Tom DeWeese

By Tom DeWeese
March 10, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

It’s unfortunate for property owners that the battle for the right to own and control their land has fallen on the shrugging shoulders of Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA). The Senator is Chairman of the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee, which will decide the fate of the Property Rights Protection Act, (S.1313). That’s why the bill’s future doesn’t look promising.

The bill was introduced in the Senate by Senator John Cornyn, (R-TX) on June 27, 2005, as an immediate response to the infamous Supreme Court decision, Kelo VS New London, CT. That decision said local governments could team up with private developers to bull doze homes in order to build new projects to bring in more tax dollars for the city. The ruling caused Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to warn that "any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party." She went on to say, "The specter of condemnation hangs over all property."

The decision caused an unprecedented firestorm of revolt across the nation. Forty-three states are now pushing legislation to protect private property from eminent domain abuse. Two commercial banks (BB&T of North Carolina and Montgomery Bank of Missouri) have announced that they will no longer finance projects where the land was taken by eminent domain. Said the Chairman of the Board of BB&T, "It’s just wrong." And the U.S. House of Representatives quickly passed its own version of the Property Rights Protection Act in November, essentially cutting off federal funds to any community that uses Eminent Domain for community development.

But Senator Specter isn’t falling for these arguments. He’s a big government boy all the way. You know, one of those guys who just naturally has the answers for how the rest of us should live. Senator Specter never saw a big government deal he didn’t like. People, in Senator Specter’s way of thinking, are just sheep to be coddled at election time. In Senator Specter’s world, people who speak out about losing their homes or jobs to government dictates just get in the way of serious work.

In short, it’s an ideological war between Americans who believe government is to be feared and controlled verses those who believe government is the answer to every question. Senator Specter likes to make life easy. He’ll choose good old government every time. Remember, it’s just for the common good.

That’s why Senator Specter is sitting on S.1313. No action has taken place in his committee since it was introduced back in June. Yes, he did hold a hearing on the bill in September. A very high profile one at that. In fact, he allowed Suzette Kelo to take center stage and tell her story to the nation. But that’s where action stopped.

What Senator Specter is perpetrating is a well-know legislative flimflam. While the nation is inflamed over the Court’s decision, he is stalling, hoping the furor will die down and go away. Then he and his big government brethren can go back to business as usual.

Of course, the Senator doesn’t put it exactly in those terms. He tells us that he’s just being cautious, reviewing the legislation. H e doesn’t want to rush to judgment on so vital an issue, he assures us. The Hearing in September gave him good cover. He got to make headlines on the issue, which served to calm the people into believing that he was actually doing something. It will also probably help him fool some of his voters at reelection time.

And he is doing something. He’s buying time for the U.S. Conference of Mayors and the National League of Cities. Now, these are folks Senator Specter can get cozy with. They think alike. They don’t act through a motivation of selfishness like the bothersome property owners. Nope. They answer to a higher authority the common good. Of course, only such big government jackals can construe the common good to be privately-owned shopping centers and luxury condos.

As the restless property owners grow confident that they are going to win a slam-dunk victory to stop eminent domain abuses, these two big government groups are wisely using the time Specter has bought them. The Mayor’s Conference’s and League of Cities’ lobbyists are swarming over Capitol Hill, assuring Congress that state and local governments are not abusing their power to make declarations of blight or their use of eminent domain for economic development. They call the protests of property owners "emotionalistic reactions." They call for "cooler heads to prevail."

Indianapolis, Indiana, Mayor Bart Peterson calls the charges of abuse "inaccuracies and stereotypes." He says, "eminent domain is used sparingly." Interestingly, the Institute for Justice, the group that defended Suzette Kelo before the Supreme Court, reports that it has found 10,000 cases in which condemnation was used or threatened for the benefit of private developers during a five-year period. And that study probably doesn’t come close to the real figure, because it was just based on those that were reported in the newspapers.

Incredibly, Mayor Peterson told one of Senator Specter’s subcommittees that when government threatens to condemn people’s property, "a majority of the time, most people agree to sell." It’s the old "willing sellers" ruse used time and again, even written into land grab legislation, to offer some assurances that government won’t just take land. It gives the impression that the property owner has some say in the matter. In reality, owners only sell after first being threatened, intimidated and harassed by government agents. Owners sell as a last resort. Then the government announces that it’s got yet another "willing seller." Of course if the government was to then present their willing sellers to the public, we could all see the black eyes and broken bones they got in the deal.

Consider how the "willing sellers" were treated in New London, CT, as reported by Suzette Kelo in her testimony before the Specter committee. She had no intention of selling. She had spent a considerable amount of money and time fixing up her little pink house, a home she could afford with a beautiful view of the water. She planted flowers in the yard, braided her own rugs for the floors, filled the rooms with antiques and created the home she wanted.

It was less than a year later that the trouble started. A real estate broker suddenly showed up on her door representing an unknown client. Suzette said she wasn’t interested in selling. The realtor’s demeanor then changed as she warned that the property was going to be condemned by the city. Then, one year later, on the day before Thanksgiving, the sheriff taped a letter to her door, stating that her home had been condemned by the City of New London. A year after that there was a trial where the "willing sellers" attempted to save their homes. The city gave ten different reasons why it wanted to take their property. It seems the city had no specific plan for the "common good." First they said it was for "park support." Then they said "roads." Then for a "museum."

The homeowners did not surrender their property. They stood firm. Then the harassment started. Government agents knocked on doors or called on the phone at all hours, insisting that homeowners sign the contracts to sell. As soon as an owner did cave to the pressure a bulldozer was immediately brought in and the home demolished. It was then parked in front of the next home, waiting. And the process was repeated until the neighborhood looked like a war zone. Finally, roads were blocked, denying residents access to their homes. It was all for the common good, remember.

Worse, the New London actions are not just an isolated case of a government run amuck. These are the bullying tactics used in communities across the country. In the city of St. Pete Beach, Florida, the local government has filed suit against five residents who say they are opposed to a redevelopment plan officials claim will increase population and tax bases. The residents simply want to put the issue on the ballot and let the community decide. City officials sued because they say the state won’t allow citizens the right to vote on a redevelopment plan like the one under consideration. Apparently letting people vote wouldn’t be sound policy for the common good.

It goes on. In Norwood, Ohio, Carl and Joy Gamble stand to lose their home of 35 years so developer Jeffrey Anderson can expand his $500,000,000 empire with a new mall. More than 20 homeowners in Long Branch, NJ, many of whom have owned their oceanfront homes for generations, may be kicked off of their land for the construction of expensive condominiums. In Riviera Beach, Florida, a predominately black community (and one of the last affordable waterfront neighborhoods in Florida) is threatened by a massive redevelopment plan that may condemn up to 2,000 homes and businesses in favor of more expensive homes, upscale retail, and a yacht club, boat marina and other luxury amenities. Apparently, such luxuries are essential to the common good.

In downtown Washington, DC, homes are being torn down in order to make room for a new baseball stadium. The new location will only be a few miles from the existing RFK stadium, already owned by the city. But the venerable old facility lacks the luxury boxes and fancy amenities. So people’s homes must go and business must pay taxes to pay for the new one. It’s ironic, even as the homes are condemned and destroyed, the DC City council may refuse to agree to terms dictated in a contract with major league baseball and so the team may leave the city. Oh well. Perhaps the homeless can be housed in the luxury boxes. Wouldn’t that be a victory for the common good?

This is how Americans are supposed to be treated, according to the U.S. Conference of Mayors? Keep these true actions in mind as you consider the words of U.S. Mayors Conference Executive Director Tom Cochran when he said, "As I have said in the past, the power of eminent domain provides elected officials at all levels of government one of the basic tools they need to ensure the growth and well-being of their communities. Local-elected leaders take the issue of eminent domain very seriously and use it judiciously, most often as a last resort, to further economic development." Americans need to start asking: growth and well being for whom? The people in the community? The rich who now have the power to take what they covet?

Such is the state of America today, in city after city. Government, armed with the power to take property at will does what government does best, it takes it. No valid reason needed. And no home or business is secure from any scheme to pad the pockets of the powerful. The policy is officially called Sustainable Development. Some call it Smart Growth, though the policy is, as the Wall Street Journal calls it, "really pretty dumb." It’s the official policy of every single city, town and small burg in America. It’s the official policy of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, as is prominently displayed on the group’s website. Under Sustainable Development there is no room for individual whims like property rights. The common good (social equity) takes precedence over every decision. Sustainable Development means top-down control.

Meanwhile, alarmed that legislation may actually acknowledge that people have rights to the property they’ve bought and paid for, the U.S. Conference of Mayors has issued an emergency resolution at its 74th Winter Meeting that "underscores the use of eminent domain as integral to the economic development of local communities." "Without the use of eminent domain," the Resolution goes on, "it will be very difficult and/or expensive for many cities to carryout public/private economic development." (public/private that’s Sustainable Development policy which they can’t carry out with out a powerful sledgehammer over property owners.)

The Mayors and the League of Cities are terrified that their days of abusing property rights are coming to and end. In the heat of the fight they have turned to the age-old tactic that has always worked in this day of sound-bite politics and emotion-driven policy. Delay. Let it all calm down. Sneak it passed the unsuspecting public. The Mayor’s Resolution calls on the federal government to take no further action to "alter the rules governing eminent domain until it has 1) received the report on the results of a study currently being conducted by the Government Accountability Office on how state and local governments are using eminent domain across the nation; 2) and held comprehensive hearings." Delay.

Not mentioned in the Resolution, but understood by all involved, is that if the delay can last until the end of this congressional legislative session, the Property Rights Protection Act passed in the House and pending in the Senate will die. Property rights advocates will have to start over again in the next congress. All know there is little hope of that happening. The battle is now or never.

And so, as Senator Specter steps into the breach and gives the local governments the delay they desperately want, the land grabs go on, accelerated by Supreme Court vindication. The people will forget. The fight will subside. The condemned homeowners tossed aside. The common good proudly served as the proper pockets are lined with gold. By reelection time, will anyone remember that it was Arlen Specter who drowned the fire of the property rights revolt?

*****

Eco-Imperialism
and the drive to destroy
the free market

By Tom DeWeese

Max Keiser is a new kind of terrorist. He uses the internet and boycotts to manipulate stock prices. In that way, he forces corporations to comply with his brand of radical environmentalism and Sustainable Development. He puts his hands around corporate throats, and squeezes until they comply with his demands. Max Keiser, and his ilk, hate business, and they hate free enterprise, and are using these tactics to redistribute wealth and cause chaos in the market place.

Max Keiser "Broker of Dissent"   KarmaBanque: "We crunch the numbers and recommend the best hedge-fund-baiting boycotts." Just a few of the selected boycotts underway... Coca-Cola McDonald's Exxon Mobil Microsoft Starbucks Wal-Mart Clear Channel Monsanto Shell Movie Gallery Procter & Gamble Abernathy & Fitch Disney Nike Altria/Phillip Morris Citigroup Ryan air Caterpillar Pfizer GAP ...and activists they support... Greenpeace International Amnesty International

Keiser's operation is called "KarmaBanque." That new age-focused name alone should give readers an idea of the wacky worldview that spews from Keiser's brain. But, his brand of activism is much more sinister. He calls himself a financial anarchist, and he and his partner, Stacy Herbert, consider themselves the "Bonnie and Clyde of the Internet." In their own words:

"KarmaBanque is at the center of a new activist movement, which combines the civil disobedience of Gandhi, with the financial savvy of George Soros, to help change the economic and political landscape of the world!"

Says Keiser's web page:

"KarmaBanque describes its audience as 'Activists, Anarchists, and Hedge Funds.' It's a stock exchange of sorts, but with a brilliant and maniacal twist: it trades on the strength of boycotts."

To put it in the simplest possible terms, Keiser targets companies that are vulnerable to boycotts, such as Coca Cola, which relies heavily on daily consumer buying. Once the boycott has begun, Keiser tells his minions to buy options on the targeted company's stock - options betting that the stock price will go down. As the boycott drags down the company's stock, Keiser and his followers make a quick buck on the options.

Meanwhile, the company, aware of what has happened to it, tries to strike a deal with Keiser to get the boycott stopped. The deal? Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). That is a euphemism for Sustainable Development. In other words, corporations are blackmailed into using their profits to promote the Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, for example. Such tactics have been used to stop banks from financing development in Third World countries, because for these poor people to acquire luxuries, such as electricity and clean water, is, in the minds of Max Keiser and his gang, "unsustainable," and must be stopped.

Watch the television commercials for General Electric, and Exxon, as they gleefully tell consumers of the virtues of cutting back on energy use and gas consumption. If you have ever thought that such messages seem to go against what these companies should be selling, you are right. They have been twisted into a grotesque characterization of themselves, by the internet Gandhi-like Max Keiser. They are smart, mean Zealots to their cause. And, their goal is worldwide wealth redistribution, achieved by sucking the lifeblood out of private companies.

And, if anyone disagrees with Keiser's tactics, or advocates a difference of opinion, he attacks. Case in point: a new mutual fund called the Free Enterprise Action Fund (FEAF) has been established by two champions of free enterprise, Steve Milloy and Tom Borelli. FEAF has been openly calling on corporations in which it has invested, to ignore the pressures of the radical greens, and stick to the business of real growth strategies, not "feel good" social programs. Milloy and Borelli have been courageous in their fight to save the free enterprise system from the gonzo assault of the Max Keisers who are bent on destroying it.

Naturally, the Free Enterprise Action Fund is a threat to Keiser's plans to make corporations slaves to his radical socialist agenda. As a result, Keiser has attacked FEAF with a vengeance. His web site is filled with attacks on Milloy and Borelli, calling them "brown shirts," and denounced FEAF as an "appeaser to global warming and climate change terrorists." On a recent broadcast of his radio program, KarmaBanque Radio, incredibly, Keiser went on a ten-minute diatribe against the evils of Milloy and Borelli, simply because they disagree with his worldview. Keiser ended by spewing out that Milloy and Borelli were stealing the future from their own children, and he went on to say, "I think the kids, the children of these people, (Milloy and Borelli) should knife them."

Considering Keiser's bravado about being the Bonnie and Clyde of the Internet, one would expect that his own copy of the broadcast would be displayed prominently on his web site, as are several other such diatribes. But after Borelli and Milloy began to fight back, exposing his hate speech, Keiser showed what a true coward he is, as the file disappeared. Luckily, Milloy and Borelli made a copy. Readers can hear the actual broadcast at: www.junkscience.com/KARMABanque_Podcast_092805.mp3. As a point of reference, Bonnie and Clyde were not heroes, or role models. They, too, hated the free enterprise system, and stole from it, as they killed people.

Now, Keiser is scheduled to speak at an event in Frankfurt, Germany, called the Triple Bottom Line Investing Conference. This is not a conference that most would want to attend. It is a gathering of radicals who advocate Corporate Social Responsibility. Like Keiser, those who will attend are part of the movement which demands that businesses toe their strict anti-business line. Once a business complies, the demands become even more radical - the bar is continually raised. That's what this conference is all about. It's the "Who's Who" of radical, anti-free market investing.

A main sponsor of the conference is the Calvert Fund. They are basically paying the conference bills. Calvert is a $10 billion investment company for the Corporate Social Responsibility Crowd. They, too, engage in shareholder activism to get companies to adopt their social agenda. Calvert, in spite of its radical agenda, tries to pass itself off as responsible and civilized. So, all of corporate America should be asking Calvert why they are paying to bring a terrorist, who spews hate speech and advocates violence, to their conference? Does Keiser really represent Calvert's true colors?

These few words have only cracked the surface of the outrageous assault that is being perpetrated on what was once a free market. To allow those like Keiser to continue, unexposed, can only lead to financial chaos, destroyed markets, lost jobs, lost dreams, reduced standards of living, and starving people. Of course, as is always the case of those who advocate Sustainable Development, they will tell us all of that misery is necessary, for the public good.

Tom DeWeese is the president of the American Policy Center and publisher/editor of "The DeWeese Report," a monthly public affairs newsletter.

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*****

George Washington vs. the U.N.

By Tom DeWeese

There are a lot of people in this country who don't believe the United Nations is a threat to American sovereignty and independence.

Many on Capitol Hill will tell you that there is not a single word in a single U.N. document that says the U.N. will control land in this country. Technically, that's true. In fact, most U.N. documents take great pains to include language to specifically state that each nation will maintain its own sovereignty.

Here's why the U.N. is, in fact, a threat, and how it all works. Sovereignty is the answer to the question: "Who's in charge?" You have to answer that question, before you can answer the parallel question: "Who's responsible?" To have true sovereignty over our land, we the people, through our elected representatives, must be in charge of decisions over it, and we must have the responsibility to carry out those decisions.

Keep in mind that you can voluntarily give up both control and responsibility. However, even if it is voluntary, it's still loss of control. The United States has been taking that path of voluntary surrender of control for several years, through acceptance of a number of United Nations treaties and agreements. It is through this matrix, this spider's web of so-called "international law" that this nation cedes control to the United Nations.

Consider just a few of the U.N. treaties and agreements that the United States has already agreed to abide. They include the World Heritage Sites Treaty, UNESCO, Agenda 21, the Convention on Climate Change, and The Man and the Biosphere program. Each of these is part of an agenda called "Sustainable Development," which calls for changing the very infrastructure of our nation, away from private ownership and control of property, to nothing short of national zoning, and a whole lot more.

In 1796, George Washington warned his new nation:

"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government... The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connection as possible."

Sustainable Development combines social welfare programs with partnerships between business and government, using environmental issues to make it all appear to be urgent.

This environmental agenda is driven by the United Nations through two specific U.N. organizations, the United Nations Environmental Program and the International Union for Conservation and Nature (IUCN).

Would it surprise you to learn that six agencies of the United States government are active members of the International Union for Conservation and Nature; including the Departments of State, Interior, Agriculture, and the Fish and Wildlife service? These agencies send representatives to all meetings of the U.N. Environmental Program.

This kind of intergovernmental cooperation with U.N. policy led to a showdown over the issue of control in 1995, when radical environmentalists and the Department of Interior wanted to stop the building of a gold mine on private land, several miles from Yellowstone National Park. This federal department simply called in the U.N.'s World Heritage Committee to visit Yellowstone, whereupon, the committee declared the park to be the world's first endangered Heritage Site. That designation was enough to stop the building of private enterprise, and clearly establish who was in control.

By joining the Convention Concerning the Protection of World Culture and National Heritage, adopted in November 1972 at the 17^th General Conference of UNESCO, the United States ceded control over Yellowstone National Park, the Everglades National Park, the Grand Canyon National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Yosemite National Park, the Carlsbad Caverns National Park, and, you will find this astounding, Monticello, Jefferson's home, and the Statue of Liberty!

Webster's defines "sovereignty" as "undisputed political power." We no longer have this precious right, gained by the blood of patriots, over these, and other so-called World Heritage sites.

Through all of the treaties, agreements, and meetings, there grows an interlocking web of policy that takes root through these federal agencies, even driving down into state and local community governments.

The treaties are the roots of the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act. For Congress to back out of these laws, or even to consider reducing some of the regulations that are destroying industry or private property rights, would put the United States in violation of the U.N. treaties!

It is not just environmental policy that's involved. There are equally binding U.N. treaties and agreements covering education programs, child welfare, women's rights, as well as gun control.

Most recently, the U.N. abandoned all pretense of respecting sovereign independence.

The International Criminal Court was approved when only 60 nations ratified it, but according to U.N. policy, the court has jurisdiction over all nations, whether they ratified it, or not. Never in the history of international relations has such a policy even been proposed, let alone adopted.

Now, many of you rightly complain that you keep electing politicians who promise to corral the size and scope of government, and reinstate the rule of the Constitution, but it never seems to happen. Why? Because we are bound by U.N. treaties that say we can't, and by a federal government that says we won't.

Now ask yourselves the question again: Who's in charge? And who's responsible?

Neither George Washington nor any of the Founding Fathers, would ever have put their names to the United Nations Charter, or agreed to any of these intrusive, interlocking treaties and agreements, for the simple reason that they diminish American control, American responsibility, and American sovereignty.

The only way for the United States of America to reassert and reestablish its sovereignty is to get out of the United Nations.

Tom DeWeese is the president of the American Policy Center and publisher/editor of "The DeWeese Report," a monthly public affairs newsletter.

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*****

By Tom DeWeese       April 15, 2006

Americans were rightly outraged over the possibility of an Arab nation, with ties to terrorists, taking control of six major American ports. Protests from across the nation helped to squelch the deal. However, the job's not finished. The Communist Chinese still control ports at Long Beach.

Congressman Charlie Norwood (R-GA), made a strong case for getting the Chinese out of the port of Long Beach, when he noted that while Dubai has been a reliable partner for America in the War on Terror, Red Chinese officials have threatened invasion of America's ally, Taiwan, and nuclear war against the United States. Says Congressman Norwood: "We have a great deal more to fear from Red China than Dubai."

One thing is perfectly clear. China is no friend of the United States. It has embarked on an aggressive agenda to over-take the United States, by undermining the U.S. economy, its manufacturing capabilities, and its national defense.

Economist Hans Sennholz reported in 2005:

"American capital is rushing into China, building plants and introducing modern technology, while some 20,000 young Chinese are studying at American colleges and universities. At the same time ... Chinese companies are investing surplus dollars in the United States, assuming control over American corporations..."

Worse, according to a report by Accuracy in Media (AIM): "The U.S. industrial base has become dangerously dependent on imports, and industries that provide materials critical to our national defense have been in serious decline." According to reports by the U.S. China Economic and Security Review Commission, China's trading practices have resulted in the erosion, some say the decimation, of U.S. manufacturing capacity. China, meanwhile, is fast becoming the manufacturing center of the world.

While China takes aim at hobbling American manufacturing capabilities, it meanwhile, slinks around America's backdoor, into Central and South America, seeking allies and trading partners. When the U.S. left a void of leadership in the area as it abandoned the Panama Canal, the Chinese moved in.

According to a 1999 fact-finding report, issued by Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), the Communist Chinese government increased its activities and investments in Cuba, including the creation of major electronic intelligence/jamming facilities directed at the United States.

Panama, the strategic choke-point between North and South America, has become China's beach-head in the U.S. hemisphere, as the Chinese use trade as cover for intelligence and political operations. According to the Rohrabacher report:

"Beijing's goals are: 1) usurping U.S. political influence in the region; 2) dislodging the political recognition of Taiwan; 3) a base for sabotage in the event of any future U.S.-China conflicts over Taiwan or the South China Sea."

First, the Chinese gained control of both ends of the Panama Canal, using a shell company called Hutchison Whampoa. The company is fully-owned by the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and now holds the contract for a 25-to-50-year lease for the Canal ports. Through those ports, the Chinese have engaged in smuggling and money-laundering. Everything from drugs to weapons, to illegal Chinese aliens are smuggled by the Chinese through the Panama Canal. Much of that contraband (including the aliens) now finds its way into the Untied States, through the Chinese-controlled ports at Long Beach.

While building its base in Panama, China has engaged in a major offensive to gain allies in the region. The results of the effort are beginning to show progress for the Chinese, as the region is getting ever more hostile to the United States. Oil-rich Venezuela, led by leftist and anti-American Hugo Chaves, has recently signed oil and gas deals with China, helping to boost trade between the two nations to $3 billion a year. Brazil has become China's largest trading partner in the region, and the two have already declared a strategic partnership. Bolivia has already voted in an anti-American president, and now the Chinese have offered to sell them new shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles. Argentina is on the list of potential partners as well.

The U.S. Southern border isn't the only area where the Chinese are making inroads. Beijing is looking for new sources of energy, and Canada is looking for new international markets. China is now Canada's second most important trading partner, after the United States.

Meanwhile, on the strategic front, China is just as relentless in creating weapons, which threaten U.S. national security and national interests. Worse, in many cases, the U.S. is helping them do it.

China is building up its nuclear forces as part of a secret strategy targeting the United States, according to a former Chinese diplomat. China's strategy calls for "proactive defense," and senior Chinese Communist Party leaders think that building nuclear arms is the key to countering U.S. power in Asia, and other parts of the world, said Chen Yonglin, a diplomat who had defected to Australia.

China will soon receive a new Kilo Submarine from Russia, part of a naval buildup of modern warships and submarines, that has triggered new fear for U.S. military planners. It is the first of eight advanced Kilos that China is acquiring, and intelligence officials say the submarine will be outfitted with advanced SS-N-27 cruise missiles, which are capable of attacking U.S. warships. Since 2002, China has built 14 submarines.

China has taken painful, but successful, steps to create a weapons-building capability. The Peoples' Liberation Army has improved its factory quality control, and its ability to adapt foreign technology. It is bringing a Chinese-built small F-10 fighter off the production line, and it is moving rapidly toward a "blue water" navy, with ships built in China. They are buying and developing capability whose only use is against the U.S. Military.

While the Chinese military buildup grows, the Communists are using their "Most Favored Nation" trading status in the United States, to great advantage, to undermine U.S. ability to build its own weapons.

This was dramatically demonstrated when the Bush Administration allowed the Chinese to buy GM's Magnequench, the sole U.S. manufacturer of innovative "quenched" magnets, used in the guidance system of smart bombs. China bought the company, and promptly moved the whole factory to China.

Today, according to the AIM report: "The U.S. has no domestic producer of the rare earth element Neodymium, critical in the composition of the magnets..." According to the Pentagon, "Seventy-five percent of the raw materials used to make rare earth magnets is currently supplied by China."

The United States has engaged in an all-out campaign to outsource American jobs oversees, as part of its global economy scheme, fueled by NAFTA and GATT. The result is that there is a severe shortage of U.S. manufacturers in the country. The nation has become dependent for 50-to-100 percent of vital natural resources necessary for the building of weapon systems, military jet engines, reconnaissance satellites, telecommunications, electrical transmissions, and more. Meanwhile, severe environmental regulations keep the U.S. from mining many critical domestic strategic raw materials.

Clearly, the Chinese Communists are building toward a global military and economic domination, as the United States seemingly ignores the threat. Why does the U.S. do this? The official explanation is a confused strategy, aimed at "Westernizing" the Communists. The idea is that, if we feed their economy and create more consumer demands for goods and services, we will somehow create a new capitalist nation and ally.

It's obviously back-firing on us, in a huge way. Instead, they mock us. Like any con artist, who sees his mark falling into his trap, the Red Chinese feel little more than contempt for what they consider to be an easy foe. And, as their contempt grows, so grows their boldness to act, with less caution. The result leads to a more dangerous world, and a less-secure United States.

For a sound American national defense and foreign policy, U.S. leaders must recognize the Chinese government for what it is. A brutal, vicious dictatorship that places little value on human life, and great stakes in world domination. And, we must note their hatred of the United States.

In 2001, within twenty-four-hours of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Communist Chinese government had produced books, films, and video games glorifying the strikes as a humbling blow against an arrogant nation. According to The Washington Times:

"Video discs filled with lurid images have flooded markets across (China) in the wake of the attacks. Disc after disc bears the imprimatur of the Communist Party-controlled media."

Communist Party officials say President Jiang Zemin obsessively watched, and re-watched, pictures of the aircraft crashing into the World Trade Center. On the most popular government tape, rescue workers are shown picking through the rubble of the twin towers, as the commentator proclaims that the city has reaped the consequences of American bullying of weaker nations.

"This is the America the whole world has wanted to see," he says. "Blood debts have been paid in blood." On another film, the commentary goes on to say:

"Look at the panic in their faces, as they wipe off the dust and crawl out of their strong buildings – now just a heap of rubble. We will never fear these people again, they have been shown to be soft-belly tigers."

Over 60 million innocent Chinese have been murdered in the past half-century. Much of China's barbaric treatment of political dissidents happens behind closed doors and prison walls – sterile of independent observers or media.

"Re-education through labor" camps continue to thrive in China. The latest statistics on record show more than 230,000 persons were being detained in the camps. Psychiatric hospitals continue to imprison political prisoners and drug them against their will. The simple right to bear children does not exist in China. Forced abortions and mandatory sterilizations are the order of the day.

Now, the Chinese are preparing to host the Olympics in 2008. The games will provide just one more international vote of confidence that all-is-well in China. Are we about to repeat the abomination of 1936, when Adolph Hitler's Nazi Germany used the Olympics as a propaganda tool to showcase the strength of the Aryan nation?

The United States can't control everything that happens in the world, and we shouldn't. We can't make nations like us, or be our ally. But, we can control what goes on in our own borders. We can begin to make our nation self-sufficient again. We can manufacture our own goods. We can make sure we are secure, in an ever-more-dangerous world.

The nation took the first rational step in that direction by saying "No" to an Arab nation controlling six major U.S. ports. Now, we must finish the job, by liberating the 144-acre terminal at the former-U.S. Naval station in Long Beach, where another shill of the People's Liberation Army, called COSCO, is smuggling in illegal Chinese aliens to spy on us, along with guns to equip Chinese gangs in our cities. To let it stand, is to make the Dubai action nothing more than a meaningless gesture for the television cameras.

Some of the information used for this article came from Howard Phillips; Issues and Strategy Bulletin, and reports by "Accuracy" in Media.     ***Tom DeWeese is the president of the American Policy Center and publisher/editor of "The DeWeese Report," a monthly public affairs newsletter.

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Controlling the last free voice in the World

By Tom DeWeese

March 15, 2006

The American people simply have no idea what it's like to live in a totalitarian society. We go where we want; watch movies and television shows of any kind; start new businesses on a whim; shop in huge supermarkets that carry any item imaginable; even sit in public places and say anything we want about political leaders.

Today, in our modern society, many of us sit at our computer for hours on end, sending e-mails, corresponding, web surfing, researching, subscribing to web sites, gaining information, booking hotels and airline reservations, buying gifts, even creating personal web sites – or blogs – where any average citizen can vent on the political issues of the day, and send it to the world. Frankly, there is simply no end to what we Americans can do, sitting in our own home behind our trusty computer. The Internet is fast becoming the most valued root of our free society.

To better understand the vast scope of such American freedom, contrast it with a recent news story out of Beijing, China. The Associated Press (AP) report details how the Communist government has forced Microsoft Corporation to shut down the Internet journal of a Chinese blogger who discussed "politically sensitive" issues, including a recent strike at a Beijing newspaper.

The AP report says:

"Although Beijing has supported Internet use for education and business, it fiercely polices content. Filters block objectionable foreign Websites, and regulations ban perceived subversive or pornographic content, and require service providers to enforce censorship rules."

In its defense, poor Microsoft admits to being a pawn to whatever gang of thugs is in charge. "When we operate in markets around the world, we have to ensure that our service complies with global laws, as well as local laws and norms," said Brooke Richardson, Microsoft spokeswoman.

Of course the "local norm" in Communist China is to ban anything that criticizes the brutal totalitarian government. The Communists call literature like the Declaration of Independence "pornographic." The fact that Microsoft caved so quickly on this obvious censorship, for fear of losing the Chinese market, speaks volumes about corporate globalism, which pledges no allegiance to any country or idea, other than profit for profit's sake.

Imagine what would have happened had the Bush Administration even remotely suggested any form of censorship of the Internet. Microsoft would have had their well-paid lawyers, lobbyists, and public relations people on a full frontal assault against the very idea. They would have done it because they don't fear the U.S. government, and so they can. Not so, in Communist China.

But, imagine what could have been accomplished in Communist China, had Microsoft worried less about losing a market, and more about gaining some freedom for an oppressed people. Imagine if Microsoft had reacted to the Communist order by refusing, instead shutting down its operation in China, and using its formidable press operation to tell why. China would have blinked, and quite possibly, relented.

Why is the China story so important? To fully understand, switch to another recent news story. That story is the unrelenting control of the Internet by the United Nations. Things got serious in the U.N.'s bid last November, at an international confab held in Tunis.

Focus of the meeting was a desire by several U.N. member-nations to wrestle control of the Internet from the U.S.-based International Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a quasi-governmental, non-profit organization that oversees the day-to-day operation of the Internet. ICANN doesn't control who uses the Internet, and it doesn't censor content. It's a free market, and ICANN's mission is to preserve it as such. To make it even better, though today ICANN operates under an agreement with the U.S. Department of Commerce, in November, it will actually become a fully private corporation, breaking all of its governmental ties.

The U.N. argues that the Internet is international in scope, and needs much grander over site. Who better to handle the chore, of course, than the body that fancies itself an international government? The Internet is fast becoming the biggest international prize, as the greatest source of information and human involvement. It offers the U.N. huge opportunity for creating tax revenues and controlling commerce. It is also the place to control the flow of ideas. What totalitarian can resist a bid to control the Internet?

The assault on ICANN was fierce at the Tunis meeting, but the Bush Administration thought it was able to argue its way out – for the time being, keeping ICANN in control. However, the Administration made a fatal error, when it agreed to let the U.N. create a permanent standing body called the "Internet Governance Forum" (IGF), which intends to keep up a long-term campaign to finally achieve U.N. control over the Internet.

And, what will happen to the free Internet once the U.N. takes control? Go back to the top of this story, and simply replace the words "Communist China" with "the U.N." What corporation will, then, oppose such censorship? And, what censorship can we expect? Here's a good example: Hate talk. We've all heard discussions about it. Most nod our heads in agreement that it just shouldn't be allowed. Even pro-family groups argue that there should be some law, some control over it.

Tom DeWeese is the president of the American Policy Center and publisher/editor of "The DeWeese Report," a monthly public affairs newsletter.

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By Tom DeWeese
June 10, 2004
NewsWithViews.com

I was invited to San Francisco to address a gathering of about 20 financial officers (CFO’s) for some well-known Fortune 500 companies. I was asked to talk about the political climate that has an impact on their businesses in this election year.

I knew right away what I had to tell them. I would talk to them about the one issue that affected every business decision they make every day yet its an issue that isn’t even discussed in the political campaign – Sustainable Development.

My hosts knew of my positions, having admitted to visiting the American Policy Center’s web site prior to extending their invitation. The site very openly displays my articles and several past speeches dealing with a variety of subjects, especially Sustainable Development. In fact, the only comment after their perusal was to ask that I also address the issue of personal privacy and the threat of the Patriot Act as it dealt with business. I agreed.

I was told that I would be given one hour to speak, possibly taking questions at the end. In fact, they assured that if I were to go over my allotted time, "that would be OK." Later, that was changed to "perhaps forty five minutes with time for questions. In either case, it was understood that I was to make a "presentation." It’s important that I mention this because of what happened later.

The day arrived and I was ushered into a small room occupied by the twenty or so CFO’s. The man in charge was the supervisor of the one who had invited me. A podium was placed in the front of the room and he introduced me as "an expert on political issues." I began by saying "I’m going to talk to you today about what I believe to be the long term issue affecting perhaps the very existence of your businesses." I said, that it’s "not a Republican or a Democrat issue. It’s not liberal or conservative. It’s purely bi-partisan."

"If your job calls for dealing with government on any level," I said, "perhaps you’ve also noticed that there are more layers and more players to deal with." I suggested to them, "you may have found layers of non-elected regional governments and governing councils enforcing policy. You may have attended such meetings and encountered powerful new voices coming from members of private organizations, now empowered with making and enforcing policy."

I went on to explain the origins of these special councils and the involvement of non-governmental groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. I explained that a transformation in government is taking place in America through a new policy called Sustainable Development and that such policy affected everything including our personal lives, farming, schools, and literally every decision now made by every single business in the nation.

I told them of the origins of Sustainable Development through international treaties like the UN’s Agenda 21 and the Biodiversity Treaty. In fact, I handed them packets containing some of the original documents that I was discussing.

It was so vitally important, I believed, that these businessmen in their high positions, understand the origins of battles they face every day. After all, I had been asked to discuss with them the political climate that affected their businesses. This was it. What could be more important?

However, fifteen minutes into my scheduled one-hour address, the leader of the group, the man who had introduced me as an expert suddenly blurted out, "can’t we just have a friendly discussion on the issues concerning the election?" This man was apparently a "facilitator" trained in specific tactics to control what is said in a gathering, and he obviously didn’t like what I was saying. I was convinced of his training as the event played out.

I tried to explain that I was telling his gathering exactly what he had asked me to do. That no issue affected their businesses more than Sustainable Development. I explained that I was giving the information in a formal presentation because it was wide ranging and an "informal discussion" as he was now suggesting I conduct would not allow me to give them all of the information necessary to understand the issue. Keep in mind I was invited to give a formal presentation, only now he was changing the rules after I was fifteen minutes into my presentation.

I asked him if I might continue. He said, "We’re going to take a ten minute break and discuss it." He then escorted me out, not into the hallway, but completely out of the building and into a parking lot. There it was obvious that he wasn’t going to let me continue because I wouldn’t back down on my insistence to speak about Sustainable Development. After all, he had introduced me as an expert. Now he wanted to tell me what to say and how to say it. I said no.

It is a standard tactic by trained facilitators to make their target look like the aggressor. His actions were classic, first changing the rules by interrupting my presentation and suggesting that I just have a conversation with the folks, then to get me completely out of the building under the guise of having a discussion. They’ve been trained to smile as they twist the knife.

At first he wasn’t even going to let me return to the room to gather my belongings until I asked, "you’re not going to let me back in the room?" He relented and I went back to the meeting room to retrieve my notes and reading glasses from the podium. As I stood there I looked at the gathering. All of them remained in their seats where we had left them, sitting quietly. Not one raised his voice to question why I wasn’t being allowed to continue. These leaders of industry just sat there as a trained facilitator controlled the information they were allowed to hear. It’s how things are done today, from private conferences to government meetings. A few decide for the rest.

As I turned to leave the room, however, I noticed two or three leafing through the materials I had managed to pass out before the talk. Perhaps a seed of truth would get passed the facilitator’s control. Perhaps one would go to my web site or check into the information I had distributed and start them on a journey to understanding the monster called Sustainable Development. If so, that made it a good day.

Tom DeWeese is the publisher/editor of The DeWeese Report and president of the American Policy Center, an activist, grassroots think tank headquartered in Warrenton, VA. The Center maintains an Internet site at www.americanpolicy.org. 

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By Tom DeWeese

We’ve all seen the bumper stickers, "Think Globally – Act Locally." It’s a creation of those who seek to impose international guidelines, rules and regulations on how we all live. Americans are about to find that it’s not just an empty slogan.

From June 1 through 5, 2005, the city of San Francisco was the site of an international conference called "World Environment Day." But the agenda of this conference was much bigger than just another hippy dance in the park. This meeting of the global elite had a specific target and an agenda with teeth. The goal was the full implementation of the UN’s Agenda 21 policy called Sustainable Development, a ruling principle for top-down control of every aspect of our lives – from food, to health care, to community development, and beyond. This time, the target audience is our nation’s mayors. The UN’s new tactic, on full display at this conference, is to ignore federal and state governments and go straight to the roots of American society. Think globally – act locally.

As part of their participation in the conference, mayors were pressed to commit their communities to specific legislative and policy goals by signing a slate of United Nations accords. Two documents were presented for the mayors’ signature.

The first document is called the "Green Cities Declaration," a statement of principles which set the agenda for the mayors’ assigned task. It says, in part, "Believing as Mayors of cities around the globe, we have a unique opportunity to provide leadership to develop truly sustainable urban centers based on culturally and economically appropriate local actions…" The Declaration is amazingly bold in that it details exactly how the UN intends to implement a very specific agenda in every town and city in the nation. The document includes lots of rhetoric about the need to curtail greenhouse gases and preserve resources. But the final line of the Green Cities Declaration was the point of the whole affair: "Signatory cities shall work to implement the following Urban Environment Accords. Each year cities shall pick three actions to adopt as policies or laws."

The raw meat of the agenda is outlined in detail in the second document, called the "Urban Environment Accords." The Accords include exactly 21 specific actions (as in Agenda 21) for the mayors to take, controlled by a time table for implementation.

Here’s a quick look at a few of the 21 agenda actions called for. Under the topic of energy, action item number one calls for mayors to implement a policy to increase the use of "renewable" energy by 10% within seven years. Renewable energy includes solar and wind power.

Not stated in the UN documents is the fact that in order to meet the goal, a community would have to reserve thousands of acres of land to set up expensive solar panels or even more land for wind mills. Consider that it takes a current 50 megawatt gas-fired generating plant about 2-5 acres of land to produce its power. Yet to create that same amount of power through the use of solar panels would require at least 1,000 acres. Using wind mills to generate 50 megawatts would require over 4,000 acres of land, while chopping up birds and creating a deafening roar. The cost of such "alternative" energy to the community would be vastly prohibitive. Yet, such unworkable ideas are the environmentally-correct orders of the days that the mayors are being urged to follow.

Energy Actions two and three deal with the issue of reducing energy consumption. Both of these are backdoor sneak attacks by the UN to enforce the discredited Kyoto Global Warming Treaty, which President Bush has refused to implement. Kyoto would force the United States to reduce its energy consumption by at least 30 percent, forcing energy shortages and severely damaging the nation’s economy. Kyoto is the centerpiece of the UN’s drive to control the world economy and redistribute wealth to Third World nations. It would do nothing to help the environment. Yet, the mayors are being pushed to help implement this destructive treaty city-by-city.

Perhaps the most egregious action offered in the Urban Environmental Accords deals with the topic of water. Action number twenty calls for adoption and implementation of a policy to reduce individual water consumption by 10% by 2020. Interestingly, UN begins by stating: "Cities with potable water consumption greater than 100 liters per capita per day will adopt and implement policies to reduce consumption by 10 percent by 2015."

There is no basis for the 100 liter figure other than employing a very clever use of numbers to lower the bar and control the debate. One must be aware that 100 liters equals about 26 gallons per person, per day. According to the UN, each person should only have 10% less than 26 gallons each day to drink, bathe, flush toilets, wash clothes, water lawns, wash dishes, cook, and more.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, Americans need about 100 GALLONS per day to perform these basic functions. Consider also that there is no specific water shortage in the United States. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, annual water withdrawal across the nation is about 407 billion gallons, while consumption (including evaporation and plant use, is about 94 billion gallons. Such restrictions, as outlined in the Urban Environment Accords, are really nothing more than a major campaign by the UN to control water consumption. Yet the nation’s mayors are being pushed to impose policies to take away our free use of water.

The rest of the Accords deal with a variety of subjects including waste reduction, recycling, transportation, health, and nature. Perhaps the most blatant promise of action is Action number sixteen in which the mayors are supposed to agree to: "Every year identify three products, chemicals, or compounds that are used within your city that represents the greatest risk to human health and adopt a law to eliminate their sale and use in the city."

There you have it. Every year, our nation’s mayors are to promise to ban something! What if there isn’t a "chemical or compound" that poses a risk? Gotta ban something anyway. That’s not an idle threat. In the 1990’s Anchorage, Alaska had some of the most pristine water in the nation. It had no pollution. Yet the federal government ordered the city to meet strict federal clean water standards that required it to remove a certain percentage of pollution. In order to meet those requirements, Anchorage was forced to dump fish parts into its pristine water so that it could then clean out the required quotas. Your city’s mayor may have to ban the ink in your fountain pen to meet his quota – and ban it he will.

And what is the mayor’s reward for destroying private property rights, increasing energy costs on less consumption, and banning something useful every year? He gets green stars. That’s right. According to UN documents, if your mayor can complete 8-11 of the prescribed 21 actions, the town will get a green star and the designation, "Local Sustainable City." 12-17 actions completed will garner two green stars and the designation, "National Sustainable City." 15-18 actions completed will bring in three green stars and the title "Regional Sustainable City." Finally, the energizer bunny mayor who gets 19-21 actions completed will get a full four green stars and the ultimate designation of "Global Sustainable City." Certainly he or she will also get a plaque and get to sit at the head table at the next UN Sustainable Development conference.

In the San Francisco summit, the mayors were wooed by the elite, from UN Secretary General Kofi Annan to Maurice Strong, to Senator Diane Feinstein, to Hollywood activists Robert Redford and Martin Sheen, to chimp-master Jane Goodall. All the usual suspects were there to press the flesh and push the agenda. Businesses like Mitsubishi, which hope to make huge profits from green industry by using such policy to destroy competition, helped pay for the event. The news media was well represented too, not in a journalistic role to report the news, but as full-fledged sponsors helping to spread their own brand of propaganda. All understood that a new governing elite, elected by no one, answerable to their own set of standards, is being created for the care and feeding of us all. With the right contacts and the proper show of public spirit, there are riches and power to be created. Even for your local mayor.

Sustainable Development is truly stunning in its magnitude to transform the world into feudal-like governance by making nature the central organizing principle for our economy and society. It is a scheme fueled by unsound science and discredited economics that can only lead modern society down the road to a new dark ages. It is a policy of banning goods and regulating and controlling human action. It is systematically implemented through the creation of non-elected visioning boards and planning commissions. There is no place in the Sustainable world for individual thought, private property or free enterprise. It is the exact opposite of the free society envisioned by this nation’s founders.

Even before the San Francisco conference, the UN’s influence over the nation’s mayors has been felt as 132 U.S. mayors have moved to implement the Kyoto Treaty in defiance of the Bush Administration’s rejection of it. Moreover, the treaty is the centerpiece of the agenda for the national meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, slated for Chicago just one week after the San Francisco meeting. Think globally and act locally is no longer just a slogan on the back of a Volvo. It’s a well entrenched national policy bleeding down into your local community, carried there by Judas goats who have been elected by you.

America’s mayors are the elected representatives closest to the people. They are the ones that our founders intended to have the most influence over our daily lives. If the UN succeeds in its efforts to enforce Sustainable Development policy through our mayors, the process will accelerate at an astounding rate and locally-controlled government will cease to exist. But signs, adorned with green stars, will certainly greet us at every city limit line as the inhabitants, stripped of their property rights; buried under huge tax burdens; struggling under reduced energy flow, shuffle on as their proud mayor gleams in the global limelight under the banner "think globally and act locally."

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