PJ 103
CHAPTER 13
BLOWING AWAY
THE SECOND AMENDMENT MYTH
by James Hazel
Editor's note: The following Second Amendment dissertation is part of our ongoing series which was first introduced in the 6/28/94 CONTACT on Page 58, at which time the idea of forming a Militia was reported. Last week we presented the "Meaning & Purpose Of the Second Amendment" on p. 63 [of the CONTACT, also in journal #100]. The following puts the icing on the cake.
In good conscience I must insist that you sit down before reading this report. Firmly restrain yourself with lap-belts and shoulder harness, if available. Send the kids to bed so they won't be traumatized by your screams of rage when you discover you've been played for a fool. You are about to learn something that will disturb your fondest beliefs. Prepare for the shock of your life. When you've finished reading this report--if you don't feel a strong urge to hang a bunch of politicians, or this messenger...check your pulse for signs of life.
Many Americans, about 150 million souls, passionately believe they have an unalienable right to keep and bear arms. Chances are you are one of them. Almost without exception, every one of those 150 million Americans think that right is expressed, secured, guaranteed and protected by the Second Amendment. But they are sadly mistaken! Despite the fact that countless gun advocates religiously rely on the Second Amendment as their ultimate salvation, that Amendment isn't worth the parchment it was written on.
The Second Amendment is among the most analyzed and fervently debated sections of the Constitution. But most of the arguments, pro and con, are hypocritical hyperbole. They are specious, tortured, twisted, off-point and...wrong. For the very first time in your life you are going to get the true "skinny". Right here. Right now!
To say the Second Amendment is worthless in protecting your desire to obtain, own, carry and use firearms, would be a gross understatement. It is worse than useless. If embraced as sacred doctrine, as so many do, it will guarantee the total disarmament of all private citizens. Embrace it; support it; proselytize it at your own risk. But don't say Patrick Henry or me did not warn you of the consequences!
Patrick Henry was the rarest of animals: an honest lawyer. You've heard his stirring "Give me Liberty or give me death" speech. But were you aware he was an outspoken enemy of the Constitution? He smelt a rat (his very words). And he wasn't much fonder of the Bill of Rights which, he opined, would be used by evil wordsmiths to limit, not secure, the rights reserved to the people. Paddy must have been psychic. Or at least farseeing. Because that is exactly what has happened. and the Second Amendment is a classic case in point.
Read it again, for the first time:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
Now I know you've been trained to focus only on the phrase that seems to support your deepest desire, the one beginning after the second comma, which says "..the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed". But don't let your desire run away with your good sense! That phrase is qualified by the one that precedes it. The Second Amendment is all about securing that which is necessary to protecting a free State from devolving into an unfree state, such as a tyranny, anarchy or commercial monopoly. The means or vehicle for securing a free State is clearly stated to be "A well regulated Militia".
The Amendment under examination here does not address rights to acquire, possess, carry or use arms for purposes of hunting, or even for defense of self, family or property, but only those rights which devolve on members of a "well regulated Militia", and which are necessary to the performance of their duties. It doesn't address rights which may reside in members of a poorly trained, ill equipped, unregulated, unorganized Militia, either. The historical purpose of assuring by constitutional mandate that all able-bodied men would keep personally-owned weapons was, if circumstances required, a mass of armed men would be equipped to swiftly assemble and protect the State against enemies domestic or foreign.
But the real purpose of the Second Amendment is academic, the fact is, its object, to secure a free State, has been nullified by deliberately fomented circumstances.
To comprehend how the Second Amendment has been cunningly and maliciously castrated through the years since it was first adopted, you should correctly understand what the Militia was.
Founding Patriot George Mason asked himself a rhetorical question, "What is the Militia"? He answered himself, and nobody disputed him, "It is the whole people except for a few public officials". Despite Mr. Mason's previously unchallenged definition, the common understanding was that the Militia did not in fact consist of the WHOLE PEOPLE, including men, women and children, but only of able-bodied men between the ages of 18-45 inclusive. They were "citizen-soldiers"; citizens who could be called upon in time of need to "act in concert for common defence". (Keep that age-group [18-45] in the back of your mind. It is evidence against those who perverted the Second Amendment).
Another Founding Patriot, Elbridge Gerry, as our forebears were wont to do, asked himself a different rhetorical question: "What is the purpose of the militia"? His undisputed answer was, "to offset the need of large standing armies, the bane of liberty". Large standing armies, under the absolute control of their commander-in-chief, then as now, constitute an irresistible threat to the safety, security and liberty of lesser-armed people.
A citizen-militia on the other hand, poses no danger to the citizenry from which its ranks are drawn.
Where is that "Militia" today, so solemnly mentioned in the Second Amendment? To find it, if it exists, perhaps we should first answer the question, 'What' happened' to the "free State" the Militia was intended to secure"?! Where is that Old Republic known to our ancestors as "the United States'of America"?;,'
Well, unless you've been asleep or in a coma, you know the state under which we now move and have our being is titled by the abbreviated "UNITED STATES". It is certainly not a Republican form of government. We are indoctrinated to believe, without evidence, that it is a democracy. In legal fact, though, it is essentially a corporate business monopoly; a regional branch or subdivision of a larger, monolithic commercial monopoly known as "The United. Nations Organization". "The United States" bears little resemblance in law or fact to the former Republic, the United States of America, which the Second Amendment was designed to secure.
The Second Amendment failed to secure the Republic. And it cannot secure your right to acquire, carry or use firearms. but it can, and will, result in your disarmament...
unless you get your constitutional ducks in a row, and stop relying on an amendment that promises you NOTHING!
HOW DID THEY DO IT TO US!? Look at their cryptic code-books and you will see. Probably the best evidence is recorded in United States Code, Title 10, Section 311 (10 USC 311):
"Militia: composition and classes
(a) The militia of the United States consists of all able-bodied males at least 17 years of age and, except as provided in section 313 of title 32 [32 USCS §313], under 45 years of age who are, or who have made a declaration of intention to become, citizens of the United States who are commissioned officers of the National Guard.
(b) The classes of the militia are--
(1) the organized militia, which consists of the National Guard and the Naval Militia; and
(2) the unorganized militia, which consists of the members of the militia who are not members of the National Guard or the Naval Militia".
To fully appreciate how you have been screwed, blued and tattooed without your knowledge or consent, and without so much as a bye-your-leave or a thank-you, you should also be reminded that Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution declares that:
"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States, when called into actual service of the United States". (Emphasis added).
THE TRUTH IS ALWAYS IN THE DETAILS! Look closely and you will see that the word "Militia", where used in the Second Amendment and Article II, is capitalized and therefore describes a proper noun (a specific person, place or thing). "A...Militia" mentioned in the Second Amendment, referred to the combined Militias of the several States. It was not "the Militia of the United States of America"! It was an aggregate of STATE Militias.
Now look just as closely at 10 USC 311. Forewarned, you will immediately notice that it refers to a generic, non-capitalized "militia"; not, mind you, a Militia of States, consisting of citizens of the several respective States, but a "militia of the United States"! The age-range of that militia's members vary distinctly from that of the historical State Militias. The "National Guard" mentioned in the statute is actually "The Army National Guard". The U.S.'s C.E.O., the president, is constitutionally empowered by Article II, §2, to be Commander in Chief of that division of the Army.
The 10 USC 311 "militia" IS NOT THE CONSTITUTIONAL MILITIA PURPOSED TO PROTECT THE REPUBLIC. It is a counterfeit intended to mollify and confuse the American people, and to help lead them down the dead-end path toward total disarmament, and irrevocable slavery.
The State Militias, which are the subject of the Second Amendment, no longer exist. And they cannot be easily resurrected. To re-establish a State Militia would entail nothing less than sufficient knowledgeable and like-minded people to take control of all branches of a State Government, and having a willingness to fight and win a mixed war with the United States and its superior United Nations Organization. As a practical matter that just isn't a realistic possibility in the foreseeable future.
Still--there can be NO REMEDY to the organized assault on liberty, except we keep our firearms. Mao Tse-Tung was right: "ALL POWER COMES FROM THE BARREL OF A GUN." If we permit our guns to be confiscated and melted down, we will forfeit the only power presently at our command, and the possibility of common people to ever again aspire to freedom will be nil. That is exactly what will happen unless we begin to rely on THE REAL AUTHORITY for the right to acquire, carry and use firearms. We must stop relying on the compromised Second Amendment.
To begin with we must stop the silly demand for the right to "keep and bear arms", until such time as we may be able to reestablish lawful Militias. Let's keep (retain) them, but not for the purpose of bearing arms in defense of states which have been gutted of everything but their names. Let's keep (retain) them for purposes of defending our selves, friends, families, and property; if necessary, against the Army, Navy and "militia" of the United States".
There is a strong authority for acquiring, possessing, carrying and using the most technically-advanced weapons we can obtain. That authority is set forth in the Constitution!
It is the Ninth Amendment which proclaims in no uncertain terms that:
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people".
The rights of individuals to acquire, possess, carry and use firearms of their choice for the purposes of defending their persons, families, property or communities, are not enumerated in the Constitution. Those vital rights, not enumerated, ARE OURS. We retain them. No government creep can deny, disparage or question them. But we cannot long retain them if we do not exercise our unenumerated rights. It is imperative that we acquire guns, possess them, and use them when necessary, not under the diaphanous authority of the Second Amendment, but under the Declaration of Rights expressed in the NINTH AMENDMENT.
THE NINTH AMENDMENT! Who'da thought it could save our bacon when the Second Amendment failed!? But it will not help us if we don't use it. NOW!
We need to circulate the good news. We need to spread it far and wide. We need to shout it, loud and repeatedly, until it is ingrained in the minds and hearts of all our fellow Americans.
And we need to stop badgering gun-grabbing legislators and their fanatical sycophants with off-point protests about their assaults on the Second Amendment. FORGET THE SECOND AMENDMENT! Nail their hides to the wall by invoking the Ninth! Hold them to their oaths of office. As a condition of holding office, they swear to support and defend the Ninth Amendment. When they pass rules, ordinances or legislation which tend to deny or disparage our rights to acquire, possess, carry or use firearms of our choice, they make liars and perjurers of themselves.
We don't have to tolerate liars in high places! Call a spade a spade, when a legislator, administrator or judge voices support for any kind of gun-regulation, don't hesitate to call them LIARS. And don't depend on your one small voice to keep them in line. Join together with your friends and neighbors to set up a public hue and cry that, if it doesn't embarrass the gun-grabbing creep, will lead to his recall, un-election and public silence.
Don't enter into "reasonable debates" with individuals who, with pretended concern about crime and bloodshed in the streets, spout opinions about the need for getting guns out of private hands. They are quislings, cowards, and brainwashed morons. Despite their hypocritical calls for "peaceful exchange of ideas", they are malicious and dangerous to liberty. CALL A SPADE A SPADE! Such people show contempt for the Constitution, for law and for reason. Treat them accordingly. DON'T ENCOURAGE THEM BY LISTENING TO THEIR MINDLESS ANTI-AMERICAN CHATTER!
Despite the fact that about 150 million Americans demand that there be no government infringements on the right to own and use firearms, legislators and their puppeteers are driving a deliberate course toward total gun confiscation and disarmament of all private, non-military/non-police persons. The "controversy" is fast reaching fever pitch. Unless we begin NOW to defend our rights and POWER rationally and with correct Points and Authorities, your guns--and Liberty--will soon be an unredeemable memory.
NEVER SURRENDER YOUR FIREARMS!
ADDENDUM: WARNING! CAVEAT! There is a movement rising which claims a right to organize, regulate and activate the "unorganized militia", or second-class militia of the "militia of the United States", mentioned in 10 USC 311. Participants in this movement can anticipate criminal prosecutions for sedition and conspiracy to overthrow the U.S. Government with force. The "unorganized militia" identifies the pool of conscripts available for draft into the army and army National guard. Its Commander in Chief, the President, has sole authority to regulate it. Those "members of the militia" are by definition "citizens of the United States", or aliens who have declared their intentions to become citizens, and not citizens of STATES which is a pre-requisite for membership in the Second Amendment Militia. BEWARE OF FALSE ASSUMPTIONS AND PURPORTED REMEDIES WHICH ARE BASED ON WISHFUL THINKING...AND NOT FACTS.
CHAPTER 14
THE NEWS DESK
Rick Martin 7/20/94
SAGAN & UFOs
In an Associated Press article appearing in the June 25 edition of the ALBANY DEMOCRAT-HERALD, [quoting:]
So you believe earth has been visited by unidentified flying objects and the evidence has been suppressed by the government?
That hypnosis or psychotherapy can enable you to recover memories from before you were born?
That creatures from outer space regularly abduct humans, subject them to sexual abuse and use them for breeding experiments with aliens?
Well, you have plenty of company, and that makes you a part of one of the biggest problems in the world of science, astronomer Carl Sagan and other debunkers of pseudoscientific misconceptions said Friday.
"It's not that we're grumpy about lost continents or UFOs," Sagan said--it's that the world can ill afford such scientific illiteracy.
Surveys indicate 25 percent to 50 percent of adult U.S. citizens "don't know the earth goes around the sun once a year," Sagan said.
"Almost every newspaper in the United States has an astrology column, and none has a daily science column. Some have a weekly science column. Why is that?" he asked. "When is the last time you heard an intelligent remark on science from a president of the United States?"
[I would like to take an opportunity, right here and now, to invite Carl Sagan to contact me for an interview at (800) 800-5565. As a member of MJ-12, I'm sure Dr. Sagan could dispel many of the myths, inaccuracies, and flat lies that have been circulating about our space brothers for years and years. He might even help fill in some of the gaps about what their real purposes are for being here. The question is, will he? The CONTACT, as anyone who has read my interviews will attest, will publish word for word what is shared. It just might be an excellent opportunity, Carl, to reach some people you may not normally be able to reach. Just a thought; nevertheless, I am open to hear from you and would welcome the opportunity for some friendly and frank discussion on these and related matters.]
FOREST SERVICE UFO SIGHTINGS
In an article from the June 27 edition of the STATESMAN JOURNAL, OAKRIDGE, (OR) [quoting:]
It took a gathering of Forest Service veterans posted at lonely lookouts during their careers to bring out some experiences none of them wanted to admit--UFO sightings.
Just as conference participants were sitting down to dinner at a restaurant near Oakridge recently, Jim Doerter announced that he had seen a red and white spinning disk perhaps 1,000 feet across during his service at Flat Top Lookout near Mount St. Helens in 1959.
Doerter said he saw the UFO travel the 50 miles from Mount Hood in Oregon to Mount Adams in Washington in 40 seconds, one of two close encounters he had that summer.
His wife, Martha, attending the banquet with him, said she also had seen the object.
"It looked like a mercury-vapor lamp," she said. "I thought I could see windows."
When Ron Johnson, director of the Oregon chapter of the Forest Fire Lookout Association, asked who else had seen similar things while on lookout duty, a dozen hands went up.
Several lookouts said they had not reported the UFOs because they didn't want their district rangers to think that they had lost their minds.
Bill Friday said a large, bluish-white disk had awakened him one night in the summer of 1974 when he was serving on Illahee Rock Lookout on Southern Oregon's Umpqua River. It was so bright, he said, that he could still see it when he pulled his sleeping bag over his head.
"I was in a cold sweat, and the hair stood up on my neck," he said. "It was very real."
GONZALEZ OPPOSES FOSTER PROBE
In an article from the June 27 edition of the NATIONAL WEEKLY EDITION of THE WASHINGTON TIMES, written by Jerry Seper, [quoting:]
House Banking Committee Chairman Henry B. Gonzalez has told the Democratic leadership he does not want Vincent W. Foster Jr.'s suicide [murder] to be part of Whitewater-Madison hearings and opposes a timetable for the hearings.
In a letter to House Speaker Thomas S. Foley, Washington Democrat, Mr. Gonzalez said, "I look forward to meeting with the leadership soon to discuss hearings."
The Democratic leadership has proposed hearings within 30 days after Mr. Fiske completes the first phase of his investigation. He is expected to finish sometime in late July.
Mr. Gonzalez said the hearings should look into contacts between the White House and federal regulators in the Whitewater-Madison affair and the handling of Mr. Foster's papers after his suicide.
He said the panel does not have the expertise to conduct a review into the death of the White House deputy counsel and suggested it be dropped as a hearings topic.
"No Congressional committee is in any way capable of acting as coroner or homicide investigator, even if there were some legislative purpose to be served in pursuing this issue," the Texas Democrat said. "I believe the investigative work of federal and local police agencies and by [Mr. Fiske] should be sufficient.
"I would urge that this subject be deleted, on the ground it lacks legitimate purpose, the Congress is ill-equipped to undertake the task, and any congressional review would inevitably be criticized rightfully as inexpert," he said.
"The issue here is properly a police question, not a legislative issue," he said. "An investigation of the handling of papers necessarily opens the issue of the contents of the papers--matters that Mr. Fiske has asked that we not address."
TOM VALENTINE
In an article from the July 11 edition of SPOTLIGHT, [quoting:]
There's good news for those of you who own satellite dishes. Sun Radio has announced that SPOTLIGHT'S Radio Free America, hosted by Tom Valentine, has moved to one of the best satellites available. Previously, many people have had trouble receiving Tom's popular show.
You can find him on Satcom 1,137 degrees West, Transponder 15, 7.56 audio. The visual signal that accompanies the audio broadcast is scrambled, and will not distract from your enjoyment of the show.
NEW MICROSCOPE
In an article from the July 10 edition of the SAN FRANCISCO EXAMINER, [quoting:]
Researchers at a foundation in Kawasaki, near Tokyo, have developed a microscope that can analyze consecutive cross sections of minute organisms and duplicate them as 3-D images.
A team working under Toshiro Higuchi, a professor in the engineering faculty at Tokyo University who heads the research division at the Kanagawa Academy of Science and Technology in Kawasaki, developed the microscope.
CRIMINALS EXILED.
In an article from the July 15 edition of THE ORLANDO SENTINEL, EVERETT, Wash.--[quoting:]
The crime: another violent, small-change urban robbery. The criminals: Two rural teen-age Alaska Tlingits. The punishment: Banishment for one year on uninhabited islands with only hand tools and a little food.
And for the victim: a new dwelling.
An experiment in cross-cultural jurisprudence was set in motion in a Washington state courtroom when a judge agreed to go along with old-fashioned tribal justice.
According to Washington law, Alaskans Adrian J. Guthrie and Simon P. Roberts, both 17 and Tlingit natives of southeast Alaska, faced from three to 5 1/2 years in prison after pleading guilty to the robbery of a pizza delivery man in Everett last summer. The victim was severely beaten with a baseball bat; his hearing has been affected.
In such violent crimes, Washington law specifically calls for punishment, not rehabilitation. And the chance of restitution in such cases is remote.
But Wednesday, Superior Court Judge James Allendoerfer listened sympathetically and gave the go-ahead to a different approach, the Tlingit way. He agreed to release the teenagers to custody of a tribal court for imposition of the sentence of one year's banishment and restitution to the victim.
Prosecutors objected to the experiment, arguing that it would open the door to all sorts of cultural exceptions and challenges to state law.
"A balancing of the books," explained public defender Al Kitching. "Without that, these young men will never be accepted back in the tribe."
NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE ARTS,
In an article from the June 27-July3 edition of the NATIONAL WEEKLY EDITION, Rob Dreher of THE WASHINGTON TIMES writes, [quoting:]
Jane Alexander, chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts, responded to criticism of a bloody, NEA-funded stage act by an HIV-positive performer in part by decrying media "exaggerations ".
The March 5 event, witnessed by an audience of 100, featured Ron Athey, who is infected with the virus that causes AIDS, piercing his body with needles, carving designs into the bare back of an assistant, daubing the resulting blood with paper towels and sending the towels over the heads of the audience.
It drew immediate criticism from Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat and chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, and Sen. Don Nickles, Oklahoma Republican. They wrote Miss Alexander asking her to explain how the performance passed "the test of artistic excellence and artistic merit, by which applications for NEA funding are to be judged."
"With respect to the Athey performance itself, his work is a study exploring modern-day martyrdom as it relates to AIDS," Miss Alexander said in her letter to Mr. Byrd. "It is a very disturbing but important contemporary subject."
[It's disturbing alright--it's disturbing that the NEA continues to fund such events with your tax dollars!]
In an article from the July edition of AFA, [quoting:]
This is what your taxes, through the National Endowment for the Arts, recently supported at the Woolly Mammoth Theatre, Washington, D.C., according to THE WASHINGTON, D.C. CITY PAPER (4/8/94) AND THE WASHINGTON POST (4/1/94).
In a review of a performance titled My Queer Body, the CITY PAPER said homosexual performance artist Tim Miller asks audience members to identify body parts as he does an impromptu illustrative dance. "Ankle," "tibia," "chest," and "forehead" are named. The identification of "anus" prompts an "exultant smile" from Miller.
Miller presented a series of "taboo-flaunting vignettes and fantasies" including stories of his homosexual teenage years, when he remembers "sleeping with another boy in the bed I was born in--the bed in which I would be born once again."
On stage he strips naked and sits in the lap of a front row patron to "conduct a short discourse on the nervous-making aspects of what he's doing."
He stands nude on stage for 20 minutes. At one point he offers a "lengthy, explicit description of homosexual lovemaking." A POST review said the show concluded with Miller attempting to will himself to erection.
Miller, a self described "loud, obnoxious fag," came to the nation's attention as one of the "NEA Four," who sued the NEA when his funding was withdrawn several years ago. He continues to receive NEA grants, as does the Woolly Mammoth Theatre.
TREASURY
In an article from the June 20 edition of INSURANCE ACCOUNTANT, [quoting:]
Stanley E. Morris, a former adjuster for Continental Insurance in New York, has been named to head the Department of Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and is asking financial institutions for their cooperation in detecting, investigation and prosecuting financial crimes.
Morris is the first to head the new alliance between FinCEN and Treasury's Office of Financial Enforcement, a partnership announced May 18. The merger creates what could become one of Treasury's most powerful departments combining FinCEN's analytical and intelligence responsibilities with OFE's regulatory and oversight capabilities.
MALARIA STATESIDE
In an article from the July 7 edition of THE DENVER POST, [quoting:]
For the first time in more than four decades, residents of metropolitan New York have contracted malaria from local mosquitoes, federal health officials said yesterday.
Three of the cases occurred last July in the New York City borough of Queens, startling city health officials who this year, for the first time in recent memory, are regularly trapping the insects and testing them for the disease. Two other cases, reported today in the NEW ENGLAND JOURNAL OF MEDICINE, were seen in New Jersey in 1991.
LAWRENCE LIVERMORE HACKERS,
In an article from the July 12 edition of THE MODESTO BEE, [quoting:]
Dramatically illustrating the security problems posed by the rapid growth of the Internet computer network, one of the nation's three nuclear weapons labs confirmed Monday that computer hackers were using its computers to store and distribute hard-core pornography.
Embarrassed officials at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, which conducts a great deal of classified research and has highly sophisticated security procedures, said the incident was among the most serious breaches of computer security ever at the lab.
The offending computer, which was shut down after a LOS ANGELES TIMES reporter investigating Internet hacking alerted lab officials, contained more than 1,000 pornographic images. It was believed to be the largest cache of illegal hard-core pornography ever found on a computer network.
BANANAS
In an article from the July 9 edition of THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL, written by Richard Cole, [quoting:]
In the beginning, science created the genetically altered tomato, and the government looked upon it, and saw that it was good.
Now it's time for the banana, say two biotech companies who've signed an agreement to develop a slow-ripening fruit that tastes better and has a longer shelf-life.
Oakland-based DNA Plant Technology and Zeneca Plant Science of Wilmington, Del. also hope to introduce some exotic varieties of the banana, the U.S.'s second most popular fruit after the apple.
It could be three to five years before the new product reaches store shelves...
(Why don't they tell us about the genetically altered humans?)
NEWS DESK
Ed Cleary 7/20/94
EUROPEAN DIVISION
In an article from the, July 4 edition of the Johnson City Press,Vienna,--[quoting]: Russian nationalist Vladimir Zhirinovsky, in Vienna for a meeting of European parliamentarians, predicted Sunday that Europe would again divide into two halves, East and West, because Easterners felt let down by the lack of action taken on Western promises after the end of Communism.
DEMOCRACY. CRIMINALS AND RUSSIA
From the seed of "Democracy" an evil offspring has been birthed in Russia after a short gestation period and gives great promise of leeching the lifeblood from its father, mother and the entire family.
The evil is spreading into neighboring peoples and communities and is beginning to affect countries across the Great Waters.
The following excerpts from the. July 25 issue of Newsweek written by Melinda Liv and Betsy McKay illustrate this activity and provoke remembrance of an historical era in the U.S. when Capone and Chicago were the headlines. Then as now, Eliot Ness (Freeh) and the FBI rise to the challenge. The result will probably be the same. Gangsters will change into the costumes of bankers and businessman. The show will go on.
"Gen. Mikhail Yegorov wanted the cookout to be an occasion his guest of honor would remember, however hazily. When FBI chief Louis Freeh arrived at the remote country dacha, the Russian first deputy interior minister welcomed him with swirling Gypsy dancers, roast suckling pig and plenty of liquid refreshment.
"They had reason to celebrate. The object of Freeh's trip was to promote cooperation in both countries' fight against the increasing global reach of Russia's racketeers. The centerpiece of Freeh's Moscow visit was the formal launching of an FBI liaison office there, scheduled to open in October. By Yegorov's own estimate, his country has 5,700 gangs, totaling 100,000 members; other estimates run far higher. In this year's first quarter, Russia averaged 84 murders a day, many of them contract killings tied to extortion schemes. The mobsters' activities are corroding Russia's fragile legal system and creating an international network to make Russia 'the superpower of crime'.
"Law-enforcement officials across Europe fear the expanding influence of Russian criminals. The ugliest danger is that the mobsters' greed might help make the threat of nuclear terrorism a fact. In Berlin, German officials told Freeh they'd stumbled onto a cache of weapons-grade plutonium in May. Investigators think it was smuggled out of a nuclear-research institute near Moscow.
"Even without the nuclear risk, the gangsters' unchecked activities could produce disaster: they could sabotage Russia's efforts to reform itself. Hopes for democracy's survival depend on getting the national economy up and running; the mob, meanwhile, stifles competition, encourages official corruption and deters foreign investment. According to a U.S. Embassy official in Moscow, at least 80 percent of all Russian businessmen are believed to have links with organized crime.
"Thugs' demands: Now foreign companies have begun feeling the squeeze. Recently the Moscow office of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce received a visit from a pair of thugs who demanded the names, addresses and phone numbers of all 230 member companies doing business in Russia.
"Until now, the Russian government has been ineffective against the outlaws. Under-paid cops, lacking up-to-date equipment, despair of matching the mob's resources. Last month Yeltsin declared war on 'gangsterism', ordering a roundup of alleged gang members and authorizing their detention without charges for up to 30 days. But there's no law on the Russian books against merely being known as a mobster. Civil libertarians say Yeltsin's tactic can only bring a return of the old Soviet police state--but many residents are nostalgic for the security of totalitarian rule.
"Freeh sees no alternative to the alliance. 'The only [other] option is to not deal with the Russians at all,' he says.' I'm not willing to ignore Russian organized crime the way we ignored La Cosa Nostra for 50 years.' In the meantime, Russia's residents are finding their own ways to cope. One American businessman who opened a fancy new restaurant in Moscow this spring researched the city's top crime organizations, chose one and called to make a deal. Members of three rival gangs visited him in the first days of operation. All he had to do, he says, was to pick up the phone. No one bothered him again."
Now mother Russia is in quite a bind. What a choice! Bolshevicm and Big Thugs or "democracy" and little thugs growing up to be BIG THUGS.