They Never Take Any Prisoners

by Thomas A. Droleskey

To these evils we must add the contests between political parties, many of which struggles do not originate in a real difference of opinion concerning the public good or in a laudable and disinterested search for what would best promote the common welfare, but in the desire for power and for the protection of some private interest which inevitably result in injury to the citizens as a whole. From this course there often arise robberies of what belongs rightly to the people, and even conspiracies against and attacks on the supreme authority of the state, as well as on its representatives. These political struggles also beget threats of popular action and, at times, eventuate in open rebellion and other disorders which are all the more deplorable and harmful since they come from a public to whom it has been given, in our modern democratic states, to participate in very large measure in public life and in the affairs of government. Now, these different forms of government are not of themselves contrary to the principles of the Catholic Faith, which can easily be reconciled with any reasonable and just system of government. Such governments, however, are the most exposed to the danger of being overthrown by one faction or another. (Pope Pius XI, Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio, December 23, 1922.)

 

Pope Pius XI's description of contests between political parties could be applied as well to contests within political parties. Indeed, the desire for "power" is what drives most career politicians to seek elected office, which is why they will hire professional fund-raisers and media consultants and pollsters and political consulting firms in order to be able to "package" themselves for a particular election. The "art of the deal," so to speak, in selling oneself to voters has become a veritable cottage industry that employs many political scientists and statisticians and pollsters and alleged media "experts" as to how to shape a campaign for office.

The rise of television played a major role in the transformation of American careerist politics, which has long been a dirty, sordid business of deceit and fraud (election fraud, my friends, is nothing new to American politics; it was as endemic in the Nineteenth Century as it is today). Candidates had to "look" and "sound" agreeable to image-conscious voters. Then United States Senator John Fitzgerald Kenned (D-Massachusetts) was a pioneer in 1960 in the transformation of the mechanics of running a national election outside of the structures of his political party's national and state committees. Kennedy's campaign created an almost parallel set of structures to those committees, using an advertising. campaign that stressed his "youth" (he was only four years younger than then Vice President Richard Milhous Nixon, but twenty-seven years younger than outgoing President Dwight David Eisenhower) and his telegenic image and avuncular wit.

Richard Nixon, who was not telegenic and who looked like a bearded ghost in his first televised debate with Kennedy on September 24, 1960, learned from Kennedy's campaign strategy, adopting a similar one in 1968, as was recounted by Joe McGinniss in The Selling of the President. Nixon's 1968 campaign strategy, replete with his own parallel campaign structure to the Republican National Committee, set the stage for the formation of the Committee to Re-Elect the President (CREEP), some of whose operatives were involved in the bugging of the offices of Democrat National Committee Chairman Lawrence O'Brien's offices at the Watergate Hotel in 1972.

Ironically, however, it was Richard Nixon who was the first politician to use television to his advantage when he addressed the nation on September 23, 1952, to answer charges that he had amassed an $18,000 "slush fund" to pay for personal expenses. Then United States Senator Nixon (R-California) used the relatively new medium quite successfully, delivering a speech full of pathos that resonated with voters. Although the speech was given, believe it or not, fifty-five years ago now, it is a road map as to how to manipulate the emotions of voters, a characteristic that has been practiced to the hilt by William Jefferson Blythe Clinton and his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton. Consider the text of the "Checkers" speech:

My Fellow Americans:

I come before you tonight as a candidate for the Vice Presidency and as a man whose honesty and integrity have been questioned.

The usual political thing to do when charges are made against you is to either ignore them or to deny them without giving details.

I believe we've had enough of that in the United States, particularly with the present Administration in Washington, D.C. To me the office of the Vice Presidency of the United States is a great office and I feel that the people have got to have confidence in the integrity of the men who run for that office and who might obtain it.

I have a theory, too, that the best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth. And that's why I'm here tonight. I want to tell you my side of the case.

I am sure that you have read the charge and you've heard that I, Senator Nixon, took $18,000 from a group of my supporters.

Now, was that wrong? And let me say that it was wrong—I'm saying, incidentally, that it was wrong and not just illegal. Because it isn't a question of whether it was legal or illegal, that isn't enough. The question is, was it morally wrong?

I say that it was morally wrong if any of that $18,000 went to Senator Nixon for my personal use. I say that it was morally wrong if it was secretly given and secretly handled. And I say that it was morally wrong if any of the contributors got special favors for the contributions that they made.

And now to answer those questions let me say this:

Not one cent of the $18,000 or any other money of that type ever went to me for my personal use. Every penny of it was used to pay for political expenses that I did not think should be charged to the taxpayers of the United States.

It was not a secret fund. As a matter of fact, when I was on "Meet the Press," some of you may have seen it last Sunday—Peter Edson came up to me after the program and he said, "Dick, what about this fund we hear about?" And I said, "Well, there's no secret about it. Go out and see Dana Smith, who was the administrator of the fund."

And I gave him his address, and I said that you will find that the purpose of the fund simply was to defray political expenses that I did not feel should be charged to the Government.

And third, let me point out, and I want to make this particularly clear, that no contributor to this fund, no contributor to any of my campaign, has ever received any consideration that he would not have received as an ordinary constituent.

I just don't believe in that and I can say that never, while I have been in the Senate of the United States, as far as the people that contributed to this fund are concerned, have I made a telephone call for them to an agency, or have I gone down to an agency in their behalf. And the records will show that, the records which are in the hands of the Administration.

But then some of you will say and rightly, "Well, what did you use the fund for, Senator? Why did you have to have it?"

Let me tell you in just a word how a Senate office operates. First of all, a Senator gets $15,000 a year in salary. He gets enough money to pay for one trip a year, a round trip that is, for himself and his family between his home and Washington, D.C.

And then he gets an allowance to handle the people that work in his office, to handle his mail. And the allowance for my State of California is enough to hire thirteen people.

And let me say, incidentally, that that allowance is not paid to the Senator—it's paid directly to the individuals that the Senator puts on his payroll, but all of these people and all of these allowances are for strictly official business. Business, for example, when a constituent writes in and wants you to go down to the Veterans Administration and get some information about his GI policy. Items of that type for example.

But there are other expenses which are not covered by the Government. And I think I can best discuss those expenses by asking you some questions.

Do you think that when I or any other Senator makes a political speech, has it printed, should charge the printing of that speech and the mailing of that speech to the taxpayers? Do you think, for example, when I or any other Senator makes a trip to his home state to make a purely political speech that the cost of that trip should be charged to the taxpayers? Do you think when a Senator makes political broadcasts or political television broadcasts, radio or television, that the expense of those broadcasts should be charged to the taxpayers?

Well, I know what your answer is. It is the same answer that audiences give me whenever I discuss this particular problem. The answer is, "no." The taxpayers shouldn't be required to finance items which are not official business but which are primarily political business.

But then the question arises, you say, "Well, how do you pay for l these and how can you do it legally?" And there are several ways that it can be done, incidentally, and that it is done legally in the United States Senate and in the Congress.

The first way is to be a rich man. I don't happen to be a rich man so I couldn't use that one.

Another way that is used is to put your wife on the payroll. Let me say, incidentally, my opponent, my opposite number for the Vice Presidency on the Democratic ticket, does have his wife on the payroll. And has had her on his payroll for the ten years—the past ten years.

Now just let me say this. That's his business and I'm not critical of him for doing that. You will have to pass judgment on that particular point. But I have never done that for this reason. I have found that there are so many deserving stenographers and secretaries in Washington that needed the work that I just didn't feel it was right to put my wife on the payroll.

My wife's sitting over here. She's a wonderful stenographer. She used to teach stenography and she used to teach shorthand in high school. That was when I met her. And I can tell you folks that she's worked many hours at night and many hours on Saturdays and Sundays in my office and she's done a fine job. And I'm proud to say tonight that in the six years I've been in the House and the Senate of the United States, Pat Nixon has never been on the Government payroll.

There are other ways that these finances can be taken care of. Some who are lawyers, and I happen to be a lawyer, continue to practice law. But I haven't been able to do that. I'm so far away from California that I've been so busy with my Senatorial work that I have not engaged in any legal practice.

And also as far as law practice is concerned, it seemed to me that the relationship between an attorney and the client was 80 personal that you couldn't possibly represent a man as an attorney and then have an unbiased view when he presented his case to you in the event that he had one before the Government.

And so I felt that the best way to handle these necessary political expenses of getting my message to the American people and the speeches I made, the speeches that I had printed, for the most part, concerned this one message—of exposing this Administration, the communism in it, the corruption in it—the only way that I could do that was to accept the aid which people in my home state of California who contributed to my campaign and who continued to make these contributions after I was elected were glad to make.

And let me say I am proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me for a special favor. I'm proud of the fact that not one of them has ever asked me to vote on a bill other than as my own conscience would dictate. And I am proud of the fact that the taxpayers by subterfuge or otherwise have never paid one dime for expenses which I thought were political and shouldn't be charged to the taxpayers.

Let me say, incidentally, that some of you may say, "Well, that's all right, Senator; that's your explanation, but have you got any proof7"

And I'd like to tell you this evening that just about an hour ago we received an independent audit of this entire fund. I suggested to Gov. Sherman Adams, who is the chief of staff of the Dwight Eisenhower campaign, that an independent audit and legal report be obtained. And I have that audit here in my hand.

It's an audit made by the Price, Waterhouse & Co. firm, and the legal opinion by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, lawyers in Los Angeles, the biggest law firm and incidentally one of the best ones in Los Angeles.

I'm proud to be able to report to you tonight that this audit and this legal opinion is being forwarded to General Eisenhower. And I'd like to read to you the opinion that was prepared by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher and based on all the pertinent laws and statutes, together with the audit report prepared by the certified public accountants.

It is our conclusion that Senator Nixon did not obtain any financial gain from the collection and disbursement of the fund by Dana Smith; that Senator Nixon did not violate any Federal or state law by reason of the operation of the fund, and that neither the portion of the fund paid by Dana Smith directly to third persons nor the portion paid to Senator Nixon to reimburse him for designated office expenses constituted income to the Senator which was either reportable or taxable as income under applicable tax laws. (signed) Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher by Alma H. Conway."

Now that, my friends, is not Nixon speaking, but that's an independent audit which was requested because I want the American people to know all the facts and I'm not afraid of having independent people go in and check the facts, and that is exactly what they did.

But then I realize that there are still some who may say, and rightly so, and let me say that I recognize that some will continue to smear regardless of what the truth may be, but that there has been understandably some honest misunderstanding on this matter, and there's some that will say:

"Well, maybe you were able, Senator, to fake this thing. How can we believe what you say? After all, is there a possibility that maybe you got some sums in cash? Is there a possibility that you may have feathered your own nest?" And so now what I am going to do-and incidentally this is unprecedented in the history of American politics-I am going at this time to give this television and radio audience a complete financial history; everything I've earned; everything I've spent; everything I owe. And I want you to know the facts. I'll have to start early.

I was born in 1913. Our family was one of modest circumstances and most of my early life was spent in a store out in East Whittier. It was a grocery store — one of those family enterprises. he only reason we were able to make it go was because my mother and dad had five boys and we all worked in the store.

I worked my way through college and to a great extent through law school. And then, in 1940, probably the best thing that ever happened to me happened, I married Pat—who is sitting over here. We had a rather difficult time after we were married, like so many of the young couples who may be listening to us. I practiced law; she continued to teach school. Then in 1942 I went into the service.

Let me say that my service record was not a particularly unusual one. I went to the South Pacific. I guess I'm entitled to a couple of battle stars. I got a couple of letters of commendation but I was just there when the bombs were falling and then I returned. I returned to the United States and in 1946 I ran for the Congress.

When we came out of the war, Pat and I—Pat during the war ad worked as a stenographer and in a bank and as an economist for Government agency—and when we came out the total of our saving from both my law practice, her teaching and all the time that I as in the war—the total for that entire period was just a little less than $10,000. Every cent of that, incidentally, was in Government bonds.

Well, that's where we start when I go into politics. Now what I've I earned since I went into politics? Well, here it is—I jotted it down, let me read the notes. First of all I've had my salary as a Congressman and as a Senator. Second, I have received a total in this past six years of $1600 from estates which were in my law firm the time that I severed my connection with it.

And, incidentally, as I said before, I have not engaged in any legal practice and have not accepted any fees from business that came to the firm after I went into politics. I have made an average of approximately $1500 a year from nonpolitical speaking engagements and lectures. And then, fortunately, we've inherited a little money. Pat sold her interest in her father's estate for $3,000 and I inherited $l500 from my grandfather.

We live rather modestly. For four years we lived in an apartment in Park Fairfax, in Alexandria, Va. The rent was $80 a month. And we saved for the time that we could buy a house.

Now, that was what we took in. What did we do with this money? What do we have today to show for it? This will surprise you, Because it is so little, I suppose, as standards generally go, of people in public life. First of all, we've got a house in Washington which cost $41,000 and on which we owe $20,000. We have a house in Whittier, California, which cost $13,000 and on which we owe $3000. [Senator Nixon meant to say $10,000.] My folks are living there at the present time.

I have just $4,000 in life insurance, plus my G.I. policy which I've never been able to convert and which will run out in two years. I have no insurance whatever on Pat. I have no life insurance on our our youngsters, Patricia and Julie. I own a 1950 Oldsmobile car. We have our furniture. We have no stocks and bonds of any type. We have no interest of any kind, direct or indirect, in any business.

Now, that's what we have. What do we owe? Well, in addition to the mortgage, the $20,000 mortgage on the house in Washington, the $10,000 one on the house in Whittier, I owe $4,500 to the Riggs Bank in Washington, D.C. with interest 4 1/2 per cent.

I owe $3,500 to my parents and the interest on that loan which I pay regularly, because it's the part of the savings they made through the years they were working so hard, I pay regularly 4 per cent interest. And then I have a $500 loan which I have on my life insurance.

Well, that's about it. That's what we have and that's what we owe. It isn't very much but Pat and I have the satisfaction that every dime that we've got is honestly ours. I should say this—that Pat doesn't have a mink coat. But she does have a respectable Republican cloth coat. And I always tell her that she'd look good in anything.

One other thing I probably should tell you because if we don't they'll probably be saying this about me too, we did get something-a gift-after the election. A man down in Texas heard Pat on the radio mention the fact that our two youngsters would like to have a dog. And, believe it or not, the day before we left on this campaign trip we got a message from Union Station in Baltimore saying they had a package for us. We went down to get it. You know what it was.

It was a little cocker spaniel dog in a crate that he'd sent all the way from Texas. Black and white spotted. And our little girl-Tricia, the 6-year old-named it Checkers. And you know, the kids, like all kids, love the dog and I just want to say this right now, that regardless of what they say about it, we're gonna keep it.

It isn't easy to come before a nation-wide audience and air your life as I've done. But I want to say some things before I conclude that I think most of you will agree on. Mr. Mitchell, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, made the statement that if a man couldn't afford to be in the United States Senate he shouldn't run for the Senate.

And I just want to make my position clear. I don't agree with Mr. Mitchell when he says that only a rich man should serve his Government in the United States Senate or in the Congress. I don't believe that represents the thinking of the Democratic Party, and I know that it doesn't represent the thinking of the Republican Party.

I believe that it's fine that a man like Governor Stevenson who inherited a fortune from his father can run for President. But I also feel that it's essential in this country of ours that a man of modest means can also run for President. Because, you know, remember Abraham Lincoln, you remember what he said: "God must have loved the common people—he made so many of them."

And now I'm going to suggest some courses of conduct. First of all, you have read in the papers about other funds now. Mr. Stevenson, apparently, had a couple. One of them in which a group of business people paid and helped to supplement the salaries of state employees. Here is where the money went directly into their pockets.

And I think that what Mr. Stevenson should do is come before the American people as I have, give the names of the people that have contributed to that fund; give the names of the people who put this money into their pockets at the same time that they were receiving money from their state government, and see what favors, if any, they ave out for that.

I don't condemn Mr. Stevenson for what he did. But until the facts are in there is a doubt that will be raised.

And as far as Mr. Sparkman is concerned, I would suggest the same thing. He's had his wife on the payroll. I don't condemn him for that. But I think that he should come before the American people and indicate what outside sources of income he has had.

I would suggest that under the circumstances both Mr. parkman and Mr. Stevenson should come before the American people as I have and make a complete financial statement as to their financial history. And if they don't, it will be an admission that they have something to hide. And I think that you will agree with me.

Because, folks, remember, a man that's to be President of the United States, a man that's to be Vice President of the United States must have the confidence of all the people. And that's why I'm doing what I'm doing, and that's why I suggest that Mr. Stevenson and Mr. Sparkman since they are under attack should do what I am doing.

Now, let me say this: I know that this is not the last of the smears. In spite of my explanation tonight other smears will be made; others have been made in the past. And the purpose of the smears, I know, is this—to silence me, to make me let up.

Well, they just don't know who they're dealing with. I'm going l tell you this: I remember in the dark days of the Hiss case some of the same columnists, some of the same radio commentators who are attacking me now and misrepresenting my position were violently opposing me at the time I was after Alger Hiss.

But I continued the fight because I knew I was right. And I an say to this great television and radio audience that I have no apologies to the American people for my part in putting Alger Hiss where he is today.

And as far as this is concerned, I intend to continue the fight.

Why do I feel so deeply? Why do I feel that in spite of the smears, the misunderstandings, the necessity for a man to come up here and bare his soul as I have? Why is it necessary for me to continue this fight?

And I want to tell you why. Because, you see, I love my country. And I think my country is in danger. And I think that the only man that can save America at this time is the man that's running for President on my ticket — Dwight Eisenhower.

You say, "Why do I think it's in danger?" and I say look at the record. Seven years of the Truman-Acheson Administration and that's happened? Six hundred million people lost to the Communists, and a war in Korea in which we have lost 117,000 American casualties.

And I say to all of you that a policy that results in a loss of six hundred million people to the Communists and a war which costs us 117,000 American casualties isn't good enough for America.

And I say that those in the State Department that made the mistakes which caused that war and which resulted in those losses should be kicked out of the State Department just as fast as we can get 'em out of there.

And let me say that I know Mr. Stevenson won't do that. Because he defends the Truman policy and I know that Dwight Eisenhower will do that, and that he will give America the leadership that it needs.

Take the problem of corruption. You've read about the mess in Washington. Mr. Stevenson can't clean it up because he was picked by the man, Truman, under whose Administration the mess was made. You wouldn't trust a man who made the mess to clean it up— that's Truman. And by the same token you can't trust the man who was picked by the man that made the mess to clean it up—and that's Stevenson.

And so I say, Eisenhower, who owes nothing to Truman, nothing to the big city bosses, he is the man that can clean up the mess in Washington.

Take Communism. I say that as far as that subject is concerned, the danger is great to America. In the Hiss case they got the secrets which enabled them to break the American secret State Department code. They got secrets in the atomic bomb case which enabled them to get the secret of the atomic bomb, five years before they would have gotten it by their own devices.

And I say that any man who called the Alger Hiss case a "red herring" isn't fit to be President of the United States. I say that a man who like Mr. Stevenson has pooh-poohed and ridiculed the Communist threat in the United States—he said that they are phantoms among ourselves; he's accused us that have attempted to expose the Communists of looking for Communists in the Bureau of Fisheries and Wildlife—I say that a man who says that isn't qualified to be President of the United States.

And I say that the only man who can lead us in this fight to rid the Government of both those who are Communists and those who have corrupted this Government is Eisenhower, because Eisenhower, you can be sure, recognizes the problem and he knows how to deal with it.

Now let me say that, finally, this evening I want to read to you just briefly excerpts from a letter which I received, a letter which, after all this is over, no one can take away from us. It reads as follows:

Dear Senator Nixon:

Since I'm only 19 years of age I can't vote in this Presidential election but believe me if I could you and General Eisenhower would certainly get my vote. My husband is in the Fleet Marines in Korea. He's a corpsman on the front lines and we have a two-month-old son he's never seen. And I feel confident that with great Americans like you and General Eisenhower in the White House, lonely Americans like myself will be united with their loved ones now in Korea.

I only pray to God that you won't be too late. Enclosed is a small check to help you in your campaign. Living on $85 a month it is all I can afford at present. But let me know what else I can do.

Folks, it's a check for $10, and it's one that I will never cash.

And just let me say this. We hear a lot about prosperity these days but I say, why can't we have prosperity built on peace rather than prosperity built on war? Why can't we have prosperity and an honest government in Washington, D.C., at the same time. Believe me, we can. And Eisenhower is the man that can lead this crusade to bring us that kind of prosperity.

And, now, finally, I know that you wonder whether or not I am going to stay on the Republican ticket or resign.

Let me say this: I don't believe that I ought to quit because I'm not a quitter. And, incidentally, Pat's not a quitter. After all, her name was Patricia Ryan and she was born on St. Patrick's Day, and you know the Irish never quit.

But the decision, my friends, is not mine. I would do nothing that would harm the possibilities of Dwight Eisenhower to become President of the United States. And for that reason I am submitting to the Republican National Committee tonight through this television broadcast the decision which it is theirs to make.

Let them decide whether my position on the ticket will help or hurt. And I am going to ask you to help them decide. Wire and write the Republican National Committee whether you think I should stay on or whether I should get off. And whatever their decision is, I will abide by it.

But just let me say this last word. Regardless of what happens I'm going to continue this fight. I'm going to campaign up and down America until we drive the crooks and the Communists and those that defend them out of Washington. And remember, folks, Eisenhower is a great man. Believe me. He's a great man. And a vote for Eisenhower is a vote for what's good for America. The Checkers Speech (This site contains a link to a brief video clip from the speech; a longer, although not complete version, can be found here: Nixon's "Checkers" Speech)

 

Richard Nixon spent the next twenty-two year hours battling an image held of him by many in the public that he was a "crook," something that he denied in his famous Orlando, Florida, press conference, of Saturday, November 17, 1973 (Nixon "I'm not a crook" press conference). The tragedy of Richard Nixon, however, was the tragedy of what happens to men who are left to fend for themselves in the midst of false religions as a result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King wrought by the Protestant Revolt and institutionalized by the rise of Judeo-Masonry.

Richard Nixon was an intelligent man. He also had a wonderful, spontaneous sense of humor (see: Richard Nixon plays his Piano Concerto #1 and Nixon Resignation Outtakes) yet was noted for his anger, his profanity, the building of an "enemies" list and a foreign policy that was amoral, based the school of realpolitik practiced by his National Security Adviser, Dr. Henry (Heinz) Alfred Kissinger. Entire books have been written to analyze the Nixon persona. When all is said and done, however, Richard Nixon told us a lot about himself--and about the naturalism of Modernity--in his farewell speech to his White House staff on Friday, August, 9, 1974. A transcript itself cannot convey the range of emotions that Nixon displayed that morning thirty-three and one-half years ago (see, therefore,

I think the record should show that this is one of those spontaneous things that we always arrange whenever the President comes in to speak, and it will be so reported in the press, and we don't mind, because they have to call it as they see it.

But on our part, believe me, it is spontaneous.

You are here to say goodbye to us, and we don't have a good word for it in English -- the best is au revoir. We'll see you again.

I just met with the members of the White House staff, you know, those who serve here in the White House day in and day out, and I asked them to do what I ask all of you to do to the extent that you can and, of course, are requested to do so: to serve our next President as you have served me and previous Presidents -- because many of you have been here for many years -- with devotion and dedication, because this office, great as it is, can only be as great as the men and women who work for and with the President.

This house, for example -- I was thinking of it as we walked down this hall, and I was comparing it to some of the great houses of the world that I have been in. This isn't the biggest house. Many, and most, in even smaller countries, are much bigger. This isn't the finest house. Many in Europe, particularly, and in China, Asia, have paintings of great, great value, things that we just don't have here and, probably, will never have until we are 1,000 years old or older.

But this is the best house. It is the best house, because it has something far more important than numbers of people who serve, far more important than numbers of rooms or how big it is, far more important than numbers of magnificent pieces of art.

This house has a great heart, and that heart comes from those who serve. I was rather sorry they didn't come down. We said goodbye to them upstairs. But they are really great. And I recall after so many times I have made speeches, and some of them pretty tough, yet, I always come back, or after a hard day -- and my days usually have run rather long -- I would always get a lift from them, because I might be a little down but they always smiled.

And so it is with you. I look around here, and I see so many on this staff that, you know, I should have been by your offices and shaken hands, and I would love to have talked to you and found out how to run the world -- everybody wants to tell the President what to do, and boy, he needs to be told many times -- but I just haven't had the time. But I want you to know that each and every one of you, I know, is indispensable to this Government.

I am proud of this Cabinet. I am proud of all the members who have served in our Cabinet. I am proud of our sub-Cabinet. I am proud of our White House Staff. As I pointed out last night, sure, we have done some things wrong in this Administration, and the top man always takes the responsibility, and I have never ducked it. But I want to say one thing: We can be proud of it -- five and a half years. No man or no woman came into this Administration and left it with more of this world's goods than when he came in. No man or no woman ever profited at the public expense or the public till. That tells something about you.

Mistakes, yes. But for personal gain, never. You did what you believed in. Sometimes right, sometimes wrong. And I only wish that I were a wealthy man -- at the present time, I have got to find a way to pay my taxes -- and if I were, I would like to recompense you for the sacrifices that all of you have made to serve in government.

But you are getting something in government -- and I want you to tell this to your children, and I hope the Nation's children will hear it, too -- something in government service that is far more important than money. It is a cause bigger than yourself. It is the cause of making this the greatest nation in the world, the leader of the world, because without our leadership, the world will know nothing but war, possibly starvation or worse, in the years ahead. With our leadership it will know peace, it will know plenty.

We have been generous, and we will be more generous in the future as we are able to. But most important, we must be strong here, strong in our hearts, strong in our souls, strong in our belief, and strong in our willingness to sacrifice, as you have been willing to sacrifice, in a pecuniary way, to serve in government.

There is something else I would like for you to tell your young people. You know, people often come in and say, "What will I tell my kids?" They look at government and say, sort of a rugged life, and they see the mistakes that are made. They get the impression that everybody is here for the purpose of feathering his nest. That is why I made this earlier point -- not in this Administration, not one single man or woman.

And I say to them, there are many fine careers. This country needs good farmers, good businessmen, good plumbers, good carpenters.

I remember my old man. I think that they would have called him sort of a little man, common man. He didn't consider himself that way. You know what he was? He was a streetcar motorman first, and then he was a farmer, and then he had a lemon ranch. It was the poorest lemon ranch in California, I can assure you. He sold it before they found oil on it. [Laughter] And then he was a grocer. But he was a great man, because he did his job, and every job counts up to the hilt, regardless of what happens.

Nobody will ever write a book, probably, about my mother. Well, I guess all of you would say this about your mother -- my mother was a saint. And I think of her, two boys dying of tuberculosis, nursing four others in order that she could take care of my older brother for three years in Arizona, and seeing each of them die, and when they died, it was like one of her own.

Yes, she will have no books written about her. But she was a saint.

Now, however, we look to the future. I had a little quote in the speech last night from T.R. [Theodore Roosevelt]. As you know, I kind of like to read books. I am not educated, but I do read books -- and the T.R. quote was a pretty good one. Here is another one I found as I was reading, my last night in the White House, and this quote is about a young man. He was a young lawyer in New York. He had married a beautiful girl, and they had a lovely daughter, and then suddenly she died, and this is what he wrote. This was in his diary.

He said, "She was beautiful in face and form and lovelier still in spirit. As a flower she grew and as a fair young flower she died. Her life had been always in the sunshine. There had never come to her a single great sorrow. None ever knew her who did not love and revere her for her bright and sunny temper and her saintly unselfishness. Fair, pure and joyous as a maiden, loving, tender and happy as a young wife. When she had just become a mother, when her life seemed to be just begun and when the years seemed so bright before her, then by a strange and terrible fate death came to her. And when my heart's dearest died, the light went from my life forever."

That was T.R. in his twenties. He thought the light had gone from his life forever -- but he went on. And he not only became President but, as an ex-President, he served his country, always in the arena, tempestuous, strong, sometimes wrong, sometimes right, but he was a man.

And as I leave, let me say, that is an example I think all of us should remember. We think sometimes when things happen that don't go the right way; we think that when you don't pass the bar exam the first time -- I happened to, but I was just lucky; I mean, my writing was so poor the bar examiner said, "We have just got to let the guy through." We think that when someone dear to us dies, we think that when we lose an election, we think that when we suffer a defeat that all is ended. We think, as T.R. said, that the light had left his life forever. Not true.

It is only a beginning, always. The young must know it; the old must know it. It must always sustain us, because the greatness comes not when things go always good for you, but the greatness comes and you are really tested, when you take some knocks, some disappointments, when sadness comes, because only if you have been in the deepest valley can you ever know how magnificent it is to be on the highest mountain.

And so I say to you on this occasion, as we leave, we leave proud of the people who have stood by us and worked for us and served this country. We want you to be proud of what you have done. We want you to continue to serve in government, if that is your wish.

Always give your best, never get discouraged, never be petty; always remember, others may hate you, but those who hate you don't win unless you hate them, and then you destroy yourself.

And so, we leave with high hopes, in good spirit, and with deep humility, and with very much gratefulness in our hearts. I can only say to each and every one of you, we come from many faiths, we pray perhaps to different gods -- but really the same God in a sense -- but I want to say for each and every one of you, not only will we always remember you, not only will we always be grateful to you but always you will be in our hearts and you will be in our prayers.

Richard Nixon - August 9, 1974 Nixon Resigns: August 9, 1974 (an NBC "Time Capsule" with the entire farewell speech

 

I saw that speech live on television while visiting my parents at their home in Harlingen, Texas, during a break from studies for my doctorate in political science at the State University of New York at Albany. It was a remarkable display of self-pity and self-deprecating humor and religious indifferentism all rolled into one. In other words, Richard Nixon's utter lack of understanding of the nature of God Himself and the true Faith He has revealed to men exclusively through His Catholic Church led him into a view of himself and the world steeped in all manner of naturalistic errors. I mean, Nixon, for all of his intellectual gifts and personal affability, which those around knew that he displayed quite a bit, did order the bombing of Hanoi, North Vietnam, on from December 18-23 and 26-29, 1972, hardly indicative of one who understood that the Octave Days of the Nativity of the Prince of Peace are not those upon which to launch bombs, many of which strayed from military targets and killed civilians (up to 1,600), to get an adversary back to the negotiating table at the then on again/off again Paris Peace Talks.

Moreover, Nixon's obvious attempt to compare himself to the thirty-third degree Freemason and thoroughly self-redemptive Theodore Roosevelt is quite telling. Theodore Roosevelt, presaging the abuses of power that would be institutionalized by Presidents Thomas Woodrow Wilson and his own fifth cousin, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, used "executive orders" to govern by executive fiat when it suited him. Attorney James St. Clair, arguing the case of United States v. Richard Nixon before the Supreme Court of the United States of America in behalf of his client, Nixon, on July 8, 1974, said the following:

The President wants me to argue that he is as powerful a monarch as Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and is not subject to the processes of any court in the land except the court of impeachment.

 

Leaving aside current Vice President Richard N. Cheney, who would be inclined, it appears, to think that Joseph Stalin had too little executive power from 1924 to 1953 as the head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, no legitimate constitutional scholar would accept James St. Clair's assertion made in oral arguments in the case of United States v. Nixon with the slightest degree of credibility. It had none then. It has none now. Alas, a document that admits of no authority above the text of its own words, which are the subject of constantly interpretation and misinterpretation as a result of the naturalistic forces of Modernity, can be twisted and turned and bent into a variety of shapes, if not ignored altogether.

As I have noted on many other occasions, it is very easy to mangle the written constitution of a civil government when one considers the simple fact the plain words of Sacred Scripture itself, which have been entrusted solely to the infallible teaching authority of the Catholic Church, can be twisted and mangled by Protestants and Modernist Catholics into meaning all sorts of mutually contradictory things, if not ignored altogether (as those who support divorce and perversity and usury, the very foundation of the Judeo-Calvinist system of economics we are enslaved to at this point in history, do with ready abandon). A constitution not undergirded by a confessional recognition of the Catholic Church and her authority to intervene with civil officials as an absolute last resort, following the exhausting of the discharge of her Indirect Power of teaching and preaching and exhortation, when the good of souls demands her intervention, is as defenseless against the actions of "activist judges" as the Bible is in the hands of Protestants and Modernist Catholics. Abuse of civil power leading to statism is the result in the first instance; a loss of belief in God Himself and what He has revealed to men exclusively through the Catholic Church is the result in the second instance.

Richard Nixon's amorality and realpolitik, which led him to tell his former aide Patrick Buchanan in particular and the Republican Party in general in 1992 to "forget" about the abortion issue and "morality" in politics (a remark that prompted a then very different Rush Limbaugh to quote on his television program a facsimile transmission on this subject sent to him by a professor of political science at Morningside College in Sioux City, Iowa), was tempered, however, by a natural sense of forgiveness in many, although not all, instances. (Nixon loathed Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein for their treatment of Mrs. Thelma Catherine "Pat" Ryan Nixon in their The Final Days, believing that it caused her, Mrs. Nixon, to have stroke while reading it.) Nixon, for example, responded most graciously to a telephone call from an old adversary, former Vice President of the United States of America and then United States Senator Hubert Horatio Humphrey, in the weeks prior to the latter's death from pancreatic cancer on January 13, 1978 (wow, that's thirty years ago yesterday!), accepting Humphrey's invitation to attend his funeral.

However, Nixon did bring himself down by his amorality and the Byzantine network of illegal covert operations conducted under orders from various White House and Committee to Re-Elect the President officials that resulted in the infamous break-in at the headquarters of Democrat National Committee Chairman Lawrence O'Brien at the Watergate Hotel on June 17, 1972. The cover-up of these operations, which the "smoking gun" audio tape of a June 23. 1972, meeting he had with White House Chief of Staff Harry Robins "Bob" Haldeman, demonstrated conclusively he helped to order and orchestrate from the beginning., was what brought him down as a web of lies was spun that began to unravel in early-1973 until the transcript of the "smoking gun" tape was released following the unanimous eight to zero decision of the Supreme Court of the United States of America in the case of United States v. Nixon, July 24, 1974.

As one who lived through this wretched series of events as I was getting my Master's at the University of Notre Dame and then pursuing my doctorate at the State University of New York at Albany, I must admit that a refresher course on some of the details of what happened during the Nixon Administration is a bone-chilling reminder of the brutality of the politics of amorality that has become the norm as a result of the overthrow of the Social Reign of Christ the King, admitting that fallen human nature has always played in its role in political intrigues, of course. (See this account of a minor player in the Watergate matter, Anthony Ulasewicz,, whose testimony before the Senate Select Committee on Presidential Campaign Activity on for look at just one small part of the web of intrigue that was spun by the Nixon operatives in the desire to maintain political power.)

Without a submission to the teaching authority of the Catholic Church, however, and without her sanctifying helps, men are even more prone to fall into lives of seeking and retaining power by all means necessary. This is what has happened time and again throughout the course of American history, starting as early as the administration of the zealous anti-Catholic, President John Adams, who sought to suppress opposition of his policies by means of the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798.

My reference earlier to the two political parties being organized crime families was not meant in jest. It is for real. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt misused the powers of the office of the President of the United States of America to investigate and to harass his political opponents, making it no wonder that he had such an affinity for--and was not interested in learning about--the truth of the man he called "Uncle Joe" Stalin, who never moved "kinda slow" at the junction" when it came to dealing with his political opponents, using execution rather than investigation and harassment tactics. Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Baines Johnson did so with reckless abandon. A culture of criminality had been institutionalized in the White House long before Richard Nixon defeated then Vice President Hubert Humphrey and former Alabama Governor George Corley Wallace in 1968 and assembled his administration to take office on January 20, 1969. A nation founded on the combined lies of Protestantism and the naturalism of the "Enlightenment" and Judeo-Masonry must degenerate to the depths of depravity and overt criminality over the course of time.

The Watergate affair, which was born of the amorality of Machiavellianism that helped to launch the era of Modernity during the Renaissance, ruined more careers and reputation than Richard Nixon's. A number of people went to Federal prison, including former Attorney General of the United States of America John Mitchell, and former White House Chief of Staff Haldeman, former Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy John Ehrlichman, and White House aides Charles Colson and George Gordon Liddy, among others.

Yes, there were survivors from the Nixon administration who either continued in government or who maintained, if not increased, their prominence. Just consider these names: Henry Kissinger, Patrick Buchanan, George Herbert Walker Bush, George Schultz, Caspar Weinberger, Alexander Haig, Donald Rumsfeld, and Richard Cheney, whom Rumsfeld recommended to Nixon's successor, Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., to serve as White House Chief of Staff to replace him upon his appointment as Secretary of Defense in 1975. Cheney, showing what a little bit of power could do to a thirty-three three old man in charge of running the White House, wanted to use the United States Department of Justice to exact retribution upon then New York Times reporter Seymour Hersh for publishing articles critical of the Ford administration's foreign policy. Ah, how things never change.

1975: Donald Rumsfeld, age forty-two, Gerald R. Ford, age sixty-two, Richard N. Cheney, age thirty-three.

The Watergate mess wrought by the amorality of Modernity and its lack of concern for obeying God's laws as He has entrusted them to the teaching authority of the one, true Church that He Himself created upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope, also raised up naturalists on the false opposite known as the political "left" to prominence, including a staff aide to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, a recent graduate of Yale Law School by the name of one Hillary Rodham. She wanted the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by the pro-abortion Catholic Representative Peter Rodino (who died in 2005 at the age of ninety-five--and in perfectly good standing in the counterfeit church of conciliarism), to be completely ruthless in its pursuit of President Nixon.

Consider this account written by one Jerome "Jerry" Zeifman, a Democrat, who was a senior attorney on the House Judiciary Committee, "Hillary, As I Knew Her:"

At the time of Watergate I had overall supervisory authority over the House Judiciary Committee's Impeachment Inquiry staff that included Hillary Rodham -- who was later to become First Lady in the Clinton White House. During that period I kept a private diary of the behind the scenes congressional activities. My original tape recordings of the diary and other materials related to the Nixon impeachment provided the basis for my prior book Without Honor and are now available for inspection in the George Washington University Library.

After President Nixon's resignation a young lawyer who shared an office with Hillary, confided in me that he was dismayed by her erroneous legal opinions and efforts to deny Nixon representation by counsel -- as well as an unwillingness to investigate Nixon. In my diary of August 12, 1974 I noted the following:

John Labovitz apologized to me for the fact that months ago he and Hillary had lied to me [to conceal rules changes and dilatory tactics.] Labovitz said. "That came from Yale." I said "You mean Burke Marshall [Senator Ted Kennedy's chief political strategist, with whom Hillary regularly consulted in violation of House rules.] Labovitz said, "Yes." His apology was significant to me, not because it was a revelation but because of his contrition.

At that time Hillary Rodham was 27 years old, She had obtained a position on our committee staff through the political patronage of her former Yale law school professor Burke Marshall and Senator Ted Kennedy. Eventually, because of a number of her unethical practices I decided that I could not recommend her for any subsequent position of public or private trust. 

Her patron, Burke Marshal, had previously been Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights under Robert Kennedy. During the Kennedy administration Washington insiders jokingly characterized him as the Chief counsel to the Irish Mafia. After becoming a Yale professor he also became Senator Ted Kennedy's lawyer at the time of Chappaquiddick -- as well as Kennedy's chief political strategist. As a result, some his colleagues often described him as the Attorney General in waiting of the Camelot government in exile.

In addition to getting Hillary a job on the Nixon impeachment inquiry staff, Kennedy and Marshall had also persuaded Rodino to place two other close friends of Marshall in top positions on our staff. One was John Doar; who had been Marshall's deputy in the Justice Department – whom Rodino appointed to head the impeachment inquiry staff. The other was Bernard Nussbaum, who had served as Assistant U.S. Attorney in New York – who was placed in charge of conducting the actual investigation of Nixon's malfeasance.  

Marshall, Doar, Nussbaum, and Rodham had two hidden objectives regarding the conduct of the impeachment proceedings. First, in order to enhance the prospect of Senator Kennedy or another liberal Democrat being elected president in 1976 they hoped to keep Nixon in office "twisting in the wind" for as long as possible. This would prevent then-Vice President Jerry Ford from becoming President and restoring moral authority to the Republican Party.

As was later quoted in the biography of Tip O'Neill (by John Farrell) a liberal Democrat would have become a "shoe in for the presidency in 1976" if had Nixon been kept in office until the end of his term. However, both Tip O'Neil and I -- as well as most Democrats regarded it to be in the national interest to replace Nixon with Ford as soon as possible. As a result. as described by O'Neill we coordinated our efforts to "keep Rodino's feet to the fire."

A second objective of the strategy of delay was to avoid a Senate Impeachment trial in which as a defense Nixon might disclose and assert that Kennedy had authorized far worse abuses of power than Nixon's effort to "cover up" the Watergate burglary (which Nixon had not authorized known about in advance. In short, the crimes of Kennedy included the use of the Mafia to attempt to assassinate Castro, as well as the successful assassinations of Diem in Vietnam and Lumumba in the Congo.

After hiring Hillary, Doar assigned her to confer with me regarding rules of procedure for the impeachment inquiry. At my first meeting with her I told her that Judiciary Committee Chairman Peter Rodino, House Speaker Carl Albert, Majority Leader "Tip" O'Neill, Parliamentarian Lou Deschler. And I had previously all agreed that we should rely only on the then existing House Rules, and not advocate any changes. I also quoted Tip O'Neill's statement that: "To try to change the rules now would be politically divisive. It would be like trying to change the traditional rules of baseball before a World Series."

Hillary assured me that she had not drafted, and would not advocate, any such rules changes. However, as documented in my personal diary I soon learned that she had lied. She had already drafted changes, and continued to advocate them. In one written legal memorandum, she advocated denying President Nixon representation by counsel. In so doing she simply ignored the fact that in the committee's then-most-recent prior impeachment proceeding, the committee had afforded the right to counsel to Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas. 

I had also informed Hillary that the Douglas impeachment files were available for public inspection in the committee offices. She later removed the Douglas files without my permission and carried them to the offices of the impeachment inquiry staff -- where they were no longer accessible to the public.

Hillary had also made other flawed procedural recommendations, arguing that the Judiciary Committee should: not hold any hearings with – or take depositions of -- any live witnesses; not conduct any original investigation of Watergate, bribery, tax evasion, or any other possible impeachable offense of President Nixon; and should rely solely on documentary evidence compiled by other committees and by the Justice Departments special Watergate prosecutor.

Only a few far left Democrats supported Hillary's recommendations. A majority of the committee agreed to allow President Nixon to be represented by counsel and to hold hearings with live witnesses. Hillary then advocated that the official rules of the House be amended to deny members of the committee the right to question witnesses. This recommendation was voted down by the full House. The committee also rejected her proposal that we leave the drafting of the articles of impeachment to her and her fellow impeachment inquiry staffers.

It was not until two months after Nixon's resignation that we first learned of still another questionable role of Hillary. On Sept. 26, 1974, Rep. Charles Wiggins, a Republican member of the committee, wrote to ask Chairman Rodino to look into "a troubling set of events." That spring, Wiggins and other committee members had asked "that research should be undertaken so as to furnish a standard against which to test the alleged abusive conduct of Richard Nixon." And, while "no such staff study was made available to the members at any time for their use," Wiggins had just learned that such a study had been conducted - at committee expense - by a team of professors who completed and filed their reports with the impeachment-inquiry staff well in advance of our public hearings.    

                

The report was kept secret from members of Congress. But after the impeachment-inquiry staff was disbanded, it was published commercially and sold in book stores. Wiggins wrote: "I am especially troubled by the possibility that information deemed essential by some of the members in their discharge of their responsibilities may have been intentionally suppressed by the staff during the course our investigation." He was also concerned that staff members may have unlawfully received royalties from the book's publisher.  

               

On Oct. 3, Rodino wrote back: "Hillary Rodham of the impeachment-inquiry staff coordinated the work. The staff did not think the manuscript was useful in its present form." No effort was ever made to ascertain whether or not Hillary or any other person on the committee staff received royalties.

Two decades later Bill Clinton became President. As was later described in the Wall Street Journal by Henry Ruth, the lead Watergate courtroom prosecutor, "The Clintons corrupted the soul of the Democratic Party."

Although I remained a Democrat, I was in complete agreement with Henry Ruth. I served as pro bono counsel and investigator for Congressman Bob Barr (R GA), who was one of the managers of the House Judiciary Committee in the Senate trial of Clinton's impeachment proceedings in the Senate trial. (Jerome Zeifman, Hillary as I knew her in 1974. This particular site's transcription of a chapter from one of Mr. Zeifman's books has a number of spelling errors. I chose it to link to rather than the one from which the text above was copied as that other site was filled with grossly indecent advertising.)

 

Guess who this is as she looked back in 1974?

Richard Nixon's Checkers Speech [September 23, 1952]

 

 

Yes, there is a common thread linking the organized crime figures of the naturalist "left" and the naturalist "right" that are to be found in the two major political parties in the United States of America: ruthlessness in the quest to acquire and to retain political power. However, there is also another thread linking the false opposites of the naturalist "left" and the naturalist "right" as they appear to "battle" each other in electoral politics and in the making and the execution of public policy: sincerely held beliefs in their versions of naturalism which must never be minimized.

Richard Nixon, although entirely non-ideological, sincerely believed that his retaining power was important to advance the national security interests of the United States of America and to build what he called the "structure" for a "generation of peace." This was not mere rhetoric for Richard Nixon. He meant every word of it, believing that his grasp of world affairs was such to provide the basis (through various treaties with the Union of Soviet Social Republics and his opening to the so-called People's Republic to China--as well as the overthrow and assassination of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973) for that "generation of peace." The whole sordid mess of Watergate that evicted him from the White House and sent so many of his associates to jail, as well as raising up future leaders of the naturalist "left" who did indeed use the sword that he had given them quite skillfully, centered around Nixon's naturalist belief that American national security and world peace depended upon having him in the White House as the President of the United States of America and upon punishing those within the government leaking information to the press to thwart those plans.

The late Richard Milhous Nixon just never understood--or perhaps ever considered--that peace is the result of the abiding of Sanctifying Grace in the souls of individual men. That is, peace in the world is the result of peace in the souls of individual men, who must rely upon the sanctifying offices of the Catholic Church to know, to sustain to augment this peace on a daily basis.

Pope Pius XI pointed this out in Ubi Arcano Dei Consilio:

Because the Church is by divine institution the sole depository and interpreter of the ideals and teachings of Christ, she alone possesses in any complete and true sense the power effectively to combat that materialistic philosophy which has already done and, still threatens, such tremendous harm to the home and to the state. The Church alone can introduce into society and maintain therein the prestige of a true, sound spiritualism, the spiritualism of Christianity which both from the point of view of truth and of its practical value is quite superior to any exclusively philosophical theory. The Church is the teacher and an example of world good-will, for she is able to inculcate and develop in mankind the "true spirit of brotherly love" (St. Augustine, De Moribus Ecclesiae Catholicae, i, 30) and by raising the public estimation of the value and dignity of the individual's soul help thereby to lift us even unto God.

Finally, the Church is able to set both public and private life on the road to righteousness by demanding that everything and all men become obedient to God "Who beholdeth the heart," to His commands, to His laws, to His sanctions. If the teachings of the Church could only penetrate in some such manner as We have described the inner recesses of the consciences of mankind, be they rulers or be they subjects, all eventually would be so apprised of their personal and civic duties and their mutual responsibilities that in a short time "Christ would be all, and in all." (Colossians iii, 11)

Since the Church is the safe and sure guide to conscience, for to her safe-keeping alone there has been confided the doctrines and the promise of the assistance of Christ, she is able not only to bring about at the present hour a peace that is truly the peace of Christ, but can, better than any other agency which We know of, contribute greatly to the securing of the same peace for the future, to the making impossible of war in the future. For the Church teaches (she alone has been given by God the mandate and the right to teach with authority) that not only our acts as individuals but also as groups and as nations must conform to the eternal law of God. In fact, it is much more important that the acts of a nation follow God's law, since on the nation rests a much greater responsibility for the consequences of its acts than on the individual.

When, therefore, governments and nations follow in all their activities, whether they be national or international, the dictates of conscience grounded in the teachings, precepts, and example of Jesus Christ, and which are binding on each and every individual, then only can we have faith in one another's word and trust in the peaceful solution of the difficulties and controversies which may grow out of differences in point of view or from clash of interests. An attempt in this direction has already and is now being made; its results, however, are almost negligible and, especially so, as far as they can be said to affect those major questions which divide seriously and serve to arouse nations one against the other. No merely human institution of today can be as successful in devising a set of international laws which will be in harmony with world conditions as the Middle Ages were in the possession of that true League of Nations, Christianity. It cannot be denied that in the Middle Ages this law was often violated; still it always existed as an ideal, according to which one might judge the acts of nations, and a beacon light calling those who had lost their way back to the safe road.

There exists an institution able to safeguard the sanctity of the law of nations. This institution is a part of every nation; at the same time it is above all nations. She enjoys, too, the highest authority, the fullness of the teaching power of the Apostles. Such an institution is the Church of Christ. She alone is adapted to do this great work, for she is not only divinely commissioned to lead mankind, but moreover, because of her very make-up and the constitution which she possesses, by reason of her age-old traditions and her great prestige, which has not been lessened but has been greatly increased since the close of the War, cannot but succeed in such a venture where others assuredly will fail.

It is apparent from these considerations that true peace, the peace of Christ, is impossible unless we are willing and ready to accept the fundamental principles of Christianity, unless we are willing to observe the teachings and obey the law of Christ, both in public and private life. If this were done, then society being placed at last on a sound foundation, the Church would be able, in the exercise of its divinely given ministry and by means of the teaching authority which results therefrom, to protect all the rights of God over men and nations.

It is possible to sum up all We have said in one word, "the Kingdom of Christ." For Jesus Christ reigns over the minds of individuals by His teachings, in their hearts by His love, in each one's life by the living according to His law and the imitating of His example. Jesus reigns over the family when it, modeled after the holy ideals of the sacrament of matrimony instituted by Christ, maintains unspotted its true character of sanctuary. In such a sanctuary of love, parental authority is fashioned after the authority of God, the Father, from Whom, as a matter of fact, it originates and after which even it is named. (Ephesians iii, 15) The obedience of the children imitates that of the Divine Child of Nazareth, and the whole family life is inspired by the sacred ideals of the Holy Family. Finally, Jesus Christ reigns over society when men recognize and reverence the sovereignty of Christ, when they accept the divine origin and control over all social forces, a recognition which is the basis of the right to command for those in authority and of the duty to obey for those who are subjects, a duty which cannot but ennoble all who live up to its demands. Christ reigns where the position in society which He Himself has assigned to His Church is recognized, for He bestowed on the Church the status and the constitution of a society which, by reason of the perfect ends which it is called upon to attain, must be held to be supreme in its own sphere; He also made her the depository and interpreter of His divine teachings, and, by consequence, the teacher and guide of every other society whatsoever, not of course in the sense that she should abstract in the least from their authority, each in its own sphere supreme, but that she should really perfect their authority, just as divine grace perfects human nature, and should give to them the assistance necessary for men to attain their true final end, eternal happiness, and by that very fact make them the more deserving and certain promoters of their happiness here below.

It is, therefore, a fact which cannot be questioned that the true peace of Christ can only exist in the Kingdom of Christ -- "the peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ." It is no less unquestionable that, in doing all we can to bring about the re-establishment of Christ's kingdom, we will be working most effectively toward a lasting world peace.

 

Our Lady has shown us that the path to world peace runs through her Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. It was for this reason that her Divine Son sent her to the Cova da Iria near Fatima, Portugal, in 1917 to appear to Jacinta and Francisco Marto and their cousin Lucia dos Santos. The enemies of the Mother of God tried everything to "prove" that the children were lying. (See: In League with the Mayor of Ourem.) If the Fatima Message was about "past" events and without any relevance to the establishment of the peace of the Divine Redeemer, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, in the world, then why have the officials of the counterfeit church of conciliarism gone to so much effort to distort, misrepresent and to disparage it?

Did anyone in Richard Nixon's inner circle ever mention the Fatima Message or the Rosary to him when he was President of the United States of America? Or did they simply accept his practice of realpolitik? Did anyone ever try to convert Richard Nixon to the true Faith before he died? Or did conciliarsm's ethos of ecumenism and its de facto embrace of the heresy of "universal salvation" leave Richard Nixon on his deathbed without so much as a Green Scapular?

These are important questions. As any review of the facts of Watergate, which is shorthand for the whole series of abuses of power that occurred in the Nixon Administration, indicate, a very dark side to the personalities of Richard Nixon and of many of those who worked for him. As is demonstrated, however, from a review of Nixon's farewell speech on Friday, August, 9, 1974, there was a sincere desire on Nixon's part to do "good" for the nation. He was sorry for how he had let down those who had supported him. One could have pity for Richard Nixon despite all of the harm that he did and how wrong he was on so many things. I certainly did.

Alas, Modernity has produced a breed of men who are clueless about First and Last Things, men who believe in the semi-Pelagian lie of self-redemption by various naturalist means. Although those means may vary widely from the realpolitik of Richard Nixon to the embrace of various ideologies of "left" and the "right" to various sorts or revolutionary action, whether of the Saul Alinsky variety (Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama), or of actual armed violence to seize and maintain power. As noted a moment ago,one should never underestimate the sincerity of those who seek political power in the belief that they have the "solutions" for how to produce the "better" world or the ruthlessness that they will employ to make this "better" world."

It is, therefore, most ironic that Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama are contesting with each other to be the agent of "change" as they seek the Democrat Party's presidential nomination this year, 2008. Both are avowed disciples of Saul Alinsky, the revolutionary "organizer" who enthralled a wide variety of luminaries with his naturalistic fairy tales, including one of the darlings of conciliarism's view of Church-State relations, Jacques Maritain. Hillary Clinton has ample right to claim that she is an agent of "change." She has been this throughout the course of her adult life. So has Barack Obama. Unfortunately for them, of course, their "concept" of change is premised the acceptance of some or part of Alinsky's discredited theories, many of which have been implemented by organizations within the counterfeit church of conciliarism (Catholic Campaign for Human Development, Catholic Charities), who have "networked" with radical leftist organizations to "agitate" for a wide variety of "social change" at the "community" level.

Indeed, one of the unspoken levels of tension between Clinton and Obama at present is who is the true interpreter and inheritor of Alinsky's program for "change." They cannot articulate this tension too openly as both know that mentioning Saul Alinsky's name in public might give various "right-wing hate groups" an opportunity to dig up material from Senator Clinton's senior thesis on Alinsky at Wellesley College and Senator Obama's work as an "organizer" in Alinsky-related groups. However, that tension exists. Clinton sees herself as the person best suited to implement Alinsky's ideas in the "real" world by means of having designed and implemented various public policies to do so; Obama sees himself as the one who has hand more "hands-on" experience in "effecting change" at the community level. There's a lot going on underneath the surface between these two, and it must chafe at them no end that they must speak in various codes in order not to alarm the "radical right" or to alienate "moderate" independent or unaffiliated voters.

With Hillary Clinton poised to win the Democratic nomination for president, questions about her intellectual and moral education abound. One of the major intellectual influences – perhaps an emotional one was well – was radical social philosopher and activist Saul Alinsky. As this story shows, Alinsky was both the ladder Hillary climbed to gain new perspectives on society – specifically the poor – and then, once there, a ladder she tossed aside when she no longer needed it.

Americans who graduated from high school in 1965 and college in 1969 were not just part of a population bubble — the “baby boomers” — but a cultural one as well. The children of the Sixties combined the typical young adult developmental cycle with a unique cycle in the life of this nation. They were not only trying to learn about dating, but also about foreign policy, ethics, and racism.

Hillary Clinton was quintessentially one of these people — a Sixties person, although we would hardly have recognized her as such. That she didn’t buy her wedding dress until the night before her wedding is not just a coincidence. It was also commonplace. Her generation was mixing private rites of passage with public ones, and it seemed right to do so. Hillary Clinton was a conformist to the extent that she mixed these personal and political levels early, at a time when most of the people did likewise.

As we search for social influences on the First Lady, we have to begin in this context, in the unique mix of the public and private that served as her environment as a young woman. She was as marked by her chronological age and the Age of Aquarius as most Sixties people were — and she is probably where she is today because she was even more influenced by it than the rest of us.

It is no accident that she chose to write about Saul Alinsky for her senior thesis at Wellesley College . As a social activist, Alinsky was as much a part of the Sixties as was Kennedy and King. He was in the background creating the foreground of interpretation:

“Power to the people” is a phrase coined by him as much as by Stokeley Carmichael. Like the headband, Hillary abandoned much of what influenced her back then. But still this heavy identification with her age and THE age continued in bold form right after she completed her senior thesis.

That people stood to applaud Hillary Clinton’s commencement speech — the first one given by a student at Wellesley — is another mark of her generation that she wears in her psyche. It had to matter to her that the classes before 1960 remained in their seats, not quite sure of what had just happened. Classes before 1930 didn’t even clap. From ‘60 on people were on their feet clapping.

This literal order of approval is important to our understanding of Hillary Clinton. And surely it is one of the reasons she’s shifted from her Sixties image to a more up-to-date one. She learned early on that people interpret things by their age. No one needs the tag of the Sixties any more. Her repudiation of the tag is one of the reasons that Wellesley College , at her request, does not release her senior thesis to the public. She doesn’t want to be identified with Alinsky or the Sixties any more than is absolutely necessary. Hillary is socially and personally based in the Sixties, not in its cultural but in its political dimension.

Probably because she had enough ballast psychologically and religiously from her family and church, she did not “drug out” during the Sixties. She was not one of the period’s casualties. But most Americans, including the younger ones, don’t understand this distinction yet about the Sixties. Say Sixties, and people today think, “drugged out.” Say Sixties, they think unshowered. Perpetual bad hair days. Hillary can’t afford the negative image of the Sixties. Thus she needed to leave as much of the Sixties behind her as possible. This repudiation of the Sixties began early in her life.

It’s the confusion in the public’s mind — not hers — that accounts for the distance she’s put between herself and her formative period. Alinsky’s thought has been badgered at the image level since the sixties. Say Alinsky and people think radical, that American word that now has a bad reputation.

Alinsky thought of himself as a radical in the tradition of Thomas Jefferson, John Dewey, Thomas Payne. He personified the American theory of pragmatism in his commitment to power. “Whatever works to get power to the people, use it.” That didn’t mean violence but rather serious attention to matters of power. Pact the meeting. Fill the streets. Flood the office with post cards. If that doesn’t work, find something that does, including humor.

At one point to gain attention from the Chicago city council, Alinsky threatened to flush all the toilets at O’Hare airport at once. Before the toilet flushing escapade ever had a chance to happen, the city council gave in and granted some demands. Another time, in Rochester , New York , Alinsky had a fart-in at the Eastman Kodak Board meeting. A baked bean supper had been organized for participants. Alinsky was irreverent, but that was his only real bow in the counter-cultural direction. Hillary acquired Alinsky’s pragmatism and his focus on strategy more than the humor and irreverence as a source for her own politics.

Hillary met Alinsky through the pastor at her high school church, the Park Ridge Methodist Church . Rev. Don Jones, then youth minister at the parish and running a youth program called “ University of Life ,” took his youth group to Chicago to meet not only Alinsky but also King and many of the other leaders of the Civil Rights movement.

To understand how Hillary developed her skills as an activist we have to first understand her religious back ground. One of 110 young people confirmed at the church at age 11, she had an unusually rigorous religious preparation. It was public instead of personal. That simple shift in perspective was the key foundation for her, as a Goldwater activist throughout high school and the daughter of a Republican. It allowed her to have an open heart to the suffering she saw in Chicago . Very few youth groups traveled as far as the South Side of Chicago to find God or religious formation.

Hillary acquired Alinsky ‘S pragmatism and his focus on strategy more than the humor and irreverence as a source for her own politics.

That she did, under the auspices of Rev. Jones, made not only the introduction to Alinsky possible, it also meant that she could hear firsthand what he had to say in a context that probably spoke louder than his words.

The poverty she saw in Chicago surely became part of the source of this person who is now running for president. Alinsky interpreted poverty with one point of view — that it is due to the lack of power of the poor. Hillary probably doesn’t believe that as much as a less sinister interpretation — that the poor are poor because of bad government policies. This tension became the tension of her senior thesis, the tension of her genuine suffering about the poor, and probably will remain the tension of her life.

In a sense, she’s still in a conversation with Alinsky, who believed that the poor could be organized on their own behalf. Hillary Clinton still seems to believe that the middle classes can do things to make life easier for the poor, and that is the lever she pulls most often. Her decision about the best way to create change ultimately led her down a path that made her a senator; had she made the other decision — to organize the poor — she would not be in government, but rather in that place where she learned so much — the “streets.”

Religion moderated the decisions she made, particularly since it was based in the suburban world of Park Ridge . Alinsky himself was not a religious man, though he depended heavily on organized religious constituencies. In Sanford Horwitt’s biography of Alinsky, Let Them Call Me A Rebel, Horwitt suggests that at many different levels Alinsky “used” religious constituencies like the Park Ridge church to legitimize serious political action. In this way, Hillary — even as a girl — was used by the movement. She added her consent later.

Alinsky’s manipulation of both the poor and the church is the most often repeated accusation against him. Nevertheless, Hillary Clinton’s exposure to his ideas took place in a relatively open setting, as a by product of the University of Life . Rev. Jones arranged a trip to a Chicago ghetto so that his youth could meet with a group of black youths who hung around at a recreation center. There the program consisted of teenagers describing their reactions to Picasso’s Guernica . The youths met several times and also read Catcher in the Rye together. For the young, Republican Hillary, the difference in reaction between suburban and city youth was a major eye opener. Once eyes like hers were opened, it wouldn’t take them long in the Chicago of that day to find Alinsky.

Alinsky frequently used similar methods of experiential education — what Paolo Friere calls the”pedago - guey” of the oppressed. Here the oppressed were the teachers of those who were not oppressed. It was vintage Alinsky, borrowed by a young seminarian. Here we see the reason she eventually left behind both Alinsky and the Sixties. Her experience taught her to go other places. That the Sixties, Alinsky and religious faith taught her to learn from experience is the deeper and more enduring social source of her behavior.

Rev. Jones told Donnie Radcliffe in Hillary Clinton: A First Lady for Our Time that his goal with the youth group was “not just about personal salvation and pious escapism, but also about an authentic and deep quest for God and life’s meaning in the midst of worldly existence.” Thanks to Jones’ emphasis on the public aspect of religion, Hillary had the chance to meet Martin Luther King, Jr., as well as Alinsky. Jones made arrangements for his group to meet King after King preached at the Sunday Evening Club in Chicago . With 2,500 other people at Orchestra Hall in Chicago , April 15, 1962, 15 year-old Hillary heard King preach a sermon entitled “Remaining Awake Through a Revolution.” To accuse her of taking this message literally would not be going too far. She has remained steadily fixed on a simple public theology and an alertness about political experience.

We unfortunately know very little about Jones’ cohort at the church, Rosalie Benziger, the Christian Education director. Surely she had prepared even deeper ground for the encounter with Chicago, Alinsky, King and poverty in the curriculum used during Sunday School. What we do know about Benziger is that she was concerned about the students’ reaction to the Kennedy assassination, and that she sent a letter to the entire 3,000 member congregation hoping that they wouldn’t begin finding Communists under every rock. “We knew that the children would be traumatized....” she had said. Benziger was right. These children were traumatized for longer than a generation. What’s significant in terms of Hillary Clinton’s development is that few Christian Education directors at the time reacted in this way, with a both political point to protect and a pastoral concern for children. The childrens’ safe world had been invaded by a larger life, and it would continue to be throughout the Sixties.

Alinsky would not have appealed to the Methodism in Hillary ‘s personality. He was much too profane, cursing a blue streak, smoking non-stop, and insulting many people who were as earnest as she was. The University of Life focused on living and on under standing experience as it came. As we know, this emphasis on experience did not mean that Sixties people shared a single viewpoint. There were serious splits among political and cultural activists. Alinsky’s own pragmatism caused him to express great disdain for the Dionysian aspects of the Sixties. He made his organizers wear ties. He kept enormous distance from the politically flamboyant aspects of the flower child movement. He was widely known as a drinker and thought of drugs as counter-culture in a ridiculous way. Alinsky was very patriotic, very pro-culture, and never really did oppose the Vietnam War. He stuck to local and domestic issues like glue and had nothing but derision for those who did not.

Any Sixties person can see some of these tendencies in Hillary. Back then she would have been considered very serious, a “straight arrow.” Alinsky would have excited these serious tendencies with his own equally serious attention to matters of strategy and tactics, and by his own serious streak, which was a red hot concern for the poor. “Poverty is an embarrassment to the American soul,” he said over and over again. That was probably his only religious statement and it was enough to make him serious allies with the church in Chicago and beyond. Alinsky would not have appealed to the Methodism in Hillary’s personality. He was much too profane, cursing a blue streak, smoking non-stop, and insulting many people who were as earnest as she was. Still, their fundamental antipathy to poverty would connect them, and finally cause him to be the topic she chose for her senior thesis.

Hillary Clinton and Alinsky disagreed over the issue of localism. She did not believe the local was a large enough context for political action. For a suburban girl who already had a national candidate (Goldwater), that viewpoint was not surprising. For the poor that Alinsky loved, even a few blocks was too much. There were aspects of her middle class up bring that shaped her under standing of Slinky and his ideas.

According to Allan Schuster, professor of Political Science at Wellesley, she chose her senior thesis topic because she had met Alinsky in high school and had heard him speak at a meeting she had attended in Boston . That meeting resulted in her organizing a demonstration in the town of Wellesley — something slinky himself would have done. He thought campus issues, which Hillary had been working on for some time, were silly. They were about the middle class, not about the poor. Hillary responded to this guidance positively. But eventually she found the town of Wellesley and the city of Boston too ”small” to matter to the poor as sites for change.

Clifford Green, then professor of biblical history at Wellesley College and now a professor at Hartford Theological Seminary in Connecticut , taught the bible course she was required to take in her sophomore year. His classes confirmed for Hillary the religious view point inaugurated by Jones — that faith had to do with life, not just with personal matters. Green remembers the surprise of the Wellesley girls that religion could be so public in its real meaning.

Weighing the two major influences on Hillary — religion and community organizing — her biographer Donnie Radcliff has it about right: religion probably meant more to Hillary than organizing. It was public religion that integrated the Sixties context and Alinsky’s focus on the poor and their suffering. The principle of public religion was also ratified by the Wellesley motto: Non ministrar sed ministrare (we are not here to be ministered to, but to minister unto). Taught early by Don Jones, sustained by Benziger, excited by King, challenged by Alinsky, Hillary Clinton was nursed by the Sixties city and the Sixties college to become a political activist with enduring power.

Schecter says that Alinsky recognized her talents as an organizer during the Wellesley period and offered her a significant position after college. He didn’t offer these jobs to many women, nor did he offer them without a serious, often disturbing assessment of the person’s abilities. Caesar Chavez is a well-known example of an Alinsky disciple, chosen and hewn by the master. But whereas Chavez bought the localism of the Alinsky method, Hillary did not.

Schecter also confirms Donnie Radcliffe’s belief that Hillary turned Alinsky down because her senior thesis convinced her that his methods were not “large” enough. She believed, according to Schecter’s interpretation of the thesis, that Alinsky’s tactics and strategies were useful at the local level, but that even if an activist were successful in local organizing, systemic policy matters on the national level would prevent actual power from going to people. She chose to work at the macro-level of law rather than the micro-level of community because of this analysis. Many Alinsky disciples acknowledge that this is a serious and frequent argument made against him.

Hillary Clinton went to law school in order to have an influence on these larger and more difficult issues. Her motivation may have been religious in that uniquely public way that Jones taught her. She was not satisfied with the “right personal faith” and was far more serious about finding a way to put that faith into action. The University of Life approach is what has remained. This way of learning from the street was also a fundamental aspect of Alinsky’s teaching. In this way, we can see that Hillary was influenced by a powerful mixture of experience and theory. Then the credentializing began. She may not have known just how much Alinsky hated lawyers, but he hated them with a severity that makes her career choice all the more interesting.

For a young woman to turn down this extremely macho man, and to stand against him in theory as well as in practice, is astonishing, particularly given the times and her young age. Her assertion to Alinsky that confrontational tactics would upset the kind of people she grew up with in Park Ridge , thus creating a backlash, was either naive or brilliant. He surely told her what he is reported to have said — “that won’t change anything.” It couldn’t have been said with respect. She apparently countered, “Well, Mr. Alinsky, I see a different way than you.”

Perhaps this exchange explains why so many people find Hillary too assertive and aloof. She emulates Alinsky in the seriousness with which she accepts her mission — thus embodying his best teaching — and at the same time she distinguishes herself with her own point of view. As Schecter pointed out, she understood early on that poor people needed not just participation, but also structure and leadership. That she thought Alinsky could not provide that is surprising, but that is what she thought at that time. To have much more political sophistication in an 18 year- old would have been scary. Her thesis concluded that “organizing the poor for community actions to improve their own lives may have, in certain circumstances, short-term benefits for the poor but would never solve their major problems. You need much more than that. You need leadership, programs, constitutional doctrines.”

That analysis ultimately led to law school and not back to the University of Life or to Alinsky’s streets. In extensive correspondence with Rev. Jones during college, she began the shift from Goldwater conservatism to a more liberal viewpoint. “Can one be a mental conservative but a heart liberal?” she asked him at one point.

One example in a real political context shows her legal and activist mind at work. Marshall Goldman, a Wellesley professor of Russian economics, suggested that students had mixed up tactics in boycotting classes. He wanted them to skip weekends because that was sacrificial. Hillary responded quickly in The Wellesley News, “I’ll give up my date Saturday night, Mr. Goldman, but I don’t think that’s the point. Individual consciences are fine, but individual con sciences have to be made manifest.” Not only do we see her rational and argumentative mind here, but also the nearly literal interpretation of public religion that has integrated her political action and her life.

In the speech she made at her Wellesley commencement, she quoted a poem by a fellow student, Nancy Scheibner, called ”The Art of Making Possible.” Hillary Clinton and Alinsky are fellow travelers here. The pragmatism of a politician joins the fundamentalism of a certain kind of true believer: this marriage is what has taken Hillary beyond her senior thesis. She does exactly what Alinsky would have taught her to do — to read, continuously, from experience. She also stays very close to what Jones and Wellesley would have her do — to express her faith in public action. Both politics and religion keep her safely in the Sixties realm and do so in unusual, personally appropriated ways. She moves beyond her senior thesis, but continues to put much of what she learned during that period into practice today. Hillary Clinton's Thesis About Radical Activitist Saul Alinsky

 

An interesting combination: the heresy of Methodism and Saul Alinsky. Why not? People must seek some explanation for the problems of the world and how to deal with them if they do not believe in and submit to the true Faith.

For Barack Obama, however, it is black nationalism and Saul Alinsky. Indeed, Obama is no stranger to playing the Alinsky game himself. Thus, his fight with Hillary Clinton for the Democrat Party presidential nomination this year is really akin a fight among two or more of the five organized crime families in the City of New York (Bonnano, Colombo, Gambino, Genovese, Lucchese). Both Obama and Clinton know how to use amoral tactics to achieve their goals without appearing to "threaten" admirers who have various religious beliefs:

If I were the least bit prone to gratuitous sympathy, I would be tempted now to feel quite sorry for Hillary Rodham Clinton.  Poor, poor woman.  She was quite nearly brought to all-out tears yesterday in New Hampshire, as she soliloquized over the sad state of her drooping campaign and how completely personal this is for her. 

Barack Obama seems to have effortlessly achieved voter adoration, fresher, younger, more at ease within his own skin than she will ever be. He would appear to be as much a natural as her own Bill. It may appear to a great many observers that Barrack Obama is just one incredibly audacious, even lucky, albeit frighteningly charismatic dude.

These personal qualities are not the sole reason he is where he is, and I suspect the wily Mrs. Clinton knows this full well. I suspect it must bother her that Obama also appears to have mastered the playbook used by her own political teacher, the legendary amoral guru of left wing activism, Saul Alinsky.

Hillary has met not only her match in Alinsky tactics, she has met the master of bloodless socialist revolution, in my opinion.

Obama's Alinsky Lessons

Barack Obama had just graduated from Columbia and was looking for a job.  Some white leftists were looking for someone who could recruit in a black neighborhood in the south side of Chicago.

Obama answered a help-wanted ad for a position as a community organizer for the Developing Communities Project (DCP) of the Calumet Community Religious Conference (CCRC) in Chicago.  Obama was 24 years old, unmarried, very accustomed to a vagabond existence, and according to his memoir, searching for a genuine African-American community.

Both the CCRC and the DCP were built on the Alinsky model of community agitation, wherein paid organizers learned how to "rub raw the sores of discontent," in Alinsky's words.

One of Obama's early mentors in the Alinsky method was Mike Kruglik, who had this to say to an Ryan Lizza of The New Republic, about Obama:

"He was a natural, the undisputed master of agitation, who could engage a room full of recruiting targets in a rapid-fire Socratic dialogue, nudging them to admit that they were not living up to their own standards. As with the panhandler, he could be aggressive and confrontational. With probing, sometimes personal questions, he would pinpoint the source of pain in their lives, tearing down their egos just enough before dangling a carrot of hope that they could make things better." The agitator's job, according to Alinsky, is first to bring folks to the "realization" that they are indeed miserable, that their misery is the fault of unresponsive governments or greedy corporations, then help them to bond together to demand what they deserve, and to make such an almighty stink that the dastardly governments and corporations will see imminent "self-interest" in granting whatever it is that will cause the harassment to cease.

In these methods, euphemistically labeled "community organizing," Obama had a four-year education, which he often says was the best education he ever got anywhere.

Is it any wonder, then, that Obama's Alinsky Jujitsu is making mincemeat of the woman who merely interviewed Alinsky, wrote about him, and spent the next 30 years in corporate law and in the lap of taxpayer-funded luxury in government mansions?

Obama Not Starry-Eyed Like His Followers

Alinsky considered himself a realist above all, the ultimate pragmatist.  As a confirmed atheist, Alinsky believed that the here and now is all there is, and therefore had no qualms about assorted versions of morality in the pursuit of worldly power.  He didn't coddle his radical acolytes or encourage their bourgeois distinctions between good and evil when it came to transferring power from the Haves to the Have Nots.  Alinsky saw the already formed church communities as being the perfect springboards for agitation and creating bonds for demanding goods and services.

When Obama first undertook his agitating work in Chicago's South Side poor neighborhoods, he was un-churched.  Yet his office was in a Church and most of the folks he needed to agitate and organize were Church people -- pastors and congregants -- who took their churches and their church-going very seriously.  So, this became a problem for the young agnostic, who had been exposed to very little religion in his life.  Again and again, he was asked by pastors and church ladies, "Where do you go to Church, young man?"  It was a question he dodged for a while, but finally he relented and joined a church.

Not just any church, but a huge black nationalist church with a pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright, who unabashedly preaches a "black" gospel.  Rolling Stone Magazine ran with a story on Obama and his church, entitled, "Destiny's Child," which included this exert from one of Rev. Wright's sermons: 

"Fact number one: We've got more black men in prison than there are in college," he intones.

"Fact number two: Racism is how this country was founded and how this country is still run!"

"We are deeply involved in the importing of drugs, the exporting of guns and the training of professional KILLERS. . . . We believe in white supremacy and black inferiority and believe it more than we believe in God. . . . We conducted radiation experiments on our own people. . . . We care nothing about human life if the ends justify the means!"

The crowd whoops and amens as Wright builds to his climax: "And. And. And! GAWD! Has GOT! To be SICK! OF THIS S**T!" This doesn't sound like any church in which I've ever worshipped, but perhaps I have led a sheltered life.  Reverend Wright, whom Obama called his spiritual mentor and still claims is his sounding board, has taken trips abroad with none other than Louis Farrakhan. The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan received the "Rev. Dr. Jeremiah A. Wright,Jr. Lifetime Achievement Trumpeteer" Award at the 2007 Trumpet Gala at the the United Church of Christ. Wright was even reported to be a former Muslim. One might be led to wonder if this "church" isn't all it makes itself out to be.

Among some of the black nationalist signs hanging in this church are a list of admonishments to black solidarity, called the "Black Value System," and a sort of moral code calling for the "Disavowal of the Pursuit of Middleclassness."  I don't recall the Ten Commandments or anything at all in the Gospel about race, so this seems a bit strange.     

But Obama isn't starry-eyed when it comes to protecting himself from the possibility of bad press regarding his church affiliation.  When he was preparing to announce his campaign for the Presidency in February, he called his minister, Reverend Wright, the night before and disinvited him to stand on the podium in front of all the cameras.  Rather than face questions, he simply eliminated the target, a perfect Alinsky action meant to forestall an enemy reaction.

Hillary should have known what she was up against when she read up on how Obama won his state senate seat in Illinois. 

Obama had returned to Chicago and practiced civil rights law for 3 years, when he spied an opportunity to run for the state senate.  A longtime, widely-revered matron of the civil rights movement named Alice Palmer had held the seat for a number of years, but she announced that she wanted to run for Congress.  So, Obama seized the opportunity and proclaimed his intention to run for Alice's open seat. 

Well, Alice lost the congressional race and decided that she wanted to hang onto that hard-won state senate seat.  Most of the community leaders tried to persuade Obama to withdraw and wait his turn; he was a newcomer after all. 

Instead Obama performed his first real act of political jujitsu.  He sent his aides to the courthouse to carefully examine all of Alice Palmer's signatures to see if enough could be disallowed to knock her off the ballot altogether.  And indeed, some of Alice's signatures were fake.  The aides also found enough other fake signatures on opponents' ballot initiatives to knock them off the ballot as well. 

By the time Barack Obama walked handily into his state senate seat, everyone there knew him as "the man who knocked off Alice Palmer."  Quite a feat indeed for the newcomer, the young whippersnapper with the odd name.

Perhaps Hillary will win some states and stay in the game a while longer, but I fear this knight with his adoring, fawning followers is just too slick for her and ole Bill, and he seems to know how to play Alinsky ends-and-means hardball without actually breaking the law. American Thinker: Obama's Alinsky Jujitsu

 

One need not recount the long record of wrongdoing, much of it criminal in nature but never proved in a court of law, associated with William Jefferson Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton, dating back to Bill Clinton's days as Governor of the State of Arkansas and the reports of his own cocaine habit (and the pardon he gave in 1990 to his half-brother Roger's cocaine "distributor" friend, Dan Lasater, a foreshadowing of the pardon that Clinton gave as President of the United States to fugitive Marc Rich on the very day that he, Clinton, left the White House, January 20, 2001. However, why not a brief review of some of the salient incidents of wrongdoing to indicate that the naturalists who went after Richard Nixon during "Watergate" have had lots of "gates" associated with their names over the years:

1. Bill and Hillary Clinton lied in 1992 about Gennifer Flowers. Mrs. Clinton called Flowers's accusations against her husband to be nothing other than "trash for cash," although her husband admitted in their famous 60 Minutes interview with Ed Bradley that he had caused "pain" in their marriage. Hillary Clinton did this repeatedly throughout the White House years, thereby demonstrating that she, the "woman of change," would crush any woman who had been used and/or abused by her husband in order to have her own chance to serve as President of the United States of America.

2. Travelgate and Vince Foster.

3. Filegate.

4. Whitewatergate.

5. Billing records-gate. Does anyone not believe that Mrs. Clinton did not leave the billing records from the Rose Law Firm in the White House reading room?

6. Monicagate, which resulted ultimately in Bill Clinton's copping a plea agreement with Independent Counsel Robert Ray on January 19, 2001, just before he left office. It should also be noted that the Clintons were ruthless in attempting to destroy the reputation of anyone and everyone who sought to criticize them or to investigate them, making Richard Nixon's "Plumbers' Unit" seem like a band of amateurs. Take a look at a very partial list of some of the names of Clinton "enemies" who were "exposed" as having their own personal problems during the midst of Monicagate: United States Representatives Bob Barr, Henry Hyde, Dan Burton, and Bob Livingston. Ah, yes, the compassionate Clintons? Just don't get in their way. They take no prisoners.

7. Serbiagate: the bombardment of the Serbs to favor the Kosovo Mohammedans in the former Yugoslavia, a bombardment that Clinton directed despite the fact that he had no authorization from the Congress of the United States of America to do so. Thousands of innocent Serbians were killed as a result of the bombing, conducted under the auspices of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (N.A.T.O.)

7. Chinagate. A few words need to be written about this betrayal of American national security.

 

Richard Nixon authorized all manner of criminality in the misguided effort to protect national security. Bill Clinton, aided by his wife, engaged in illegal campaign fund-raising in 1996 by inviting Red Chinese arms merchants, among others, to the White House for "sleep overs" and coffees" in order to realize his policy of "leveling" the playing field internationally in a "global" world. Consider this May 27, 2003, Newsmax.com article on the matter:

 

China will likely replace the USA as world leader, said Bill Clinton in a recent Washington Post interview. It is just a matter of time. Clinton should know. He has personally done more to build China’s military strength than any man on earth.

Most Americans have heard of the so-called "Chinagate" scandal. Few understand its deadly import, however. Web sites such as "Chinagate for Dummies" and its companion "More Chinagate for Dummies" offer some assistance.

Unfortunately, with a combined total of nearly 8,000 words, these two sites – like so many others of the genre – offer more detail than most of us "dummies" can absorb.

For that reason, in the 600 words left in this column, I will try to craft my own "Idiot’s Guide to Chinagate," dedicated to all those busy folks like you and me whose attention span tends to peter out after about 750 words.

Here goes.

When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, China presented no threat to the United States. Chinese missiles "couldn’t hit the side of a barn," notes Timothy W. Maier of Insight magazine. Few could reach North America and those that made it would likely miss their targets.

Thanks to Bill Clinton, China can now hit any city in the USA, using state-of-the-art solid-fueled missiles with dead-accurate, computerized guidance systems and multiple warheads.

China probably has suitcase nukes as well. These enable China to strike by proxy – equipping nuclear-armed terrorists to do its dirty work while the Chinese play innocent. Some intelligence sources claim that China maintains secret stockpiles of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons on U.S. soil, for just such contingencies.

In 1997, Clinton allowed China to take over the Panama Canal. The Chinese company Hutchison Whampoa leased the ports of Cristobal and Balboa, on the east and west openings of the canal, respectively, thus controlling access both ways.

A public outcry stopped Clinton in 1998 from leasing California's Long Beach Naval Yard to the Chinese firm COSCO. Even so, China can now strike U.S. targets easily from its bases in Panama, Vancouver and the Bahamas.

How did the Chinese catch up so fast? Easy. We sold them all the technology they needed – or handed it over for free. Neither neglect nor carelessness is to blame. Bill Clinton did it on purpose.

As a globalist, Clinton promotes "multipolarity" – the doctrine that no country (such as the USA) should be allowed to gain decisive advantage over others.

To this end, Clinton appointed anti-nuclear activist Hazel O'Leary to head the Department of Energy. O'Leary set to work "leveling the playing field," as she put it, by giving away our nuclear secrets. She declassified 11 million pages of data on U.S. nuclear weapons and loosened up security at weapons labs.

Federal investigators later concluded that China made off with the "crown jewels" of our nuclear weapons research under Clinton’s open-door policy – probably including design specifications for suitcase nukes.

Meanwhile, Clinton and his corporate cronies raked in millions.

In his book "The China Threat," Washington Times correspondent Bill Gertz describes how the system worked.

Defense contractors eager to sell technology to China poured millions of dollars into Clinton's campaign. In return, Clinton called off the dogs.

Janet Reno and other counterintelligence officials stood down while Lockheed Martin, Hughes Electronics, Loral Space & Communications and other U.S. companies helped China modernize its nuclear strike force.

"We like your president. We want to see him re-elected," former Chinese intelligence chief Gen. Ji Shengde told Chinagate bagman Johnny Chung.

Indeed, Chinese intelligence organized a massive covert operation aimed at tilting the 1996 election Clinton's way.

Clinton's top campaign contributors for 1992 were Chinese agents; his top donors in 1996 were U.S. defense contractors selling missile technology to China.

Clinton received funding directly from known or suspected Chinese intelligence agents, among them James and Mochtar Riady, who own the Indonesian Lippo Group; John Huang; Charlie Trie; Ted Sioeng; Maria Hsia; Wang Jun and others.

Commerce Secretary Ron Brown served as Clinton's front man in many Chinagate deals. When investigators began probing Brown's Lippo Group and Chinagate connections, Brown died suddenly in a suspicious April 1996 plane crash.

Needless to say, China does not share Clinton's enthusiasm for globalism or multipolarity. The Chinese look out for No. 1.

"War [with the United States] is inevitable; we cannot avoid it," said Chinese Defense Minister Gen. Chi Haotian in 2000. "The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war."

Bill Clinton has given them a good start. (Richard Poe, The Idiot's Guide to Chinagate.)

 

Yes, my friends, the naturalists really do believe in things, almost each of which is totally wrong, admitting that even naturalists can get a few things right now and again. What each naturalist is absolutely wrong about, however, is their adherence to the Judeo-Masonic belief that the Incarnation of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ is, at best, a matter of indifference or, at worst, a matter of complete irrelevance to social order. They will "change" the world according to their own perverted and distorted "lights," taking no prisoners in the process. A "better" world is not produced by amorality or by the adherence to various nationalistic or ideological programs that have their foundation in naturalistic, anti-Incarnational and semi-Pelagian principles of human self-redemption.

Although I will address the matter of the pragmatics of electoral politics in a naturalistic world, said commentary will be little different than what I wrote during the election stalemate of 2000 (see: Justice Will Lose No Matter Who Wins, wherein I did make one little, itsy-bitsy reference to "the Holy Father" at the end of the article; all right, all right, I was wrong on that point, I will grant you). Suffice it to say for the present moment that we must come to understand that a world of naturalism can go about its business quite nicely each day as over 4,000 babies are slaughtered by surgical means in the United States of America and without considering for a moment how other sins that cry out to Heaven for vengeance are promoted in every aspect of our popular culture. Naturalism of the "right" is no antidote to naturalism of the "left." One can never build a "better" world when one is indifferent to, or actually supportive of, the promotion of various sins as a "civil right," no less believe that one can commit various Moral Sins to acquire and retain political power.

Perhaps these words of Pope Saint Leo XIII, contained in Tametsi Futura Prospicientibus, November 1, 1900, and oft-quoted on this site, will help to serve as antidote to the belief that we can retard the evils of the moment by means merely natural:

From this it may clearly be seen what con sequences are to be expected from that false pride which, rejecting our Saviour's Kingship, places man at the summit of all things and declares that human nature must rule supreme. And yet, this supreme rule can neither be attained nor even defined. The rule of Jesus Christ derives its form and its power from Divine Love: a holy and orderly charity is both its foundation and its crown. Its necessary consequences are the strict fulfilment of duty, respect of mutual rights, the estimation of the things of heaven above those of earth, the preference of the love of God to all things. But this supremacy of man, which openly rejects Christ, or at least ignores Him, is entirely founded upon selfishness, knowing neither charity nor selfdevotion. Man may indeed be king, through Jesus Christ: but only on condition that he first of all obey God, and diligently seek his rule of life in God's law. By the law of Christ we mean not only the natural precepts of morality and the Ancient Law, all of which Jesus Christ has perfected and crowned by His declaration, explanation and sanction; but also the rest of His doctrine and His own peculiar institutions. Of these the chief is His Church. Indeed whatsoever things Christ has instituted are most fully contained in His Church. Moreover, He willed to perpetuate the office assigned to Him by His Father by means of the ministry of the Church so gloriously founded by Himself. On the one hand He confided to her all the means of men's salvation, on the other He most solemnly commanded men to be subject to her and to obey her diligently, and to follow her even as Himself: "He that heareth you, heareth Me; and he that despiseth you, despiseth Me" (Luke x, 16). Wherefore the law of Christ must be sought in the Church. Christ is man's "Way"; the Church also is his "Way"-Christ of Himself and by His very nature, the Church by His commission and the communication of His power. Hence all who would find salvation apart from the Church, are led astray and strive in vain.

As with individuals, so with nations. These, too, must necessarily tend to ruin if they go astray from "The Way." The Son of God, the Creator and Redeemer of mankind, is King and Lord of the earth, and holds supreme dominion over men, both individually and collectively. "And He gave Him power, and glory, and a kingdom: and all peoples, tribes, and tongues shall serve Him" (Daniel vii., 14). "I am appointed King by Him . . . I will give Thee the Gentiles for Thy inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession" (Psalm ii., 6, 8). Therefore the law of Christ ought to prevail in human society and be the guide and teacher of public as well as of private life. Since this is so by divine decree, and no man may with impunity contravene it, it is an evil thing for the common weal wherever Christianity does not hold the place that belongs to it. When Jesus Christ is absent, human reason fails, being bereft of its chief protection and light, and the very end is lost sight of, for which, under God's providence, human society has been built up. This end is the obtaining by the members of society of natural good through the aid of civil unity, though always in harmony with the perfect and eternal good which is above nature. But when men's minds are clouded, both rulers and ruled go astray, for they have no safe line to follow nor end to aim at.

Just as it is the height of misfortune to go astray from the "Way," so is it to abandon the "Truth." Christ Himself is the first, absolute and essential "Truth," inasmuch as He is the Word of God, consubstantial and co-eternal with the Father, He and the Father being One. "I am the Way and the Truth." Wherefore if the Truth be sought by the human intellect, it must first of all submit it to Jesus Christ, and securely rest upon His teaching, since therein Truth itself speaketh. There are innumerable and extensive fields of thought, properly belonging to the human mind, in which it may have free scope for its investigations and speculations, and that not only agreeably to its nature, but even by a necessity of its nature. But what is unlawful and unnatural is that the human mind should refuse to be restricted within its proper limits, and, throwing aside its becoming modesty, should refuse to acknowledge Christ's teaching. This teaching, upon which our salvation depends, is almost entirely about God and the things of God. No human wisdom has invented it, but the Son of God hath received and drunk it in entirely from His Father: "The words which thou gavest me, I have given to them" john xvii., 8). Hence this teaching necessarily embraces many subjects which are not indeed contrary to reasonfor that would be an impossibility-but so exalted that we can no more attain them by our own reasoning than we can comprehend God as He is in Himself. If there be so many things hidden and veiled by nature, which no human ingenuity can explain, and yet which no man in his senses can doubt, it would be an abuse of liberty to refuse to accept those which are entirely above nature, because their essence cannot be discovered. To reject dogma is simply to deny Christianity. Our intellect must bow humbly and reverently "unto the obedience of Christ," so that it be held captive by His divinity and authority: "bringing into captivity every understanding unto the obedience of Christ" (2 Corinthians x., 5). Such obedience Christ requires, and justly so. For He is God, and as such holds supreme dominion over man's intellect as well as over his will. By obeying Christ with his intellect man by no means acts in a servile manner, but in complete accordance with his reason and his natural dignity. For by his will he yields, not to the authority of any man, but to that of God, the author of his being, and the first principle to Whom he is subject by the very law of his nature. He does not suffer himself to be forced by the theories of any human teacher, but by the eternal and unchangeable truth. Hence he attains at one and the same time the natural good of the intellect and his own liberty. For the truth which proceeds from the teaching of Christ clearly demonstrates the real nature and value of every being; and man, being endowed with this knowledge, if he but obey the truth as perceived, will make all things subject to himself, not himself to them; his appetites to his reason, not his reason to his appetites. Thus the slavery of sin and falsehood will be shaken off, and the most perfect liberty attained: "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" john viii., 32). It is, then, evident that those whose intellect rejects the yoke of Christ are obstinately striving against God. Having shaken off God's authority, they are by no means freer, for they will fall beneath some human sway. They are sure to choose someone whom they will listen to, obey, and follow as their guide. Moreover, they withdraw their intellect from the communication of divine truths, and thus limit it within a narrower circle of knowledge, so that they are less fitted to succeed in the pursuit even of natural science. For there are in nature very many things whose apprehension or explanation is greatly aided by the light of divine truth. Not unfrequently, too, God, in order to chastise their pride, does not permit men to see the truth, and thus they are punished in the things wherein they sin. This is why we often see men of great intellectual power and erudition making the grossest blunders even in natural science.

10. It must therefore be clearly admitted that, in the life of a Christian, the intellect must be entirely subject to God's authority. And if, in this submission of reason to authority, our self-love, which is so strong, is restrained and made to suffer, this only proves the necessity to a Christian of long-suffering not only in will but also in intellect. We would remind those persons of this truth who desire a kind of Christianity such as they themselves have devised, whose precepts should be very mild, much more indulgent towards human nature, and requiring little if any hardships to be borne. They do not properly under stand the meaning of faith and Christian precepts. They do not see that the Cross meets us everywhere, the model of our life, the eternal standard of all who wish to follow Christ in reality and not merely in name.

11. God alone is Life. All other beings partake of life, but are not life. Christ, from all eternity and by His very nature, is "the Life," just as He is the Truth, because He is God of God. From Him, as from its most sacred source, all life pervades and ever will pervade creation. Whatever is, is by Him; whatever lives, lives by Him. For by the Word "all things were made; and without Him was made nothing that was made." This is true of the natural life; but, as We have sufficiently indicated above, we have a much higher and better life, won for us by Christ's mercy, that is to say, "the life of grace," whose happy consummation is "the life of glory," to which all our thoughts and actions ought to be directed. The whole object of Christian doctrine and morality is that "we being dead to sin, should live to justice" (I Peter ii., 24)-that is, to virtue and holiness. In this consists the moral life, with the certain hope of a happy eternity. This justice, in order to be advantageous to salvation, is nourished by Christian faith. "The just man liveth by faith" (Galatians iii., II). "Without faith it is impossible to please God" (Hebrews xi., 6). Consequently Jesus Christ, the creator and preserver of faith, also preserves and nourishes our moral life. This He does chiefly by the ministry of His Church. To Her, in His wise and merciful counsel, He has entrusted certain agencies which engender the supernatural life, protect it, and revive it if it should fail. This generative and conservative power of the virtues that make for salvation is therefore lost, whenever morality is dissociated from divine faith. A system of morality based exclusively on human reason robs man of his highest dignity and lowers him from the supernatural to the merely natural life. Not but that man is able by the right use of reason to know and to obey certain principles of the natural law. But though he should know them all and keep them inviolate through life-and even this is impossible without the aid of the grace of our Redeemer-still it is vain for anyone without faith to promise himself eternal salvation. "If anyone abide not in Me, he shall be cast forth as a branch, and shall wither, and they shall gather him up and cast him into the fire, and he burneth" john xv., 6). "He that believeth not shall be condemned" (Mark xvi., 16). We have but too much evidence of the value and result of a morality divorced from divine faith. How is it that, in spite of all the zeal for the welfare of the masses, nations are in such straits and even distress, and that the evil is daily on the increase? We are told that society is quite able to help itself; that it can flourish without the assistance of Christianity, and attain its end by its own unaided efforts. Public administrators prefer a purely secular system of government. All traces of the religion of our forefathers are daily disappearing from political life and administration. What blindness! Once the idea of the authority of God as the Judge of right and wrong is forgotten, law must necessarily lose its primary authority and justice must perish: and these are the two most powerful and most necessary bonds of society. Similarly, once the hope and expectation of eternal happiness is taken away, temporal goods will be greedily sought after. Every man will strive to secure the largest share for himself. Hence arise envy, jealousy, hatred. The consequences are conspiracy, anarchy, nihilism. There is neither peace abroad nor security at home. Public life is stained with crime.

So great is this struggle of the passions and so serious the dangers involved, that we must either anticipate ultimate ruin or seek for an efficient remedy. It is of course both right and necessary to punish malefactors, to educate the masses, and by legislation to prevent crime in every possible way: but all this is by no means sufficient. The salvation of the nations must be looked for higher. A power greater than human must be called in to teach men's hearts, awaken in them the sense of duty, and make them better. This is the power which once before saved the world from destruction when groaning under much more terrible evils. Once remove all impediments and allow the Christian spirit to revive and grow strong in a nation, and that nation will be healed. The strife between the classes and the masses will die away; mutual rights will be respected. If Christ be listened to, both rich and poor will do their duty. The former will realise that they must observe justice and charity, the latter self-restraint and moderation, if both are to be saved. Domestic life will be firmly established ( by the salutary fear of God as the Lawgiver. In the same way the precepts of the natural law, which dictates respect for lawful authority and obedience to the laws, will exercise their influence over the people. Seditions and conspiracies will cease. Wherever Christianity rules over all without let or hindrance there the order established by Divine Providence is preserved, and both security and prosperity are the happy result. The common welfare, then, urgently demands a return to Him from whom we should never have gone astray; to Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life,-and this on the part not only of individuals but of society as a whole. We must restore Christ to this His own rightful possession. All elements of the national life must be made to drink in the Life which proceedeth from Him- legislation, political institutions, education, marriage and family life, capital and labour. Everyone must see that the very growth of civilisation which is so ardently desired depends greatly upon this, since it is fed and grows not so much by material wealth and prosperity, as by the spiritual qualities of morality and virtue.

 

As noted two days ago in From Nazareth We Come, In Nazareth We Must Live, we can replicate Christendom in our own families. We must replicate Christendom in our families as we seek to offer up to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus all of our day's activities through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, praying as many Rosaries each day as our states-in-life permit. There is only way way to "reform" ourselves and the world, and that is by the true Faith, as Pope Saint Pius X noted in Notre Charge Apostolique, August 15, 1910: "...for there is no true civilization without a moral civilization, and no true moral civilization without the true religion: it is a proven truth, a historical fact." You want to believe in the fraud of naturalistic electoral politics and the erroneous views of those who present themselves as candidates for public office, go right ahead. Not a blessed thing will ever get "better" as a result of all of the fear and all of the energy and all of the money and all of the time invested in this useless enterprise. I'll stick with Pope Saint Pius X and Catholic truth, thank you very much.

We ask Our Lady in these days of the Nativity of her Divine Son, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to become like unto little children so that we will trust more and more in her Fatima Message, seeking to implement it in our own families as we pray our Rosaries on our knees together with our family members in homes that are Enthroned to the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus and to her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart.

Viva Cristo Rey!

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saints Peter and Paul, pray for us.

Saint John the Baptist, pray for us.

Saint John the Evangelist, pray for us.

Saint Michael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Gabriel the Archangel, pray for us.

Saint Raphael the Archangel, pray for us.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, pray for us.

Saint Hilary of Poitiers, pray for us.

See also: A Litany of Saints