The Road Not Taken

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We all are familiar with Robert Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken”:

“Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…” it begins. And it ends with the bittersweet and equivocal observation,

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The peregrinations of individual men and of whole nations are not dissimilar.

On every occasion of political and economic crisis but one in her history, America has come to the point where “two monetary roads diverged in a yellow wood”—and has taken the wrong road.

That unique occasion was the ratification of the Constitution in 1788. For—

• The Constitution adopted a scientific monetary unit—the “dollar”, a coin containing 371.25 grains of pure silver; and a companion coinage, denominated “eagles”, containing gold valued at the free-market exchange rate with silver.

• The Constitution withheld from the General Government the power to “emit bills”—which was the term of art at that time for paper currency. Any kind of “bills”, whether redeemable or irredeemable in precious metals; or whether or not designated “legal tender”.

• The Constitution prohibited the States from “emit[ing] Bills”. Again, any and every kind of “Bills”. And,

• The Constitution prohibited the States from “mak[ing] any Thing but gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”—thereby reserving to the States the power to “make gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”.

This was (and remains) a system legally just, politically astute, economically sound, and socially responsible, because it tends especially to benefit the common man, who typically holds much of his real wealth in money or the simplest claims payable in money (such as bank deposits).

Yet every other time since 1788, America has stumbled down the wrong monetary road. Not, however, “the road less traveled by”—for that would have been the road laid out according to constitutional principles—but instead “the road most traveled by”, the road that essentially every modern nation has taken. The road which has “diverged” from monetary units actually composed of silver and gold, honestly weighed. The road which has settled instead upon monetary units consisting of debt and administered through fraud: The first false step, to redeemable paper currency; then to redeemable paper currency declared to be legal tender; then to irredeemable paper currency declared to be legal tender; and even, as from 1933 to 1974, to the prohibition of the private ownership of gold altogether. And to make matters worse, now the central bank and the government treasury responsible for emitting the latest of these “bills of credit”—which have turned out to be “bills of discredit”, because of the Ponzi nature of their emission—have demanded, and will continue to demand, serial “bail outs” from common Americans, in order to keep the paper pyramids from collapsing.

Today, America finds herself once again lost in “the yellow wood” of monetary chaos, at a point where “two roads diverge[ ]”—

One road leads to “more of the same”—“monkey business as usual”, as it were, both politically and economically—aimed at propping up domestic as well as foreign zombie banks; subordinating the United States Treasury to the cabals of private financial power-brokers in New York and London; and, one may be assured, expanding the fraud of irredeemable legal-tender paper currency to the supra-national level, with a new “global currency” which will surely strip America of her economic sovereignty, and likely will attenuate if not eliminate her political sovereignty, too.

We must not be enticed down that wrong road by the illusion that we can convince Congress to reinstitute some kind of traditional “gold standard” that pulls the Federal Reserve System from the pit of its own incompetence, profligacy, and criminality, by somehow returning Federal Reserve Notes to redeemability in gold

My “Cross of Gold” address to this audience in October of 2010 said all that needs to be said against the substance of proposals of that kind. Of course, I shall be the first to commend the proponents of such plans for their patriotism, imagination, courage, and optimism. But, as General Sosobowski reputedly said when General Browning reviewed the plan for the ultimately disastrous Operation Market Garden: “I am thrilled that your great Field Marshall Montgomery has devised such a plan. I promise you that I shall be properly ecstatic if it works.”

Operation Market Garden failed because it was directed along the wrong road. I doubt that any plan to return Federal Reserve Notes to redeemability in gold will work, either—in any sense of the word “work” that will serve the American people’s interests. Even if such a plan could be put into practice, it would merely bring this country back to 1932—and those who have studied monetary history will recall that 1932 was followed by 1933.

That brings us to the other road. “The road not taken” yet, but which must be taken soon. The road that leads to

• honest, fully constitutional, and economically sound monetary units tied directly and inextricably to the free market;

• political “checks and balances”, in the form of decentralization of monetary authority, and control of their own money by the people themselves; and

• the retention and even strengthening of America’s national sovereignty and independence.

This is the road leading, not to salvaging the Federal Reserve System, but instead to walking away from it, through the adoption by each State of an alternative so-called “electronic currency” consisting of gold and silver, in which definite and fixed weights of precious metals are the only monetary units.

This can be done, because

(1) The present economic crisis has made some such action absolutely imperative.

(2) The present political crisis excludes any such action being taken by Congress.

(3) The States enjoy the constitutional authority to act.

(4) The people and public officials in the States are, slowly but surely, becoming aware that, if anything is to be done in their interests, they must do it themselves.

(5) The plan for an alternative “electronic currency” is fully workable—arguably, it is the only plan that can be made to work in time—

• Adoption of an alternative “electronic currency” by the States does not depend upon agreement or assistance from—or, indeed, any involvement whatsoever on the part of—Congress, the Treasury, the Federal Reserve System or other central banks, the major commercial banks either domestic or foreign, the big Wall-Street financial houses and speculators, or any of the other usual suspects in the political-cum-economic fraud that passes for national and international “monetary policy” today.

• Adoption of an alternative “electronic currency” establishes constitutional and scientific monetary units of gold and silver, immediately interchangeable with each other on the basis of the exchange rate between the precious metals in the free market.

• An alternative “electronic currency” avoids all of the problems that inhere in the use of coinage: namely, that

(i) Neither the United States nor any other country provides “free coinage” of gold or silver; and none is likely to do so in the foreseeable future.

(ii) The United States and foreign coins that are available are insufficient to make a coinage scheme work, particularly in that there are not enough different, especially low, denominations for use in average day-to-day commerce.

(iii) A State cannot safely rely on private mints to generate new coinage. For private mints will not be able to partake of any governmental immunity, by being made parts or agents of State government, because the States cannot themselves coin money—i.e., if the private mints could claim the immunity, then the prohibition would come into play. And without such immunity, the private mints would be exposed to “Bernard von Nothausing”, so none will start up without some previous judicial protection—which means a lengthy period of litigation, the outcome of which is likely to be negative in the decidedly unfriendly “federal courts”.

(iv) There exist no “gold and silver coinage banks” available to handle coinage on deposit, for transfers by checks, and so on; and banks in the Federal Reserve System cannot be expected to set up special gold and silver accounts. So businesses especially, as well as average citizens, will find the use of coinage very inconvenient.

(v) Bullion is perfectly assimilable on a constitutional basis to coin if the government provides or adopts some certification of amount and purity at least equivalent to the certification of amount and purity that inheres in official coinage. And, in any event, as to all “Payment[s] of Debts” that come within a State’s reserved power under Article I, Section 10, Clause 1 of the Constitution, a State can make actual “gold and silver Coin” the only final “Tender”, but can arrange that creditors can be paid with “electronic currency” at an appropriate premium, so that very few would ever opt for coins.

• An alternative “electronic currency” can be installed in at most 30, 60, or 90 days from passage of the enabling legislation, by using “off the shelf” technology that has already been thoroughly proven in the marketplace.

(6) A proper plan for an alternative “electronic currency” adopted and proven in one State can be taken up in short order in every other State. Indeed, once adopted in one State, it will be adopted in others, because the full force of the market will be behind it.

(7) An alternative “electronic currency” is satisfactory not only for intrastate and interstate commerce, but also for international trade. So its adoption will occasion the least possible disruption in the markets for real goods and services.

(8) This plan does not disperse our relatively meager forces, because the selfsame proposal can be promoted in each State—yet it also does not put all of our eggs into one basket, because there are 50 different baskets, in at least one of which the plan will likely prove successful.

(9) An objection frequently offered to this plan is that rogue officials in the General Government will attempt to enforce some statute of Congress—whether now on the books or to be specially enacted for the purpose—that prohibits or inhibits the States from adopting an alternative currency. Under the circumstances of accelerating economic crisis and civil unrest that will form the context in which an alternative currency will be adopted, however, the General Government will prove to be a paper tiger.

• First, if the General Government threatens or attempts to enforce some such statute against a State, the State can bring the case into the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court, under Article III, Section 2, Clause 2 of the Constitution. In that event, it is most unlikely that the Justices would dare to take upon themselves the responsibility for interfering with a rearrangement of America’s monetary affairs that could save the people from a crushing economic collapse. They could, of course, correctly rule that the Court has already decided that the States retain the governmental authority to adopt their own currencies, whether of gold or silver coin or of bullion. See Lane County v. Oregon, 74 U.S. (7 Wallace) 71 (1869). Perhaps more likely is that—in the manner of Pontius Pilate that has always best suited them—the Justices will wash their hands of the matter entirely by ruling that the case presents a so-called “political question”: namely,

(i) The General Government has its monetary powers—to coin and to borrow money—and through the exercise of these powers the power to create a monetary and banking system. And it has done so.

(ii) The States enjoy an explicitly reserved power to “make gold and silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts”, and through the exercise of that power can create their own alternative monetary system. And they have done so.

(iii) These two systems serve as “checks and balances”, one against the other—limiting the States in what they can do, but preserving for them the ability to protect their people against an incompetent and imprudent Congress.

(iv) The ultimate “check and balance” is the people themselves, who can choose, in the market, which monetary system they want to use. And, therefore,

(v) The Judiciary cannot tell the people which level of government to support in this matter. Case dismissed.

Were the Justices to rule that the people cannot protect themselves against economic catastrophe by choosing their own form of currency, issued by their own State governments under a power constitutionally reserved to the States, their blunder would signal the end of the Judiciary’s authority in this country. The American people will not sit down resignedly to eat cat food in cold and squalor because five political appointees in black robes tell them they must do so, in order to enable the banks and Wall Street speculators to continue to loot this country. Rather, the people will adopt President Andrew Jackson’s view: “Justice Marshal has made his decision; now let him enforce it!”

• Second, concerns are often raised about the General Government’s employment of onerous tax regulations to inhibit the use of gold and silver as alternative currency. Because any tax-enforcement process must go through the courts, however, it will ultimately collapse on the grounds just stated. Long before that happens, however, any tax problems will be obviated by a political accommodation: namely,

(i) The States will agree to have their people keep two sets of books: one in Federal Reserve Note values, the other in the alternative gold and silver “electronic currency”.

(ii) The General Government will agree to create a system of dual tax returns, consisting of a “paper return” for transactions conducted in paper, bank-deposits, and base-metallic coinage; and a “specie return” for transactions conducted in gold and silver. And

(iii) Taxpayers will then pay their taxes on their paper transactions in paper, and on their specie transactions in specie.

The General Government will accept this arrangement, because, if it refuses, it will find itself bereft of any real tax revenues when the Federal Reserve System collapses. Only by cooperating with the States in the adoption and use of an alternative currency of gold and silver will the General Government financially survive. (And, of course, if it does not survive financially it will not survive politically, either.)

In sum, the plan for adopting an alternative “electronic currency” is workable constitutionally, technically, and politically. That being so, as America approaches the point at which “[t]wo roads diverge[ ] in a yellow wood”, the moment of her greatest opportunity arrives.

But so, too, approaches the moment of her greatest danger.

The plan of the Powers That Be is, by hook or by crook, to maintain the terminally ill Federal Reserve System on life-support until a new “global currency” can be introduced. So any proposal for returning Federal Reserve Notes to apparent redeemability in gold could play right into their hands.

As turmoil in the markets and in the streets intensifies, the Powers That Be may very well agree with reformers that something must be done to stabilize the monetary and banking systems. They could very well offer what appears to be a compromise, in the form of a new internationally controlled currency, to be stabilized with some kind of gold “backing”. After all their years of effort, heretofore rewarded only by failure, reformers will be desperate for something than can be labeled “success”—and might therefore accept such a proposal, imagining that they have finally won the battle for sound money. In fact, they will have been led, as little children, down the wrong road once again.

For, when the new “global” financial institutions and currency are firmly in place, with sufficient supra-national political and economic authority, the Powers That Be will remove any gold “backing” from the “global currency”, just as they did with Federal Reserve Notes. Once again, 1933 will follow 1932, and with a vengeance.

The plan for a State alternative “electronic currency” promises the best, if not the only, means by America can avoid this pitfall. An alternative “electronic currency” can be set up in each State throughout the United States without any involvement of, let alone support for, the Federal Reserve System. And an alternative “electronic currency” cannot possibly be diverted or converted into a scheme for a “global currency”—unless the Powers That Be agree to adopt fixed weights of gold and silver as the only “global” monetary units, and to treat everything else, not as money, but only as mere debt. Which, one can be assured, they will never voluntarily do.

So, in the endeavor to secure sound money, we must remain unequivocal, uncompromising, adamantine—“extreme” in the manner that truth and justice are always and necessarily “extreme”:

• We must demand real money, not a bastard currency consisting of debt.

• We must demand scientific money, the composition of which can be verified or falsified anywhere in the world according to the selfsame standards—not political money, the composition of which depends upon the whims of politicians, bankers, and speculators whom the average American would not trust to take his automobile to Jiffy Lube for an oil change.

• We must demand economically sound money, consisting of fixed weights of gold and silver, the quantity of which the free market determines through “free coinage”—not paper chits only “redeemable in” or “backed by” gold or silver. As soon as we hear the words “currency redeemable in gold” or “currency backed by gold” we should recognize that we are exposing ourselves, if not to fraud, then certainly to the fallibility and faithlessness of politicians, bankers, and speculators. And therefore,

• We must demand constitutional money. Even if redeemable in gold, the Federal Reserve Note is not constitutional money. It is not a “dollar”. It is not even “lawful money”, because according to the very statute defining it, it is to be “redeemed in lawful money”. Self-evidently, the thing to be redeemed and the thing that redeems it cannot be the very same thing.

Finally, what America faces where these “[t]wo roads diverge[ ]” is not, at base, a monetary problem. It is not even an economic problem. It is a political problem. After all, the free market is a governance mechanism, controlled by the people. Sound money is a governance mechanism, controlled by the people. And the Federal Reserve System is most assuredly a governance mechanism—but one designed to manipulate money and thereby skew the workings of the free market, for the benefit of special-interest groups antagonistic to the people.

America suffers from the disease of unsound money—and all its increasingly serious sequelae—because all too many among her people have largely abdicated self-government. The alternatives are not, as ultra-libertarians profess to believe, “government” (presumably bad) and some species of “liberty” largely divorced from “government” (presumably good). Within society, sovereignty is never is abeyance. If Americans do not govern themselves, they will not enjoy “liberty”, but surely will be governed by others—and in a manner not at all to their liking.

The establishment of an alternative currency is the first step down that road “less traveled by” towards America’s recovery of monetary, then economic, then political self-government. Let us not stumble at the turning-point.

vieiraDr. Edwin Vieira  is IAI’s Distinguished Senior Fellow in Jurisprudence and Constitutional and Monetary Law.

This is the complete text of an address presented in part to the Committee for Monetary Research and Education, Fall Meeting, 20 October 2011, at the Union League Club, New York City]. It was address was originally published originally at NewsWithViews.comon November 8, 2011.

The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

 

It’s Time for Christians to ‘Occupy’

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From New York to Atlanta, London and Hobart, Australia (near where I am now lecturing), Marxists are engaged in a coordinated “Occupy” movement. They’re seeking the support of the liberal media in promoting class warfare. Their mantra is that the cause of the current economic crisis is the rich oppressing the poor.

Many Christians watch these protests on the nightly news with either disgust or amusement. They should see them as a call to action.

In the Gospel of Luke Jesus tells a parable, “A certain nobleman went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom, and to return. And he called his ten servants, and delivered them ten pounds, and said unto them, Occupy till I come. But, his citizens hated him, and sent a message after him, saying, ‘We will not have this man to reign over us.'”

We who are His servants are called to occupy in His name until he returns. We are to proclaim the gospel and win the lost in preparation for his return. We are to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. We are to take a stand more boldly than any Marxist. We will be held accountable when He returns for how well we “occupy.”

I was not brought up in a Christian home. My father and mother were movie stars. My father would frequently work on Broadway. I was deep into Marxist thinking myself. A friend of my father gave me a Bible and challenged me to read it. I began to read it expecting to be able to give my father’s friend my brilliant reasons for rejecting it.

I didn’t reject it. It changed my life. Not just a little – radically.

For me, repentance included turning away from producing vile movies and helping get “The Chronicles of Narnia” on television. It included going to a seminary. It included starting the Christian Film & Television Commission to bring Christian advocacy back to Hollywood.

The people camping out in cities passionately calling for a war on the wealthy need the gospel. They need what I was given. Not everyone given a Bible or everyone with whom you share the gospel will be transformed. But some will.

Those who are “occupying” cities around the world are not timid in the profession of their beliefs. They want to change the world. They want a revolution.

I want to change the world. I want a revolution. Here in Australia, I’m visiting my grandchildren. I want to leave them a more civil, more Christian culture. I want to see more children grow up with a father and mother who love God, love them and each other. I want there to be less vulgarity and more courtesy. I want to see people experience more of God’s peace, joy and love and less of Satan’s lust, greed, pride, selfishness, anger and sexual immorality.

I’m passionate. I’m not camped in a tent looking for news cameras so I can act out, but I do travel the world sharing what I’ve learned about raising healthy children in a world flooded by ungodly messages in the media.

Will the world listen to the Marxists and surrender their liberty in exchange for “enlightened” bureaucrats making all their choices for them? Will they establish new gulags in which to punish the rich and those who decide, too late, that they shouldn’t have sided with the Marxists. Hopefully not.

Will the world listen to those Jesus told to “occupy” until He returns? Will those Jesus called to “occupy” be as bold and as passionate as those zealous about their Marxism?

The world’s great economic crisis is not the result of the rich oppressing the poor. A much better case can be made that it’s the result of the world turning its back on God. The cure for the world’s woes is not government handouts, bailouts and entitlements. It should be obvious the world’s governments are too bankrupt to expand or even continue this destructive behavior. You cannot collect enough wealth from the rich to provide middle-class luxuries to everyone on earth – especially when the media is encouraging greater and greater immorality.

The path to sanity and prosperity is paved with righteousness. It’s paved with workers and employers who put God first and have a servant’s heart. It’s paved by giving up the “modern family” and reestablishing the family as God intended it to be. It’s paved with real compassion and generosity – not forced redistribution of wealth. It’s paved with redemption of the media. When more people around the world see “Courageous” than “Hangover,” we’re moving in the right direction.

I don’t work alone. I have a passionate staff and passionate supporters. Together we are “occupying.” There are many other Christians “occupying” as well, but there are many content to be spectators.

Now is not the time to be a spectator. The economic crisis could go much deeper. Europe is teetering on the economic abyss, and America in not far behind. The case presented by the Marxists could look very enticing if governments are forced to reduce entitlements even as more and more people demand them. We’re at the point where more people look to the government for economic salvation than look to Jesus Christ. If you’re content to just watch as see who wins, you may find that you lose everything. The poor in America would are considered rich in many parts of the world. If you incite the world to punish all “rich” Americans, the carnage will not stop with multi-millionaires.

The engine of world prosperity is capitalism, and that engine can provide the entire world with prosperity if it is fueled by the love of God.

Capitalism can be as cruel and ugly as communism if it is fueled by greed, envy and selfishness. If it’s fueled by God, the rich have a servant’s heart and the poor have a golden opportunity to rise from poverty. The economic pie grows exponentially. Class warfare stops the growth of the pie. Unelected bureaucrats try to divide it as they think wise. They tend to divide the pie in whatever way will keep them in authority. They traditionally begin by exterminating pie eaters who they deem unworthy or rebellious.

Don’t be content to simply watch history repeat itself. History has both tremendous and frightening stories. Choose the story you want for yourself, your children and grandchildren and “occupy.” The Bible has stories of Israel being carted off into slavery. It also has stories of leaders calling Israel to repentance. Israel, as well as its property, was reestablished. Spectators willing to watch moral decay are among those carted off to slavery.

If you want something better for yourself, your children and your grandchildren occupy in the name of Jesus Christ with His love and sacrifice to live out the kingdom of peace throughout the world.

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Dr. Ted Baehr is the founder and publisher of MOVIEGUIDE, chairman of the Christian Film & Television Commission, and a well-known movie critic, educator, lecturer and media pundit. He also is the author of several books, including “The Culture-Wise Family” with legendary entertainer Pat Boone, and a Distinguished Senior Fellow for Study of Culture, Media, and Mass Entertainment at the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought. For more information, please call 800-899-6684 or go to the MOVIEGUIDE website.

This article was originally published at WND.com on November 11, 2011. The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

The Mafia That Rules Russia

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On Sunday I spoke with Luke Harding, the Guardian (UK) Moscow bureau chief who was expelled from Russia on 5 February 2011. “For you Russia is closed,” he was told when returning to Moscow after a trip to Britain. His Russian visa was annulled and he was bounced out of the country, despite lobbying from friends and associates, despite having a home in Moscow (which the Russian secret police had previously broken into – in order to intimidate Harding’s family). The Kremlin has a special means of communicating with uncooperative journalists: you break into their home, you rearrange objects, you open the tenth floor window of a child’s room, and if all else fails you expel the unwanted critic from the country.

Political fallout from such moves cannot be avoided. But, says Harding, those who dominate Russia – the siloviki – are not really interested in good relations with Britain or America. They do not care for our good opinion. They are more interested in controlling dissent; and punishing a British journalist by denying him access to Russia is a warning to all foreign journalists in Moscow. Do not criticize the Russian state. Do not criticize the FSB or Prime Minister Putin. “I think it’s important to be honest about the Putin regime,” Harding explained. And the Russian government violently disagrees.

Harding is brave, and perhaps lucky. He could have been abducted and killed, like his Russian associate Natalya Estemirova (a friend of Anna Politkovskaya, a Putin critic who was herself gunned down on 7 November 2006 – Vladimir Putin’s 54rth birthday). While the murder rate of Russian journalists is higher than that of Western journalists, a Western passport is no guarantee. Paul Klebnikov of Forbes Magazine died after being shot four times on a Moscow street on 9 July 2004. The publisher of Forbes’ Russian edition expressed the opinion that the murder was linked to Klebnikov’s “professional activities.”

Harding has written a book about his experiences in Russia, titled Mafia State: How one reporter became an enemy of the brutal new Russia. It is the account of a decent man who entered into an indecent political zone. Harding wanted to impress upon me the distinction between the warm, good-hearted Russian people and the gangsters in charge of the country. “Russia is not our enemy,” he said. The bosses in the Kremlin, along with the security services, are the problem. Describing Putin’s mentality as “stuck in the Cold War,” Harding said the Russian state was a chaos of competing interests, with Soviet attitudes dominating the top level. “They do not like the United States,” he emphasized.

Is there any hope for positive change? Harding thinks there is no immediate prospect of an Orange-type revolution in Russia. “Perhaps in four years, or ten,” he explained. There seems little doubt that Putin will be elected president next year. I asked Harding about former Ukrainian President Leonid Kravchuk’s claim that Putin is “one step below” the real rulers of Russia. Harding dismissed this idea, saying that Putin was clearly in charge; though Harding elsewhere admits that the Russian system is murky. In his book he wrote: “In a city prone to rumors and conspiracy theories, it is fair to say that during the Medvedev period very few people in Moscow really know what is going on at the top of the Kremlin. Even Russia’s cabinet seems largely in the dark.”

We must not forget that Harding is writing about a country that has thousands of strategic nuclear warheads, including the most advanced ICBM on the planet (the SS-27). The fact that Russian television is under the thumb of a KGB officer, that journalists are routinely assassinated (and the assassins remain at large), is only the tip of a much larger Cold War iceberg. The chill, as it were, is still on. If the “new” Russia can be characterized as a regime of assassination and censorship at home, is there an ongoing Russian campaign of subversion and espionage abroad?

I asked Harding about former KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, a Russian billionaire who presently owns two British newspapers. “He is not your typical Russian oligarch,” said Harding, who described Lebedev as “charming,” cultured and elegant. “How do you feel about a former KGB officer owning two British newspapers?” I asked. Although Harding likes Lebedev pesonally, he is not altogether at ease with Lebedev’s position.

Does Lebedev use his ownership of British newspapers to slant the news in England? Supposedly, Lebedev doesn’t interfere with editorial policy, “But his newspapers have failed to review my book,” Harding admitted with a laugh. Is this an innocent oversight? I asked Harding why Lebedev doesn’t get along with Putin critic and former World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov. Harding admitted that Lebedev was probably a Kremlin operative.

So what has changed in Russia since the fall of the Soviet Union? The Communist label has been removed, and ideological indoctrination no longer occurs. But the instrument of dictatorship continues, with its Soviet mentality and its vast nuclear arsenal; oppression and censorship at home, subversion abroad.

Jeffrey Nyquist is the President of the Strategic Crisis Center and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Political Science at the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought.

This article was originally published on Financial Sense on October 31, 2011. The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

Fables Of The Fourteenth Amendment

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The more I peruse the current public discourse about the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to the present quandary of public debt that confronts this country, the more I am convinced of the wisdom of the observation of the ancients that “Against human stupidity even the immortal gods contend in vain!”

The gist of the argument in favor of the Fourteenth Amendment’s positive application rests on the first sentence of Section 4 of the Amendment: “The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned.” Supposedly, this sentence grants a power to the President to borrow money in order to pay outstanding “public debt of the United States” as it comes due, even though Congress has not authorized such additional borrowing. Apparently the theory is that, if the President could not exercise this power, some of the debt would be unpaid at maturity, and therefore its “validity” would “be questioned”, in violation of the Amendment.

Now, the first suspicious peculiarity of this theory is its open-endedness. For public debt can be paid in ways other than by borrowing money (that is, Ponzi finance). It can also be paid through the collection and expenditure of taxes (real public finance). The Constitution delegates to Congress two relevant powers here: One is the power “[t]o borrow Money on the credit of the United States”. Article I, Section 8, Clause 2. Another is the power “[t]o lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States”. Article I, Section 8, Clause 1. The Constitution delegates no power “[t]o borrow Money” or “[t]o lay and collect Taxes” to the President. So, if Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment implicitly empowers the President to borrow so that “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States * * * shall not be questioned”, it also implicitly empowers him to tax for that purpose! And, with a greater degree of apparent constitutional approval, too—because, unlike the power “[t]o borrow”, which says nothing about the use of borrowed funds to pay public debts, the power “[t]o lay and collect taxes” is explicitly tied “to pay[ing] the Debts * * * of the United States”.

The Supreme Court has also invented a third power for Congress that can be used to pay public debts: the power to emit irredeemable, legal-tender paper currency (fiat currency). See Knox v. Lee, 79 U.S. (12 Wallace) 457 (1871), and Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U.S. 421 (1884). Indeed, armed with this power, it is impossible for the United States ever to default on their debts, because every debt can be paid “dollar for dollar” with newly issued fiat currency at essentially no cost to the Treasury, and without the economic and political inconveniences associated with borrowing money or laying and collecting taxes. Yet (to my knowledge) no one up to now has ever claimed that this imaginary power can be exercised by the President on his own initiative. But if Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment empowers the President to pay public debts by borrowing money without the specific authorization of Congress—and, by logical extension, to tax in order “to pay the Debts * * * of the United States”—then why does it not also license him to emit whatever amount of fiat currency he deems necessary for that purpose? One could accompany Alice even farther into the depths of the Washington Wonderland and posit a license for the President to exercise the power of eminent domain, in conjunction with the power to emit fiat currency, for the purpose of paying pubic debts. Under this addendum to the basic theory, the President would simply seize valuable private property, turn it over to the holders of the public debt (say, the Red Chinese government) in payment thereof, and compensate the dispossessed former owners with rapidly depreciating fiat currency.

Those who pooh-pooh these possibilities should ponder on what reasoning Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment could be held to grant to the President the power “[t]o borrow Money” in order to pay public debts, without the prior authorization of Congress, but also held not to grant him whatever other powers might possibly be used to pay public debts, also without the prior authorization of Congress? Surely, if the sentence “[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, * * * shall not be questioned” is a grant of power, on its face it is a grant without limitations, exceptions, or qualifications. Ergo, under this (mis)reading of the Fourteenth Amendment, the national motto should be amended to read: Hail, Caesar! We who are about to be fleeced salute you!

The deficiency from which the proponents of the foregoing theory of Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment suffer is that they cannot read. Section 4 does not grant anyone a power. It imposes what lawyers call a disability, an absence of power. The sentence “[t]he validity of the public debt * * * shall not be questioned” strips the United States and the States (and every official thereof) of any right, privilege, or power to “question[ ]” any portion of “the public debt” through the exercise of any power that otherwise could “[in]valid[ate]” that portion—that is, that would legally nullify it. Section 4 says nothing at all, however, about what could or should be done, by whom, and under what circumstances in the event that some public official actually attempted to “question[ ]” “[t]he validity of the public debt”.

A power to deal with a violation of Section 4 does exist. But it appears in Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment: “The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.” Observe: The Fourteenth Amendment, which so many deep thinkers among the legal intelligentsiia assert implicitly empowers the President to enforce Section 4, explicitly empowers Congress, and only Congress, to do so! Congress. C-O-N-G-R-E-S-S. Congress. See Dick! See Jane! See Section 5! See whom it empowers! See Congress! Not the President!

To be sure, under the aegis of Section 5 Congress could enact “appropriate legislation” that directed and authorized the President to take certain strictly executive actions to secure “[t]he validity of the public debt”. It could authorize the Treasury, under the supervision of the President, “[t]o borrow Money”, “[t]o lay and collect Taxes”, even to emit fiat currency in particular amounts. It has done all of these things in the past (the last of them, of course, without constitutional authorization). And under the injunction in Article I, Section 9, Clause 7 that “[n]o Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law”, Congress could even decree that the particular moneys borrowed, collected in taxes, or emitted as fiat currency should be “drawn from the Treasury” exclusively for the purpose of paying specific public debts. But, absent such legislation, the President or any of his minions in the Administration is powerless to engage in any of those activities on his own. Inasmuch as Article II, Section 3 the Constitution commands the President to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”—and inasmuch as one of those “Laws” is the Constitution itself—and inasmuch as Section 5 of the Fourteenth Amendment explicitly empowers Congress alone “to enforce” Section 4—it follows that any attempt by the President to usurp any or all of the powers “[t]o borrow Money”, “[t]o lay and collect Taxes”, or to emit fiat currency in order purportedly to enforce Section 4 would constitute a “high Crime[ ] and Misdemeanor[ ]” for which “Impeachment” and “Conviction” would be appropriate, followed by criminal prosecution of both himself and his accomplices. Compare U.S. Const. Article II, Section 4 with Article I, Section 3, Clause 7 and with 18 U.S.C. §§ 241 and 242.

One other point should be clarified, too. “The validity of the public debt of the United States” is not “questioned” simply because that debt is not paid on time (or perhaps is never actually paid at all). “The validity” of a debt is a matter of its legality. Payment is a matter of actual compliance with the obligation’s contractual provisions. A debt may not be paid on time, without anyone’s questioning its validity. The debtor may agree that he owes the money as a matter of law, but may deny that he is able to pay as a matter of fact. In that event, he may be sued for damages, or he may seek the protection of a bankruptcy court—but the validity of the debt is never at issue. The peculiar problem for holders of public debt is whether they have a satisfactory remedy if the Treasury takes the position that it simply cannot pay some debt the validity of which it does not question.

In Perry v. United States, 294 U.S. 330 (1935), which applied Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment to invalidate in part the infamous House Joint Resolution No. 192 of 1933, the Court adverted to this problem as follows:

[T]he right to make binding obligations is a competence attaching to sovereignty. * * * The Constitution gives to the Congress the power to borrow money on the credit of the United States. * * * The binding quality of the promise of the United States is of the essence of the credit which is so pledged. Having this power to authorize the issue of definite obligations for the payment of money borrowed, the Congress has not been vested with the authority to alter or destroy those obligations. The fact that the United States may not be sued without its consent is a matter of procedure which does not affect the legal and binding character of its contracts. While the Congress is under no duty to provide remedies through the courts, the contractual obligation still exists and, despite infirmities of procedure, remains binding upon the conscience of the sovereign.

294 U.S. at 353-354 (emphasis supplied). So there one has it, directly from the horse’s mouth. Without a remedy—which “matter of procedure * * * Congress is under no duty to provide”—the debt cannot be collected; nonetheless, “the contractual obligation still exists and * * * remains binding upon the conscience of the sovereign”, so that its “validity” has not “been questioned”.

Now, I am the first to condemn the decision in Perry v. United States (indeed, the decisions in all of the so-called Gold Clause Cases), And I have done so in excruciating detail in print, on pages 1127-1240 of Pieces of Eight: The Monetary Powers and Disabilities of the United States Constitution (Chicago, Illinois: R R Donnelley & Sons, Inc., 2011 GoldMoney Foundation Special Edition of the 2002 Second Revised Edition)—which I commend to those who have advanced, or want to advance, beyond the “Dick and Jane” level of constitutional law and political economics. The point is, however, that this matter of Section 4 of the Fourteenth Amendment has been settled, not only by Section 4 and especially Section 5 themselves at a matter of self-evident legal principle, but also by Perry as a matter of convoluted legal practice (for those who accept decisions of the Supreme Court as somehow the last word on the meaning of the Constitution).

One need not be an electrical engineer, therefore, to realize that the legal “bright bulbs” in the White House are running at far below their self-rated wattage.

vieiraDr. Edwin Vieira  is IAI’s Distinguished Senior Fellow in Jurisprudence and Constitutional and Monetary Law.

This article was originally published originally published on April 9, 2012, on NewsWithViews.

The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

 

Shutting Off The Gas

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The way political commentary in Brazil delights in trivia, leaving aside the essentials, obliges anyone who understands the gravity of the phenomenon to alert the public that what is being sold today as journalism is in fact a new and different product, with the opposite finality of what was being consumed a generation ago under that name.

The Portuguese word for news, “noticia,” comes from the word “notar,” which means to grasp, apprehend or perceive. When the news you receive from various channels arrives with a uniform content and in an absolutely identical tone, it is clear that it is not expressing human perception, which is varied and individualized by nature and devoid of engineering work, i.e., a template pre-set on the facts, not to reflect them but to substitute them.

The case of the Oslo terror attacks is a prime example from this standpoint. Flagrantly erroneous information was disseminated throughout the world in a matter of minutes, in a tone suggesting universally recognized certainties, at a rate such that its contradictions became apparent only to a few, one here, another there, without the force required to reject the homogeneous mass of falsehoods which, like the lethal bubble in the famous movie, had already engulfed whole multitudes.

As I have said before, terrorist attacks are never an end in themselves. They are always inserted in some general strategy which, by bloodless political or propaganda means, prepare for the attacks and reap (or produce) their results. The physical destruction must be preceded and followed by moral demolition efforts or political blackmail which transform the mere carnage into a specific political advantage. To give but 2 classic examples, September 11 was based on a whole decade of growing anti-American propaganda and immediately managed to invert the initial impression of horror at the terrorism, transforming it into a global wave of hate against the US (see: http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/traducoes/terrorism2.htm); in Spain, less than 24 hours after the 2004 attack, a huge popular protest was already in the streets, not against the terrorists but against … the conservative government of Prime Minister Aznar (Portuguese-language site: http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/semana/040325jt.htm). But we needn’t go that far from home. In Brazil, between 1964 and 1988, every bomb, every arms robbery and every kidnapping was followed by intense propaganda based on the slogan that the blame for these crimes lay not with their perpetrators but with the government that fought them. The legend of “young idealists in the struggle against tyranny” bore its fruit with the massive comeback of the communists to the country and their unstoppable rise to power (Portuguese language site: http://www.olavodecarvalho.org/semana/110428dc.html). I cite my previous articles to emphasize the continuity of the analyses I have been making, chapters added to many years of study on the phenomenon of the revolutionary mentality.

Now in the Norwegian case, the only propaganda campaign observed was aimed against the terrorist himself, but associated with the obvious scapegoats, Zionists and conservative Christians. The golden rule in the analysis of terrorist attacks is: Find out whom the campaign being observed is targeting and you will see that the responsibility for the crime lies in the opposite direction.

Anders Behring Breivik himself gave us a valuable clue when he said in his “Manifesto” that he was not a Christian but just a Darwinist convinced that Western Christian civilization is more highly evolved than others. This not only refuted the official version of the “mainstream media” but unequivocally aligned Breivik with the ideological pattern of the materialist, evolutionist French Nouvelle Droite (New Right) headed by Alain Benoist. This is another thing that the enlightened political commentators aren’t aware of, or for that matter, that the Nouvelle Droite is a staunch ally… of “Project Eurasia,” brainchild of Alexander Dugin and Vladimir Putin!

Based on this information, I announced on my program True Outspeak of July 27, 2011, that we would soon see, behind all these perverse attempts to smear Zionists and Christians, the truth bearing a label with three letters: K, G and B, or in their new version, modified for the nth time, F, S and B[1].

No more than 48 hours later, on Friday July 29, I received from my Romanian friend Anca Cernea this news report from the Russian agency RiaNovosti: Breivik had been in Belarus several times, receiving terrorist training from the local section of the FSB (http://en.rian.ru/world/20110728/165436665.html). Actually, while there, he also had contact with a “rightwing extremist,” Viacheslav Datsik, but Datsik, jailed in Norway for arms smuggling, has just confessed to working for the FSB.

To clarify still more, Breivik states in the “Manifesto” (http://www.asianews.it/news-en/Russia-as-the-mass-murderer%E2%80%99s-political-model-22193.html) that the ideal target for his struggle would be to substitute the European political structure, which he calls “dysfunctional,” with a model of authoritarian democracy “similar to that of Russia” (sic). And, on top of that, he praises Vladimir Putin to high heaven.

To round out the picture, Russian interest in destabilizing the Norwegian government is as plain as the nose on your face: Norway is Russia’s only competitor in the supply of natural gas to the European continent – that is, the only obstacle standing in the way of Vladimir Putin’s dream of one day bringing Europe to its knees simply by threatening to shut off the gas.

[1] Russian Federal Security Service, replacement of the KGB

Olavo de Carvalho is the President of The Inter-American Institute and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Philosophy, Political Science, and the Humanities.

The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute. This article was originally published in the newspaper Jornal do Brasil on August 26, 2011, and translated from the Portuguese by Donald Hank.

The Root of the Matter

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Are we headed for hyperinflation? Consider the Web site of the National Inflation Association (NIA), www.inflation.us  – with the subtitle Preparing Americans for Hyperinflation. According to the NIA, “The United States now has over $76 trillion in total debt obligations. Our budget deficit in February of 2011 alone was a record $225.5 billion, more than the entire year of 2007.” The NIA believes that the U.S. federal government will not be able to balance its budget, let alone pay off its existing national debt. Inflation is therefore inevitable as the government will have no alternative. Not everyone agrees with this assessment, however. Looking at the situation very differently, Wall Street Journal Economic Editor David Wessel concluded that an “immediate outbreak of inflation is improbable.” The economy, after all, is stagnant. How could there be inflation? Of course there are special circumstances that could arise, Wessel admits. But these are nonetheless unlikely.

How are we to evaluate the inflation question? Is there more sense in the “big picture” analysis of the NIA? Or is there more sense in the detailed analysis of David Wessel? The NIA takes the long view while David Wessel is trying to see what may be lurking around the next corner. What we find in the NIA and WSJ is two approaches to the same question. In the game of prediction, “big picture” analysis usually won’t tell you want is going to happen in the short run; and most details of the moment are mere trivia when it comes to the long run.

Those who specialize in long run thinking are sometimes called “philosophers,” or lovers of wisdom. One of the more relevant philosophers of the last century was Jose Ortega y Gasset, who wrote a remarkable little book published in 1930 under the title The Revolt of the Masses. One of the core themes of the book is that, “for good or ill,” the masses have ascended to “complete social power.” Ortega called this situation “the greatest crisis that can afflict peoples, nations, and civilization.” He noted that mass man is only concerned with his own well-being while remaining ignorant of the principles that make civilized existence possible. “They do not see behind the benefits of civilization,” he wrote. “The mass man has a radical ingratitude towards all that has made possible the ease of his existence.” This might include the principles of economics, thrift and industry. The mass man is focused on the immediate future, and immediate gratification. He does not look to the long run. “The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs,” wrote John Maynard Keynes. “In the long run we’re all dead.” (Spoken with due sensitivity to the spirit of the age.)

Something is definitely lost when we adopt a negative attitude toward the long run. In a chapter titled “Primitivism and History,” Ortega argued that “Nature is always with us.” Civilization, however, is not Nature and is not always with us. Civilization is artificial and fragile. “If you want to make use of the advantages of civilization,” he warned, “but are not prepared to concern yourself with the upholding of civilization – you are done.” Civilization exists because of long run thinking. It is maintained by long run thinking. Therefore, civilization is imperiled at a time when nearly everyone is focused on the short run. A key symptom is found in a general want of historical knowledge. “The most ‘cultured’ people today are suffering from incredible ignorance of history,” wrote Ortega. “I maintain that at the present day, European leaders know much less history than their fellows of the nineteenth, even of the seventeenth century.”

A similar statement could be made with regard to economic knowledge. Just as we have been losing our sense of history, we have been losing that sense which says “a penny saved is a penny earned.” If the mass man is merely concerned with his immediate gratification, and if he has no regard for the economic long-run, is not indebtedness his destiny? And once he finds himself ruined by short-sightedness, what desperate measure will he next employ?  Retrogression is likely, Ortega predicted. By this he meant “typical movements of mass men, directed, as all such are, by men who are mediocrities, improvised, devoid of long memory and a ‘historic conscience,’ they behave from the start as if they already belonged to the past….”

If we look back at history, we see that inflation and economic stagnation can exist together. We also see that inflation is the natural course of government when leaders prove themselves ignorant. And why should leaders be any more enlightened than the so-called “experts” and professors who advise them today? What was taken as common sense for centuries is now considered out-of-date. The same John Maynard Keynes quoted above also said, “In truth, the gold standard is already a barbarous relic.” Indeed! The Roman Emperor Caracalla debased the silver denarius from 95 percent silver to 50 percent and then 0.5 percent. Barbarian mercenaries in service to the emperor would not accept payment in Roman coins, but insisted on payment in gold.

History suggests that all fiat currencies are headed for worthlessness. We do not know, of course, how long it will take in any given case. The National Inflation Association has a number of intriguing charts, which readers may wish to evaluate for themselves (see http://inflation.us/charts.html [4]). The one that caught my attention is titled “Fed & Treasury Total Money (FTTM).” According to this chart the Fed & Treasury total money supply began to skyrocket after the 2008 economic meltdown. The NIA set down the following note below the chart, “The DOW Jones has rallied 97 percent from its low in March of 2009. However, adjusted for real inflation, the Dow Jones is about equal to where it was in 1963.”

Inflation is already here, and worse is coming.

Jeffrey Nyquist is the President of the Strategic Crisis Center and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Political Science at the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought.

The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

Russia’s Disruptive Role

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On Sunday I spoke with Polish journalist Tomasz Pompowski, who wanted to give me an update on events in Europe. The picture he painted was not entirely pleasant. Russia, he said, was promoting economic and political instability. Russia’s role is not generally understood, he explained, but “whenever you look behind a little, you see the Russians. You see former KGB people.” The game appears to involve businesses, including media businesses – but especially the energy business. The Russians make a great deal of money by exporting gas and oil. It also appears they have a special strategy for dealing with their competition.

“The peaceful siesta after the collapse of the Berlin Wall was deceptive,” said Pompowski. The Russians, he explained, made use of the Arab world in order to cause problems and play games with future energy prices. “If you talk to KGB dissidents,” he said, “they will tell you that the most important research department in the KGB was that devoted to Arabic language, culture and Islam, going back since before the invasion of Afghanistan.” The Arabs and the Iranian Muslims control a very considerable part of global energy production. If trouble can be stirred up within these countries, or between countries, then Russia will get more money for its energy exports. For example, the political destabilization of Saudi Arabia could be very profitable for Russia. At present, encouraging Iranian nuclear ambitions, with the attending sanctions on Iran, may also lead to higher Russian profits.

Russia is also making economic moves into Europe and Israel. “Russian tycoons are buying up the Israeli media,” he said. “Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is under attack just as he was starting to invest in Eastern Europe.” Pompowski pointed to the fact that Murdoch’s rival in the United Kingdom is “former” Soviet KGB officer Alexander Lebedev, who owns the Evening Standard and is buying Murdoch’s News of the World which was closed down three weeks ago in the wake of a scandal in which News of the World was found by British police to have hacked the phone calls of nearly 4,000 people, including members of the Royal family. “Look at that,” said Pompowski.

When I asked Pompowski why the Russian operatives would block Murdoch in Eastern Europe while taking over his outlets in Britain, he explained: “I believe Moscow has to put down the alternative voices.” Why would this be necessary? Moscow is trying to split off Europe from America through the agency of anti-American active measures.  Murdoch’s media outlets represent an obstacle to such an effort.  “The late Gen. Odom believed that the Soviet Union transformed itself into these different entities,” noted Pompowski. “Now the NATO states have to understand this new complex of power, and they must take notice.” The danger, said Pompowski, is that Russia may “damage and destabilize the structures established after the Second World War, which were part of the Western security system.” The official Russian policy is to create a new “security architecture for Europe.” This translates as Europe without NATO – that is to say, Europe dominated by Russia.

Pompowski also spoke of revelations that the bombing of the U.S. Embassy in Georgia last year was carried out by Russian GRU officer Maj. Yevgeny Borisov, and was coordinated by Russian military intelligence.  Why would Russian military officials order an attack against a U.S. Embassy? “I believe the Russian state is completely in disarray,” Pompowski explained. “There are several criminal powers within the state, all acting along different lines. I think in the end they are lost. Russia is a rogue state. It is completely a rogue state.” The idea is that Russia is caught between nationalist, communist, mafia and ersatz-Orthodox Christian power blocs. Yet all the various internal Russian power groups share a similar perspective when it comes to America. “Have you seen the report on the visit of the Russian ambassador to NATO with members of Congress?” asked Pompowski. “Ambassador Rogozin met with Senators Kyl and Kirk on Tuesday or Thursday, and he called them ‘monsters of the Cold War.’”

Pompowski also spoke of the ersatz-Christian Norwegian terrorist, Anders Bhering  Breivik, who was allegedly trained earlier this year at a secret paramilitary field camp in Belarus (a former Soviet republic currently defended by the Russian military and used as a conduit for exporting crime, drugs, weapons – and perhaps even terrorists). Supposedly, Breivik visited Minsk last spring. “There is a discussion of Russian links with this tragedy in Norway,” said Pompowski. “The information is growing all the time.” Breivik’s code name within the Belarus KGB was allegedly “Viking,” though his connection to Russia is unproven, his praise for Putin and the Russian political system is coincident with his disgust for the soft, politically correct democracies of Western Europe and Scandinavia.

I asked Tomasz about the idea that somebody in Moscow has been pushing Right Wing extremism in Europe. “I am close to this theory,” Pompowski responded. “But you cannot find in this a homogeneous Russian goal. There is no one in control of the Russian state. It is a conglomerate of different states.” Of course, support for Slavic nationalism is nothing new, he explained.” They were behind the nationalism of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia, for example. The Russians are involved in many manipulations, some of them established under Gorbachev or earlier.” According to Pompowski, the tendency of these manipulations is to destabilize the West, to bring higher energy prices and to foster extremism. The Russian military has indeed been fostering a movement in Europe, acknowledged Pompowski. “Unlike the militaries of the West, they had a department of military philosophy placed high up within the strategic command system. These people claimed to be Russian Orthodox, but the majority of the Russian Orthodox leadership had their origins within the KGB. Under the Soviet Union you had to get through the KGB to rise as a priest. Now these people are given a free hand, and are still involved in KGB strategies.”

I asked Pompowski about the release of an independent report on the tragic air crash that killed the Polish president last year as he traveled to mark the 60th anniversary the Katyn Forest massacre where thousands of Polish military officers were slaughtered by the Soviets in 1940. He described how Russian officials hindered Polish investigators of the air crash, denying them access to aircraft wreckage, onboard voice recordings and more. In summing up, Pompowski translated a line from Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert, which was used in the report, and which had to do with the Katyn massacre.

“And do not forgive
“And you are not entitled to forgive
“On behalf of those who are betrayed.”

Jeffrey Nyquist is the President of the Strategic Crisis Center and Distinguished Senior Fellow in Political Science at the Inter-American Institute for Philosophy, Government, and Social Thought.

This article was originally published on Financial Sense on August 1, 2011. The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute.

Institutions and Underworld Academics

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Thanks to state legislator Woody Burton, the Indiana legislature is currently debating whether to defund its famous Kinsey Institute at Indiana University. It is becoming more embarrassing to the people of the great state of Indiana as more people understand that Kinsey’s fraudulent sex research was based on his team’s solicitation and use of child molesters as child sexuality “experts.” These “experts” founded and have largely shaped and directed the entire field of human sexuality since Kinsey and continue to do so.

Today the discredited Kinsey Institute staff and alumni, together with a cadre of admitted pedophiles and pederasts, control the field of sexology through the nation’s several human sexuality “accrediting” agencies. Kinsey’s bogus sex findings are increasingly spread by these disciples, yet on Jan. 30, the Kinsey Institute director, psychiatrist John Bancroft, announced to the Indianapolis Star: “We don’t have a monopoly on sex research” anymore.

True, the expose of the Institute’s history of child sex abuse and fraud has caused concern in the field and thus a shift of the sexology epicenter from Indiana University to less notorious universities. The power of the Kinsey Institute seems to be diffusing as two key new sex research “centers” are in the news more frequently. The first, a more “respectable” branch was the University of Chicago, where Robert Michael, Edward Laumann and former Kinsey Institute staffer and Bancroft buddy, John Gagnon, published their wobbly research, Sex in America (1994). These 1992 data were recycled and appeared in February 1999 as a puff piece on “sexual dysfunction.” The authors tipped their flag in praise of their indispensable cornerstone, Dr. Kinsey when the article on “sexual dysfunction” was published in the respectable Journal of the American Medical Association.

The second runner up to the Kinsey Institute crown is the unknown Center for Sex Research at California State University, Northridge, dubbed the “Kinsey Institute of the West.” The Northridge Center for Sex Research founder, Vern Bullough, a self-confessed pedophile and editor of the “academic” Journal of Paedophilia, is in the sexology mainstream seeking to legalize adult sex with infants and children.

Northridge University’s Center for Sex Research is continuing the example set by the Kinsey Institute as an academic institution in bed with pedophiles and pornographers. It is a scenario right out of the Godfather: Academics need money and have respectability. Pedophiles and pornographers of the underworld need respectability and have money. The Mafioso-like relationship between academic institutions and pornographers/pedophiles begun at Indiana University continues at Northridge.

To illustrate how this collegial arrangement works between respectable academics and the underworld of pedophiles and pornographers, Northridge University’s Center for Sex Research used its good state supported offices to boldly organize an annual “World Pornography Conference,” August 6-9, 1998. Led by the Center for Sex Research Director, James E. Ellias, pornography industry leaders and performers met together with their “academic” pornography colleagues to share and shape future national pornography and pedophile strategies. In addition to pedophile Bullough, the World Pornography Conference starred Bullough’s self-confessed pedophile colleagues John DeCecco, Daniel Tsang and Wayne Dynes, all professors at other major American colleges and editors of The Journal of Paedophilia.

Among the list of “unique” presenters was Ralph Underwager, Journal of Paedophilia interviewee and child custody “expert,” who insists “Pedophiles can boldly and courageously affirm what they choose … the best way to love,” for an appreciative and growing pedophile audience. Ted McIlvenna, another conference speaker and founder of the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in northern California, contributed an article back in 1977 on “child sexuality” to Hustler magazine urging legalization of incest and adult sex with children. McIlvenna’s Institute most generously supplied Hustler’s adult users with graphic nude child photographs published alongside the article. The child pornography is published again in an Institute publication entitled “Meditations on the Gift of Sexuality” and published in 1977. A nude professor McIlvenna appears in photographs alongside nude Institute faculty, staff and students in varied combinations of group sexual congress. These groupings, sans academic euphemisms, are more commonly known as orgies. Of the 180 reporters said to have covered the pornography conference, none mentioned the Northridge University’s Center for Sex Research ties to the underworld culture of child abuse associated with pedophiles and pornography.

There is nothing exceptional about the pornography industry’s financial ties to sex science academics. The Kinsey Institute took funds from pornographers for years and pornographers have funded sex research as well as sizable salaries to academicians to serve on their advisory boards or as expert witnesses in courtrooms and legislatures making law and setting dangerous precedents which injure children. Perjury is a stock event in sex “science” history. While quietly collecting pornography payola, Kinsey Institute members falsely told courts and legislatures that they used a “random” sample of Americans and found both pornography and adult sex with children harmless. But Kinsey’s 1,400 male sex offenders, 200 sexual psychopaths and hundreds of radical homosexuals hardly constituted a “random sample” of 1940s American men.

For decades the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in San Francisco, led by “academic dean,” Kinsey co-author and sex partner Wardell Pomeroy, made and sold pornography. Pomeroy publicly sought funds from the pornography industry to make child pornography himself. Pornography is part of the academic program of the sexologist. Coarsening and conditioning “Sexual Attitude Restructuring” pornographic films and videos were mandated as course work for sexology students since early 1980. The repetitious viewing of violent and degrading pornography (Sexual Attitude Restructuring), compulsory by 1982 for graduation and accreditation, had “desensitized” over 100,000 sexology students by 1988.

The Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality gives students course credit for class participation in “erotic massage,” “masturbation,” “fantasy,” and similar, uhhh, studies. The products of this grim brainwashing become the faculty who design and teach the sex education curricula for our children, the cultural, political and public policy leaders of our nation. With such sex “education” filtering down from the university to general society — post Kinsey 1948 — is it any wonder that our judges routinely give custody of children to known sexual abusing parents, as law and public policy become more accepting of what pedophiles call the “last taboo,” that is, adults having legal access to our children for sexual purposes?

6Dr. Judith Reisman is a Distinguished Senior Fellow in the Study of Social Trends, Human Rights, and Media Forensics.

The opinions published here are those of the writer and are not necessarily endorsed by the Institute. This article was originally published on WorldNetDaily on March 5, 1999. You can buy Dr. Reisman’s book Sexual Sabotage on her website.