Tagged: world

D.R. 02-01: Israel-Hamas (III)

Volume 2, Issue 1

The Sense of the Congress:
A Special Report

UNRWA’s Palestinian curriculum a primary concern of the U.S. Congress

By Antarah Crawley | Last Modified 1/31/24 at 12:35 PM

Video: A. Crawley

WASHINGTON, DC — On 19 October 2023 and 8 November 2023 this outlet published articles on the United States House of Representatives’ (House) response to the Israel-Hamas War and particularly their deeply serious concern with the curriculum and textbooks used by the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) to support their mission of educating students in the Palestinian Territory.  UNRWA performs numerous civil society and traditionally-state-sponsored activities for the Palestinian population, and is responsible for the public education of civilian students.

The live broadcast of the joint subcommittee hearing.

On Tuesday, 30 January 2024, the House Foreign Affairs Committee Subcommittee on Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations and Subcommittee on Oversight and Accountability jointly convened a hearing entitled “UNRWA Exposed: Examining the Agency’s Mission and Failures,” largely in response to news that 12 UNRWA employees had been fired for their participation in the October 7, 2023 “Hamas terrorist attacks on Israel.” The gallery of the hearing room in House Visitors Center room 210 was filled to capacity.

The witnesses were:

  • Richard Goldberg, Senior Advisor, Foundation for Defense of Democracies
  • Marcus Sheff, Chief Executive Officer, IMPACT-se
  • Hillel Neuer, Executive Director, UN Watch
  • Mara Rudman, Schlesinger Professor, University of Virginia Miller Center

Mr. Mast (R) of Florida presided as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, etc.; Mr. Smith (R) of New Jersey presided as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Global Health, etc.; Mr. Crawley (AM) of United Scribes and Court Reporters United reported on the proceeding on behalf of the House Clerk’s Office of Official Reporters.

Present in the audience were at least 15 constituents of the Code Pink: Women for Peace (CODEPINK) organization. They wore pink shirts bearing the phrase “Let Gaza Live,” and during much of the hearing they displayed red paint on their palms while making what could be interpreted as the Master Mason’s Grand Hailing Sign of Distress (and certainly many a besieged Palestinian would be wont to cry out, ‘O Lord my God/Ya’Rabbi Ya’Illah, is there no help for the widow’s son?’). Also present in the audience was a constituency of pro-Israel women wearing black shirts that read “Stand with Israel”. One of them in particular (the one to the far left of the below photo [the one staring directly at me]) was particularly antagonistic against CODEPINK, repeatedly summoning Capitol Police officers to arrest those who spoke out.

Photo: A. Crawley

The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight, Mr. Mast, remarked in his opening statement:

Wherever you see UNRWA facilities, including schools, in Gaza, you are almost guaranteed to find tunnels, rocket launchers and weapons storages. During Israel’s incursion into Gaza, Israel Defense Forces uncovered a variety of rifles and ammunition hidden under UNRWA institutions.

Brian Mast (R-FL)

Al Jazeera reported in a 20 November 2023 article entitled What Israel’s video of ‘Hamas tunnel’ under al-Shifa tells us; The structure of the tunnel raises questions about whether it is indeed a Hamas-built pathway:

Tunnels in Gaza were first built in 1980 at a time when the enclave was under Israeli occupation, and before the formation of Hamas in 1987. They were constructed under the Egyptian border for smuggling all sorts of goods, including weapons, fuel and black market goods.

Over time, Palestinians realised that tunnels could have a military use. The first sign of the military use of tunnels was in 2001 when an Israeli military post was blown up with an explosive from underground. The tunnels entered Israeli public consciousness when Palestinian fighters emerged from a tunnel shaft and kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

Israel placed a blockade on the Gaza Strip after Hamas gained control of it in 2007. Tunnels became the means to bypass the siege and to transport food, goods and weapons. Under Hamas, the tunnels expanded strategically.

Al Jazeera

The Chairman continued, “We have seen footage and evidence of UNRWA teachers and staff praising and celebrating the October 7 attack on social media, referring to the attack as an unforgettable glorious morning and a splendid site.  We read reports that at least 12 UNRWA employees directly participated in the attack.”

During these remarks, an audience member representing CODEPINK proclaimed, “It’s 75 years of occupation that has caused all of this and now it’s the starving starving people, 2 million people starving right now.” The CODEPINK member was led away by the Capitol Police while advising the officers, “Okay, don’t hurt my arm … I am 77 years old. I am an Army colonel; I am a retired diplomat and what the U.S. is doing — the Biden Administration is doing is [tantamount] to genocide.  It’s a genocide that the Biden Administration is complicit in. The Biden Administration … is killing people just as the Israelis are. It’s our weapons, it’s our money … that’s doing this. And the money for UNRWA is very important to keep people from starving to death after trying to kill them all.” Numerous members of CODEPINK were arrested by Capitol Police officers for acts of civil disobedience and free speech.

On 26 January 2023, UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini reported from Amman, Jordan:

The Israeli Authorities have provided UNRWA with information about the alleged involvement of several UNRWA employees in the horrific attacks on Israel on 7 October.

To protect the Agency’s ability to deliver humanitarian assistance, I have taken the decision to immediately terminate the contracts of these staff members and launch an investigation in order to establish the truth without delay.  Any UNRWA employee who was involved in acts of terror will be held accountable, including through criminal prosecution.

UNRWA reiterates its condemnation in the strongest possible terms of the abhorrent attacks of 7 October and calls for the immediate and unconditional release of all Israeli hostages and their safe return to their families.

These shocking allegations come as more than 2 million people in Gaza depend on lifesaving assistance that the Agency has been providing since the war began. Anyone who betrays the fundamental values of the United Nations also betrays those whom we serve in Gaza, across the region and elsewhere around the world.

Philippe Lazzarini, UNRWA Commissioner-General

On 26 January 2024,  Al Jazeera reported:

The US Department of State said it was troubled by the allegations, which it said pertained to 12 UNRWA employees. It said it would provide no additional funding to the agency until the allegations were addressed.

The Department of State has temporarily paused additional funding for UNRWA while we review these allegations and the steps the United Nations is taking to address them,” spokesperson Matthew Miller said.

Al Jazeera

The Chairman continued his opening remarks, stating, “Make no mistake; the attacks on October 7 did not happen in a vacuum. The sickness on display from UNRWA is rooted in something deeper within its structure and mission. It’s rooted in the double standard the world applies for them, from their definition of refugee to the hatred they teach the Palestinian children –“

During these remarks, another audience member from CODEPINK rose to their feet to proclaim, “Please do not defund UNRWA. It was established in 1948 for the refugees of Palestine. If you unfund UNRWA, it’s a death sentence. They’re already starving. Please don’t defund UNRWA!…”

The Chairman of the Subcommittee on Global Health, etc., Mr. Smith, remarked in his opening statement:

Pubic pressure motivated by explosive new evidence that UNRWA employees were directly involved in the October 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, the Biden Administration last Friday as we know announced that it was ‘temporarily paused’ additional funding for UNRWA while it reviews the evidence. With all due respect to the President this was a long overdue response. Going far beyond the revelations of last week, however, there has been a long list of massive and irrefutable evidence of UNRWA’s extensive complicity and cooperation in Hamas’s antisemitic genocidal hate campaign. Like the Nazi’s before them, Hamas and their chief terrorism sponsor, Iran, they are committing genocide against the Jews.

Chris Smith (R-NJ)

The Chairman continued:

…[T]hese children from the earliest days of their lives are trained in hate for Jews and for Americans. Now we’ve heard how UNRWA’s textbooks, curricula, summer camps and official media are all infamous incubators of hate. And we’ve seen the evidence of its teacher’s administration’s involvement in — with Hamas.

Chris Smith (R-NJ)

During these remarks a male audience member dressed in a military-style black jacket rose and proclaimed, “You have blood on your hands! Shame on you! This is a genocide! You are starving children and people to death. This is a genocide and you are responsible for it. Shame on you! … Ceasefire now! You are killing people; you are killing innocent people … We will never forgive you for this … Shame on all of you…”

The Chairman responded to the outburst:

They don’t make their case.  As you can see, the hatred coming out of that particular man is so sad.  UNWRA, the UN Relief Works Agency was set up as we know in 1949 to provide aid and relief to refugees.  75 years later it’s still going, which is absurd, in a way, since nearby Arab nations will not permit the former to integrate into their societies. UNRWA provided education in hatred of Jews for the vastly expanded number of children, grandchildren, and great grand-children of the original refugees. UNRWA’s textbooks — and I’ve had meeting after meeting on this, including hearings — where we’ve actually read through the text books, full to overflowing with antisemitic hatred.

Chris Smith (R-NJ)

Witness Mr. Goldberg remarked:

Now when you look at the incitement of violence that has gone on for decades, the internalization in generation after generation to rise up and believe that they are refugees waiting to come back to what is today Israel to drive the Jews into the sea, October 7th is the logical conclusion of UNRWA. It is of course what they have been training generations to do with the resources we have provided going to these terrorist organizations to help carry out that mission.

Richard Goldberg

Witness Mr. Sheff remarked, regarding the fired UNRWA employees:

These are not a few bad apples. Rather, the institutional barrel is rotten. How do we know? We know by researching UNRWA’s educational infrastructure. In it, textbooks teach that Jews are liars and fraudsters who spread corruption which will lead to their annihilation. Students are taught about cutting the necks of the enemy; that a fiery massacre of Jews on a bus is celebrated as a barbecue party; that Dalal Mughrabi, who murdered 38 people and 13 children, is a role model. UNRWA educated that dying is preferable to living; that becoming a martyr will be rewarded in heaven. First graders are taught the alphabet by learning the words for attack and martyr. And fourth graders are taught addition by counting martyrs. These are just a handful of examples of incitement which run like a thread, as strategy, throughout the Palestinian curriculum which is taught in UNRWA schools. And our research shows the same violent jihadi educational materials are created on a large institutional level by UNRWA staff. … IMPACT-se has warned for years about the consequences of this hate education, and I ask you, what can UNRWA possible offer the next generation of Palestinians? Poisonous textbooks taught too often by extremist teachers?

Marcus Sheff
Lebanese-Palestinian revolutionary militant Dalal Mughrabi

Mr. Sheff later remarked:

Textbooks are uniquely authoritative, especially in the Manna region, in the Middle East, where you get one book, one grade, one subject; and they carry the values, the identities that leaders wish to pass down to the next generation, for good or for bad. This is how we create the societies of the future that we want to see, through these textbooks, through education. … We know that one of the first things that Hitler did when he came to power was change the textbooks.

Marcus Sheff

Mr. Goldman remarked, in response to a question my Mr. Moran (R) of Texas regarding any prior removals of UNRWA teachers, that he recalled “a case of a headmaster of an UNRWA school who was moonlighting as an Islamic jihad commander. He was removed by an Israeli air strike.” His remarks drew uproarious laughter from the pro-Israel audience members and representatives. Mr. Moran replied, “Well that’s one successful removal,” and went on to ask if there was “any part of the educational curriculum or programming that is overtly pro-American or pro-Israeli, that teaches the benefits for democracy?” (The present author has presented this question for rhetorical purposes.)

In one of his last remarks, Mr. Goldberg discussed the United Nations’ inherent systemic structural bias against Israel, which Mr. Hill (R) of Arkansas interpreted to mean that “the UN itself is the most antisemitic organization on the planet,” to which Mr. Goldberg replied “100% correct.”

It is notable that:

[I]n 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur Balfour sent the Balfour Declaration to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, stating Britain’s support for the creation of a Jewish “national home” in Palestine […and] that negotiations on the future of the country were to happen directly between Britain and the Jews, excluding Arab representation. His famous announcement at the Paris peace conference would reflect this interpretation, stating that the goal “[t]o make Palestine as Jewish as England is English.” The years that followed would see Jewish-Palestinian relations deteriorate dramatically.

In 1918, the Jewish Legion, a group primarily of Zionist volunteers, assisted in the British conquest of Palestine. In 1920, the territory was divided between Britain and France under the mandate system, and the British-administered area (including modern Israel) was named Mandatory Palestine. Arab opposition to British rule and Jewish immigration led to the 1920 Palestine riots and the formation of a Jewish militia known as the Haganah (“The Defense” in Hebrew) […] In 1922, the League of Nations granted Britain the Mandate for Palestine under terms which included the Balfour Declaration with its promise to the Jews, and with similar provisions regarding the Arab Palestinians.

[…]

Under the British Mandate placed by the League of Nations after World War I, Jewish immigration to the region [of Palestine] increased considerably leading to intercommunal conflict between Jews and the Arab majority. The UN-approved 1947 partition plan triggered a civil war between these groups which would see the expulsion or fleeing of most Palestinians from Mandatory Palestine. The British terminated the Mandate on 14 May 1948, and Israel declared independence on the same day.

On 15 May 1948, the armies of five neighboring Arab states invaded the area of the former Mandatory Palestine, starting the First Arab–Israeli War. An armistice in 1949 left Israel in control of more territory than the U.N. partition plan had called for; no new Arab state was created, as the rest of the former Mandate territory was divided between Egypt, which occupied the Gaza Strip, and Jordan, which annexed the West Bank. The 1967 Six-Day War ended with Israel occupying both the West Bank and Gaza alongside the Egyptian Sinai Peninsula and the Syrian Golan Heights. Israel has since effectively annexed both East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, and has established settlements across the occupied territories, actions which are deemed illegal under international law.

Wikipedia: Israel (retrieved 30 January 2024)

Mr. Issa (R) of California closed out the questioning by stating “that the record of UN is poor and that we must change the teachers of the next generation of Palestinians,” a statement to which no witness disagreed (with the possible exception of Professor Rudman who was the only witness to present a balanced viewpoint during the entire hearing).

These developments in the Congress’s assessment and treatment of educational curricula abroad presents serious concerns about the future of public school curricula in the United States. It highlights the increasingly important role of NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C. (N∴S∴), Universitas Autodidactus (U∴A∴), and United Scribes (U∴S∴) in administering a worldwide Political Education Bureau (Politburo) and publishing curricula for the development of self-knowledge, self-mastery, and self-determination. In the words of the Moorish Science Temple of America and 5% Nation of Gods and Earths, ISLAM means “I Self Law Am Master“.

Resources

© MMXXIV BY NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

D.R. 01-14: The Fed &c.

Volume 1, Issue 14

Special Edition on Political Economy

Contents — Art. 1. …On the FedArt 2. Charter F.A.Art. 3. …Consol DAOArt. 4. Notes from the DAOArt. 5. …XArt. 6. Culture…

Article 1

Notes on the System:
On the “Federal Reserve”

Comp. Ed. by Antarah Crawley | Last Modified 11/28/2023 at 9:40 PM

The Federal Reserve, the central bank of the United States, provides the nation with a safe, flexible, and stable monetary and financial system.

Banner of the Official Website of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, as of 27 Nov. 2023
The old clubhouse, Jekyll Island, Georgia. (Courtesy of Tyler E. Bagwell)

The people that walked in darkness have seen a great light: they that dwell in the land of the shadow of death, upon them hath the light shined.

Book of Isaiah, Chapter 9, Verse 2

Introductory Editorial Note: It is economic, social, and political suicide to question the legitimacy or constitutionality of the System (just ask Ezra Pound, Mr. Mullins, and Chairman McFadden). Notwithstanding that unfortunate circumstance, we must educate the public as to its mechanisms.

Preamble

[…] the Federal Reserve System is not Federal; it has no reserves, and is not a system at all, but rather, a criminal syndicate. From November, 1910, when the conspirators [U.S. Senator Nelson Aldrich of the National Monetary Commission, his secretary Arthur Shelton, U.S. Assistant Secretary of the Treasury A. Piatt Andrew, Senior Partner Henry Davison of J.P. Morgan Co., President Frank Vanderlip of the National City Bank of New York, President Charles D. Norton of the First National Bank of New York, Benjamin Strong of J.P. Morgan, and Paul Warburg of Kuhn, Loeb & Co.] met on Jekyll Island, Georgia, to the present time machinations of the Federal Reserve bankers have been shrouded in secrecy. Today [1991], that secrecy has cost the American people a three trillion [now 33 trillion] dollar debt, with annual interest payments to these bankers amounting to some three hundred billion dollars per year, sums which stagger the imagination, and which in themselves are ultimately unpayable.

[…] American history in the twentieth century has recorded the amazing achievements of the Federal Reserve bankers. First, the outbreak of World War I, which was made possible by the funds available from the new central bank of the United States. Second, the Agricultural Depression of 1920. Third, the Black Friday Crash on Wall Street of October, 1929, and the ensuing Great Depression. Fourth, World War II. Fifth, the conversion of the assets of the United States and its citizens from real property to paper assets from 1945 to the present, transforming a victorious America and foremost world power in 1945 to the world’s largest debtor nation in 1990. […] Will Americans act to rebuild our nation […] or will we continue to be enslaved by the Babylonian debt money system which was set up by the Federal Reserve Act of 1913 to complete our total destruction? This is the only question which we have to answer, and we do not have much time left to answer it.

Eustace Mullins, Jackson Hole, Wyoming, 1991; Forward to “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” Author’s Special 70th Birthday Edition: Bankers Research Institute: Staunton, Virginia: 1993. (Emphasis mine.)

Primary Sources

Some people think the Federal Reserve banks are United States Government institutions. They are not government institutions. They are private credit monopolies which prey upon the people of the United States for the benefit of themselves and their foreign customers. The Federal Reserve banks are the agents of the foreign central banks. Henry Ford has said, ‘The one aim of these financiers is world control by the creation of inextinguishable debts.’ The truth is the Federal Reserve Board has usurped the Government of the United States by the arrogant credit monopoly which operates the Federal Reserve Board and the Federal Reserve Banks.

Louis T. McFadden, Chairman of the U.S. House Banking and Currency Committee, June 10, 1932. (Mullins 153-154.)

Whereas I charge them, jointly and severally, with the crime of having treasonably conspired and acted against the peace and security of the United States and having treasonable conspired to destroy the constitutional government in the United States. Resolved, that the Committee on the Judiciary is authorized and directed as a whole or by subcommittee to investigate the official conduct of the Federal Reserve Board and agents to determine whether, in the opinion of the said committee, they have been guilty of any high crime or misdemeanour which in the contemplation of the Constitutions requires the interposition of the Constitutional powers of the House.

Chairman McFadden, January 13, 1932, introducing a resolution indicting the Federal Reserve Board of Governors for “Criminal Conspiracy,” on which no action was taken. This, and the Chairman’s December 13, 1932, motion to impeach President Herbert Hoover was the last nail driven into his political coffin. (Mullins 154.)

I wrote into the bill which was introduced by me in the Senate on June 26, 1913, a provision that the powers of the System should be employed to produce a stable price level, which meant a dollar of stable purchasing, debt-paying power. It was stricken out. The powerful money interests got control of the Federal Reserve Board through Mr. Paul Warburg, Mr. Albert Strauss, and Mr. Adolph C. Miller and they were able to have that secret meeting of May 18, 1920, and bring about a contraction of credit so violent it threw five million people out of employment. In 1920 that Reserve Board deliberately caused the Panic of 1921. The same people, unrestrained in the stock market, expanding credit to a great excess between 1926 and 1929, raised the price of stocks to a fantastic point where they could not possibly earn dividends, and when the people realized this, they tried to get out, resulting in the Crash of October 24, 1929.

U.S. Senator Robert L. Owen, testifying before the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1938. (Mullins 157.)

The Federal Reserve Bank is an institution owned by the stockholding member banks. The Government has not a dollar’s worth of stock in it.

W.P.G. Harding, Governor of the Federal Reserve Board, testifying in 1921. (Mullins 157.)

The people did not know the Federal Reserve Banks were organized for profit-making. They were intended to stabilize the credit and currency supply of the country. That end has not been accomplished. Indeed, there has been remarkable variation in the purchasing power of money since the System went into effect. The Federal Reserve men are chosen by the big banks, through discrete little campaigns, and they naturally follow the ideals which are portrayed to them as the soundest from a financial point of view.

U.S. Senator Robert L. Owen, testifying during the Gold Reserve Hearings of 1934. (Mullins 161.)

At the moment, 1934, we have 900 million dollars excess reserves. In 1924, with increased reserves of 300 million, you got some three or four billion in bank expansion of credit very quickly. That extra money was put out by the Federal Reserve Banks in 1924 through buying government securities and was the cause of the rapid expansion of bank credit. The banks continued to get excess reserved because more gold came in, and because, whenever there was a slackening, the Federal Reserve people would put out some more. They held back a bit in 1926. Things firmed up a bit that year. And then in 1927 they put out less than 300 million additional reserves, set the wild stock market going, and that led us right into the smash of 1929.

[…] The money of the Federal Reserve Banks is money they created. When they buy Government securities they create reserves. They pay for the government securities by giving checks on themselves, and those checks come to the commercial banks and are by them deposited in the Federal Reserve Banks, and then money exists which did not exist before.

Benjamin Anderson, economist for the Chase National Bank of New York, testifying during the Gold Reserve Hearings of 1934. (Mullins 161.)

The Board of Governors opposes any bill which proposes a stable price level, on the grounds that prices do not depend primarily on the price or cost of money; that the Board’s control over money cannot be made complete; and that steady average prices, even if obtainable by official action, would not insure lasting prosperity

Marriner S. Eccles, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (1934–48), in “Memorandum on Proposals to maintain prices at fixed levels,” Monday, March 13, 1939. (Mullins 163.)

The Government controls the gold reserve, that is, the power to issue money and credit, thus largely regulating the price structure.

[…] The Federal Reserve Board has the power of open market operations. Open-market operations are the most important single instrument of control over the volume and cost of credit in this country. When I say “credit” in this connection, I mean money, because by far the largest part of money in use by the people of this country is in the form of bank credit or bank deposits. When the Federal Reserve Banks buy bills or securities in the open market, they increase the volume of the people’s money and lower its cost; and when they sell in the open market they decrease the volume of money and increase its cost. Authority over these operations, which affect the welfare of the whole people, must be invested in a body representing the national interest.

Chairman Eccles, testifying before the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency, 1935. (Mullins 163-164.)

The cash [of a Federal Reserve Bank], in truth, does not exist and has never existed. What we call ‘cash reserves’ are simply bookkeeping credits entered upon ledgers of the Federal Reserve Banks. The credits are created by the Federal Reserve Banks and then passed along though the banking system.

Congressman Wright Patman, “The Primer of Money,” p. 38. (Mullins 164.)

The trick in the Federal Reserve notes is that the Federal reserve banks lose no cash when they pay out this currency to the member banks. Federal Reserve notes are not redeemable in anything except what the Government calls ‘legal tender’—that is, money that a creditor must be willing to accept from a debtor in payment of sums owed him. But since they are really redeemable only in themselves … they are and irredeemable obligation issued by the Federal Reserve Banks.

Peter L. Bernstein, “A Primer On Money, Banking and Gold,” Vintage Books, New York, 1965, p. 104. (Mullins 165).

The dollar represents a one dollar debt to the Federal Reserve System. The Federal Reserve Banks create money out of thin air to buy Government bonds from the United States Treasury, lending money into circulation at interest, by bookkeeping entries of checkbook credit to the United States Treasury. The Treasury writes up an interest bearing bond for one billion dollars. The Federal Reserve gives the Treasury a one billion dollar credit for the bond, and has created out of nothing a one billion dollar debt which the American people are obligated to repay with interest.

[…] Where does the Federal Reserve system get the money with which to create Bank Reserves? Answer. It doesn’t get the money, it creates it. When the Federal Reserve writes a check, it is creating money. The Federal Reserve is a total moneymaking machine. It can issue money or checks.

Congressman Patman, “Money Facts,” House Banking and Currency Committee, 1964, p. 9. (Mullins 165.)

There is still another and more important element of public interest in the operation of banks beside the safekeeping of money. One of the most important factors to remember in this connection is that the supply of money affects the general level of prices—the cost of living. The Cost of Living Index and money supply are parallel.

“A Day’s Work at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York” (pamphlet), 1951, p. 22. (Mullins 165.)

If I deposited $100 with my bank and the reserve requirements imposed by the Federal Reserve Bank are 20% then the bank can make a loan to John Doe of up to $80. Where does the $80 come from? Is does not come out of my deposit of $100; on the contrary, the bank simply credits John Doe’s account with $80. The bank can acquire Government obligations by the same procedure, by simply creating deposits to the credit of the government. Money creating is a power of the commercial banks … Since 1917 the Federal Reserve has given private banks forty-six billion dollars of reserves.

Congressman Patman, Congressional Record, March 21, 1960. (Mullins 167.)

ECCLES: The banking system as a whole creates and extinguishes the deposits as they make loans and investments, whether they buy Government Bonds or whether they buy utility bonds or whether they make Farmers’ loans.

MR. PATMAN: I am thoroughly in accord with what you say, Governor, but the fact remains that they created the money, did they not?

ECCLES: Well, the banks create money when they make loan and investments.

Before the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency, June 24, 1941. (Mullins 167.)

MR. PATMAN: How did you get the money to buy those two billion dollars worth of Government securities in 1933?

ECCLES: We created it.

MR. PATMAN: Out of what?

ECCLES: Out of the right to issue credit money.

MR. PATMAN: And there is nothing behind it, is there, except out Government’s credit?

ECCLES: That is what our monetary system is. If there were no debts in our money system, there wouldn’t be any money.

Before the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency, September 30, 1941. (Mullins 167.)

ECCLES: I mean the Federal Reserve, when it carries out an open market operation, that is, if it purchases Government securities in the open market, it puts new money into the hands of the banks which creates idle deposits.

MR. DEWEY: There are no excess reserves to use for this purpose?

[ECCLES]: Whenever the Federal Reserve System buys Government securities in the open market, or buys the direct from the Treasury, either one, that is what it does.

MR. DEWEY: What are you going to use to buy them with? You are going to create credit?

ECCLES: That is all we have ever done. That is the way the Federal Reserve System creates money. It is a bank of issue.

Before the U.S. House Committee on Banking and Currency, June 17, 1942. (Mullins 167-168.)

MR. KOLBURN: What do you mean by monetization of the public debt?

ECCLES: I mean the bank creating money by the purchase of Government securities. All money is created by debt—either private or public debt.

MR. FLETCHER: Chairman Eccles, when do you think there is a possibility of returning to a free an open market, instead of this pegged and artificially controlled financial market we now have?

ECCLES: Never. Not in your lifetime or mine.

Hearing before the U.S. House, 1947. (Mullins 168.) (Emphasis added.)

Congress may not abdicate or transfer to others its legitimate functions. Congress cannot Constitutionally delegate its legislative authority to trade or industrial associations or groups so as to empower them to make laws.

U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Schechter Poultry v. United States of America, 29 U.S. 495, 55 US 837.842 (1935), ruling the National Recovery Act (NRA) unconstitutional. (Mullins 168.)

The Congress shall have Power to borrow money on the credit of the United States … and to coin Money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures.”

Article 1, Sec. 8 of the Constitution of the United States of America. (Mullins 168.)

The money that began to appear in circulation a week ago, December 21, 1942, was really printing press money in the fullest sense of the term, that is, money which has no collateral of any kind behind it. The Federal Reserve statement that ‘The Board of Governors, after consultation with the Treasury Department, has authorized Federal Reserve Banks to utilize at this time the existing stocks of currency printed in the early thirties, known as ‘Federal Reserve Banknotes‘. We repeat, these notes have absolutely no collateral of any kind behind them.

Henry Hazlitt, Newsweek Magazine, January 4, 1943. (Mullins 169.)

GOVERNOR ECCLES: The currency in circulation was increased from seven billion dollars in four years to twenty-one and a half billion. We are losing some considerable amounts of gold during the war period. As our exports have gone out, largely on a lend-lease basis, we have taken imports on which we have given dollar balances. These countries are now drawing off these dollar balances in the form of gold.

MR. SMITH: Governor Eccles, what is the objective that the foreign governments are after in this projected program whereby we would contribute gold to an international fund? [Referring to the Stabilization Fund, known after 27 December 1945 as the International Monetary Fund (IMF)].

GOVERNOR ECCLES: I would like to discuss OPA [Office of Price Administration], and leave the stabilization fund for a time when I am prepared to go into it.

Senate Hearings on the Office of Price Administration (OPA), 1944. (Mullins 169.)
An OPA poster

Modern Implications

Fractional-reserve banking predates the existence of governmental monetary authorities and originated with bankers’ realization that generally not all depositors demand payment at the same time. In the past, savers looking to keep their coins and valuables in safekeeping depositories deposited gold and silver at goldsmiths, receiving in exchange a note for their deposit (see Bank of Amsterdam). These notes gained acceptance as a medium of exchange for commercial transactions and thus became an early form of circulating paper money.[1] As the notes were used directly in trade, the goldsmiths observed that people would not usually redeem all their notes at the same time, and they saw the opportunity to invest their coin reserves in interest-bearing loans and bills. This generated income for the goldsmiths but left them with more notes on issue than reserves with which to pay them. A process was started that altered the role of the goldsmiths from passive guardians of bullion, charging fees for safe storage, to interest-paying and interest-earning banks. Thus fractional-reserve banking was born.[2]

If creditors (note holders of gold originally deposited) lost faith in the ability of a bank to pay their notes, however, many would try to redeem their notes at the same time. If, in response, a bank could not raise enough funds by calling in loans or selling bills, the bank would either go into insolvency or default on its notes. Such a situation is called a bank run and caused the demise of many early banks.[1]

These early financial crises led to the creation of central banks. The Swedish Riksbank was the world’s first central bank, created in 1668. Many nations followed suit in the late 1600s to establish central banks which were given the legal power to set a reserve requirement, and to specify the form in which such assets (called the monetary base) were required to be held.[3] In order to mitigate the impact of bank failures and financial crises, central banks were also granted the authority to centralize banks’ storage of precious metal reserves, thereby facilitating transfer of gold in the event of bank runs, to regulate commercial banks, and to act as lender-of-last-resort if any bank faced a bank run. The emergence of central banks reduced the risk of bank runs which is inherent in fractional-reserve banking, and it allowed the practice to continue as it does today.[4] where it is the system of banking prevailing in almost all countries worldwide.[5][6]

During the twentieth century, the role of the central bank grew to include influencing or managing various macroeconomic policy variables, including measures of inflation, unemployment, and the international balance of payments. In the course of enacting such policy, central banks have from time to time attempted to manage interest rates, reserve requirements, and various measures of the money supply and monetary base.[7]

History of Fractional-Reserve Banking (Wiki)

As announced on March 15, 2020, the Board reduced reserve requirement ratios to zero percent effective March 26, 2020.  This action eliminated reserve requirements for all depository institutions.

Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, “Reserve Requirements,” From, Policy Tools. federalreserve.gov. (Emphasis added.)

The Federal Reserve Board on Monday announced technical details related to reserve requirements for depository institutions, which will remain zero. The annual adjustment and publication of the reserve requirement exemption amount and low reserve tranche is required by law and does not indicate a change in depository institutions’ reserve requirements.

Board of Governors of Federal Reserve System, “Federal Reserve Board announces annual indexing of reserve requirement exemption amount and low reserve tranche for 2024,” November 27, 2023. federalreserve.gov.

Concluding Editorial Note: The Fed’s inception at Jekyll Island circa November 22, 1910, the signing of the Federal Reserve Act on December 23, 1913, and its subsequent clandestine operations follow exactly the plot and themes of The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson (1886) and The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum (1900). 

Article 2

Charter of Free Association

By Antarah Crawley | Last Modified 11/28/2023 at 9:25 PM

NACOTCHTANK, OD — The Governor of the Society of the New Syllabus (NS) at Nacotchtank-on-Potomac (Anacostia) District of Ouachita (Washington, District of Columbia), Furthest West (al-Maghreb al-Aqsa) To All To Whom These Presents Come, Sends Greeting and Peace:

Know ye by these presents that this decentralized, autonomous and freely associated Political Bureau of Education (Politburo), to wit, NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C. (N∴S∴), is the founding member of the brain trust of the international association of working people (“workers”), free thinkers, truth speakers and light workers united in a firm league of friendship in the nature of a decentralized autonomous organization (5th IWA—FTLU—FLF—DAO), from the 1st Ecclesiastic College at Nacotchtank, Ouachita District (153d CORPS).

TWAP PARTY PLANK NO. 5: The producer of goods shall be the owner of such goods less the interest per cent held by capital investors in the production of such goods. 

Charter of Free Association (F.A.)
of

בית מדרש

B’T MDRS
(“(al) Beth/Bayt (ha) Midrash/Madrasa”),
being the

Office of Preceptor of the Student Body,
House of Studies, F.A., Political Bureau of Education,
153d CORPS, FLF-DAO;

Also known in the African tradition as Hogon of the Sanctuarie de Binou;

Also known generally as the Preceptory at Nacotchtank in the trust of the Governor and Company of NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C. (NS)

Nota Bene that faith and belief are not a source of revenue, but trust may be a such a source provided it is not usurious as to the change of venue; NS to receive quarterly dividends from/interest pmnts x% of principal trust res for routine (“regular”) educational and administrative services rendered to DAO student body (“the public”); therefore trust res held for benefit of members of any student body of the decentralized autonomous organization of the working people associated and free thinkers, truth speakers, and light workers united in the nature of a firm league of friendship (5th Int’l Ass’n, WFTLU, FLF-DAO); and Trustee N∴S∴ obligated to perform “regular” services; LLC to vest membership interest in trust to receive dividends/returns on N∴S∴ commercial operations such as BLK MKT (“the Press”) and Production Dept. of Audiovisual Media (“the Media”); ergo symbiotic economic relationship. 

Model A: In exchange for up to 49% interest in itself, N∴S∴ to receive trust dividends/disbursements of 12% annually. 

Model B: N∴S∴ to sell 33% private equity in itself to Rothschild & Co., London, for $33 million in equal parts gold and silver bullion, English government bonds, United States Treasuries, United States dollars (USD), and Classical, Italianate or Moorish-style real estate; then vest these proceeds according to Model A.

Although a Labor government nationalized the Bank of England in 1946, The Great Soviet Encylopaedia points out (vol. 1, p. 490c) that the Bank of England continues to pay 12% dividends per annum, just as it had done prior to the nationalization. The “Governor” is appointed by the government, in a situation similar to that in the United States, where the Governors of the Federal Reserve System are appointed by the President. However, as is pointed out in the Encylopaedia Americana v. 13, p. 272, ‘In practice, the governors of the Bank of England have not hesitated to criticize and bring pressure on the government in public.’

Mullins, Appendix I of “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” p. 181.

Concluding Note: Per the sunnah (way, tradition, praxis) of Kogard, it is most prudent for our Honorable Society, not to engage in labyrinths of credit and debt but, to arrive at the very source of all money.

Article 3

Free Trade Monetary Policy:
Toward a Consolidated DAO Council on High Finance

By Antarah Crawley

NACOTCHTANK, OD — Toward an Act to establish a Consolidated DAO Council on High Finance (the “Consol”):—

ADVERTISEMENT: DAO INTERNATIONAL COMMAND—SEEKING PARTNER(S) TO CAPITALIZE TRUST IN WHICH TO VEST UP TO 49% INTERESTS IN DIVERSIFIED F.A. INVESTMENTS AND HOLDINGS; SUCH PARTNER TO BE ADMITTED TO BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND DAO INTERCOM BY SIMPLIFIED RITE OF FRIENDSHIP.

DAO BANK BONDS NOTES & BILLS

A trade acceptance instrument, negotiable, having a face value, expiry/maturity date, and discount value backed by the DAO brain trust, representing a promise to pay or otherwise discharge an obligation between freely associated (F.A.) producers and providers of goods and services. 

This is preferable to the present system of the national credit monopoly buying government bonds on which the American people owe the principal and interest for NO MONEY DOWN. It is an open book for which the People are liable on the ledger of a private trust. 

Open book accounts only name a debtor on an outstanding account payable. The Fed amalgamated all the credits on the open books of American businessmen by urging the exchange of trade acceptances and “creating money on the basis of debt” (Eccles). 

Bill of Exchange, a negotiable instrument:

Seller => Draft–Demand4Pmnt => Buyer

Buyer => Acceptance=Promise2Pay=> Seller

Time of expiration = date of maturity

May endorse to bank at discount rate

Trade Acceptances

Explanation (from, CitiBank) [The “accepting” company is replaced with X]:

  • A draft, also known as a “bill of exchange”, is a traditional, long-standing trade instrument which has been used across the globe for hundreds of years; it is recognized by trading partners and financial institutions as a means of payment.
  • When a draft is drawn on a Buyer/Drawee it’s considered a Demand for Payment. When “Accepted” by the Buyer/Drawee it becomes a Trade Acceptance. The Acceptance adds X’s irrevocable payment promise to its Supplier/Drawer; to pay the accepted draft amount upon maturity.
  • Most countries have common laws governing Trade Acceptance (typically covered by negotiable instrument law).
  • The discount rate charged to suppliers is commensurate with the X’s credit rating, which is most often lower than the interest rate associated with the Supplier’s other forms of financing (Note: Pricing is provided on the needed cover letter. See the “Process Flow” tab ).
  • Trade acceptances are globally recognized, readily marketable, and easily transferable by simple endorsement.
  • Highly leveraged and/or smaller suppliers categorically benefit from low cost finance

Application & Benefits:

  • Once the Buyer has placed its acceptance upon the draft, the supplier may request:
    1. To sell the X Accepted Draft, at a discount, to Citibank, N.A., or
    2. Citibank, N.A. to hold it, until its maturity.
  • X’s suppliers do not have to become clients of Citibank, N.A. nor sign any upfront legal agreements for either a. or b. above. When suppliers want to request Citibank, N.A. to purchase the X Trade Acceptance, they merely endorse the draft to Citibank, N.A. and complete the warranty statements located in Section 9 of the required Document Transmittal Form / Cover Letter which is required with each presentation.
  • The Supplier gets short term funding without recourse, at attractive rates (based on the X’s credit rating), and without using their own credit lines.

Exchange, in the international financial world, means the transactions in money or securities, or simply, the “exchange” of the values of these securities. It is necessary that this “exchange” take place where the values can be established, and this place is the ‘City‘ in London.

London was established as the primary center of exchange because of the ‘Consols’ of the Bank of England, bonds which could never be redeemed, but which paid a stable rate of return. Henry Clews writes, in The Wall Street View, Silver Burdett Co., 1900, p. 255, ‘The Consolidated Act of 1757 consolidated the debts of the Bank of England at 3%, which were kept in an account at the Bank of England as is the great bulwark of its deposits.’ By ostentatiously ‘dumping’ ‘Consols’ on the London Exchange after the Battle of Waterloo, in a pretended panic, Nathan Meyer Rothschild then secretly bought up the Consols sold in the panic by other holders at a low rate, and became the largest holder of Consols, and thus won control of the Bank of England in 1815.

Mullins, Appendix I of “Secrets of the Federal Reserve,” p. 181.

Article 4

Notes from the DAO

Comp. Ed. by Antarah Crawley

Our present society is founded on the exploitation of the propertyless classes by the propertied. This exploitation is such that the propertied (capitalists) buy the working force body and soul of the propertyless, for the price of the mere costs of existence (wages), and take for themselves, i.e., steal, the amount of new values (products) which exceeds this price, whereby wages are made to represent the necessities instead of the earnings of the wage-laborer.

As the non-possessing classes are forced by their poverty to offer for sale to the propertied their working forces, and as our present production on a grand scale enforces technical development with immense rapidity, so that by the application of an always decreasing number of human working forces, an always increasing amount of products is created; so does the supply of working forces increase constantly, while the demand therefor decreases. This is the reason why the workers compete more and more intensely in selling themselves, causing their wages to sink, or at least on the average, never raising them above the margin necessary for keeping intact their working ability.

Whilst by this process the propertyless are entirely debarred from entering the ranks of the propertied, even by the most strenuous exertions, the propertied, by means of the ever-increasing plundering of the working class, are becoming richer day by day, without in any way being themselves productive.

If now and then one of the propertyless class become rich, it is not by their own labor, but from opportunities which they have to speculate upon, and absorb the labor-product of others.

[…]

What we would achieve is, therefore, plainly and simply,—

First, Destruction of the existing class rule, by all means, i.e., by energetic, relentless, revolutionary, and international action.

Second, Establishment of a free society based upon co-operative organization of production.

Third, Free exchange of equivalent products by and between the productive organizations without commerce and profit-mongery.

Fourth, Organization of education on a secular, scientific, and equal basis for both sexes.

Fifth, Equal rights for all without distinction to sex or race.

Sixth, Regulation of all public affairs by free contracts between the autonomous (independent) communes and associations, resting on a federalistic basis.

Whoever agrees with this ideal let him grasp our outstretched brother hands!

Proletarians of all countries, unite!

Fellow-workmen, all we need for the achievement of this great end is ORGANIZATION and UNITY.

There exists now no great obstacle to that unity. The work of peaceful education and revolutionary conspiracy well can and ought to run in parallel lines.

The day has come for solidarity. Join our ranks! Let the drum beat defiantly the roll of battle, “Workmen of all lands, unite! You have nothing to loose but your chains; you have a world to win!”

Tremble, oppressors of the world! Not far beyond your purblind sight there dawns the scarlet and sable lights of the Judgment Day.

“To the Workingmen of America” (MANIFESTO OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING PEOPLES’ ASSOCIATION), 1883.

I have tried to use administrative procedure against these criminals, but they don’t get the message, so this is the message. If they want to perjure their oaths of office and engage in TREASON and SEDITION, and BREACH OF TRUST, and other crimes to numerous to list, against Me, that they BETTER be prepared to go ALL THE WAY, and MURDER Me as well, because by the time I am done with them, (I will do it all within the law), they will wish they had MURDERED Me. It is My patriotic duty to come after them to My last dying breath, and I will file commercial liens against them, I will liquidate their bonds, I will file criminal complaints against them and their bosses, I will seize their assets, and I will not rest until I see them do that little dance they do at the end of a common law rope, and even then, in the next life, I will be DEMANDING Justice before the judgment BAR of God, to make sure they get to spend the rest of eternity receiving their just reward. Also, after I am dead and gone on to the next life, because this is on the record, these criminals will be hunted down, just like the NAZI war criminals that are still hunted down this day. Furthermore, these criminals are hereby put on NOTICE that with criminals like them in this world, I have a DEATH wish, because this world is NOT big enough for both of us, so go ahead and make MY day, the sooner I am out of here the better, and I shall exercise My God given RIGHT to resist their unlawful arrest with lethal fource, if necessary, and then they will have an excuse to MURDER Me, so go ahead criminals, MAKE MY DAY!

Glenn Winningham (usually self-styled as “Glenn Winningham: House of Fearn”): Winningham v. Canada (30 November 2010) Lethbridge 1006 00907 (Alta. Q.B.), leave to appeal denied (Alta. C.A.), as cited by Associate Chief Judge J.D. Rooke in Meads v. Meads, 2012 ABQB 571, pp. 41-42.

Article 5

“Something called ‘X'”

From, Wikipedia

On pages 95 and 96 of The Road We Are Traveling, under the heading of “Free Enterprise into ‘X'”,[16] [Stuart] Chase [(March 8, 1888 – November 16, 1985)…American economist,[1] social theorist, and writer.[2]] listed 18 characteristics of political economy that he had observed among[17] Russia, Germany, Italy, Japan, and Spain between 1913[18] and 1942. Chase labeled this phenomenon “… something called ‘X'”.[16] Characteristics include the following:

  1. A strong, centralized government.
  2. An executive arm growing at the expense of the legislative and judicial arms.
  3. The control of banking, credit and security exchanges by the government.
  4. The underwriting of employment by the government, either through armaments or public works.
  5. The underwriting of social security by the government – old-age pensions, mothers’ pensions, unemployment insurance, and the like.
  6. The underwriting of food, housing, and medical care, by the government.
  7. The use of deficit spending to finance these underwritings.
  8. The abandonment of gold in favor of managed currencies.
  9. The control of foreign trade by the government.
  10. The control of natural resources.
  11. The control of energy sources.
  12. The control of transportation.
  13. The control of agricultural production.
  14. The control of labor organizations.
  15. The enlistment of young men and women in youth corps devoted to health, discipline, community service and ideologies consistent with those of the authorities.
  16. Heavy taxation, with special emphasis on the estates and incomes of the rich.
  17. Control of industry without ownership.
  18. State control of communications and propaganda.

Article 6

Culture & Style

Please enjoy this musical selection from Alice Coltrane Turiyasangitananda:

© MMXXIII BY NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.

‘Ecrasez l’infâme’

The Nature and Role of the Press and the Spreading of Public Ideas during the Initial Decline of the Old Regime in 1789, Together with Some Parallels Drawn into the Modern Period.

By Antarah Crawley | GWU ENGL 3481W | Spring 2012

Contents — I. Introduction:  Drawing Parallels—Bringing the “Voltaire-figure” into the Modern Period — II. Classical Interpretations of the French Revolution and its Reactions:  An Inevitable Consequence of Social Discrepancies? — III. The Significance of the Press: An Unprecedented Surge of Dialogue Between All Class LevelsIV. Repression Reenacted: Instances of repressed scholarship on the French Revolution under new Oppressive French Regimes and Abroad; What is the significance?

I.  Drawing Parallels—Bringing the “Voltaire-figure” into the Modern Period

 This is a time in which trends in world leadership are moving into an ominously monopoly-minded direction.  Industrial and financial consolidation to the end of optimizing profit for those at the top of the corporate food chain, together with reckless investing and trading in the financial sector, is a reality that had led to near disaster—the 2008 recession.  Such reckless habits of the American aristocratic class—that class that controls the means of production (footnote: what would be land in 1780s France)—has indeed sparked revolt from the lower classes, ineffective insofar as it has been.  But the culture of dissent is present, just as it was in 1788 as the bourgeoisie began to find fault with King Louis XIV’s handling of the economy.  We have in our society the broodings for a coup de tat of the industrial and financial superpowers that sway Americans’ lives.  If the government cannot adhere to the wishes of the classes that serve as it’s support base—the small businessmen and entrepreneurs, or the modern bourgeoisie, as well as the large working class population—and break its ties with such entities, then as we can see from history, and overthrow of the symbolic corporate-monarchy is eminent.

Below this paper examines how the French Revolution unfolded and what factors contributed to its initial success, at the same time as it draws parallels between the events of 1789 and the current trends in the United States of America.  With social media being a particularly effective and influential method of disseminating ideas in our modern society, it compels me to delve into the question of how the media of the 18th Century—the printed press and periodicals—affected popular opinion and reactions to the monarchy.  Such answers may help us find similar trends in our own society of acute discrepancy between those that have power, both political and economic, and those who do not have it.  And furthermore, 1789 is a perfect bookmark with which to compliment the modern period that I speak of here, 2012, because historians widely assert that the French Revolution ushered in the modern era with the creation of a “truly universal civilization…proclaiming the fundamental and inviolable rights of all people.”

It is the case, however, that the modern concept of politics, on which this country was based, is being eroded by government partiality towards big-business—we seem to be relapsing into a monarchal society.  In this time of quasi-revolt, as Occupiers remove themselves from the system of economic and political abuse by the Haves, we should find value in looking to the ways in which 18th Century revolutionary figures confronted the monarchy and the aristocracy.  What was the role of popular periodicals during the late 1780s, and can their impact be translated into modern trends like Facebook?  What was the role of the Enlightenment—the elite, learned class—in influencing the popular revolt, if there were any influence there at all?  How must a revolutionary, indifferent of his political opposition and bent only on self-improvement and social awareness—a “Voltaire-figure”—go about using the written word to combat an oppressive regime?  What, if anything, can the history of the French Revolution teach us?

II. Classical Interpretations of the French Revolution and its Reactions:  An Inevitable Consequence of Social Discrepancies?

The overarching significance of the French Revolution among historians had long been focused on its social consequences.  In his introduction to the volumized collection of papers compiled for the annual conference on Studies on Voltaire and The Eighteenth Century (SVEC), Harvey Chisick patronizes the Classical, or Social, Interpretation of the French Revolution by saying, “[The Revolution’s] significance consists principally in the socio-economic disjuncture represented by the middle class or bourgeoisie overcoming the aristocracy and attaining the political power to which it’s economic strength entitled it.  This process took hundreds of years and was accomplished only when the bourgeoisie was strong enough to make good its demands by force.”  Such an interpretation of the Revolution had been championed by authoritative historians on the subject such as Georges Lefebvre.  In his 1939 now-classic The Coming of the French Revolution, he maintains a rigid and illogical model of French society as the basis for the dissent of the bourgeoisie and the result of 1789:

At the end of the eighteenth century the social structure of France was aristocratic.  It showed traces of having originated at a time when land was almost the only form of wealth, and when possessors of land were the masters of those who needed it to work and live.  …The king had been able gradually to deprive the lords of their political power and subject nobles and clergy to his authority.  But he left them the first place in the social hierarchy.  Still restless at being merely his ‘subjects,’ they remained privileged persons.

Presently, however, a new class was emerging in prominence in France, whose wealth, in contrast, was based on mobile commerce.  Called the bourgeoisie (or the Third Estate, inferior to the clergy and aristocracy in the three orders of old French law, but not too far removed from them), it proved useful to the monarchy by supplying it with money and competent officials, and through the increasing importance of commerce, industry and finance and the eighteenth century it became more important in the national economy.  By the late 18th Century the bourgeoisie was beginning to usurp the aristocracy and clergy in terms of real economic power even though the latter retained its supreme legal and social status.  Feeling as though it deserved more political power based on its economic contribution to the state, the bourgeoisie became discontent with the state.  The Revolution of 1789 thus balanced the power of bourgeoisie with its real economic influence and eroded the prominence of the aristocracy.  Thus, as Lefebvre states, “In France the Third Estate liberated itself.”  But it’s not that simple, the author interrupts.  Although Lefebvre separates the four stages of the revolution, characterized by the social classes involved, the respective measures of executing the Revolution were intertwined and made way for each other, all culminating in a victory for the bourgeoisie in which the regime of economic individualism and commercial freedom prevailed over the working class:  

The privileged groups [the clergy and aristocracy] did have the necessary means [for forcing the king’s hand in appealing to the economic condition of the nation]…  The first act of the Revolution, in 1788, consisted in a triumph of the aristocracy, which, taking advantage of the government crisis, hoped to reassert itself and win back the political authority of which the Capetian dynasty had despoiled it.  But, after having paralyzed the royal power which upheld its own social preeminence, the aristocracy opened the way to the bourgeois revolution, then to the popular revolution in the cities and finally to the revolution of the peasants—and found itself buried under the ruins of the Old Regime.

Chisick comments that the Classical Interpretation situates the French Revolution in France’s historical time as an “inevitable consequence of a long social and economic revolution,…following from scientific laws.”  This would make the neither the press nor ideology a subject of interest.  But it seems that bourgeois dissatisfaction would not have miraculously resulted in an organized revolt upon the state, an act of terrorism, as it were.  Disseminated ideology must have had a place in rallying the organization of the greater Third Estate.  And since Chisick is editing a collection entitled “The Press in the French Revolution,” his acknowledgment of the Classical Interpretation must ultimately be to set up a retort to it.  While this Marxist-esque Classical interpretation went unchallenged throughout much of the history of the Revolution’s study, through Jaures and Mathiez to Lefebvre and Soboul, general acceptance of this formulation began to wane after the 1960s.

What then arose was a Revisionist Criticism of the Classical Interpretation of the French Revolution.  The first body of criticism stemmed from Alfred Cobban and George Taylor’s conclusion that capitalism in France was not present enough or influential enough on the Bourgeoisie to be a motive for revolution.  Furthermore, Taylor asserts that the nobility shared in equal part with the Bourgeoisie the most innovative and large-scale forms of economic activity.  So, in contrast with the Classical Interpretation that the Third Estate rallied to establish themselves as the social superior to the aristocracy, the Revolution was “essentially a political revolution with social consequences and not a social revolution with political consequences.” 

“Conceptualizing the Revolution in political and cultural terms,” says Chisick, “also has broader implications.”  Revisionist historians, in contrast to Classical historians who focus on the social discrepancies in the French upper classes, emphasize government incompetence and botched reforms which led to a virtual power vacuum and the emergence of public opinion as a powerful new political force.

Let us take a step back here and examine this interpretation within the context of our society:  The American public had expressed dissentient views on the government as being incompetence under President Bush with the trouble resulting from the finance bubble / housing bubble that burst in 2008.  Although we were hopeful of President Obama, many sectors of the right and well as some of his critical constituents have expressed their feelings of his incompetence when it came to listening to the American public and ending a several hundred-billion dollars war in the Middle East (and furthermore, of their general dissatisfaction with the Congress who seems to favor large corporations over the working/entrepreneurial class and the Supreme Court who allows immigration regulations and women’s reproductive rights to suffer). This brooding dissent has led to the organization of different protest rallies like Occupy and other virtual dissenting communities through new social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.  The greater public, who call themselves the 99% in certain circles, are in a way equivalent to the Borgeoisie and the Popular/Peasant population of 1780’s France.  Although they may not own the means of production (what would be the land in 18th C France) they feel that their political voice deserves more attention from the Congress and lawmakers, who currently only appear to be favoring the voices of large corporations like Monsanto, as opposed to the family farmer.  Essentially, a corporation like Monsanto, who’s C-level administrators embody the 1%, is a stale form of political influence and legal exemption.   Chevron has been dumping toxic oil-waste into the Ecuadorean Amazon and surrounding forests since the 1980s, yet the government had yet to take a serious action against the company until 2011 when a Federal Appeals Court allowed damages against Chevron for the Ecuador oil spill.  In our present secular society, multi-million and -billion dollar corporations represent the clergy who benefited from “none of the ordinary direct taxes but instead…on its own authority a ‘free donation’ to the king”; the aristocrats are represented by those C-level administrators and shareholders who control these large companies which hold the market and lives of working and entrepreneurial Americans in their palm.  The political power of the 1% in the minds of Occupiers and greater dissenters is disproportionate to their contribution to the greater good of American people.  The question that arises at this point in our history is whether these present trends will develop into “long and silent social developments” that will erupt into another Western political revolution—and whether or not it will be successful!

Chisick summarizes the difference between the Classical and Revisionist interpretations with this: 

The revisionist emphasis on politics and culture…tends to ascribe to the ‘people’ or working population a more marginal place in the Revolution.  If politics, for example, are defined in terms of parliamentary assemblies, then the people will play only a small role in them.  If culture is defined in terms of literacy, then a large population of the lower class will be eliminated from consideration altogether, and the rest will assume a passive role as an audience or public to which writes and publicists appeal.

What Chisick and The Press in the French Revolution focus on is not so much the marginalized place of the people in politics, but the new role, after 1789, of the people as a body through which writers, elite or otherwise, appeal radical ideas through printed media.  Such a significant role in the common population could have only been accessed though the Revisionist Critique—thus arises the importance of the Press.

III.  The Significance of the Press: An Unprecedented Surge of Dialogue Between All Class Levels

With public opinion being a new principle authority and a central component of politics in new Revisionist Interpretation, the role of the press and its shaping and influence of opinion takes on new importance during the coming of the Revolution.  Yet even before 1789, the press was a tool that the monarchy knew it had to control, lest it lead to unwanted ideas spreading around the kingdom.

Daniel Roche in Revolution in Print explains the great extent to which the monarchy sought to control print media:

There was no freedom of the press under the Old Regime because from the earliest days of its power the Crown established surveillance of printers and booksellers and a mechanism for controlling the dissemination of ideas….  The royal power intervened at both ends of the chain that links creative writers to their public: readers and other authors.  Before publication became a skillful exercise in censorship, applied through a policy of selective privilege that involved the prepublication inspection of manuscripts for content and the rewarding of publishers who, in return for their cooperation with the established order, enjoyed the advantages of a monopoly.  After publication, control was further applied by police. 

Such extreme and thorough action taken by the absolutist state indicated its keen awareness of the importance of the printed word.  They saw it as the principle vehicle of radical knowledge and thought that it indeed would turn out to be in 1789.

Of course, no system of repression is one-hundred percent effective.  The royal government was never able to wholly prevent the circulation of forbidden books, anti-monarchist pamphlets, and the writings, songs and satires that made up an entire body of printed criticism.  This body, interestingly, was deemed by the monarchy to a dangerous dissemination of “philosophical” works, “philosophy” being all works deemed “dangerous” or “bad” (which may enlighten us to the monarchy’s unstable relationship with the Enlightenment figures, especially Voltaire).  The Old Regime enacted every feasible method of control over print media that it could, including the practical monopolization of the system in 1699 when abbé Bignon became Director of The Book Trade.  The role of the Office of the Book Trade was to examine all works destined for legal publication and to maintain that all such books be registered with the state.  Under the direction of C.-M. Lamoignon de Malesherbes from 1750 to 1763, censorship defined the forbidden zones of literature as God, king, and morality.  One can only imagine where that puts Enlightenment figures like Voltaire in the eyes of the government when such a “philosophical” a tale as Candide was published in 1759.  Given, Voltaire did not admit his authorship until 1768 when he was not even within reach of the Office of the Book Trade and the monarchy.  But notwithstanding that fact, neither the 1759 ban on the book by Paris officials or its ambiguous authorship deterred it from becoming one of the fastest selling books in history, selling twenty thousand to thirty thousand copies by the end of the year in over twenty editions.   So it can be said that there are notable examples of books that slipped through the cracks of the censors, but all in all, between 1660 and 1680, the beginnings of an increasingly close supervision of printed matter and the employment of “hard-nosed” Firemen arose and persisted until 1789.  

After 1789, the most immediate and dramatic change in the way public opinion came to be formed and expressed was in complete freedom of the press.  With the elimination of the machinery of State regulation of publishing and the sudden collapse of censorship in the Spring and Summer of 1789, Chisick writes, “writers and publishers found themselves free of the constraints that the monarchy had imposed upon print media almost from their inception.  Books, pamphlets and periodicals could now be published without obligatory prior examination by a censor and without the publisher having to apply for a privilege or to ascertain that he was not infringing upon someone else’s legally established monopoly.”  What resulted of this was an emergence of new career opportunities in writing, publishing and journalism, wherein more personal and more partisan expression could appeal directly to the public.  Chisick writes that, “The periodical press that now emerged was far more political in content and far more engaged than was its counterpart of the old regime,” which was primarily devoted to the arts, sciences, and literature.  In addition to the content of print media, its format also changed; journals treating art, plays, et cetera needn’t appear more regularly than every one or two weeks, however the new political papers that began to appear in 1788 had a popular readership to satisfy who were avid for the latest political news, and these papers came to be regularized in dailies in 1790 and 1791.

Continuing with the trouble-making habits that they used even before 1789, the Enlightenment figures also played an important role in post-censored France.  What resulted of the absence of authoritarian filtering was a surge of political and social dialogue through print.  The function of censorship had been to “impose an officially sanctioned consensus on public discussion, or, formulated negatively, to prevent the expression of opinions that deviated too widely from what the authorities defined as the accepted norm.”  After the fall of the state—which was the filter of public discussion—political dialogue flourished, primarily through the work of Enlightenment figures.  Chisick writes:

The literature of the Enlightenment was overwhelmingly a literature of dialogue.  Its world of discourse, its political theory, social criticism, literature and popularization, was open and aimed at persuasion.  Characteristically, even Voltaire’s cry of ‘Ecrasez l’infâme’ [‘Crush the infamous thing’] was moderated in practice, and the philosophe sought less the destruction of his ecclesiastical foes that that they moderate and modernize their beliefs and actions.  

Often, the aim and influence of Enlightenment literature was painted in a less-than-humane light.  Such writing was aimed at what the Enlightenment figures believed to be the realm of possible social and political reform—and such parameters often limited them to the learned classes.  With respect to the audiences for which periodicals like the Ami du roi and the Journal de la Montagne were intended it cannot be denied that, both being descended from the Enlightenment, they were addressed to a cultural elite.  But to be fair, the elite bourgeoisie was the class which was most concerned the goings-on of the years that immediately followed 1789, thus the Enlightenment writers would have felt it imperative to appeal to them first and foremost.  In any case, no matter the Enlightenment’s targeted appeal group, a larger-scope popular press emerged after 1789 that sought to make a direct and regular political appeal to the people.  For example, the more radical Ami du peuple and  Pére Duchesne sought to speak directly to the working population.  Jeremy Popkin even acknowledges the purpose of an anonymous Belgian journalist in launching the Esprit des gazettes in 1786 as being a reaction to the segmentation of the press market and a reaction to the “elite press.”  Such “elite” papers were considered the “concerned papers, the knowledgeable papers, the serious papers…the papers which serious people and opinion leaders in all countries take seriously,” similar to The New York Times today.  However, with the surge of uncensored popular publications in 1789, it proved exceptionally difficult for a stable elite press to survive.  It nevertheless persisted that an exception to the rule existed, and the Dutch-based Gazette de Leyde, a French-language newspaper and one widely considered to be the most important serious news journal at the time reached the height of its fame at the outbreak of the French Revolution.  It may have been the case that its being published outside of the control of the monarchy and its taking serious political issues of the day allowed it to transition well into the popular culture of revolutionary France, in which “sophisticated readers” liked to think of themselves as “students of events, rather than as mere consumers of information.”

So in general, there was a mixture of “elitist” and popular publication circulating through France after the Revolution began, and all of them were open-minded and political in nature with having to be constrained by a monarchy.  Chisick defends the elitist publications stemming from the Enlightenment; even though they were not targeted at the public in terms of language, he says, “The Enlightenment may have been élitist, but it was humane, progressive, pragmatic and…committed to an open mode of discourse that worked on the principles of a free exchange of ideas, rational persuasion, and consensus.”  In essence, the Enlightenment encompassed the spirit of the free press.

Here, I would like to take one more step back.  By the transitive power, the dialectic, free-spirited passion of the Enlightenment also encompasses the essence of the Internet, or what John Man would say is the fourth turning-point in human contact in the last 5,000 years, after the explosion of the printing press in Europe.  Using this model of long-term political revolutions paired with innovative information movements, can we say that the modern political trends referred to above, paired with the widespread use of Facebook, Twitter and blogs for personal and political expression will evolve into some greater social revolution?  Widespread use of social media could favor either the greater population or the Silicon Valley companies that control the means of disseminating the information.  Either way, a change will erupt in the way all people conduce commerce, relationships, and protest.  In fact, it may have already happened, with Amazon.com in control of commerce, Facebook.com in control of interpersonal relationships, social awareness and business promotion, Google.com in control of information dissemination, and the Apple Corporation in control of the method of accessing it all: the smart phone.  What social media looks like on the outside is the power of dialogue and commentary in the hands of every individual person, but what we may actually have is a monarchy of the big four companies upon our entire civilization.

Be it internet-based social media or the physical spread of pamphlets in 1780s France, the spread of ideas sparks dialogue and makes people question the powers that govern them.  The Old Regime recognized that and that’s why they so painstakingly censored the media.  But the Enlightenment figures also recognized that and used it to the advantage of the people.  Yes, they targeted their publications toward the elite, but could you blame them for trying to appeal to a more learned audience.  Perhaps the “elitism” of Enlightenment periodicals actually helped to lend some authority to their positions.  Surely no one takes every Facebook campaign seriously—that’s because so many people of such little intelligence use it.  It may be the case that the modern person needs to filter what they read and believe through an Enlightened lens before they comment on current issues.

IV.  Repression Reenacted: Instances of repressed scholarship on the French Revolution under new Oppressive French Regimes and Abroad; What is the significance? 

What becomes clear after moderate research into the French Revolution is that even after 1799, books about the Revolution have been repressed by government who find the very notion of political dissent dangerous.  Even authoritative writers on the topic who we revere today were repressed upon their initial publication.  R. R. Palmer, the translator of Lefebvre’s The Coming of the French Revolution comments on the books history from its first publication in 1939: “The French Republic collapsed before the assault of Hitlerite Germany, and was succeeded by the Vichy regime that governed France until the liberation in 1945.  No sympathetic understanding of the French Revolution was desired by the authorities of Vichy France…  The Vichy government therefore suppressed [The Coming of the French Revolution] and ordered some 8,000 copied burned, so that it virtually remained unknown to its own country until reprinted there in 1970, after the author’s death.”  

Gaetano Salvemini’s highly revered book also underwent similar treatment.  “[The French Revolution] has come to be regarded as a classic in its field,” says I. M. Rawson in his Translator’s Note.  “It may seem strange that a work so well known on the continent [of Europe] should not have been made available to English readers long ago.  The explanation lies in part in the fact that the author, an exile for over twenty years from his own country [of Italy] and actively engaged in the struggle against Fascism, as well as in writing a number of works on modern politics, had no time to give his study of the great Revolution a further revision in the light of recent historical research, and was unwilling to allow it to appear in English before this had been done.”

What we see here are Voltaire-figures who, even after the iron claw of the Old Regime had long fallen, still combated oppression and political injustice with that same passion.  Like Voltaire, who was imprisoned in the Bastille twice and was constantly in fear of being jailed when he dared set foot in Paris, Salvemini contested the Fascist regime and honorably suffered more it.  That is the kind of spirit I hope may come of this brooding internal political struggle in America.  Perhaps the melting pot isn’t hot enough yet.

© 2012 by Antarah Crawley

D.R. 01-08: Israel-Hamas…

Volume 1, Issue 8

The Sense of the Congress:
A Special Report

Israel-Hamas proxy for U.S.-Iran dialectic: tensions rise between Allied and Axis powers as the beast slouches toward Bethlehem to be born

By Antarah Crawley

WASHINGTON, DC — Today, October 19, 2023, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the United States (U.S.) House of Representatives (House) convened a Markup (M/U) of several bills and resolutions in House Visitors Center Room 210.  Those bills and resolutions included:

  • H.Res. 559, Declaring it is the policy of the United States that a nuclear Islamic Republic of Iran is not acceptable;
  • H.R. 340, To impose sanctions with respect to foreign support for terrorist organizations, including Hamas and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad;
  • H.R. 3266, To require the Secretary of State to submit annual reports reviewing the curriculum used by the Palestinian Authority, and for other purposes;
  • H.R. 3774, To impose additional sanctions with respect to the importation or facilitation of the importation of petroleum products from Iran, and for other purposes;
  • H.R. 5826, To require a report on sanctions under the Robert Levinson Hostage Recovery and Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, and for other purposes;
  • H.R. 2973, To require the Secretary of Defense to develop, in cooperation with allies and partners in the Middle East, an integrated maritime domain awareness and interdiction capability, and for other purposes;
  • H.Res. 599, Urging the European Union to designate Hizballah [Hezbollah] in its entirety as a terrorist organization;
  • H.R. 1809, To require the development of strategies and options to prevent the export to Iran of certain technologies related to unmanned aircraft systems, and for other purposes.

Committee Chairman McCaul (R-TX) presided.  Mr. Crawley reported on the proceedings through the House Clerk’s Office of Official Reporters.

The Markup comes on 12 days after news that “thousands of armed Hamas fighters breached a border security fence and indiscriminately gunning down Israeli civilians and soldiers taken off guard” (ABC News).  The Associated Press (AP) reported on 7 October 2023, “Hamas surprise attack out of Gaza stuns Israel and leaves hundreds dead in fighting, retaliation.”  As of today, Israel has been given the green light to move into Gaza, marshaling into all out war in the Holy Land and escalating Jihad.

Regarding H.Res. 559, the Chairman remarked that he spoke last week with the Israeli Ambassador who told him about “the horrible war crimes that Hamas committed.”  He said that “dozens of babies were murdered, many were found decapitated and burned, Holocaust survivors were kidnapped, and 250 people at a music festival were slaughtered.  These ISIS-like atrocities will haunt the world forever.”  The Chairman held a moment of silence for “the victims of this massacre, in honor of the lives that they lived.”

The Chairman said that as Israel responds in “self-defense,” the United States stands strongly with its “friend and ally” as it protects itself from “Iran-backed terrorism.”  Iran’s nuclear posture is a growing cause of concern to U.S. Representatives. On 4 September 2023, Stephanie Liechtenstein of AP reported, “UN nuclear watchdog report seen by AP says Iran slows its enrichment of near-weapons-grade uranium,” but Ranking Member Meeks remarked today that since President Trump’s hasty withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA) which capped Iran’s nuclear enrichment program at 3.67% (among other restrictions), “Iran’s nuclear program has now surged to extraordinarily dangerous levels. In August, the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] reported that Iran’s stockpile of 60% enriched uranium has grown since its May report.  Iran now possesses more than 15 times the amount of enriched uranium allowed under JCPoA.” “We are living in, and this is, a very dangerous moment in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program,” the Ranking Member said.

Across the pond, A United Kingdom Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) spokesperson said: “18 October 2023 [yesterday] marks ‘Transition Day’ under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPoA), when certain restrictions on Iran’s nuclear and missile programmes are due to lift, including: 84 UN and 112 UK designations on individuals and entities involved in nuclear or ballistic missile activities; and sectoral measures including arms and missile embargoes on Iran.” President Biden has since imposed new sanctions aimed at Iran’s ballistic missile and drone programs, acting to keep up pressure on Tehran after the expiration of United Nations restrictions on those activities (New York Times).

Mr. Wilson (R-SC) stated that the 18 August 1988 “Hamas Covenant” of the Islamic Resistance Movement contains the provision that “the Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then the Jews will hide behind the rocks and trees.  And the rocks and trees will cry out, ‘O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me.  Come and kill him.'”  The Representative remarked that “we need to take that seriously.”  Mr. Crow of Colorado stated that he finds the language “all means necessary,” with regard to the U.S. suppression of “Iran-backed terrorism,” problematic, and he does not believe that the U.S. should have nuclear force on the table in this debate.  He emphasized that the measure did not constitute an Authorized Use of Military Force (AUMF).

The Council on Foreign Relations writes:

Signed in 2015 by Iran and several world powers, including the United States, the JCPOA placed significant restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. President Trump withdrew the United States from the deal in 2018, claiming it failed to curtail Iran’s missile program and regional influence. Iran began ignoring limitations on its nuclear program a year later. Washington and Tehran have both said they would return to the original deal but they disagree on the steps to get there.

Kali Robinson, 21 June 2023

Regarding H.R. 2973, Mrs. Wagner of Missouri remarked that “Israel is locked in a generational fight for survival against genocidal Hamas terrorists.  The United States stands with Israel as it grieves the unthinkable loss of more than 1400 innocent civilians and it stands with Israel in its fight to eliminate the brutal terrorist group Hamas, period, full stop. … As we saw on October 7, when Hamas launched the deadliest assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Israel is facing a complex range of threats across all domains.  On the bloody front and that tragic day, Hamas terrorists infiltrated Israeli communities by air by land and by sea to unleash bloodshed against civilians on a scale that Israel has not seen in its history.”

Mr. Wilson remarked that “Taking hostage is a murderous tactic in a war between dictators’ rule of gun opposing democracy’s rule of law.  The Axis of Evil – Putin [President of Russia], Rezaee [Major General (Ret.), Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and former Vice President of Iran], and Xi [President, People’s Republic of China]– must be stopped by peace through strength. Sadly, the September 11th announcement – of all days – of the release of $6 billion to the terrorist regime in Tehran in exchange for five Americans detained confirms this tactic works.”

Regarding H.R. 3266, Mr. Mast (R-FL) and Ranking Member Meeks (D-NY) engaged in a spirited dialectic on popular and national ideologies.  Mr. Mast remarked that “there needs to be [a coming to Jesus moment] among many of our colleagues that Hamas is literally Palestinians.  Young people, from the time of grade school in the Gaza strip, are given the pedigree to become Hamas, trained to become Hamas, from their algebra and arithmetic to their reading, writing, and geography. The gentleman read some examples from a document he had in his hands which was never moved into the record:

Palestinian 6th graders grammar exercise requires them to add the correct verb to the sentences: the jihad warriors fought in defense of their homeland and the believers rushed to respond to the call to jihad.

Another example, 4th grade Palestinian math problem: the number of martyrs in the First Intifada is 2,026 martyrs and the number of martyrs in the al-Aqsa Intifada if 5,050. The number of martyrs in the two intifadas is how many martyrs?

7th grade physics problem: Newton’s second law; during the First Palestinian uprising, Palestinian youths used slingshots to confront the soldiers of the Zionist occupation and defend themselves from their treacherous bullets. What is the relationship between the elongation of slingshots’ rubber and the tensile strength affecting it?

Geography question, Palestinian 6th graders: to define the borders of Palestine, which completely erases Israel’s existence.

Mr. Mast (R-FL), quoting unknown Palestinian source

Mr. Mast concluded, “People need to move away from this idea of saying that the Palestinians are not Hamas and Hamas is not the Palestinians.”

In response to the gentleman’s remarks, Ranking Member Meeks asked, “Mr. Mast, are you Ku Klux Klan?”  

Mr. Mast replied, “No.”  

“Because,” the Ranking Member continued, “it was Ku Klux Klan that raised white people to hate black people.  And the Ku Klux Klan, today, they’re still here.  I get remarks, I get phone calls in my office from people calling me […] and teaching other kids that I’m less than a human being. I don’t say all white people are Ku Klux Klan. I don’t put them all in one category.  All Palestinians don’t belong to Hamas just like all white people don’t belong to the Ku Klux Klan.”  A heated dialogue ensued, in which the Ranking Member protested engaging in further debate on the matter.

“Let’s have this conversation,” said Mr. Mast.

“I’m not having this conversation with you; you’re not worthy of having a conversation with on this,” said Ranking Member Meeks.

“I would argue differently,” said Mr. Mast. 

Order was restored by Acting Chair Kim of California (R-CA), and Ranking Member Meeks reclaimed his time.

The Acting Chair then recognized Mr. Mast, who remarked that he believes he is worthy to speak, and stated further that he is half-white and half-Mexican and is not a member of “that hate organization which I would absolutely despise,” presumably referring to the Ku Klux Klan.  “But,” he continued, “let’s recall, they’re not our government.”

The Ranking Member responded that “many of them [Ku Klux Klan members] were elected, they were Senators, they were members of the House, they were judges, so they were part of the government.”

Regarding H.R. 1809, Mr. Keating remarked, “12 days ago the world witnessed the horror unleashed by Hamas against the state and the people of Israel, almost 50 years to the day after Yom Kippur War.” 

The House Foreign Affairs Committee, having postponed further proceedings on several measures (it being the sense of the Minority that the Majority is biased to roll call over voice votes in committee), reconvened after a recess to vote via roll call using the new electronic voting system for the first time of any House committee.  The Chairman and the Ranking Member agreed that this process saves at lot of time.  Provided continued success, the electronic voting system will be used by the chamber to vote for the Speaker of the House, the Chairman said.

Sources

Crowley, Michael. U.S. Issues New Sanctions Targeting Iran’s Missile and Drone Programs. New York Times. 18 Oct 2023.

Hutchinson, Bill. Israel-Hamas conflict: Timeline and key developments. ABC News, 19 October 2023.

Liechtenstein, Stephanie. UN nuclear watchdog report seen by AP says Iran slows its enrichment of near-weapons-grade uranium. Associated Press. 4 September 2023.

Robinson, Kali. What Is the Iran Nuclear Deal? Council on Foreign Relations. 21 June 2023.

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© MMXXIII BY NOVUS SYLLABUS L.L.C.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED WITHOUT PREJUDICE.