labor force, at 153.7 million, was little changed over the month. (See table A-1.) Among the major worker groups, the unemployment rates for adult men (8.9 percent), adult women (8.0 percent), teenagers (24.2 percent), whites (8.0 percent), blacks (16.2 percent), and Hispanics (11.9 percent) showed little or no change in May. The jobless rate for Asians was 7.0 percent, not seasonally adjusted. (See tables A-1, A-2, and A-3.) In May, the number of long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) increased by 361,000 to 6.2 million; their share of unemployment increased to 45.1 percent. (See table A12.) The civilian labor force participation rate was 64.2 percent for the fifth consecutive month. The employmentpopulation ratio remained at 58.4 percent in May. (See table A-1.) The number of persons employed part time for economic reasons (sometimes referred to as involuntary part-time workers) was essentially unchanged in May at 8.5 million. These individuals were working part time because their hours had been cut back or because they were unable to find a full-time job. (See table A-8.) In May, 2.2 million persons were marginally attached to the labor force, about the same as a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey. (See table A-16.) Among the marginally attached, there were 822,000 discouraged workers in May, a decrease of 261,000 from a year earlier. (These data are not seasonally adjusted.) Discouraged workers are persons not currently looking for work because they believe no jobs are available for them. The remaining 1.4 million persons marginally attached to the labor force in May had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey for reasons such as school attendance or family responsibilities. (See table A-16.) Establishment Survey Data Total nonfarm payroll employment was little changed in May (+54,000), following gains that averaged 220,000 in the prior 3 months. Private-sector employment continued to trend up (+83,000), although by a much smaller amount than the average for the prior 3 months (+244,000). In May, job gains occurred in professional and business services, health care, and mining. Local government employment continued to trend down. Employment in other major industries changed little over the month. (See table B-1.) Employment in professional and business services continued to increase in May (+44,000). Notable job gains occurred in accounting and bookkeeping services (+18,000) and in computer systems design and related services (+8,000). Employment in temporary help services was little changed. Health care employment continued to expand in May (+17,000). Employment in the industry had risen by an average of 24,000 per month over the prior 12 months.

Mining added 7,000 jobs in May. Employment in mining has risen by 115,000 since a recent low point in October 2009. Employment in manufacturing changed little in May (-5,000). Job gains in fabricated metal products and in machinery were offset by losses in transportation equipment, paper an paper products, and printing and related support activities. The manufacturing industry added 243,000 jobs from a recent low point in December 2009 through April 2011. Construction employment was essentially unchanged in May. Employment in the industry has shown little movement on net since early 2010, after having fallen sharply during the 2007-09 period.

Employment in local government continued to decline over the month (28,000). Local government has lost 446,000 jobs since an employment peak in September 2008. Employment in other major industries, including retail trade, transportation and warehousing, information, financial activities, and leisure and hospitality, changed little in May. The average workweek for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls remained at 34.4 hours in May. The manufacturing workweek for all employees increased by 0.2 hour to 40.6 hours over the month, while factory overtime was unchanged at 3.2 hours. The average workweek for production and nonsupervisory employees

on private nonfarm payrolls was 33.6 hours in May. (See tables B-2 and B-7.) In May, average hourly earnings for all employees on private nonfarm payrolls increased by 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $22.98. Over the past 12 months, average hourly earnings increased by 1.8 percent. In May, average hourly earnings of private-sector production and nonsupervisory employees rose by 6 cents, or 0.3 percent, to $19.43. (See tables B-3 and B-8.) The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for March was revised from +221,000 to +194,000, and the change for April was revised from +244,000 to +232,000.

U.S. to begin using prison inmates for medical experiments

Monday, August 14, 2006 by: NaturalNews http://www.naturalnews.com/019970.html
(Natural News) A federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen restrictions limiting the testing of experimental pharmaceuticals on prisoners. The restrictions were put in place in the 1970s after prisoner abuses were discovered. The proposed changes would include rules meant to prevent previous abuses from happening again -- though critics of the recommendations say prisoner abuse is inevitable. Prisoner advocates also sharply criticize the panel's claim that loosening restrictions on prisoner testing would serve to offer the prisoners access to better medical care. "It strikes me as pretty ridiculous to start talking about prisoners getting access to cutting-edge research and medications when they can't even get penicillin and high blood pressure pills," says Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News. "I have to imagine there are larger financial motivations here." "The history of Big Pharma is rife with the use of prisoners for medical experiments," said Mike Adams, a consumer health advocate and critic of pharmaceutical companies. "If you want to see what happens to prisoners when medical experiments are allowed, just read about the history of Bayer, Nazi prison camps and IG Farben. Or examine the history of medical experimentation on adults and children right here in the United States." (Click here to read the timeline history of medical experiments on humans.) The panel's suggestions come after the pharmaceutical industry has seen recent difficulties recruiting test subjects, even when the subjects are compensated. The pharmaceutical industry says it was not involved in the panel's decision, though critics say it will be the recipient of many of the benefits of increased testing on prisoners. Critics cite the Holmesburg prison scandal, which involved University of Pennsylvania researchers testing substances such as radioactive materials, hallucinogenic drugs and carcinogenic materials on prisoners who may not have given informed consent. "Free and informed consent becomes pretty questionable when prisoners don't hold the keys to their own cells, and in many cases they can't read, yet they are signing a document that it practically takes a law degree to understand," says Daniel S. Murphy, a professor of criminal justice at Appalachian State University. Murphy also criticized the government's proposed preventative measures to prevent another Holmesburg incident -- which include possibly requiring half of all test

members to be non-prisoners to avoid testing substances that civilians wouldn't volunteer for -- saying such precautions faced strong resistance from federal officials: "And I fear they're most likely the parts that will end up getting cut as these recommendations become new regulations," Murphy says.

Drug companies say that prisoners will "benefit" from such experiments. But Mike Adams disagrees, saying, "The idea that prisoners will benefit from being used in medical experiments is preposterous. The primary beneficiaries are clearly drug companies whose products are so universally dangerous to human health that

they can't even pay enough people to volunteer for the clinical trials." The recruitment of prisoners for medical experiments is a desperate ploy by an industry steeped in human rights abuses," he added.

Big companies got more than $8B in small-biz contracts

By SARAH CHACKO July 10, 2011 http://www.federaltimes.com/article/20110710/ACQUISITION03/107100304/1001
The federal government awarded more than $8 billion worth of small-business contracts to companies that earn hundreds of millions of dollars a year and employ thousands of employees, according to an advocacy group representing small businesses. Hundreds of federal small business contract awards went to General Electric, Lockheed Martin, AT&T and other large companies or their subsidiaries last year, says the American Small Business League (ASBL) in a new analysis of federal contracts awarded last year. The ASBL's analysis came days after the June 24 Small Business Administration announcement that agencies awarded 22.7 percent, or $98 billion, of federal contract dollars to small businesses in 2010. Agencies are required by law to award a combined 23 percent of federal contracting dollars to small businesses. Of the top 100 firms awarded smallbusiness contracts in fiscal 2010, 61 were large businesses or owned by large companies, according to ASBL. The 61 firms received more than $8 billion, or nearly 60 percent, of the $14 billion that went to the top 100 companies. ASBL contends the small-business contract figures are also inflated because the government underreports how much money it spends on contracted goods and services. For example, SBA's scorecard figures do not include contracts for work done internationally or classified procurements by intelligence or Defense agencies. ASBL estimates that the incomplete reporting, in addition to large businesses receiving small-business contracts, means that the government actually spent 5 percent of its total contract dollars on small businesses in 2010. Alan Chvotkin, executive vice president of the Professional Services Council, said it is well known that the federal procurement database, which SBA uses for its annual scorecard, is not a complete record of the government's contracting activity. For example, contracts below certain dollar values are not included in the database. However, while ASBL raises good questions about what defines a small business, it sometimes ignores what federal regulations allow, Chvotkin said. Several of the companies ASBL identifies as large are Alaska Native Corporations which, regardless of their size, are given

an exemption to be considered small businesses. "That's not a mistake in the rule," Chvotkin said. "That's not a mistake in the application of the rule." But mistakes will continue to happen, Chvotkin said, even though databases, such as the Central Contractor Registry, where businesses enter their employee numbers and annual revenue, are improving by automatically checking to make sure the information given matches the industries with appropriate size standards. ASBL has been questioning SBA's figures for several years and has sued the agency for contract data. Members of the Senate Small Business Committee introduced legislation this year that would improve SBA's oversight of certifying and monitoring small businesses, and add criminal penalties to businesses that use fraudulent information to win contracts. Michele Chang, a senior adviser in SBA's Office of Government Contracting and Business Development, said SBA checks agencies' contract data at the end of each fiscal year and alerts them to any errors that show contracts were given to companies that do not meet small-business standards. Small-business contracts sometimes show up as being awarded to large businesses because of contracting officer errors or because the company grows into a large business after the award, Chang said. Errors also occur when a small business fails to report its merger with a large company or if the contracting officer does not change the company's information in the federal procurement database, Chang said.

ASBL spokesman Chris Gunn said the problem cannot be generalized that easily. "While there are problems with the acquisition process that allow companies to appear small when, in reality, they are large; other times, we're looking at outright fraud and abuse," he said. Though agencies are not penalized for failing to meet their goals, officials said they take the effort seriously because of the importance small business plays in spurring innovation and the economy. Agencies are being pushed along by White House senior adviser Valerie Jarrett, who hosts quarterly meetings and weekly phone conferences to keep track of how well agencies are meeting their goals and to suggest new strategies. Agencies are assigned their own smallbusiness goals every two years and graded on them by SBA. Most of the 24 agencies did better in 2010 or maintained the same grade as 2009. Four agencies' grades decreased. Agency officials say they balance their small-business goals against policies encouraging contracts for bulk quantities or multiple services contracts that favor large companies but can be done at lower prices. For example, NASA officials asked facility directors in February to review major contracts with large businesses and determine how much work is actually being done by subcontracted small businesses. Over the next two years, directors are expected to break down some of those contracts that are not generating any significant savings and award work to small firms, said Glenn Delgado, associate administrator of NASA's Office of Small Business Programs.

The U.S. Agency for International Development has had trouble finding small pharmaceutical firms to provide medicine for its Global Health Bureau, which helps treat and prevent diseases like AIDS. The agency is looking to break out some of the services included in the bureau's multiple award contract, such as logistics, transportation and storage, for small businesses, said Mauricio Vera, director of the agency's Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization. Dividing up the contract could increase costs and works against policies that encourage agencies to consolidate services to save money, Vera said. But working with small businesses offers benefits to the economy, such as job creation and innovation, he said. "That's a discussion the Office of Federal Procurement Policy is grappling with," he said. "It's a matter of finding the middle ground." Agencies are hoping more market research and better outreach to small businesses will improve their scores. NASA, which got a "C" grade from SBA this year for its small business contracting performance, is working on its communications with small businesses as it ends the space shuttle program and focuses on other space programs. At Alabama's Marshall Space Flight Center, which leads NASA's rocket propulsion projects, technical experts are invited to meet with small businesses to identify what technologies a vendor can offer and where they might fit into future missions, Delgado said. "Now that we're shifting into different technologies, we need to find high-tech small-business firms that have innovation," he said.

What Is an American Patriot?

By Gary G. Kohls July 5, 2011 http://consortiumnews.com/2011/07/05/what-is-an-american-patriot/
As the patriotic celebrations of July Fourth fade, there remains the enduring question of what it really means to be an American patriot. Is it loyalty to the country whatever its actions or is it a readiness to criticize some of those actions? In this guest essay, Gary G. Kohls asks whether good Americans risk becoming todays good Germans. Most of us Americans would call Say that you saw powerful corporations But if your answer to the above question ourselves patriots, whether our politics or and their cronies who are in positions of was America, or at least the America as theologies are right-wing/conservative, political power grab control of your envisioned by the imperialist Project for left-wing/liberal, or centrist/independent. democratic nations media, its legislature, the New American Century (PNAC), then But what exactly do we mean by judiciary and military by the use of this important question should be asked: patriotism? propaganda and rigged elections. What would you have done if you were a 1930s-era Good German seeing your democratic nation going fascist? Do we mean the blind patriotism that says Suppose that the citizenry was being My Country, Right or Wrong, the consistently lied to about its nations immoral notion that might makes right foreign policy objectives, its enemies, If you were a typical straight, white, as long as my country wields the might, even deceptively leading the nation into professedly Christian male, with all the the type of patriotism that Samuel Johnson war after war, with no regard to the lethal privilege and power granted to you by that once called the last refuge of the spiritual, mental and physical costs to its majority status, you would have said scoundrel? warrior class. virtually nothing in opposition to Hitlers policies, even as the rights of minority groups other than your own were being Do we mean the patriotism of 16th Century Say that the business and political leaders taken away. Protestant reformers (like Martin Luther) of that nation clandestinely gained control who believed that Christians were to be of the highest executive office in the land unconditionally obedient to their national and then started taking away, in rapid You would have been silent as Hitlers leaders, no matter how corrupt those succession, the civil and human rights of enemies were tortured and leaders were, a notion that four centuries many of the nations minority groups. disappeared in the middle of the night later justified good German obedience to and sent into the gulag of prisons, mental the cruel fascist dictator Adolf Hitler? Suppose that the party of the installed war- institutions or death camps. like leader (even if that leader was only the Or do we mean the type of patriotism that puppet of a hidden shadow government) As an average Bible-believing German vigorously opposes the agendas of the started accusing progressive, peace-loving Christian, you would have obeyed your wealthy elite, the conscienceless citizens of being traitors, silenced war-supporting, anti-Semitic bishops, corporations, the Pentagon warmongers dissenters, imprisoned people of priests or pastors (most of whom had and the assorted pathological liars that conscience, purged anti-fascist resistance pledged a solemn oath of allegiance to the dominate politics and the far-right fringe groups, censored the liberal press and Fuhrer). media that are attempting to destroy liberal otherwise removed opposing ideologies democracy in America? from the public consciousness Germans Christians were largely conservatives who had been trained in Are we the type of patriots that love our Suppose the prophets, artists, poets, songtheir child-rearing and taught in their nation so much that we are willing to have writers, film-makers, creative thinkers and schools and churches to submit to a lovers quarrel with it? conscientious objectors to war and killing authority. were all unjustly accused of being unpatriotic and were therefore spied upon, So, you would have been expected to be In order to find out which type of arrested and their organizations infiltrated patriotism any or us espouse, consider the obedient to the rulers in Berlin in times of by moles. following hypothetical situation: national crisis, rather than faithfully adhering to the ethical teachings of Jesus, You would be in 1930s Germany and the who forbade homicidal violence to his Suppose you are a white, church-going, anti-democracy tyrants would have been followers and who said that they were to Bible-believing citizen in a country that the far-right-wing militarists Adolf Hitler, be merciful and forgiving towards (rather has prided itself in its inventiveness, its Joseph Goebbels, Hermann Goering, the than to be killers and torturers of) their literacy, its art, its culture, its superpower Freikorps, the Gestapo, the SS and their enemies. status and its glory in past wars. obedient henchmen.

If you were an average German lawyer, physician or psychiatrist, you would have joined the Nazi Party, for doing otherwise would have jeopardized your professional standing. And you would have kept your mouth shut and resisted acting on your compassionate feelings even when witnessing the fear and anguish of your Jewish, Slavic, socialist, liberal, or gay clients as they were dragged into court and disappeared into the prisons, concentration camps and gas chambers. So, the question remains: if you saw your democratic nation going fascist, would you have done what the vast majority of patriotic Germans did in the 1930s and 1940s and continued to be obedient to their criminal leaders who had obtained their power by acts of violence? Would you have been on the wrong side of history by swearing oaths of allegiance to their pathologically lying leaders and saluting the swastika, rather than working to subvert their criminal nation? Knowing that any person who opposed Hitlers wars of aggression was considered an enemy of the state, which side would you have supported? Would you have taken the side of the victims or the police state? Would you have suffered in solidarity with the fingered enemies of the police state, or would you have kept your Christian ethics submerged and joined the fascist oppressors? Would you have been on the side of the freedom-fighters (labeled as terrorists or insurgents by the propaganda machine of the oppressors) who were courageously and patriotically trying to save their nation from unwanted colonizers, or would you have supported the agendas of the militarists? Now think over the similarities between the Germany of the 1930s and the more friendly-faced, militarized, proto-fascism we are coming to see as normative in our increasingly right-wing America. If you do so in good conscience, particularly recalling 1) the shredding of the U.S. Constitution during 2) the right-

wing Cheney/Bush administration, 3) the mis-named Patriot Acts and Homeland Security Laws, 4) the shift to blatant corporate rule with the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John Roberts, 5) the list of right-wing politicians who won the U.S. House and 6) the many fascistleaning Republican governors in last falls elections, look at 7) the list of right-wing presidential candidates declaring for President of the United States of America for 2012 and then study the list of characteristics of fascism below, you will realize that the overthrow of democracy and the institution of police-state fascism may be closer than you think. But in the process of pondering these issues and applying your political and theological convictions, the manner in which you conduct your public and private life will become clearer and so will the agendas of those who want your vote, your business or your silence. And whether or not you will wind up on the right side of history will be determined by how you conduct yourself in the polling booth, in your places of worship and in the marketplace. If you conduct yourself honorably, your political, spiritual and economic life will more likely be as a good patriot and therefore as an active resister against tyranny in all its forms rather than as a perpetrator, a victim, a collaborator or as a guilty bystander. In conclusion, I present a couple of abbreviated summaries from two prophetic voices who have studied the history of fascism. They apply to what has been happening right here in the USA. Read them and weep, then act. 10 Easy Steps to Fascism from End of America by Naomi Wolf 1. Invoke terrifying internal and external enemies 2. Create a gulag 3. Develop a thug caste 4. Set up an internal surveillance system 5. Harass citizens groups

6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release 7. Target key individuals 8. Control the press 9. Punish dissent as treason 10. Suspend the rule of law The 14 Characteristics of Fascism from Lawrence Britt, PhD 1. Powerful Nationalism/Patriotism 2. Human Rights Violations 3. Unification Around Scapegoats 4. Militarism 5. Sexism 6. Press Censorship/Control 7. Strong National Security State 8. Merger of Church and State 9. Corporatism 10. Suppression of Trade Unions 11. Anti-Intellectualism 12. Law and Order Obsession 13. Corrupt Crony Capitalism 14. Fraudulent Elections Gary G. Kohls is a retired physician who practiced holistic mental health care and therefore has extensive experience treating the victims of violence who are often falsely labeled as having a mental illness of unknown cause. Dr. Kohls feels is it his professional duty to warn others of the dangers to mental and physical health that are inherent in the participation of violence, especially military violence.

The US Provokes Massacre in Hama, Syria

By Sergei Balmasov; Pravda, Russia Translated By Natalia Dresner

6 July 2011

Edited by Alyssa Goulding

http://watchingamerica.com/News/111611/the-us-provokes-massacre-in-hama-syria/
The United States has openly intervened in Syria's affairs and demanded that Damascus cease operations in a number of Syrian cities. At this time "the shadow of Hama" is hanging ominously over Syrian President Bashar Assad. The situation in the city, which has a population of about 700,000, has escalated noticeably in recent days. Western and Arabic-speaking media have reported on the concentration of Assad's security forces. Assad is allegedly preparing to repeat the feats of his father Hafez Assad, who drowned the uprising of local Islamists in blood back in 1982. Today these events are presented in the West as an example of inhuman cruelty by the Syrian leadership. So-called Western experts still argue about how many people from Hama were killed and how the bloodthirsty Hafez Assad killed them. Some of them believe statements such as: He shot them down out of tank guns, bombs killed 10,000 people... wait, it was 20,000 people! Others argue, "No! He suffocated them with toxic gases and 30,000, no, 40,000 people were burned alive in the underground city. Western publications claim that tens of thousands of Hama residents have come out to the streets to protest against Bashar Assad since June 3. These demonstrations have allegedly "become the target of the secret police and the army."* It's argued that "al-Assad's henchmen have killed over 50 people and wounded hundreds"* since the beginning of June. According to some, on June, 2, Hama workers began a three-day general strike in memory of those killed at the hands of alAssad executioners. The West fears alAssad junior could make it a St. Bartholomew's Day in Hama! People of Hama must be protected, they say. The United States stands behind the opponents of the current government. They have demanded that Assad withdraw troops from Hama immediately and stop his bullying tactics. In an interview with Pravda.ru, Arab expert from Hama, Ankhara Kochneva, talked about what actually is happening in Syria, and Hama in particular. Why is the situation in Hama escalating? This is an old, well-known nest of Islamists, the "Muslim Brotherhood," who hate secular government. This is a kind of capital for Islamic fundamentalists among the Sunnis in Syria. Just look at the clothing of the local population. You wouldnt find so many "black bags" concealing womens bodies elsewhere in Syria. It was in Hama that bloody coups were attempted in the past the deadliest of them took place in February 1982. Events in 1982 were preceded by an attempt on president Hafez al-Assad's life by the Islamists as well as the bloody attack on Islamic students from the local military academy. A real rebellion broke out in the city after months of growing instability. At that time, people were so terrorized by the Muslim Brotherhood that they were afraid to let their children out onto the streets. Its no wonder that one of my friends who lived there at the time said, "The Islamists have deprived us of childhood."* However, there was no use of force until the Islamists struck first. The events that took place then in Hama were terrible. A mobile guillotine was fixed onto a truck and driven around the city. The Islamists used it to destroy anyone who somehow displeased them. Even some citizens of the former U.S.S.R. fell victim. What is happening there now? These events were once again directed from abroad, particularly from Saudi Arabia, and there are lots of similarities. Violent riots are developing according to the same scenario. However, there was no army presence when it all began in Hama. This meant that thugs hands were unleashed. We know how these "protests" were organized in practice. We know that the bandits went from home to home with demands that inhabitants participate in the performances. If they didnt, residents were threatened with physical violence and vandalism against local shops. As for protests in the country by the socalled opposition, many Syrians who worked in Saudi Arabia arrived in the country shortly before the protests began. Those who had already been arrested for anti-government protests testified to some interesting facts. It turns out that they were given an offer to leave and return home by their employers. Their tickets were paid for and workplaces were retained for them with significant pay raises. It is clear that the actions of the Saudis are coordinated from the United States. As for the latter, Saudi Arabia is obvious an ally against Assad.

Why does the United States support the actions of the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama? After all, the United States must clearly understand that they are a terrorist organization Not everybody in the West considers the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization. After the defeat of the 1982 rebellion, the remnants of the radical

organizations fled the country into exile. A significant number of them settled in the United States, Britain and Germany. One of the main groups settled in London, formally announcing the rejection of armed struggle. As we see can now, it was only a false declaration. Islamists here are a weapon against Syria that the Americans want to use to weaken

it. All means, foul or fair, are good. Americans are not the only ones who have been caught doing this. All sorts of interests coincide here. First and foremost, from the point of view of the West and Saudi Arabia, Syria is at fault because it allies with Iran, a country that has chosen its own way and refuses to dance to their tune.

Rising Temperatures Melting Away Global Food Security

By Lester R. Brown JULY 06, 2011 http://www.earth-policy.org/book_bytes/2011/wotech4_ss3
Heat waves clearly can destroy crop harvests. The world saw high heat decimate Russian wheat in 2010. Crop ecologists have found that each 1-degreeCelsius rise in temperature above the optimum can reduce grain harvests by 10 percent. But the indirect effects of higher temperatures on our food supply are no less serious. Rising temperatures are already melting the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets. Recent studies indicate that a combination of melting ice sheets and glaciers, plus the thermal expansion of the ocean as it warms, could raise sea level by up to 6 feet during this century. Yet even a 3-foot rise in sea level would sharply reduce the rice harvest in Asia, a region home to over half the worlds people that grows 90 percent of the worlds rice. It would inundate half the riceland in Bangladesh and submerge part of the Mekong Delta in Viet Nam. Viet Nam, second only to Thailand as a rice exporter, could lose its exportable rice surplus. This would leave the 20 or so countries that import rice from Viet Nam looking elsewhere. Numerous other rice-growing river deltas in Asia would be submerged in varying degrees. While the ice sheets are melting, so too are mountain glaciers. The snow and ice masses in the worlds mountain ranges and the water they store are taken for granted simply because they have been there since before agriculture began. Now we risk losing the reservoirs in the sky on which so many farmers and cities depend. The World Glacier Monitoring Service reported in 2010 the nineteenth consecutive year of shrinking mountain glaciers. Glaciers are melting in all of the worlds major mountain ranges, including the Andes, the Rockies, the Alps, the Himalayas, and the Tibetan Plateau. In South America, some 22 percent of Perus glacial endowment, which feeds the many rivers that supply water to farmers and cities in the arid coastal regions, has disappeared. Ohio State University glaciologist Lonnie Thompson reported in 2007 that the Quelccaya Glacier in southern Peru, which had been retreating by 20 feet per year in the 1960s, was retreating by 200 feet annually. Bolivia is also fast losing the glaciers whose ice melt supplies its farmers and cities with water. Between 1975 and 2006, the area of its glaciers shrank by nearly half. Bolivias famed Chacaltaya Glacier, once the site of the worlds highest ski resort, disappeared in 2009. For the 53 million people living in Peru, Bolivia, and Ecuador, the loss of their mountain glaciers and dry-season river flow threatens food security and political stability. Not only do farmers in the region produce much of their wheat and potatoes with the river water from these disappearing glaciers, but well over half the regions electricity supply comes from hydroelectric sources. Currently, few countries are being affected by melting mountain glaciers as much as these Andean societies. As Perus glaciers shrink, the water flow from the mountains to the countrys arid coastal region, where 60 percent of the people live, will decline during the dry season. This region includes Lima, which, with nearly 9 million inhabitants, is the worlds second largest desert city, after Cairo. Given the coming decline in its water supply, a U.N. study refers to Lima

as a crisis waiting to happen. In many of the worlds agricultural regions, snow is the leading source of irrigation and drinking water. In the southwestern United States, for instance, the Colorado Riverthe regions primary source of irrigation waterdepends on snowfields in the Rockies for much of its flow. California, in addition to depending heavily on the Colorado, relies on snowmelt from the Sierra Nevada mountain range to supply irrigation water to the Central Valley, the countrys fruit and vegetable basket. A preliminary analysis of rising temperature effects on three major river systems in the western United Statesthe Columbia, the Sacramento, and the Coloradoindicates that the winter snow pack in the mountains feeding them will be reduced dramatically and that winter rainfall and flooding will increase. With a business-as-usual energy policy, global climate models project a 70-percent reduction in the snow pack for the western United States by mid-century. A detailed study of the Yakima River Valley, a vast fruit-growing region in Washington State, shows progressively heavier harvest losses as the snow pack shrinks, reducing irrigation water flows. Agriculture in the Central Asian countries of Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan depends heavily on snowmelt from the Hindu Kush, Pamir, and Tien Shan Mountain ranges for irrigation water. And nearby Iran gets much of its water from the snowmelt in the 5,700-meter-high Alborz Mountains between Tehran and the Caspian Sea. Ice melting in the Himalayas and on the

Tibetan Plateau poses an even graver threat to food security at a global scale. It is the ice melt from these mountain glaciers that helps sustain the major rivers of Asia during the dry season, when irrigation needs are greatest. In the Indus, Ganges, Yellow, and Yangtze River basins, where irrigated agriculture depends heavily on the rivers, the loss of any dryseason flow is bad news for farmers. China is the worlds leading producer of wheat. India is number two. (The United States is number three.) With rice, China and India totally dominate the world harvest. Therefore, the melting of these glaciers coupled with the depletion of aquifers present the most massive threat to food security the world has ever faced. In India, the giant Gangotri Glacier, which helps keep the Ganges River flowing during the dry season, is retreating. The Ganges River is by far the largest source of surface water irrigation in India and a source of water for the 407 million people living in the Gangetic basin. Yao Tandong, a leading Chinese glaciologist, reports that glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau in western China are now melting at an accelerating rate. Many smaller glaciers have already disappeared. Yao believes that two thirds of these glaciers could be gone by 2060. If this melting of glaciers continues, Yao says it will eventually lead to an ecological catastrophe. The Yangtze, by far the countrys largest river, helps to produce half or more of its 130-million-ton rice harvest. Like the depletion of aquifers, the melting of glaciers can artificially inflate food production for a short period. At some point, however, as the glaciers shrink and the smaller ones disappear entirely, so

does the water available for irrigation. The melting of the glaciers on the Tibetan Plateau would appear to be Chinas problem. It is. But it is also everyone elses problem. In a world where grain prices have recently climbed to record highs, any disruption of the wheat or rice harvests due to water shortages in India or China will raise their grain imports, driving up food prices for all. In India, where just over 40 percent of all children under five years of age are underweight and undernourished, hunger will intensify and child mortality will likely climb. For China, a country already struggling to contain food price inflation, there may well be spreading social unrest if food supplies tighten. For U.S. consumers, this melting poses a nightmare scenario. If China enters the world market for massive quantities of grain, as it has already done for soybeans over the last decade, it will necessarily come to the United Statesfar and away the leading grain exporter. Ironically, the two countries that are planning to build most of the new coalfired power plants, China and India, are precisely the ones whose food security is most massively threatened by the carbon emitted from burning coal. It is now in their interest to try and save their mountain glaciers by quickly shifting energy investment from coal-fired power plants into energy efficiency, wind farms, and solar thermal and geothermal power plants.

Adapted from World on the Edge by Lester R. Brown. Full book available at www.earth-policy.org/books/wote.

NAFTA And The Drug Cartels: "A Deal Made In Narco Heaven"
Ryan Grim Posted: July 1, 2009 09:24 AM http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ryan-grim/nafta-and-the-drug-cartel_b_223705.html This post is excerpted from Ryan Grim's "This Is Your Country On Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America".
During the first year of his administration, President Bill Clinton made free trade a top priority, pushing for the passage of the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement. It wasn't an easy task. Having helped Democrats take the White House for the first time in twelve years, organized labor was in no mood to see manufacturing jobs shipped to Mexico. The debate was difficult enough without having to talk about the sprawling Mexican drug trade and its attendant corruption. And how the agreement would also end up benefiting the cartels. So he ordered his people not to talk about it. "We were prohibited from discussing the effects of NAFTA as it related to narcotics trafficking, yes." Phil Jordan, who had been one of the Drug Enforcement Administration's leading authorities on Mexican drug organizations, told ABC News reporter Brian Ross four years after the deal had gone through. "For the godfathers of the drug trade in Colombia and Mexico, this was a deal made in narco heaven." The agreement squeaked through Congress in late 1993 and went into effect January 1, 1994, the same day that the Zapatistas rose up in southeast Mexico. With its passage, more than two million trucks began flowing northward across the border annually. Only a small fraction of them were inspected for cocaine, heroin, or meth. The opening of the border came at an opportune time for Mexican drug runners, who had recently expanded their control of the cocaine trade and made major investments in large-scale meth production. Both were unintended consequences of U.S. policies in the seventies and eighties aimed at crushing meth and cocaine with a militarized, enforcement-heavy approach. Now NAFTA had presented Mexican cartels with one more unintended opportunity springing from U.S. policy. In a 1999 report, the White House estimated that commercial vehicles brought roughly 100 tons of cocaine into the country across the Mexican border in 1993. With NAFTA in effect, 1994 saw the biggest jump in commercial-vehicle smuggling on record-a 25 percent increase. The number of meth-related emergency-room visits in the United States doubled between 1991 and 1994. In San Diego, America's meth capital, meth seizures climbed from 1,409 pounds in 1991 to 13,366 in 1994. The return of meth across the Mexican border was one more sign that the gettough policies of the eighties had backfired. Meth production had been driven underground and pushed into Mexico in the late-sixties and seventies as a result of federal legislation. It fell into the waiting arms of a drug-smuggling establishment that itself had also been created by U.S. drug policy. The 1914 U.S. law that banned opium had created a situation in which the drug was illegal on one side of the border and legal on the other, where it had been grown since the 1800s. The Mexican government was in the midst of a revolution and unable to stop northward smuggling. Sociologist Lus Astorga, in his study "Drug Trafficking in Mexico: A First General Assessment," cites Los Angeles customs officials claiming that Baja California's then-governor, Esteban Cant, a Mexican army colonel, was suspected of playing a major role in the

drug trade by reselling product seized from other traffickers. Mexican smugglers got another boost when the United States banned alcohol with passage of the Eighteenth Amendment. It took them decades, though, to get into the cocaine business. In the seventies, South American cocaine producers were running almost all of the cocaine imported into the United States through the Caribbean, into Miami, and then out to the rest of the nation. In the eighties, the feds brought the hammer down on the mound of coke that was Miami and the Caribbean smugglers. While the government focused on the powder that then began to waft across the country, Mexican meth smugglers seized a perfect opportunity. The opening salvo of the U.S. war on coke might well have been a 1981 Time magazine cover story on Miami's burgeoning drug trade, which put an intolerable situation before the eyes of the whole American public. The report, titled "Trouble in Paradise," led directly to federal intervention, with Vice President George H. W. Bush repeatedly traveling to Miami to oversee the response personally. Making life difficult for those involved in the multibillion-dollar drug trade, however, was no simple affair. With tighter enforcement in Florida and the Caribbean, producers increasingly moved their product by tuna boat or airplane to Mexico or another nearby nation and then overland across the U.S. border. Mexico had the infrastructure ready: By the late seventies, it was the world's largest heroin exporter, with thousands of acres of poppy fields. The late sixties and seventies had also seen a dramatic increase in demand for Mexican marijuana; by the midseventies, it was among the world's foremost pot exporters. The extensive South and Central American smuggling network was built at a time when the United States' primary foreignpolicy goals were to oppose communism and to support enemies of communism-regardless of whether they were also drug

traffickers. When relations with the Soviet Union began to thaw, in the mid-eighties, the United States was left with a superpower-sized military that had no obvious enemy. Drugs would have to do. "Two words sum up my entire approach," President George H. W. Bush's drug czar, William Bennett, announced in 1989: "'consequences' and 'confrontation.'" He and Bush doubled annual drug-war spending to $12 billion and pressed fighter planes, submarines, and other military hardware into service for the cause. In 1989, Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney secured $450 million to go after Caribbean smugglers; billions more were spent in the source countries of South America. In the early nineties, a White House report notes, more than 250 tons of coke were smuggled into the United States through Florida in a year, while only about 100 tons flowed across the southwestern border. By the end of the decade, just under 200 tons each came across both boundaries. In subsequent years, the amount coming through the Caribbean steadily fell, and by 2004, the Interagency Assessment of Cocaine Movement determined that the route accounted for less than 10 percent of all coke smuggling into the United States. Spreading the market out didn't have a noticeable effect on supply north of the border. But it had an important impact south of it: it solidified the strength of Mexican drug-running organizations, which quickly realized that they could make a nice extra profit by packing another drug with their shipments of cocaine. U.S. restrictions on pharmaceutical companies, which had lowered domestic meth production, had also created a thriving Mexican meth industry. The Mexican cocaine cartels were flush with capital, having taken over major portions of the business from the Colombians--thanks, in large measure, to successful U.S. efforts to decapitate Colombian drug organizations. These two circumstances led directly to the industrialization of the meth trade.

The Mexican traffickers renegotiated their deals with the Colombians, taking an ownership stake rather than a flat fee for transport, and then reinvested some of this capital in building meth factories. Their product was then shipped northward in unprecedented volumes. The return of meth--or, more precisely, the evolution of meth--was a throw-yourhands-up moment for drug warriors. Federal surveys show a long and slow decline in the use of amphetamines in the United States from 1981 to the early nineties. But between 1994 and 1995, meth use climbed in the United States. Among nineteen- to twenty-eight-yearolds in the Michigan survey, annual use ticked up by a third. (It remained lower, however, than the American media would have you believe: Even after the jump in meth use, only 1.2 percent of the survey's total respondents admitted to using it.) The shift of meth from localized production in California to big-time assembly lines in Mexico didn't go unnoticed by enforcement agents in the United States. But the eventual crackdown brought another unforeseen consequence: as California tightened its border in response to both drug smuggling and illegal immigration in the nineties, the drug runners gradually moved east making access to the Midwest much easier. "The eastward expansion of the drug took a particular toll on central states such as Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska," noted the government's 2006 National Drug Threat Assessment. The Midwestern methedemic, as it came to be dubbed, was soon on full display. [Note: With occasional exceptions, no single policy action is the sole cause of any drug trend. This excerpt on NAFTA only highlights one cause of the rise of meth use in the '90s, a misunderstood phenomenon that is explored with greater depth in the book]

Europe for Sale

Francois Godement 2011-07-08 http://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/godement1/English
PARIS In Shakespeares plays, comedy often meets tragedy. Perhaps Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao reflected on this as he watched a performance of Hamlet in Stratford-upon-Avon during his recent European tour. And, apropos the play, he may have been thinking: To buy or not to buy? In Bulgaria last March, one of his ministers quipped that there will always be someone pointing fingers at us, whether or not we buy. But, as Wens trip to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Hungary showed, China is indeed buying and European Union leaders are eagerly selling. Wens tour provided some absurd plot twists. In Budapest, he praised Sandor Petofi, whose nineteenth-century ode to freedom is a Hungarian national treasure, while Viktor Orban, Hungarys rightist prime minister, lauded China for supposedly including Petofi in high school curricula. That seems unlikely: in one of his most famous speeches, delivered in February 1957, in the wake of Hungarys anti-Soviet revolution, Mao excoriated the Petofi club. He lamented that the Hungarian communists had killed virtually no counterrevolutionaries: thats why there was a Hungarian incident; and he fully supported the Soviets brutal repression of the uprising. It is not difficult to fathom why Orban, who in 2000 received the Dalai Lama, would resort to such insincere praise and even wax rhapsodic about Hungarys historical alliance with China. Wens government has ensured that Chinese banks will finance 1 billion worth of potential investment by Hungarian firms in China, and has promised to buy an unspecified volume of Hungarian government bonds. Unlike in 2000, many Tibetan refugees in Hungary were summoned for prolonged identity checks at the time of Wens visit, effectively keeping them out of the streets. Worse, Orban was in the final days of Hungarys EU presidency during Wens visit, but said nothing about the EU except to offer another ecstatic paean to his countrys potential as a logistical and trade center for Chinese goods. Wen met a cooler reception in London, where he fumed at the UK for its criticism of human rights in China, calling it finger pointing, and urged respect for the Chinese people. Few deals were signed, with agreements on Chinese pig and chicken imports, as well as a reciprocal panda agreement, as much in the limelight as financing for a UK energy investor in China. And, to his credit, British Prime Minister David Cameron mentioned the need for mutual access to the European and Chinese markets. And yet there was a common element in Wens Hungary and UK visits: in each case, China offered financing for British and Hungarian firms to invest in China. This is a new development. Only recently, China was still taking European development loans. Indeed, Beijing

Airportss shiny Terminal 3, and more recently, Chinas alternative-energy investments, relied on billions of euros in European public loans. It seems, then, that China, having graduated from the ranks of poor countries, has understood the need for what Europeans call reciprocity. This summer, the EU will review its partnerships with large emerging economies above all, with China. Europe may well seek terms that befit a rising power rather than a developing country. Moreover, despite Wens rebuke of critics of Chinas human rights record, here, too, the message might finally be getting through. On the eve of Wens European trip, two opponents of the regime, Ai Weiwei and Hu Jia, were released from jail. To be sure, the significance of that gesture should not be overestimated: Hu only had six months left on an absurd sentence of three and a half years, and Ai is still under legal threat for supposed tax evasion.

But the gesture should not be underestimated, either. China has backed down in these high-profile cases. Until only recently, it seemed that the more important the symbolic importance of a case, the harsher Chinas official response invariably would be. China knows that it has a problem with European public opinion, and that this might matter as Chinas economic presence becomes more pronounced. The final leg of Wens tour, his visit to Germany, was all business. At the Paris air show, Chinese officials made much of refusing to sign a contract with Airbus in retaliation for Europes plans for a carbon tax on air travel. In Berlin just four days later, however, China bought 88 Airbus planes (Chinese official sources put the number at 62). German Chancellor Angela Merkel said little of substance about European policy this was strictly a bilateral meeting. But the Germans did talk, without resolution, about human rights, as the Chinese did about gaining market-economy status. Wens visit nonetheless says much about the state of Europe. For starters, Europes

periphery is demoralized, and in some cases ready to lunge at any Faustian bargain thats offered. At the same time, Europes former powers are evidently struggling with Chinas new international primacy, which can be addressed only through greater European unification a goal for which they currently show little appetite. Indeed, Germany, the EUs Middle Republic, is European nowadays only to the extent that Europe furthers German economic interests. Meanwhile, China is able to adopt a modern version of Maos strategy to encircle the cities from the countryside. Its leaders are now bargain-hunting in Europes crisis-stricken periphery, while expressing only vague support for Europe as a whole. Francois Godement is a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, and a founder of the Asia Center at Sciences Po in Paris. He has also worked as a consultant to the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs on China, Asia, and Europe. Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2011.

What Does a Progressive Christian Believe?

Tracing the Theological Core of a Movement By Cynthia B. Astle May 21, 2011 http://www.tpcmagazine.org/article/what-does-progressive-christian-believe
Questioning Theological Validity In his column, Schmidt questions Progressive Christianity's validity as a faith movement. He argues that responses to the Believe Out Loud dispute show that the movement has no theological core and therefore does not qualify as religious. As TPC editor, I chose to reprint such a highly provocative column because I think he raises the kind of uncomfortable questions that all Christian movements should ask themselves from time to time. Nonetheless, with some trepidation, I now must say that I find Schmidt's thesis that progressive Christianity has no expressed theological core flawed. Here's why. Today's Progressive Christianity has many stars: Marcus Borg, John Dominic Crossan, Diana Butler Bass and Brian McLaren, to name but a few. Each of them comes at progressive Christian theology from different, but often converging, perspectives. Over the past decade, McLaren and writing partners Borg and Crossan have been particularly adept in the areas of Schmidt's critique, especially the nature of God and the reign of God. Every so often, there's a family squabble among Progressive Christians. Over the past two weeks, the tempest has been between the Rev. Jim Wallis and his magazine, Sojourners, and the Believe Out Loud campaign urging Christians to acknowledge publicly their support for LGBT rights. To date, this magazine has stayed out of the debate, but this week two columns appeared that we found appropriate to reprint. One is by a regular contributor, the Rev. Jim Burklo, associate dean of religious affairs at the University of Southern California, who pleads with Jim Wallis to reconsider his public stance. The other column was written by the Rev. Frederick W. Schmidt, an Episcopal priest who blogs at Patheos.com. It's of the latter column that I now write. Disclosure: I know Dr. Schmidt and respect his work; several of his books sit on my shelf. In addition, I'm currently enrolled in a spiritual direction program that he leads at Perkins School of Theology. Consequently, what follows may seem foolhardy, if not downright suicidal academically, but it's offered in a spirit of healthy theological debate. Yet even with the exciting work of these contemporary thinkers, I contend that Progressive Christianity's theological foundation rests on the work of two oftenunsung giants: James Rowe Adams and Delwin Brown. To learn about these two men is to discover how Progressive Christian theology has developed over the past quarter of a century. Jim Adams, who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, founded The Center for Progressive Christianity in 1994 while rector at St. Mark's Church on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. He's credited with coining the term "progressive Christianity" and with devising eight points that define the work of the center. Adams' original goal, "to keep churches from drying up and blowing away," has evolved through the past 25 years to include developing both adult and children's Christian curriculum that focuses on building relevant, effective and inclusive faith. As expressed in the recent second edition of his book, So You Think You're Not Religious? (2010, Saint Johann Press), Adams' basic definition of "God" is not an all-powerful being "out there," but the experience of living in a community in which individuals struggle together to find meaning in life.

Sadly, Del Brown died from cancer in September 2009 while working on a new college curriculum for the organization he co-founded, The Beatitudes Society. At the time of his death, Brown was dean emeritus of Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, California, from whence he retired in 2003. During his career he also held a variety of academic and administrative roles at Iliff School of Theology in Denver, and taught earlier at Arizona State University. Brown wrote many academic books and articles on facets of Christian theology and on theology's role in creating healthy religious traditions. His last book, What Does a Progressive Christian Believe? (2008 Seabury Books), was the capstone of his work. Among other topics, he summarized his understanding of God as a being or force beyond human comprehension, but intimately present in human experience. Some of Brown's writing remains available online in a blog co-sponsored by TPC, Communicating Progressive Christianity in the Public Square. The Theologians Agreed Mostly In Fall 2008, The Progressive Christian magazine published a dialogue between Adams and Brown. Their email-facilitated discussion showed that the two thinkers came to many of the same theological

conclusions, although Adams held that Brown's view of God was, in his words, "feeble." Nonetheless, the theologians were agreed on two major points, as Brown wrote in his last book and with which Adams concurred in a review: "Progressive Christians are people formed by the tradition grounded in Jesus Christ," and "The Bible is our foundational resource." On these common statements hang all the Progressive Christian theology that currently exists. Thus, I submit that the assertion that Progressive Christianity has no theological core must be considered unsubstantiated. Instead, the movement has a substantive body of theological writing expressed in keeping with its inherently questing nature. The variations of this core theology, including the nature of God and Jesus, represent Christianity's diversity as much as the works of any long-ago church fathers and mothers. What I suspect lies at the heart of the dispute over Progressive Christianity's theological nature is the same question with which I struggle: that of divine mystery, or encounters with the sacred that can be experienced but not explained. Jim Adams has written that any description of God is both inaccurate and incomplete, implying a divine mystery that

exceeds human comprehension. Some progressive Christians view sacred mystery as cognitively unfathomable; therefore they ignore or resist it. Meanwhile others, especially younger believers, are comfortable with the ambiguity of an "Other" that they can encounter but cannot articulate rationally. Collectively we are blind people groping an elephant; each of us thinks that his or her perception of God, from skinny tail to enormous trunk, represents the whole. Not even the synthesis of all we perceive could represent the infinite diversity of God. Therefore, our inability to define the sacred mystery that animates us should make us all the more reliant on the beliefs we hold in common. Disputes such as that between Sojourners and Believe Out Loud, along with critiques such as Fred Schmidt's and Jim Burklo's, will prove beneficial only insofar as they ultimately bear out our common values. As people formed theologically by the tradition rooted in Jesus Christ, Progressive Christians cannot claim the high moral ground in any situation without practicing Jesus' core values of compassion, justice and forgiveness toward one another. Unless we act as we have been instructed by Jesus' teachings, no social action or theological critique will be valid. Or so this Progressive Christian believes.

Frederick Engels On The Historical Development Of Modern Socialism

By Thomas Riggins 13 July, 2011 http://countercurrents.org/riggins130711.htm
In the first chapter of Part Three of his classic work Anti-Dhring, Engels discusses the origins of the modern socialist movement. He begins with the enthronement of "Reason" by the prerevolutionary 18th century French philosophers who thought that only reason could be used to answer any of the questions of existence. After the overthrow of Louis XVI and the abolition of the monarchical French state, a new state was constructed by the revolutionaries-- one based on "eternal" reason and designed to be completely rational. The spiritual progenitor of this state was Rousseau's book The Social Contract. But "eternal" reason turned out to be simply the explanation of existence from the point of view of the rising bourgeois class. The complexity of the new political reality they had created quite eluded them as the contradictions between their class and the newly conscious masses of the disposed poor of Paris and the countryside began to manifest themselves. The wretched of the earth exerted themselves and the bourgeois rational state fell apart and morphed into the Reign of Terror under which the masses, for a moment, gained "the mastery" and saved the Revolution. With the abolition of feudalism the bourgeoisie had expected social peace but instead got a furious international response and the development of an intense struggle between the poor and the rich at home. After Robespierre and the Jacobins, representing the French masses, were overthrown on 9 Thermidor Year II (July 27, 1794) by the conservative bourgeoisie, the new ruling class lost faith in its own ability to rule. After five years of corrupt government under the Directory, they surrendered to the coup d'etat of Napoleon Bonaparte on 18 Brumaire Year IX (November 9, 1799). All this turmoil was a reflection of the "development of industry upon a capitalist basis [which] made poverty and misery of the working masses conditions of existence of society." From the dispossessed Paris masses (the "havenothings" and other disadvantaged groups the proletariat began to develop "as the nucleus of a new class." However, at this time "the antagonism between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat, was still very incompletely developed." At this historical juncture the three "founders" of socialism appeared: Saint-Simon, Fourier, and Owen. First on the scene was Claude Henri Comte de Saint-Simon (1760-1825). The Revolution was supposed to be a victory of the Third Estate (production workers) over a ruling class of idlers (the nobility and the Catholic hierarchy and its priests). But, in reality Engels says, the victory did not go to the Third Estate as a whole but only that part of it owning property, "the socially privileged part." Saint-Simon saw the Revolution as a struggle between "workers" (anyone engaged in productive activity) and "idlers"-- people living off unearned income. For him "the workers were not only the wage workers, but also the manufacturers, the merchants, and the bankers." Science and Industry must move to the forefront and lead the revolution. The undeveloped nature of the class struggle within the Third Estate is apparent-- the proletariat and the capitalists are in the same "class." (I can't say the vast majority of the American people have gone much beyond that stage of consciousness yet but it has recently begin to dawn on them that class struggle is real). Saint-Simon's heart was in the right place as he wanted to improve the conditions of the lowest and greatest number of the Third Estate-- what would become the proletariat and included the masses of downtrodden peasants, the most numerous and poor; Engels quotes

him: "la class la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre." However his socialism was utopian as he expected the bankers to lead the way into the new world! "The bankers especially were to be called upon to direct the whole of social production by the regulation of credit." Ironically the bankers today, the finance capitalists, do control production but in their interests not those of "la plus nombreuse et la plus pauvre." Saint-Simon actually thought the rich bourgeoisie, bankers and manufactures, would change themselves into public servants and use their ruling positions to help the poor and oppressed. But at least he realized the "poor and oppressed" made up the majority of "the people" (Third Estate). In fact Engels credits him with understanding that the Revolution was a three way struggle-Nobility vs. the Bourgeoisie AND the propertyless masses even though there was a tendency to group the latter two together when contrasted to the Nobility. His greatness was in proclaiming that "all men ought to work" and recognizing that within the bourgeois revolution the Reign of Terror represented the power of "the toiling masses" against the haut bourgeoisie. Engels quotes Saint-Simon addressing himself to the poor masses: "See what happened in France at the time when your comrades held sway there; they brought about a famine." The "they" are the bourgeois enemies of Robespierre and the rule of the Parisian sans culottes. SaintSimon also saw a future where economics was more important than politics , i.e., the administration of things (planned economy) over the administration of people (the bourgeois state)-- i.e, he envisioned "the abolition of the state." We find in Saint-Simon the seeds, Engels says, of "almost all the ideas of later Socialists that are not strictly economic." Following on the appearance of Saint-Simon came the ideas of Francois-Marie Charles Fourier (1772-1837). He contrasted the actual living conditions of the people after the establishment of bourgeois rule ("material and moral misery") with the pictures of what life would be like painted by their pre-revolutionary propaganda and by the "rose-colored phraseology of the bourgeois ideologists of his time." In his first book, The Theory of the Four Movements (1808) he wrote, "Social progress and changes of a period are accompanied by the progress of women towards freedom, while the decay of the

social system brings with it a reduction of the freedoms enjoyed by women." Therefore, "Extension of the rights of women is the basic principle of all social progress." Engels says of him, with respect to the above passage, that: "He was the first to declare that in any given society the degree of woman's emancipation is the natural measure of the general emancipation." This not only tells us a lot about Saudi Arabia, but where our own society is heading with its failure to pass an Equal Rights Amendment and the movement to restrict the right to abortion, as well as the recent Supreme Court ruling that the woman discriminated against for years at Walmart have no right to a class action suit to redress their grievances. Fourier also divided the history of human development up to the present era into "four stages of evolution," which were 1.) Savagery 2.) the Patriarchate 3.) Barbarism, and 4.) Civilization. In this scheme "Civilization" appears with the development of capitalism in the 1500s and he says "that the civilized stage raises every vice practiced by barbarism in a simple fashion into a form of existence, complex, ambiguous, equivocal [and] hypocritical." Engels says that for Fourier civilization develops along "a vicious circle" throwing up contradictions it cannot resolve and arriving at the exact opposite destinations that it wants to arrive at or at least pretends to want to arrive at so that, as Fourier writes, "under civilization POVERTY IS BORN OF SUPER-ABUNDANCE ITSELF." For example the US, the richest country in the world, has 25% of its children at or under the official poverty line-- a completely ridiculous society! One of the things Engels admires about Fourier is his masterly use of the dialectical method in his writings, which he compares to that of Hegel "his contemporary." Engels also says something curious here. He says Fourier postulates the "ultimate destruction of the human race" which he introduced into historical science just as Kant had introduced the "ultimate destruction of the Earth" into natural science. But, in this pre-Star Trek world, Kant's end of the Earth scenario would have entailed the end of the human race as well. Saint-Simon and Fourier were products of the French Revolution but, Engels points out, at the same time over in England just as great a revolution was taking place. The whole basis of bourgeois

society was being changed by the development of steam engines and tool making machines and manufacture (from the Latin "manus" hand) was being replaced by gigantic factories were machines tended by workers began to to turn out commodities rather than commodities directly made by them, "thus revolutionizing the whole foundation of bourgeois society." This industrial revolution began to divide society in to a powerful group of capitalists on one hand, and propertyless proletarians on the other. The heretofore large and stable middle class began to break up and tended to be forced down into the lower class of workers-- "it now led a precarious existence." Sound familiar? However, then the term "middle class" had a different meaning than it does now. Then it meant the class of artisans and small shop keepers who thrived in the era of manufacture. Now it is used to refer to an income group consisting of well paid workers and professionals whose wages were partially subsidized by the megaprofits of the imperialist international capitalist corporations who bought a modicum of social peace at home at the expense of the international solidarity of first world workers with third world workers and peasants by the creation of a labor aristocracy, according to Lenin, in the metropolitan countries. Professionals such as lawyers, doctors and the parasitical class of preachers and priests were also included. With the decline of high paying production jobs in the West due to the rise of industry in the third world, among other factors, these high wage jobs are disappearing forcing the "middle class" down into lower paying jobs and so, as in the first days of capitalism, it now leads "a precarious existence." Another difference is that today we have labor unions, proworking class political parties and associations, and growing class awareness which is developing into a major class battle for the protection of people's jobs, life styles and incomes. This battle is just beginning and should grow as today's world capitalist system proceeds further down the path of decay and self destruction. But in the England of the early 1800s, capitalism was on the rise and not the decline. It was into this world that the third great early founder of socialism arose: Robert Owen (17711858). Owen was a materialist in philosophy and thought that humans were

the product of their heredity (although at this time nothing was known of genes or DNA or any of the mechanisms of heredity) and their environment, most particularly their childhood environment. For 29 years (1800-1829) he managed New Lanark the large cotton-mill employing around 2500 "hands" in Scotland. And, Engels says, by "simply placing the people in conditions worthy of human beings" the workers lived in a society without "drunkenness, police, magistrates, lawsuits, poor laws, [or] charity." He sent all the children off to school at age 2, put the working day at 101/2 hours (not the 13 or 14 that was the norm) and kept everyone on full wages when there was a four month shut down due to a cotton crisis AND made large profits and doubled the value of the business. Well, my goodness! Why didn't all the capitalists follow suit? They didn't follow suit, for the same reason Owen fought with the other shareholders at new Lanark-- they didn't like the extra expenses that had to be put out for "conditions worthy of human beings." After Owen left in 1829 the community continued, in one form or another, under different capitalists, until 1968 when it went bust. It is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site drawing in around 400,000 tourists a year to visit it and the house where Owen lived. In his work "The Revolution in Mind and Practice" (1849) Owen wrote he was unhappy with New Lanark because "The people were slaves at my mercy." He pointed out that New Lanark's 2500 workers, with steam power, created as much social wealth as it it took 600,000 workers to create a couple of generations earlier. Those 600,000 had to be paid

living wages just as the 2500-- so what happened to all the surplus wealth saved in wages that would have gone to 597,500 extra workers? It was pocketed by the capitalists. This new wealth was being generated all over England. It was being used to wage the wars of the Empire and to maintain an oppressive aristocratic and bourgeois order at home. "And yet this new power was the creation of the working class." Owen wanted this vast new wealth to go to the working class that created it for the building of a new society in which it would be, as Engels says "the common property of all, to be worked for the common good of all." In his day, because of his reforms at New Lanark, Owen was considered a great philanthropist. He was lionized and respected and welcome at the tables of the rich and powerful. But as soon as he started talking about the working class creating all the wealth and how it ought to build a new society based on "common property" he was dropped like a hot potato, became persona non gratia, and shunned by official society. He therefore went to the working class and became a union leader and, Engels says, "Every social movement, every real advance in England on behalf of the workers links itself on to the name of Robert Owen." Owen called for the overthrow of three great impediments to the advance of the working class and the reform of society along communist lines-- private property, religion, and "the present form of marriage (Engels)." Marriage is going through some radical changes nowadays and it is certainly very different from the forms of marriage Owen would have seen in the

early 19th century. But private property and religion (i.e., supernaturalism and superstition) are still major impediments that hold back social progress for workers. The last few pages of this chapter Engels devotes to vituperative attacks against Dhring and his negative views of the three utopians compared to whom Dhring is a pipsqueak. Engels says Dhring displays "a really frightful ignorance of the works of the three utopians." Their works are still worth reading (Dhring's are not) and whatever limitations they have were the result of the undeveloped conditions of early industrial capitalism. But, since the time of the utopians and today (the 1870s) "modern industry has developed the contradictions laying dormant in the capitalist mode of production into such crying antagonisms that the approaching collapse of this mode of production is, so to speak, palpable." Well they may have been "palpable" to Engels, but capitalism is still around, sad to say. And once again the palpability of capitalist collapse is in the air. From the looming default of Greece, to the threat of defaults spreading to Spain, Portugal and Italy which will bring down the Euro-zone and mobilize millions of workers to take to the streets of Europe, to the failure of the recovery in the United States and the desperate turn to the Tea Party by big capital to nurture home grown fascism to attack the workers and their unions, the smell of capitalist decay is everywhere. Let us hope this generation of workers will pay due to the long ago optimism of Frederick Engels. Thomas Riggins writes for People's World and is the associate editor of Political Affairs magazine, both online.

FDIC Chairwoman: Mortgage Industry Didnt Think Borrowers Were Worth Helping
by Lois Beckett July 13, 2011, 9:50 a.m. http://www.propublica.org/blog/item/fdic-chairwoman-mortgage-industry-didnt-think-borrowers-were-worthhelping
Outgoing Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation Chairwoman Sheila C. Bair's revealing exit interview by the New York Times' Joe Nocera [1] has generated plenty of buzz. But while the interview provided a comprehensive look at Bair's role from 2006 to 2011, what caught our attention was her characterization of the foreclosure crisis. Bair said that the mortgage's industry's reluctance to provide mortgage modifications stems in part from the industry's "disdain for borrowers [2]." "I think some of it was that they didn't think borrowers were worth helping," she said. While Bair said that President Barack Obama's "heart is in the right place," she criticized his economic team for taking controversial steps to aid banks while, in Nocera's words, being "utterly unwilling to take any political heat to help homeowners." We have been tracking [3] Obama's struggling home loan modification program [4] since 2009. Bair's analysis of the government's approach is very much in line with what we've reported. From the beginning, the program was watered down and stripped of key enforcement measures [5], after President Obama backed away from his campaign promises to force banks to modify mortgages [5]. Treasury's oversight of the program has been lax and characterized by deference to banks [6]. The government has only recently begun to penalize [7] several major banks for their byzantine, error-prone modifications [8]. As we've reported, homeowners have often been forced to deal with lost documents, poor communication and mistaken denials [9]. As of May, approximately 730,000 homeowners [10] had received permanent loan modificationsa fraction of the millions of homeowners [11] that the Obama administration promised to help. In criticizing the industry's approach, Bair became the first regulator to speak so frankly about the issue. In her interview, Bair, a moderate Republican [12] appointed by President George W. Bush, described a longstanding industry resistance to granting home loan modificationsa resistance that she first tried to overcome, unsuccessfully, just before the housing bubble burst in 2007. After she took over the FDIC in 2006, Bair said, she realized that "predatory" loaning practiceslike adjustable rate mortgages whose rates jumped steeply after an introductory periodhad become mainstream. Bair held a series of meetings with mortgage industry executives. The goal was to forestall wide-scale foreclosures by convincing debt servicers to modify loan payments when homeowners went into default. "After doing some arm-twisting," Nocera wrote [1], "Bair felt she had extracted a commitment" that servicers would try to restructure mortgagesin particular, that they would be willing to freeze adjustablerate mortgages at the original payment level, rather than the higher "reset rate," as Nocera reported in 2007 [13]. But later that year, after the housing market had crashed, Bair learned from a

survey of mortgage servicers that those conversations had been ignored. "It showed that like 1 percent of those reset mortgages were being restructured," Bair told Nocera [1]. "They would just push people into foreclosure." She told Nocera that she felt that she had been lied to, and that what mortgage servicers had promised in their meetings with the FDIC had simply been "happy talk." As we've reported, part of the problem with the home loan modification process is that mortgage servicers have few incentives to help homeownersor to save investors money [9]. The servicers, the largest of which are the nation's biggest banks, don't own the vast majority of the loans they handle. That means that they don't bear the loss if the loan goes to foreclosure. In fact, servicers often make money from foreclosure fees. Bair pointed out this same problem in an op-ed in the Washington Post [14] last week that echoed her address to the National Press Club in June [15]. She noted that the servicers' short-term incentives to foreclose on homes were

wildly out of line with everyone's longterm benefitincluding their own: [Mortgage servicers'] under-investment in servicing has led to a huge inventory of foreclosed properties and mounting litigation that is likely to cost them far more than any savings they achieved by cutting corners. In Bair's account, the Treasury's prioritization of the well-being of financial institutions over the well-being of homeowners has hobbled the government's foreclosure response since the beginning of the crisis. As we reported in February, Geithner's Treasury undermined a 2009 attempt to put more pressure on servicers to modify mortgages [5]. Bair told Nocera that when she went to the Treasury in 2007 to encourage them to put pressure on mortgage servicers, she received little response. The government, she said, "thought maybe I was overstating the problem and that it wasn't going to be that big a deal." Instead, Bair gained a reputation as "difficult." [16] In her recent Washington Post op-ed, Bair wrote:

Government efforts to promote modifications ... have gradually moved in the right direction but have remained behind the curve. At the height of the crisis in the fall of 2008, when fear over where the bottom was ruled the markets, policymakers were supremely focused on the short-term priority of preventing the failure of the nation's largest financial companies. Government assistance to financial institutions took a variety of forms, amounting to a total commitment of almost $14 trillion by the spring of 2009. While those actions were necessary to prevent an even bigger economic catastrophe, we still have not addressed the No. 1 cause of both the crisis and the subpar recovery we are in: a stubborn refusal to deal head-on with past-due and underwater mortgages. Starting in September, Bair will be working for Pew Charitable Trusts (a ProPublica supporter) [17]a move that earned her plaudits from the Wall Street Journal's Deal Blog [18], which noted, "Here's a bit of shocking news: A Washington regulator is NOT going to work for the industry she used to rule over." She has also secured a book deal for her own account of the financial crisis, "Bull by the Horns: What Main Street Must Do To Fix Wall Street [19]."

Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Christian?

http://www.jesus-is-lord.com/king.htm
Preface. Given the subject of this article--Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.--there is something that I want to establish here. I'm Black and there are some things that I'm glad about as a Black person. I'm glad that I don't have to sit in the back of the bus when I choose to ride one. I'm glad that I was able to attend the University of my choice. I'm glad that my husband can work in a good career. I'm glad that when we stay at a hotel we don't have to enter through the back door. I'm glad that we can eat at whatever restaurant we want to and that we don't have to stand in the kitchen to eat our food. I'm glad that I don't have to look for a "colored" sign when I need to relieve myself or when I want a drink of water. I'M GLAD ABOUT THESE THINGS. Martin Luther King, Jr. had a part in bringing these things about. BUT I am not defined by my color (though there are those that would choose to define me so). I am defined by Who my Father is. I am a blood-bought, born-again, sanctified, walking-with-the-Lord child of God. THAT is who I am. I serve the ONLY wise God and Saviour Jesus Christ. I don't serve myself anymore. My life is all about Jesus. It wasn't always, but it is now. If there be any good thing that springs forth from my life it comes from Jesus Christ my Sinbearer, my Saviour, and my Master. The only thing that matters in this life is what a person does with Jesus Christ--they will either humble themselves under His mighty hand, or they will be ground to powder. Did Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. humble himself under His mighty hand or is Martin Luther King, Jr. in hell right now? What made me question the salvation of Martin Luther King, Jr.? Early this year (1998), my little sister asked me to look up some stuff on the internet for a paper she was doing on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. As I surfed, the Lord put a thought in my mind, "Did this man ever testify of Me?" I thought to myself, "Mmmmm. The world loved this man. If he was preaching the gospel, the world would have hated him." I started looking up Martin Luther King's writings. As I read, I realized that he was a stranger, a foreigner to me. Whenever he mentioned Jesus, it was along with mere mortals like Socrates or Ghandi. In his jailhouse letter, King lumped all religions into the same class. I could not find one "sermon" where he preached Jesus Christ and Him crucified. What I saw is that this man "preached" a social gospel using Black churches as his springboard. King's philosophy is rather reminiscent of the Catholic Liberation Theology in South America. After several hours of reading of him on the internet, I told my husband that this man was not our brother in Christ. Someone who called himself "Reverend" and preached in churches was obviously not saved. For 32 years, I'd heard great and favorable things about Martin Luther King, Jr. His name was, and is, synonymous with civil rights. But in 1998, the Lord Jesus Christ has shown me that "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was nothing short of an heretick. It was a strange revelation. Well, all these months have passed and I thought my meditation on this was over--I was wrong. The Lord wanted me to see something else. Last night, my husband gave me some papers that my sister wanted me to have. It was the stuff that I had printed out for her on Martin Luther King, Jr. I didn't need that stuff back but the Lord wanted my mind to go back to this subject. Lo and behold, yesterday (it is about 3:30 am now) 10-7-98, I was surfing the internet for information on King Charles I (son of King James VI & I) when I came upon an article for Martin Luther King, Jr. I clicked on the link, and amazingly, I was taken to Stanford University's repository for Martin Luther King, Jr.'s writings--they are on line. Their repository is a work in progress, but there is more than enough there for any human being to see that Martin Luther King, Jr. denied the most basic tenets of the Christian faith. Since this article was written, the Stanford repository of Dr. King's writings has been moved at least twice and I noticed that it's contents were/are being sold by Amazon. The following links to Stanford may no longer work. (1/19/03) "In your web document "Was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. A Christian?" (http://www.Jesus-islord.com/king.htm), the links to King's papers are broke -- but they are still at Stanford -- they changed the pathnames a little bit: Edit the links' partial pathnames as follows and they will work: From: ... /publications/papers/vol1/ ... To: ... /publications/papers/vol1/ ..." Let's get specific.

Under the fair use copyright laws , I will be quoting from the Stanford website and some of Dr. King's writings. I will in no way be exhausting his revealing comments but will include links to the materials cited so that the interested reader can further investigate this matter. You will see what I mean when I call the man a liberal heretic. **EXAMPLE ONE** In his paper entitled, "What Experiences of Christians Living in the Early Christian Century Led to the Christian Doctrines of the Divine Sonship of Jesus, the Virgin Birth, and the Bodily Resurrection" We see by the very TITLE that he believed that EXPERIENCES, not scripture, dictated the BASIC, vital, critical doctrines of the deity of Jesus Christ the virgin birth the resurrection In his paper he went on to question, practically deny, each of these tenets of the Christian faith. How can you be a Christian and deny the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ? YOU CAN'T BE! Yea such an one is an heretick! Unsurprisingly, Martin Luther King, Jr. did not believe that the BIBLE is infallible or that it is to be taken literally (you can best believe he does now but it is everlasting too late for him). Below is an excerpt of this paper concerning these critical doctrines-But if we delve into the deeper meaning of these doctrines, and somehow strip them of their literal interpretation, we will find that they are based on a profound foundation. Although we may be able to argue with all degrees of logic that these doctrines are historically and philolophically untenable*, yet we can never undermind the foundation on which they are based. *According to Webster's, "untenable" means that cannot be held, defended, or maintained. "Philology" is scholarship or the study of literary texts to determine their authenticity or meaning. So in other words, the divinity, resurrection and virgin birth are indefensible based on the historical facts! Read on...

A King quote from this same paper about the Sonship of Jesus-The first doctrine of our discussion which deals with the divine sonship of Jesus went through a great process of development. It seems quite evident that the early followers of Jesus in Palestine were well aware of his genuine humanity. Even the synoptic gospels picture Jesus as a victim of human experiences. Such human experiences as growth, learning, prayer, and defeat are not at all uncommon in the life of Jesus. How then did this doctrine of divine sonship come into being? We may find a partial clue to the actual rise of this doctrine in the spreading of Christianity into the Greco-Roman world. I need not elaborate on the fact that the Greeks were very philosophical minded people. Through philosophical thinking the Greeks came to the point of subordinating, distrusting, and even minimizing anything physical. Anything that possessed flesh was always underminded in Greek thought. And so in order to receive inspiration from Jesus the Greeks had to apotheosize him. ...As Hedley laconically states, "the church had found God in Jesus, and so it called Jesus the Christ; and later under the influence of Greek thought-forms, the only begotten Son of God." Next, King on the virgin birth-First we must admit that the evidence for the tenability of this doctrine is to shallow to convince any objective thinker. To begin with, the earliest written documents in the New Testament make no mention of the virgin birth. Moreover, the Gospel of Mark, the most primitive and authentic of the four, gives not the slightest suggestion of the virgin birth. The effort to justify this doctrine on the grounds that it was predicted by the prophet Isaiah is immediately eliminated, for all New Testament scholars agree that the word virgin is not found in the Hebrew original, but only in the Greek text which is a mistranslation of the Hebrew word for "young woman." How then did this doctrine arise? A clue to this inquiry may be found in a sentence from St. Justin's First Apology. Here Justin states that the birth of Jesus is quite similar to the birth of the sons of

Zeus. It was believed in Greek thought that an extraordinary person could only be explained by saying that he had a father who was more than human. It is probable that this Greek idea influenced Christian thought. A more adequate explanation for the rise of this doctrine is found in the experience which the early christians had with Jesus. The people saw within Jesus such a uniqueness of quality and spirit that to explain him in terms of ordinary background was to them quite inadequate. For his early followers this spiritual uniqueness could only by accounted for in terms of biological uniqueness. They were not unscientific in their approach because they had no knowledge of the scientific. They could only express themselves in terms of the pre-scientific thought patterns of their day. And finally, King on the resurrection-The last doctrine in our discussion deals with the resurrection story. This doctrine, upon which the Easter Faith rests, symbolizes the ultimate Christian conviction: that Christ conquered death. From a literary, historical, and philosophical point of view this doctrine raises many questions. In fact the external evidence for the authenticity of this doctrine is found wanting. But here again the external evidence is not the most important thing, for it in itself fails to tell us precisely the thing we most want to know: What experiences of early Christians lead to the formulation of the doctrine? The root of our inquiry is found in the fact that the early Christians had lived with Jesus. They had been captivated by the magnetic power of his personality. This basic experience led to the faith that he could never die. And so in the prescientific thought pattern of the first century, this inner faith took outward form. Read this paper for yourself here. **EXAMPLE TWO** Next in line is his paper, "The Sources of Fundamentalism and Liberalism Considered Historically and Psychologically"

Herein, "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. calls the garden of Eden a myth in line with "other oriental religions" and says that science and the Bible are at odds. He is scornful of "fundamentalism" and uncritical of liberalism. In this paper, King ascribes doctrines to "fundamentalists" that are so basic that you'd think they'd be ascribed to everybody who even thought about naming the name of Christ -"...doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking." Here's a further excerpt of this paper-"The use of the critical method in approaching the Bible is to the fundamentalist downright heresy. He sees the Bible as the infallible word of God, from the dotting of an "i" to the crossing of a "T". He finds it to be a unity and a coherence of parts; "the New Testament is in the old contained, and the Old Testament is in the new explained."13 Upon this first proposition (the infallibility of the Bible) all other fundamentalist views depend. They argue that if the Bible is true--that is, so divinely inspired as to be free from error--then all other truths follow inevitably, because they are based upon what the Bible actually says in language clear and unmistakable. "When the fundamentalist comes to the nature of man he finds all of his answers in the Bible. The story of man in the garden of Eden gives a conclusive answer. Man was created by a direct act of God.14 Moreover, he was created in the image of God, but through the workings of the devil man {was} lead into disobedience. Then began all human ills: hardship and labor, the agony of childbirth, hatred, sorrow, suffering, and death.15 The fundamentalist is quite aware of the fact that scholars regard the garden of Eden and the serpent Satan and the hell of fire as myths analogous to those found in other oriental religions. He knows also that his beliefs are the center of redicule by many. But this does not shake his faith--rather it convinces him more of the existence of the devil.16 The critics, says the fundamentalist, would never indulge in such skeptical thinking if the devil hadn't influenced them. The fundamentalist is convinced that this skepticism of scholars and cheap humor of the laity can by no

means prevent the revelation of God.\[Footnote:] Sores, op. cit., p. 54.\17 "Others doctrines such as a supernatural plan of salvation, the Trinity, the substitutionary theory of the atonement, and the second coming of Christ are all quite prominant in fundamentalist thinking. Such are the views of the fundamentalist and they reveal that he is oppose to theological adaptation to social and cultural change. He sees a progressive scientific age as a retrogressive spiritual age. Amid change all around he was {is} willing to preserve certain ancient ideas even though they are contrary to science." Read this paper here. **EXAMPLE THREE** King says Christianity grew out of mystery religions in his paper entitled, "A Study of Mithraism". Here's an excerpt--

This is not to say that a Saint Paul or a Saint John sat down and copied these views verbatim. But after being in contact with these surrounding religions and hearing certain doctrines expressed, it was only natural for some of these views to become a part of their subconscious minds. When they sat down to write they were expressing consciously that which had dwelled in their subconscious minds.1 It is also significant to know that Roman tolerance had favoured this great syncretism of religious ideas. Borrowing was not only natural but inevitable. One of the most interesting of these ancient cults was Mithraism, which bore so many points of resemblance to Christianity that it is a challenge to the modern student to investigate these likenesses and learn more about them. Did you spot King's lies about the apostle Paul? Read this paper here.

**EXAMPLE FOUR** It is not at all surprising in view of the wide and growing influence of these religions that when the disciples in Antioch and elsewhere preached a crucified and risen Jesus they should be regarded as the heralds of another mystery religion, and that Jesus himself should be taken for the divine Lord of the cult through whose death and resurrection salvation was to be had. It is at this point that we are able to see why knowledge of these cults is important for any serious New Testament study. It is well-nigh impossible to grasp Christianity through and through without knowledge of these cults. That there were striking similarities between the developing church and these religions cannot be denied. Even Christian apologist had to admit that fact. For an instance, in the mystery-religions identification between the devotee and the Lord of the cult was supposed to be brought about by various rites of initiation; the taurobolium, or bath of blood; the eating of flesh of the sacrifical beast and the like. Now there was something of this in Paul too, for he thought of the believer as buried with Christ in baptism and as feeding upon him in the eucharist. This is only one of many examples that I could give to prove the similarity between the developing Christian Church and the Mystery Religions. Did King repent and change before he died? The following was spoken the night before he died. The speech is entitled, "I See The Promised Land" and was delivered April 3, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee. He had not abandoned his heretical notions:

"As you know, if I were standing at the beginning of time, with the possibility of general and panoramic view of the whole human history up to now, and the Almighty said to me, 'Martin Luther King, which age would you like to live in?'-- I would take my mental flight by Egypt through, or rather across the Red Sea, through the wilderness on toward the promised land. And in spite of its magnificence, I wouldn't stop there. I WOULD MOVE ON BY GREECE, AND TAKE MY MIND TO MOUNT OLYMPUS. AND I WOULD SEE PLATO, ARISTOTLE, SOCRATES, EURIPIDES AND ARISTOPHANES ASSEMBLED AROUND THE PARTHENON AS THEY DISCUSSED THE GREAT AND ETERNAL ISSUES OF REALITY." You see what I mean? It is in line with his other speeches that puts King's humanistic

"Christianity" in the same category as everything else. He USED "Christianity" as a springboard for his social gospel. The "promised land" for King was not heaven, it was social equality! Read this speech (it isn't a sermon) here. The answer to our question. According to the evidence above, the "Reverend" Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was no Christian. Period. He was an heretick. Below is a quote from Time Magazine (January 3, 1964)--King was Time Magazine's 1963 Man of the Year. (King speaking) "I had doubts that religion was intellectually respectable." At Morehouse, King searched for "some intellectual basis for a social philosophy." He read and reread Thoreau's essay, "Civil Disobedience," concluded that the ministry was the only framework in which he could properly position his growing ideas on social protest. At Crozer Theological Seminary in Chester, Pa., King built the underpinnings of his philosophy. Hegel and Kant impressed him, but a lecture on Gandhi transported him, sent him foraging insatiably into Gandhi's books. "From my background," he says, "I gained my regulating Christian ideals. From Gandhi I learned my operational technique." Reponses to the Piece Thank you for your article on "was Martin Luther King Jr a Christian". I surfed into

your site with that very question from google. After reading the first chapter of Yancey's "Soul Survivor" I decided I wanted to know more about MLK. I watched a video from the library, but it wasn't much help. I bought a biography on tape that included audio clips, and started listening to it. Very quickly the question came to my mind - was he a Christian? He preaches a lot about God, but he doesn't seem to think much of Jesus. It seemed almost impossible that a Baptist Preacher would not believe the Bible or that Jesus was God, but I wasn't so sure about MLK. So I surfed and found your article and confirmed my suspicions. How strange and thanks. I'm white and thankful for all he did for America, but sad that he was not a Christian -- especially for his church members. Yours in Christ, Your article on Martin Luther King Jr. was very enlightening. I have a friend here at work who was doubting the man that many of his friends follow, and he asked me to do some research. I am not taking your word for it from the web, I read some of the articles at Stanford.edu and that proved well, his disbelief. Many preachers would not join up with him and they were made fun of, verbally abused and called cowards. For non-violence, they sure strong armed people to join their movement, oh but if they had of convinced people to join the Lords Army, what a difference they could have made. Black America (I use that term as a whole) would be different if those people had of gotten saved and not marched because they wanted rights. There wouldn't be the

drug problems, the alcohol and the precious bastard children cursing the day they were born. White America would be a different place had MLK spread a Gospel message through America, many would have hated him even more, but many would have been saved if he had of preached the Gospel. What a shame, what a waste. It reminds me of the day that I watched Dale Earnhardts funeral on the TV and there were 15 Million Americans watching and 6000 in attendance that day. But did that Reverend preach, did he warn of Hells fire, and God's wrath, NO he said that if you "Ever want to see Dale, just wait until you get to heaven". Well friend, you and I both know that the only way to heaven is through the blood of Jesus, not because you were good, or had a movement that did "apparent" good. He had a chance to reach "White America" with the Gospel and he also failed. Why! Because he had a targeted message, his message was meant for a "White America" with a shallow tale of being a "good boy". So instead of "preach the Gospel to every creature" he tried to tone down his message for "white people". Plow, Plow, Plow, be instant "in season, out of season". There is no Black Heaven, or White Heaven, but there are millions who will perish and burn forever and ever. Thank you for exposing him as the heretic he is. That shows great truth and courage in this apostate hour.