LDS Teachings: Paul vs. Romney

I have a wonderful, important page for Latter Day Saints to visit, download, and distribute: http://files.meetup.com/673818/lds_teachings_mitt_vs_paul.pdf This was composed by John Reynolds, an LDS patriot who wrote me about my blog. It is an outstanding, graphic comparison of Ron Paul's vs. Mitt Romney's compliance with LDS doctrines on war and good government. This document should be sent far and wide, and I'm hoping that you'll help out.

Why This Mormon is Not for Mitt

Why This Mormon is Not for Mitt

Dear Friends and Family,
I decided to write a letter to the editor of my local newspaper about why I do not support Mitt Romney for president, despite my being a Latter Day Saint and a Republican. Letters to the editor are usually limited to 200 words or so. Obviously a verbal volcano like myself finds that impossibly confining. I write somewhat like I paint, with a compulsive Germanic completeness, being the technokraut my genes dictate that I am. I’ll try once more to write a brief letter to the editor, but this one I’ll send out on the currents of the Mormon Internet. If you agree with what I have to say, please help me cast my bread upon the waters by forwarding and cross posting to other Latter Day Saints. If instead you now know what you have long suspected, that I am indeed out of my mind, send it out to my likeminded. They’re out there. You know who they are…
Love and Thanks, Lonni

I am the archetypal conservative Republican Mormon. I voted for George W. Bush and gave him my trust. Over time however, his actions perplexed and finally alarmed me. It began with his post 9/11 refusals to secure our borders, certainly the most vital step for national safety, and his seeming persecution of border patrol agents Hernandez, Ramos and Compean. His persistent erosion of U.S. sovereignty and individual civil rights, the explosive expansion of an intrusive government and the national debt, and countless other usurpations gradually opened my eyes. I was thoroughly disenchanted. I began to get my news from alternative sources online, and revisited the book, None Dare Call it Conspiracy by Gary Allen, about which LDS President Ezra Taft Benson said,
“I wish that every citizen of every country in the free world and every slave behind the Iron Curtain might read this book.”
Please, please before voting in the primaries, at least skim it online at http://reactor-core.org/none-dare.html. Allen posits that the apparent duel between our national political parties is in some respects a diversionary puppet show to distract the public. Shadowy men, who control both political parties, the economy, mass media, industry, and educational institutions in our own and foreign nations, wield penultimate power invisibly. Cleon Skousen, an LDS patriot, author, and former FBI officer, spent his life tirelessly warning American Saints about this sinister group, their intentions and methods. President Benson recommended his writings and so do I. (Forgive me for the plethora of quotations and admonishments to read in this piece. I feel that I must cite prophetic precedent to prove what might be an unpopular or unconventional view.) Georgetown University Prof. Carroll Quigley, onetime mentor to Bill Clinton, was given unprecedented access to members of the power elite, and wrote Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time about his findings. His conclusion was that:
“For the first time in its history, Western Civilization is in danger of being destroyed internally by a corrupt, criminal ruling cabal which is centered around the Rockefeller interests, which include elements from the Morgan, Brown, Rothschild, Du Pont, Harriman, Kuhn-Loeb, and other groupings as well. This junta took control of the political, financial, and cultural life of America in the first two decades of the twentieth century.”
Other government insiders have warned of the same, among them Congressman Larry P. Mc Donald, who agreed that
“The drive of the Rockefellers and their allies is to create a one-world government combining super capitalism and Communism under the same tent, all under their control. Do I mean conspiracy? Yes I do. I am convinced there is such a plot, international in scope, generations old in planning, and incredibly evil in intent.”
As a former lifelong, knee jerk Republican, I used to view President John F. Kennedy with a rather jaundiced eye. Recently I have developed a new affection for the man. He apparently resisted the invisible government, and it probably cost him his life. In a speech shortly before his death he claimed that,
“There is a de facto “secret government” operating nationally and internationally and involved in the highest circles of the U.S. Government, exercising an impact over domestic policies and economics ranging between extreme influence to, at times, outright control. This extreme influence to outright control naturally includes the Presidency. The de facto “secret government,” much of whose intellectual- and financial- muscle are to be found in the New York office of the CFR, the great tax-free foundations, and certain international firms and corporations.”
Ten days later he was dead. President Bill Clinton talked about finding that even as president, he was controlled by hidden, more powerful others. This might be one of the few times I actually believe him!

How many times have we LDS been warned? Secret combinations are the Book of Mormon’s fourth most often discussed theme, and yet we balk at admitting their reality in contemporary America. The word ‘conspiracy’ is usually followed by the words ‘theory’ or ‘freak.’ Read Ether 8: 18-25 and think again, Saints.

18 And it came to pass that they formed a secret acombination, even as they of old; which combination is most abominable and wicked above all, in the sight of God;
19 For the Lord worketh not in secret combinations, neither doth he will that man should shed blood, but in all things hath forbidden it, from the beginning of man.
20 And now I, Moroni, do not write the manner of their oaths and combinations, for it hath been made known unto me that they are had aamong all people, and they are had among the Lamanites.
21 And they have caused the adestruction of this people of whom I am now speaking, and also the destruction of the people of Nephi.
22 And whatsoever anation shall uphold such secret combinations, to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the bblood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for cvengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.
23 Wherefore, O ye Gentiles, it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get apower and gain—and the work, yea, even the work of bdestruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.
24 Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this asecret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.
25 For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the afreedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who bbeguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath chardened the hearts of men that they have dmurdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.

Awake to your ‘awful situation,’ because of ‘this secret combination, which shall be among you.’ These frightening scriptures would seem to refer to David Rockefeller and his cohorts. David Rockefeller is the present leader and heir to his family’s decades long assault on the freedom of Americans. He admitted in his 2002 Memoirs:
For more than a century, ideological extremists at either end of the political spectrum have seized upon well‑ publicized incidents to attack the Rockefeller family for the inordinate influence they claim we wield over American political and economic institutions. Some even believe we are part of a secret cabal working against the best interests of the United States, characterizing my family and me as 'internationalists' and of conspiring with others around the world to build a more integrated global political and economic structure ‑ one world, if you will. If that's the charge, I stand guilty, and I am proud of it. (David Rockefeller, Memoirs, 2002)
When at last he stands before the Lord, I doubt that he’ll be quite so proud! And that’s one event I won’t want to miss! Speaking with insider candor before the Trilateral Commission in 1991, David Rockefeller again exposed his diabolical goals when he said,
“The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries.”
Not being a part of that ‘intellectual elite’ myself, I rather prefer democratic ‘auto determination,’ as does several hundred million of my fellow Americans. The Rockefellers and their cronies go on undeterred, however, seeking to subvert the once miraculous and inspired government that provided more freedom for more people than in all of the rest of human history. What presumption, what greed, what evil! Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, a former German defense ministry official privy to the machinations of this group, warned that
“The interests behind the Bush Administration, such as the CFR, the Trilateral Commission, founded by Brzezinski for David Rockefeller, and the Bilderberger Group, have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens.”
That is us, my friends. We are their enemy, and they are ours.

What, can it be that a few thousand Islamic radicals are not the biggest threat to American civilization? The thought is sheer heresy to all of our presidential candidates but one, Congressman Ron Paul. What do the prophets say? LDS President Ezra Taft Benson had this view:
“Great nations are never conquered from outside unless they are rotten inside. Our greatest national problem today is erosion of tradition law and order.” “And our nation will continue to degenerate unless we read and heed the words of the God of this land, Jesus Christ, and quit building up and upholding the secret combinations which the Book of Mormon tells us proved the downfall of both previous American civilizations.”
President Abraham Lincoln agreed,
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter, and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.”
Elder Charles W. Nibley said
“We need not fear as to this Nation from without. The Lord has said, “I will fortify this land against all other nations.” The danger is not from without, but from within…”

However, an elitist cabal would have us live in constant fear and thereby willing to sacrifice freedom for security. Benjamin Franklin long ago warned that those who would sacrifice freedom for security would end up with neither. We are living this sad fact. President Bush last week broke out the ‘w’ word, World War III, violating previous standards of presidential decorum, in order to ratchet up the fear in an increasingly disbelieving and resistant public. At least 30% of the nation now believes that the Bush Administration is lying about, and possibly complicit in 9/11. Small wonder President Bush’s warnings are not well heeded these days, and thus the ante must be upped. So an ‘informative’ tickertape, telling us today’s color-coded relative risk of death and maiming by terrorist, ticks by on the bottom of newscasts. My how fabulously useful, it helps me plan my day! In Israel, where there is an actual daily risk of terrorist bombings, the strategy is exactly the opposite of that being used to unnerve Americans- citizens trust their government to be diligent, and bravely go on with their lives, as normally as possible. The climate of constant fear is essential to the globalist elite’s twofold plan to subvert the US Constitution and to use American military power to subdue the planet for their one world government. They have even been indiscreet enough to be recorded talking about their plot’s need for a terrorized public. Elitist henchman Henry Kissinger said in a speech to his fellow Bilderberger members:
“Today Americans would be outraged if U.N. troops entered Los Angeles [during the Rodney King riots of 1992] to restore order; tomorrow they will be grateful. This is especially true if they were told there was an outside threat from beyond, whether real or promulgated, that threatened our very existence. It is then that all peoples of the world will plead with world leaders to deliver them from this evil...When presented with this scenario, individual rights will be willingly relinquished for the guarantee of their well being granted them by their world government.”
A Swiss delegate, apparently unbeknownst to Kissinger, taped this enlightening speech. Thank you, Henry for telling us how you really feel! Imagine what damage this evil and scheming man did to our freedoms while Secretary of State! David Rockefeller assured his coconspirators that
“We are on the verge of a global transformation, all we need is the right major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”

I wonder what kind of ‘major crisis’ would issue in this New World Order? The events of 9/11? A perpetual War on Terror perhaps, or a nuclear device exploded in an American city? The threat of oh, so scary rogue states- impoverished, starving and backwards, that we could obliterate entirely in fifteen minutes’ time, with the push of a red button? Forget bombs, do North Koreans possess enough calories to invade anyone? Even more bizarre, Wernher von Braun, the father of German rocketry and US space exploration, told an associate shortly before he died that after the fear of terrorism, rogue states, and asteroids had run its course, a contrived ‘UFO invasion’ would be used to frighten and cowe liberty loving Americans! Alien abductions and disclosure, anyone? Coincidentally President Reagan, champion of the Star Wars Missile Defense and the weaponization of space, five times mentioned the uniting effect a space invasion would have upon the inhabitants of the earth, in major foreign policy speeches. Was it mere fancy, to soften the stony Soviets, or was it groundwork? General Douglas Mac Arthur would not think it unlikely that our government might fabricate threats. He complained that:
“Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear—kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor—with the cry of grave national emergency. Always, there has been some terrible evil at home, or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not blindly rally behind it.”
More recently General Tommy Franks, who led our troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, worried that:
“the western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is [the] freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy. Now, in a practical sense, what does that mean? It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the western world—it may be in the United States of America—that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution.”

I do not trivialize Terrorism or its victims when I state that it usually affects, by national standards, a relatively small number- from tens to a few thousand. But hundreds of millions stand to lose their freedom in order to feel shielded from such attacks. And is there not the strong possibility that they have been promulgated, or knowingly allowed to happen, by a powerful and malevolent elite? LDS Apostle Moses Thatcher stated that,
“I have seen the end of this nation and it is terrible. I will tell you in the name of the Lord that a secret band will sap the life of this nation.”
I believe that Elder Thatcher spoke of a band far more powerful and secretive than the perennially publicity seeking, cave dwelling Al Qaeda! Members of this band wear $5000 suits, fly in private jets, and lurk behind prestigious foundations. They often accrue public honors, and I think we how much they pay for their haircuts!

What is our best defense? Personal righteousness and strict adherence to the fundamentals of the Constitution, I believe. We’ve been lured away from the Founding Fathers’ intentions. In the words of Ezra Taft Benson,
“There is one and only one legitimate goal of United States foreign policy. It is a narrow goal, a nationalistic goal: the preservation of our national independence. Nothing in the Constitution grants that the President shall have the privilege of offering himself as a world leader. He's our executive; he's on our payroll, in necessary; he's supposed to put our best interests in front of those of other nations. Nothing in the Constitution nor in logic grants to the President of the United States or to Congress the power to influence the political life of other countries, to "uplift" their cultures, to bolster their economies, to feed their peoples or even to defend them against their enemies.”
I dare say that only Congressman Ron Paul would second this sentiment and sadly, it gets him booed at debates by Republicans who have lost their way. The other candidates would no doubt call it primitive jingoism or impractical idealism, and return to their paternalistic meddling in the affairs of other nations. They would have us believe that pursuing our own national interests is impossible in today’s globally interconnected world. Ron Paul’s insistence that the government act strictly within the confines of the Constitution garners him bemused and contemptuous rolls of the eyes from worldly sophisticated politicians and pundits. My, how impossibly naive they say! Where does he get such silly ideas? In point of fact, he gets his ideas from the Founding Fathers. The other candidates should try it, too. It’s working rather well for Congressman Paul, but don’t count on the mass media to tell you. He recently won a straw poll so decisively that it was unceremoniously removed from the internet by its mass media sponsor, as being surely ‘anomalous or the result of computer hacking.’ They would have you believe that the large numbers of Ron Paul supporters are a cyber mirage, the affect of clever computer spamming, or of text messaging smoke and mirrors. An online donation of more than four million dollars to the Ron Paul campaign in just twenty-four hours was a profound embarrassment for the contemptuous Mass Media, who were forced to admit the veracity of Paul’s support. I hesitate to say that we are legion, a bad precedent has been set there! But we certainly are flesh and blood, not 0s and 1s, and we are many! To cite Mahatma Gandhi, I expect that it will be said by the Paul campaign that, “First they ignored us, then they laughed at us, then they tried to fight us, then we won.”
And when we, the people, once again wield our rightful power, we will insist upon a president who upholds the intentions of the inspired Founding Fathers. These men, who understood so much more about human nature and governance than our present sorry, counterfeit representatives, were uniformly and ardently of a noninterventionist outlook! President George Washington wrote,
“I have always given it as my decided opinion that no nation has a right to intermeddle in the internal concerns of another; that every one had a right to form and adopt whatever government they liked best to live under them selves; and that if this country could, consistent with its engagements, maintain a strict neutrality and thereby preserve peace, it was bound to do so by motives of policy, interest, and every other consideration.” And also: “The great rule of conduct for us in regard to foreign nations is, in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connections as possible. So far as we have already formed engagements let them be fulfilled with perfect good faith. Here let us stop.”

This to a nation that now has troops based in a staggering 130 foreign countries, on over 700 bases! Small wonder our detractors accuse us of being imperialists. That our LDS missionaries are so often suspected of being agents for the CIA! Between 1945 and 2005, while we in America were living in security and ease, our government attempted to overthrow more than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-nationalist movements struggling against repressive regimes. This legacy of international meddling and intrigue has been researched and documented by left leaning historian and former State Department employee William Blum. Blum is a vociferous critic of aggressive American foreign policy. His books were cited by Osama bin Laden in one of his video communiqués, as containing the truth about why Muslim terrorists are attacking the US. Blum, like former CIA Bin Laden Unit leader Michael Scheuer, author of Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, has enjoyed heightened interest in his books since the dubious blessing of an Osama endorsement. Hopefully more Americans will read these books and consider their hypotheses—our meddling is making us understandably despised. Blum recounts that,
“It was in the early days of the fighting in Vietnam that a Vietcong officer said to his American prisoner: "You were our heroes after the War. We read American books and saw American films, and a common phrase in those days was 'to be as rich and as wise as an American'. What happened?"
An American might have been asked something similar by a Guatemalan, an Indonesian or a Cuban during the ten years previous, or by a Uruguayan, a Chilean or a Greek in the decade subsequent. The remarkable international goodwill and credibility enjoyed by the United States at the close of the Second World War was dissipated country by country, intervention by intervention."
It is not, as President Bush claims, our freedom and democratic principles that make us unpopular in certain parts of the world. Mac Donald’s is bad, but it’s not that bad! It is our meddling, treachery, bombs, and rapacious industrialists. On the effects of the past century’s foreign policy, William Blum, with tongue firmly in cheek states,
“If I were the president, I could stop terrorist attacks against the United States in a few days. Permanently. I would first apologize -- very publicly and very sincerely -- to all the widows and the orphans, the impoverished and the tortured, and all the many millions of other victims of American imperialism. I would then announce that America's global interventions -- including the awful bombings -- have come to an end. And I would inform Israel that it is no longer the 51st state of the union but – oddly enough – a foreign country. I would then reduce the military budget by at least 90% and use the savings to pay reparations to the victims and repair the damage from the many American bombings and invasions. There would be more than enough money. Do you know what one year of the US military budget is equal to? One year. It's equal to more than $20,000 per hour for every hour since Jesus Christ was born. That's what I'd do on my first three days in the White House. On the fourth day, I'd be assassinated.”
This passage was also quoted by Osama bin Laden. I guess Osama has a sense of humor. A man of infinitely better character, President Thomas Jefferson, advised that America pursue
“Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political; peace, commerce, and honest friendship with all nations--entangling alliances with none.”

Our affairs are now so hopelessly entangled with Israel’s that we can now scarcely distinguish our own best interests. LDS people believe that the Jewish people are the Lord’s Chosen People, and that they are being gathered once again in Israel. We wish to support and protect them. There is an understandable reluctance to admit a divergence between concern for the welfare of the Jewish people, and facilitating the aims of an aggressive and radical Israeli faction. It is this faction that is typified by the following statement by Moshe Sharett, Israel's 1st Foreign Minister from 1948 to 1956, and Prime Minister from 1954 to1956,
"Israel MUST invent dangers, and to do this it must adopt the method of Provocation and Revenge.... And above all, let us hope for a new war with the Arab countries so that we may finally get Rid of our troubles and acquire our space." --from the personal diary of Moshe Sharett.
Is Sharett’s policy of provocation and revenge truly what we mean to aid and nurture? The fact that the Lord is gathering the Jews does not necessarily imply that they are now righteous and treating their disenfranchised Arab cousins with fairness. Today’s Jews are probably no more obedient and God fearing than when, hundreds of years ago, the Lord decided that they deserved the Diaspora. Should not our support of their military ventures also be predicated upon compliance with ethical standards? Is Israel not in some ways reaping the whirlwind of her own injustice and harsh treatment of others?
To the LDS, the word ‘Zion’ represents all positive implications, of a god-fearing community and God’s government incarnate on Earth. We name our most beautiful places Zion, we aspire to be a Zion people, and await the Savior’s return to reign in Zion. To much of the rest of the world, however ‘Zionism’ is a negative word. It has come to represent a sinister force, rather than the workings of God. It has come to be synonymous with aggressive racism, monumental land theft, political subterfuge, and terrorism (google King David Hotel and USS Liberty, if you think that only Arabs wield bombs). It’s an ironic misnomer for something so destructive to be called with a name designating God’s kingdom on earth. Republicans and Democrats alike give unqualified support to a sometimes violent, oppressive and unjust agenda. We must ask ourselves some uncomfortable questions about the effects of our unqualified military support of Israel. Is this really what we want done with our influence and technology? Can we not support and protect Israel without giving carte blanche to her most unprincipled and aggressive radicals? Does God not love the Children of Ishmael? Do we imagine that Judah has been freed of all moral constraints when dealing with Ishmael? And finally, is the immense power of the Israel lobby in the US acceptable, or does it eclipse the influence of American citizens upon their own government? Even though I support and sympathize with Israel, I am weary of finding her spies prowling our nation. Are you incredulous that our Israeli friends would deal with us this way? Would you believe conservative, pro Israel Fox News about it? They published a piece about Israeli spying and involvement in the events of 9/11, which quickly disappeared without a trace from the Fox website. It was recorded by others and can be seen at http://100777.com/usa/israeli_spyring. Maybe the $3,000,000,000 a year in foreign aid that we give Israel isn’t quite enough to buy her good faith. Orson Pratt, nearly a hundred years before the establishment of the modern state of Israel, prophetically wrote about latter day seeds of disaster and resentment sown by that state when he wrote,
“For you know when the Rothschilds and the great bankers among the Jewish nation shall return back to their own land to rebuild the city of Jerusalem, carrying their capital with them, it will almost ruin some of the nations, and the latter will go up against Jerusalem to take a spoil.” –Journal of Discourses, Vol. 14, p. 353
He even had the cast of characters correct. Israel can be understood in feeling surrounded and besieged. She is fighting for her very survival. But she must resist the impulse to exhaust her allies’ good will by being unscrupulous and overzealous in her pursuit of self-interest. We will be patient, but we do have our limits. I expect a few things for three billion a year…


Our own President Benson reinforced the need to avoid international entanglements again and again, by stating these guidelines for foreign relations:
“Establish and maintain a position of independence with regard to other countries Avoid political connection, involvement or intervention in the affairs of other countries Make no permanent or entangling alliances Treat all nations impartially, neither granting nor accepting special privileges from any Promote commerce with all free peoples and countries Cooperate with other countries to develop civilized rules of intercourse Act always in accordance with the "laws of Nations" Remedy all just claims of injury to other nations and require just treatment from other nations, standing ready, if necessary to punish offenders Maintain a defensive force of sufficient magnitude to deter aggressors.” The American Tradition, p. 212
Pres. Benson also warned that
“We would be committing national suicide to surrender any of our independence, and chain ourselves to other nations in such a sick and turbulent world.” “ Should we pool our economic resources or our monetary system with those of other nations to create some kind of regional common market? It would constitute the surrender of our economic independence. Should we enter into treaties such as the U.N. Covenants which would obligate our citizens to conform their social behavior, their educational practices to rules and regulations set down by international agencies? Such treaty obligations amount to the voluntary and piece-meal surrender of our political independence. The answer to all such questions is a resounding "no," for the simple reason that the only way America can survive in this basically hostile and topsy-turvy world is to remain militarily, economically and politically strong and independent.”
About misguided interventionism he stated that:
“Unless those in authority in the United States can be influenced to abandon the suicidal course on which they have embarked–or unless they can be replaced by men who will [*]–we cannot hope to restore in our nation the kind of domestic peace and order which has made our many generations proud to be Americans . . . The crisis we now face is the most serious, the most dangerous, in the history of our country. Each of us must diligently employ our influence and our effort–in speech, letters, and at the ballot box–to help set straight the way.” The facts are clear. Our problem centers in Washington, D.C. And this applies to the administration of both political parties.”
[* My Man, Ron Paul!]
Who can deny, after five years in Afghanistan, Iraq, and now malevolently eyeing Iran that we are not indeed on a suicidal course? Not millions of angry, fed up Americans, myself among them, not Congressman Ron Paul, and not the 47% of the U.S. military that supports Ron Paul (as of today, October 22, 2007). The overwhelming endorsement of the military is highly significant. Paul has more support from our soldiers, sailors and marines than all the other candidates, Democrat and Republican, combined! Of all America’s citizens, who has a more intimate knowledge of the purpose and outcome of the war in Iraq and Afghanistan? Politicians can debate the success or futility of our actions there until C-span crumbles into dust, but the troops know it for certain. No one, but no one, is more entitled to an opinion about whether we should stay or go, and how soon we do either, than our troops. They have more than earned their say in the matter. That they overwhelmingly favor Congressman Paul and his message of a non-interventionist future speaks volumes.

We are marching headlong to Armageddon, as if we knew not the meaning of the word! I vividly remember passing a convoy of military vehicles on a freeway in the early 70’s. I was shocked when I saw that the familiar Army green camouflage, the staple of the European theatre of war and our old Soviet adversary, had been replaced with a beige and brown desert scheme. I knew all too well its significance. At that time there was no reason to anticipate a Middle East deployment, except for Biblical prophecy. The sight of those beige jeeps and tanks absolutely chilled me, and I could not then imagine what could possibly draw American troops into that quarter of the world. How naïve! The Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Bilderbergers, Secret Combinations Central, had a plan! They were ready, waiting, and preparing. The paint job was on the tanks twenty years before the Gulf War. LDS apostle Elder J. Reuben Clark, a constitutional scholar, a former Under Secretary of State, and ambassador, wrote about the Founders’ desire that we not meddle in the affairs of other states when he wrote:
While the gospel of the Fathers guided us, we had peace. When we forsook it, two great wars engulfed us.
It is not clear when we began wandering, nor is it necessary to determine the time. President Theodore Roosevelt was hinting our straying when he uttered the dictum “Speak softly and carry a big stick.” We were to force others to do our bidding. President Wilson had the full departure in mind when he declared: “Everybody’s business is our business.” Since then we have leaped ahead along the anciently forbidden path.
In our course under the new gospel of interference with everything we do not like, we have gone forward and are going forward, as if possessed all the good of human government, of human economic concept, of human comfort, and of human welfare, all of which we are to impose on the balance of the world- a concept born of the grossest national egotism. In human affairs no nation can say that all it practices and believes is right, and that all that others have that differs from what it has is wrong. Men inflict an unholy tragedy when they proceed on that basis. No man, no society, no people, no nation is wholly right in human affairs; and none is wholly wrong. A fundamental principle of the operation of human society is to live and let live.
Yet, to repeat, we have entered into new fields to impose our will and concepts on others. This means we must use force, and force means war, not peace.” Stand Fast by Our Constitution, pp. 74-75
Elder Clark made that statement just after WWII. He would not be surprised that today, by continuing our policy of international interference, we have additionally fought four undeclared wars, each lasting as long or longer than the World Wars, and spent untold treasure arming ourselves and our allies during a forty-five year Cold War. These conflicts spilt oceans of blood, divided our people, settled nothing, and earned us the disrespect and distrust of other nations. They were fought with insanely tentative, ‘no win’ rules of engagement that placed our own troops at a suicidal disadvantage and made outright victory impossible. And those are just the wars that we know about. Who knows the expense and bloodletting of our many proxy wars and so called ‘black operations’ during that period?

Have our many international incursions been spreading freedom and democracy, as the Bush administration and patriotic myth would have us believe? Rarely. We have propped up and armed some of the worst tyrants in history. Stalin, Saddam, Saud, Somoza and the Shah come immediately to mind, and that’s just the S’s. Our military has facilitated the unimpeded economic penetration of American corporate interests into countless countries. We have allowed great fortunes to be made from institutionalized slaughter. Major General Smedley Butler USMC, twice a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, gave eloquent testimony to this effect. Butler was contacted in 1934 by a group of disaffected American industrialists who planned a coup against President Franklin D. Roosevelt. They hoped that he would join the plot and command a rebellious military to install a fascist regime. They misjudged General Butler, who exposed their plans and upheld the rule of law. Butler later said this about his long and distinguished military career:
“I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
We like to think that US troops have been ‘missionaries for democracy and freedom.’ The troops themselves have admirable, patriotic intentions. They truly are the best of us. Those whose business it is to arm the troops are a different matter, however. I encourage you to take the time to read General Butler’s wry little tract called War is a Racket online at http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/articles/warisaracket.htm.

Where will it all end? Joseph Smith told Mosiah Hancock, who wrote in his autobiography, that
“The United States will spend her strength and means warring in foreign lands until other nations will say, “Let’s divide up the lands of the United States.”
Do you doubt that China eagerly waits that day? Russia? I confess that when Mitt Romney entered the presidential race, I thought of Joseph Smith’s prophecy that the U.S. Constitution would hang by a thread, and would be saved by the elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Since then I’ve reconsidered that apparently happy convergence. Romney will certainly not be the salvation of the Constitution. His typical neocon foreign policy stances, which aid and abet the New World Order agenda, his liberal social issue stances and his presumption to counsel the Lord on abortion all leave me quite unimpressed. His choice of Cofer Black, former CIA counter intelligence chief and presently vice president at paramilitary contractor Blackwater USA, as his intelligence advisor, belies his intention to continue the Bush Administration’s disastrous, aggressive and imperial foreign policy. The Founding Fathers would roll in their graves at the mere existence of Blackwater, but Romney apparently sees no problem. I however see this as an immense problem, and if Blackwater is deployed in the US, as big a threat to our freedom as the Brownshirts in 1930’s Germany. Their roles are the same. Everything that President Bush has done regarding the establishment of a paramilitary organization answerable only to him, the militarization of police forces, changes to the law regarding the use of US troops on home soil, and the removal of state militias from state Governors’ control, has made the use of America’s military forces against the American people, on American soil, more possible and frankly, inevitable. Brother Romney, by employing Cofer Black, shows me that he lauds this policy and plans to continue it, so I regard him as just another neocon, lurching dangerously into fascist practices.
I read Joseph’s prophecy, recorded by Mosiah Hancock, more carefully:
“then the people of the U.S. will unite and swear by the blood of their fore-fathers, that the land shall not be divided. Then the country will go to war, and they will fight until one half of the U.S. army will give up, and the rest will continue to struggle. They will keep on until they are very ragged and discouraged, and almost ready to give up—when the boys from the mountains will rush forth in time to save the American Army from defeat and ruin. And they will say, “Brethren, we are glad you have come; give us men, henceforth, who can talk with God.” Then you will have friends, but you will save the country when it’s liberty hangs by a hair, as it were.”
This is a job not for Mitt Romney, a basically honorable man who wants too badly the acceptance of the World. If he had honored the counsel of Ezra Taft Benson, instead of Cofer Black, he would have my vote, but he has not. He cannot be the man to save the Constitution, when he doesn’t bother to so much as consult it. The salvation of the Constitution is a job for ‘We the People,’ the People of the Constitution, proud out-of-step misfits all! Orrin Hatch, presently sponsoring the immigration amnesty Dream Act, an outrage to the rule of law and our national sovereignty, has completely lost touch with his principles and constituents. Whether he means to or not, whether he realizes it or not, he is working for the enemy. Congressmen representing LDS people, who believe in the divinely inspired nature of the Constitution, should be Constitutionalists, who remember and reflect their constituents’ values. How did such a man as Orrin Hatch come to represent Utah? Senator Bob Bennett, similarly out of step with his constituents, wanted to make Salt Lake a sanctuary city for illegal immigrants. He would be hard pressed to find one percent of his constituents who agree with him. Is this representation, or is it betrayal? The Constitution is being trampled by the very people sworn to uphold and defend it.
President Benson cautioned church members against waiting for the Church itself to instigate the rescue of the Constitution:
“The Prophet Joseph Smith declared it will be the elders of Israel who will step forward to help save the Constitution, not the Church. And have we elders been warned? Yes, we have. And have we elders been given the guidelines? Yes indeed, we have. And besides, if the Church should ever inaugurate a program, who do you think would be in the forefront to get it moving? It would not be those who were sitting on the sidelines prior to that time or those who were appeasing the enemy. It would be those choice spirits who, not waiting to be "commanded in all things" [D&C 58:26], used their own free will, the counsel of the prophets, and the Spirit of the Lord as guidelines and who entered the battle "in a good cause" [D&C 58:27] and brought to pass much righteousness in freedom's cause. . . .”
How sad that we have some who are “appeasing the enemy,” and who have been deceived. What a disgrace it is that the appeasers should be so politically prominent, and that the Church should have its own Gadiantons. By indiscriminately supporting their schemes and wars, we may likewise find that we have innocent blood on our hands. President Spencer W. Kimball remarked that,
“We are a warlike people, easily distracted from our assignment of preparing for the coming of the Lord. When enemies rise up, we commit vast resources to the fabrication of gods of stone and steel—ships, planes, missiles, and fortifications—and depend on them for protection and deliverance. When threatened, we become anti-enemy instead of pro-kingdom of God; we train a man in the art of war and call him a patriot, thus, in the manner of Satan’s counterfeit of true patriotism, perverting the Savior’s teaching:
"Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;
"That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven." (Matt. 5:44–45.)”

Voltaire warned that those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. Those working towards a New World Order have carefully fostered the idea that America must control the resources of other nations to guarantee her own survival. Technology that would liberate us from the tyranny of oil barons has undoubtedly been suppressed. Is it any accident that we live in a world in most ways revolutionized by the technological advancements of the past fifty years, and yet we still rely on the venerable gasoline combustion engine, very little changed from the middle of the past century? I suspect that the energy and transportation sectors have had the same miraculous flowering as recently seen in computers, medicine, and communications, but that those liberating inventions are kept ‘Top Secret’ in secure facilities, corporate and military. And there they will remain, until our desperate dependence on foreign oil has served its purpose. Ben Rich was the head of Skunkworks, the legendary research department of the munitions and aerospace company, Lockheed. Skunkworks was perennially on the cutting edge of our government’s most highly classified and creative scientific technology development. Shortly before he died Ben Rich stated in a lecture that, “We already have the means to travel among the stars, but these technologies are locked up in black projects and it would take an act of God to ever get them out to benefit humanity…Anything you can imagine, we already know how to do.” But somehow clean, cheap, and safe power seems always to evade us! We must imperil another generation of young Americans, invading third world countries to guarantee the flow of oil. Otherwise, the Neocons tell us, our civilization will come to a swift and ugly end! Come now! We are being held in a state of mid-twentieth century arrested development, until we willingly sacrifice our liberties to global government. Conversely, advances in communication against our privacy and civil rights. Big Brother has means that we can scarcely imagine, and an unhealthy interest in mind control. Paranoia you say? Google ‘MK Ultra.’ Even President Bill Clinton felt the need to issue a public apology for that one, and you can see it on Youtube! Imagine how obvious your political leanings and personal thoughts would be to someone who could listen to every phone call, read your email and messaging, see every book purchase from Amazon, know every library loan, see every internet search and webpage lingered over, know if you’ve purchased a weapon, and how you’re doing on your year supply! It’s all quite possible. This kind of surveillance has been illegal, but practiced for years by our intelligence agencies. Thanks to the so–called ‘Thought Crime Bill’, HR1959, which passed the House thanks to your representatives, and S1955, which is now in the Senate and likely to pass, this kind of surveillance of ordinary citizens will be quite legal and probably commonplace. If you don’t think that Big Brother should be monitoring what you read and what you say to whom, this might be a good time to contact your Senator about that belief. In the words of historian William Blum, “No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine.”

Can we save ourselves? Elder Russell M. Nelson offered hope when he said:
“These prophecies of hope could materialize if leaders and citizens of nations would apply the teachings of Jesus Christ. Ours could then be an age of unparalleled peace and progress. Barbarism of the past would be buried. War with its horrors would be relegated to the realm of maudlin memory. Aims of nations would be mutually supportive. Peacemakers could lead in the art of arbitration, give relief to the needy, and bring hope to those who fear. Of such patriots, future generations would shout praises, and our Eternal God would pass judgments of glory.
The hope of the world is the Prince of Peace—our Creator, Savior, Jehovah, and Judge. He offers us the good life, the abundant life, and eternal life. Peaceful—even prosperous—living can come to those who abide His precepts and follow His pathway to peace. This I declare to all the world.” Blessed Are the Peacemakers 2002
Can this Age of Peace be realized without a radical and unprecedented change of course, or by continuing to follow either of the party platforms? Not a chance! Can a candidate who represents ‘the lesser of two evils,’ or the ‘only one who can beat Hillary’ accomplish the needed reforms? Hardly! Did Martin Luther erase the apostasy of the Catholic Church and return it to the inspired state of the early Christian church? No, what was needed was more than a minor course correction, and it eventually arrived in the person of Joseph Smith. A minor course correction, the election of yet another Republican or Democrat insider, insisting that moderate changes in our policies will make all the difference, will not be enough to save our Republic now. We need to be fearless revolutionaries and reformers. We need to return to a strict interpretation of the inspired United States Constitution. President Benson told us that:
“The function of government is to protect life, liberty, and property, and anything more or less than this is usurpation and oppression.”
Is this not the very soul of limited government? Note the jarring lack of programs, entitlements, and federal agencies. Yet some LDS voters fail to see the Founders’ wisdom and the agreement with prophetic counsel in Ron Paul’s insistence that we need to drastically curtail the spread of the Federal government; that we need to take back control of our currency from the banker cabal owned Federal Reserve; that we must abolish inflationary, unbacked paper fiat money and restore the gold standard; that federal income tax is unconstitutional and that the IRS should be disbanded. They think that he is supremely impractical and perhaps a bit mad. Yes he’s mad, like George Washington was mad. Like Thomas Jefferson was a loon, and Alexander Hamilton and John Jay were completely out of their minds! Even Joseph Smith shared the same kind of lunacy! As part of his platform when he ran for president in 1844, he proposed a national bank, the stock wholly owned by the government (as opposed to international bankers), with profits going into general revenues to lessen the tax burden on citizens, and with currency backed by a gold and silver standard. Since the Federal Reserve was established in 1913, when a group of international bankers grasped fiscal control of our government, the dollar has lost 95% of its value. Inflation steals from us nearly all that we save. Even FDR admitted that owing to the capture of the federal government by financial overlords, the last truly incorruptible president of the US was Andrew Jackson! How different the world would be today if Americans had accepted Joseph’s wisdom in spiritual and monetary matters! We need to make a change in our government, one as profound as that made by the Puritans and our own Pioneers, when they turned their faces West and resolved to face whatever came of living correct principles. Whatever hardships we incur, it could not be worse than what faces us otherwise-- the destruction of a third American Civilization, the first two being tragically documented by the Book of Mormon.
The Articles of Faith explain that, “We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” We know that worldwide, many of the rulers over LDS people have been in fact, tyrants heading unjust governments. Yet the Saints are expected to support them. Why? It is my view that the spread of the Gospel is more important than the spread of any political doctrine. Governments of the world must not see the Saints as a threat to their political power, or they will take actions to prohibit proselytizing and the seeding of the millennial Church. But because we are admonished to submit to governments does not imply that we must believe their propaganda. Because we are at times compelled to serve in armies does not mean that we necessarily agree with how those armies are used. Our government owns our temporal compliance, but our spiritual allegiance belongs to the Lord. We must not allow the drumbeat of propagandists and manipulators to martial us into confusion about this fact. We support the government, but we listen to the prophets and think for ourselves. We seek the truth.
I urge all the Saints to turn off the TV and go in search of the truth. I have heard that a mere five persons own all the American TV networks. However many there are, there’s little doubt which team they’re on. The networks and all mass media wield enormous power and are essential to the New World Order plan. They shape our view of reality and condition our compliance with the plan. That nearly all media outlets lean left is fairly obvious. What is not so plain, but far more important to our liberty, is that the mass media is actively working against Ron Paul. Their strategy is to deny the strength of his movement and to treat him and his ideas with condescension. Ignore it and it will go away! Ignore it and the undecided will feel the cause is hopeless! Notice the shameful way Congressman Paul is treated in mass media presented debates. Would you ever dream that this man, who is practically ignored, is beating the other candidates in straw polls? The numbers don’t lie, the networks do.
Vote your conscience, not a compromise. Don’t vote for a candidate supposedly able to beat a dreaded opponent. That’s not good enough! Vote your conscience, or we will never be able to save this nation. Personally, I think that means voting for Ron Paul, whose principles I applaud. You may differ, but I am for the pigheaded Constitutionalist from Texas. He has never voted to raise taxes, never voted for an unbalanced budget, never voted to raise Congressional pay, and never taken a government-paid junket. He voted against invading Iraq. He walks the talk, alone in Congress. I have given him my belief, my funds, and my time. His campaign is a wonderful, inclusive groundswell of homemade signs, enthusiastic zealots of every stripe and all ages, and do-it-yourself derring do! Unlike the other campaigns that angle for your money, the Ron Paul Revolution wants you, your heart, you mind, your talents, and your time! Its mantra is Liberty! The Paul campaign rather reminds me of the inspired craziness of sending nineteen-year-old boys out to change the world! Please at least google the man! Visit his website at www.ronpaul2008.com. Pray about it! Hyrum Smith long ago confronted the vote for the lesser evil when he said,
“We engage in the election the same as in any other principle: you are to vote for good men, and if you do not do this it is a sin: to vote for wicked men, it would be sin. Choose the good and refuse the evil. Men of false principles have preyed upon us like wolves upon helpless lambs. Damn the rod of tyranny; curse it. Let every man use his liberties according to the Constitution. Don’t fear man or devil; electioneer with all people, male and female, and exhort them to do the thing that is right.”
Lonni Clarke
lonniclarke@infowest.com
www.lonniclarke.com

THE DREAM ACT: HOW DID UTAH VOTE?


Illegal immigration, along with the undermining of individual civil liberties, is about to be the downfall of this free nation. Both of these insidious processes result from the Constitution’s quiet dismantling by those who were sworn to uphold it. Like a majority of Utahans, I belong to a religion that regards indigenous Americans as a divinely chosen people to be nurtured and cultivated. Opposing illegal immigration therefore is not about racism, it is about upholding the Rule of Law. It is about America’s national fiscal suicide, providing grandiose entitlement programs benefiting not her own, but Non-citizens! It is about self-preservation on a national scale. With rampant illegal immigration the great American middle class is being strangled, the safety of American towns and cities doomed, and the voting public is being betrayed by its own political representatives. Rather than guarding their constituents’ interests, these politicians pander to frankly amoral corporations seeking cheap labor. They pander to the powerful demographic promise of a grateful Hispanic voting bloc, rewarding legislators for their help in obtaining US citizenship and amnesty for illegal immigrants. Simultaneously the War on Terror is being used as cause to systematically erode Constitutional guarantees of personal privacy, freedom to dissent and speak out, to travel unimpeded, to bear arms, and to be, in all ways, free!
So here we stand, on the brink of a rapid slide into an authoritarian government with the mere veneer of democracy, and an economic and civil breakdown born of financial desperation and crime. Enter the Dream Act. For those asleep at the wheel, the Dream Act was yet another attempt at granting amnesty to illegal aliens. Because earlier attempts were met with public outrage, the Dream Act was more subtle and limited in scope, just a foot in the door, like that big wooden horse left outside the gates of Troy. Thankfully Americans were not tempted to haul it inside. Senator Orrin Hatch, not just a supporter but also an actual sponsor of the Dream Act, and Senator Bob Bennett, who feels that Salt Lake would make a great “sanctuary city” for illegal aliens, thought that the big wooden horse would be a wonderful addition to American life! Think if these two had lived in Book of Mormon times, when Gadianton robbers beset the people. The contributing members of society were forced to retreat to a single redoubt and leave the Gadiantons, dependent upon plunder for their livelihood, to starve. Hatch and Bennett would be brokering generous ways for the Gadiantons’ children to receive subsidized educations, passage into the redoubt, and visiting rights for their Gadianton parents! Make sense to you? It doesn’t to me either. Remember that, my countrymen, when you next go to the polls and vote for your Senator. It will be a long time, 2010 in fact, but remember this day when two sold out Senators from Utah betrayed you.


Lonni Clarke, St. George, Utah
http://www.lonniclarke.com/