American Cabal: Political and Religious Commentary

AMERICAN CABAL: POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS COMMNTARY

For some time I have wanted to comment on what I see as interconnections between the movements for individual rights, liberties, and social justice during the 1960s; the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy; the demise of institutional mainline Christianity and the rise of the radical religious and political right as expressed by Evangelicalism from 1970 to today; what happened to the spirit and teachings of Vatican Council II during the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II; and whether there is an American Cabal pulling the strings of American government.

Between July 1^st and July 20^th of this year, 2007, three documents were released that acted as the catalyst I needed to put my thoughts on paper. They are Summorum Pontificum that reinstituted the legitimacy of the universal use of the Tridentine (Latin) Mass of the Roman Catholic Church, the document Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of Doctrine on the Church that addresses what the word “subsists” means in the relationship between the Roman Catholic Church and Christ, and the collection of United States government documents released under the Freedom of Information Act about the activities of the Central Intelligence Agency known as “The Family Jewels” that speaks to that agency’s activities from the 1950s to the 1970s.

It is a consistent theme in science fiction, movies, and video games that a behind the scenes Cabal is pulling the strings. It is also a theme that this Cabal is so successful that the masses do not know it exists and cannot see the strings being pulled. Some people believe there is an America Cabal that pulls the strings of American government. Manifestations of this theme also occur in the mythos of a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world and a similar plot by the Freemasons and the Roman Catholic Church. A major part of the theme is found in George Orwell's book, 1984, in which the masses are drugged to be perpetually happy and from which we get the expression, “Big Brother is Watching” while unbeknown to the people it is Big Brother who scripts and dictates every aspect of their lives..

Karl Marx identified the “opium of the people” as Christianity. He was right that Christianity does act as a pacifier and a buffer between how things are and how much better they could become. Marx was heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche who said if you pull the veneer from social institutions, including the church, instead of the good they claim all you will find is rot. Marx wrote that without Christianity, society - the proletariat - would rise up and take what is rightfully theirs.

However, there are other opiates in contemporary America. America is awash in illegal drugs from true opiates to cocaine to synthetics that have the effect of acting as pacifiers and buffers between reality and the altered state of consciousness they produce. Being "middle class" is a pacifier and buffer between those that are obscenely rich and those living in poverty. The members of the middle class “thank their lucky stars” they are not living in poverty. They chase the illusion that if they work hard enough and live within the lines defined for them by the social institutions controlled by the wealthy, they can catch the brass ring of financial security or become wealthy themselves.

And, as Marx said, there is Christianity. One of the appeals of the religious right, especially Evangelicalism, is that mainline Christian denominations no longer “deliver the goods.” I will assess the impact the rise of right wing Evangelicalism has had on America as a consequence of the failure of institutional Christianity later in this paper. However, it is important that we understand the failure of institutional Christianity now.

Roman Catholicism “shot itself in the foot” because it created a theologically illiterate clergy and laity that demanded “pregnant and barefoot women” and “obedient” men. It had created a culture of "Father knows best" when all Father knew was what he had been taught in seminary via the manualist tradition; that is, "if A; than B" and deviation from this formula by either Father or the laity resulted in “not being a good Catholic" at best or going to Hell if one's sin was a mortal one.

Consequently, neither the Church hierarchy nor its priests had the ability to explain to the laity what changes were required by Vatican Council II much less why they were necessary. The result was chaos that led to a confusion of faith and praxis for both clergy and laity. This confusion resulted from the fact that Catholics after Vatican Council II were expected to replace the mandatory requirement of auricular confession, attending Mass every Sunday, and relying on priests and nuns to tell them what to think and what to do with making their own decisions regarding theological and life style issues, especially those dealing with human sexuality, predicated on their informed conscience.

The liberalism, the opening of the door to let in a breath of fresh air, of Vatican Council II that led to confusion and ambiguity among the faithful is the primary reason Pope John Paul II spent his entire Pontificate trying to put the genie of Vatican Council II back in the bottle and restore the Catholic Church to absolute dogmatism. His methods for accomplishing this agenda were many. First, he taught in contradiction to Catholic moral theology from the time of Augustine that both one’s informed conscience and obedience are equally valid responses to the teaching of popes and the Magisterium, that obedience is the only response to Catholic teaching. Secondly, he censored and condemned liberal theologians and revoked their right to teach in Catholic seminaries, colleges, and universities by designating they were no longer “Catholic theologians.” Additionally he silenced theologians, especially Liberation Theologians, by forbidding them to write, publish, or speak in public. He also wrote 14 Encyclicals and numerous other documents that codified his reactionary conservatism in opposition to the spirit if not the specific teachings of Vatican Council II. Finally he created The Pontifical Academy of Sciences on October 22, 1996, the Pontifical Council for the Family on May 9, 1981, and the Pontifical Institute for Studies on Marriage and Family on May 13, 1981 and it is through creation of these agents that he was able to use their “science” and “research” to “prove” the theology, dogma, and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church was the product of “Natural Law” on issues of life style choices and expressions of human sexuality. It is from this perspective that he mandated through the bishops that all Roman Catholic politicians must speak to and vote on issues, especially those concerning abortion and homosexuality, according to the dogma and doctrine of the Roman Catholic Church.

Finally he created a study commission on the reinstitution of the Tridentine (Latin) Mass that produced Summorum Pontificum and one on the term “Subsists” relative to the relationship between Christ and the Roman Catholic Church that produced “Responses to Some Questions Regarding Certain Aspects of Doctrine on the Church” made public the week of July 20, 2007. Both of these documents move the theology and praxis of the Church backward from that of Vatican Council II and toward Vatican Council I (1869-1870) and the Council of Trent (1545-63).

Mainline Protestantism after World War II also failed to “deliver the goods.” While not weighted down by the millstone of Catholic dogma, Protestantism was very much dictated by the millstone of sola scriptura, by scripture alone, as the means of salvation. After World War II, led by such scholars as John Barth, Protestantism took a hard left turn toward liberalism that ended for some in the "God is Dead" movement. Also, an increasing sense of secular humanism and moral relativism began to undermine the surety of salvation by scripture alone especially as we entered the post-modern era.

This turn to the left by mainline Protestantism and confusion within the Roman Catholic Church opened the door to the surge in Evangelicalism we have today. In many Roman Catholic parishes and Protestant churches, if they are still open, the standing room only Sunday services of the 1950s are now attended primarily by people with gray hair. Where have all the people gone? Many have dropped out of traditional expressions of Christianity and either do not attend church or have found meaning in Eastern philosophies and religions as well as non-traditional New Age beliefs.

However, the bulk of them who remained practicing Christians now attend Evangelical churches. The obvious question is, “Why?” We will answer that question at the end of this paper.

Americans do not want to believe there is an American Cabal when it comes to their relationship with government and those who govern them. Perhaps this has much to do with our heritage of "rugged individualism" which I suggest is more myth than fact. Yes, it did take a certain degree of rugged individualism to leave the security of the East and travel west as part of a pioneer wagon train. The hardships and dangers were very real and at the end of the trail all that was to be found were uncertainty, more hardship, and more danger. While it is true that some of the pioneers embraced this lifestyle and thrived on it, it is also true that as soon as possible the majority sought the institutions of society - schools, churches, and most of all meaningful law enforcement - to bring order to the chaos and an end to the uncertainty, hardship, and the danger of daily life.

The landscape of the second half of the 20th century was much like that experienced by the pioneers. Winning World War II produced a national euphoria in America that is impossible to understand today that lasted from the end of the war on September 2, 1945 until the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 23, 1963. The Kennedy presidency was nicknamed Camelot and both it and the essence of post-war America as portrayed by Norman Rockwell paintings immortalized on Saturday Evening Post Magazine covers that had extended into the 1960s ended that day. The assassination of President Kennedy was followed in rapid succession by the assassinations of Malcolm X on February 2, 1965, Martin Luther King on April 4, 1968, and Robert Kennedy on June 5, 1968. As a consequence of these assassinations a dark cloud fell over America.

How do we explain these assassinations? Did they just happen or was there a behind the scenes hand, a cabal, pulling the strings? Is there a secret American Cabal that has the power to affect American history to the extent that it can use assassination with impunity to achieve its goals? All of these assassinations had their share of conspiracy theorists and whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone to assassinate President Kennedy is still a hotly debated issue.

Let me share the following facts as background information that will allow us to decide whether these assassinations were isolated incidents or whether they were the result of decisions made by an American Cabal, a cabal that had the means, motive, and opportunity to carry them out. In order we find that:

President John F. Kennedy

On March 17, 1960 President Eisenhower accepted a recommendation from the Central Intelligence Agency to train Cuban refugees as a gorilla force to overthrow the new dictator of Cuba, Fidel Castro.
On April 15, 1961 President Kennedy launched the doomed Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
President Kennedy had a contentious relationship with J. Edgar Hoover who was the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation from May 10, 1924 until his death on May 2, 1972. Hoover considered Kennedy a security risk due to his affair with Marilyn Monroe. By 1960 Hoover’s notorious “secret files” included hundreds of thousands of Americans from presidents and vice presidents to members of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives as well as anyone he considered a Communist or otherwise a danger to America.
In September 1962 James Meridith, armed with a court order, attempted to be the first African American to register as a student at the University of Mississippi. He was met by a mob and armed police. President Kennedy sent Federal Marshals to the campus which allowed Meridith to register and take his classes.
On June 11, 1963 Governor George Wallace personally blocked the door to stop two African Americans from registering as students at the University of Alabama. President Kennedy responded with a federal law suit against Wallace and federalized the Alabama National Guard after which the students were admitted.
President Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963 by Lee Harvey Oswald.

Malcolm X

In 1960 Malcolm X was part of a “greeting delegation” in Harlem that welcomed Fidel Castro as a visiting dignitary.
While a member of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), Malcolm X stressed self-defense. His comment “for every lynching, we should kill 20 lynchers” bears a resemblance to Leon Trotsky’s remarks that the oppressed have a right to use violence against their oppressors to achieve justice.
Throughout his life Malcolm X was hostile to the state and its institutions. He castigated African Americans for voting for the Democratic Party.
On March 8, 1964 Malcolm X broke away from Elijah Muhammad and the Nation of Islam. The reason was Elijah Muhammad was committing adultery with young secretaries and teen aged girls. Muhammad’s justification was that the biblical prophets had done it and he was a prophet.
Prior to going to Mecca, Malcolm X became a Sunni Muslim and founded the Muslim Mosque and the Organization of Afro-American Unity.
On April 19, 1964 Malcolm X made his pilgrimage to Mecca where he completed the Umrah.
During his pilgrimage Malcolm X discovered that there were Muslims of all races, colors, and nationalities. He repudiated the racism of the Nation of Islam and accepted people of all races as brothers.
In March of 1964 an informant told the Federal Bureau of Investigation that Malcolm X was marked for assassination.
In June of 1964 the Nation of Islam successfully sued Malcolm X to recover the house he was living in.
By 1965 Malcolm X was speaking at Socialist Worker Party meetings against the Vietnam War. After hearing Malcolm X speak at one of their meetings Caroline Lund-Sheppard wrote, "The thing about Malcolm X was you could tell he was seeking the truth. He didn't presume to know everything. He was not afraid to seek the truth, wherever it might lead him. He was a revolutionary deep down, even before he knew a revolution was necessary."
On the night before a court hearing was to be held to postpone his eviction, February 14, 1965, the house burned to the ground as a consequence of arson. Malcolm X and his family escaped without injury. No one was ever charged with the arson.
On February 21, 1965 Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15 X Johnson assassinated Malcolm X.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

On December 1, 1955 Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus and was arrested. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. then organized the Montgomery Bus Boycott which paralyzed the city.
On November 13, 1956 the U.S. Supreme Court declared segregated busses were illegal.
In 1959 Dr. King went to India to study Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of nonviolence.
In1960 Dr. King began North Carolina lunch counter sit ins which began the mass sit in movement throughout the South.
In 1961 Dr. King organized the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and “freedom rides” began for the purpose of voter registration throughout the South.
On Good Friday, April 12, 1962 Police Chief Eugene “Bull” Connors arrested Dr. King in Birmingham, Alabama. Over the next 15 days Dr. King wrote, “Letters from a Birmingham Jail.”
On May 10, 1962 Birmingham accepted integration.
On June 23, 1962 Dr. King led 125,000 people on the Detroit Freedom Walk.
On August 28, 1963 Dr. King assembled 250,000 people for the March on Washington where he delivered his, “I Have A Dream” speech.
On January 3, 1964 Dr. King was Time Magazine’s cover “Man of the Year.”
On December 10, 1964 Dr. King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
On January 22, 1966 Dr. King moved into a Chicago housing project to publicize Chicago’s problems and on July 10, 2006 began the campaign to end discrimination in Chicago housing, employment, and schools.
On November 27, 1967 Dr. King announced the Poor People’s Campaign. The Campaign was scheduled to end in a march on Washington, D.C. where a demand for a 12 billion dollar Economic Bill of Rights would guarantee employment to every able-bodied person, incomes for those unable to work, and an end to housing discrimination.
On the evening of April 3, 1968 Dr. King gave his, “I’ve Been to the Mountain” speech in support of the Memphis, Tennessee sanitation worker strike.
On the morning of April 4, 1968 Dr. King was assassinated by James Earl Ray.

Robert Kennedy

In 1952 at the request of his father, former ambassador Joseph Kennedy, Robert Kennedy was appointed by Senator Joseph McCarthy as Assistant Council for the Senate Subcommittee on Investigations which was the formal name of the House Un-American Activities Committee. Through this committee McCarthy terrorized every segment of America during the middle 1950s in his witch hunt for Communists using the mechanisms of forced testimony, character assassination, and employment black listing.
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed on June 19, 1953. The official charge was “conspiracy to commit espionage for the Soviet Union” but the real reason was the hysterical fear created by Joseph McCarthy that Communists were taking over America. Thus, the Rosenbergs served the purpose of both proving the truth of McCarthy’s claims and graphically showing to all Americans what would happen to anyone who became a spy and traitor.
Kennedy, disgusted by McCarthy’s methods and the execution of the Rosenbergs, resigned from the House Un-American Activities Committee in July 1953.
From 1953 to1955 Kennedy was legal counsel for the Democratic minority.
In 1955 with a Democratic Congress, hearings begin that proved McCarthy to be a liar about his WWII military record, his personal life, and allegations that America had been infiltrated by the Communist Party. Kennedy played a minor role in these hearings.
From 1957 to1959 Kennedy was the Chief Counsel for the Senate Labor Rackets Committee (McClellan Commission) investigating organized crime. In a televised cross examination Kennedy became embroiled in an antagonistic argument with Teamster Union president Jimmy Hoffa.
In 1960 Kennedy became U.S. Attorney General and vigorously prosecuted organized crime. The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, J. Edgar Hoover, strongly disagreed with Kennedy’s strategy for investigation and prosecution of organized crime members. Perhaps this is because under Kennedy conviction rates went up 800 percent.
In a 1961 speech to the Georgia Law School, Kennedy vigorously defended the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education Topeka Kansas Supreme Court decision that mandated public school integration.
Beginning in 1961 after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, Kennedy oversaw the CIA’s anti-Castro activities.
According to the “Family Jewels” (a compilation of several reports that illustrate illegal CIA activity between the 1950s and middle 1970s released under the Freedom of Information Act on June 6, 2007) a January 4, 1975 memorandum of conversation between President Gerald Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger confirms that Kennedy at least once authorized an assassination attempt against Castro by the CIA. The memorandum states that Kennedy personally authorized one such assassination attempt before the Bay of Pigs invasion, which involved the mafioso boss of Chicago, Salvatore Giancana, and his right-hand man Santos Trafficante working with the CIA to set up the assassination.
Marilyn Monroe died the evening of August 4, 1962. It is documented from the many investigations of her death that both President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy were lovers as was Salvatore Giancana among others. While the president’s interest was purely on the level of an affair it appears that Robert Kennedy fell in love with her. One of the mysteries surrounding her death is exactly who was with her that day and evening and during what time periods. One scenario that no investigation has disproved is that Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe had an argument that evening. (Allegedly on tape as J. Edgar Hoover had bugged every room of her bungalow. Monroe’s as well as countless other tapes on the Kennedy’s “disappeared” sometime after the assassination of Robert Kennedy) The question is whether or not she was alive when Kennedy left her bungalow. What is a fact is that just after the call was made to her physician stating she was ill and needed help, Peter Lawford who was Kennedy’s brother-in-law, was stopped for speeding on a highway leading away from her bungalow. A man sat in the back seat, in the dark, which the police officer later recalled looked like Robert Kennedy. However, because the driver was Lawford and the passenger was presumed to be Kennedy, the officer asked no questions and allowed Lawford to continue.
Throughout John F. Kennedy’s presidency, Robert Kennedy was the driving force behind President Kennedy’s public support of civil rights.
During 1964 Kennedy was equally involved with Presidents Kennedy and Johnson in crafting and working with Congress to pass the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Kennedy left office to run for the presidency of the United States and was assassinated after ending a speech in the early hours of June 5, 1968 by Sirhan Sirhan at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, California where he had won that state’s primary election the day before. According to the “Family Jewels,” there were several CIA operatives present at the hotel who had been a part of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion. The question is, “Why were these CIA operatives at the Hotel on June 4^th and 5^th, the day before and the morning Robert Kennedy was assassinated?” This is a question that has never been answered.

Let us review the above facts to see if we can find a common element, a thread that connects the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, and Robert Kennedy. When we examine the above material there is only one individual who held tremendous power that crossed all seats of government and impacted on the lives of all four men. That person is J. Edgar Hoover the Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

There was much known about J. Edgar Hoover throughout his 48 years as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and more became known after his death. What can be safely said about Hoover is that from his first day as Director he set about to build an empire based on fear supported by using his office to build secret dossiers on every person and organization in America he either distrusted or whom he felt might come into a position of power. There is no question he used this information to intimidate, silence, and control everyone from presidents to senators and congressmen, to the judiciary and military leaders. Most of all he was a right-wing super patriot who like Senator Joseph McCarthy saw a Communist behind every tree and bush. If a person or organization did not share his political beliefs he labeled them “subversive” or “radical” and they quickly found themselves a subject of his secret dossiers.

It is also common knowledge that Hoover abused his power because he had no respect for either the Constitution or any law that he felt was an impediment to achieving his ends. His methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents, and spreading false rumors about individuals and key members of target organizations. If you see similarities between Hoover’s methods and those of George W. Bush during the six and one-half years of his administration you are not the only person to do so but that is a subject for another paper.

Some of Hoover’s most egregious offenses included:

The Verona Project

The Verona Project was a pre World War II joint intelligence gathering program where England and America shared intelligence gathered by eves dropping on Soviet spies. In violation of the Constitution Hoover did not inform Presidents Roosevelt or Truman, the United States Attorney General, or the Secretary of State of the information gained by the Verona Project. Instead, he kept it in his private safe in his office but did share it with the CIA in 1952.

COINTELPRO (acronym for a series of covert programs)

In 1956 the Supreme Court limited the Justice Department’s ability to prosecute Communists. To circumvent the decision of the Supreme Court, Hoover set up the covert COINTELPRO that used “dirty tricks” to “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize" the activities of people and organizations on his “enemies list.” Such people and groups included the Socialist Worker's Party, the Ku Klux Klan, the "New Left" including several anti-war groups such as the Students for a Democratic Society and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, the American Communist Party, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panther Party, Dr. King and his Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) as well as Hollywood celebrities and professional athletes. The newspaperman Jack Anderson exposed the immense scope of the MAFIA which Hoover downplayed and was unwilling to address. As a consequence, COINTELPRO hounded Anderson until his death.

Assassination of President Kennedy

J. Edgar Hoover personally directed the investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination. In 1979 the House Select Committee on Assassinations concluded that Hoover was reluctant to even consider the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy. It also concluded that Hoover was the one person responsible for preventing The President's Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy known as The Warren Commission, Chaired by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, which concluded the “one gunman, magic bullet” theory killed President Kennedy from considering the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the president. The obvious questions are, “If Hoover wanted to conduct a thorough and unbiased investigation how could he do so without considering the possibility that there was a conspiracy to assassinate President Kennedy?” and “What was his reason for refusing to consider a conspiracy?”

Given the above it is easy to see how President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy were all very high on J. Edgar Hoover’s enemies list and that he believed they posed an extreme threat to the security of America. It is also important to note that Hoover was born in Washington, D.C. in 1895 and graduated from George Washington University with a degree in law. At this time Washington, D.C. was culturally a “Southern City” with rigid racial segregation and Hoover did little to hide his racist feelings toward African Americans. While a law student Hoover became interested in the career of Anthony Comstock, the New York City based U.S. Postal Inspector who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud and vice as well as pornography and information on birth control, a generation earlier. Hoover is thought to have studied Comstock's methods and modeled his early career on Comstock's reputation for relentless pursuit and occasional procedural violations in crime fighting.

It is easy to place Hoover among the ranks of an American Cabal. It is also easy to see that he is the one person in American government at the time of the assassinations who had the power and connections to both orchestrate them and to cover them up. In short, he had the three elements necessary to commit the crimes: means, motive, and opportunity as well as the ability to get away with them while protecting the Cabal.

There is no question that Hoover had the means and opportunity. However, let’s take a closer look at motive. To do that we need to juxtapose Hoover’s super patriotism, his obsession with his belief that America and American government had been compromised by Communists, and his virulent racism with specifically how President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy violated those aspects of Hoover’s beliefs.

President Kennedy was J. Edgar Hoover’s worst nightmare because he was both a visionary and a morally weak man. He had an affair with Marilyn Monroe who some Monroe biographers state was in love with him and wanted to marry him. It is conjectured that the argument between Robert Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe the evening of her death was about her threat to make her affair with President Kennedy public. If that was the case her threat, perhaps not the first time she had made it, would have been picked up on Hoover’s wiretaps of her bungalow. Not only would that explain her mysterious death later that evening, the affair itself in Hoover’s eyes made both President Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe security threats due to what he told her during pillow talk. Additionally, President Kennedy called on the Federal Marshals and the National Guard to force two venerable, signature, Southern universities to admit African American students which could only be achieved by the humiliation of the governors of Mississippi and Alabama.

Malcolm X was also J. Edgar Hoover’s worst nightmare. While a leading member of the Nation of Islam, Malcolm X preached not only racial hatred but empowerment of “Negroes.” Additionally, he demanded that the U.S. government cede three Southern states for “Negros” to set up their own sovereign nation as reparation for slavery. He also preached the revolutionary view as did Trotsky that the oppressed have a moral right to resist their oppression through violence. Thus to Hoover, Malcolm X not only preached sedition and the overthrow of the American government he was a Communist.

If these two nightmares were not bad enough, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the worst nightmare of all. Hoover called Dr. King, “That upstart troublemaker” and from the perspective of Hoover’s beliefs Dr. King was trouble. It was Dr. King who was the catalyst that revolutionized the role and status of African Americans in America. As a racist the one thing J. Edgar Hoover could not accept was the empowerment and equality under the law of African Americans. But perhaps what threatened Hoover most was Dr. King’s ability to bring together hundreds of thousands of African Americans and his demand for a 12 billion dollar Economic Bill of Rights for poor people the majority of whom would be African Americans. To Hoover, Dr. King had the power to mobilized hundreds of thousands of African Americans and incite them to armed revolution on the one hand and with the success he had already demonstrated Hoover believed that Dr. King would soon bankrupt America through his Economic Bill of Rights by giving money to people who did not deserve it on the other.

Robert Kennedy was a thorn in J. Edgar Hoover’s side beginning in 1952 when he resigned his appointment to Senator McCarthy’s Senate Subcommittee on Investigations witch hunt for Communists in America. Hoover saw this as a betrayal to his belief that Communists had infiltrated all strata of America and American government. Hoover also condemned him for his affair with Marilyn Monroe, his prosecution of organized crime which Hoover did not see as a threat to America, and his part in the writing of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. As a consequence, Kennedy became Hoover’s newest worst nightmare when he decided to run for the presidency of the United States.

The question remains, “Is there an American Cabal and if so could it have orchestrated the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy?”

Let me answer that question by sharing with you the answer given me by three men I worked with during the 1970s all of whom had been career Army men. The first was a Sergeant but held the rank of Brevet Major who served three tours of duty in Vietnam. He was assigned to Special Operations which was a cover for the fact that he was detached to the CIA as a covert agent. The second was a full colonel who was General Westmorland’s adegant and as such was privy to the same classified documents as was General Westmorland. The third man was the Sergeant who was Chief of Security for the American Headquarters Building in Saigon at the end of the war. The next time you see the film footage of the last helicopter lifting off the roof of that building, the large man standing in the door of the helicopter stamping on the hands of the Vietnamese holding on to the landing skids is this man. He had just completed destroying all of the classified documents in the building which is why he and his team were on the last helicopter out of Vietnam.

It is significant to me that these three career military men who had given their lives to the defense of our nation and whom I thought would have accepted the official stories about the assassinations of President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy did not accept the story told by our government for any of these assassinations. In fact, they all agreed that none of the stories could be true. They further agreed that each assassination had the fingerprints of a CIA hit.

Here are their reasons. They said that anyone who believed the “one shooter; magic bullet” explanation of President Kennedy’s assassination is living in “la la land.” It is not possible for one bullet to make all of the twists and turns necessary to match the wounds to President Kennedy’ body to say nothing about then wounding Governor Connally. Although a shooter on the “grassy knoll” was discounted by both the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Warren Commission, they maintain there was a shooter on the grassy knoll as well as a third shooter. This is because whenever possible the CIA sets up a triangulation of shooters for assassinations. The House Select Committee on Assassinations confirmed that up to seven shots were fired, some from the grassy knoll, and that it would have been impossible for Lee Harvey Oswald to fire even three shots within the period of time seven shots were fired. Most telling for these men, however, from their experience of shooting men and seeing them shot in war as well as the many times they watched the Magruder film of President Kennedy being shot, is that multiple shooters is the only explanation for the movements of his body in response to the bullets that hit him. Their conclusion is that it is impossible for one bullet or multiple bullets fired from one location to have made President Kennedy’s body move as it did as he was being shot.

They also did not believe that Talmadge Hayer, Norman 3X Butler, and Thomas 15 X Johnson planned the assassination of Malcolm X; that James Earl Ray was solely responsible for the assassination of Dr. King; or that Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert Kennedy on his own. One of their reasons for not believing these assassinations were the sole responsibility of the shooters is that for President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy to be assassinated within a period of four and one-half years is too much of a coincidence to believe. That is because the last assassination prior to the assassination of President Kennedy occurred 62 years earlier when President William McKinley was assassinated in 1901. Assassination by private individuals is just not the American way.

Another reason is that each of these assassinations had the earmarks of a CIA operation. They had these earmarks not just in the logistics of the assassination but the fact that all of the assassins were misfits, malcontents, and wannabes. These are precisely the kinds of men who are recruited to carry out such missions and to take the fall for doing it. The hope is that they will be killed either during the mission or during their capture but if not and they attempt to implicate those who recruited them plausible deniability will win the day. Who would believe that agents of our government would recruit such men to assassinate President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, or Robert Kennedy?

However, perhaps the most compelling reason is that President Kennedy, Malcolm X, Dr. King, and Robert Kennedy had all acted in ways that were diametrically opposed to the interests of the American Cabal that was responsible for keeping America running smoothly to satisfy and remunerate what President Eisenhower called “The Industrial Military Complex.” Each man did this in his own way by threatening the security of the nation, fostering sedition and rebellion, challenging and overturning the social order of racial segregation, and most of all were responsible for systemic changes in America that were opposed to the political and societal beliefs of J. Edgar Hoover and the Cabal he represented.

Let us now consider why Evangelicals have experienced unprecedented growth as well as political power over the past 39 years since the assassination of Robert Kennedy. Combined with the comments above regarding the failure of the churches of institutional Christianity to meet the needs of their congregations there is also another reason. The reason is the turbulence in American society of the 1960s through the 1970s spawned by the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam War Movement, the Women’s Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement. Although institutional Christianity eventually embraced the anti-War Movement it staunchly resisted the others. The result was that institutional Christian churches no longer met the needs of people because they did not reflect, and in some cases vigorously opposed, deeply held moral and ethical values championed by these movements. The result was that millions of people became disillusioned and left their churches.

However as time went on both they and their children, who were often raised with no religious experience, discovered a need for spirituality in their lives. Very often they felt a need for order in their lives they could not find in their quest for secular social justice. Whereas the children of those who had left had nothing to go back to, their parents still felt betrayed by the churches that had refused to support full civil rights and social justice for all people and did not feel they could in conscience return to them. How could they when the churches had not substantially changed, especially the Roman Catholic Church, which had become even more anti-woman and anti-gay during the Pontificate of Pope John Paul II?

One may wonder given the reasons institutional Christian churches were rejected how and why so many who had “fallen away” were able to accept Evangelicalism? The reason is quite easy to understand: marketing. The Evangelical movement took over Talk Radio one station at a time beginning in the 1960s and today the media conglomerate Clear Channel, an organ for the political and religious right, controls most of the Talk Radio stations in America.

A study by Free Press and the Center for American Progress of all 10,506 licensed commercial radio stations in America released on July 20, 2007 lays bare what is obvious to many: Talk Radio is a chorus of right-wing voices. "The Structural Imbalance of Political Talk Radio" found that 91 percent of weekday talk formats are given over to right-wing programming. This is no surprise but it is good to have documental evidence. What's more revealing is the report's discovery that radio's absence of real fairness and balance is a byproduct of problems in the way federal regulators dole out access to our public airwaves.

The study reveals that right-wing big media lobbyists, such as those for Clear Channel, have struck a cozy bargain with allies on the Federal Communications Commission to gut ownership limits that protect localism, diversity, and competition on the airwaves. For their part, the FCC has shown almost complete disregard for the public interest requirements written into broadcasters' licenses.

The result of the FCC’s refusal to make these stations adhere to the Fairness Doctrine is chilling.

· In the spring of 2007, of the 257 news/talk stations owned by the top five commercial station owners, 91 percent of the total weekday talk radio programming was conservative, and only 9 percent was progressive.

· Each weekday, 2,570 hours and 15 minutes of conservative talk are broadcast on these stations compared to 254 hours of progressive talk — 10 times as much conservative talk as progressive talk.

· 76 percent of the news/talk programming in the top 10 radio markets is conservative, while 24 percent is progressive.

These stations broadcast a steady stream of right-wing political propaganda and Evangelical religious beliefs. A major part of their packaging is what in journalism is called “the hook” which is the lead in to a story that “hooks” the reader, listener, or viewer. Very often the packaging of these hooks does not appear to have anything to do with religion or faith beliefs. The hook appears to be a human interest story or a news story. It is only after the reader, listener, or viewer is “hooked” that religion and Evangelical faith beliefs enter the story. At that point the story ceases to be about what it had purported to be about and becomes the platform to inculcate right-wing political and faith beliefs often ending with the conclusion that the good ending could not have happened without the intervention of God; that is, God as seen through Evangelical eyes. Conversely bad endings, those that do not reflect right-wing political and Evangelical faith beliefs, are attributed to what happens when their vision of God is removed from public discourse and individual lives. This is nothing short of bait and switch but is not illegal because it is not designed to sell a tangible product but rather to sell right wing politics and Evangelical faith beliefs.

Evangelical television presents Televangelists preaching a message that repentance of sin results in God’s love and forgiveness packaged within a Los Vegas show backdrop. Everything from the staging, to the music, to the television cameras reflect a polished professional performance. When the camera pans to the audience the viewer sees a sea of people standing, their bodies weaving in time to the music, waiving their hands in the air, with an expression on their faces of being possessed by a mind numbing narcotic. There is no doubt that in the Evangelical world Marx was right: religion is the opiate of the people.

The bottom line is that the packaging of Evangelicalism is a multi-million dollar per year business. Yes, a business – a business that has very little to do with the worship of God and much to do with seducing people to attend Evangelical churches where they are again seduced this time into a lifestyle predicated on a biblically inerrant belief of the Bible that serves both as a pacifier and buffer. Although Evangelical leaders deny it, within the world of Evangelicalism when one “accepts Jesus in their heart” and the biblical literalism that comes with that acceptance, there is no longer room to question, critique, or use one’s informed conscience because one’s life is programmed through “teachings” and activities that leave little if any time for “rebellion” which is the code word for anything an individual thinks, believes, or does that is contradictory to Evangelical faith beliefs.

It is obvious that the packaging of Evangelicalism takes hundreds of millions of dollars per year. Where does it come from? Yes, a lot of money is collected in the collection plate as tithing, the giving of 10% of one’s income, is most often mandatory. However, that amount is insufficient to finance Talk Radio, Televangelist ministries, and all the advertising that goes with them. So, where does the money come from? It comes from a stable of political right-wing extremists such as Joseph Coors and the Coors family of Coors Beer, billionaire and newspaper publisher Richard Mellon Scaife, the Richardson family of the H. Smith Richardson Foundation, and Paul M. Weyrich who began the Heritage Foundation with Joseph Coors to name a few.

Can we now begin to connect the dots? What the American Cabal wants most is a passive America. They want an American citizenry that cannot see and does not think about the institutions of society that create the oppression and disenfranchisement suffered by millions of Americans. They want an American citizenry that is apathetic to the root causes of economic and political injustice. They want an American citizenry that accepts that one out of three Americans live below the federal poverty line and that one out of three Americans, primarily female heads of households and their children, have no health insurance. They want an American citizenry that is not concerned about global warming, the environment, or the multi-million dollar salaries paid to top corporate executives. They want an American citizenry that gripes about a $3.00 plus price per gallon for gasoline but is apathetic about the multi-billion dollars per year tax breaks given to oil companies and their multi-billion dollars per year profit.

What the American Cabal wants is a citizenry that is pacified and buffered from the realities of their everyday lives. What the American Cabal wants is a citizenry that sees both America and itself through an opium induced haze.

And, they have created it. Out of the chaos, at least in their eyes, of the movements that fought for individual rights and liberties, that fought for justice and equality for all people as manifested by the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-Vietnam War Movement, the Women’s Movement, and the Gay Rights Movement they have built a movement of their own. It is called Evangelical Christianity and it is the opium of America.

How did this happen and how does it affect American politics and America today? During the civil rights and human rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s the American Cabal was greatly distressed. To use the term associated with the MAFIA, the chaos these movements caused to the established order was “bad for business” because the logical end of a proletariat; moreover minorities within the proletariat, that demanded a broadening of individual rights and liberties by its questioning of the institutions of society resulted in America making a distinct turn to the left. Such a turn to the left is not simply a semantic difference between left and right. It had measurable consequences in the relationship between government and the people being governed to wit: a democratically inspired left wing government is open and transparent while a right wing government by its very nature is closed and hidden. It is this right wing government that is closed and hidden that when exercised in its most extreme form become Fascism and a Fascist State.

It should come as no surprise and in fact should be obvious that the America Cabal, or for that matter any Cabal, to be successful needs a right wing government that is closed and hidden. In a government that identifies itself as a democracy, individual rights and liberties exist but within a framework that is exercised pursuant to the Constitution. However those rights and liberties that are antithical to the Cabal, even though they are protected by the Constitution, are not allowed and when demanded an excuse is created not to allow them to exist. Simply compare the openness and transparency of the left wing Clinton administration to the closed and hidden right wing administration of George W. Bush that used the attack on 9-11 to justify the Patriot Act and create the Iraq War. Additionally, the Bush administration has engaged in illegal wiretapping of American citizens. Most egregiously, this administration has also removed the right of the Writ of Habius Corpus that under the Patriot Act means indefinite detention without trial for anyone the administration considers an “enemy combatant” even America citizens.

The last American soldier killed in the Vietnam War was on April 29, 1975 as the secret documents housed at the American Headquarters in Saigon were being shredded. With America’s ignoble defeat and end of the war a dynamic shift had occurred in American politics. This shift was comprised of three elements. The first was liberals, spearheaded primarily by people less than thirty years old, who claimed responsibility for stopping the war. The second was that the Republican Party and its war hawks were totally discredited. President Nixon’s mantra that America could not leave Vietnam until “peace with honor” had been achieved had been thrown to the floor and trampled to death by an army and people that had been perceived by America, the mightiest military power in the world, as “a rag tag bunch of gooks dressed in pajamas.” The third was that President Nixon was forced to resign from the presidency in disgrace.

However the back slapping and high fives of the anti-war and anti-Nixon crowd soon gave way to a sense of national malaise as America tried to reconcile its historic self-image as the champion and beacon of Democracy with the truth of its immoral and unnecessary escalation of a war that needlessly claimed over 60,000 American lives predicated on the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was a pair of attacks by naval forces of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam (commonly referred to as North Vietnam) against two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy. The attacks occurred on August 2^nd and August 4^th 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin.

There are some today who claim that these attacks, especially the one on the USS Turner Joy did not occur because later research, including a report released in 2005 by the National Security Agency, indicated that the second attack most likely did not occur. This report also attempted to dispel the long-standing assumption that members of the administration of President Lyndon B. Johnson had knowingly lied about the nature of the incident.

It is my personal belief that both the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy were attacked and that U.S. Navy personnel were taken hostage as originally stated and understood by history. I do not believe the report of the National Security Agency and believe it is an attempt at revisionist history for contemporary political purposes. I believe this because I know a man who rose to the rank of Commander in the Navy who was an officer on the USS Turner Joy at the time of the attack and he is quite certain that he and the USS Turner Joy were under attack. It must be clearly understood that any man who has dodged bullets and shielded himself from mortars exploding around him knows this experience cannot be a “mistaken memory” regardless of any statement by governmental agencies to the contrary.

The outcome of the Gulf of Tonkin incident was the passage by Congress of the Southeast Asia Resolution (better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution), which granted President Johnson the authority to assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by "communist aggression." The resolution served as President Johnson's, as well as subsequent presidents, legal justification for escalating American involvement in the Vietnam War.

The discrediting of the Republican Party and national malaise that began in 1975 was just the situation and opportunity the American Cabal needed to reassert itself and blunt if not end the surge of the proletariat’s demand for an expansion of civil and human rights. This demand had resulted in the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the Woman’s Movement, the Stonewall Riots of 1969 that ushered in the militancy of gay people for equal rights, and the 1973 Supreme Court Case Roe v. Wade that made abortion legal. This demand also included that America take the lead in disarmament by turning our nuclear weapons into plow shares to end the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union.

All that the American Cabal needed was a mechanism, a tool to be used; to effect such a change in America’s direction and such a mechanism, such a tool, was close at hand. America has always had both a political and religious right but throughout history they had operated mutually exclusively of one another. The result was that by and large neither had been able to exert its beliefs on a national basis. However, that was soon to change.

The Machiavellian plot, the Faustian bargain, the American Cabal created was the melding of America’s political and religious right. As separate entities they were weak; united they would become strong. To the Cabal’s delight this would be a marriage that would allow them to regain control of the nation and advance their agenda.

One may ask, “What would the political right and religious right gain from their unification?” The answer once again is quite simple. The political right in the guise of the Republican Party would gain much needed money, votes, and a presumed return to moral respectability by remaking its platform in the image of the faith beliefs of the religious right best described as “family values.” The religious right would gain what it has always sought: recognition of the legitimacy of its faith beliefs and a voice and presence on the national stage to make its faith beliefs the law of the land.

The first salvo of success of the American Cabal’s string pulling was the election of the conservative Republican, Ronald Reagan, to the presidency of the United States. The second was conservative Republican Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” that turned control of both the United States Senate and House of Representatives over to the Republican Party which continues to hold these bodies in a conservative Republican stranglehold. The only blip on this radar of success was the sound defeat of President Reagan’s nomination of the ultra-conservative federal district court judge Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. President Reagan was followed by the conservative Republican President George H.W. Bush who delighted the Cabal with his military offensive Desert Storm that not only removed Saddam Husain from Kuwait but also filled the coffers of the Industrial Military Complex.

However, the cycle of conservative right-wing Republicanism fueled by the religious right appeared to have been broken with the election of President Bill Clinton. Yet, even before President Clinton’s election, Richard Mellon Scaife the ideological right-wing financier, had financed the yellow journalism that produced the White Water accusations against him and paid Paula Jones to accuse now President Clinton of sexually harassing her. It made no difference to Richard Mellon Scaife or the right-wing that the court appointed Special Investigator Robert Ray found “insufficient evidence” to tie President Clinton to the White Water allegation or that federal district judge Susan Webber Wright dismissed the sexual harassment charge by Paula Jones. Consequently, neither the White Water allegations nor the Paula Jones charge resulted in the right-wing goal of President Clinton’s impeachment. However on January 1, 1998 several media outlets made public that Monica Lewinski had told Kenneth Starr, the Special Prosecutor appointed by the right-wing Republican Congress to find a way to impeach President Clinton, that she had had a sexual relationship with the president. This charge and the relentless attack by the right-wing dominated Republican Congress to impeach President Clinton hamstrung the remainder of the Clinton presidency even though he won reelection by one of the largest amounts in American history.

The right-wing successfully equated President Clinton’s personal immorality, which they whipped to a fevered frenzy, to the imagined immorality of the entire Democratic Party. This paved the way for the contentious election campaign of George W. Bush for the presidency. When the result of that election was given to the Supreme Court to decide the American Cabal knew they had won the election because the majority of the Supreme Court Justices had been placed on the Court by right wing presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

With the appointment, not election, of George W. Bush to the presidency of the United States by the Supreme Court, the Cabal had just the man – many would say mechanism and tool - they wanted to be president: a right-wing political ideologue and Evangelical Christian. He is just the man the Cabal wants because he is dismissive of the Constitution, civil and human rights, and seeks to create an American theocracy of Evangelical faith beliefs that denies the legitimacy of criticism by the “loyal opposition.” Additionally, he believes that the interests of the super wealthy and corporate American supersede the welfare of poor and disenfranchised Americans and the environment. Finally, he is a super patriotic that accepts the need for war and in fact believes that America is ordained by biblical prophesy to be a major player in Armageddon that will be the end of the world as we know it and usher in the second coming of Christ.

Thus, Karl Marx has once again been proven right. Christianity as a mechanism, a tool, a manipulative device used in the hands of social institutions whose strings are pulled by a hidden Cabal is the opiate of the people – even the American people.

However, the mid-term election of 2006 indicated that the American people are getting off the opium pipe of Evangelical Christianity and are opening their eyes to the damage done to both America and the world by it and the Bush administration. When we look back in history we identify specific dates and events as turning points. The 2008 presidential election will be one such turning point. Will the Democrats be able to retake the White House and control of Congress? Will they be able to begin to undue the damage that opiate Evangelicalism and the Bush administration have perpetrated upon both America and the world? Or will the American Cabal once again be successful in pulling the strings to keep Americans and America in an Evangelically induced right- wing opiate haze?

Before we answer these questions we do well to consider the words George Washington read to his troops on Christimas moring 1776 written by Thomas Paine two days earlier that we now call The Crisis. America in 2008 is in no less crisis than were the Ameican colonies in 1776. To make Paine's words clear for contemporary readers I have subsituted Conservative Republicans for Tories.

THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and sunshine patriot will, in the crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tryanny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.

'Tis surprising to see how rapidly a panic will sometimes run through a country...Yet paincs, in some cases, have thier uses; they produce as much good as hurt. Their duration is always short; the mind soon grows thorugh them and acquires a firmer habit than beofre. But their pecular advantage is that they are the touchstones of sincerity and hypocrisy and bring things and men to light which might otherwise have lain forever undiscovered. In fact, they have the same effect on secret traitors which an imaginary apparition would have upon a private murderer. They sift out the hidden thoughts of man and hold them up in public to the world. Many a disguised Conservative Republican has lately shown his head that shall penitentially solemnize with curses the day on which Conservative Republicans arrived in Washington.

I shall conclude this paper with some miscellaneous remarks on the sate of our affairs; and shall begin with asking the following question: Why is it that the enmy have left the New England provences and made Washington the seat of war? The answer is easy: New England is not infested with Conservative Republicans and Washington is. I ahve ben tender in raising the cry against thes men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness. The periold is now arrived in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall. And what is a Conservative Republcian? Good God! What is he? I should not be afraid to go with a hundrend Liberal Democrats against a thousand Conservative Republicans, were they to attempt to get into arms. Every Conservative Republican is a coward; for servile, slavish, self-interested fear is the foundaiton of Consrevative Republicanism; and a man under such influence though he may be crue, neve can be brave.

Quitting this class of men, I turn with the warm ardor of a friend to those who have nobly stood, and are yet determined to stand the matter out: I call not upon a few, but upon all: not on this state or that state, but on every state: up and help us; lay your shoulders to the wheel; better have too much force than too little when so great an object is at stake. Let it be told to the future world that in the depth of winter, when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet and to repulse it. Say not that thousands are gone, turn out your tens of thousands; throw not the burden of the day upon Providence, but "show your faith by your works," that God may bless you. It matters not where you live or what rank of life you hold the evil or the blessing will reach you all. The far and the near, the home counties and the back, the rich and the poor, will suffer or rejoice alike. The heart that feels not now is dead; the blood of his children will curse his cowardice who shrinks back at a time when a little might have saved the whole and made them happy. I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm and whose conscience approves his conduct will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light. Not all the treasures of the world, so far as I believe, could have induced me to support an offensive war for I think it murder; but if a thief breaks into my house, burns and destroys my property, and kills or threatens to kill me, or those that are in it, and to "bind me in all cases whatsoever" to his absolute will, am I to suffer it? What signifies it to me, whether he who does it is a king or a common man; my countryman or not my countryman; whether it be done by an individual villain, or an army of them? If we reason to the root of things we shall find no difference; neither can any just cause be assigned why we should punish in the one case and pardon in the other. Let them call me rebel and welcome, I feel no concern from it; but I should suffer the misery of devils were I to make a whore of my soul by swearing allegiance to one whose character is that of a sottish, stupid, stubborn, worthless, brutish man. I conceive likewise a horrid idea in receiving mercy from a being who at the last day shall be shrieking to the rocks and mountains to cover him and fleeing with terror from the orphan, the widow, and the slain of America.

There are cases which cannot be overdone by language and this is one. There are persons, too, who see not the full extent of the evil which threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if he succeed, will be merciful. It is the madness of folly to expect mercy from those who have refused to do justice; and even mercy, where conquest is the object, is only a trick of war; the cunning of the fox is as murderous as the violence of the wolf and we ought to guard equally against both.

We, the American People, do well to also remember the words of Sir Frances Bacon in his essay, “On Studies” that we “read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest” the words of Thomas Paine. These are the words we need to answer the questions that will determine which road, the road of the tyranny of Republican Conservatism or the road of Liberal Democratic Democracy, America will take in the election of 2008 and beyond.