Obama 'so hot' in China ahead of trip
BEIJING - The Chinese have learned English from his speeches and celebrated the way he rolls up his sleeves. Now President Barack Obama is finally coming, and he's being greeted with "Oba Mao" T-shirts and a statue of him that bursts into flames.
Sunday's arrival of a U.S. president admired for his charisma is already a source of profit and brief fame for some Chinese.
Strangest is the burning Obama, tucked away in a Beijing warehouse. Artist Liu Bolin hopes Obama can take time from his visit to drop by.
2012 Review
The first thing I see is the Illuminati symbolism thousand points of light and the reference to Torching/Capstone Event as soon as Columbia Pictures famous Statue of Liberty Clip flashes to the Sun and shows us the Violent Solar Storm Activity.
Despite the fact there wasn't as much mentioned or a lot of references to all the things the movie hyped it's self up about.
They focused on most the the devestation triggered from Solar Storms and Neutrinos that sent the Earth's core temps rising.
They also made reference to the Planetary Alignment in 2012, no mention of Nibiru which seems fit.
They had 2 things that was totally fiction in the points of triggering a disaster in 2012, but thats Hollywierd fo ya.
There was mention of the Continuity of Government which they slowy key you into as the Secret Governmets Dark Top Secret Programs they throw out there alluding to their Deep Underground Bases and their Giant Ships they built to preserve the Human Race. Kind of had me thinking about the Giant UFO during the famous Pheonix Lights in '97.
It appears that they are once again sending that Brave New World Order Messege as those who get to decide the fate of Humanity will be the elite who are the chosen to get a seat on the Ships. So the movie lays out the G7 nations have secretly built these spaceships in China and used a Giant Dam project as cover for thier End of World plans for saving the Human Race. I also heard them mention the figure of 90 percent of 6 billion people and who alread follow the Depopulation retoric knows they want to reduce the earth's population by 90 percent, so they made reference to the Globalist population plans by claiming that the World's elite have decided that number in the movie as 500,000 chosen ones will be all that is allowed to survive the End of World senerio. Many problems occur in who they seem to have decide who gets a ride on the 7 magic yellow submarines they built for when the shifting of the earth's crust and systematic failure. The Billionaires bought thier tickets and when the shit hit the fan they were even being locked out of the Modern Day Noah's Arcs.
Woody Harrilson plays this wild old koot who broadcasted on his pirate radio station the daily narration of the end times events, he sure seemed to remind me alot like myself as the Character who had it all figured out and nobody would listen when Yellowstone erupts into a Super Volcano.
No mention of the CERN and a time travel paradox and the earth changes surronding that or even mention the Galatic riffs darkside.
Other then that it stayed very simple to the cause and effect in 2012 that has NASA scrambling to debunk the movie from spooking the masses.
SOLAR MAX ACTIVITY WILL PEAK DEC. 2012 is a FACT and it is all just beginning!!!
Friday the 13th could be a lucky day for astrophotographers. A photogenic scene is developing on the sun's northeastern limb, where a magnetic thicket of hot plasma is rising into view. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) made this movie of the action on Nov. 12th and 13th:
The swelling limb-glow heralds the approach of sunspot 1029, the biggest and most active sunspot of the year. Sunspot 1029 spent the past two weeks transiting the farside of the sun, invisible from Earth, but now it is about to reappear. Friday the 13th kicks off a 2- to 3-day photo-op as the sun's rotation slowly turns the active region back toward Earth. Readers with solar telescopes are encouraged to monitor developments.
CNN's Skull And Bones Piece
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2HFw9l1WeY
From what I see it only reiterates what many are all ready claiming. According to the journalist, a mission to make sure all of their fellow members rise to the top of the highest echlons of American Society. Excuse me I meant harmless “networking”.
Reminds me of some sort of Double Think cliche of George Orwell.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81TmXTEX0ks
Earth’s largest and oldest secret fraternity has had wide influence on the construction of Washington D.C.’s layout and the people who make up the U.S. government.
While in the halls of Congress on Oct. 6, CNN’s reporters were met mostly with politicians who did not want to speak to them. A couple senators did speak but divulged very little information about their fraternity.
WV Democratic Representative Nick Rahall educated the reporters about the Masonic compass and square symbol and recited a short history of his involvement as a Freemason.
The “my am” anchors let the viewers know they did not really believe Rahall when he said the Masons are not trying to rule the world.
CNN also briefly explained the Freemasonic connection to the Declaration of Independence, the founding fathers of the USA, members including Presidents and Congress members, and one of the many road symbols in the layout of Washington.
They only point out the Masonic compass and square created by the streets around the Capitol Building. Other occult Masonic formations include an owl around the Capitol Building, an upside-down pentagram stemming from the White House and a pyramid. We will explain these formations in greater depth in a later article.
Will NASA’s 10/9 Moon Bombing Trigger A Conflict With ETs?
What do those freemasons over at NASA have in mind with this Friday’s bombing of the moon? The official reason for doing this is to help determine if there is water on the moon. I keep hearing about the existence of UFOs, ETs and bases on the moon. It is something I’m very interested in and have been thinking about lately. I’ve also been thinking about Freeman’s highlighting of 10/13/2009 as a date for a world changing event. Freeman has also talked about a coming space war. Today it hit me that it’s almost 10/13 and between now and then NASA will supposedly be crashing a spacecraft into the Cabeus crater on the southern polar region of the moon. Cabeus A was the original destination for the impact and was formally announced by the LCROSS team on September 11, 2009, but then changed to Cabeus (proper). This could certainly result in a world changing event in the form of a retaliation strike against Earth, whether real or faked. http://www.anomalytelevision.com/site/2009/10/07/will-nasas-109-moon-bombing-trigger-a-conflict-with-ets/
Photo of 55ft snake shocks China
A photograph purporting to show a 55ft snake found in a forest in China has become an internet sensation.
It was originally posted in a thread on the website of the People's Daily, the official Communist Party newspaper in China.
The thread claimed the snake was one of two enormous boas found by workers clearing forest for a new road outside Guping city, Jiangxi province.
They apparently woke up the sleeping snakes during attempts to bulldoze a huge mound of earth.
"On the third dig, the operator found there was blood amongst the soil, and with a further dig, a dying snake appeared," said the post.
"At the same time, another gold coloured giant boa appeared with its mouth wide open. The driver was paralysed with fear, while the other workers ran for their lives.
"By the time the workers came back, the wounded boa had died, while the other snake had disappeared. The bulldozer operator was so sick that he couldn't even stand up."
The post claimed that the digger driver was so traumatised that he suffered a heart attack on his way to hospital and later died.
The dead snake was 55ft (16.7m) long, weighed 300kg and was estimated to be 140 years old, according to the post.
However, local government officials in Guiping say the story and photograph are almost certainly a hoax as giant boas are not native to the area.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1560388108644561405&hl=en#
Introduction
I know that I hung on the windy tree, For nine whole nights, Wounded with the spear, dedicated to Odin, Myself to myself - (Song of Odin)
Tree imagery is found in myths and legends throughout the world. Most religious scriptures also employ floral motifs in one context or another. To this day we refer to the pages of a book as "leaves," and when we glance at the pages of history we find everything from fig leaves covering the genitalia of Adam and Eve to laurel-sprig coronets on the heads of Roman Caesars. According to the Bible, even Jesus was given myrrh at this birth and a "crown of thorns" before his execution.
The word bible comes from the ancient pagan city of Byblos, were some of the world's first paper was made and transported. (The word paper comes from "papyrus," a Greek word referring to the sedge plant that grew along the banks of sacred rivers such as the Nile and Euphrates.) Byblos was a Phoenician capital, and the Phoenicians (or Arcadians), because of their expertise with wood and architecture, were commissioned to erect the Temple of Solomon.
Numerous city streets have been named "Oak," "Pine," Redwood," and Cedar," and a plethora of state buildings feature columns representing the trunks of sacred trees. Ironically, while Earth is denuded of its exquisite forests and woods, we find acorns, berries, and oak leaves as decorations on bank notes, flags, medals, corporate logos, and government edifices the world over.
We might ask why? And where does it all come from? Is it all just for decorative purposes, or are there other reasons for its prevalence?
Mudras & Hand Symbolism: Hand Symbolism & Beliefs Part 2 by Leonard Lee
[Note: This paper contains images which may be seen as originally published at our website]
According to its votaries, the hand of the crucified Jesus is believed to possess occult virtues. When worn as an amulet it is said to be an all-round good-luck charm. Prayers are said in conjunction with its presence on one’s person. One prayer associated with this particular amulet is as follows:
“I carry a likeness of your pierced hand as a fervent symbol of your infinite kindness. Thou who has known such suffering, reach out your hand with a blessing. Thy pierced hand inspires this humble prayer that I may call on Thee to grant me peace and happiness. Amen.”
Generally, charms in the form of hands, and in any pose–whether made of metal, stone, or inscribed–were often carried to ward off the “Evil Eye,” or the ietattura as it is called in Southern Italy, or ain al-hasad, the “Eye of Envy,” by the Arabs. The ancient Sumerians referred to it as IG-HUL, “Eye Evil.” The Evil Eye is an ancient belief and not without any metaphysical substantiation. From the metaphysical point of view, eyes radiates energy and the quality of this force is tainted by the will and character of its emanator. Like all forces, the power flowing from the eyes may bless or curse others. There are many examples of amulets with a single eye on the palm of the hand. It is believed that this attracts the Evil Eye in accord with the Law of Attraction and absorbs its malevolent influences.
In order to counteract the malignant rays emanating from the eyes of negative individuals, the Hamsa Hand, or the Hand of Fatima charm was invented by the Arabs to re-direct these individuals’ willful attention and malefic glances. Fatima was the daughter of the Prophet Muhammed and Khadijah. She was said to be a very virtuous woman, and it is believed that the charms representing her embody all of her solid virtues and would protect and bring good fortune to its bearer. The fingers of the Hand of Fatima symbolically represent the five pillars of Islam: 1) observance of the Ramadhan fast; 2) pilgrimage to Mecca; 3) alms-giving; 4) observance of the daily prayers; 5) profession of faith. The right hand is used to symbolize the Hand of Fatima, for it is the hand of honor, in contradistinction to the left, which is the “unclean hand.” In most Eastern cultures it is considered rude and inappropriate to give things with the left hand.
Like the Arabs, the ancient Egyptians used a symbol called “the Great Hand” for various protective purposes, one of which is to ward off evil magnetism. Most hand amulets appear with a single eye on the palm. There are instances of this in various cultures.
Amulets were not of value only to the living, but to the “dead” as well. In ancient Egypt, an amulet called dejebaui, or “two-fingers” were often placed among a mummy’s swathings to help the deceased one to ascend and ride on the boat of Ra to the afterlife. This amulet depicted the index and middle fingers and was usually made out of black basalt, green stone, or obsidian.
During the enunciation of a pledge the right hand is often raised in the air. This originated in ancient customs where the raising of the hands were used to invoke the presence of the gods. Raising the right hand while making a pledge is therefore, tantamount to saying, “In the name of God . . .” Another version is to place the right hand on a holy book while uttering an oath. The significance is similar to the above.
In the West, many hand-signs have been made popular with its constant use throughout the centuries. For instance we have the V-sign with the index and middle finger raised while the others flexed and clasped by the thumb. This signified victory and triumph. Similar to this is the Mano Cornuto, where only the index and little finger are raised, and the rest folded onto the palms. This represents horns, the devil, and the powers of evil. In the Orient, though, this sign is said to have the power to ward off demons. Kuan Yin is often depicted with this mudra. The Hung Society of China uses it as a sign of membership and also to signify “Man,” who embodies both Heaven and Earth. In Italian witchcraft, the Mano Cornuto represents the crescent moon of the goddess Diana.
Another prominent hand sign is the Mano Fica, or figa, the sign of coitus where the thumb protrudes between the first and second fingers of the closed hand. It is of ancient origin The Romans and Etruscans were well familiar with this sign having made images of it. Lika Mano Cornuto, the latter sign is a popular amulet against negative forces. Crossing the index finger with the middle finger also has a sexual significance. It symbolizes the generation of life and by association a good outcome in one’s hopeful expectations, in one’s enterprise possessing an ambiguous upshot. Another sexual gesture much more explicit is the repeated insertion and withdrawal of the forefinger of the right hand (the phallus) into a circle formed by the thumb and index finger of the left hand (the vulva). The pose of the left hand in the above gesture is also an “O.K.” sign.
One of the old superstitions states that the sexual act brings good luck, good fortune, and prosperity. Perhaps because of its connection to fertility rites where the energy aroused and released during sexual ceremonies in open fields is believed to empower crops to grow abundantly. This belief is also one of the reasons why phallic and coital amulets were carried on one’s person. Such charms were thought to bring about fortunate circumstances to the wearer. Sexual amulets made out of metal, bone, and wood were very popular in the classical worlds of Greece and the Roman Empire.
A hand sign that is mainly used by the sacerdotal priesthood of the Christian Churches, is the Mano Pantea. This is the sign of benediction posed by extending the thumb and first two fingers. The ring and little fingers are folded onto the palms. This mudra can be seen in the various paintings and murals of Jesus, the Saints, and priests. In Latin countries, the Mano Pantea is also often used as an amulet against the “Evil Eye,” when thus employed it is normally covered with other protective symbols as reinforcements.
An upraised thumb represents the erect phallus and is a sign for life, success, prosperity, and acceptability. In contrast, the downward pointing thumb denotes defeat and is the veto sign of condemnation or the death sentence. The middle finger solitarily extended is one of the obscene gestures vulgarly referred to as, “up yours.” It signifies the command to perform an unnatural or perverse sexual act.
The famed Buddhist temple, Borobudur in the island of Java was constructed in the form of a mandala–a symbolic diagram of the cosmos. It is built in tiers, and at every level, there are numerous statues of Buddhas sitting in silent meditation. At each point of the compass the contemplative Buddhas assume a certain mudra. Those facing North bear the Abhaya (fearlessness) mudra, while those in the East show the Bhumisparsha (earth-touching) gesture. The Dana (giving) mudra is the hand pose of the Buddhas facing South, and the Dhyana (meditation) mudra of those facing West. Other mudras in the precincts of the temple are also to be found such as the Vitarka (debate) and Dharmachakraprayartana (teaching) gestures. This careful orientation of mudra bearers to compass points is symbolic. It is related to the quaternary principles to be found in the micro- and macrocosm. Comprehensive teachings concerning these may be found in the esoteric aspects of Buddhism and esotericism in general.
Symbolic marks or imprints are often found on the palms of statues and icons of Buddhas and Avatars. These marks indicate the power, virtue, or attribute of these God-incarnates. In Hinduism, Shiva appears the most with these hand drawings. Many kinds of marks exist. Several are to be found on just the palms of Gautama (Shakyamuni) Buddha alone. These palmar designs probably originated from the special marks that do physically appear on the palms. Cheiromancy identifies several of these as the square, the grille, the island, the cross or star, etc.
Hands were revered by the Hindus for centuries. One of the Shivaic tantrik rituals of India gives the following liturgical adoration to the fingers of the hands:
“Om Sham I bow to the thumbs Namah. Om Shim I bow the index fingers Svaha. Om Shum I bow to the middle fingers Vashat. Om Shaim I bow to the ring fingers Hum. Om Shaum I bow to the little fingers Vaushat. Om Shah I bow to the front and back of hands Phat.”
This chant is accompanied by specific mudras that purifies the subtle channels of the upper limbs. Not only is this ritual practiced in India but variations of it may be found in Bali as well.
In the marriage ceremonies and sexual rites of Oriental cultures such as in Tantrism, Yoginis or Shaktis often paint Yantras and other symbolical diagrams on the palms of their hands with henna or red dye. These diagrams normally have intricate floral patterns and are magical and hypnotic. They are used to attract, to mesmerize, and to empower themselves and their sexual partners.
In Islamic mysticism, specific gestures are often employed to help produce an altered state of awareness. Dervishes, for instance, pose their hands in specific mudras and hand signs while dancing and whirling around on a single spot. Some Sufi sects would trace the 99 names of God on their bodies with their right hand while engaging in zikir, or recollecting and focusing upon God through constant chanting.
In ancient times there were the Mystery Schools that taught to the selected few the laws and secrets of Nature and the Universe. History has recorded numerous of these schools and temples of esoteric knowledge among which were the mysteries of Isis, Sabazius, Cybele, Eleusis, Orpheus, Mithra, Asar-Hapi, and Odin. To state the mission and purpose of these metaphysical institutions we can do no better than to quote the eminent Freemason, Robert Macoy:
“It appears that all the perfection of civilization, and all the advancement made in philosophy, sciences, and art among the ancients are due to those institutions which, under the veil of mystery, sought to illuminate the sublimest truths of religion, morality, and virtue, and impress them on the heart of the disciples. Their chief object was to teach the doctrine of one God, the resurrection of man to the eternal life, the dignity of the human soul, and to lead the people to see the shadow of the deity, in the beauty, magnificence, and splendor of the universe.”
Within some of these Mystery schools, when the candidate is first initiated and accepted as a neophyte, he or she is often given an effigy of a human hand filled with symbolic images to contemplate. This hand is referred to as the Hand of the Philosopher, or the Hand of the Mysteries. When these symbols are understood, they provide the neophyte the keys to facilitate the transformation of their lower nature into divinity–from man to god. Regeneration, transmutation, and empowerment are the consequence of the application of the laws and principles that these ancient symbols represent. Among the many secrets that they portray, they teach how one may commune with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, or one’s Higher Self. The practitioner of the secrets of the Mysteries undergo a rebirth as a result of the growing influence and expression of the Higher Self in everyday consciousness.
The Philosopher’s Hand may be regarded as an alchemical manual taking the conscientious student step by step through the alchemical process. In Freemasonry, the Hand of the Mysteries is known as the hand of the Master Mason. In some Masonic groups, this is the title for the highest of the three degrees to be found in the hoary and august fraternity. In this article we have included three examples of these symbolical hands. The first illustration shown is a bronze hand to be found in the British Museum. This specimen in the Mano Pantea gesture, is covered with several important symbols among which are : a ram’s head, serpent, frog, vase, crocodile, turtle, cornucopia, scales, woman with child, table with loaves of bread, and a cane. It is supposed to be Egyptian in origin.
The second hand is a painting redrawn by J. Augustus Knapp from an 18th century water color, and is taken from Manly Hall’s “Secret Teachings of All Ages”; it was executed with the alchemical process in mind. In this illustration there is a figure of a fish which symbolizes mercury–the principle of the Spirit within the microcosm. This aquatic creature is surrounded by the element of fire that represents the psychological aspect of man, or the human soul. The rest of the fingers individually refer to the various steps of the spiritual path of transmutation of the base nature of man into the resplendent gold of divinity. Kaballistically, the hand shows the mastership of the crowned thumb (the Will) over the four worlds represented by the fingers. These four worlds are referred to as Atziluth, Briah, Yetzirah, and Assiah, or the World of Archetypes, the World of Creation, the World of Formation, and the World of Manifestation. Atop of the fingertips in Knapp’s illustration are symbols representing the various components of the microcosm: the lantern, the Concrete Mind; the Sun, the Abstract Mind; the Star, Buddhi; the Crown, Atma. The little finger holds aloft a philosophical key, which reveals the secrets of the Mysteries. It also symbolizes the etheric body, which is considered by Western Initiates as the key to occult development. The wings surrounding the hand is a sign for transcendentalism–the things of the Spirit as opposed to matter. The eyes, on the other hand, indicate the divine aspect of omniscience unfolded in the Master Mason after having discovered and applied the “Lost Word.”
Hindu versions of the Hand of the Mysteries are diagrams known as Hastakara Yantra. Like their Western counterpart, these hands have various symbolic images depicted on them. Among other things they illustrate the relationship between man and the cosmic forces.
Like Hindu yoga, in Feng Shui, or Chinese geomancy, there are 5 elements: Water, Wood, Earth, Fire, and Metal. In Chinese palmistry the little finger is associated with air, the ring finger with fire, the middle finger with earth, the forefinger with water, and the thumb with chi or metal as mentioned before. This system differs from the Hindu yogic mudra tradition. First of all, in yoga philosophy the fifth element is akasha or space, which although correspond to chi, does not relate to metal at all. According to mudra teachings, Angutha or the thumb corresponds to fire, Tarjani or the forefinger to air, Madhyam or the middle finger to akasha, Anamika or the ring finger to earth and Kanishthika, or the little finger to water. In this work on mudras, we will stress more on the Hindu yogic assignment of the elements to the fingers and thumb. The application of elemental mudras in conjunction with the elemental tattvic tides is a great tool in elemental magick.
Hand Signs in Religious Art
Hand signs are an essential part of life. They are used to convey silently but powerfully the intention and thoughts of their user. Humanity has for ages utilized sign languages. It originated at a period of Man’s evolution when he was incapable of communicating his abstract and concrete thoughts with words and phrases lingually. He was solely dependent upon gesticulations as a media for expressing his feelings and passions. This primitive form of communication is still being used by modern man in certain situations and expediency. Not surprisingly, the intelligent classes of anthropoids also make use of hand-sign movements such as the beating of the chest in expressing anger or authority. The fictitious Tarzan could not resist aping this gesture from his Darwinian guardians.
Certain specific hand signs are to be found all over the world. Many cultures preceding and succeeding the Christian era share common gestures that express particular concepts. It has been suggested that these gestures all have comparable basic ideas or significance because of their appearances in similar contexts. This is known through their repeated portrayal in the many paintings, sculptures, and drawings of the past available for our scrutiny and study. Mediaeval Christian art of saints, prophets, and the Holy Trinity, and the gods and devas of Egypt, India and the South American Indians are often depicted with similar hand positions.
Contemporarily, we find school children perpetuating certain traditional signs that have their origin in religion and pagan practices. For instance, crossing the fingers as a sort of prayer so that they may be free from chastisement when interrogated of their wrong behavior–this may be a corrupted form of the ecclesiastical use of the Sign of Benediction.
There are many professions that make use of signs only known to their members or affiliates. For instance, merchants, masons, tramps, gamblers, prostitutes–all have signs known only to themselves with which they signal one another.
Because of the profuse use of signs and gestures by the Italians in their everyday life, anthropologists believe that these descendents of Romulus and Remus are not able to carry out a satisfactory conversation if they were prevented the use of gesticulation.
Occultists believe that most gestures or hand signs that are found in religion and in society have a common origin in the prevalent Mystery Schools of the past where they were used in a ceremonial setting. Modern Freemasonry as one of the many descendents of these Occult Temples of Wisdom and Knowledge still perpetuates this custom of hand signs in their initiatory rites.
Like the Freemasons, secret societies in the Orient also have ceremonies where esoteric signs are employed. One of the secret associations of China, the Hung Society, have certain signs and gestures with which communication is carried-out among the affiliated members–not only in the ceremonies but in everyday life as well. The aforementioned society, likewise, have plentiful mudras or signs representing the principles of their philosophy. In its doctrines, the five elements of Taoist esotericism are signified by poses that are also to be found elsewhere around the globe.
The mystical Dervishes, established by the Sufi Rumi, apply hand signs for occult purposes. They invoke the Divine Presence by utilizing these signs that corresponds with the 99 names of God in their dance rituals, as already alluded to previously.
Artists of all ages have secret codes and teachings with which they unveil in their artwork. In archaic times it was a dangerous matter to openly publicize occult and spiritual teachings that religions steeped in fundamentalism were dramatically opposed to for these teachings threatened their political structure and lessen their value in the eyes of an evolving humanity. It is for this reason that the Mystery and metaphysical schools established by the ancient sages went underground and operated clandestinely. They promulgated their teachings through signs and symbols that acted on one level as their calling card.
About The Author
Copyright © 2006 Luxamore
Leonard Lee aka Luxamore, Metaphysical teacher, counseler, healer and merchant of occult/magickal items of Indonesia.
http://www.indotalisman.com
Magickal Items from Indonesia: talismans, mustika pearls, kerises, etc.
http://www.bezoarmustikapearls.com
Magickal Bezoar Mustika Pearls from Indonesia.
When Dictatorship Came to America
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
by Thomas J. DiLorenzo
Recently by Thomas DiLorenzo: Libelous Leftist Lynch Mobs
The presidential oath of office contains a pledge to defend and protect the Constitution of the United States, and by implication the liberties of the American people that the document is intended to preserve. In light of this, can you name which of the delegated powers in the U.S. Constitution allow the president to invade his own country, mass murder his own American citizens, and bomb, burn and plunder their cities? Can you explain how such acts would be consistent with protecting the constitutional liberties of those unfortunate citizens? If you think you can, then congratulations, you are a “Lincoln Scholar.” If not, do not despair. You are in decent company, including the five living past presidents as of 1861, namely, Martin Van Buren, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore, Franklin Pierce, and James Buchanan. Lincoln’s predecessor, President James Buchanan of Pennsylvania, stated the truth when he said the following:
Has the Constitution delegated to Congress the power to coerce a State into submission which is attempting to withdraw . . . from the Confederacy [of states]? If answered in the affirmative, it must be on the principle that the power has been conferred upon Congress to declare and to make war against a State. After much serious reflection, I have arrived at the conclusion that no such power has been delegated to Congress or to any other department of the federal government (Senate Journal, 36th Congress, 2nd Session, 4 December 1860, 15–16).
Unlike Lincoln, James Buchanan was a constitutionalist. His opinion that a president has no constitutional right to invade his own country and murder his fellow citizens has relegated him to the bottom of every ranking of American presidents by the American history profession for generations. This doesn’t mean he was wrong, only that a large segment of the history profession is hopelessly corrupt. Buchanan understood, as did nearly everyone prior to Lincoln, that the states did not give up any of their sovereignty when they ratified the Constitution; they merely delegated several distinct powers to the central government that was designed to act for their mutual benefit.
Buchanan’s position on secession is described in some detail by John Avery Emison in his new book, Lincoln Über Alles: Dictatorship Comes to America. It’s high time that Americans grow up, says Emison, and confront the reality of their own history, as opposed to the childish fairy tales concocted by the court historians of the Church of Lincoln.
As for the other living presidents mentioned above, the New Yorker Millard Fillmore, a former Whig, opposed the war for its duration and never joined the new Republican Party after the Whig Party imploded, as did most Northern Whigs. Franklin Pierce of New Hampshire was a fierce critic of the war and especially of Lincoln’s Stalinist, police-state tactics in suppressing political opposition in the North. New Yorker Martin Van Buren died in 1862 but opposed the war, and John Tyler of Virginia, who also died in 1862, actually served in the Confederate Congress.
These men were all patriotic Americans who understood that waging war against the citizens of any state was an act of treason. They understood this because, unlike Lincoln, they had read, understood, and believed in the Constitution. As Emison points out, Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution defines treason as follows: “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort” (emphasis added). As with all the founding documents, “United States” is in the plural, signifying that the free and independent states are united for some specific purpose, in this case in delegating certain powers to the central government, mostly for foreign policy reasons. Treason meant waging war against the citizens of the states, not the government in Washington, D.C. Lincoln’s war was nothing if it was not a war prosecuted by the Republican Party against the Southern states. It was therefore the very definition of treason under the U.S. Constitution.
The Lincoln Cult sometimes claims that the so-called “insurrection clause” of the Constitution (Article 4, Section 4) gives the government the ability to wage war on its own citizens, but this is a gross misreading of the document. Article 4 states: “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government, and shall protect each of them against Invasion; and on Application of the Legislature, or of the Executive (when the Legislature cannot be convened) against domestic violence.”
Lincoln violated the first part of Article 4 by imprisoning members of the Maryland legislature in 1861 and by occupying various southern states, ruling over them with military dictatorships during the war. The war was not a domestic insurrection within the Southern states. But even if one assumes that it was, as Lincoln falsely did, it is important that the second part of Article 4 denotes that the central government cannot interfere in an insurrection within any state unless first invited to do so by the legislature or governor of that state. The governors of the Southern states never invited Lincoln to invade them, bomb their cities, and murder their citizens by the thousands. But then again, Lincoln believed that he was more important than the Constitution.
In his chapter entitled “Secession, the Constitution, and the Law,” Emison devastatingly critiques Lincoln Cultist James McPherson’s one-sentence quip in his (McPherson’s) book, Battle Cry of Freedom, that the states that entered the union after the original thirteen were creatures of the central government and therefore were not sovereign over it and had no right to secede. This quip has been endlessly repeated by Lincoln cultists in their defense of Lincoln’s war despite the fact that it is historically and constitutionally baseless. It is baseless because of what the Supreme Court has called the “Equal Footing Doctrine.” When Tennessee became the third new state in 1796, for example, it was admitted “on an equal footing with the original states in all respects whatsoever,” phraseology that has been used ever since, Emison reminds us. This means that, just as the original thirteen states were sovereign over the central government, so are all the others. All states are equal under the Constitution.
This fact motivates Emison to ask the obvious question: “If all the states are equal, do any states or combination of states have the legal or moral authority to destroy another state and replace its lawfully elected government with one imposed by military occupation? If so, which states have such authority? How did they get it? Lincoln’s answer to these questions was, essentially, “the side with the most bayonets makes the rules.”
In his chapter entitled “War Crimes” Emison details just how Lincoln “proved” his new theories about the absolute and omnipotent powers of the federal government to be “correct.” He explains how the Lincoln regime reignited the horrors of total war in the world, including the waging of total war on one’s own citizens. Among the language used to describe the waging of total war on Southern civilians is “rampage,” “theft and indiscriminate destruction of property,” “rob, tyrannize, threaten,” “numerous reports of rape,” and “woe betide the region’s unprotected black women, against whom acts of the most beastly an infamous character” were perpetrated by Union Army soldiers.
Much of this barbarism was the work of the “heroic” General Sherman. Emison scoured numerous biographies of Sherman and found him to be described in the following ways by those who knew him best: “A near emotional cripple”; a dangerous man”; “traumatized, marginalized, and self-loathing”; “a caged lion . . . angry”; suffering from “delusional misjudgment”; “suicidal impulses”; “confessed to his wife a death-wish for himself . . .”; “a man of primal rage.”
“Sherman’s gone in the head, he’s luny [sic],” said Assistant Secretary of War Thomas Scott, as quoted by Emison. “It would be dangerous to give [Sherman] command,” said General Henry Halleck. Of course, Lincoln not only gave Sherman command, but made him one of the top commanders, and the Republican Party turned him into a national icon after the war. (Sherman spent the next 25 years after the war orchestrating the campaign of genocide against the Plains Indians.)
Emison documents with Sherman’s own words how the man seemed to hate just about everyone especially blacks, Mexicans, Jews, and Indians. He was not an enlightened egalitarian devoted to black equality, as the buffoonish Lincoln cultist Victor Davis Hanson has contended. This mentally-deranged maniac “justified” his mass killing of civilians by inventing the “doctrine of military necessity,” which essentially said that anything goes in war, even the murder of innocent women and children. Sherman’s armies would later perfect this barbaric ideology during the Indian Wars, as Emison recounts.
When backed into a corner the Lincoln Cult usually resorts to the preposterous claim that everything the Lincoln regime did (or did not do, such as peacefully ending slavery, as the rest of the world did in the 19th century) was justified because Northerners were enlightened about race and Southerners were not. Evil Southerners had to be civilized, the story goes, even if that meant killing them by the hundreds of thousands. But as Emison writes, “The idea that . . . white Northerners . . . fought the Civil War to end slavery, or were on the right side of the racial justice issue, is preposterous.” It is “nothing short of gullible self-deception, bordering on simple-mindedness.”
Your author is not as generous as Emison in this regard. James McPherson, Doris Kearns-Goodwin, Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and other Lincoln cultists are not simple minded. They know what they are doing, and they know that it pays very well careerwise and moneywise to be a court historian.
In another attempt to allow Americans to wean themselves from childish self-deceptions about their own history, Emison devotes a chapter to race in American history. He discusses how slavery existed for hundreds of years in the North, especially in New York, Boston, and Newport, Rhode Island, the hubs of the transatlantic slave trade. The transatlantic slave trade “was one of the foundations of New England’s economic structure” for generations. The slave trade was also “one of the cornerstones of New York’s commercial prosperity in the eighteenth century.”
Emison documents the truth behind Tocqueville’s statement in Democracy in America that “the problem of race” was even worse in the North than it was in the South in the early nineteenth century. He presents a table of seventy-six Northern Jim Crow Laws that were enacted beginning with Vermont in 1777 and ending with New York in 1868. Jim Crow laws were a Northern invention. In the decade preceding the War to Prevent Southern Independence alone, California, Utah Territory, Indiana, Ohio, Kansas Territory, Nebraska Territory, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, and Oregon disenfranchised all free blacks.
In 1839 Ohio’s legislature passed “a resolution that Negroes have no right to petition the legislature for any purpose whatever.” Massachusetts banned interracial marriage in 1836, after Rhode Island did so in 1822; during the same year (1836), state legislator Abraham Lincoln voted for an Illinois resolution that “the elective franchise should be kept pure from contamination by the admission of colored votes”; In 1833 Connecticut criminalized “the establishment of any school for persons of the African race”; Ohio, Indiana and Illinois required “good behavior bonds” from free blacks; many Northern states enacted “Negro Exclusion Laws”; the Connecticut Supreme Court ruled that blacks were not citizens twenty years before the famous Dred Scott decision; and Illinois amended its Constitution in 1862 to add a Negro exclusion provision.
One very interesting aspect of Lincoln Über Alles is Emison’s discussion of the preponderance of “German Forty-Eighters” in the Lincoln administration and at the upper levels of his army. These men were German immigrants who participated in an 1848 European political revolt that advocated highly centralized government, despised state’s rights, and believed that citizens needed to subordinate their personal interests to the state. “Many Forty-Eighters were Marxists; some considered themselves communists. One of the Forty-Eighters was Marx’s own brother-in-law . . . the Forty-Eighters saw themselves as international agents of change.”
One of the more prominent German immigrants in the Lincoln administration was Francis Lieber, who Lincoln employed to write the military code for the U.S. Army, which was known as the “Lieber Code.” Another was General Franz Sigel, and officer in the Prussian army who fled Europe and became a Union army general who gained notoriety for his defeat in the Battle of New Market at the hands of VMI cadets. Sigel apparently believed he would teach the sons of Virginia, including a descendant of Thomas Jefferson’s who was killed in the battle, what it meant to be an American. Emison describes numerous other German “revolutionaries” who were given important commands in Lincoln’s army.
A great many German immigrants settled in the Midwest and were instrumental in Lincoln’s nomination and election. Abe recognized this, and purchased several German-language newspapers in order to bolster his German immigrant support. Emison makes a very persuasive case that it was German immigrants who “put him over the top” in six key states (Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin) in the 1860 election. This perhaps explains why so many prominent Germans, some of whom barely spoke English, were commissioned as colonels, majors, or generals in Lincoln’s army.
Emison views Lincoln’s relevance to modern America very differently than Mario Cuomo and Harold Holzer, authors of Why Lincoln Matters: Today More Than Ever. Cuomo and Holzer celebrate the fact that Lincoln has long been the image/poster boy of America. In a textbook example of the kind of childish simplemindedness that Emison refers to, Holzer has even said that “everything good” in all of American history since 1865 is due to Abraham Lincoln.
Emison agrees that Lincoln’s influence is tremendous, but writes that “America is haunted by Lincoln’s blood lust for a coercive, dominant, unitary, unaccountable, debt-laden central government” whose principle function is “the plunder of society and the redistribution of wealth to the politically privileged elite [like the Cuomo family] and their collection of political sycophants [like Lincoln cultists] who help keep them in power.” In this regard, “the two major parties have become the party of Lincoln, each a metastatic twin of the other.” Abraham Lincoln “opened the door to the Leviathan central state that mandates, manipulates, and regulates virtually every aspect of life in America and seeks unilateral hegemony around the globe.”
November 12, 2009
Thomas J. DiLorenzo [send him mail] is professor of economics at Loyola College in Maryland and the author of The Real Lincoln; Lincoln Unmasked: What You’re Not Supposed To Know about Dishonest Abe and How Capitalism Saved America. His latest book is Hamilton’s Curse: How Jefferson’s Archenemy Betrayed the American Revolution – And What It Means for America Today.
There are many questions that have yet to be addressed. How did this virus spread so quickly? Why are the actual numbers not being reported? What has changed in the H1N1 virus to cause this plague or is it a completely new virus? Who is benefiting from the hype or reality of the situation?
With the so-called Mexican Swine Flu, we saw the gross ineffectiveness of national governments and the World Health Organization in preventing the spread of A/H1N1, which is a mild virus. This new lab produced virus is a certainly a killer and we can likely expect it to spread throughout the world in the next few weeks or months. The mainstream media seems to be collectively timing the release of this information for some opportune moment.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recently confirmed that the A/H1N1 virus showed no signs of mutating, or becoming more virulent. Which leaves little alternative but to conclude that the virus is either a random mutation, proving the WHO wrong, or that it has been a newly released bio-weapon possibly courtesy of Baxter International.
The pneumonic plague has an acute course than other forms, over and is accompanied by a very high mortality rate. The incubation period of primary pneumonic plague rarely exceeds more than 1-4 days. It begins, as a rule, suddenly -
It can be caused in two ways: primary, which results from the inhalation of aerosolised plague bacteria, or secondary, when septicemic plague spreads into lung tissue from the bloodstream.
The explosion of cases again raises concerns that the number of fatalities is significantly higher than the 81 listed. Media reports have described an equal number of pneumonia fatalities which were not considered flu related. The basis of these exclusions remains unclear. Similarly, anecdotal reports suggest the number of fatalities is markedly higher than the 81 in the government tables.
The rapid rise in reported infections, hospitalizations, and deaths in the past few days raise concerns that the virus is transmitting very efficiently. Spikes in cases have been reported throughout the northern hemisphere, but the spike in fatalities and the frequency in hemorrhagic cases in Ukraine have raised concerns.
Ministry of Health has not established the exact diagnosis of the epidemic disease in the western regions of Ukraine. Health Minister Vasyl Knyazevich has given information about spread of diseases in the Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv Regions today at the meeting of Cabinet of Ministers.
Answering question of Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko about the definition of the specific nature of the disease, the head of the Ministry of Health said: "The nature of infections is viral one. But at the moment it is not defined, is it the Californian influenza H1N1, or it is our seasonal influenza. To date, there is no precise diagnosis."
Reports from a few days ago indicated that Ukraine has shut down its schools, universities and cinemas, and banned public gatherings including concerts, movies etc. for the foreseeable future. They have also mobilized military with quarantine units.
It is typically behaving like a hemorrhagic fever in the lungs turning them into 'mush' and killing the patient. Some reports from the Ukraine are indicating that figures may will be over 1000 deaths, but the numbers are not being released by the government until confirmations are made. Moreover, the virus could have the potential to recombine with those being vaccinated to create a plague that could potentially kill more than 1 million people globally per month.
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