Black America's central conflict: Booker T. Washington vs. Dr. W.E.B. DuBois.
Every Black American is either Washington or Dr. DuBois. He either aspires to self-reliance, or feeds off false white guilt. He either proactively affirms himself, or he perpetually reacts against his imagined white master. If Washington's disciples must show restraint, lest self-reliance corrupt into pride, then Dr. DuBois's followers are consumed by the deadly sin of envy.
Washington's philosophy of self-reliance and Dr. DuBois' sophisticated resentment are contradictions, not contraries. One is true and the other is false. For the modes of existence available to Black America -- self-help or protest -- are not mutually inclusive, like yin or yang. Black existential choice comes down to Washington or Dr. DuBois. Lately, that dilemma has manifested itself in the "twins" Sen. Obama and Rev. Wright.
By founding Tuskegee Normal & Industrial Institute in 1881, Booker T. Washington established the prototype for modern Black civilization. His school encouraged enterprise and industry. Washington founded the National Negro Business League, in 1900, to comprehend the socio-economic organization that had Tuskegee for its base of operations. He understood that property rights, to wit "life, liberty and property," are the soul of citizenship; that protection of property is the US government's basic purpose. He designed his educational system and economic policy to build a nation within a nation of property-owners.
Dr. DuBois's The Souls of Black Folk (1903) dismissed Washington's emphasis on property rights as a sellout. He libeled the Black capitalist as an "Uncle Tom." Capital formation drove Washington's "Tuskegee machine," but Dr. DuBois discarded it in favor of protest. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, founded by white liberals in 1909, and has presided over the civil rights movement ever since. Dr. DuBois's followers, the Black bourgeoisie vanguard, the so-called "Talented Tenth," do resent their liberal white masters. But they most passionately hate the Black who would master the universe. They exemplify the crabs that Washington once described, jealously combining to pull back into the barrel the one crab that would climb out.
But climb out Washington did. He picked up where the great freedom fighter, Frederick Douglass, had left off. Douglass, a former slave, had demanded "equality." Washington commanded "equity." Douglass had justly fought for "freedom and equality." Washington encouraged responsible citizenship via acquiring property. He taught self-help and self-reliance. He instilled discipline.
Sen. Obama's politics evoke none of those values. It therefore comes as no surprise that Sen. Obama is trying to pull blacks back into the crab-barrel, just as Dr. DuBois had tried to pull Washington a hundred years ago.
What is this crab-barrel today? It is the slave mentality that resents the white man and envies the Black upstart. It is the netherworld wherein the Talented Tenth, for their role as middleman between white mastery and Black unrest, earn honorary white status and token privileges. It is where the Talented Tenth feed as parasites off white guilt. It is the limbo between white bourgeois heaven and Black proletarian hell.
White guilt is the crab-barrel's necessary condition. Thus do the Talented Tenth's civil rights activists eagerly await proofs of white guilt, such as last Fall's "Jena Six" case and the recent police shooting death of Sean Bell. Thus do the Talented Tenth's pseudo-militants use conspiracy theories to allege white guilt, for example Rev. Wright's claim that the US government invented AIDS to destroy the Black race. Thus does Rev. Wright's resentment of white guilt, masquerading as "Black liberation theology," perpetrate slave religion. For resentment defines the slave mentality.
But Sen. Obama, like Dr Dubois before him, embodies resentment as apposed to self help. He denies responsibility as Black uplift's necessary condition. His presidential ambition denies Black identity. He has no record of accomplishments that can point to any permanent change for the better as relates to blacks in Chicago.
Sen. Obama or Rev. Wright? Black America must choose but in choosing they are picking one an the same. Both are just alike. Twenty years listening to the rev wright's rants means Sen Obama must be cut from the same cloth. These twins were not seperated at birth. Radicals who are just the same. A vote for Sen Obama is just pulling the crab back in the barrel. When I speak of white guilt it also pertains to the white guilt some whites feel toward blacks and are supporting Obama because of this. Obama wants you to continue to be a victim. Until you realize this and don't support him nothing will change. Obama is a king crab.
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
Friday, May 30, 2008
'He is an amazing man' , no not anyone in politics or entertainment
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This man has courage and his story is worth reading. It is a real story as opposed to the mass media controlled stories about politics and entertainment. Donate to help his surgeries if possible. Friends of James O'Neal Fundraising
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Story Published: May 28, 2008 at 6:23 PM PDT
Story Updated: May 30, 2008 at 11:02 AM PDT
By Michelle Esteban
Watch Story
KIRKLAND, Wash. -- It will take thousands of dollars and several surgeries to reconstruct a local man's face.
James O'Neal compares himself to the Elephant Man. A genetic disease left his face horribly disfigured, but that could soon change.
O'Neal knows his deformity shocks people. He knows others with the same genetic disorder would rather hide than work, but for 7 years James has proudly worked the registers at the Kingsgate Safeway on 124th Avenue NE in Kirkland.
"I just tell people this is who I am, it's the way I am. If you don't like me, you don't like me," he said.
His customers don't like him -- they love him.
"He is an amazing man and we love him. He's the kind of person that makes your day," said customer Aubrey Richins.
"I really love James," said shopper Katie Knopf.
All of them say they were stunned at first when they saw his disfigured face.
"I have to admit I was a little taken back, but when I walked through his line I felt this spirit come over me, this man is out here, not hiding," said long-time customer Cindy Peay.
Every shopper said the same thing: O'Neal is an inspiration. If that wasn't enough, he's lightning-fast on the register.
Knopf has put her money where her mouth is.
"We want to change his life," she said.
She knows O'Neal's insurance likely won't cover all of the costs of difficult and extensive surgeries. So she's launched a Web site asking for donations for reconstructive surgery.
Knopf also got Kinkos to donate a thousand fliers and plans to distribute them to local schools and the registers at the Kingsgate Safeway.
Her generous heart tugged on Safeway's heartstrings. The grocer decided to kick in the first $10,000.
"James is our employee, he is one of us and we absolutely think the world of him," said Cherie Myers, Safeway's director of public and government affairs. "This is just a bonus, this our bonus to him. He never asked for it, he's never said 'woe is me.' He's proud to be who he is."
That's why customers flock to him. Knopf says she'll stand in line just to have him ring her up.
"James will always be the person he is inside. I'm hoping with this he'll have a new lease on life," said Knopf. She hopes to raise $50,000, but guesses the costs could add up to be much more.
"It makes me feel honored and proud," said O'Neal, who was stunned to learn his employer is not only kicking in $10,000, but is committed to helping him navigate through all the insurance paperwork.
O'Neal has lived with his disability since birth. Like the Elephant Man he has neurofibromatosis, not elephantiasis. The tumors stopped growing when he stopped growing. Surgery would rid him of the deformity for good.
"I think it's amazing what they want to do for me," he said. And it's clear they're doing it because of what O'Neal has done for them.
In July, Safeway stores in four states will kick off a three-week Canister Campaign, collecting donations to help O'Neal. Those who want to contribute can also donate online through KOMO News.
KOMO will continue to follow O'Neal's progress with updated reports.
For More Information about neurofibromatosis
www.ctf.org
www.nfinc.org
Monday, May 26, 2008
McCain Defends 'Enron Loophole'
John Mccain wants the price of gas to increase and this proves it. It seems he trades
in enery futures also.
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Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.
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Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.
Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.
Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.
A McCain aide told me that the Arizona senator opposes the farm bill because it “rewards lobbyists” by granting rich farmers lucrative subsidies, although he would support “a reasonable level of assistance and risk management to farmers when they need America's help.”
But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.
Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the “Enron loophole,” but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated “dark markets” of the Intercontinental Exchange.
The “Enron loophole” also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last week, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.
At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is “not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."
However, the 673-page farm bill, containing the regulatory provisions on electronic energy trading, still faces obstacles amid overall concerns about the bill’s largesse to farmers at a time of rising food prices.
President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, although it cleared the House and Senate by margins wide enough for an override, assuming Republicans don’t rally behind Bush and McCain, their current and future standard bearers.
Gramm and Enron
The battle over the “Enron loophole” also could draw attention to McCain’s dependence on Gramm as his chief economic adviser and Gramm’s key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on electronic platforms without federal oversight.
In 2000, with the Republicans in charge of Congress and Gramm chairing the Senate Banking Committee, the exemption on electronic trading was approved without a Senate hearing.
Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in December 2000.
Freed from regulatory interference, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.
While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s Enron Lies.”]
In 2006, the “Enron loophole” allowed Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to shift its trades from the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) to the unregulated Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta.
That let Amaranth corner the natural gas market, betting that futures prices would rise. The hedge fund lost about $6 billion and imploded as natural gas prices fell to a two-year low in September 2006.
Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged that Amaranth manipulated prices paid in the physical natural gas markets. FERC has proposed $291 million in penalties and the forfeiture of “unjust profits.”
“Unregulated markets are known as ‘dark markets’ because there is very little oversight of the trades,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, during a hearing on energy speculation last December.
By trading on the “dark” ICE market, traders can avoid the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s rules which are in place to prevent price distortions or supply squeezes.
Stupak said trading volumes on ICE “have skyrocketed in the past three years and are now as large or even larger in some months, than the volumes traded on the regulated futures market.”
The lack of oversight “makes it difficult for regulators to detect excessively large positions which could lead to price manipulation,” Stupak said.
Advising McCain
Gramm, who is now a vice chairman of financial services company UBS, began advising McCain in 2005 when the Arizona senator indicated he planned to run for President.
Since then, McCain has adopted much of Gramm’s anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda. Most strikingly, McCain shifted to support Bush’s tax cuts, which McCain had voted against in 2001 and 2003. He now vows that, if elected President, he would make them permanent.
Yet Gramm’s influence over McCain’s economic agenda – and the checkered political-business history of Gramm and his wife Wendy – have largely escaped media scrutiny.
Gramm received more than $34,000 in campaign contributions from Enron and served as one of the company’s key legislative allies in Washington, including his help in 2000 removing federal oversight from energy trades on electronic platforms.
At the height of the Enron scandal in January 2002, Gramm’s press secretary Larry Neal told The New York Times that Gramm did not “recall a conversation” he apparently had with Enron’s chairman Ken Lay in 2000 to discuss that Enron legislative priority.
An internal Enron e-mail dated Aug. 10, 2000, under the subject “CFTC Reauthorization” – sent by Enron’s top lobbyist Richard Shapiro to Steve Kean, Enron’s executive vice president – said the company needed to get Lay on the phone with Gramm so the bill could be passed.
“The bill is not moving quickly in the Senate due to Senator Phil Gramm's desire to see significant changes made to the legislation (not directly related to our energy language),” Shapiro said.
“Last week at the [2000] Republican Convention, I asked the Senator about the bill and he said they were working on it, but much needs to be changed for his support. More telling perhaps, were Wendy Gramm's comments that she would rather the current bill die if a better bill can be passed next year.
“What this means is that we must, at the least, remove Senator Gramm's opposition to the bill to move the process and more importantly seek to gain his support of the legislation.”
Shapiro added: “However, with less than 20 or so legislative days left, we need Senator Gramm to engage.
“A call from Ken Lay in the next two weeks to Senator Gramm could be an impetus for Gramm to move his staff to resolve the differences. Gramm needs to fully understand how helpful the bill is to Enron.
“Let me know your thoughts on this approach. I am prepared to assist in coordinating the call and drafting the talking points for a Ken Lay/Sen. Gramm call.”
Several other internal Enron e-mails briefed company staffers on the status of Gramm’s position and Enron’s lobbying of the senator. Gramm finally removed a “hold” on the bill in December 2000, reintroduced the bill under a different number, and forced a vote on it without floor debate.
It was then attached to an appropriations bill that was signed by President Clinton on Dec. 21, 2000.
California Crisis
Less than a month later, California began to experience rolling blackouts due to artificial electricity shortages which, according to documents later released by federal energy regulators, were the result of manipulative trading practices employed by Enron.
The California crisis centered on Enron’s energy trades through a new platform called EnronOnline, which had been freed from regulatory oversight by the legislation pushed by Gramm.
In April 2002, Gramm blocked an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, that would have closed the loophole that Gramm had helped open.
Gramm’s wife, Wendy, also had played a role in the anti-regulatory policies that contributed to the Enron scandal.
On Jan. 14, 1993, in the final days of the first Bush administration, Wendy Gramm – as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – pushed through a key regulatory exemption removing energy derivatives contracts and interest-rate swaps from federal oversight.
That was a major financial boon to Enron, where Wendy Gramm landed five weeks later as a member of the board of directors. She also became a member of the audit committee that signed off on another one of Enron’s fraudulent schemes, partnerships that hid the company’s growing debt.
Even after Enron had collapsed in fall 2001, Sen. Gramm continued to resist congressional efforts at tightening up the rules.
In 2002, despite the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other major companies, Sen. Gramm objected to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill designed to hold executives accountable for inaccuracies in financial reports.
Now, the Gramm family’s anti-regulatory agenda is returning via McCain’s presidential campaign.
As Fortune’s editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote, “economic conservatives should take heart. McCain’s chief economic adviser – and perhaps his closest political friend – is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. … Most of [McCain’s] current positions are vintage Gramm indeed.” [Fortune, Feb. 19. 2008]
The first test of McCain’s commitment to Gramm’s anti-regulatory purity may come in the looming battle over the “Enron loophole” that the farm bill seeks to close.
in enery futures also.
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Sen. John McCain says he opposes the $307 billion farm bill because it would dole out wasteful subsidies, but his chief economic adviser Phil Gramm also wants to stop its proposed regulation of energy futures trading, a market that was famously abused when Enron Corp. manipulated California’s electricity prices in 2001.
Share this article
Clearing the way for that California price gouging, Gramm, as a powerful Texas senator in 2000, slipped an Enron-backed provision into the Commodities Futures Modernization Act that exempted from regulation energy trading on electronic platforms.
Then, over the next year, Enron – with Gramm’s wife Wendy serving on its board of directors – worked to create false electricity shortages in California, bilking consumers out of an estimated $40 billion.
Gramm left the Senate in 2002 but now has emerged as what Fortune magazine calls “McCain’s econ brain,” not only filling the Arizona senator’s acknowledged void on economic expertise (“I don’t know as much about the economy as I should”) but recognized as one of McCain’s closest friends in politics. The two men talk daily.
A McCain aide told me that the Arizona senator opposes the farm bill because it “rewards lobbyists” by granting rich farmers lucrative subsidies, although he would support “a reasonable level of assistance and risk management to farmers when they need America's help.”
But the aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, acknowledged that the presumptive Republican presidential nominee also opposes the farm bill because Gramm advised McCain that he should resist its regulatory language on the energy futures market.
Democrats have dubbed that gap in energy futures regulation the “Enron loophole,” but it played a part, too, in the more recent attempt by the Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to corner the national gas market by shifting trades to the unregulated “dark markets” of the Intercontinental Exchange.
The “Enron loophole” also has become part of the debate over the soaring price of oil. Last week, a study sponsored by Sen. Carl Levin, D-Michigan, concluded that speculative futures markets were partly to blame for the surge in oil prices that have pushed gas at the pump toward $4 a gallon.
At a May 15 news conference, Levin said the skyrocketing price of oil is “not the result of supply and demand. Speculators have taken over most of the futures market."
However, the 673-page farm bill, containing the regulatory provisions on electronic energy trading, still faces obstacles amid overall concerns about the bill’s largesse to farmers at a time of rising food prices.
President George W. Bush has vowed to veto the bill, although it cleared the House and Senate by margins wide enough for an override, assuming Republicans don’t rally behind Bush and McCain, their current and future standard bearers.
Gramm and Enron
The battle over the “Enron loophole” also could draw attention to McCain’s dependence on Gramm as his chief economic adviser and Gramm’s key role in passing legislation that let Enron trade commodities on electronic platforms without federal oversight.
In 2000, with the Republicans in charge of Congress and Gramm chairing the Senate Banking Committee, the exemption on electronic trading was approved without a Senate hearing.
Internal Enron documents, which were released in 2002, revealed that the Houston-based company helped write the legislation, which was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in December 2000.
Freed from regulatory interference, Enron then used manipulative trading practices to game the California electricity market and drive up electricity prices across the state.
While California consumers were getting fleeced, the new Bush administration shielded Enron from early accusations of market manipulation. President Bush personally joined the fight against imposing caps on the soaring price of electricity, buying additional time for Enron although the company’s house of cards collapsed anyway in fall 2001. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Bush’s Enron Lies.”]
In 2006, the “Enron loophole” allowed Amaranth Advisers hedge fund to shift its trades from the regulated New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) to the unregulated Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) in Atlanta.
That let Amaranth corner the natural gas market, betting that futures prices would rise. The hedge fund lost about $6 billion and imploded as natural gas prices fell to a two-year low in September 2006.
Last July, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission charged that Amaranth manipulated prices paid in the physical natural gas markets. FERC has proposed $291 million in penalties and the forfeiture of “unjust profits.”
“Unregulated markets are known as ‘dark markets’ because there is very little oversight of the trades,” said Rep. Bart Stupak, D-Michigan, chairman of the subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, during a hearing on energy speculation last December.
By trading on the “dark” ICE market, traders can avoid the Commodity Futures Trading Commission’s rules which are in place to prevent price distortions or supply squeezes.
Stupak said trading volumes on ICE “have skyrocketed in the past three years and are now as large or even larger in some months, than the volumes traded on the regulated futures market.”
The lack of oversight “makes it difficult for regulators to detect excessively large positions which could lead to price manipulation,” Stupak said.
Advising McCain
Gramm, who is now a vice chairman of financial services company UBS, began advising McCain in 2005 when the Arizona senator indicated he planned to run for President.
Since then, McCain has adopted much of Gramm’s anti-tax, anti-regulatory agenda. Most strikingly, McCain shifted to support Bush’s tax cuts, which McCain had voted against in 2001 and 2003. He now vows that, if elected President, he would make them permanent.
Yet Gramm’s influence over McCain’s economic agenda – and the checkered political-business history of Gramm and his wife Wendy – have largely escaped media scrutiny.
Gramm received more than $34,000 in campaign contributions from Enron and served as one of the company’s key legislative allies in Washington, including his help in 2000 removing federal oversight from energy trades on electronic platforms.
At the height of the Enron scandal in January 2002, Gramm’s press secretary Larry Neal told The New York Times that Gramm did not “recall a conversation” he apparently had with Enron’s chairman Ken Lay in 2000 to discuss that Enron legislative priority.
An internal Enron e-mail dated Aug. 10, 2000, under the subject “CFTC Reauthorization” – sent by Enron’s top lobbyist Richard Shapiro to Steve Kean, Enron’s executive vice president – said the company needed to get Lay on the phone with Gramm so the bill could be passed.
“The bill is not moving quickly in the Senate due to Senator Phil Gramm's desire to see significant changes made to the legislation (not directly related to our energy language),” Shapiro said.
“Last week at the [2000] Republican Convention, I asked the Senator about the bill and he said they were working on it, but much needs to be changed for his support. More telling perhaps, were Wendy Gramm's comments that she would rather the current bill die if a better bill can be passed next year.
“What this means is that we must, at the least, remove Senator Gramm's opposition to the bill to move the process and more importantly seek to gain his support of the legislation.”
Shapiro added: “However, with less than 20 or so legislative days left, we need Senator Gramm to engage.
“A call from Ken Lay in the next two weeks to Senator Gramm could be an impetus for Gramm to move his staff to resolve the differences. Gramm needs to fully understand how helpful the bill is to Enron.
“Let me know your thoughts on this approach. I am prepared to assist in coordinating the call and drafting the talking points for a Ken Lay/Sen. Gramm call.”
Several other internal Enron e-mails briefed company staffers on the status of Gramm’s position and Enron’s lobbying of the senator. Gramm finally removed a “hold” on the bill in December 2000, reintroduced the bill under a different number, and forced a vote on it without floor debate.
It was then attached to an appropriations bill that was signed by President Clinton on Dec. 21, 2000.
California Crisis
Less than a month later, California began to experience rolling blackouts due to artificial electricity shortages which, according to documents later released by federal energy regulators, were the result of manipulative trading practices employed by Enron.
The California crisis centered on Enron’s energy trades through a new platform called EnronOnline, which had been freed from regulatory oversight by the legislation pushed by Gramm.
In April 2002, Gramm blocked an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, that would have closed the loophole that Gramm had helped open.
Gramm’s wife, Wendy, also had played a role in the anti-regulatory policies that contributed to the Enron scandal.
On Jan. 14, 1993, in the final days of the first Bush administration, Wendy Gramm – as chairwoman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission – pushed through a key regulatory exemption removing energy derivatives contracts and interest-rate swaps from federal oversight.
That was a major financial boon to Enron, where Wendy Gramm landed five weeks later as a member of the board of directors. She also became a member of the audit committee that signed off on another one of Enron’s fraudulent schemes, partnerships that hid the company’s growing debt.
Even after Enron had collapsed in fall 2001, Sen. Gramm continued to resist congressional efforts at tightening up the rules.
In 2002, despite the accounting scandals at Enron, WorldCom and other major companies, Sen. Gramm objected to the Sarbanes-Oxley corporate reform bill designed to hold executives accountable for inaccuracies in financial reports.
Now, the Gramm family’s anti-regulatory agenda is returning via McCain’s presidential campaign.
As Fortune’s editor-at-large Shawn Tully wrote, “economic conservatives should take heart. McCain’s chief economic adviser – and perhaps his closest political friend – is the ultimate pure play in free market faith, former Texas Sen. Phil Gramm. … Most of [McCain’s] current positions are vintage Gramm indeed.” [Fortune, Feb. 19. 2008]
The first test of McCain’s commitment to Gramm’s anti-regulatory purity may come in the looming battle over the “Enron loophole” that the farm bill seeks to close.
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Covering Their Losses?
Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?
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Want to join the frey and hedge your bet: Energy Futures Etc
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Hedge Fund Managers etc trade energy futures on the Intercontinental exchange (ICE) which is not regulated. These people are taking money right out of our pockets for their own greed. (My question is who are these people who are trading the energy futures?)[large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors , the answer.] Why does the mass media blame India and China etc for the increase in the price of oil when in reality it is the greed of the people who are buying the energy futures in the unregulated energy futures market. (Story Reports) Lets not forget the
people who also control the oil refineries and how they cut back on production to also drive up the price of gas. Also lets add the government who is about to let the 30 different blends of gas begin again because the law is about to expire that halted this crap after Katrina hit. There is a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading . The Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”
Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?
They seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. THIS IS THE FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE THAT BUSH HAS LET IN. BUSH IS THE OTHER FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE.
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"One of the things I think is very important to realize is that the growth in the world oil consumption is not that strong." —David Kelly, chief market strategist, J.P. Morgan Funds; The Washington Post, May 4, 2008
"...There is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased [oil] prices." —U.S. Senate Staff Report, The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, June 27, 2006
On May 13, the price of a barrel of oil briefly hit a record of $126.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange The reason was ostensibly that Iran was cutting oil production. But there is no gas shortage. So why are prices still going up?
In late April the American Association of Petroleum Geologists held its annual invitation-only dinner in Dallas for, as my source put it, "the bigwigs" of the energy industry. During this meeting, influential and knowledgeable CEOs reached the consensus that "oil prices will likely soon drop dramatically and the long-term price increases will be in natural gas." Of course, despite the pedigrees of those in attendance, their forming a consensus on the direction of energy prices does not mean that it's written in stone or is even going to happen. The group is clearly bullish on natural gas. But petroleum keeps getting more expensive.
The energy executives' prediction about the future price for crude oil had sound backing. Just a few days earlier, Lehman Brothers (LEH) investment bank had said that this current oil pricing boom was quickly coming to an end. Michael Waldron, the bank's chief oil strategist, was quoted in Britain's Daily Telegraph on Apr. 24 as saying: "[Oil supply] is outpacing demand growth." Waldron added, "Inventories have been building since the beginning of the year. The Saudi Khursaniya field has just opened, with 500,000 barrels a day of production, and the new Khurais field will start next year with a further 1.2 million b/d [barrels a day]."
No Lines at the Pump
Waldron's assertion rang true. In the U.S. alone, stockpiles of oil climbed by 11.9 million barrels in the month preceding the Energy Information Agency's (EIA) May 7 inventory report; they were up by nearly 33 million barrels since Jan. 1. At the same time, MasterCard's (MA) May 7 gasoline report showed that gas demand has fallen by 5.8%, while the government suggested that gasoline consumption might have fallen by slightly over 6%.
We do know that refineries in the U.S. again cut back their utilization to 85%. That's down from 89% a year ago, in a season when production is normally 95%, only because they're trying to draw down gasoline inventories to bid gasoline prices up. Yet despite the reduced refinery runs, the EIA said, the U.S. managed to put another 800,000 barrels of gasoline in stock. The American Petroleum Institute put the gas gain at 1.4 million barrels. The point is that neither organization is in disagreement that gasoline was added into our active stocks; it's just a question of exactly how much.
Only the day before, the EIA had released its monthly Short Term Energy Outlook report, concluding that U.S. oil demand is expected to decline by 190,000 b/d in 2008. Chinese consumption is expected to rise this year by only 400,000 b/d—hardly the "surging oil demand" usually blamed on China in the media. Last year China imported 3.2 million barrels per day, and its estimated usage was around 7 million b/d total. The U.S., by contrast, consumes around 20.7 million b/d.
The May 8 report from Oil Movements, a British company that tracks oil shipments worldwide, shows that oil in transit on the high seas is quite strong; almost every category of shipment is running higher than it was a year ago. The one exception was oil shipments to the West during the previous 30 days. Even there, on page three of that report, comes the cryptic line, "In the West, a big share of any [oil] stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight." Oil Movements' Roy Mason qualified that line: "Oil in temporary floating storage offshore is hard to pin down, and we don't have useful info on that. Whenever this happens it generates market noise—and we don't hear any!"
Still, the consensus of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the energy executives may be right: No supply crisis justifies the way the world's oil is being priced today.
The Truth and Nothing but the (Partial) Truth
So how to explain the May 6 report from Reuters (TRI) that Goldman Sachs (GS) announced that oil could in fact be on the verge of another "super spike," possibly taking oil as high as $200 a barrel within the next six to 24 months? Forget the fact that few other oil analysts agreed with that position, "$200 a barrel!" was the major news story on oil for the next two days. Arjun Murti, Goldman Sachs' energy strategist, predictably laid the blame on "blistering" demand from China and the Middle East, combined with his belief that the Middle East is nearing its maximum ability to produce more oil. While the outside chance exists that Murti is right, his prediction certainly isn't backed up by the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook, or by Lehman Brothers' report from 10 days earlier. As for the Middle East being tapped out on oil production, there might be one more thing to consider.
On May 2, the Friday before this prediction made news, Bloomberg had reported that Iran is again storing its heavy crude on tankers in the Persian Gulf because the country has run out of onshore storage tanks while awaiting buyers. Further, Saudi Arabia has extended discounts on its sour crudes to $7.45 for Arabian Heavy. Doesn't sound like there's any real supply problem with that grade of crude, does it?
It is an understatement to say that over the last five years the media have rained reports predicting an impending energy Armageddon. But those reports have tended not to disclose their sources—which often were individuals heavily invested in the oil futures market.
For example, Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing last December. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE—which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Deceptive Practices
In case you've forgotten, it was only 2001 when BusinessWeekreported that some Wall Street firms were hard-selling to the public stocks that their companies were quietly divesting—and/or pushing questionable stocks for companies in which their affiliated banks had a financial interest. In a nutshell, some individuals with a specific vested interest in a certain financial outcome used the media to enrich themselves and their companies, leaving the public investor holding the bag.
Once that deception was uncovered (after the stock market collapsed), and after the congressional hearings in 2001 proved beyond any doubt that these things had happened, the national media swore that they would never again be taken in by this type of corporate deceit. Then came 2004 and oil.
As the second quote at the beginning of this column makes clear, the Senate pointed out in its 2006 report that oil reserves (not including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) were at a 20-year high during the time that report was written; therefore, there was no shortage of oil whatsoever. This seemed to confirm a Jan. 10, 2007, article in Reuters that quoted Tony Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi: "We've got a short-term [oil] oversupply problem." Yes, an oil oversupply problem in fall of 2006.
Then, as now, that certainly isn't what we were being told. Instead we were being bombarded daily in the media and analysts' reports with justifications for the high price of oil: The "terrorism premium" on each barrel of oil, the rising demand of China and India, troubles in the Nigerian oil patch, oil pipelines' being blown up in Iraq, wider war in the Middle East, T. Boone Pickens' warnings that the world was on the cusp of Peak Oil, "surging demand" for gasoline in the U.S., the weak dollar—and so on. (Peak oil is described as the world crossing the halfway mark for extracting its oil reserves. It is not maximum production.) However, the Senate took a dim view of those excuses, particularly the ones about Peak Oil or diminished capacity for oil production: "There's a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand, and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy." (The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, U.S. Senate, June 27, 2006).
Yes, this line suggests that persons invested in the oil futures market are purposely driving even more money into oil to raise the prices even higher, even though the market's actual supply and demand in no way justifies their claims. On a side note, Enron is named frequently in both investigations as exemplifying this type of energy market manipulation.
And, although both the Senate and the House have already investigated why oil is selling for more than supply and demand dictate, on May 12 we found out that the House Energy & Commerce Committee will look at this issue once again this month and into June.
Let's give Congress a little direction.
Covering Their Losses?
Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?
Consider this: You may not buy gasoline or even eat today, but by next Monday you'll probably have to do both, no matter what it costs. Basically, besides enabling the Fed to bail out Wall Street and our banks again, every time you gas up or eat you may be paying investors to cover other financial losses. We know that investors can't control their losses on mortgages, securities, or bad loans. But, demonstrably, if not restrained they can drive up the price of goods that we can't get out of buying. Odds are, that's what's really been going on.
Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society. The automotive expert for KDFW Fox 4 in Dallas, Wallace hosts the top-rated talk show Wheels, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 570 KLIF AM in Dallas.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON FUTURES TRADING
PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
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Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices
In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”
The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
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PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL
PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
by F. William Engdahl
May 2, 2008
The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?
First, the crucial role of the international oil exchanges in London and New York is crucial to the game. Nymex in New York and the ICE Futures in London today control global benchmark oil prices which in turn set most of the freely traded oil cargo. They do so via oil futures contracts on two grades of crude oil—West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent.
A third rather new oil exchange, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), trading Dubai crude, is more or less a daughter of Nymex, with Nymex President, James Newsome, sitting on the board of DME and most key personnel British or American citizens.
Brent is used in spot and long-term contracts to value as much of crude oil produced in global oil markets each day. The Brent price is published by a private oil industry publication, Platt’s. Major oil producers including Russia and Nigeria use Brent as a benchmark for pricing the crude they produce. Brent is a key crude blend for the European market and, to some extent, for Asia.
WTI has historically been more of a US crude oil basket. Not only is it used as the basis for US-traded oil futures, but it's also a key benchmark for US production.
‘The tail that wags the dog’
All this is well and official. But how today’s oil prices are really determined is done by a process so opaque only a handful of major oil trading banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley have any idea who is buying and who selling oil futures or derivative contracts that set physical oil prices in this strange new world of “paper oil.”
With the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures over the past decade or more, the way has opened for the present speculative bubble in oil prices.
Since the advent of oil futures trading and the two major London and New York oil futures contracts, control of oil prices has left OPEC and gone to Wall Street. It is a classic case of the “tail that wags the dog.”
A June 2006 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices,” noted, “…there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.”
What the Senate committee staff documented in the report was a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading so huge a herd of elephants could walk through it. That seems precisely what they have been doing in ramping oil prices through the roof in recent months.
The Senate report was ignored in the media and in the Congress.
The report pointed out that the Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”
Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?
they seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil.
Enron has the last laugh…
As that US Senate report noted:
“Until recently, US energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated exchanges within the United States, like the NYMEX, which are subject to extensive oversight by the CFTC,including ongoing monitoring to detect and prevent price manipulation or fraud. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous growth in the trading of contracts that look and are structured just like futures contracts, but which are traded on unregulated OTC electronic markets. Because of their similarity to futures contracts they are often called “futures look-alikes.”
The only practical difference between futures look-alike contracts and futures contracts is that the look-alikes are traded in unregulated markets whereas futures are traded on regulated exchanges. The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC electronic exchanges was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 in the waning hours of the 106th Congress.
The impact on market oversight has been substantial. NYMEX traders, for example, are required to keep records of all trades and report large trades to the CFTC. These Large Trader Reports, together with daily trading data providing price and volume information, are the CFTC’s primary tools to gauge the extent of speculation in the markets and to detect, prevent, and prosecute price manipulation. CFTC Chairman Reuben Jeffrey recently stated:
“The Commission’s Large Trader information system is one of the cornerstones of our surveillance program and enables detection of concentrated and coordinated positions that might be used by one or more traders to attempt manipulation.”
In contrast to trades conducted on the NYMEX, traders on unregulated OTC electronic exchanges are not required to keep records or file Large Trader Reports with the CFTC, and these trades are exempt from routine CFTC oversight. In contrast to trades conducted on regulated futures exchanges, there is no limit on the number of contracts a speculator may hold on an unregulated OTC electronic exchange, no monitoring of trading by the exchange itself, and no reporting of the amount of outstanding contracts (“open interest”) at the end of each day.”
Then, apparently to make sure the way was opened really wide to potential market oil price manipulation, in January 2006, the Bush Administration’s CFTC permitted the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the leading operator of electronic energy exchanges, to use its trading terminals in the United States for the trading of US crude oil futures on the ICE futures exchange in London – called “ICE Futures.”
Previously, the ICE Futures exchange in London had traded only in European energy commodities – Brent crude oil and United Kingdom natural gas. As a United Kingdom futures market, the ICE Futures exchange is regulated solely by the UK Financial Services Authority. In 1999, the London exchange obtained the CFTC’s permission to install computer terminals in the United States to permit traders in New York and other US cities to trade European energy commodities through the ICE exchange.
The CFTC opens the door:
Then, in January 2006, ICE Futures in London began trading a futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, a type of crude oil that is produced and delivered in the United States. ICE Futures also notified the CFTC that it would be permitting traders in the United States to use ICE terminals in the United States to trade its new WTI contract on the ICE Futures London exchange. ICE Futures as well allowed traders in the United States to trade US gasoline and heating oil futures on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Despite the use by US traders of trading terminals within the United States to trade US oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures contracts, the CFTC has until today refused to assert any jurisdiction over the trading of these contracts.
Persons within the United States seeking to trade key US energy commodities – US crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures – are able to avoid all US market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York.
Is that not elegant? The US Government energy futures regulator, CFTC opened the way to the present unregulated and highly opaque oil futures speculation. It may just be coincidence that the present CEO of NYMEX, James Newsome, who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, is a former chairman of the US CFTC. In Washington doors revolve quite smoothly between private and public posts.
A glance at the price for Brent and WTI futures prices since January 2006 indicates the remarkable correlation between skyrocketing oil prices and the unregulated trade in ICE oil futures in US markets. Keep in mind that ICE Futures in London is owned and controlled by a USA company based in Atlanta Georgia.
In January 2006 when the CFTC allowed the ICE Futures the gaping exception, oil prices were trading in the range of $59-60 a barrel. Today some two years later we see prices tapping $120 and trend upwards. This is not an OPEC problem, it is a US Government regulatory problem of malign neglect.
By not requiring the ICE to file daily reports of large trades of energy commodities, it is not able to detect and deter price manipulation. As the Senate report noted,
“The CFTC's ability to detect and deter energy price manipulation is suffering from critical information gaps, because traders on OTC electronic exchanges and the London ICE Futures are currently exempt from CFTC reporting requirements. Large trader reporting is also essential to analyzE the effect of speculation on energy prices.”
The report added,
“ICE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other evidence indicate that its over-the-counter electronic exchange performs a price discovery function -- and thereby affects US energy prices -- in the cash market for the energy commodities traded on that exchange.”
Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices:
In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”
The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
Perhaps 60% of oil prices today pure speculation:
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are major players and fund numerous hedge funds as well who speculate.
In June 2006, oil traded in futures markets at some $60 a barrel and the Senate investigation estimated that some $25 of that was due to pure financial speculation. One analyst estimated in August 2005 that US oil inventory levels suggested WTI crude prices should be around $25 a barrel, and not $60.
That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today’s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on Nymex and ICE exchanges in New York and London it is more likely that as much as 60% of the today oil price is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London and they certainly aren’t talking.
By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.
As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.
Compelling evidence also suggests that the oft-cited geopolitical, economic, and natural factors do not explain the recent rise in energy prices can be seen in the actual data on crude oil supply and demand. Although demand has significantly increased over the past few years, so have supplies.
Over the past couple of years global crude oil production has increased along with the increases in demand; in fact, during this period global supplies have exceeded demand, according to the US Department of Energy. The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently forecast that in the next few years global surplus production capacity will continue to grow to between 3 and 5 million barrels per day by 2010, thereby “substantially thickening the surplus capacity cushion.”
Dollar and oil link
A common speculation strategy amid a declining USA economy and a falling US dollar is for speculators and ordinary investment funds desperate for more profitable investments amid the US securitization disaster, to take futures positions selling the dollar “short” and oil “long.”
For huge US or EU pension funds or banks desperate to get profits following the collapse in earnings since August 2007 and the US real estate crisis, oil is one of the best ways to get huge speculative gains. The backdrop that supports the current oil price bubble is continued unrest in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Venezuela and Pakistan and firm oil demand in China and most of the world outside the US. Speculators trade on rumor, not fact.
In turn, once major oil companies and refiners in North America and EU countries begin to hoard oil, supplies appear even tighter lending background support to present prices.
Because the over-the-counter (OTC) and London ICE Futures energy markets are unregulated, there are no precise or reliable figures as to the total dollar value of recent spending on investments in energy commodities, but the estimates are consistently in the range of tens of billions of dollars.
The increased speculative interest in commodities is also seen in the increasing popularity
of commodity index funds, which are funds whose price is tied to the price of a basket of various commodity futures. Goldman Sachs estimates that pension funds and mutual funds have invested a total of approximately $85 billion in commodity index funds, and that investments in its own index, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), has tripled over the past few years. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs.
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Want to join the frey and hedge your bet: Energy Futures Etc
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Hedge Fund Managers etc trade energy futures on the Intercontinental exchange (ICE) which is not regulated. These people are taking money right out of our pockets for their own greed. (My question is who are these people who are trading the energy futures?)[large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors , the answer.] Why does the mass media blame India and China etc for the increase in the price of oil when in reality it is the greed of the people who are buying the energy futures in the unregulated energy futures market. (Story Reports) Lets not forget the
people who also control the oil refineries and how they cut back on production to also drive up the price of gas. Also lets add the government who is about to let the 30 different blends of gas begin again because the law is about to expire that halted this crap after Katrina hit. There is a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading . The Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”
Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?
They seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs. Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. THIS IS THE FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE THAT BUSH HAS LET IN. BUSH IS THE OTHER FOX IN THE HEN HOUSE.
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"One of the things I think is very important to realize is that the growth in the world oil consumption is not that strong." —David Kelly, chief market strategist, J.P. Morgan Funds; The Washington Post, May 4, 2008
"...There is substantial evidence that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased [oil] prices." —U.S. Senate Staff Report, The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, June 27, 2006
On May 13, the price of a barrel of oil briefly hit a record of $126.98 on the New York Mercantile Exchange The reason was ostensibly that Iran was cutting oil production. But there is no gas shortage. So why are prices still going up?
In late April the American Association of Petroleum Geologists held its annual invitation-only dinner in Dallas for, as my source put it, "the bigwigs" of the energy industry. During this meeting, influential and knowledgeable CEOs reached the consensus that "oil prices will likely soon drop dramatically and the long-term price increases will be in natural gas." Of course, despite the pedigrees of those in attendance, their forming a consensus on the direction of energy prices does not mean that it's written in stone or is even going to happen. The group is clearly bullish on natural gas. But petroleum keeps getting more expensive.
The energy executives' prediction about the future price for crude oil had sound backing. Just a few days earlier, Lehman Brothers (LEH) investment bank had said that this current oil pricing boom was quickly coming to an end. Michael Waldron, the bank's chief oil strategist, was quoted in Britain's Daily Telegraph on Apr. 24 as saying: "[Oil supply] is outpacing demand growth." Waldron added, "Inventories have been building since the beginning of the year. The Saudi Khursaniya field has just opened, with 500,000 barrels a day of production, and the new Khurais field will start next year with a further 1.2 million b/d [barrels a day]."
No Lines at the Pump
Waldron's assertion rang true. In the U.S. alone, stockpiles of oil climbed by 11.9 million barrels in the month preceding the Energy Information Agency's (EIA) May 7 inventory report; they were up by nearly 33 million barrels since Jan. 1. At the same time, MasterCard's (MA) May 7 gasoline report showed that gas demand has fallen by 5.8%, while the government suggested that gasoline consumption might have fallen by slightly over 6%.
We do know that refineries in the U.S. again cut back their utilization to 85%. That's down from 89% a year ago, in a season when production is normally 95%, only because they're trying to draw down gasoline inventories to bid gasoline prices up. Yet despite the reduced refinery runs, the EIA said, the U.S. managed to put another 800,000 barrels of gasoline in stock. The American Petroleum Institute put the gas gain at 1.4 million barrels. The point is that neither organization is in disagreement that gasoline was added into our active stocks; it's just a question of exactly how much.
Only the day before, the EIA had released its monthly Short Term Energy Outlook report, concluding that U.S. oil demand is expected to decline by 190,000 b/d in 2008. Chinese consumption is expected to rise this year by only 400,000 b/d—hardly the "surging oil demand" usually blamed on China in the media. Last year China imported 3.2 million barrels per day, and its estimated usage was around 7 million b/d total. The U.S., by contrast, consumes around 20.7 million b/d.
The May 8 report from Oil Movements, a British company that tracks oil shipments worldwide, shows that oil in transit on the high seas is quite strong; almost every category of shipment is running higher than it was a year ago. The one exception was oil shipments to the West during the previous 30 days. Even there, on page three of that report, comes the cryptic line, "In the West, a big share of any [oil] stock building done this year has happened offshore, out of sight." Oil Movements' Roy Mason qualified that line: "Oil in temporary floating storage offshore is hard to pin down, and we don't have useful info on that. Whenever this happens it generates market noise—and we don't hear any!"
Still, the consensus of the American Association of Petroleum Geologists and the energy executives may be right: No supply crisis justifies the way the world's oil is being priced today.
The Truth and Nothing but the (Partial) Truth
So how to explain the May 6 report from Reuters (TRI) that Goldman Sachs (GS) announced that oil could in fact be on the verge of another "super spike," possibly taking oil as high as $200 a barrel within the next six to 24 months? Forget the fact that few other oil analysts agreed with that position, "$200 a barrel!" was the major news story on oil for the next two days. Arjun Murti, Goldman Sachs' energy strategist, predictably laid the blame on "blistering" demand from China and the Middle East, combined with his belief that the Middle East is nearing its maximum ability to produce more oil. While the outside chance exists that Murti is right, his prediction certainly isn't backed up by the EIA's Short-Term Energy Outlook, or by Lehman Brothers' report from 10 days earlier. As for the Middle East being tapped out on oil production, there might be one more thing to consider.
On May 2, the Friday before this prediction made news, Bloomberg had reported that Iran is again storing its heavy crude on tankers in the Persian Gulf because the country has run out of onshore storage tanks while awaiting buyers. Further, Saudi Arabia has extended discounts on its sour crudes to $7.45 for Arabian Heavy. Doesn't sound like there's any real supply problem with that grade of crude, does it?
It is an understatement to say that over the last five years the media have rained reports predicting an impending energy Armageddon. But those reports have tended not to disclose their sources—which often were individuals heavily invested in the oil futures market.
For example, Goldman Sachs was one of the founding partners of online commodities and futures marketplace Intercontinental Exchange (ICE). And ICE has been a primary focus of recent congressional investigations; it was named both in the Senate's Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations' June 27, 2006, Staff Report and in the House Committee on Energy & Commerce's hearing last December. Those investigations looked into the unregulated trading in energy futures, and both concluded that energy prices' climb to stratospheric heights has been driven by the billions of dollars' worth of oil and natural gas futures contracts being placed on the ICE—which is not regulated by the Commodities Futures Trading Commission.
Deceptive Practices
In case you've forgotten, it was only 2001 when BusinessWeekreported that some Wall Street firms were hard-selling to the public stocks that their companies were quietly divesting—and/or pushing questionable stocks for companies in which their affiliated banks had a financial interest. In a nutshell, some individuals with a specific vested interest in a certain financial outcome used the media to enrich themselves and their companies, leaving the public investor holding the bag.
Once that deception was uncovered (after the stock market collapsed), and after the congressional hearings in 2001 proved beyond any doubt that these things had happened, the national media swore that they would never again be taken in by this type of corporate deceit. Then came 2004 and oil.
As the second quote at the beginning of this column makes clear, the Senate pointed out in its 2006 report that oil reserves (not including the Strategic Petroleum Reserve) were at a 20-year high during the time that report was written; therefore, there was no shortage of oil whatsoever. This seemed to confirm a Jan. 10, 2007, article in Reuters that quoted Tony Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi: "We've got a short-term [oil] oversupply problem." Yes, an oil oversupply problem in fall of 2006.
Then, as now, that certainly isn't what we were being told. Instead we were being bombarded daily in the media and analysts' reports with justifications for the high price of oil: The "terrorism premium" on each barrel of oil, the rising demand of China and India, troubles in the Nigerian oil patch, oil pipelines' being blown up in Iraq, wider war in the Middle East, T. Boone Pickens' warnings that the world was on the cusp of Peak Oil, "surging demand" for gasoline in the U.S., the weak dollar—and so on. (Peak oil is described as the world crossing the halfway mark for extracting its oil reserves. It is not maximum production.) However, the Senate took a dim view of those excuses, particularly the ones about Peak Oil or diminished capacity for oil production: "There's a few hedge fund managers out there who are masters at knowing how to exploit the peak [oil] theories and hot buttons of supply and demand, and by making bold predictions of shocking price advancements to come, they only add more fuel to the bullish fire in a sort of self-fulfilling prophecy." (The Role of Market Speculation in Rising Oil and Gas Prices, U.S. Senate, June 27, 2006).
Yes, this line suggests that persons invested in the oil futures market are purposely driving even more money into oil to raise the prices even higher, even though the market's actual supply and demand in no way justifies their claims. On a side note, Enron is named frequently in both investigations as exemplifying this type of energy market manipulation.
And, although both the Senate and the House have already investigated why oil is selling for more than supply and demand dictate, on May 12 we found out that the House Energy & Commerce Committee will look at this issue once again this month and into June.
Let's give Congress a little direction.
Covering Their Losses?
Commodities have often been the refuge for investors who have lost money on equities or fixed-income investments. Moreover, the commodities rush today is not limited to oil; now we also have runaway food and feed prices. Could it be that all the financial losses on subprime mortgages, plus the anticipation that the option ARM mortgages about to reset could be an even bigger problem, combined with the huge losses in securities last year, are why investment money today is flooding into often unregulated commodities, where the demand pricing of the final goods is inelastic?
Consider this: You may not buy gasoline or even eat today, but by next Monday you'll probably have to do both, no matter what it costs. Basically, besides enabling the Fed to bail out Wall Street and our banks again, every time you gas up or eat you may be paying investors to cover other financial losses. We know that investors can't control their losses on mortgages, securities, or bad loans. But, demonstrably, if not restrained they can drive up the price of goods that we can't get out of buying. Odds are, that's what's really been going on.
Ed Wallace holds a Gerald R. Loeb Award for business journalism, bestowed by the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. His column heads the Sunday Drive section of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, and he is a member of the American Historical Society. The automotive expert for KDFW Fox 4 in Dallas, Wallace hosts the top-rated talk show Wheels, Saturdays from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. on 570 KLIF AM in Dallas.
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ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ON FUTURES TRADING
PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
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Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices
In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”
The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
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PERHAPS 60% OF TODAY'S OIL
PRICE IS PURE SPECULATION
by F. William Engdahl
May 2, 2008
The price of crude oil today is not made according to any traditional relation of supply to demand. It’s controlled by an elaborate financial market system as well as by the four major Anglo-American oil companies. As much as 60% of today’s crude oil price is pure speculation driven by large trader banks and hedge funds. It has nothing to do with the convenient myths of Peak Oil. It has to do with control of oil and its price. How?
First, the crucial role of the international oil exchanges in London and New York is crucial to the game. Nymex in New York and the ICE Futures in London today control global benchmark oil prices which in turn set most of the freely traded oil cargo. They do so via oil futures contracts on two grades of crude oil—West Texas Intermediate and North Sea Brent.
A third rather new oil exchange, the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME), trading Dubai crude, is more or less a daughter of Nymex, with Nymex President, James Newsome, sitting on the board of DME and most key personnel British or American citizens.
Brent is used in spot and long-term contracts to value as much of crude oil produced in global oil markets each day. The Brent price is published by a private oil industry publication, Platt’s. Major oil producers including Russia and Nigeria use Brent as a benchmark for pricing the crude they produce. Brent is a key crude blend for the European market and, to some extent, for Asia.
WTI has historically been more of a US crude oil basket. Not only is it used as the basis for US-traded oil futures, but it's also a key benchmark for US production.
‘The tail that wags the dog’
All this is well and official. But how today’s oil prices are really determined is done by a process so opaque only a handful of major oil trading banks such as Goldman Sachs or Morgan Stanley have any idea who is buying and who selling oil futures or derivative contracts that set physical oil prices in this strange new world of “paper oil.”
With the development of unregulated international derivatives trading in oil futures over the past decade or more, the way has opened for the present speculative bubble in oil prices.
Since the advent of oil futures trading and the two major London and New York oil futures contracts, control of oil prices has left OPEC and gone to Wall Street. It is a classic case of the “tail that wags the dog.”
A June 2006 US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations report on “The Role of Market Speculation in rising oil and gas prices,” noted, “…there is substantial evidence supporting the conclusion that the large amount of speculation in the current market has significantly increased prices.”
What the Senate committee staff documented in the report was a gaping loophole in US Government regulation of oil derivatives trading so huge a herd of elephants could walk through it. That seems precisely what they have been doing in ramping oil prices through the roof in recent months.
The Senate report was ignored in the media and in the Congress.
The report pointed out that the Commodity Futures Trading Trading Commission, a financial futures regulator, had been mandated by Congress to ensure that prices on the futures market reflect the laws of supply and demand rather than manipulative practices or excessive speculation. The US Commodity Exchange Act (CEA) states, “Excessive speculation in any commodity under contracts of sale of such commodity for future delivery . . . causing sudden or unreasonable fluctuations or unwarranted changes in the price of such commodity, is an undue and unnecessary burden on interstate commerce in such commodity.”
Further, the CEA directs the CFTC to establish such trading limits “as the Commission finds are necessary to diminish, eliminate, or prevent such burden.” Where is the CFTC now that we need such limits?
they seem to have deliberately walked away from their mandated oversight responsibilities in the world’s most important traded commodity, oil.
Enron has the last laugh…
As that US Senate report noted:
“Until recently, US energy futures were traded exclusively on regulated exchanges within the United States, like the NYMEX, which are subject to extensive oversight by the CFTC,including ongoing monitoring to detect and prevent price manipulation or fraud. In recent years, however, there has been a tremendous growth in the trading of contracts that look and are structured just like futures contracts, but which are traded on unregulated OTC electronic markets. Because of their similarity to futures contracts they are often called “futures look-alikes.”
The only practical difference between futures look-alike contracts and futures contracts is that the look-alikes are traded in unregulated markets whereas futures are traded on regulated exchanges. The trading of energy commodities by large firms on OTC electronic exchanges was exempted from CFTC oversight by a provision inserted at the behest of Enron and other large energy traders into the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 in the waning hours of the 106th Congress.
The impact on market oversight has been substantial. NYMEX traders, for example, are required to keep records of all trades and report large trades to the CFTC. These Large Trader Reports, together with daily trading data providing price and volume information, are the CFTC’s primary tools to gauge the extent of speculation in the markets and to detect, prevent, and prosecute price manipulation. CFTC Chairman Reuben Jeffrey recently stated:
“The Commission’s Large Trader information system is one of the cornerstones of our surveillance program and enables detection of concentrated and coordinated positions that might be used by one or more traders to attempt manipulation.”
In contrast to trades conducted on the NYMEX, traders on unregulated OTC electronic exchanges are not required to keep records or file Large Trader Reports with the CFTC, and these trades are exempt from routine CFTC oversight. In contrast to trades conducted on regulated futures exchanges, there is no limit on the number of contracts a speculator may hold on an unregulated OTC electronic exchange, no monitoring of trading by the exchange itself, and no reporting of the amount of outstanding contracts (“open interest”) at the end of each day.”
Then, apparently to make sure the way was opened really wide to potential market oil price manipulation, in January 2006, the Bush Administration’s CFTC permitted the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the leading operator of electronic energy exchanges, to use its trading terminals in the United States for the trading of US crude oil futures on the ICE futures exchange in London – called “ICE Futures.”
Previously, the ICE Futures exchange in London had traded only in European energy commodities – Brent crude oil and United Kingdom natural gas. As a United Kingdom futures market, the ICE Futures exchange is regulated solely by the UK Financial Services Authority. In 1999, the London exchange obtained the CFTC’s permission to install computer terminals in the United States to permit traders in New York and other US cities to trade European energy commodities through the ICE exchange.
The CFTC opens the door:
Then, in January 2006, ICE Futures in London began trading a futures contract for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil, a type of crude oil that is produced and delivered in the United States. ICE Futures also notified the CFTC that it would be permitting traders in the United States to use ICE terminals in the United States to trade its new WTI contract on the ICE Futures London exchange. ICE Futures as well allowed traders in the United States to trade US gasoline and heating oil futures on the ICE Futures exchange in London.
Despite the use by US traders of trading terminals within the United States to trade US oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures contracts, the CFTC has until today refused to assert any jurisdiction over the trading of these contracts.
Persons within the United States seeking to trade key US energy commodities – US crude oil, gasoline, and heating oil futures – are able to avoid all US market oversight or reporting requirements by routing their trades through the ICE Futures exchange in London instead of the NYMEX in New York.
Is that not elegant? The US Government energy futures regulator, CFTC opened the way to the present unregulated and highly opaque oil futures speculation. It may just be coincidence that the present CEO of NYMEX, James Newsome, who also sits on the Dubai Exchange, is a former chairman of the US CFTC. In Washington doors revolve quite smoothly between private and public posts.
A glance at the price for Brent and WTI futures prices since January 2006 indicates the remarkable correlation between skyrocketing oil prices and the unregulated trade in ICE oil futures in US markets. Keep in mind that ICE Futures in London is owned and controlled by a USA company based in Atlanta Georgia.
In January 2006 when the CFTC allowed the ICE Futures the gaping exception, oil prices were trading in the range of $59-60 a barrel. Today some two years later we see prices tapping $120 and trend upwards. This is not an OPEC problem, it is a US Government regulatory problem of malign neglect.
By not requiring the ICE to file daily reports of large trades of energy commodities, it is not able to detect and deter price manipulation. As the Senate report noted,
“The CFTC's ability to detect and deter energy price manipulation is suffering from critical information gaps, because traders on OTC electronic exchanges and the London ICE Futures are currently exempt from CFTC reporting requirements. Large trader reporting is also essential to analyzE the effect of speculation on energy prices.”
The report added,
“ICE's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission and other evidence indicate that its over-the-counter electronic exchange performs a price discovery function -- and thereby affects US energy prices -- in the cash market for the energy commodities traded on that exchange.”
Hedge Funds and Banks driving oil prices:
In the most recent sustained run-up in energy prices, large financial institutions, hedge funds, pension funds, and other investors have been pouring billions of dollars into the energy commodities markets to try to take advantage of price changes or hedge against them. Most of this additional investment has not come from producers or consumers of these commodities, but from speculators seeking to take advantage of these price changes. The CFTC defines a speculator as a person who “does not produce or use the commodity, but risks his or her own capital trading futures in that commodity in hopes of making a profit on price changes.”
The large purchases of crude oil futures contracts by speculators have, in effect, created an additional demand for oil, driving up the price of oil for future delivery in the same manner that additional demand for contracts for the delivery of a physical barrel today drives up the price for oil on the spot market. As far as the market is concerned, the demand for a barrel of oil that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a speculator is just as real as the demand for a barrel that results from the purchase of a futures contract by a refiner or other user of petroleum.
Perhaps 60% of oil prices today pure speculation:
Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley today are the two leading energy trading firms in the United States. Citigroup and JP Morgan Chase are major players and fund numerous hedge funds as well who speculate.
In June 2006, oil traded in futures markets at some $60 a barrel and the Senate investigation estimated that some $25 of that was due to pure financial speculation. One analyst estimated in August 2005 that US oil inventory levels suggested WTI crude prices should be around $25 a barrel, and not $60.
That would mean today that at least $50 to $60 or more of today’s $115 a barrel price is due to pure hedge fund and financial institution speculation. However, given the unchanged equilibrium in global oil supply and demand over recent months amid the explosive rise in oil futures prices traded on Nymex and ICE exchanges in New York and London it is more likely that as much as 60% of the today oil price is pure speculation. No one knows officially except the tiny handful of energy trading banks in New York and London and they certainly aren’t talking.
By purchasing large numbers of futures contracts, and thereby pushing up futures prices to even higher levels than current prices, speculators have provided a financial incentive for oil companies to buy even more oil and place it in storage. A refiner will purchase extra oil today, even if it costs $115 per barrel, if the futures price is even higher.
As a result, over the past two years crude oil inventories have been steadily growing, resulting in US crude oil inventories that are now higher than at any time in the previous eight years. The large influx of speculative investment into oil futures has led to a situation where we have both high supplies of crude oil and high crude oil prices.
Compelling evidence also suggests that the oft-cited geopolitical, economic, and natural factors do not explain the recent rise in energy prices can be seen in the actual data on crude oil supply and demand. Although demand has significantly increased over the past few years, so have supplies.
Over the past couple of years global crude oil production has increased along with the increases in demand; in fact, during this period global supplies have exceeded demand, according to the US Department of Energy. The US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) recently forecast that in the next few years global surplus production capacity will continue to grow to between 3 and 5 million barrels per day by 2010, thereby “substantially thickening the surplus capacity cushion.”
Dollar and oil link
A common speculation strategy amid a declining USA economy and a falling US dollar is for speculators and ordinary investment funds desperate for more profitable investments amid the US securitization disaster, to take futures positions selling the dollar “short” and oil “long.”
For huge US or EU pension funds or banks desperate to get profits following the collapse in earnings since August 2007 and the US real estate crisis, oil is one of the best ways to get huge speculative gains. The backdrop that supports the current oil price bubble is continued unrest in the Middle East, in Sudan, in Venezuela and Pakistan and firm oil demand in China and most of the world outside the US. Speculators trade on rumor, not fact.
In turn, once major oil companies and refiners in North America and EU countries begin to hoard oil, supplies appear even tighter lending background support to present prices.
Because the over-the-counter (OTC) and London ICE Futures energy markets are unregulated, there are no precise or reliable figures as to the total dollar value of recent spending on investments in energy commodities, but the estimates are consistently in the range of tens of billions of dollars.
The increased speculative interest in commodities is also seen in the increasing popularity
of commodity index funds, which are funds whose price is tied to the price of a basket of various commodity futures. Goldman Sachs estimates that pension funds and mutual funds have invested a total of approximately $85 billion in commodity index funds, and that investments in its own index, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), has tripled over the past few years. Notable is the fact that the US Treasury Secretary, Henry Paulson, is former Chairman of Goldman Sachs.
31,000 scientists reject 'global warming'
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List Of Signers By Name,State and Qualifications
Here is proof positive that the concensus of scientists DO NOT AGREE THERE IS GLOBAL WARMING 31,000 do not
think there is global warming. Also they dispute al gore who is not a scientist but only a media buffoon.
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31,000 scientists reject 'global warming' agenda
'Mr. Gore's movie has claims no informed expert endorses'
Posted: May 19, 2008
8:51 pm Eastern
By Bob Unruh
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
More than 31,000 scientists across the U.S. – including more than 9,000 Ph.D.s in fields such as atmospheric science, climatology, Earth science, environment and dozens of other specialties – have signed a petition rejecting "global warming," the assumption that the human production of greenhouse gases is damaging Earth's climate.
"There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate," the petition states. "Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth."
The Petition Project actually was launched nearly 10 years ago, when the first few thousand signatures were assembled. Then, between 1999 and 2007, the list of signatures grew gradually without any special effort or campaign.
But now, a new effort has been conducted because of an "escalation of the claims of 'consensus,' release of the movie 'An Inconvenient Truth' by Mr. Al Gore, and related events," according to officials with the project.
"Mr. Gore's movie, asserting a 'consensus' and 'settled science' in agreement about human-caused global warming, conveyed the claims about human-caused global warming to ordinary movie goers and to public school children, to whom the film was widely distributed. Unfortunately, Mr. Gore's movie contains many very serious incorrect claims which no informed, honest scientist could endorse," said project spokesman and founder Art Robinson.
WND submitted a request to Gore's office for comment but did not get a response.
Robinson said the dire warnings about "global warming" have gone far beyond semantics or scientific discussion now to the point they are actually endangering people.
"The campaign to severely ration hydrocarbon energy technology has now been markedly expanded," he said. "In the course of this campaign, many scientifically invalid claims about impending climate emergencies are being made. Simultaneously, proposed political actions to severely reduce hydrocarbon use now threaten the prosperity of Americans and the very existence of hundreds of millions of people in poorer countries," he said.
In just the past few weeks, there have been various allegations that both shark attacks and typhoons have been sparked by "global warming."
The late Professor Frederick Seitz, the past president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences and winner of the National Medal of Science, wrote in a letter promoting the petition, "The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds."
"This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful," he wrote.
Accompanying the letter sent to scientists was a 12-page summary and review of research on "global warming," officials said.
"The proposed agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries," Seitz wrote.
Robinson said the project targets scientists because, "It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice."
He said the "global warming agreement," written in Kyoto, Japan, in 1997, and other plans "would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind."
"Yet," he said, "the United Nations and other vocal political interests say the U.S. must enact new laws that will sharply reduce domestic energy production and raise energy prices even higher.
"The inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness include the right of access to life-giving and life-enhancing technology. This is especially true of access to the most basic of all technologies: energy. These human rights have been extensively and wrongly abridged," he continued. "During the past two generations in the U.S., a system of high taxation, extensive regulation, and ubiquitous litigation has arisen that prevents the accumulation of sufficient capital and the exercise of sufficient freedom to build and preserve needed modern technology.
"These unfavorable political trends have severely damaged our energy production, where lack of industrial progress has left our country dependent upon foreign sources for 30 percent of the energy required to maintain our current level of prosperity," he said. "Moreover, the transfer of other U.S. industries abroad as a result of these same trends has left U.S. citizens with too few goods and services to trade for the energy that they do not produce. A huge and unsustainable trade deficit and rapidly rising energy prices have been the result.
"The necessary hydrocarbon and nuclear energy production technologies have been available to U.S. engineers for many decades. We can develop these resources without harm to people or the environment. There is absolutely no technical, resource, or environmental reason for the U.S. to be a net importer of energy. The U.S. should, in fact, be a net exporter of energy," he said.
He told WND he believes the issue has nothing to do with energy itself, but everything to do with power, control and money, which the United Nations is seeking. He accused the U.N. of violating human rights in its campaign to ban much energy research, exploration and development.
"In order to alleviate the current energy emergency and prevent future emergencies, we need to remove the governmental restrictions that have caused this problem. Fundamental human rights require that U.S. citizens and their industries be free to produce and use the low cost, abundant energy that they need. As the 31,000 signatories of this petition emphasize, environmental science supports this freedom," he said.
The Petition Project website today said there are 31,072 scientists who have signed up, and Robinson said more names continue to come in.
In terms of Ph.D. scientists alone, it already has 15 times more scientists than are seriously involved in the U.N.'s campaign to "vilify hydrocarbons," officials told WND.
"The very large number of petition signers demonstrates that, if there is a consensus among American scientists, it is in opposition to the human-caused global warming hypothesis rather than in favor of it," the organization noted.
The project was set up by a team of physicists and physical chemists who do research at several American institutions and collects signatures when donations provide the resources to mail out more letters.
"In a group of more than 30,000 people, there are many individuals with names similar or identical to other signatories, or to non-signatories – real or fictional. Opponents of the petition project sometimes use this statistical fact in efforts to discredit the project. For examples, Perry Mason and Michael Fox are scientists who have signed the petition – who happen also to have names identical to fictional or real non-scientists," the website said.
The petition is needed, supporters said, simply because Gore and others "have claimed that the 'science is settled' – that an overwhelming 'consensus' of scientists agrees with the hypothesis of human-caused global warming, with only a handful of skeptical scientists in disagreement."
The list of scientists includes 9,021 Ph.D.s, 6,961 at the master's level, 2,240 medical doctors and 12,850 carrying a bachelor of science or equivalent academic degree.
The Petition Project's website includes both a list of scientists by name as well as a list of scientists by state.
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Ted Kennedy IS LIBERAL SCUM
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I agree with this article and believe teddy if a baby killer also, abortion on demand. People say pray for him, pray that he will be taken from the senate but not that he will die, and that his liberal laws will be repealed. Obama and Clinton are liberal scum also and will continue his legacy of liberal disgrace if elected. The danger now is he will become a living martyr for liberal scum causes. This is what will happen. He will be even more of a threat now! Pray that he will be removed from the senate soon because of this and just keep sailing away. (Story Reports)
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Article from: The Real Teddy
Poster boy for Drunk Driving murdering socialists.
CHAPPAQUIDDICK:Profile of Cowardice
What can we say about Teddy that hasn't already been said? Not much but it's always good to remind people what a murder and communist is up to these days. He's has a lot to say these days about the president to which he has hardly heard a rebuttal. Now we all know how Joseph P Kennedy, Ted's Father amassed a fortune through illegal activity (bootlegging) and unscrupulous stock market speculation; and how he used his money and connections with organized crime to influence both the media and the American political establishment. But what do we know about Ted? We know that he drove drunk in Chappaquiddick in July of 1969 and Killed a young woman. We all know of his corrupt womanizing brothers who meant an untimely end. We all know that he is a champion of big government and giving handouts to the un-deserving. We know that he is a delusional socialist who dreams of giving everyone else's money away, everybody's but his that is. He wants a world of weak foreign policy and illegal immigration. In short we know that Ted Kennedy is everything that is wrong with America.
Now besides the fact that you are from the hippie liberal state of Taxachusetts, you are also from the far left side of the political spectrum and live in a make believe world of hate and vile rhetoric. You have no desirable qualities as a human being and hopefully your hate filled kind are not long for this world. Just what makes a man like you say the things you say. You can't honestly believe them can you? What am I saying, asking a Kennedy about honesty is like asking a whore if she is a virgin. It does make it no less believable when you say the things you say about President Bush that you wouldn't have said against a corrupt hate monger like Ex-con Clinton. That fact that your state that you represent is going to the first to legalize Gay marriage speaks volumes. How can a Catholic even think of such a thing.
Teddy's Early record:
- Ted managed to graduate from prep school (Milton Academy) in 1950 with only a C average.
- Teddy was never a scholar, and his brother Jack once referred to him as "the gay illiterate".
- Despite his terrible grades, Teddy (like brother Robert) was admitted to Harvard as a "legacy", because his older brothers and father had graduated form there with such distinction.
- Yet even at Harvard, young Ted floundered.
- In his sophomore year he was expelled for cheating. He had been failing Spanish and feared it would keep him off the varsity football team.
- He paid a friend to take the exam for him.
- Ted's friend, however, was recognized when he turned in the exam book.
- Both lads were expelled, but were advised that they could apply for readmission in a year if they demonstrated responsible citizenship.
- It was a shame and disgrace, but the family would manage to keep it a secret until Teddy ran for the Senate.
- After his expulsion from Harvard, Teddy returned to Hyannis Port where he would sit brooding, sometimes for hours.
- Finally, he enlisted in the Army.
- Not surprisingly, he did not bother to read the enlistment papers and signed up for four years instead of two.
- Ted's father, the US Ambassador to England, was horrofied at the thought of his youngest son spending four years in the service, with a good chance of being sent into combat in Korea.
- "Don't you ever look at what you're signing?" he shouted.
- With one phone call Joe contacted a friend who managed to get hold of Teddy's enlistment papers.
- Ted's enlistment period was shortened to two years, a maneuver that was nearly impossible for the average enlistee.
- Furthermore, Ted would do his service in Europe, not Korea.
- Teddy never rose above the rank of private, and was discharged in 1952.
- He returned to Harvard in the fall of 1953, as did his test-taking friend, and they graduated together.
Once back at Harvard, Teddy made the rugby team.
- During one match in 1954, Ted got into three fistfights with opposing players and was finally thrown out of the game. According to referee Frederick Costick, Teddy was the only player he had ever expelled from a game in thirty years of officiating.
- "Rugby is a character-building sport," Costick said. "Players learn how to conduct themselves on the field with the idea that they will learn how to conduct themselves in life. When a player loses control of himself three times in a single afternoon, to my mind, that is a sign that, in a crisis, the man is not capable of thinking clearly and acting rationally. Such a man will panic under pressure."
- Of course, years later, in the crisis at Chappaquiddick, Teddy would do exactly that.
- In 1957, Ted entered the University of Virginia Law School.
- The warning signs of trouble would continue.
- While in law school, Ted would earn the nickname "Cadillac Eddie". He was cited four times for reckless driving (three times in 1958 and once in 1959). These violations included running red lights and driving with his lights off at ninety miles per hour in a suburban area.
- Teddy was convicted of three violations and fined, but for some reason his driver's license was never revoked.
Until Ted Kennedy is Dead, America as we know it is not safe.
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Teddy's First Senate Race
The following are excerpts from :
The Kennedy Men: Three Generations of Sex, Scandal, and Secrets
- by Nellie Bly
"Ted isn't very heavy mentally........nothing like his brothers. In many ways he's a fathead - a little bit conceited, a little bit cocky, the kind of guy who'd never finish a sentence when you asked him a question."
- Joe McCarthy - Journalist
- In 1960, Jack Kennedy became President of the United States, and vacated his Massachusetts Senate seat.
- Joe Kennedy told the President: "You boys have what you want now and everyone else helped you work to get it. Now it's Teds turn."
- Joe still wanted to collect on all he had invested in getting Jack the seat in the Senate.
"Look, I paid for it," Joe explained. "It belongs in the family."
- But Teddy would not be eligible to fill Jack's vacant Senate seat until February 22, 1962, when he would turn thirty.
- Joe therefore persuaded the Massachusetts governor to name a Kennedy family friend to fill out Jack's term, keeping the seat available for Teddy.
- 2 -
- On March 19, 1962 Teddy announced that he was a candidate for the US Senate.
- Almost immediately, the Boston Globe unearthed the dark secret in Teddy's past - that he had been expelled from Harvard for cheating.
- Robert L Healy, political editor of the Globe, found the story. In order to get it into the paper, however, he had to get some confirmation. He asked the White House to open up the Harvard record and was immediately summoned to the Oval Office.
- The President and his aides kept pressing Healy to play down the story, but he stood his ground. "So finally, Jack gave me access to the whole thing," Healy said.
- On March 30 the Globe ran the story. Ted immediately issued a statement accepting full blame:
"I made a mistake. What I did was wrong. I have regretted it ever since. The unhappiness I caused my family and friends, even though eleven years ago, has been a bitter experience for me, but it has also been a valuable lesson. That is the story."
- This was the first of what would become the three historic apologies of Ted's career.
- The cheating story eventually died, and Ted was elected to the Senate.
- The admiring journalist Joe McCarthy had no illusions about young Ted. "He isn't very very heavy mentally........nothing like his brothers. In many ways he's a fathead, a little bit conceited, a little bit cocky, the kind of guy who'd never finish a sentence when you asked him a question. He simply didn't think things through as Jack and Bobby did."
Sunday, May 4, 2008
How Hillary will lead America into hell
The article below helps explain the current maze of liberal rats ever expanding their stench across America and if hillery is elected will turn this country into a cess pool just like the cess pool hillary and bill clinton were spawned from. This is strong language but it aptly describes the clintons. Obama is just another liberal rat who wants to infect America with his sick ideas also. Neither can produce in themselves the product of a president that can accomplish what America needs. They are just snake oil salesmen selling the public fluff and puff with no experience
to back them up. Socialists who will trade their soul for power.
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By David Kupelian:
As November's election nears, some otherwise right-thinking conservatives and Christians, unhappy with GOP presidential candidate John McCain, have concluded America would actually be better off in the long run with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House for the next four years.
They recount all of McCain's personal and policy sins. They say, at least if Clinton or Obama is elected, Republicans will unite in opposition to the new president's wacko policies. But if McCain becomes president and champions bad policies, they argue, Republicans in Congress will be paralyzed, unable to oppose effectively any wrongheaded initiatives championed by a chief executive of their own party. With Obama or Clinton as president, the argument goes, the Democrat-controlled White House and Congress will get all the blame for the inevitable failure of their destructive policies, thus creating a comeback opportunity for a principled Republican in 2012. So it's better, they conclude, to give the ranch over to the enemy for four years – and then come back chastened, stronger, more energized than ever, and with a new Ronald Reagan as a standard-bearer.
There's just enough logic to this reasoning to beguile a lot of good people, especially those who have long harbored anger toward John McCain for his many obvious – and sometimes outrageous and even scary – flaws.
However, such analysis is dwarfed and annihilated by a far more devastating factor – something apparently overlooked by just about everyone weighing in on the relative merits of the candidates.
The damage that will occur to America if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected president will go far beyond what we can rationally anticipate on the policy level.
Don't get me wrong. Policy disasters like socialized medicine (radically expanding government and reducing freedom), an untimely retreat from Iraq (betraying our soldiers and the Iraqi people, and fanning the flames of worldwide jihad for another generation), the appointment of pro-abortion zealots to the Supreme Court (resulting in a pro-death high court for the rest of our lives, and no hope of overturning Roe v. Wade) are appalling enough – and more than ample reason to choose McCain over either of the Democrats.
But there's yet another consequence arguably worse than any of these. Allow me to explain, by harkening back to a previous presidency.
During Ronald Reagan's administration, he liked to say, "It's Morning in America." And I can remember, it did seem like the sun was shining more brightly than usual on this nation, but mostly because of who was in the White House.
Quick story here. I happened to be in K-Mart in the electronics department on March 23, 1983. I remember the date because, while I was strolling around, killing time by checking out a large display of TV sets all tuned to the same channel, President Reagan came on and delivered his historic speech introducing the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, in which he announced that America was going to change policy and actually defend itself against nuclear attack.
I was stunned. On that day, I discovered new hope for America. We were not going to rely forever on Mutual Assured Destruction and the "balance of terror" doctrine. We would actually protect our beloved nation from the Soviets or anyone else threatening us with annihilation. Clouds of cynicism and doubt about my country's future lifted from my mind, as it did for millions of others. After the national despondency that characterized the wretched, "malaise"-ridden Jimmy Carter era, it really was "Morning in America."
During Reagan's presidency, more people came to believe in peace through strength, because Reagan made the case persuasively – and proved it in his actions. More people came to believe America was a great and good nation, because Reagan believed it. More people came to disagree with abortion, because the president disagreed with abortion – even wrote a short book on the subject while in office. And so on.
What I'm saying is, the president is like the father of a big family, and who he is and what he is – his spirit – affects everyone, like the sun. It's a radiant energy that directly shines on people. Presidents invisibly shape the character and worldview of the country, with a particularly profound effect upon the young, since they are the most impressionable.
This radiant effect works in the negative, too. Bill Clinton's sexual addiction and utter lack of responsibility and self-control led to the entire world knowing what he was doing with a young intern in the Oval Office. Whereas Ronald Reagan had such respect for the Oval Office that he reportedly never entered it without wearing a coat and tie, Bill Clinton turned it into his private sex club. And the radiant effect of his monumental selfishness was that he infected an entire generation of young people, in high school and even middle school, influencing them to sexually mimic the national trauma of a president exploiting an intern barely older than his daughter.
Now, by virtually all accounts, Hillary Clinton is even less qualified to be president than Bill.
So ask yourself: If Hillary Clinton – widely recognized as a pathologically lying chameleon for whom nothing is sacred but her own aggrandizement – becomes the "father of our country," just what sort of "radiant" effect do you suppose she'll have on America?
For that matter, what about an equally dysfunctional "President Obama"? What would be the effect on young people of a leader so deeply and radically anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-military, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion and pro-socialist – and yet who hides his true identity behind a shimmering veneer of faith, hope and love?
Do you have any idea what having a father – or a "father" of the country – like this does to young people?
It drives them crazy.
In a thousand different ways – some obvious, some subtle – it confuses them, it corrupts them, it reinforces everything wrong with them. It literally draws up from deep within them contempt and hatred – and a desire for revenge – because the adults that preceded them in this world, who should have had their best interests at heart, were so clueless and shallow that they elected a lying phony as supreme national leader.
Like all of us, young people are constantly appealed to by both good and evil. The good in them really wants nothing more than genuine virtue and strength in adults – not the fake, sugarcoated variety, but the real thing. Good grown-ups tend to neutralize the appeal of the dark side on vulnerable young people.
Reagan had this quality in abundance. McCain seems to have at least a little of it. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don't have a clue. Both would be toxic to America as president, and not just in the realm of public policy, but in the "culture" – the spiritual air we breathe and water we drink.
Just reflect, for a moment, on the bizarre and seemingly inexplicable behaviors of young people we see right now – youths Tasering each other for fun on YouTube. Ubiquitous sexual debauchery at younger and younger ages. The mainstreaming of transgenderism. Body piercing and tattooing at an ever-more pathological level – tongues, lips, eyebrows, deep body parts. Pandemic gang activity and drug abuse. Witchcraft. Satanism. Suicide. (I take readers on a guided tour of this bizarre underworld in the "Killer Culture" chapter of "The Marketing of Evil.")
Our colleges indoctrinate our kids with leftist poison while corrupting their morals; our news media are cynical, self-centered and cowardly; the entertainment industry is in the gutter; and even many of our Christian churches are shallow and plastic – not, as they should be, a genuine contrast to the corruption everywhere without. When kids grow up around confusion, corruption and hypocrisy, they are tempted either to conform – and become Stepford clones of the same hypocrisy – or rebel and engage in bizarre, destructive behaviors.
That's the insanity we've got now – despite having a basically decent, if very flawed, man in the White House.
But try to imagine Hillary Clinton as president – and Bill as first lady. The toxic cultural/governmental environment would be almost beyond imagination with the elevation of "the queen of darkness" as "father of our country."
You could expect a radical increase in shocking, self-destructive and criminal acting-out by lost souls lashing out blindly in a desperate expression of revenge toward the contemptible society that could dare elect such a person as president. Perhaps a huge upsurge in mass shootings, such as we've seen recently. Or maybe more "bug-chasing" – that's where people actively try to get infected with AIDS. Maybe homegrown suicide bombers committing horrific terrorist acts – not for Allah, but just for kicks, for non-specific revenge against the human race. No one can say what form it will take, but expect more and more weird, destructive behaviors designed for maximum shock.
Of course, nobody would be able to prove any cause and effect. But remember these words: Elevating a person like Hillary Clinton to the presidency of the United States will unleash hell in America in a way very few of us can even comprehend, let alone remedy.
The preceding article is excerpted from the current edition of Whistleblower magazine, "QUEEN OF DARKNESS."
to back them up. Socialists who will trade their soul for power.
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By David Kupelian:
As November's election nears, some otherwise right-thinking conservatives and Christians, unhappy with GOP presidential candidate John McCain, have concluded America would actually be better off in the long run with Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama in the White House for the next four years.
They recount all of McCain's personal and policy sins. They say, at least if Clinton or Obama is elected, Republicans will unite in opposition to the new president's wacko policies. But if McCain becomes president and champions bad policies, they argue, Republicans in Congress will be paralyzed, unable to oppose effectively any wrongheaded initiatives championed by a chief executive of their own party. With Obama or Clinton as president, the argument goes, the Democrat-controlled White House and Congress will get all the blame for the inevitable failure of their destructive policies, thus creating a comeback opportunity for a principled Republican in 2012. So it's better, they conclude, to give the ranch over to the enemy for four years – and then come back chastened, stronger, more energized than ever, and with a new Ronald Reagan as a standard-bearer.
There's just enough logic to this reasoning to beguile a lot of good people, especially those who have long harbored anger toward John McCain for his many obvious – and sometimes outrageous and even scary – flaws.
However, such analysis is dwarfed and annihilated by a far more devastating factor – something apparently overlooked by just about everyone weighing in on the relative merits of the candidates.
The damage that will occur to America if Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama is elected president will go far beyond what we can rationally anticipate on the policy level.
Don't get me wrong. Policy disasters like socialized medicine (radically expanding government and reducing freedom), an untimely retreat from Iraq (betraying our soldiers and the Iraqi people, and fanning the flames of worldwide jihad for another generation), the appointment of pro-abortion zealots to the Supreme Court (resulting in a pro-death high court for the rest of our lives, and no hope of overturning Roe v. Wade) are appalling enough – and more than ample reason to choose McCain over either of the Democrats.
But there's yet another consequence arguably worse than any of these. Allow me to explain, by harkening back to a previous presidency.
During Ronald Reagan's administration, he liked to say, "It's Morning in America." And I can remember, it did seem like the sun was shining more brightly than usual on this nation, but mostly because of who was in the White House.
Quick story here. I happened to be in K-Mart in the electronics department on March 23, 1983. I remember the date because, while I was strolling around, killing time by checking out a large display of TV sets all tuned to the same channel, President Reagan came on and delivered his historic speech introducing the Strategic Defense Initiative, or SDI, in which he announced that America was going to change policy and actually defend itself against nuclear attack.
I was stunned. On that day, I discovered new hope for America. We were not going to rely forever on Mutual Assured Destruction and the "balance of terror" doctrine. We would actually protect our beloved nation from the Soviets or anyone else threatening us with annihilation. Clouds of cynicism and doubt about my country's future lifted from my mind, as it did for millions of others. After the national despondency that characterized the wretched, "malaise"-ridden Jimmy Carter era, it really was "Morning in America."
During Reagan's presidency, more people came to believe in peace through strength, because Reagan made the case persuasively – and proved it in his actions. More people came to believe America was a great and good nation, because Reagan believed it. More people came to disagree with abortion, because the president disagreed with abortion – even wrote a short book on the subject while in office. And so on.
What I'm saying is, the president is like the father of a big family, and who he is and what he is – his spirit – affects everyone, like the sun. It's a radiant energy that directly shines on people. Presidents invisibly shape the character and worldview of the country, with a particularly profound effect upon the young, since they are the most impressionable.
This radiant effect works in the negative, too. Bill Clinton's sexual addiction and utter lack of responsibility and self-control led to the entire world knowing what he was doing with a young intern in the Oval Office. Whereas Ronald Reagan had such respect for the Oval Office that he reportedly never entered it without wearing a coat and tie, Bill Clinton turned it into his private sex club. And the radiant effect of his monumental selfishness was that he infected an entire generation of young people, in high school and even middle school, influencing them to sexually mimic the national trauma of a president exploiting an intern barely older than his daughter.
Now, by virtually all accounts, Hillary Clinton is even less qualified to be president than Bill.
So ask yourself: If Hillary Clinton – widely recognized as a pathologically lying chameleon for whom nothing is sacred but her own aggrandizement – becomes the "father of our country," just what sort of "radiant" effect do you suppose she'll have on America?
For that matter, what about an equally dysfunctional "President Obama"? What would be the effect on young people of a leader so deeply and radically anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-military, pro-homosexual, pro-abortion and pro-socialist – and yet who hides his true identity behind a shimmering veneer of faith, hope and love?
Do you have any idea what having a father – or a "father" of the country – like this does to young people?
It drives them crazy.
In a thousand different ways – some obvious, some subtle – it confuses them, it corrupts them, it reinforces everything wrong with them. It literally draws up from deep within them contempt and hatred – and a desire for revenge – because the adults that preceded them in this world, who should have had their best interests at heart, were so clueless and shallow that they elected a lying phony as supreme national leader.
Like all of us, young people are constantly appealed to by both good and evil. The good in them really wants nothing more than genuine virtue and strength in adults – not the fake, sugarcoated variety, but the real thing. Good grown-ups tend to neutralize the appeal of the dark side on vulnerable young people.
Reagan had this quality in abundance. McCain seems to have at least a little of it. Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama don't have a clue. Both would be toxic to America as president, and not just in the realm of public policy, but in the "culture" – the spiritual air we breathe and water we drink.
Just reflect, for a moment, on the bizarre and seemingly inexplicable behaviors of young people we see right now – youths Tasering each other for fun on YouTube. Ubiquitous sexual debauchery at younger and younger ages. The mainstreaming of transgenderism. Body piercing and tattooing at an ever-more pathological level – tongues, lips, eyebrows, deep body parts. Pandemic gang activity and drug abuse. Witchcraft. Satanism. Suicide. (I take readers on a guided tour of this bizarre underworld in the "Killer Culture" chapter of "The Marketing of Evil.")
Our colleges indoctrinate our kids with leftist poison while corrupting their morals; our news media are cynical, self-centered and cowardly; the entertainment industry is in the gutter; and even many of our Christian churches are shallow and plastic – not, as they should be, a genuine contrast to the corruption everywhere without. When kids grow up around confusion, corruption and hypocrisy, they are tempted either to conform – and become Stepford clones of the same hypocrisy – or rebel and engage in bizarre, destructive behaviors.
That's the insanity we've got now – despite having a basically decent, if very flawed, man in the White House.
But try to imagine Hillary Clinton as president – and Bill as first lady. The toxic cultural/governmental environment would be almost beyond imagination with the elevation of "the queen of darkness" as "father of our country."
You could expect a radical increase in shocking, self-destructive and criminal acting-out by lost souls lashing out blindly in a desperate expression of revenge toward the contemptible society that could dare elect such a person as president. Perhaps a huge upsurge in mass shootings, such as we've seen recently. Or maybe more "bug-chasing" – that's where people actively try to get infected with AIDS. Maybe homegrown suicide bombers committing horrific terrorist acts – not for Allah, but just for kicks, for non-specific revenge against the human race. No one can say what form it will take, but expect more and more weird, destructive behaviors designed for maximum shock.
Of course, nobody would be able to prove any cause and effect. But remember these words: Elevating a person like Hillary Clinton to the presidency of the United States will unleash hell in America in a way very few of us can even comprehend, let alone remedy.
The preceding article is excerpted from the current edition of Whistleblower magazine, "QUEEN OF DARKNESS."
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Popery Unmasked an angel of light
JER 7:18 The children gather wood, and the fathers kindle the fire, and the women knead their dough, to make cakes to the queen of heaven, and to pour out drink offerings unto other gods, that they may provoke me to anger. The Church of Rome Not A Church of Jesus Christ But The Cult of MaryRome is not the Church of Jesus Christ let alone the true Church, but rather the synagogue of Mary, a cult of papal invention. A pagan ritual. Satan seeks worship in this cult. He sits on his thrown in the form of pagan priesthood as the Bishop of Rome.
In the true Church of Jesus Christ our Lord Jesus Christ has all the preeminence. In the Church of Rome Mary, by order of the Roman Antichrists, has all the preeminence.
God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit are demoted to secondary places by the order of the self-professed infallible popes. The entire Godhead must stand aside for Mary – note it must be emphasized not Mary, the virgin mother of the Christ Child but a woman of Rome’s own invention as far apart from the Mary of the New Testament as heaven is from hell.
What ever the cult of mary teaches, or whatever it does, doctrines, sacraments, discipline, all are made to operate in filling her own gaping coffers, ever crying, "Give, give!" Idolatrous as she is in other matters, money is her chief idol. Her churches have been notorious for accumulating wealth, and so also have her convents and monasteries; and the contrivances for that purpose have been most subtle and successful. The doctrine of purgatory, in particular, has been a mine of wealth to the church. By con. signing good and bad to that indescribable yet horrible state, and keeping them there at the pleasure of the keys, mass upon mass has been heaped up mountains high, like Ossa upon Pelion; so that the poor deluded relatives of the departed have exhausted their money and patience in raising the golden ascent, by which to scale the heavens with more facility!
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Charles Chiniquy, a former priest from Montreal, Canada, who became a Presbyterian minister and author, tells of the following conversation between himself and his bishop when doubts began to assail him regarding the place given to Mary.
‘My lord, who has saved you and me upon the cross?’
He answered, ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘And who paid your debt and mine by shedding His blood; was it Mary or Jesus?’
He said, ‘Jesus Christ.’
‘Now, my lord, when Jesus and Mary were on earth, who loved the sinner more, was it Jesus or Mary?’
Again he answered that it was Jesus.
‘Did any sinner come to Mary on earth to be saved?’
‘No’
Do you remember that any sinner has gone to Jesus to be saved?’
‘Yes, many.’
‘Have they been rebuked?’
‘Never.’
‘Do you remember that Jesus ever said to sinners, ‘Come to Mary and she will save you’?’
‘No,’ he said,
‘Do you remember that Jesus has said to poor sinners, ‘Come to me’?’
‘Yes, He ahs said it.’
‘Has He ever retracted those words?’
‘No’
‘And who was, then the more powerful to save sinners?’ I asked
‘O, it was Jesus!’
‘Now, my lord, since Jesus and Mary are in heaven, can you show me in the Scriptures that Jesus has lost anything of His desire and power to save sinners, or that He has delegated this power to Mary?’
And the bishop answered, ‘No’.
‘Then, my lord,’ I asked, ‘Why do we not go to Him and to Him alone? Why do we invite poor sinners to come to Mary when by your own confession she is nothing compared with Jesus, in power, in mercy, in love, and in compassion for the sinner?’
To that the bishop could give no answer. The pope of rome has no answer either. Only the cult of mary rituals to deceive many.
The cult of mary exposed
The Council of Ephesus in 431 sanctioned the cult of the Virgin as Mother of God.
A cult serving the creature (Mary) more than the creator (Jesus).
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Roman Catholicism
Founder: Emperor Constantine
Overview:
The Roman Catholic church, headquartered in Rome, Italy, has its own powerful City-State, the Vatican. The Roman Catholic church unofficially came into being in 312 A.D., at the time of the so-called "miraculous conversion" to Christianity of the Roman Emperor Constantine but he still worshipped the sun god. Although Christianity was not made the official religion of the Roman Empire until the edicts of Theodosius I in 380 and 381 A.D., Constantine, from 312 A.D. until his death in 337, was engaged in the process of simultaneously building pagan temples and Christian churches, and was slowly turning over the reigns of his pagan priesthood to the Bishop of Rome. However, the family of Constantine did not give up the last vestige of his priesthood until after the disintegration of the Roman Empire – that being the title the emperors bore as heads of the pagan priesthood – Pontifex Maximus – a title which the popes would inherit. The popes also inherited Constantine's titles as the self-appointed civil head of the church – Summus Pontifex (Vicar of Christ and Bishop of Bishops).
Prior to the time of Constantine's "conversion," Christians were persecuted not so much for their profession of faith in Christ, but because they would not include pagan deities in their faith as well. Then, with Constantine's emphasis on making his new-found Christianity palatable to the heathen in the Empire, the "Christianization" of these pagan deities was facilitated. For example, pagan rituals and idols gradually took on Christian meanings and names and were incorporated into "Christian" worship (e.g., "saints" replaced the cult of pagan gods in both worship and as patrons of cities; mother/son statues were renamed Mary and Jesus; etc.), and pagan holidays were reclassified as Christian holy days (e.g., the Roman Lupercalia and the feast of purification of Isis became the Feast of the Nativity; the Saturnalia celebrations were replaced by Christmas celebrations; an ancient festival of the dead was replaced by All Souls Day, rededicated to Christian heroes [now Halloween]; etc.). A transition had occurred – instead of being persecuted for failure to worship pagan deities, Christians who did not agree with the particular orthodoxy backed by the Emperor were now persecuted in the name of Christ! "Christianized" Rome had become the legitimate successor of pagan Rome! This is the sad origin of the Roman Catholic Church as it compromised from the very beginning with paganism and in doing so became a cult serving the creature (Mary) more than the creator (Jesus).
When Rome went from being pagan to Christian under Constantine, they had to find a replacement for the great mother of paganism. It was not until the time of Constantine that anyone began to look at Mary as a goddess. Since Mary was the mother of Jesus Christ, she was the most logical person to replace the pagan mother goddess. The pagans could continue their prayers and devotion to the mother goddess, only they would call her Mary. The pagans worshipped the mother as much or more than her son and this is exactly what the Roman Catholicism does. True Christianity teaches that Jesus Christ is to be worshipped – not his mother. The fact remains that Jesus never hinted at the idea of Mary worship nor did any of the apostles. Worshipping the mother goddess along with her child took place centuries before Jesus Christ was ever born in many different parts of the world. In 431 A.D. Mary worship became an official doctrine of the church in at the Council of Ephesus.
Since the formation of the Roman Empire, the Roman emperors (including Constantine) held the office of Pontifex Maximus (Supreme Priest) and were worshipped by the pagans as gods. Emperor Gratian in 376 A.D. refused the title of Pontifex Maximus, and from then on it was bestowed upon the bishop of Rome. From hereon, the bishop of Rome was to be the Supreme Priest to the pagans and the head of the Christian church; the streams of paganism and Christianity flowed together under the leadership of Pontifex Maximus, ultimately to be called the Pope. The question remains, how can a man at the same time be the Pontifex Maximus which was the head of the pagan mysteries and the head of the church? Although the Roman Catholic church claims that Peter was the first Pope, it is strange that we never read any such claim by Peter. The fact that Jesus never instituted the office of Pope in his church during his earthly ministry plainly shows that the Pope is neither Bishop of bishops nor the successor of the apostle Peter.
One issue that is very damaging to idea of a Pope is the fact that some of the popes were so depraved, even people who professed no religion at all were ashamed of them. Looking into the history of the papacy, it is easy to see that not all popes were holy men. Accusations against them included but were not limited to blasphemy, simony (the buying and selling of the papal office), perjury, murder, adultery, intercourse with virgins and nuns, incest, sodomy, bestiality, robbery, idolatry, magic, infidelity, and gross and unnatural immorality. Historians, even Roman Catholic historians will even attest to the fact there have been many sinful popes. Therefore, if popes are supposed to be the "representatives of Christ" here on earth and they are living an immoral lifestyle, should their commands still be obeyed if they are living in sin? No, it would be hypocritical for them to make rulings and decrees, and yet this is exactly what has been done by the popes. Jesus never said, "do as I say, not as I do". On the contrary, Jesus Christ led a holy life and we should follow His example. Here are a few examples:
*
Pope Sergius III obtained the papal office by murder. He lived openly with a woman who bore him several illegitimate children. His reign began a period known as "the rule of the harlots".
*
Pope John XII was an immoral man and whose palace was likened to a brothel. The bishop of Cremona, Luitprand said, "No honest lady dared to show herself in public, for Pope John had no respect either for single girls, married women, or widows – they were sure to be defiled by him, even on the tombs of the holy apostles, Peter and Paul."
*
Pope Boniface VIII maintained his position through lavish distribution of stolen money. He was quoted saying, "to enjoy oneself and lie carnally with women or with boys is no more a sin than rubbing one's hands together."
*
Pope John XXIII was said to have seduced and violated three hundred nuns. He must have had a strong and insatiable libido for he kept a harem of no less than two hundred girls. He was called "the most depraved criminal who ever sat on the papal throne." A Vatican record says this about him, "His lordship, Pope John, committed perversity with the wife of his brother, incest with holy nuns, intercourse with virgins, adultery with the married, and all sorts of sex crimes... wholly given to sleep and other carnal desires, totally adverse to the life and teaching of Christ... he was publicly called the Devil incarnate."
*
Pope Pius II was said to have been the father of many illegitimate children. He spoke openly of the methods he used to seduce women and he encouraged young men to also seduce women and even offered to instruct them in methods of self-indulgence.
*
Pope Sixtus IV financed his wars by selling church offices to the highest bidders. He used the papacy to enrich himself and his family, for no less than eight cardinals were his nephews, some being given the position of cardinal even as a boy.
*
Pope Alexander VI won the election of the papacy by bribery. He lived with a woman with whom he had a daughter; whom afterward he committed incest with and produced five children. He also lived in public incest with his two sisters. He conducted a sex orgy in the Vatican in which he had a banquet featuring fifty nude girls who danced and serviced the guests – and even offered prizes to the man who could engage in sexual intercourse the most times.
Martin Luther himself also witnessed that Rome with its popes was anything but a holy city. He was quoted as saying, "No one can imagine what sins and infamous actions are committed in Rome, they must be seen and heard to be believed." It has been said, "If there be a hell, Rome is built over it." Having shown just a few examples of the corruption and wickedness that has existed in the lives of the popes; this evidence seriously undermines the belief of "apostolic succession," the claim that the Roman Catholic church is the one "true" church supposedly claiming to trace a line of pope back to Peter, since Peter himself stressed the importance of holiness. It is important to note that pagan popes can be traced back to Babylon but no Christian popes existed until Constantine in 312 A.D. declared himself to be Pope.
The popes were not the only ones that struggled with sexual misconduct; the clergy were just as guilty. When the doctrine of celibacy began to be taught, many clergy were married men. A edict was established in 315 A.D. that forbade a priest to remarry if his wife were to die. In 386 A.D. another edict came into being, allowing priests to be married but forbidding them to have sexual intercourse with their wives. Although this edict was in effect, a large number of clergy openly took wives and fathered children. Some monasteries and nunneries were known in history to be so bad that they actually had a worse reputation than the brothels. The violations by priests were so bad at one point that even female animals were not allowed on monastery property! Priests were urged to be chaste, and if they failed, at least be careful. With this man-made tradition imposed upon them, it made a already difficult job of the confessional even more difficult. The confessional was where sins had to be confessed specifically and in detail so that the priest could render judgment and offer forgiveness of sins. It is not hard to see that the outcome of girls and women and even boys confessing their moral weaknesses and desires to unmarried priests could readily result in widespread abuse. The Roman Catholic church has been lately rocked by one scandal after another of sexual abuse by priests.
The doctrine of a celibate priesthood that has done more damage than good since its inception. At the beginning of creation, we find that God did not want Adam to be alone and therefore created Eve for him. According to the Bible, it was God's design for a husband and wife to become one flesh and to cleave to each other, and yet the Roman Catholic church says otherwise. They have another man-made doctrine condemning priests to celibacy, something which God never intended. Bishops (i.e. pastors, priests) according the Bible are supposed the husband of one wife (I Timothy 3:2; Titus 1:6), Roman Catholicism adds to the Bible by placing an undue burden upon the clergy by forbidding them to marry (I Timothy 4:1-3), the Bible calls this a "doctrine of devils!" It is important to note that the priests of pagan Rome were also required to be celibate, and this tradition dates back all the way to Babylon and Semiramis several thousand years before. Even the idea of confessing to a priest came from Babylon. It is from recorded Babylonian confessions that historians have been able to come up with conclusions about the Babylonian concepts of right and wrong. The priests of pagan Rome were called "fathers," but Jesus said to call no man "father." (Matthew 23:9-12) From what source did the Roman Catholic custom of calling a priest by this title come from, Jesus or the pagans? Jesus spoke against flattering titles to his disciples, he wanted them to treat each other equally. Jesus meant for God the Father to receive all glory, not men. It is plain to see that the majority of the traditions of the Roman Catholic church are man-made and of pagan origins. An intellectually honest search will show the pagan roots of the Roman Catholic church.
The cardinals were the chief clergy in pagan Rome and the word in Latin means "hinge," hence they were pivotal serving as the priests of Janus who was the pagan god of doors and hinges. He was known as the "opener and shutter," and we can understand that better by the words of Jesus in Revelation 3:7-8. Jesus was the true opener, Janus was a counterfeit. These pagan priests wore the color red because it symbolized fire, they were the keepers of the sacred fire and accordingly were known as the "Flamens." All throughout the Bible, the color red is associated with sin. (Isaiah 1:18; Ezekiel 23:14-15; Revelation 17:4) With some knowledge of history, it is easy to see the merge of Babylonian paganism and Christianity and how they became one.
Roman Catholics who read the Bible will soon discover that many Catholic teachings and practices are specifically forbidden by Jesus Christ Himself. Worship is vain when it is based upon the commandments of men rather than the Word of God. Valid tradition is based upon Scripture and confirms it. Vain tradition is based upon man's teachings and violates it. In Roman Catholicism, tradition is consistently elevated above the Scripture. The result is vain worship, and no matter how sincere, it makes the commandment of God of no effect – a very serious matter.
The last few popes have expanded the ecumenical (worldwide) emphasis in the Roman Catholic Church to unprecedented heights. All unity purchased at the expense of doctrinal purity is satanic and deceptive. II Corinthians 6:14-18; Ephesians 5:11; II Timothy 3:1-17, 4:1-8. All who join hands in ecumenical fellowship with those who preach a false Gospel are under God's curse. (Galatians 1:6-10)
People do not realize that counterfeit religions, like counterfeit money, must resemble the genuine in order to deceive those who lack spiritual discernment or those who have not had the opportunity or taken the time to carefully compare all the major tenets of Roman Catholicism with the truth of God's Word. Only when one compares men's words with Scripture will it become obvious that Roman Catholicism is a carefully crafted counterfeit, not the pure, genuine, Biblical faith.
Jesus Christ plainly taught that Mary was on the same plane with all other Christians who would do the will of God. In Mark 3:31-35 we read:
"There came then his brethren and his mother, and, standing without, sent unto him, calling him. And the multitude sat about him, and they said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answered them, saying, Who is my mother, or my brethren? And he looked round about on them which sat about him, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother. "
Do not avoid the truth here on the authority of Jesus Christ, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother." And when one heard Jesus and cried out, "Blessed is the womb that bare thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked, "Jesus answered, "Yea rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it." (Luke 11:27-28) There is no hint in the Bible that New Testament Christians ever regarded Mary as more than a good woman. She had no authority among the apostles. No one was taught to pray to her, to do her homage, to adore her, or to partake of the unscriptural worship which Catholics do, but call it by other names.
To deny that Roman Catholicism is a cult is to repudiate the reformation and mock the millions of martyrs who died at Rome's hands. The "Christ" of Roman Catholicism is just as false as its "Mary." Remember that a cult according to the Word of God is any group of people that worship anything or anyone other than Jesus Christ, and believe anything contrary to His word as recorded in the Bible. Roman Catholicism is not truly Christian, but is in fact an offshoot of Christianity and the largest and oldest "Christian" cult in the world. In addition, the display of adoration, the gaudy parade of a mere man as if he were a god, the pandering to idolatrous worship through bowing down and kissing his ring, the insistence that he be addressed as "His Holiness the Pope" or "Father" of all Christians cannot but confirm to any Christian that the Roman Catholic church is a cult.
The Scriptures use terms such as "apostasy," "false teacher," "false prophet," "error," "seducer," "heretic," and "doctrines of devils" to describe impure doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church meets every Bible criteria for apostasy, which is a turning away from and rejection of the truth. Its gospel is false, and thus is cursed of God (Galatians 1:8). It has exalted its own man-made traditions to the level of Holy Scripture, and thus worships God in vain (Matthew 15:1-9). Its leaders are false prophets; its dogmas are doctrines of devils; its Papacy is antichrist. What does God say regarding an apostate entity? Does He say we should find positive ways to see that entity? Does He say we should try to find common ground through which we can share and discuss the gospel in love and understanding? No, God says, "Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues!" (Revelation 18:4). We know that the Roman Catholic church has become an expert in taking various ideas or traditions and mixing them together into its system of religion.
The Roman Catholic church always has been and continues to be a false church. The Biblical doctrines it professes to believe and teach are perverted by doctrine based upon tradition that contradicts the Bible, God's infallible Word. Error is never more deceptive than when it is presented with a mask of truth. The leaders of the Catholic Church have always fit the description of the false teachers who God warned in advance would come on the scene in the last days, deceiving many with their counterfeit words - as described in II Peter 2:1-3, 18, 19.
It is essential to understand that two basic false teachings of Roman Catholicism (even apart from its many other errors), clearly classify it as a false cult rather than a true church. These two basic errors are:
1.
Roman Catholicism, although teaching that the Bible is the Word of God, adds the spurious apocryphal books to the Scriptures, and also elevates church tradition and the edicts of popes and councils (the words of men), to the same or an even greater level of authority than the Word of God. This amounts to adding to the Word of God, thereby placing Roman Catholicism under God's curse. (Deuteronomy 4:2; Revelation 22:18-19)
2.
Roman Catholicism, although teaching that faith in Jesus Christ is necessary for salvation, actually denies the truth of the Gospel by adding sacraments, good works, and purgatory as additional requirements for forgiveness of sin and for eternal life. This amounts to the preaching of a false Gospel which places the Roman Catholic Church under God's curse. (Galatians 1:6-10)
Thus, by Scriptural standards, the Roman Catholic Church is a false church and a cult that can only expect God's judgment, not a true church that can claim God's blessing. No amount of outward change should be permitted to obscure this fact. Roman Catholicism is nothing more than Babylonian paganism that has been whitewashed and made to appear Christian.
Cult Beliefs:
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They believe purgatory is a place where a person is purified of sins – even popes supposedly go there. The Bible says, when a person dies their eternal home is sealed – heaven or hell – there is no place in between like purgatory. (Hebrews 9:27) The word "purgatory" and its concept is not found in the Bible.
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They believe in worshipping images of Mary, crucifix, saints, angels, etc. The Bibles speaks out against this. (Exodus 20:4-5)
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They believe in repetitious prayer to Mary, saints and angels. The complete Rosary involves repeating the Hail Mary 53 times, the Lord's prayer 6 times, 5 Mysteries, 5 Meditations on the Mysteries, 5 Glory Be's, and the Apostles' Creed. The Rosary did not come into general use until after the beginning of the thirteenth century, and not officially sanctioned until after the Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century. The concept of praying to Mary, saints, and angels is not found in the Bible; on the contrary, we are directed to pray to our Father. (Matthew 6:9-13) In the Rosary, Mary is prayed to almost 9 times for every prayer directed to God. The Bible speaks out very clearly against praying in vain repetitions as the heathens do.
1.
In "The Holy Father's Prayer for the Marian Year [1987]," John Paul II asks Mary to do what only God can do – comfort, guide, strengthen, and protect "the whole of humanity ..." His prayer ends: "Sustain us, O Virgin Mary, on our journey of faith and obtain for us the grace of eternal salvation." (4/97, Berean Call).
2.
In preparing for an expected earthquake in December, 1990, in the Saint Louis area, parishioners at St. Agatha RC church turned to St. Agatha, "the patron saint of protection from the devastation of volcanoes, earthquakes, fire, and all kinds of violence." The church reported in the St. Louis Southwest City Journal of 10/21/90 that a novena was to be held, including a recitation of the rosary, a prayer to St. Agatha, and a closing benediction. (Reported in the November/December 1990, Foundation.)
3.
A Roman Catholic ritual for selling a home: Put a statue of St. Joseph in a bottle or mason jar and bury it in the front yard (head first), thereby guaranteeing a quick sale of the home. After the sale, the seller is to dig up St. Joseph, put him in a prominent place in the new residence, and pray to him (Mother Angelica, EWTN Catholic TV, 10/95).
Take note in the following two prayers how Mary is magnified above Jesus...
o
Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Why is Mary being prayed to this way, is she God? The Bible never directs us to pray to Mary.
o
“Hail, holy Queen, Mother of Mercy! Our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping, in this valley of tears. Turn, then, most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us; and after this our exile show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.” Roman Catholicism should be renamed "Mary Worship", because that is really what it is; it places her on a high pedestal, equal with God. Mary was the mother of Jesus, nothing more, and she is not the advocate as mentioned in the Bible. (I John 2:1)
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They forbid their priests marry, when God specifically set up marriage for all, even priests. (I Timothy 3:2) To impose the burden of celibacy upon a priest is to put a man-made burden that is not necessary on them and not mandated by God, it is a clear case of putting human tradition ahead of the Bible. Many Roman Catholics believe that Peter was not married, the Bible says otherwise. (Matthew 8:14-15; Mark 1:30-31; Luke 4:38-39) It is interesting to note that priests of pagan Rome were also made to take a vow of celibacy as were the priests of Babylon.
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They believe one way of attaining salvation from the punishment of one's sins is through indulgences, which can be purchased with money or through acts of penitence, acts of charity, or other pietistic means. The idea of indulgences is based on good works meriting God's grace. Since they believe Christ's sacrifice was insufficient for the full payment of the penalty of sin, acts of piety and gifts to the Roman Catholic church may be used as partial payment for one's sins. The adequacy of an indulgence depends upon the merit attributed to it by the Roman Catholic church. The Bible says we are saved by faith and nothing else! Once you die, it's judgment time! (Ephesians 2:8-9, Hebrews 9:27)
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They believe in confessing one's sins to a priest. Jesus is the only mediator we need; we do not need the pope, priests, Mary or the saints. (Matthew 6:9, 12; I John 1:9, 2:1; I Timothy 2:5)
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They believe it is necessary for salvation to partake in the Sacrament of the Eucharist (communion). They believe they actually eat and drink the body and blood of Christ through a process called transubstantiation, whereby a priest prays over the wafer and wine and it is supernaturally turned into Christ's body. They will quote scripture (John 6:53-58; Matthew 26:26-28) out of context to support their viewpoint. Jesus was alive when the last supper took place and by interpreting this scripture literally instead of figuratively (symbolizing his body and blood), it creates numerous problems. Jesus referred to himself as a "door," "vine," and "rock" and these descriptions are recognized as figurative. (John 10:9, 15:5; I Corinthians 10:4) Therefore Jesus is crucified afresh everyday by priests all over the world, who are putting him to open shame. The Bible says that Jesus was physically offered up once (died for our sins), never to be repeated again. (Hebrews 9:1-28, 10:12-18) He sits on the right hand of God and does not reappear in the Mass as a mass of blood and flesh. It is very important to note that Jesus told us to take the bread (which symbolized his body) and wine (which symbolized his blood); but he did so while he was here on earth and alive. Roman Catholicism makes Jesus and his disciples into cannibals, because he and his disciples were eating his body that was alive. (I Corinthians 11:23-26)
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They believe there are oral traditions and teachings by Jesus that are not mentioned in the Bible; furthermore, the Roman Catholic religion has somehow been able to get this spoken word from somewhere, we're just not told how it was done. This means whoever sits on the papal chair in Rome is considered more authoritative than the Bible itself. (Matthew 15:3,6-7; Mark 7:5-9,13) The cry of the Reformation was sola scriptura – the insistence that the Bible alone is the ultimate authority for all believers. The Holy Spirit's enlightenment is a safeguard against religious tyranny.
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They believe that Mary never had anymore children after giving birth to Jesus and that she remained a perpetual virgin until she died. Why are we to believe that Joseph and Mary never had sexual intercourse? What husband and wife live and die together without consummating their marriage? These are speculative questions, but is is obvious Mary could not have remained a virgin if she had other children as recorded in the Bible. (Matthew 13:55-56; Mark 6:3).
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They believe that the church is founded upon the apostle Peter, that he was the first pope. The true Church of Jesus Christ was not founded upon Peter, but upon Peter's confession of Christ's deity as recorded in Matthew 16:16: "...Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." The Bible says that Jesus is the foundation of the church. (Matthew 21:42; I Corinthians 3:11) Peter was not the first pope, nor is there any Biblical justification whatever for such an office. Peter's own inspired testimony as to his position and ministry is given in I Peter 5:1-4. He then identifies himself in II Peter 1:1 as "a servant and an apostle of Jesus Christ...." Peter was a man like you and me. When Cornelius tried to worship Peter, Peter responded, "Stand up; I myself also am a man." (Acts 10:25-26). The pope needs to remember this when men are bowing to him and kissing his hand like he is worthy of worship. Furthermore, history confirms the fact that there were no popes in the early church, not even in the Roman Catholic church during the first centuries of its existence.
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They believe the pope is the Holy Father, a title only given to God. The pope is a man who takes upon himself honor which belongs to no human being. Even the very name by which he allows himself to be called (Holy Father) is highly presumptuous and blasphemous. (John 17:11)
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They pray to and worship Mary – an 1854 papal decree (Pope Pius IX) on the Immaculate Conception of Mary that has never been revoked, states, "Let all the children of the Catholic Church ... continue to venerate, invoke, and pray to the most blessed Virgin Mary, mother of God, conceived without original sin." Praying to Mary is something that is not spoken of in the Bible and would make her an equal with God, thus she has become a deity to Roman Catholics. Mary, according to the Roman Catholics has become the queen of heaven. When the queen of heaven is referred to in the Bible, she is spoken of negatively. (Jeremiah 7:17-19) Mary needed a savior as much as anyone else and acknowledged this in Luke 1:47.
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They believe that Mary is a co-redeemer with Jesus. In 1923, Pope Pius XI sanctioned Pope Benedict XV's (1914-1922) pronouncement that Mary suffered with Christ, and that with Him, she redeemed the human race. Pope Pius XI officially designated Mary the "Queen of Heaven" and "Queen of the World." The Bible specifically states that Jesus is the only way to get to heaven. Nowhere in the Bible does it state that Mary is a co-redeemer. (John 14:6) God speaks out very clearly against the "Queen of Heaven". (Jeremiah 7:17-19)
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They believe a baby can be "born again" through baptism by sprinkling, furthermore, they believe that baptism is necessary for salvation. The issue of infant baptism is not mentioned in the Bible, nor does it mention anything about babies and salvation. We are all born with sin and that alone disqualifies us from getting to heaven. (Romans 3:23) The act of baptism in the Bible does not guarantee you a place in heaven or make you born again, rather it is an outward act of obedience to God after you have been saved..
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They believe that Jesus merely made the way open for salvation. In order to enter into that salvation, one must live in obedience to the authority of the papacy. In addition, Jesus' provision for salvation not being complete, the Roman Catholic church offers other means to assure one's salvation. The Roman Catholic church says it alone can grant this essential blessing for full salvation. This supersedes the Bible in which God guarantees our salvation. (John 10:27-29; Romans 10:9-17) Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you a mechanic.
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They believe that we are saved in part by good works and that good works are necessary for salvation. The Bible says we are saved by grace through faith, not works. Good works come as a result of being saved. (Romans 3:24-28; Ephesians 2:8-9)
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They believe there are different levels of sin; mortal (deadly) sins in which you are in danger of losing your salvation and venial (minor) sins which are not as serious. Mankind has placed different distinctions on sin (i.e. someone caught lying is not punished as severely as a person who is a murderer). However, in God's eyes, sin is sin, there is no distinction. (Romans 3:23)
Roman Catholicism makes salvation a long, complicated process with no assurance of eternal life and forgiveness of all sin. Baptism, Mass, Confession, prayers to Mary and the Saints, good works, and purgatory are all added to faith in Christ. By contrast, the Bible teaches salvation by faith in Jesus Christ alone. Bible salvation is God's free gift to any sinner who believes that Christ died for their sins and rose again for their defense. Bible salvation gives immediate assurance of eternal life. No church ever saved anyone, but Christ can and will save everyone who will come and trust Him as their Saviour. Membership or faith in a church does not secure salvation for anyone, but trust Christ and Him alone and you will be saved for all eternity! Would you like to be saved? salvation scriptures
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On June 15th 1520, a papal bull of excommunication was issued against Martin Luther. Within the space of 60 days, any town where Luther resided would be interdicted. Luther was to be banished by all princes and magistrates, or sent to Rome. Pope Leo X sent a letter to the Elector Frederick of Saxony, hoping to gain his support against Luther; but Frederick had now rejected Romanism and determined to protect Luther.
Proverbs 21:1 "The king's heart is in the hand of the LORD, as the rivers of water: He turneth it whithersoever He will".
While waiting for the papal bull to reach him, Luther published "The Babylonish Captivity of the Church" on October 6th 1520. Luther wrote, "I denied that the Papacy was of Divine origin, but I granted that it was of human right. Now, after reading all the subtleties on which these gentry have set up their idol, I know that the Papacy is none other than the kingdom of Babylon, and the violence of Nimrod the mighty hunter. I therefore beseech all my friends and all the booksellers to burn the books that I have written on this subject, and to substitute this one proposition in their place: The Papacy is a general chase led by the Roman bishop to catch and destroy souls" (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 6, Chapter 2, p. 489). Luther understood that Romanism is identified with Babylon the Great. The purpose of Babylon the Great is to direct the world in worshipping the Antichrist, the Man of Sin. The seducer,satan, who "is a liar, and the father of it" (John 8:44), seeks not just dominion over God's creation; but, Beelzebub seeks the worship that the Almighty reserves for Himself. Isaiah 14:13-14 "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into Heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High".
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Historical proofs such as Alexander Hislop's "The Two Babylons: Or, The Papal Worship Proved to be the Worship of Nimrod and His Wife" (1853) demonstrate to the willing mind the certain connection of Ancient Babylon to the final form of the One World Religion ruled by the False Prophet, who "causeth the Earth and them which dwell therein to worship" (Revelation 13:12) the Antichrist. Hislop's classic work focuses on "Rome [the Roman Catholic Church] as the Apocalyptic Babylon". He concludes, "Let every Christian henceforth and for ever treat it as an outcast from the pale of Christianity. Instead of speaking of it as a Christian Church, let it be recognised and regarded as the Mystery of Iniquity, yea, as the very Synagogue of Satan."
However, though Hislop accurately followed the evolution of Babylon the Great through the history of the Roman Catholic Church, his perspective from the mid-1800's did not forsee the modern development of a one world religion in its final form-- the United Religions, a type of spiritual United Nations, whose charter was signed in June 2000.
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The cult of mary or the biship of rome sells people a life insurance policy in the form of indulgences (money paid to the cult of mary) that they can not rely on. Faith in Jesus Christ alone is GOD's "insurance policy" for your sins that you can depend on and collect because of GOD's free gift of salvation in JESUS CHRIST.
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In 1517, a "Dominican monk, named John Diezel, or Tetzel, the son of a goldsmith of Leipsic" (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 8, p. 400) declared: "Indulgences avail not only for the living but for the dead" (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 8, p. 402). Pope Boniface VIII had enacted this doctrine two centuries before; but, Pope Leo X was now using it and Tetzel to restore the empty coffers of the Vatican. And, Tetzel went on to make particular application of the dogma of indulgences. "Priest, noble, merchant, wife, youth, maiden, do you not hear your parents and your other friends who are dead, and who cry from the bottom of the abyss: 'We are suffering horrible torments! A trifling alms would deliver us; you can give it, and you will not?'" (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 8, p. 402). Tetzel then delivered these chilling words. "At the very instant that the money rattles at the bottom of the chest, the soul escapes from purgatory, and flies liberated to heaven. Now you can ransom so many souls, stiff-necked and thoughtless man; with twelve groats you can deliver your father from purgatory, and you are ungrateful enough not to save him! I shall be justified in the Day of Judgment; but you - you will be punished so much the more severely for having neglected so great salvation. I declare to you, though you have but a single coat, you ought to strip it off and sell it, in order to obtain this grace... The Lord our God no longer reigns, he has resigned all power to the Pope." (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 8, p. 402).
2Peter 2:3 "And through covetousness shall they with feigned words make merchandise of you: whose judgment now of a long time lingereth not, and their damnation slumbereth not".
These indulgences were sold by Tetzel in the form of a letter: "May our Lord Jesus Christ have pity on thee, N. N., and absolve thee by the merits of his most holy passion. And I, by virtue of the apostolic power which has been confided to me, do absolve thee from all ecclesiastical censures, judgments, and penalties which thou mayest have merited, and from all excesses, sins, and crimes which thou mayest have committed, however great or enormous they may be, and for whatsoever cause, even though they had been reserved to our most Holy Father the Pope and the Apostolic See. I efface all attainders of unfitness and all marks of infamy thou mayest have drawn on thee on this occasion; I remit the punishment thou shouldest have had to endure in purgatory; I make thee anew a participator in the Sacraments of the Church; I incorporate thee afresh in the communion of the saints; and I reinstate thee in the innocence and purity in which thou wast at the hour of thy baptism; so that, at the hour of thy death, the gate through which is the entrance to the place of torments and punishments shall be closed against thee, and that which leads to the Paradise of joy shall be open. And shouldest thou be spared long, this grace shall remain immutable to the time of thy last end. In the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen... Brother John Tetzel, Commissioner, has signed it with his own hand." (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 8, pp. 403-404).
At that time, Luther was a university professor, preacher, and confessor; since, he still ignorantly held allegiance to the Church of Rome. "One day, as he sat in the confessional, some citizens of Wittemberg came before him, and confessed having committed thefts, adulteries, and other heinous sins. 'You must abandon your evil courses,' said Luther, 'otherwise I cannot absolve you.' To his surprise and grief, they replied that they had no thought of leaving off their sins; that this was not in the least necessary, inasmuch as these sins were already pardoned, and they themselves secured against the punishment of them. The deluded people would thereupon pull out the indulgence papers of Tetzel, and show them in testimony of their innocence. Luther could only tell them that these papers were worthless, that they must repent, and be forgiven of God, otherwise they should perish everlastingly" (Wylie, Volume 1, Book 5, Chapter 9, p. 408). In effect, Luther differed more widely with the Church of Rome than he was aware of.
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Mystery Babylon
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Pope Exposed
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