Laigle’s Forum

Are corporations torch bearers of the free market?

Not even close – despite what the “conservative” media and politicians are telling you

 

Don Hank

There is a certain resistance among the public to admit that it is not you and I but the corporations and their lawyers, partnering with the Federal Reserve, that run America. Many conservatives hate to hear anyone “malign” corporations because to them, corporations, including banks, bear the torch of sacred capitalism. The GOP bosses are content with this situation.

On the other hand, since most big corporations donate mostly to the Democrat party, Democrats — especially those in the media and politics – are also loathe to broach the subject of corporate control over government.

Besides, the same corporations lobbying for open borders and amnesty for illegal aliens are also helping build Democrat power. Everyone knows how Latinos tend to vote.

And when it comes to “green” boondoggles, all the fat cats want in on them. They will of course mean a net loss of jobs and enormous subsidies for the most inefficient technologies known to mankind, but “green” subsidies flow freely from government coffers, as anyone following the Solyndra story knows.

Now, many of these corporate lobbyists are pushing very hard for open borders. They donated big bucks to pliable candidates and expect some bang, like more illegal alien labor, for example, and better legal conditions for sending your job overseas. Big corporations and Big Politics want precisely what you dread.

So what about us little people down here?

I wonder what people would say if they knew that the power of their vote is negligible compared to the pressures brought to bear by Big Business lobbies, which effectively dictate policy to your elected officials. I wonder how many have ever figured out that it was your senator’s and congressmen’s utter subservience to corporate lobbyists that made them vote for the TARP bailouts even after receiving phone calls begging them not to vote for it at the rate of 300 calls against the bailouts per 1 call in favor.

I wonder what will happen once the cat is out of the bag.

Maybe We the People will assume our rightful place in this great nation again.

Maybe.

But not unless we put our thinking caps on and realize what is really happening. Try asking yourself honestly: would corporations spend billions of dollars lobbying if they weren’t getting a financial “kickback” in some form or other? And are these kickbacks free or do they cost you money? 

It’s not that long between now and election time. Will your candidate discuss this with you in town meetings or will he mutter something snide, look around and say “next question”? If he isn’t leveling with you on the economy, fire him. You’re his boss and can’t afford another sluggard on your staff.

Where does your presidential candidate stand? I don’t recall the Fox moderators asking about the power of the corporate lobbies. And yet, business as usual in Washington brought down the world economy and cost millions of American jobs.

It’s time to wake up and make the economy and your job the front-burner issue this time around.

DEMAND:

CONGRESSIONAL CONTROL OF THE MONEY (NO MORE FEDERAL RESERVE)

STRICT CONTROLS ON LOBBYING, ESP CORPORATE LOBBYING

Now recall that the mainstream “conservative” media keep reminding you that the Occupy people are all a bunch of Marxists. So what about Alex Jones and Ron Paul’s followers? They aren’t Marxists and they have attended the Occupy rallies in significant numbers all over the country, teaching independents about the issues, making converts. So have people like Steph Jasky and Karl Denninger, who played a key role in founding the Tea Party, as well as a ton of other top-notch people. All while you stayed home, paralyzed with fear by what you read in the “conservative” press and blogosphere about being tainted by the lefties supposedly in charge. Like that photo of a young anarchist backed up against a police car, pants at half-mast, in an act of defiant defecation. Think anyone follows him? All in all, whatever Marxists may be participating in the rallies out in the cities and towns across the country are clueless non-contenders and will have almost no power in this movement if we play our cards right for a change. As I have said before, the movement is ours for the taking. Why do you think the Republican leaders and their minions in Big Talk Radio are all bad mouthing the movement?

Clue: Many of these people on the street are on to the lobbying games that the corporations – as well as the Fed — are playing, and threaten to spoil things for Big Politics by returning the power to you.

That is the main factor in all the negative press on the right. So why do leftwing politicians high five these young protesters? That’s easy. So far, they’ve been smarter than us. They know they can control the movement and its narrative if they act like they are behind it all. But they’re bluffing.  Yes, ACORN, Soros, Van Jones and other shadowy types with Obama links have in fact dreamed up schemes like this and undoubtedly had a hand in it, just as they no doubt had a hand in the Egyptian riots. But this isn’t Egypt now. It’s our turf, and no one can control it unless we let them. So far, the Left is spinning its wheels as its power slips away. Protesters interviewed on camera, for example, have ripped Obama mercilessly for his failures. The End the Fed movement is all over these rallies and for whatever faults they may have, they are vehemently anti-Obama and pro free market.

So if people like you can start thinking – and acting – outside the box, the whole football can be stripped from the hands of the corporatist elites and, with God’s grace, you can have your country back.

Sure, it will be hard work. And the propaganda aimed at making you think you are in bad company among the protesters will be non-stop. That’s a given.

Some of my Christian brethren are saying that to join the protests would mean being unequally yoked.

But consider this: If a bunch of atheists lobbied to make churches accountable for the actions of pedophile church workers, you wouldn’t side with the pedophiles, would you?

Voting against the pedophiles would not make you an atheist and it would not make you look like one. It would be doing God’s work because pedophiles not only harmd children, they are a stumbling block to the unsaved and give the churches a bad name. Let’s be real: For every candidate you have ever voted for, some unsavory characters also voted for him. So what?

Don’t be afraid to join forces with new people who are starting to get it and are just as mad as you, but maybe don’t have as clear a grasp of the issues. You may be the person who reaches a wishy-washy fence rider.

After all, I can’t think of a single election cycle when people on both sides of the political spectrum have been so mad for the same reasons – irrespective of their ideologies.

What a gorgeous opportunity!

If you let the political elites who stole your country steal the election this time around, don’t blame it on me.

 

Some statistics to consider:

 

http://allthingsd.com/20101223/what-tech-companies-are-spending-in-washington/

 

Verizon spent $3.83 million lobbying on several issues, including taxes and texting while driving, at numerous branches of the federal government, including the White House, Congress, the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Trade Commission. It spent $2.96 million in the same period a year ago.

AT&T spent $3.47 million, up from $3.18 million a year ago. Its agenda items included legislation on calling cards, broadband buildouts and distracted driving.

Hewlett-Packard spent $1.6 million–nearly double the $970,000 it spent in the third quarter of last year–chatting with members of Congress and officials at the Department of Justice and the Commerce Department about taxes, immigration and how government agencies use technology in the areas of health care and law enforcement.

Microsoft spent $1.63 million, an increase from $1.49 million a year ago. It visited Congress, the Pentagon and the Departments of Commerce and Homeland Security to talk about computer security, how the government buys software and the competitive state of online advertising. It also lobbied the Federal Communications Commission on net neutrality.

Oracle spent $1.6 million, up from $1.3 million, lobbying Congress, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security on patent litigation and the government’s technology spending plans.

Google spent $1.2 million in the third quarter (which TechCrunch noted in October following a press release by Consumer Watchdog), an increase from $1.08 million in the same period a year ago.

IBM spent $1 million, up from $850,000 a year ago, talking about transportation, the power grid, funding for research and the military, on visits to Congress and the Departments of Transportation, Defense, and Health and Human Services.

Intel spent $830,000, which is notable because the amount decreased from $1.1 million a year ago. Intel was the target of both a private antitrust lawsuit from rival Advanced Micro Devices and a government antitrust investigation by the Federal Trade Commission, both of which were intensifying in the fall. Both cases have since been settled. Its efforts were in immigration, government research funding and issues related to trademarks and education.

Yahoo spent $540,000, up from $510,000 a year ago.

Apple, easily the most influential company in consumer technology today, spent relatively little on lobbying efforts: Only $340,000 [BUT they had Al Gore on their board of directors. How cozy. 90% of their political donations went to the Democrats. Did you know that Steve Jobs “invented” mostly cosmetic changes in devices? Can you name an inventor who actually devised the really high-tech stuff like the iPod itself or the Apple computer and monitor electronics? Didn’t think so. They didn’t have dinner with Al Gore—Don Hank].

Facebook spent $120,000.

For a little more on what companies spend on lobbying efforts in Washington, it’s always enlightening to peruse the database maintained by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks not only lobbying expenditures but campaign contributions.

As you can see, the CRP shows that, among computer and Internet companies, Microsoft was the leading lobbying spender for the first nine months of the year. The wireless industry’s trade association, the CTIA, led the pack in the telephone equipment and services category, spending more than $6 million. Meanwhile, Verizon and AT&T each spent more than $12 million.

http://www.alternet.org/story/146643/hightower:_washington_overrun_by_11,000_corporate_lobbyists_and_$500_million_in_corrupting_donations

• 11,195. That’s the number of corporate lobbyists who are presently plying their nefarious trade day and night in Washington’s hallways and back rooms.
• $2.95 billion. That’s the amount that corporations spent on lobbyists last year alone (a sum more than six times greater than the total spent by all consumer,environmental, worker, and other non-corporate groups combined).
• $473 million. That’s the sum of money that corporate executives and lobbyists have slipped into Washington’s many political pockets–so far–for the 2010 election cycle, including donations to candidates, leadership PACS, and party committees. We are still seven months from the 2010 elections, and already corporate spending has reached the record-breaking total of $475 million shelled out for the entire 2008 cycle.

 

Originally Posted here by Laigle’s contributor Anthony Horvath

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“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” John Adams

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed Declaration of Independence

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The last few months I’ve seen some strident statements of opposition against libertarians by conservatives. I’m on several email lists where I’m seeing such commentary and of course its on the web, as in this example. I personally didn’t detect a huge uptick in libertarian sentiment, but alright. I describe myself as a ‘constitutional libertarian’ and in explaining why I hope that I can shed light on what I believe are the true reasons for a rise in libertarianism- among Christians in particular. I can’t speak for them all, of course, but I think I recognize in some of their commentary some of my own thinking.

So, to begin with, let me make two important observations. First of all, when one thinks ‘libertarian’ one might immediately think licentious. However, the two are not identical terms. This leads to the second observation, the direction by which one arrives at libertarianism greatly impacts the flavor of that libertarianism. There can be no question that there are a great mass of individuals, who calling themselves libertarians, really are just people who wish to engage in whatever depravity that they want, with no one to tell them otherwise or worse- stop them. By my observation, the people coming from this direction are really your typical atheist secular humanist progressive who is perfectly happy to foist as much government as people can bear onto themselves and others- in the form of nationalized health care, eg- just so long as they can have sex with whatever and whomever they want and smoke whatever happens to come across their path.

However, someone coming at ‘libertarianism’ from the other direction, say, from a Christian perspective and a conservative, is not looking for a reason to misbehave. This is why I led off with the John Adams quote. ‘Moral and religious people’ will continue to be ‘moral and religious’ whatever freedoms or restrictions are placed on them by the government. I might say: “Libertarianism was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the [government] of any other.” There are any number of forms of government that can work with a ‘moral and religious people.’ For an amoral or immoral or anti-moral or non-religious or anti-religious people, no kind of government is going to work for the long haul. Read the rest of this entry »

This may be the most politically incorrect article you will ever read.

by Don Hank

 And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompense of their error which was meet.

Romans 1:27 

 

A group that wants “recognition for gay and lesbian communities” has introduced the International Day Against Homophobia, and has set May 17 for that celebration. That’s tomorrow.

These homosexual activists claim to be protesting homophobia. But what is homophobia?

Webster’s definition is irrational fear of, aversion to, or discrimination against homosexuality or homosexuals. But is all fear of homosexuality irrational?

Well, according to the homosexual activists, it is.

However, it is known that over 70% of AIDS sufferers are male homosexuals. Is it homophobic to report that? Or can we admit that there can be rational fears of homosexual sex? Medical doctors, particularly proctologists, say that there are diseases associated with homosexual sex. Is it homophobic for them to say that? Are all proctologists homophobes simply because they know the truth and may at some point be obliged to tell it to a homosexual?

What can health practitioners do to help homosexuals protect themselves if telling the truth is taboo? Can they warn them of the dangers of their lifestyle? Or should they pretend there is no risk in what they do?

When smokers with respiratory disease see a doctor – at least one who is worth his salt – they are told to quit, or at least cut back on their smoking habit.

Did you ever hear of a group of smokers demanding “recognition for the smoking community”?

Why do professionals march in lock step to oppose people with one kind of unhealthy lifestyle (smokers) while endorsing another group with another unhealthy lifestyle (practicing homosexuals).

It is because of something called political correctness. The smoker group has little or no political clout.

But “gays” are a potential treasure trove for unscrupulous politicians, who only want to exploit them for votes and care not a fig that many are headed to an early grave.

Thus we are confronted by the myth that the Left and unscrupulous “conservative” political groups, which exploit homosexuals, are friendly to the “gay” community, while conservatives, who warn of the dangers of their lifestyle, are “homophobic.” This is a complete reversal of human logic, but that is normal for the Left and their foot soldiers.

They wanna celebrate this? (DO NOT open the link if you have a weak stomach or about to sit down to a meal!)

Knowing that physicians, particularly proctologists, are familiar with diseases of the anus that are common among practicing homosexuals, I scoured the web for medical sites dedicated to sexually transmitted diseases caused by anal sex.

I was amazed to find no English language site that actually showed photos of such conditions. Nor did I find much in other languages. I suspect this is because such graphic illustrations of the devastating power of same-sex sex would be “offensive” to its practitioners. However, one brave specialist in these diseases did put up such photos in his Spanish language site and he may be the only one (look for this site to go down soon). Now, I do not recommend that you just blithely open this link without at least preparing yourself for a shock to your psyche. These are some of the most horrible, sickening pictures you will ever see.

On the other hand, if you are not sure whether to believe the PC propaganda that homosexuality is something noble or romantic and deserving of special recognition, then you may wish to open these and have a look to satisfy yourself that there is a very important aspect to homosexuality that you are not being told. That the true face of the homosexual lifestyle is anything but glamorous and not necessarily something worthy of protection or “recognition.”

Here is the link to the very graphic site  that you can peruse to evaluate the claims that homosexuality is a viable lifestyle that you can support (it is in Spanish, but the diseases are anal-sex related, as you can see). But don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Now, homosexual activists demanding recognition for the activity undeniably causing the above-illustrated diseases claim that a homophobe is someone who calls their lifestyle unhealthy. Yet, every medical practitioner who has seen these diseases knows that this lifestyle is unhealthy.

If a physician said smoking is a worthwhile lifestyle, he would meet with vehement protests on that part of the media and politicians. No one would defend him. They would say he is irresponsibly enabling people with bad habits to harm themselves. That would be true.

Yet, when it comes to homosexuality, we apply a glaring double standard. Any physician who dared to suggest to one of his homosexual patients that he “lay off” homosexual activity would be opening himself up to a lawsuit. And any media outlet suggesting this would be the object of vehement protests.

Our hypocritical government, with the backing of hypocritical media, educators, professionals, and even many members of the clergy, does nothing to curb the clearly dangerous homosexual lifestyle and even does all it can to promote it, thereby promoting these horrible diseases.

And, in keeping with its habit of reversing all traditional values and commons sense, the PC media and leftist politicians insist that anyone pointing out the obvious dangers of homosexual sex is a benighted homophobe, while people who celebrate this lifestyle are homo-friendly and enlightened.

So to recap:

If you don’t mind seeing homosexuals trapped in a dangerous and filthy lifestyle, you are ok in today’s West. But if you care about them and dare to suggest that they need to beware of the obvious pitfalls, then you are a homophobe.

They have gotten it exactly backwards. Anyone promoting the “gay” agenda is actually a homophobe and is harming the “gay” community, just as anyone promoting smoking would be harming smokers.

That’s why you if you want to celebrate the International Day Against Homophobia, you need to do it by sending this article to as many of your “gay” friends as possible. It could save a life.

But don’t expect any thanks from the “gay” community.

Further reading:

http://laiglesforum.com/teen-suicide-and-homosexuality/1928.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/would-you-believe-genocide-against-homosexuals/2188.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/is-gay-marriage-a-historical-imperative/1626.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/did-paul-mean-homosxual-or-man-ogler/1292.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/307/307.htm

http://laiglesforum.com/category/gay-agenda

The bill sought to give government the power to exercise out and out thought control and would have criminalized any speech construed as ‘antigay.’ It amounted to nothing less than a direct ban on biblical Christianity.”

Friends, the Western world is falling into the hands of the wicked. I solicit your prayers for our brother Julio, who has suffered great persecution and is still in hiding. At the end of this article are some links to his site. Check it out. Keep in mind that Julio and his family are fugitives because of the stand he takes and the cold-blooded viciousness of gay activists and their minions in the Brazilian government. Imagine being hunted like an animal for your beliefs. Please give as you are led.

Blogs as tools to express the voice of God’s Kingdom

By Julio Severo

A few days ago I received a message from a visitor who recently became acquainted with my blog:

Julio, how are you?

Last Tuesday (26/April/2011) I was having a nap at lunch time and  a name came to me in a dream. I am not in the habit of writing down my dreams, but the name was very clear. I woke up and wrote down the name: JULIO SEVERO.

I had never heard your name before and when I got home I googled it and saw that you are also a Christian and that you fight to preserve Gospel principles from corruption.

Well, I do not believe in coincidences…

I do not believe in coincidences either, at least not this kind.

In my interview with Christianismo Hoje* (the Brazilian version of the magazine Christiany Today) I said,

Early in 1995 I clearly felt God directing me to write a book about the threat posed by the homosexual movement. For weeks, I hesitated, because the homosexual issue was a formidable taboo. There were no gay parades in Brazil, and none of the homosexual obsession we see everywhere today, in the schools, the media, etc. After some time, I overcame my fears, accepted the calling of the Spirit, and began to research the homosexual movement. When, by mid-1995, the first international conference of ILGA in the South Hemisphere was held in Brazil, I understood God’s plan to call me into the battle, because after the conference, Brazilian gay groups made an extraordinary push to advance their agenda. God anticipated this spiritual assault from hell with an action of the agenda of God’s Kingdom. Thus my book “O Movimento Homossexual” (The Homosexual Movement), was born and was published by Editora Betânia, the Brazilian branch of Bethany House Publishers, in1998.

When my book “O Movimento Homossexual” was published in 1998, many thought it was an exaggeration and said that forecasts would never come true. Sadly, they eventually did. And today its readers call me a prophet. The exaggerater of yesterday is today’s prophet.

In 1999, on receiving an autographed copy of my book “O Movimento Homossexual,” Bishop Robson Rodovalho said that he had received the revelation that in the future I would be severely persecuted because of the message of my book, and be forced to flee from place to place. It was an accurate prophecy, but I am sad that the one who delivered it eventually joined the political system that spawned PLC 122 and other absurdities. PLC 122 is the most threatening anti-“homophobia” bill in the Brazilian Congress.

In 2002, even without a blog, I began to warn against an electoral victory for socialist Luiz Inácio “Lula” da Silva. In 2003, with just a page of articles in the Brazilian Christian website JesusSite, I revealed to Brazil for the first time that the Lula administration had introduced in the United Nations (UN) a resolution classifying homosexuality as an inalienable human right. This was the first time this kind of initiative had come before the UN.

After I reported on this, a Representative in the Brazilian Congress requested an accounting from the Brazilian government because Brazilian representatives at the UN were taking actions without the knowledge of the Brazilian people and Congress. There was also a petition against the Lula administration’s resolution.  JesusSite suffered an attack by hackers and went down. Despite many threats it received pressuring me to remove my articles, JesusSite* stayed firm.

The pioneering resolution from the Lula administration in the UN never advanced, and ILGA, the largest homosexual organization in the world, complained that grass-roots resistance in Brazil stemming from “extremist” websites was helping to deter the resolution. Who said that today there are no little Davids to take down  massive Goliaths?

With the Lula administration’s obsessive pro-sodomy policies, the message of my book, which had been seen as exaggerated, was now coming into focus. Even congressmen were making references to my book in their official speeches in the Congress.

At the inspired insistence of a brother in the Mid-Night Call Ministry, I eventually created a blog at the beginning of 2005, with this brother guiding me in the first steps. The first year, I published very little.

Only later did I begin issung warnings to Brazil more regularly. And God honored me. At the same time, philosopher and Reformed theologian Harold O. J. Brown invited me to write the leading article in his academic periodical The Religion & Society Report. The essay was published in August 2006 and is available in an online version. This was the first time my watch dog ministry was acknowledged by a respectable international publication.

Through my blog, my still small voice was now showing the United States and the world the homosexualist face of Lula and his socialist ideology. Brown told me he did not realize that Lula was so radical, and he wanted to help people outside Brazil learn the truth.

In 2007, I was interviewed by LifeSiteNews, the largest Catholic pro-life news website in the world. It was my small voice echoing with immutable values that transcend frontiers.

Yet, as far as the performance of my simple blog is concerned, the most remarkable aspect in 2007 was the awareness effort against PLC 122, the anti-“homophobia” bill introduced by a member of PT (Lula’s party) in the Brazilian Congress. The bill sought to give government the power to exercise out and out thought control and would have criminalized any speech construed as “antigay.” It amounted to nothing less than a direct ban on biblical Christianity. In February 2007, a group of influential conservative Catholics contacted me to launch an awareness effort. They had read my writings on homosexuality, prepared a paper based on my articles and wanted me just to put my signature in it. Their role would be to spread the message. My role would be to lend my name.

The campaign made great strides. After March 2007, the awareness movement grew like wildfire and was soon unstoppable, having struck the consciences of many people. But there was a price to pay. The same year the campaign was launched, gay activists, in their effort to thwart me, managed to convince Google in Brazil to shut down my blog. With the intervention of Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho, in an article in the paper Jornal do Brasil denouncing attacks against me, and protests from several lawyers, including an attorney who called Google, my blog came back online.  

Before February 2007, I had already intended to  oppose PLC 122. Yet, in the months of November and December 2006 and January 2007, I was hiding in a refuge with my family, because of persecution.

Before this persecution, God had used a former homosexual to warn me that the devil was trying to destroy me. November happened to be the month that PLC 122 was approved in the House of Representatives in Brazil. Lacking the means to act, I dunned Dr. Zenóbio Fonseca for several weeks to write an article against the anti-“homophobia” bill, because his special legal knowledge was vital. His consulting work allowed him little time, but eventually he managed to write the article. Next, the Catholic message* to mobilize Brazilians was ready, and it was sent to countless thousands of email addresses and other media.

The sequel was that hundreds of blogs, not to mention thousands of people forwarding e-mails against PLC 122, became such a strong chain that the passage of this bill, which was taken for granted because of the influential and imposing support of government and media, eventually became uncertain, because of the resistance, particularly from Evangelical and Catholic blogs.

Catholic and Evangelical magazines — with a shallow Christianity and deep-rooted political ideologies — either ignored the story or gave it short shrift. Had it been up to them, Brazil would today be in thrall to the Kingdom of the Workers’ Party, of Dilma Rousseff and her antecessor Lula, with the passage of PLC 122 hovering like a sword over the heads of prophetic Christians.

Yet, blogs speaking with the voice of God’s Kingdom are having a major impact in opposing the massive power of magazines, papers and TV channels that mirror — and are paid to mirror — the voice representing the ideology and system of state idolatry.

And unlike evangelical TV shows, which ignore or fail to denounce the government’s promotion of aberrations like PLC 122, pro-family blogs are not afraid to speak out against state threats.

The strong resistance to PLC 122 today is a symbol of what can happen when humble little blogs serve as a vehicle for the voice of God’s Kingdom. If one blog makes a lot of people uncomfortable, a host of blogs united in the same effort much more effectively spread the uncomfortable truth that shakes people into action.

In the wilderness of disinformation from magazines, newspapers and blogs that reflect the voice of the political machine and its ideology, God can lead, even through dreams, those who need to know the truth.

This is the value God assigns to blogs that carry His voice.

Do you want be used by God through a blog? Hear and mirror His voice.

PS:

Dear Donhttp://acapa.virgula.uol.com.br/blogs/cindy-butterfly/fanatismo-religioso-um-dia-de-furia!/100/13513/

Let me tell you something important, which perhaps your readers would like to know. Today, as the articles I sent you today show, the Brazilian Senate would vote PLC 122, the anti-”homophobia” bill, but I encouraged Brazil to resist and in the afternoon today the largest gay website in Brazil reported that because of me and another evangelical, who is a televangelist, the anti-”homophobia” bill was not voted today!! See here:

Praise God!

Julio

Reviewed by Don Hank.

* These are Portuguese links. Links without an asterisk are English links.

Portuguese version of this article: Blogagem profética

Spanish version of this article: Blogging profético

Source: Julio Severo in English

www.lastdayswatchman.blogspot.com

Other articles by Julio Severo:

Why I am not a socialist

Oh East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet.

Rudyard Kipling (the Ballad of East and West)

 

by Don Hank

Recently, a quiet philosophical debate took place without media fanfare between Brazilian philosopher Olavo de Carvalho and Alexandr Dugin, Vladimir Putin’s geopolitical strategist and leading organizer of the Eurasian Movement  – considered to be the most influential Russian thinker in the Post-Soviet era. It was a classic clash of East and West.

Both submitted photos of themselves, and no reader could help but be charmed by the kneeling de Carvalho posing with his hunting dogs and shotgun, in contrast to the stern figure of Dugin standing in front of a Russian tank holding a machine gun. One prepared to kill human opponents and the other simply prepared to hunt rabbits or quail.

De Carvalho’s opening remarks are as disarming as the picture:

“I am just a philosopher, writer, and professor, committed to the quest for what seems to me to be the truth and to educating a group of people who are so kind as to pay attention to what I say.  Neither these people nor I hold any public job.  We do not have any influence on national or international politics. We do not even have the ambition – much less an explicit project – for changing the course of history, whatever it may be.  Our only hope is to know reality to the utmost degree of our power and one day leave this life aware that we did not live in illusions and self-delusion, that we did not let ourselves be misled and corrupted by the Prince of this World and by the promises of the ideologues, his servants.  In the current power hierarchy of my native country, my opinion is worthless, except maybe as a negative example and an incarnation of absolute evil[1], which is a source of great satisfaction to me.  In the country where I live, the government considers me at worst an inoffensive eccentric.

“No political party, mass movement, government institution, church or religious sect considers me its mentor. So I can give my opinion as I wish, and change my opinion as many times as it seems right to me, with no devastating practical consequences beyond the modest circle of my personal existence.”

Incredibly, rather than try to assert that he too is writing as an individual and has a personal standpoint of his own, Dugin, in his response, argues against the whole notion of individual thought, saying:

“I accept it fully and agree to recognise the fact that our Russian (Eurasian) individuation consists in the desire to manifest something more general than our individual features. So, being a collective entity … for me is rather an honour. The more holistic is my position, the better it is.”

Now it may be acceptable, even noble, that Russian leaders are willing to sacrifice their own “individual features” for the good of the fatherland, but de Carvalho wasn’t talking about “features.” He was talking about a viewpoint on the nature of vital philosophical issues of government and social thought. Though he doesn’t mention this, the debate actually centers around whether one can think as an individual or only as a collective entity—a notion with overtones of science fiction, evoking dark images of Brave New World and 1984, for example. Just as importantly, Dugin’s unvarnished preference for group think as opposed to individuality touches on the very nature of thought (or cognition) and what it is.

For de Carvalho, thought is modern (as opposed to postmodern) and concrete. Truth can be known and is objective, ie, something that exists on its own outside the self (the debater in this case) and outside the collective. For Dugin, truth is what his powerful autocrat friends decide it is and say it is.  What you or I think is of no consequence.  One of his arguments in a later round was that Olavo de Carvalho was on the losing side, not because his reasoning was faulty, but because his side lacks power in both the East and the West. Unfortunately, he is right. But in a fair debate, which of the two debaters has the most power is irrelevant. His reasoning amounts to bullying, pure and simple.

Aside from all the deeper philosophical arguments presented here, this debate boils down to a confrontation of freedom vs. serfdom, individual rights vs. rule by an independent oligarchy.

If Dugin has his way, the world would be ruled by a technocracy. If de Carvalho has his way, you and I can live in a relatively free world where individuals could use the observations and logic to draw our own conclusions about the world and issues that are vital to us. If Dugin has his way, the powerful decide for you. Whether Dugin considers himself a postmodernist or not, he in fact defends an important aspect of that philosophy. For while the postmodernist believes that truth cannot be known, the Eastern philosopher like Dugin believes that — if it exists at all — it is irrelevant and only power matters.

What’s more, he doesn’t seem to understand that the fight of de Carvalho and all free people is not only against the Eurasian viewpoint Dugin represents but also against the Ruling Elite in the West (as de Carvalho later contends). Thus, in terms of power, the fight is unbalanced, favoring Dugin and the vast majority of influential Western thinkers – a true David vs Goliath bout if there ever was one.

The whole notion behind our post-modern way of “thinking” is that the scientific method, consisting of

1— the formulation of a hypothesis through observations (inductive reasoning)

2— the testing of this hypothesis (experimentation)

3— the establishment of a conclusion (deductively) based on the results of that experimentation

4— Subsequent ongoing verification of the results and conclusion by independent researchers

has outlived its usefulness in areas such as philosophy, economics, political science, government, and social thought, no longer applies and must be replaced by a system based on consensus. Note that this conclusion itself was reached by fiat, not by use of a scientific method, but since that method is declared obsolete it supposedly no longer applies. Hence, this is circular thinking as the more astute reader will have observed. I need to point out that Dugin does not admit that he is a postmodernist and probably, he would reject my mentioning that issue, but the commonality lies in the fact that postmodernism in politics does in fact rely on consensus and denies the individual’s ability to reach valid conclusions on his own. That, by inference, is a denial of the scientific method, without which the truth cannot be apprehended.

Despite the abandonment of the above-described scientific method in vital areas that affect our lives, but that fall outside the “natural sciences[2],” these 4 steps remain unquestioned as the requisite procedures by which we infer knowledge in the field of natural science. Thus, researchers in the areas of all natural sciences, such as physics, chemistry and medicine, are required to use this method, and aside from out and out cheating and falsification of results, such as that observed  at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit, and aside from the area of origin of life research, most researchers stick to this rigorous method, out of necessity.

As an aside, it is more than intriguing that, in the non-exact sciences, the scientific method was replaced by those who are opposed to a society based on biblical principles. The Left’s age-old notion that Christianity has been an obstacle to scientific thought would seem, a priori, incompatible with the abolition of the scientific method.

Yet it is the Left that wants to abolish it. Also beyond intriguing is the fact that one of the key links in the philosopher chain that led to the development of the scientific method was a monk named Roger Bacon, who was able to publish his three tomes outlining the method (Opus Majus, Opus Minus and Opus Tertium) thanks to a commission granted by Pope Clement in 1265.

None of this movement to eliminate the scientific method in the interpretation of our world is comprehensible without an understanding of the Left’s desire to replace Christianity with their own religion, which could be called “Historicity.” Though never enunciated specifically by anyone, this is the religion whereby History would be God. When the Democrats say “we are on the side of history,” what they mean is that History (I use the capital H because it is their god) is tending toward all the progressive goals they are working toward, such as homosexual marriage, drug legalization, abolition of the words father and mother, abolition of the traditional family, wealth redistribution, abolition of borders, abolition of all immigration laws in rich countries and enforcement of Draconian environmental regulations in rich countries but not in the Third World, abolition of petroleum use, strict China-like population control, and in short, abolition of the traditional concept of law and order and the establishment of a Global Oligarchy with the “progressives” in charge. And to the Left, these agendas are sacred missions.

Though they would never admit it, in an effort to implement these long-term goals, their short-term goal is to eliminate thought, or cognition, as it is traditionally construed, and replace it with the notion of consensus, as reflected by Dugin’s statements quoted above. But what that means specifically is a consensus formed by a majority whose thoughts and attitudes are controlled by the Oligarchs through psychological control techniques designed to make the members of the target group believe that they arrived at their conclusions independently and that, therefore, they are free.

Which leads us to the thorny task of defining freedom.

Most of us derive our own definition of freedom simply by evaluating each individual situation and asking ourselves essentially “do I feel free or do I feel coerced in this situation?”

But, while that cognitive habit is useful in everyday situations, it is fatally flawed when we consider how easy it is, through thought control techniques, to induce the majority to arrive at predetermined conclusions and to convince them that they have arrived at these conclusions independently on an individual basis.

So that definition is a non-starter.

But post-modern “philosophers” have been saying, roughly since Nietzsche, that truth cannot be known. Now, by extension, freedom could not be defined if that were so. This claim, however, negates itself, because if it is true that truth cannot be known, then this statement itself obviously cannot be called the truth and is of no epistemological value.

More indicting of postmodernism is the fact that the scientific method is still used in the exact sciences, not because it is accepted by academics by consensus, but because it is indispensable and because the best minds have not only accepted its use but have not been able to successfully disprove its usefulness or get by without it.

All successful new drugs and new scientific discoveries are tested, verified and authenticated by this method. Any that are disqualified by the method are discarded. Patent specifications routinely contain hypotheses, test results and conclusions.

The claim that this method does not apply to other areas of vital national, global or personal interest would require overcoming a huge cognitive hurdle, and it would fail, because to say the scientific method no longer applies or that truth cannot be known would be analogous to saying that a glass is no longer necessary to hold drinking water. That would be sophism, pure and simple, and would in no way affect our lives because people would continue to use glasses to drink water regardless – not because consensus had made that the accepted method to drink water but because without a drinking glass it would be impossible or unnecessarily difficult to drink water. The musings of idle minds on this subject would be of no consequence in the real world.

Like the drinking glass, sound objective thinking based on the tried-and-true method generally going by the name “scientific method” is nothing but a tool and is not subject to sophist argumentation.

Therefore, by extension, Alexandr Dugin’s argument that consensus (“being a collective entity” and hence thinking collectively) is superior to the individual’s own thought processes, based (by implication) on the scientific method (even though neither debater uses this term), should also be rejected by anyone of sound mind. That is, if the free world itself is to survive.

Yet, the fact that fantasy-based Keynesian economics continues to be the dominant orientation in Western universities, and the fact that banks are allowed to gamble fraudulently with their clients’ money and then receive unconstitutional bailouts instead of a jail sentence, is a reminder that, in spite of a sovereign debt that threatens our dollar and our children’s future, Western society has yet to acknowledge the usefulness of practical tools – common sense and free market economics – as vital to our welfare as the common drinking glass.

I think even Alexandr Dugin would agree with me on that.

The author is a technical translator who has translated, since 1971, over 10,000 scientific and medical documents and patents.

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[1] Olavo de Carvalho has been a thorn in the side of the leftist government in Brazil, which sides with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez and imprisons or fines Christians, for example, who stick to biblical teachings on homosexuality.

[2] By natural sciences I mean sciences involving observable regularly behaving phenomena whose regular behavior can be used to derive laws by observation and experimentation.

The debate:

http://www.theinteramerican.org/blogs/98-olavo-de-carvalho/247-olavo-de-carvalho-debates-aleksandr-dugin-i.html