The emergence of Fluoridegate has been signaled by two federal lawsuits, one filed in California on Aug. 9 and another filed in Maryland on Aug. 30.

Though more than half a century in the making, the floodgates are opening and you should expect that many, many others will follow.
The first lawsuit was filed Aug. 9 against the Metropolitan Water District (MWD) of Southern California in the U.S. District Court of Southern California on behalf of millions of its water system customers in Los Angeles, San Diego and Ventura counties.
This suit essentially uses the admission by the federal Food and Drug Administration that fluoride added to water is an unapproved drug (for more on that reference and others pertaining to the many issues with fluoride see the previous Fluoridegate columns available at The Citizen.com).
The second suit was filed Aug. 30 in the U.S. District Court in Maryland against Nestle, manufacturer of eight-ounce Deer Park and Poland Spring bottled water with added fluoride, and Gerber, manufacturer of baby food and baby formula containing fluoride. The specifics of this suit deals with dental fluorosis (the permanent staining and disfigurements of teeth that is currently present in a significant percentage of American children).
Also of note was the resolution adopted in September by the League of Latin American Citizens opposing water fluoridation. A number of black leaders, such as Andrew Young, are also beginning to sound off on the issue of fluorosis.
And in November, the County Commission in Pinellas County, Fla., voted to remove fluoride from the drinking water consumed by its 700,000 citizens.
It is worth mentioning that manufacturers, too, are reacting to the approaching fluoride tsunami that involves the young. Gerber now offers fluoride-free bottled water for making baby formula and several major toothpaste companies recently began marketing fluoride-free toothpaste for toddlers that is safe to swallow.
Litigation involving fluoride poisoning with the aging and the infirm, such as dialysis patients and those with thyroid conditions, will follow.

On the local level, I have a friend in Peachtree City, Georgia, who was concerned about the link to the fluoride in her municipal drinking water and her significant problems with her thyroid, for which she was on medication. She installed a reverse osmosis system in her home and stopped taking her thyroid meds. Now more than a year later, her thyroid tests just fine without medication. The only thing she did was to stop drinking our fluoridated water. You figure it out.
Also locally, I’ve been happily surprised to come across so many of you, old and young, who were already aware of this toxic waste by-product of the phosphate fertilizer that is shipped here and added to the drinking water in Fayette and Coweta counties.
Among the many that are already educated on this issue are Fayette County Commissioner Allen McCarty and Coweta County Commissioner Bob Blackburn. Both these men, as do many of you, have increasing questions about our mandated use of fluoride in drinking water by the Georgia General Assembly.
As for the lawsuits that will cascade, it is unfortunate that citizens have to rely on attorneys to stand up for their protection, something that in this case, and many others, the federal and state governments (including Georgia) are woefully unwilling to do.
Fluoride compounds are in more drinks, food and medications than you would likely imagine. Parents and grandparents, if you are interested check the partial list of these at Parents of Fluoride-poisoned Children (http://poisonfluoride.com/pfpc/).
It is the ongoing work of people like public health professional Daniel Stockin at the Lillie Center in Ellijay and endless others that will not end until water fluoridation has ended and the healing has begun.
At its root Fluoridegate involves the complicity of the federal government and its agencies in promoting the use of fluoride so that specific industries might benefit at the cost of their employees and consumers. Fluoride’s real and suspected links to various types of cancers and kidney, thyroid, brain and skeletal problems has long been noted. Those portions of the Fluoridegate tale will unfold along the way. Fluoridegate is not conspiracy, it’s just business.
A portion of this unfolding can be seen in another way. The term Fluoridegate was introduced in this column in early 2011. At that time a Google search turned up one hit – the one in that column. Today, the same search shows several thousand hits.
There is something else related to, but not limited to, the dangers of some of the endless fluoride compounds we eat, drink, breathe and bathe in. It is us and the way we think about the toxins in our lives.
When it comes to organic toxins like viruses and bacteria, we see citizens, the media and the government come out with guns blazing, demanding and receiving action.
But when it comes to toxins that are inorganic, everybody is silent and nobody cares, except the affected citizens for whom there is no place to turn for help, unless they hire a lawyer. We are told not to care about inorganics and we dutifully follow our orders, believing exactly what we are told to believe, and without question.
That’s because inorganic toxins, with a few exceptions like mercury and lead (for which the “science” that said these inorganic chemicals were fine was eventually defeated) and radiation, are used heavily in some manufacturing processes and are, not surprisingly, overlooked.
We have to look no further than nature for many organic toxins but to look at inorganic toxins we have to look at ourselves, our employers, our investment portfolios and especially our federal government, whose conscience long ago was “seared as with a hot iron.”
As for fluoride, its days as an additive in drinking water are numbered. Remember where you heard it.

As Americans, we have been taught from birth to love and respect our country. This is good. In America, many people have long-believed that the federal government was one their side. That view has eroded somewhat in previous decades and even more lately. What continues to amaze me is that so many citizens, while appropriately castigating a President and Congress, don’t seem to think the federal government itself (and in particular the agencies that formulate,  implement and enforce policy after Congress passes laws and the President signs them) plays any role in their discontent.

Also in America, as elsewhere, we tend to put out of our minds the things we believe we cannot change, the things over which we believe or are told we have no control. And like obedient little children we dutifully shrug our shoulders and go on to the next order of business as we live out our days. If all you know and believe about matters directly affecting your life and that of your family is contained in what the government agencies, corporate spokespersons, politicians, establishment academics and the mass media tell you, then you know precious little.

An issue facing us all is the longtime problem with the two sides of the coin called healthcare. On one side is the provision of healthcare bolstered by doctors, hospitals, insurance plans (public or private), pharma/chemical companies and medical device manufacturers. On the other side there is a question that few ask:  while proficient at treating (not curing) disease, why are we seeing a rise in so many diseases and medical conditions that now contribute to, for example, more than 25 percent of the children in this country being prescribed medications on a regular basis (Wall Street Journal 12/28/10)?

There are many reasons why a number of diseases and conditions continue to increase and many of them deal with the more than 80,000 industrial chemicals we drink, eat, breathe and absorb into our bodies every day (Presidents Cancer Panel report – April 2010). We wouldn’t need as much healthcare if we could keep the poisons out of our bodies.

For example, let’s pick an obvious and wide-ranging set of diseases: cancer. Beyond the complicity of the chemical/pharmaceutical industry and its Congressional and federal regulatory minions, I believe the reality is that cancer is too big to fail.

Yet we’ve raised money for years for the American Cancer Society, for example, to help fund “research” for the “war against cancer” through local Relay for Life efforts;  all for an organization that uses less than 10 percent (that’s right) of the money it raises for cancer research (Dr. Devra Davis, 2007, xv).

And in April 2010 when the President’s Cancer Panel essentially blasted the chemical industry for its links to numerous cancers via many of its industrial chemicals that we’re exposed to, guess who came out bad-mouthing the 150-page, heavily documented study. That’s right, the American Cancer Society that uses less than 10 percent of its money for cancer research (Dr. Devra Davis, 2007, xv).

Yet there is one chemical element that is exceedingly toxic that also ends up in hundreds of other compounds. That element is fluorine, and it has a special significance. And while it has been the darling of industry since the 1940s and is a killer whose nature has been denied by industry and government for six decades, it is also added to your drinking water. The reason is no mystery. This is the foundation of Fluoridegate.

Fluoride has been added to drinking water of increasing water systems in America since the late 1940s. And though the Center for Disease Control and the American Dental Association have long supported its use there are a growing number of scientists, physicians, dentists and attorneys who are speaking out against the practice due to the insidious nature of the fluorine atom and its remarkably devastating effect on so many organic and inorganic compounds, including those found in our bodies.

Fluoride in water is the very important tip of a huge iceberg, but one that should be addressed first because everyone has to drink water since it is essential to life itself.

There is much to be said about water fluoridation and the endless fluorine compounds present in the foods and drinks we consume and the medicines we take. And the number of scientific studies performed worldwide on fluorine is exhaustive. They are divided into two camps: those singing its praises and those concerned about its consequences.  To begin this abbreviated journey let’s start with a trip to the doctor.

Let’s say you have come down with some kind of illness. You visit your doctor, she confirms the illness and prescribes a medication. Already aware of the synergistic effects with any other drugs you make be taking, she hands you the script and you’re on your way to the pharmacist. Once there, you’re handed your meds along with a detailed print-out of information that you are responsible for reading so that you give “informed consent” by which you have been informed of the benefits and risks that may be associated with the medication and you consent to the treatment.

But what if your doctor tells you the medicine she wants to prescribe has never been through any random clinic trials, no double-blind studies and that neither she, nor the pharmacist, can provide you with information by which you can agree to informed consent . Would she prescribe it or would you take it. For most people the answer is ‘no.”

As a matter of disclosure, the American Dental Assocation and the CDC have, and continue to be, the main proponents of water fluoridation (to date 70 percent of the U.S. population is fluoridated, as is 98.5 percent of Georgia, according to CDC). And CDC has called water fluoridation one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century. Yet for some unknown reason CDC will not provide me with the names and job titles of its managers responsible for informing the public on matters pertaining to water fluoridation. You would think they would be proud of their claim.

The fluoride used in U.S. drinking water is often either sodium fluorosilicate or hydrofluorosilicic acid that come directly from the phosphate fertilizer industry (as a toxic waste byproduct) to your tap.

I think the reality is that CDC (along with growing number of government agencies, professional organizations and corporations) knows the days are numbered for dumping a neurotoxin in our drinking water (Mullenix in Neurotoxicology and Teratology, 1995, Murphy, 2008 and another 80 animal and biochemical studies cited in Connett, Beck and Micklem, 2010).

The following, from about a decade ago, is from the Union of Scientists at the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C.

This group of 1,500 scientists, engineers and lawyers came out in opposition to water fluoridation after they refused to parrot EPA’s official position brought on by “external political pressure” that EPA was “unable or unwilling to resist.” The scientists decided not to keep the issue “within the family.” Here’s what they said after several years of opposing EPA’s position (http://www.nteu280.org/Issues/Fluoride/NTEU280-Fluoride.htm). I hope you read this carefully:

“Since then our opposition to drinking water fluoridation has grown, based on the scientific literature documenting the increasingly out-of-control exposure to fluoride, the lack of benefit to dental health from ingestion of fluoride and the hazards to human health from such ingestion. These hazards include acute toxic hazard, such as to people with impaired kidney function, as well as chronic (low doses of fluoride ingested over a period of years, like with drinking water) toxic hazards of gene mutations, cancer, reproductive effects, neurotoxicity, bone pathology and dental fluorosis.”

“The implication for the general public of these calculations is clear,” the scientists concluded. “Recent, peer-reviewed toxicity data, when applied to EPA’s standard method of controlling risks from toxic chemicals, require an immediate halt to the use of the nation’s drinking water reservoirs as disposal sites for the toxic waste of the phosphate fertilizer industry.”

Bottom line, you have been lied to for 60 years about a product said to be safe yet is insidious in its ability to cripple, maim and kill. Fluoridegate in years to come will be known not only for the cover-up that continued for decades, but for the disease, suffering and death that could have been prevented.

The handwriting is on the wall. The unwillingness of government, corporations and elected officials to stand with and for the people is legion. Juxtaposed to that unwillingness are 215 million plaintiffs (70 percent of the U.S. population) and counting.

“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country.  We are governed, our minds molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. ” – Edward Bernays, the “father of public relations” (the opening words in Propaganda, 1928)

If there’s no problem with fluoride then why is the warning label on you tube of toothpaste? Unless you use fluoride-free toothpaste you are supposed to call your doctor or poison control if you, or your child, swallows more than a pea-sized amount. The reason: fluoride is a poison.

The accepted level of daily fluoride intake was set by federal government agencies nearly a half-century ago at .7-1.2 parts per million (that’s about a milligram in 33 ounces of water). Meantime, the Maximum Contaminant Level is four parts per million (per EPA in April 2010). That means if you drink four liters of water or drinks made with fluoridated water (not to mention the many foods, medicines and consumer products containing it – like Teflon) you will have reached the MCL.

And let me get this straight. Whether the daily dosage or the MCL, the dosage is the same for a 50-pound little girl and a 250-pound man? That’s right, according to our “leaders” at the CDC, EPA and the American Dental Association.

And just last Friday (in early January 2011), many of you know that, for the first time in nearly a half-century, an agency of the federal government (EPA) recommended reducing the daily dosage of fluoride to the pre-established minimum of .7 ppm/day. It only took about 50 years.

Below are just a few of the problems with the fluoride compounds in drinking water and the fluorine in general.

-The U.S. is one of only 30 countries in the world that use any fluoridation and only one of eight where more than 50 percent of the population is fluoridated (Connett, et al, 2010). And while CDC and ADA say fluoridation has reduced the rate of tooth decay, the research says different, indicating that tooth decay is decreasing over time in fluoridated and non-fluoridated countries and with the most dramatic decreases coming in countries that do not fluoridate (Nature 322:125-129; World Health Organization, 2004 at http://www.fluoridealert.org/health/teeth/caries/who-dmft.html; Clinical Oral Investigations 11(3):189-93, etc.)

-Fluorine is highly toxic and it’s the most reactive element found in nature. As such it chemically binds with endless other elements to form new compounds that have delighted industry and consumers for decades (like Scotchguard and Stainmaster).

-The fluoride compound added to your water is a drug, according to the FDA (http://www.fluoridealert.org/re/fda.letter.to.calvert.dec.2000.pdf). This drug, which has never been subjected to clinical trials, is one for which you cannot give informed consent. Yet for decades the “leading authorities” have supported and promoted fluoridation in defiance of medical ethics.

-Due to its chemical nature, about 50 percent of the fluoride that enters your body stays there (bioaccumulates) and builds up in bone, bone marrow, the thyroid gland, the pineal gland in your brain and likely in other organs and brain centers (Murphy, 2008).

“Recent information on the role of the pineal gland in humans suggests that any agent that affects pineal function could affect human health in a variety of ways, including effects on sexual maturation, calcium metabolism, parathyroid function, post menopausal osteoporosis, cancer and psychiatric disease (National Research Council, 2006).

-There are concerns that fluoride is linked to some cancers, including bone cancer in young males (Bassin, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, 2001).

-The CDC in 1999 acknowledged that fluoride’s predominant mechanism of action is “topical,” not “systemic.” Hence, it may work on the surface of teeth but not from inside the body (Mortality and Morbidity Weekly Review 48, no. 41, Oct. 22, 1999). Yet, for some unacknowledged reason CDC and ADA continue to support adding fluoride to our waters supplies, even though such a route bypasses our teeth (topically) and goes straight into our bodies (systemically) where it can be absorbed into our bones, thyroid gland, brain and other areas.

-And perhaps as potentially devastating as any of the above are the studies show indicate a link to lowered IQ (brain damage) in children. There have been a number of studies in this area. One of the most recent “indicated that fluoride in drinking water was highly correlated with serum fluoride, and higher fluoride exposure may affect intelligence among children.” (Environmental Health Perspectives, Dec. 2010 and Zhang, et al, 2010)

Here are a few heavily documented resources for those who are interested in the fluoride topic: The Case Against Fluoride (2010-comprehensive and easy to read), The Fluoride Deception (2004-documents the government/industrial interests in fluoridation), The Devil’s Poison (2006-written by an Illinois orthodontist and, though heavy into biochemistry, it’s easily the most disturbing book I’ve ever read). Other resources include the exhaustive website Fluoride Action Network (www.fluoridealert.org), Daniel Stockin’s website http://spotsonmyteeth.com/ and the Parents of Fluoride Poisoned Children at http://www.poisonfluoride.com/pfpc/ that includes symptoms of fluoride poisoning, contents of fluoride in foods and medications.

Three huge questions, for which space does not permit adequate answers, are why was fluoride introduced, who benefitted and why do powerful groups like CDC and ADA continue to support it. The answer to all three is one word: the benefits to industry and profits, not to workers and citizens.

“Up until about 1940, fluorine’s effect on life was always deemed poisonous. It was determined to be altering enzymes used by a living organism to carry out a multitude of tasks. Around World War II, sporadic then increasingly more common articles were appearing that fluorine ‘might’ be good for teeth and even bones. The change in direction is profound and a researcher cannot miss the abrupt about-face.” (Murphy, p.8)

Decades ago, fluorine was a toxic byproduct of the aluminum industry (with lawsuits piling up beginning in the 1930s), then it was used to enrich uranium in the nuclear industry and now it’s a waste byproduct of the phosphate fertilizer industry. And from there is goes straight to public drinking water.

Bryson in The Fluoride Deception (p. 148) notes the work of the Paley Commission, set up by President Truman in 1950 (William Paley was head of CBS television.) Fluoride had been declared a strategic and critical material. The commission called fluoride “an essential component of enormously vital industries. Without this little known mineral … little or no aluminum could be produced; steel production would be reduced substantially; the output and quality of important chemical products such as refrigerants, propellants for insecticides and plastics would be significantly reduced.” Essentially, “We the People,” citizens and employees, were expendable.

And finally, there was (Forsyth Dental Center-Harvard University) toxicologist Phyllis Mullenix, the developer of the Computer Pattern Recognition System. She was the scientific sweetheart of giants like 3M, Exxon, Colgate-Palmolive, DuPont, NutraSweet and Procter & Gamble until she discovered the truth about fluorine’s effects on the  central nervous system, including cognitive problems leading to confusion and (does this ring a bell) indifference.

“I thought how odd,” Mullenix said of her presentation at the National Institutes of Health, one of her last acts before being dropped by academia and industry. “It’s 1990 and they’re talking about the miracle of fluoride, and now I’m going to tell them that their fluoride is causing neurotoxicity that’s worse than that induced by some cases of amphetamines or radiation.”

The “weight of evidence” principle that has long been used to condone the use of fluoride turned on its head many years ago. But it was federal agencies and professional organizations that would not budge. As a result lives were crippled, lives were lost. And average citizens across this land had no way to stand against those powers. But perhaps this time will be different.

The agencies supporting fluoridation were able to pull it off in the late 1940s and 1950s when we were busy with new jobs and making babies after the World War II. They were able to pull it off in the 1960s and 1970s when we were busy with the “cultural revolution,” Vietnam and aspiring to join that country club. They pulled it off in the 1980s and 1990s and since 2000 when we were busy making money, being “environmental,” buying more golf clubs, watching our favorite sitcom and “fighting terrorism.”

But all during those decades there were scientists researching the issues on fluoride, amassing what has now become a “weight of evidence” that has overwhelmed the myth of the safety and efficacy of fluoride. And it is that weight of evidence that the supporters of
fluoride know is out there. Some of the longtime supporters have already
started backing off. Others will likely soon follow, albeit incrementally.

And as for “We the People” or least some of us, if all you can do is parrot the diminishing number of government, academic and corporate supports of fluoridation then you have a lot less to bank on than you think.

Bottom line, your federal government has failed you miserably and knowingly for generations on this side of the healthcare issue. I think we’re so dumbed-down that we’re content to keep taking chemo and other meds for our ills without ever asking about the causes of those ills.

That said, the tide has turned on fluoride and what is soon coming will be the beginning of a series of events that will likely make the deleterious health issues involving tobacco, lead and asbestos combined pale in comparison. What is coming is Fluoridegate. If you’ve done the research you won’t be surprised. If you haven’t, you may laugh or you may mock, but just make sure you remember where you heard it.

Those of you familiar with this column are no stranger to what I believe is the sometimes criminal misuse and abuse of the Constitution and its rights by Congress and the President (the Ruling Elite) in administrations than span decades.

Continuing on that seemingly unalterable path and now early in 2010, it is apparent that candidate Obama’s multiple lofty claims while running for President, that “transparency” would be the order of the day for “We the People” during the healthcare overhaul, was nothing but a lie. Even C-Span had to call him, and Congress, on it. But then again, maybe his handlers can convince him and the Dems to play straight with the American people, at least on this issue.

As President, Obama, like Bush and many others, has joined the elite fraternity of chief executives who can’t seem to keep various promises. But why should they? And why should Congress?

They are our Ruling Elite because “We the People” allow them to assume that posture generation after generation. They continue to violate the Constitution with impunity while the people grumble but do nothing. When it comes to standing up for our rights, many Americans act like wimpy adults who more closely resemble whiny little children.

Is it our destiny as a nation that federal oppression continues its march into every facet of our lives? Consider the following words that some of the Ruling Elite today may find antiquated and irrelevant.

“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” So says the 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in February 1795.

It is nothing less than criminal that the U.S. Congress today, and for generations, has avoided, violated and essentially nullified this portion of our most precious national treasure.

Yet it may be the 10th Amendment that holds out the greatest hope for rescuing our nation from the central planners who, regardless of their words to the contrary, continue to abrogate the liberties contained in the first 10 amendments.

Consider the final words of the Star Spangled Banner “… o’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.” America does have many brave citizens, but it is being depleted of free citizens. And as the erosion of our freedoms continues, I sometimes wonder how long it will take, if ever, for Americans to be sufficiently fed up to force a change that Washington will be unable or unwilling to combat.

So the incremental slaughter of the Constitution continues and it seems to me that the people and the states always suffer. Yet there are a growing number of anti-party establishment, anti-federal government-control and pro-states’ rights movements afoot in the U.S. that seem to be forging a real foothold in state and national politics. I for one hope they continue.

Some states’ attorneys general are exploring the idea of taking on the Ruling Elite on healthcare. A few other states are looking at one or more forms of sovereignty legislation.

Good. I wondered the other day what other things the states could do to stand up for their citizens since the central government and its Ruling Elite will not. Maybe it’s time to have the Gadsden Flag flown from every statehouse in the land.

Off the top of my head I wondered if it would be legal and possible for like-minded states that really intend to stand for citizens and sovereignty to act collectively to benefit each other while, simultaneously, not violating the Constitution.

Could those states form some type of economic or other confederation (no wait, confederation sounds too much like what led to our first Constitution) that would include provisions or incentives to help each other on top of anything already available federally?

It sounds kind of silly, but what about something like a real or symbolic “Most Favored State” status like the one the U.S. uses with international trade?

Or maybe this coalition of states, something like a 10th Amendment Coalition, could find other means to come together out of a like mind on issues with a broader scope, issues like sovereignty, excessive federal taxation and past, present and future federal constitutional violations relating to the 1st, 2nd, 4th and, of course, 10th amendments. Such a coalition may not work or it might not be legal, but at least it’s a thought.

One thing is for sure, at least in my opinion. Generally speaking, I believe the Ruling Elite is unwilling to properly advocate and legislate for the American people. This is due to the self-serving nature of the two parties and their allegiance to and complicity with the large financial and industrial corporations for which they have prostituted themselves, at our expense, since long before President Eisenhower’s stern warning to us in January 1961.

These corporate entities, treated under law as living human beings, hold rights that far supersede those of actual humans. The actual humans, you and I, live under a form of economic servitude that has been building for several generations. More than ever, federal debt has crippled the economic future of your grandchildren. And there is more to come.

I believe it is long past time for our servitude to the criminal Ruling Elite to end. And, as I said last year, I believe many are guilty of economic treason and I’m still wondering if history will record the U.S. Slave Rebellion of 2010.

Throughout its time in the history of civilization, America’s willingness to help other nations has been legendary. That willingness was born through the blessing of its abundance and, far beyond that, through its spirit of giving that is rooted in the Judeo-Christian belief that we are our brother’s keeper. I pray that we will rise to that high level again, this time to save ourselves.

The time has long passed for the states to rise together to throw off the shackles of an oppressive federal government. The states did band together once, a long time ago, and successfully threw off the shackles imposed on them by the British Crown. Now in the 21 century, it is time for the states to throw off the shackles that bind us today and form a 10th Amendment Coalition of states that will stand their ground and not back down.

The preparations for flu season are here. Some local schools, with parental sign-offs, are set to begin administering FluMist. The first shipments of vaccine for the “novel H1N1 flu” are coming in for higher risk people, with more on the way for much of the remainder of the population.

All of this has been covered by every news organization in the U.S., including this newspaper. Yet in the minds of many there is more to the story.

So you won’t be confused, the “novel H1N1 flu” is not swine flu. It is a combination of swine, avian and human influenza.

An Oct. 2 Harvard School of Public Health study showed that 60 percent of adults surveyed said they would take the vaccine and 75 percent said they would have their children vaccinated.

Yet a Consumer Reports Health Ratings Center study a week earlier showed nearly the opposite, with 66 percent of those surveyed saying they would not take the vaccine and only 35 percent planning to have their children vaccinated.

Wonder where this apparent contradiction comes from? Harvard is the long-time recipient of loads of dollars from the government/medical/pharmaceutical interlock while Consumer Reports takes no advertising dollars, relying instead on its readers for survey results. I think that answers my question.

Meantime, Dutchess County, N.Y., nurse Suzanne Field last week filed a lawsuit on behalf of nearly 60,000 medical workers covered by an emergency rule put in place in the wake of this year’s H1N1 scare. New York became the first state to require most doctors, nurses and health care aides to get a vaccine for both the seasonal flu and the new H1N1 flu if they want to stay on the job.

Live viruses from vaccines can shed and potentially spread into the community from recipient children for up to 21 days, according to a double-blind study presented at the 41st Annual Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy in 2001. And the same shedding/spreading is true for adults, according to The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2003, 22(3):273-274.

Both of these findings call into question close contact of FluMist recipients, and presumably those receiving any live-virus vaccine, with those who are immunocompromised, such as the 8.5 million with cancer (National Cancer Institute, http://srab. cancer.gov/Prevalence/canques.html), the 184,000 organ transplant recipients (United Network for Organ Sharing) and as many as 10 percent of the population with eczema (Atopic Dermatitis: The Epidemiology, Causes and Prevention of Atopic Eczema. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press; 2000:96-112).

As for the H1N1 vaccine, the first 3.4 million doses contain a live version of the novel H1N1 virus causing the pandemic. By the end of the year, CDC anticipates receiving a total of 195 million doses of novel H1N1 vaccine, most of which will contain an inactivated version of the virus, according to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

As an aside, the pharma companies manufacturing the vaccine include the likes of Sanofi-Aventis SA, Baxter International, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, AVIR Green Hills Biotechnology, etc. These companies will be in heaven, making billions even if we don’t need their vaccine.

All this brings up another point. Respected medical researcher Len Horowitz along with Austrian journalist Jane Burgermeister (you won’t find any reference to these folks in the major U.S. media) have recently filed lengthy affidavits claiming a conscious effort by the U.N., World Health Organization, some international bankers, the U.S. government and some big pharma companies to intentionally corrupt the novel H1N1 vaccine with components that would have killed untold millions of people worldwide.

As outrageous as this sounds, the claims by Burgermeister and Horowitz came after it was verified earlier this year that a shipment of 72 kilograms (158.4 pounds) of vaccine component material sent by a Baxter lab in Austria to a lab in the Czech Republic for inclusion in the H1N1 vaccine contained live H5N1 avian flu virus (H5N1 has a current death rate of 63.5 percent, as opposed to the less than one-half of one percent rate from H1N1).

Fortunately the “mistake” was caught by a Czech lab technician. This potentially catastrophic “mistake” was covered extensively by the European media, but not here. Fox and CNN were virtually silent. Naturally.

So, Baxter potentially contaminates the vaccine, WHO a couple of months later turns around and gives the company manufacturing rights, then issues a Level 6 pandemic that triggers law-enforceable protocols with nearly every nation on the planet (including the U.S.).

In Georgia, according to the implementation of our version of the Model States Emergency Health Powers Act (S.B.385 signed into law in May 2002), you won’t be able to object to the vaccine, even on religious grounds, if the governor declares a pandemic and if local public health officials follow the law. And you can be forcibly quarantined. See Section 290-5-62-0.19-.04(a) of the state procedures and powers athttp://health.state.ga.us/programs/emerprep/index.asp

I suggest that you don’t take anything you’ve read here as gospel. The information you’ve just read only took about four hours to find and cross-reference. There’s tons more out there. If this topic is of interest to you or your family then do your own research. Research works.

Societies change over time, so what’s the big deal about America and any changes it may be experiencing today? Following the culturally-accepted mantra of political polarization, for liberals much of the changes are good, for conservatives much is bad. Many on the right cry, “Socialism/communism is at our door.” Many on the left say, “What’s wrong with government taking responsibility and control?”

America has been changing since the Revolution. Then as now, partisan political turf wars, and sometimes actual wars, have been fueled and guided by the “interests” Lincoln called the “money power” and Franklin Roosevelt called “the financial element in the larger centers (that) has owned this government since the days of Andrew Jackson.”

But since many Americans know relatively little about their own history few people are aware of such comments by these and other Presidents. If you have any doubt that the designs of money, control or power have shaped the history of every civilization on this planet then perhaps your appreciation of world history should be re-evaluated.

In the U.S. today it’s pretty clear that the cultural philosophy of the Neo-Progressive agenda, lying only partly dormant for over a century, has the upper hand and is attempting to continue to implement its worldview of government control in U.S. society (though not without the blessing of corporate nation-states that direct agendas and outlive administrations).

Some welcome this transition, others are horrified. As for me, I wondered nearly a decade ago why those who voted for the Congress/Bush Ruling Elite didn’t seem to recognize the march toward greater authoritarian control over our lives. Today, the Congress/Obama Ruling Elite has simply upped the ante on the takeover of America, albeit more dramatically.

Today some think we’re turning socialist, with advocates on both sides. Some say we’re turning communist or fascist. Some say corporatist with its strong state interventionist tendencies. Others, like Ian Bremmer (Foreign Affairs, May/June 2009), say we’re in the fourth wave of “state capitalism,” with its sovereign wealth funds in tow.

For Bremmer, the difference now is that for the first time this form of control is coming not from emerging-market nations, but from the U.S. and elsewhere, and with Washington now making decisions for America that have long-term market impact on a scale not seem since the 1930s. That’s real progress.

And what about where we’ve been for the past half century or so? We’re told free markets operated and capitalism was in full swing. World War II ended the Great Depression and America prospered.

Yet along with that prosperity came a decades-long multitude of Congressionally-instigated “reforms” and other measures that, for example, paved the way for companies that make products that harm us to be more insulated from accountability and litigation; that led to a runaway housing market and a healthcare/insurance system that should have been brought in line without having to make things even worse by government directly controlling it; and, to cite another example, that failed on the issue of fossil fuels that could have been dealt with but weren’t.

Do you not remember the U.S. car companies fighting the government on nearly every occasion for the past 30 years when told to build more fuel-efficient vehicles? And do you remember Ford’s exploding gas tanks in the 1970s that, as was eventually proved, could have been corrected, and would have saved lives, for less than $20 per car?

For Ford’s part the issue was simple. It was a corporate business decision not to correct the problem. Some at the time said the executives at Ford conspired to cover up the problem for the sake of profit. I say that not all business is conspiracy, but all conspiracy is business because someone always profits. Whether criminal, civil or regulatory, someone always profits.

Some citizens in every community I’ve covered are quick to point out examples of local business people working with others in the system behind the scenes (aka conspiratorial behavior) to benefit themselves. And sometimes the citizens are correct.

Yet they often fail to believe that the execution of such business strategies can also occur on a state, national or international level where infinitely more money, power and control is at stake.

America is a great place, but righting corporate and government wrongs and keeping government in check is simply not something we seem to cherish. We are born and bred to keep our mouths shut and believe what our national leaders tell us.

The goodness of the American spirit so embodied in its people has been a beacon of hope for much of the world. Yet it is the continued expansion of the megalithic systems imbedded in the corporatist/government worldview, one that sees power and control as indispensable and people as expendable, that minimizes and marginalizes the American people.

It is of this reality that Dwight Eisenhower so sternly warned in his Farewell Address on Jan. 17, 1960. And in the post World War II expansion “We the people” were too busy to listen. And as for the corporate/government interlock, they had no desire or impetus to change their ways.

The situation today in America is pressing and volatile. Republican or Democrat, many view government as the cause of the problem. But in our complacency that gave corporate/government a free ride, “We the people” have sown the wind.

As I’ve said before on these pages, if the mindset of the American people today had been present in 1776 there would likely have been no American Revolution.

But is it possible that the time has come for a New Revolution, one of brains not bullets, one that is needed to shed the chains of social and economic servitude that are the hallmarks of control?

Governments erode as they exert control that sooner or later diminishes human rights.

I think that, unless it is altered, our future will see past governmental/societal models morph into something relatively new and better suited for today’s more technologically-proficient systems of mass control.

And unless Americans and others stand up for themselves we will see what Establishment historian and Bill Clinton-mentor Carroll Quigley called a neofeudalist society in his mind-blowing tome, “Tragedy and Hope” (I dare you to read this book).

And at the end of the day most of the very large multinational financials and others will continue increasingly to control the laws of nations, including that of the U.S.

As this occurs our standard of living will continue to decrease, government control over our lives will continue to increase, the rights granted in the now-suspect Constitution will wither and we will, in effect, become wards of the state. This process began long ago.

But how could any of this stuff happen? After all, we’re Americans in control of our own destiny. We love our families and we just want to live our lives and find shelter in the home we worked so hard to own. But most of you who own your home don’t “own your home.”

Seventy percent of you (Census 2000) are actually renting it from a bank or mortgage company. And if you do “own” it, just fail to pay your property taxes and see how long that ownership lasts.

Over the generations we became a nation of people who, with the best of intentions, bought in to living our lives bound by the invisible chains of economic slavery. In America, debt became a way of life. And we had help getting there.

A foreshadowing of the debt future and the changes coming our way can be seen in the federal entitlements that we cherish.

These unfunded liabilities currently sit at about $59 trillion and include Medicare/Medicaid at about $40 trillion and Social Security at $10.7 trillion. Rest assured, we will pay the piper, and we will adjust our lives accordingly regardless of which of the two parties is in control.

It is beyond question that whoever controls debt controls the person (or the nation). Today, we continue to hear from our politicians and national media disinformation sources that China owns much of America’s debt (via Treasury securities) and that, if called in, it could cripple us.

The U.S. debt today is approximately $11.7 trillion. Way back on March 25 it was about $11 trillion. A CNBC slideshow (www.cnbc.com/id/29880401?slide=1) at the time entitled “The Biggest Holders of U.S. Government Debt” cited sources including U.S. Treasury, Federal Reserve and U.S. Office of Debt Management and told a substantially different tale than the information we’re customarily fed by the national media about the ownership of our debt. The CNBC report listed the top 15 holders that owned $9.4 trillion, or 85 percent, of U.S. debt.

Luxembourg was #15, owning $87.2 billion of U.S. debt. Others included #13 Russia at $119.6 billion, #12 Britain at $124.2 billion, #9 Caribbean banks at $176.6 billion and #8 various OPEC oil exporters at $186.3 billion.

The larger holders of our debt were #6 Pension Funds at $456.4 billion, #5 state and local governments at $522.7 billion, #4 Japan at $634.8 billion, #3 China at $739.6 billion and #2 Mutual Funds (can you say 401k) at $769.1 billion.

And standing heads and tales above the rest at $4.8 trillion (or 44 percent of the total for the top 15) is the Federal Reserve System and intragovernmental holdings.

The Fed, by far the largest owner of American debt, was authorized by Congress on Dec. 23, 1913, but it was not and is not a part of the federal government. The Fed does receive superficial permission to print its own money, the Federal Reserve Note, from the very Congressional leaders who benefit from its existence since it provides the means to run up more and more debt.

I hate to burst the bubble of you who rely on the national media and the few corporate textbook publishers still in existence for your explanation of reality, but the Fed is owned by banking corporations and is essentially a Congressionally-authorized cartel of banking interests.

Those of you that may be interested in the Fed and its precursors and the prolific use of fractional reserve banking (ask your own banker how many pennies out of each of your dollars s/he holds in reserve) as a debt-building and nation-crippling financial instrument might consider reading Edward Griffin’s heavily documented book, “The Creature from Jekyll Island.”

It was President James Garfield who said that, “He who controls the money supply of a nation controls the nation.” As the premier central bank of the world, with the notable exception of the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, the Fed absolutely controls the money supply and the credit of this nation and it owns nearly half of our debt.

Don’t be misled in believing that, sooner or later, that debt will not be called in. That call will come and fiscal regulations will change (Congress will not bite the hand that feeds it) regardless who holds control of Congress and the White House and regardless whether the government/social system is labeled corporatist, fascist, capitalist or state capitalist.

The label is not important. It is the control that is important. One way or the other, the central banks that control the global economy outlive the leadership of nations and they never lose unless it fits their aim to morph into something else.

Functionally an oligarchy, the Congressional/Presidential Ruling Elite are no more than puppets. They will dance, but it is the “substantive powers in world finance” (Quigley, pp. 53, 326, 954-956) that will call the tune.

Summing up the matter as well as anyone was Amschel Meyer Rothschild who in 1838 said, “Permit me to issue and control the money of a nation, I care not who makes its laws.”

You may laugh at his arrogance, but this man’s family (via limited partnerships) is now in its fourth century in the international banking business. I guess that should make him the expert.

Part of this convoluted mess is the fault of the corporate/government Ruling Elite and part rests at our doorstep. This is why the New Revolution, perhaps it should be called the Slave Rebellion, must begin in our hearts and in our conscience.

And until Americans make up their minds that this mess is no longer palatable, the current situation will only continue to worsen. In our complacency we have already sown the wind. It is best that we not reap the whirlwind.

The first case relates to a recent ruling by U.S. District Judge Anthony Alaimo on the 30-year policy administered by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, dutifully followed by similar state environmental agencies like EPD, departments of agriculture and the FDA, relating to the use of land applied sewerage sludge, euphemistically known as biosolids. The story centered what resulted from a federal lawsuit brought by former east Georgia dairy owners McElmurray and Boyce, who lost hundreds of cows over time after they ate grass fertilized with biosolids. Boyce told the Associated Press that he informed Georgia dairy regulators and EPA that tests on his milk showed high levels of thallium (once used in rat poison). Judge Alaimo also found that the Augusta wastewater treatment plant shipped hundreds of truckloads of biosolids daily containing dangerously high levels of chlordane, molybdenum, arsenic, PCBs and cadmium, the AP report said. But it gets worse.

“Senior EPA officials took extraordinary steps to squash scientific dissent and any questioning of EPA’s biosolids program,” Judge Alaimo said in a 45-page ruling, adding that data endorsed by EPA and agriculture agencies on the free sludge fertilizer provided by the city of Augusta was “unreliable, incomplete and, in some cases, fudged.”

So much for regulatory agencies, lap-dog scientific scrutiny and the public trust.

Now to the case of Hannah Poling, the nine year-old Athens girl whose parents won a victory with the federal vaccine-injury fund set up years ago to protect vaccine manufacturers from suits over problems with their products. Hannah’s parents contend that her dramatic, downward spiraling health problems from the life-threatening mitochondrial disorder that manifested after she received the standard childhood vaccines in 2000 were linked either to the mercury-laden preservative thimerosal in the vaccines or that the disorder was worsened by the effects of the thimerosal on her young body. Hannah has also been diagnosed with autism, a condition long-held by parents of children with that diagnosis as being somehow linked to thimerosal.

CDC emphasized that the settlement does not mean that vaccines cause autism, rather that the concession to the Polings’ indicates that vaccines may have worsened the mitochondrial disorder that resulted in autism-like symptoms. Does this answer the question?

“I wanted to know why my daughter, who had been completely normal until she received (the vaccines), in one day was no longer there, no longer responding,” Jon Poling said last week outside U.S. District Court in Atlanta.

The Polings’ are not the only parents who want answers. Mercury is a known toxin to the energy-producing mitochondria found in the cells of our bodies. An explosion of autism between 1989-2003 corresponded, many parents and some medical scientists say, with the inclusion of thimerosal in the high number of vaccines recommended by CDC and administered by physicians. “Up until about 1989 pre-school children got only 3 vaccines (polio, DPT, MMR). By 1999 the CDC recommended a total of 22 vaccines to be given before children reach the 1st grade, including Hepatitis B, which is given to newborns within the first 24 hours of birth. Many of these vaccines contained mercury. In the 1990s approximately 40 million children were injected with mercury-containing vaccines. The cumulative amount of mercury being given to children in this number of vaccines would be an amount 187 times the EPA daily exposure limit,” according to research published in the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons (March 2006).
Thanks CDC. Once again, the fox guards the hen house. So much for regulatory agencies, lap-dog scientific scrutiny and the public trust.
These cases and so many others in past decades are symptomatic of a Janus-faced deception by some in the state/federal, government/corporate regulatory industry. Yet their day in the Sun will not compare to the dawn of a new day if enough of us are willing to make the time to do a little research and act on what we learn. And it is long past time that those scientists and researchers not willing to compromise human life for the sake of profit-linked regulations should cease to be exposed to the ridicule they have long endured. Often branded as the purveyors of “junk science,” such has been the fate of those, like former EPA scientist Dr. David Lewis, who dare to speak out.

Think back. Do any of us remember the time when lead and mercury and DDT and PCBs were considered as innocuous to our health as mother’s milk? It is time to stop believing without questioning, the never-ending corporate/government mantra that says “trust us, all is well.” Is the safety of your children worth the risk? Your children deserve the truth.

Desperate people do desperate things. Their economy in ruins, so many of their lives shattered, the populace turned to the charismatic messiah that offered solutions to their misery. His economic solutions were accompanied by pre-planned social engineering policies, some of which came courtesy of the eugenics movement that was born in America, nurtured by the Progressive Movement (research this yourself if you don’t believe me) and shipped all over Europe, including Germany.

Essentially, as most of you know, the pre-World War II German people swapped relative independence for controlled dependence and the stage was set. Laws were changed, new policies implemented. The most visible of what followed is now history.

Other factors, operating behind the government/corporate scene, do not make into textbooks.

So such a quote like the one above from someone like Hitler would surprise few. And, of course, such words would never have been uttered by the leaders of the American society at any time during its 200+ year history. Our revered leaders, in whom “We the People” put so much trust could never, would never, regardless their party affiliation, think such things. Or did they?
Much more recently in the late 20th and early 21st centuries, America’s national elected leaders from both parties dream only of a highly educated and participative constituency that will scrutinize the actions of those responsible for forging the future of this Constitutional republic outfitted with a representative democracy. Or do they?
And what about us, the citizens of this land? After all, we so often find it easy to judge and condemn our government with impunity while divesting ourselves of the responsibility inherent to the very liberty we possess. It is easy for anyone to say what has become of our leaders. But what has become of us? So here’s a test. See if what you are about to read sounds anything like America today, some (not all) of its people, their attitudes and inclinations.
“A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations has been 200 years. Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, from spiritual truth to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.”
This process is most often attributed to Prof. Alexander Tytler (Lord Woodhouselee, 1747-1813), though it has also been attributed to a host of others such as Benjamin Disraeli, Arnold Toynbee and Lord Thomas Macaulay. The important point is not who said it, but that it was said.
Does any of this lengthy quote sound vaguely like what we see today, and have seen increasing incrementally in past decades in this country?
Some, but thankfully not all, among us expect government to manage and finance their lives, womb to tomb. Some companies, too. And for all the talk during the 2008 presidential campaign about Obama’s move further toward socialism, we only have to look at the Bush administration and the mysterious and morphing financial bail-out (please forgive me, I mean rescue) to see what by any other name could easily be called a socialist maneuver.
But in terms of a socialist future for America, why not go straight to the horse’s mouth. The words of Norman Thomas will do nicely.  Though many today do not know his name, Thomas was the U.S. Socialist Party candidate for president in every election from 1928-1948 and co-founder of the precursor of the ACLU. Certainly a card-carrying socialist, here is what their presidential candidate said about America’s future:
“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

The state of affairs in America today is not only the doing of the government/corporate hierarchy that, according to Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, Roosevelt, Eisenhower and others, promotes and sets all types of fiscal policy that serves its interests. The responsibility for the state of affairs in America today also lies squarely at the feet of its citizens. Dependency on the federal government spells doom.

And before that, President Ford created the Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency with Executive Order 11921. The power created out of thin air is staggering. Get the picture? Budgets in the countless billions. Direct control over our lives if or when a national emergency is declared by the same person that executes the order. Obama will have to work overtime to top some of these. But give him time. He’s not on the job for a few more weeks.
A complimentary change in military presence on American soil came in February when the U.S. Northern Command (USNORTHCOM) signed the Civil
Assistance Plan with its northern counterpart, Canada Command. The agreement gives each military the ability to operate on each other’s soil at the request of civilian authorities.
“This document is a unique, bilateral military plan to align our respective national military plans to respond quickly to the other nation’s requests for military support of civil authorities,” said U.S. Air Force Gen. Gene Renuart, commander of USNORTHCOM and North American Aerospace Command on the northcom.mil website.
This all sounds great, since we’re being told that local law enforcement and the National Guard might not have enough manpower/firepower to contain the bad guys or respond if they use one or more of the missing Soviet suitcase nuclear devices or some of the weaponized (aerosolized) biological agents processed, later buried and then abandoned in the early 90s by the Soviets at their Vozrozhdeniye facility on the north side of the Aral Sea. Some of those agents include anthrax combined with botulin toxin and/or tularemia. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
This begs another question. Some supposedly unpatriotic Americans, including me, have been complaining for years that the Bush administration, with many Republicans and nearly all Democrats in tow, have been negligent in maintaining security at our borders. They have. Here’s how.

Aside from all the politically correct BS about not wanting to hurt anyone’s feelings (I mean to ensure that Dems keep getting the Latino vote), consider this. Jane’s intelligence operatives (do a Google search for Jane’s if you don’t know who they are) since 9/11 have reported that individuals from Middle Eastern/Central Asian countries were mixing in with groups from the various Latin American countries and coming across our southern border. Gee, do you think they might have also slipped in a suitcase or a quantity of weaponized biologicals or was that just pot they were “muling” in?
Well, now that we’ve practically invited them in it’s only fitting that we put our military on American soil to combat their coming deeds and counteract all resulting panic that will result. By the way, on Dec. 1 the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism predicted a likely attack by 2013.
Thesis, antithesis, synthesis. Help create the problem, then change the tenure of the regulatory landscape to impose even further usurpations of our freedom. Elected leaders whose actions put us at risk are complicit in the potential for our destruction. All in the name of freedom. This witch’s brew is a recipe for disaster.

Later in 2006, the federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) released the findings of its Health Consultation, compiled in cooperation with Georgia Division of Public Health (DPH) and other agencies. The report was to be a comprehensive review of the impact to affected humans and domestic animals.

The study pointed to mercaptan as causing short-term adverse health effects and found no ill effects from ethoprop and no likely long-term effects from either. The report found no link for domestic animals and wildlife.

The Citizen Newspaper (Fayetteville) submitted a Georgia Open Records request for all documentation and data pertinent to the Health Consultation and received 250 pages of information. I wanted to see what their conclusions were based on.

There was only an indication of a follow-up call to one resident on medical-related issues. The study said there were seven people contacted but those references were missing in the information we received. Regardless, does anyone besides me think it’s questionable that only seven of 622 people were contacted as part of a comprehensive study?

The Open Records information included no reports and assessments of the medical records of the many residents who visited their doctors. There was no discussion or determination about why so many people were breathing the same “onion odor” and manifesting the same symptoms weeks before PSC said the wash water first entered the plant.

Where was the assessment of wildlife biologists who should have commented on community reports on the absence of bird, bee and butterfly activity at the same time people were sick?

Where was the Syndromic Surveillance System that was partly in place for domestic animals but not for humans? It’s intriguing that information supplied in the Open Records request had much mention of a Perdue University study clearly found statistically significant animal illnesses around the PSC plant during the time in question. That information did not make it into the Health Consultation. So much for being thorough!

If none of this makes sense, please understand that the health and environmental laws you believe are written to protect you do not. Here’s why. Sixty years ago, in 1947, before there was an EPA or Georgia Environmental Protection Division (EPD), Congress passed the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA).

Representatives of the chemical industry helped write the law, as they did when it was amended in the 1970s. The burden of proof written into the law requires that the public (or the government) must prove that a chemical is not safe rather than the chemical industry proving that it is safe.

In the end, state and federal governments rely on the chemical industry to be the gatekeeper. The power of the chemical industry, with lawmakers in tow, means agencies such as Georgia EPD issue permits, they do not conduct enforcement. Agencies such as DPH, EPA, ATSDR and CDC depend on chemical industry scientists to provide risk assessment. And in lock-step, government acts like it believes what it’s told. Only on rare occasions does this process backfire. Not that many years ago, for example, you would have been called an un-American conspiracy nut if you had argued that lead and mercury were harmful. Today, prohibitions on those chemicals exist.

Coursing through your veins as you read this column is a cocktail of chemicals, the synergistic effect of which is currently unknown to medical science. During a lifetime in the United States we are exposed to many of the approximately 80,000 chemicals in use today. Most of these chemicals are tested by manufacturers only after questions arise. That’s the law. Most of us have DDT and Teflon in our blood, for example.

The bottom line is that chemical industrial wealth trumps the enactment of sufficient laws through lobbying and campaign contributions, trumps government accountability through ineffective regulation and trumps the citizens by overpowering the very systems and safeguards that we naively believe are there to protect us.

Following in their footsteps are trade organizations and some in academia who, funded by industry, reach the conclusions espoused by their corporate benefactors.

The real truth about the exposures in Fayette and Fulton by PSC was never really addressed. A class-action lawsuit covering 2,200 households well inside the 40 square mile “hot zone” was settled out of court for $4 million. (You do the math on the compensation). Once again, the federal laws adhered to by the states do not protect you and your family. They protect the corporate interests that manufacture and sell the products. Consequently, if injured, it is you who has to go try to find an attorney that will take the case.

Yet there is a much larger problem that eclipses anything in locally. It’s the impact of the ubiquitous presence of chemicals worldwide and the myriad health issues they cause.

On the other hand, it’s probably better just to follow the lead of the national media and keep our attention focused on antics of your favorite movie or sports star or American Idol.

Or you could take a break from breathing the formaldehyde in your kitchen cabinets and the styrene in your carpet and do a quick Google search on what you’ve just read. You may be surprised at what you find.

In the end, it is “We the People” who live by the leave of our corporate/government masters.

“Ours is not to wonder why. Ours is but to do and die.”

What is the measure of a man? Is it his willingness to give, unasked? Is it his faith in something greater than himself? Is it the care and protection of those he calls family and those who are less fortunate? It is all these things and more.  What is the result when he strays from those things that define him?

What is the measure of a nation of people? Is it their willingness to stand as a witness and an adversary against tyranny and oppression? Is it the recognition that there is a calling of conscience that is intended to perpetuate justice and equality? Is it the care and protection of its citizens? It is all these things and more. And what is the result when a nation strays from those defining characteristics?

People and nations define themselves, largely, according to the subscribed philosophical/religious tenants that shape their thought and belief. America and many of its long-held beliefs, the very beliefs about freedom that inspired the Revolution, have changed. This change may not reside inside your heart or in the hearts of those you know. But the transition has occurred nonetheless in the American culture.

I believe this transition has occurred incrementally over many decades that span at least a century. The people and their states, no longer sovereign or in control of their own destiny, have over many years been relegated to an increasing degree of subservience on multiple levels, the result of which, shamefully, would make us barely recognizable to those citizens who dared to rise up against the British Crown.

The transformation of the United States has devolved to a point that the belief in and acknowledgement of a Creator God, through the efforts of establishment Science (a religion in its own right), academics, government, entertainment and the various media, has been replaced with a more Spartan assessment of humanity that has its philosophical roots in materialism (for example, mind springs from matter and there is no God… man alone can save himself), mechanism (for example, man and the universe as a machine and the brain as a computer; all explained by the use of “scientific” reductionism), a form of humanism meant to replace the need for God (worshipping the creature more than the Creator), a materialistic theory of mind (one that insists that consciousness comes from the brain) and egoistic hedonism (that has us convinced that the self-serving approach of “looking out for number one” is the pinnacle of rational motivation and experience), among others.

For their part, Christians largely stand by as observers, as if their silence in the face of the transformation is something called for, something to be expected. We say we will not take the mark, yet will we not rise up and fight to keep laws from being enacted that will bring that mark to bear? Being an observer is not possible in God’s participatory universe. Heisenberg and others proved that. So did the Bible.

When a man strays from what once defined him, he becomes less than he was before and more willing to be subservient to the powers around him; powers against which he is told he cannot prevail. So, too, with a nation. Whether complying with the politically correct axiom that “you can’t fight city hall (so why try?) or with the sometimes unspoken requirement to cover up, and even lie, for an employer (think of the people you know, including Christians, who this applies to), acts of subservience accumulate in conscious behavior over time to become patterns of thinking and believing. So, too, with a nation.

And as subservience is cemented the people, as participants in the transformation, become increasingly malleable and unwillingly to confront the authority that shapes their worldview and convinces themselves that they are to believe what they are told to believe, and without question.

We were reminded in the 1st century that we are wrestling (denoting a cognitive and/or physical action) against authorities and powers and world rulers of the darkness that exists. Maybe that’s why in the following verses Paul talked about outfitting ourselves in an armor by which we could resist and stand our ground in the day of evil.

But many Christians believe that America is a good, godly nation. So how could it possibly foster evil?

Some of you will remind me that Christians have biblical foreknowledge that mockery and persecution is to be expected and is unavoidable. This is true. But where is it said that Christians are supposed to be accomplices to that persecution. Are we supposed to sit by in silence as our children are taught theory disguised as fact by academics and text book publishers? Are we supposed to turn a deaf ear and a blind eye while our faith is slaughtered continuously in the media for the past three decades? Are we to act like obedient children when Christianity is torn down yet other religions go unimpeded, even promoted, through that actions of local, state and federal governments?

Most people acquiesce to being followers and are easily swayed. No wonder Christ likened us to sheep. Would that it were true that Christians are not so easily swayed. But over the generations they have proved themselves to be just the same as their brothers and sisters who are not believers. It is not that they compromise their Christian beliefs in church, it is that their willingness to stand up for their beliefs outside church and in the face of unrelenting public condemnation has been wittingly or unwittingly compromised.

We today, by our failure to stand for our beliefs, are more like a house built on shifting sand. The power of Caesar has essentially invaded our homes, our lives, our beliefs… even the very consciousness that some of us believe was manifested at once when God breathed in the breath of life (neshama in the Hebrew) and man became a living soul.

It is difficult to bind a strong man when challenging and or trying to modify his beliefs. It is not so difficult to subdue that strong man who speaks strong words in his house, but weak ones in society, and it is not so difficult to shape his worldview while allowing him to retain some of his spiritual beliefs. This was the Roman tactic that worked so well and helped facilitate the assimilation of nations and religions, including Christianity, on three continents.

We are much like Esau, who sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Christians in America over the past century sold theirs, as did non-believers, for a different kind of nourishment. People will fall for nearly anything if they are kept fat and relatively comfortable in the land of plenty, in the Land of Mammon (Money).

And with the otherwise innocent promise of “anything is possible in America” our silence and subservience was bought with a price. The price was not spiritual. The price was material. You may say it’s not so, but in the broader American culture, mammon became god. The proof is all around us.

Will Durant once said that “Caesar hoped to reform men by changing laws and institutions; Christ wished to remake institutions and lessen laws by changing men.” Who is Caesar? Does he not live today, and in every day? Or are we to believe that the spirit of anti-Christ has vanished? Do you really believe that some of the authorities and powers and world rulers of the darkness that exists all live in nations other than the U.S? Power, money and control always go together. And the U.S. is still the most powerful nation in the world?

And when your federal Dept. of Homeland Security says in 2009 that those who are pro-life, among other things, are potential domestic terrorists your correct response as weak men and women is to keep quiet and don’t dare speak up for the unborn or speak out against Caesar’s mouthpiece.  And, as usual, we stand by like gutless, Godless wimps; our mouths sealed with the fear of losing a job or alienating ourselves in a nation where political correctness rules our lives. All this in a nation whose federal authority has promoted the killing of nearly 50 million unborn children since 1973.

An example of the presence and nature of Caesar can be found in the symbols used to exalt the seat of power and awe in a nation. Is it coincidence, or perhaps not, that the symbol of the spirit of the Caesar of Rome exists here today in America?

Both in symbol and in practicality, the seat of American democracy is the U.S. Capitol. The word “capitol” was originally the name for the temple to the god Jupiter located on Capitoline Hill in ancient Rome. Some of you say symbols don’t matter, but I doubt you have a “666” necklace in your jewelry case.

But in the form of symbols the Rome of two millennia ago figures prominently in other places where American federal power is denoted. One of these forms, the fasces, the bundle of wooden rods tied with strapping in the form of a cylinder and sometimes topped off with an axe head, was a symbol the imperial power of Rome.

By the mid-20th century the word was transformed to give title to Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party in Italy.

Today in America, that same symbol is positioned above a doorway in the Oval Office; it is used in the official seal of the U.S. Senate; it is included in the Mace of the U.S. House of Representatives; it is positioned on the U.S. Supreme Court building; it is on the official seal of the U.S. Tax Court; and in many other places, not the least of which is atop the U.S. Capitol where it rings the base of the so-called Statue of Freedom.

The interesting thing about the statue is that it sits so high off the ground that few notice what sits atop the symbol of American “democracy.” The Statue of Freedom, like a few other allegorical female figures used so ubiquitously throughout history, is also the Roman goddess Libera, or Freedom. But a few centuries earlier she was Persephone to the Greeks. And who was Persephone but the daughter of Zeus kidnapped by Hades and later made his wife. So perched atop the U.S. Capitol, positioned in regal form, exalted high above us all in a place of honor, sits none other than the Queen of the Underworld, the Queen of the Dead.

There are many such symbols woven into the American culture, many of which find their place of origin in the land of the Caesars. You may laugh, but go ahead and wear that 666-necklace to Sunday school and watch the reaction from your friends who, too, believe there is no significance or power in symbols.

And since the beginning of recorded human history, from the Chaldeans to the Olmecs to the Egyptians and back to Sumer, and Ur, every civilization has been ruled, in part, with those in power using various symbols and images to reinforce that power, promote allegiance and to humble the masses and keep them in line.

Unlike our time, nearly all of human history was without TV, the internet or books. These symbols and images, as in book of Daniel, were larger than life and inspired awe and subservience and worship. America today is no different. We just usually think ourselves as more cosmopolitan and above such entrapments and superstitions. But do not be fooled by our modernity. Do the research yourself. These images are everywhere and we respect them, largely out of naiveté or out of just plain ignorance of history.

Some of you might say that these are governmental symbols and have no bearing spiritual matters. Please understand that the symbols and images from ancient times, in those times, represented the melding of governmental and religious authority because Caesar and all the other rulers were seen as gods and often worshipped. And the religion was essentially humanism, the first religion known in human history. Born in the Garden, the serpent admonished the first two human to eat the fruit so that “you will be as gods.”

For those who still resist believing that they are being influenced just consider the 2nd Commandment… we were forbidden to make any graven images to our God, yet we think nothing of using, even admiring, the graven images of the gods of other nations and religions that have been incorporated into the American culture and even into Christianity itself, in the broad sense.

But enough talk of symbols. For some of us, and maybe for some of you, it is high time we stop our century-long worship at the feet of the American Caesar. His charge to us is simple. Believe and do what
Caesar (the corporate/government interlock) says, pay your taxes without question, assume the prescribed patriotic posture when Caesar wishes to wage war (this is a far different matter than patriotism born of conviction) and never, ever question Caesar’s authority.

For the past several decades Christianity in the United States has been mocked and belittled by a vast array of societal mechanisms, with most Christians standing idle and mute on the sidelines, as if it is their place in life to do so. But our silence equals consent and consent equals servitude. The new slavery has no need for whips and chains; the shackles of this subservience are worn in the minds of Christians, and others, who dutifully obey the wishes of Caesar. It is fortunate for us that Christ was willing to stand against the system of power rather than being bought out by it.

The difference in the Caesar of Rome and Caesar today is that for much of U.S. history that word, I believe, is interchangeable with what I usually refer to as the American government/corporate interlock, the Ruling Elite. I won’t take up time with that topic here since I have visited it on so many other occasions in other columns.

But the eyes of Christians are also blinded, and their allegiance co-opted, by the handiwork of establishment science, public education and the various forms of news and entertainment media.

As for science and education, while it is certainly the case that one can see the world in a grain of sand through the miracle of creation and consciousness, the religion of Science can only see silicon dioxide, limestone or gypsum and the various other constituent compounds through its insistent predisposition for reductionism. As mentioned earlier, the roots of its belief system (its religion) springs from philosophical precepts that have been worked and re-worked to exclude God. No further explanation should be needed to make this point.

Establishment Science sometimes needs to be reminded that the order of the appearance of life on this planet espoused by Darwin, Lyell and others was also laid out in exactly the same order more than 3,000 years before they were born, in the first chapter of Genesis?

Many Christians scream at the notion of the Big Bang while many in Science cherish it. Both are wrong but for different reasons. Even Einstein resisted the idea that he developed. At the end of the day his theory, built into what is now the law of relativity, accounts for the “generations of the creation” of the heavens and Earth outlined in Genesis. His seminal work on relativity clearly shows that the beginning of the universe (and God said let there be light) came from a point to tiny that it was perhaps no larger than the period at the end of this sentence. Gee, it’s essentially the same thing Nahmanides said in the year 1250 A.D. after reading the opening verses of Genesis. It’s just that Nahmanides went one baby step further, replacing the singularity (the “period at the end of the sentence”) with the event of creation itself.

Establishment Science and the Bible are really so close, it’s just that Science can’t stand for it because its religion is committed to there being no God, contenting itself instead to worship the creature more than the Creator.

Meantime, the prohibition of the emergence of theological physics and other disciplines only guarantees the preeminence of the religion of Science. So much for the education system that propagates atheism and agnosticism and to whose temples on university campuses we send our children to be instructed by the high priests and disciples of the religion of Science. And all the while we sit in silence. And by our silence we give our consent.

As for the national news media and entertainment industry, their mission is simple. Keep the masses divided; keep the patrons of their particular slant polarized (divide and conquer); feed the fires of conflict; keep people’s eyes glazed over with emotion-trapping inducements, much like Huxley talked about in Brave New World; and shape the beliefs that will guarantee our obedience to Caesar’s commands.

Or stated another way by William Randolph Hearst in 1897 to the artist Frederic Remington: “You furnish the pictures and I’ll furnish the war.” Think for a minute what that statement means. War means business, war means profits and war means death. Who dies?

The “first-born” referred to by Alexander Hamilton usually do not have to die in wars since their families, through their business interests, help fund government. It is us, the masses who, according to Hamilton, are “turbulent and changing and can seldom determine right” that are called on to give that last full measure of devotion.

People in every nation have a territorial predisposition for nationalism, sometimes called patriotism. In this way we are never to speak ill of, and always stand in our support for, our country, our state, our village, our tribe and our high school football team. After all, we’re #1.

Despite everything you’ve just read, sometimes the time comes to take a stand for a higher cause. The trouble with rendering unto Caesar is that Caesar believes he owns everything or has a right to it. And even on the local level, for those few who do not pay rent to a landlord or mortgage company, try going a few years without paying your property tax and see who owns your home. It won’t be you when it’s sold on the courthouse steps.

Through the disconnect arising from timidity and complacency in the Land of Mammon you are a participant of the ushering in of the prophecy that will destroy the very beliefs you hold dear. Resist the finery, like three captives did in Babylon millennia ago, and you may be able to withstand the flames no matter how hot the furnace gets.

Personally, I think the time is past due for Christians to make a choice and to chart a new path. I’m not saying this is the answer, but it can be effective in altering Caesar’s course.

One aspect of that path is economic. Christians by lights years represent the largest block of discretionary spenders in the U.S. If the body of believers as a group of tens of millions decided to make a personal business decision not to buy products from companies that sponsor anti-Christian activities we could shut down the profits of multi-nationals within weeks or months. And for the sake of their profits they would cease those activities. I’m sure you can think of more creative examples of this than I can.

Another way to chart a new course is through civil disobedience in mass, if that’s what it takes; and without the need for violence. With a mass of a million, 10 million or 50 million people taking to the streets when an anti-Christian law or one that usurps another freedom is passed there are not enough jail cells on the planet to hold us.

Caesar is always getting in our face. And we do nothing about it because we are afraid of Caesar, admitted or not. And don’t tell me that you’re not. In my line of work I’ve seen it too many times, whether with state or federal, even local government issues. But It’s time we get in Caesar’s face. If we act in mass Caesar will fear us. And that’s exactly what’s needed.  And plus, we already have the greatest role model for civil disobedience in history on our side: Jesus.

But wait. I’m sure we won’t do either of these. After all, the body of believers is so often divided in the practice (largely by the pigmentation of our skin) of the religion and through the many variations of dogma that we hardly stand a chance. Besides, we’re fat and lazy, afraid to get involved, afraid of Caesar’s power and afraid of our shadow; comfortably numb in the Land of Mammon.