People have been whipping up on North because he made some apocolyptic predictions concerning the AIDS epidemic back in the '80's. AS it turns out, he was partially correct in his assumptions about the devastating consequences of the epidemic, but more in the third world. Some African countries are being destroyed by it.

At the time North made his infamous predictions, there was no AZT, which has stymied the disease somewhat in the First World where awareness is high, and medical technology is available.

If his error rate on Y2K is the same, we are still in deep doo-doo.

A supporting quote from Clinton, and link:

"Clinton asked for support from the gays and lesbians in an effort he plans next year to get Congress to help control HIV and AIDS in Africa and part of Asia.

``I think we ought to do more on that around the world and we're going to try to do more, but I want to ask for your support as we go to the Congress and ask them to take a strong stand on that,'' he said.

``Otherwise you're going to see whole countries collapse under the weight of AIDS-related deaths, AIDS orphans and managing the situation,'' Clinton added. "

http://dailynews.yahoo.com/h/nm/19991216/pl/clinton_gays_7.html

So give North a break, guys, especially since few of us, if any, would have the guts to do what he does.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 18, 1999

Answers

LOL, Forrest. I loved it and will refer back to it consistently for laughs.

Guts?

Are you confusing the ideas of character/courage of conviction with some mental malady here?

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), December 18, 1999.

Bad Company (how apt a name), you would do well to remember the words of Solomon:

Proverbs 14:3 In the fool's mouth is a rod of pride; but the lips of the wise shall preserve them.

Your pride is setting you up for a fall.

-- Solomon (solomon@proverbs.wisdom), December 18, 1999.

B C

I am in the camp that thinks things will be worse than most people imagine, and I desparately want to be proven wrong so I can go on with my comfortable life.

could you please tell us what part of Forrest's statement is so obviously wrong? I want it to be wrong, but can not find the supporting evidence for that.

-- tree (thetrees@bigfoot.com), December 18, 1999.

trees, I am not in your camp. Somehow, my rsposne ended up on the Michael Taylor post, so let's try again. My opinion of Mr.North is not based upon the AIDS story which Forrest relates above. Instead, it is his penchant to revise historical data and actually wish for cataclysm:

http:/www.erols.com/steve451/doom.htm

I am at a loss to ascertain how anyone with such a consistently erroneous track record of armageddon-like scenarios can accrue such a following, but I am reminded that everyone needs a hand to hold onto, or so it seems.

This man is not a legitimate source, IMHO.

As for Solomon, DO NOT embarass youself by strolling down Bible Lane. As a Catholic, I would remind you that the words about DECEIT so vividly rendered in St.John's Vision of the Apocalypse are applicable here.

Solomon, do you comprehend what a false prophet is????

Are you familiar with the Bible's last few paragraphs which exhort the faithful NOT to twist the words of the Bible so as not to incur the Lord's wrath.

Solomon, you are a fool of incredible magnitude.

-- Bad Company (johnny@shootingstar.com), December 18, 1999.

I can't really see how Gary North deserves any creedence to his predictions about AIDS. In the early 1980's when the disease was JUST beginning to poke it's ugly head into the first world countries I made the very same predictions myself. The fact this is largely sexually transmitted, can linger in the system for years without showing syptoms thereby allowing carriers to transmit it over and over while unaware, and effects the immune system lead me to believe that it was going to be a doosy.

Gary North has been wrong on so many other counts that I think we need to look at his track record in whole, and not just one part of it that makes him look like a successful prediction maker.

I mean heck, when it comes right down to it I'm on the same level as Gary North with my own predictions. Thankfully I wasn't dumb enough to go shouting them out to the general public.

-- (egg@nog. break), December 18, 1999.

Yo eggnog...you just did, dummy.

-- Willy (Wonka@thechocolatefactory.com), December 18, 1999.

Around the same time Gary North was making his AIDS predictions, my friend "Fred" wrote this song (actually, is was shortly after Rock Hudson died):

"A is for Aquired
I is for Immune
D is for Deficiency
S is for Syndrome

It's AIDS (bop shoo Rock, bop bop do Rock)
AIDS, (bop shoo Rock, bop bop do Rock)
It'll get you even if you aren't gay
Cause everyone's gonna get AIDS...

(I forgot most of the verses, but it ends like this):

Well I go down to the blood bank
And tell them "Letter B"
They give me a transfusion
Now the bug's inside of me

I've got AIDS (bop shoo Rock, bop bop do Rock)
AIDS, (bop shoo Rock, bop bop do Rock)
It'll get you even if you aren't gay
Cause everyone's gonna get AIDS...

Sorry, I know it's tasteless. However, there STILL is no cure, or medical prevention...)

-- (medical@marijuana.helps), December 18, 1999.

I have followed Gary North's career since the mid-70's. He has basically made three predictions: 1) AIDS would destroy a whole generation; 2) Nuclear disaster was a real threat about which people would be wise to prepare; and 3) Y2K will bring economic and social collapse.

On the first, his prediction has certainly been true in 3rd world settings, especially various countries of Africa. His prediction may very well become true in first world settings when the disruptive effects of y2k have their likely impact in health care.

On the second, North was never alone predicting the possibility of nuclear holocaust. Don't you remember all the anti-war left-wing types of the 60's and 70's who made North sound tame. Don't you remember the bomb-shelters, "The Day After" cult, etc. The threat was obviously credible, it just did not materialize (yet).

On the third, well, we'll see.

-- Gore (BWGore@msn.com), December 18, 1999.

North has been wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. It is stupid to say he has been correct in some parts of the world. That was not his prediction. His predictions are now and have always been global. The fact that he underestimated new drugs and awareness is the whole point. He has completely underestimated our ability to deal with Y2K as well. Face it. Most of his predictions on Y2K are based on his lack of confidence in most people's ability to deal with crisis. Again he is wrong. The masses are not in a panic mode as North predicted. Their money is still in the market. It is still in the bank. Intellegent people realize that even if a bank has some computer problems, their money and records are still very safe. This notion of a complete run on banks and finacial colapse of all our institutions is absurd. Even with problems, the masses will still not panic. The reason is very simple. It is not in most people's best interest to suddenly lose their damn minds.

-- (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

Since Y2K has never happened before and there are no real experts from experience here, maybe he knows a disaster when he sees one. Not that all the articles, reports, anecdotes, analysis from 6,000 plus sources on his site mean anything...

You foolish idiots won't attack that because GN didn't make up this avalanche of information. It takes a pinhead hiding behind a Bad Company moniker to spew evil.

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), December 18, 1999.

for real,

No the idea of Great Depression style bank runs are silly. It never happened before. All that debt on your credit cards, mortgage, an illusion. You must be a teenie-bopper.

-- PJC (paulchri@msn.com), December 18, 1999.

So what? I'll bet their were 15,000 articles on Monica & Bill. What does the number of articles published on any topic mean other than a gage of interest level.

-- for real (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

I think the general thrust here misses the essential point. For North's global theocracy to come to pass, the existing structure must first collapse. The world can't be reconstructed according to North's precepts without this happening, North has conceded. His followers just aren't strong enough.

So that means the current system must somehow destroy itself. And maybe North can give this a little push, inspiring non-followers to do disruptive things to help it along. So he isn't really predicting disaster, but rather *encouraging* disaster, any suitable disaster he can find that might fulfill his dual objectives of helping the current system collapse and selling expensive newsletters.

As we reach the point where each hopeful disaster clearly is a dead horse, North finds another horse to beat. And if y2k fails to clear the stage so North's play can be performed, well, at least he did all he could to help it along, and it's on to the next most likely candidate. Worth a try, and all that.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 18, 1999.

The Great Depression? It happened. We are still here. Our government is still here. We are an exponentially wealthier nation. Women can vote. A multitude of ethnic groups live together in peace. Where are the scared fragile people that you assume are going to lose their minds? Face it, you could not be more wrong.

-- for real (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

for real, Many people (and entire families) living during the Great Depression and Dust Bowl era in the Midwest simply died, they died then, not later. I don't believe an accurate count of the deaths was ever attempted.

-- snooze button (alarmclock_2000@yahoo.com), December 18, 1999.

I'm an RN. When AIDS first came on the scene and the ramifications of it were beginning to be understood, the medical community was just as apocalyptic as Gary. Needle sticks became a REALLY big deal then.Now every patient is considered a risk. We are fortunate that we benefit so much from technology or we would be in the same boat as Africa. It is slower being spread than in Africa, but with so many needle users that are prostitutes and AIDS positive, we have AIDS slowly moving into the general population. If y2k limits medical care,we have a level playing field with Africa in a short period of time,IMHO.

-- morgan (bitbybit@eoni.com), December 18, 1999.

The last time I checked, people have been dying for as long as there have been people. I guess you mean that the GD caused some deaths. I am quite sure. As did two world wars, small pox, measles, Vietnam, the invention of the automobile, commercial air travel, and swimming pools. Did any of these events bring about the end of the world? Again, check your history books.

-- for real (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

Sysop,

I think Flint has gone way too far by accusing Gary North of being the mastermind of somekind a terrorist plot to destory the world as we it. Could you please delete his slanderous posts from now on.

Will anyone second this?

-- Ocotillo (peeling@out.===), December 18, 1999.

Ocotillo, if you can't emotionally handle Flint's post, perhaps you should get a glass of milk and watch the Disney Channel instead of visiting online forums.

-- for real (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

It really doesn't matter in terms of this discussion whether Gary North is right or wrong. What is worht noting is that he has steadfastly brought the most incredible supply of articles to the fore. He has remained unwavering in his view of them, has helped us all read between the lines. Even if we don't agree with all that he says, the way that he thinks has permeated our conswciousness. I for one have a MUCH greater political and life sophistication because of some of the things he has said. His dismantling an article written by a propagandist in Washington and translating it into real English as a result of his time as a congressional aide was one masterful thing. He has shown that there is a great deal going on beneath the surface of most of the happy face pronouncements about all kinds of things, even if unrelated to y2k. We all take what we can from whomever, sift it, use some of it and spit out the rest. He deserves our admiration and respect for being the lighthouse that got many of us interested and concerned about Y2K.

Charlie

-- Charlie (cstewart@ime.net), December 18, 1999.

I agree. Yes sir, I agree. Y2K will be ABSURD!

-- Tommy Rogers (Been there@Just a Thought.com), December 18, 1999.

I have listened to Gary North for two years now, daily, and he can be abbrasive in his opinions but he has always said they were his opinions and he has posted both polly and doomer articles on his site, virtually all from credible sources. They say the only prophets who are proved correct are the ones no one listened to, because the point of prophecy is to get people to change their ways and avoid the calamity. I want to thank GN for the security my child and I feel thanks to my preps and for my chickens. Chickens are way more interesting and together than I ever dreamed - they have complex love relationships, codes of honor, loyalty, and when allowed to free-range, remarkable intelligence. But, like all of us, they squabble and get stupid when penned in. I'll keep the chickens regardless of what happens with y2k.

-- Chicken Ma (gotta@getgoin.com), December 18, 1999.

Flint, you''re right. I also wonder if some of these folks have missed the various times people have posted lists of all the doomster predictions made by North about y2k which have been proven wrong now. Does anyone know where to find and post these wacky predictions of his?

I have often said that such ridiculously exaggerated predictions as those of Gary North are partly responsible for people's lumping all of us who are concerned about y2k in with Gary North's craziness.

alk

-- Al K. Lloyd (all@ready.now), December 18, 1999.

Now let me see if I understand this. Gary North made some incorrect predictions in the past so y2k will not be a problem. I suppose that unremediated code cares what Gary thinks.

He helped me to understand the situation with the links he supplied.

One more thing, I have made incorrect predictions in the past too, but I guess there are some people here who are perfect. Lucky them.

-- ghost (fading into the@background.com), December 18, 1999.

Al K:

Our beloved sysops have deleted North's long list of absurd predictions every time it has been posted. If ever there was an indication that someone is in someone else's pay around here, this seems clearest. I wonder why nobody seems to suspect?

As for North being some kind of "mastermind", that's silly. North is nothing more than a cheerleader for anything he hopes can contribute to Christian Reconstruction. And he's exactly as objective about it as any cheerleader, no more and no less. And anyone who feels North has "contributed" to their understanding of the problem (and who happens to agree with North's *next* prediction, the prior ones having all been hilariously wrong) is much like anyone whose money rides on good ole Underdog U. because Underdog's cheerleaders "educated" them.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 18, 1999.

When considering the writings of Dr. North I apply the 30% rule. This is a completely arbitrary stance I have taken based off the notion that he predicted, I believe (though may be mistaken) 100 million AIDS cases by 2000. The more accurate figure worldwide is closer to 30 million. While many might might dismiss Dr. North's inflammatory predictions about the destructiveness of the AIDS epidemic, I would suppose there are 30 million people who wished they had had someone to warn them of this plague. As for Y2K, I hope the 30% rule doesn't apply.

-- PD (PaulDMaher@att.worldnet.com), December 18, 1999.

North has what you might generously call an eccentric personality. And just about everything said above about him is true--positive and negative. But here's the really funny thing. In twenty years, Gary North will be considered a prophet on par with John the Baptist, Cassandra of Troy, and Moses. And EVERYTHING wrong he ever said will be both fogotten and irrelevant. Meanwhile, ForReal and Flint will be worm food. BTW, like scary Gary, I don't hope for the best, I hope for the worst. If the death of five billion human beings--chosen at random--would save a single Siberian tiger from extinction, I'd gladly push the button myself. Call me sociopathic if you want, but look at what humanity has done to a beautiful and bountiful planet and tell me we deserve any better.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 18, 1999.

So..... North compiles a bunch of articles, and then interprets them for you.....OK. Please, once Gary has finished with you, I would like to put my hook through your nose and lead you around for a while

-- for real (for@real.com), December 18, 1999.

If the death of five billion human beings--chosen at random--would save a single Siberian tiger from extinction, I'd gladly push the button myself.

And they call me a lunatic? Sheesh. Here's your chance to contribute to the solution rather than to the problem: put yourself out of your misery.

-- Steve Heller (stheller@koyote.com), December 18, 1999.

Flint! Are you being disingenuous or are you really this obtuse? Giving you the benefit of the doubt, and in case you didn't notice, North's predictions were being posted by a troll who spammed the list with 75 duplicate threads, and got himself banned. I guarantee that if *you* start a thread about North's predictions, it will *not* be deleted.

Go ahead, Flint, post the thread. Then, in fairness to the sysops who have had to work overtime keeping the idiots out of here, apologize for attacking their integrity when your thread *doesn't* get deleted. If you are man enough to accept this challenge, and your thread *does* get deleted, I will sincerely apologize to you.

-- (TrollPatrol@sheesh.now), December 18, 1999.

TrollPatrol:

I strongly support the suppression of denial-of-service attacks -- by *anyone*. To me, what Y2k Pro did was wrong. But petty vindictive retaliation may make our sysops feel properly self-righteous, but they also prevent us from being exposed to potentially useful information properly posted. I don't think criminals should be punished for performing legal acts just because they once did something illegal.

It's not an easy issue, and I don't know the best answer. But I have a feeling that our sysops find satisfaction in deleting posts from those who have spammed this forum at least partially because those posts, even though proper, reflect the "wrong" viewpoint. Removing information from this forum punishes more than the criminals -- it punishes us as well.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 18, 1999.

Doesn't ANYBODY have the faintest interest in truth and the facts? Has nobody here read Petr Duesberg or any of the dozen of other people trying to educate the world about what AIDS and what AIDS isn't?

I will give anybody here a one ounce gold coin if they can give me the citation to an article in a serious peer reviewed medical journal in which the author(s) prove a connection between the virus which has been names HIV and AIDS (which used to be called GRID). My coin is safe in my pocket. No such article exists. Spend $35 on a MEDLARS search. It does not exist. The connection between AIDS and HIV was announced at a press conference by two people, one a political hack and the other the man that owns the patent on the HIV test.

AIDS is NOT a communicable disease. If it was, the population of the world would be vastly smaller by now. As for AIDS in Africa, how do they know it is AIDS if they don't run a test for HIV? AZT never cured a single patient. AZT was invented in the 1960's as a failed chemotheapy. Any person placed on AZT, healthy or not will be dead within 2-3 years from a destroyed immune system.

If anybody claims they know anything about AIDS but has not read Petr Duesberg's poorly named book (remember English is his second language) Inventing The AIDS Virus, they really don't have a clue.

As for North, Fumento, Strecker, etc. that in the 1980's predicted doom because of AIDS, remember this. They were predicating their dire predictions based on what the government (CDC) said. If what the CDC said was true, the predictions would have become true. Since the CDC was lying through its teeth, the predictions were false, because they were based on falsehoods. The predictors should not have trusted the govt.

I challenge anybody to take what the CDC was proclaiming about GRID/AIDS from 1980-1985 and come up with a logical prediction other than what Fumento, Strecker, North, etc. came up with.

GIGO

-- Ken Seger (kenseger@earthlink.net), December 19, 1999.

Flint,

You're being just plain silly! Maybe you missed last night's "festivities" as the sysops were kept busy deleting SPAM attacks on the forum for several hours again.

If you think we are being denied important information (which I'm sure that few did not see...but, you know that, don't you, Flint?), then post it yourself! I think we both know that it would not be deleted. In fact, Flint, a quick tour of the archives would prove to you that this infamously taboo list of failed predictions has been posted without deletion dozens of times. Do you think the reason it wasn't deleted before might be because it wasn't posted, oh, 75 times in one day? But, just in case there's one person left who hasn't seen it, be a man, Flint, and post it yourself.

-- (TrollPatrol@sheesh.now), December 19, 1999.

Flint: ". So he isn't really predicting disaster, but rather *encouraging* disaster, any suitable disaster he can find that might fulfill his dual objectives of helping the current system collapse and selling expensive newsletters."

Flint, if you think this is what Gary North is all about - hype-ing y2k to bring down the system - then please explain why he has recently refused to appear on Art Bell. Surely Bell's audience would be the perfect group of people to get worked up into a tiz, if that's what Gary wants. And surely, with less than 2 weeks to go, this would be the perfect time for Gary to go fire and brimstone, scaring the pants off of the gullible, suggesting they do his bidding. But no, North refused to do an interview now, saying it was too late to do any good.

And please explain why he has turned down many interviews in the preceeding years; surely each one of those scary soundbites could have helped freak people out.

And while we're on the topic, the argument that "Many of Gary North's previous predictions have been false, North predicts y2k will be very severe, therefore, y2k will not be severe," is a very juvenile argument.

And, I agree with what Charlie said about North's Washington spin- decoding, with what Stan the Man said about how history will view North, and with what Ken Seger says about Duesberg etc.

-- number six (!@!.com), December 19, 1999.

Yoww! 33 responses in my mailbox.....touched a nerve here, I did. Next time I'll think before I stink.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

number six:

I believe you have miscast what I was saying. North is a historian, making predictions that are presumably within his specialty. No, I'm not saying that his next prediction is wrong just because his previous predictions were wrong. I'm saying that if a doctor had badly misdiagnosed all (or nearly all) medical problems, how much trust would you place in his next diagnosis? Wouldn't you consider a second opinion in that case? If that doctor also owned the local funeral parlor and most of his patients died, would you be suspicious?

North has been upfront enough to publish his desire to see the current system collapse. He continues to make predictions compatible with his stated goals. Do you sense a conflict of interest? He interprets everything he can find in light of his goals. Do you not even wonder about this? At the very least, you should read North's interpretations with some understanding of his motivation. And his motivation is *not* the altruistic desire to inform people. He says this himself. His stated goal is to do whatever he can to facilitate the Reconstruction of a theocratic society.

I don't know why he's now turning down interviews -- I can't read his mind. From his track record, he may be looking for a new angle -- this one didn't work.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

"From his track record, he may be looking for a new angle -- this one didn't work. "

Flint, with all due respects, the fat lady has yet to sing.

SIr Isaac Newton spent much more time pursuing the study of Alchemy, which was already discredited as a science by then, than he ever did on his theory of gravitation. Does that invalidate the Principia Mathematica? Maragaret Sanger is considered a hero by women for her support of the right to birth control, yet she was also a racist who supported eugenics. Charles Lindbergh is also a national hero, even though he was one of Hitler's biggest American supporters. Henry Ford was a vicious Anti-Semite, yet his cars put America on wheels. The Founding Fathers who gave us the idea of Liberty itself were slaveholders who slaughtered Indians. And the brilliant men and women who gave us the computer era also used a stupid shortcut to save memory.

I myself have been recently forced to re-evaluate my entire life-view concerning religion and politics, yet I hope it hasn't made my musical compositions any less beautiful. To be self-contradictory is human, and that is why this Y2K situation is so unique, the confluence of the human and the technical. The actual answers, such as they are, will only begin to be apparent in January.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

Forrest:

Computer date bugs will cause whatever problems they cause, and we are waiting to see what those will be. If they are sufficiently bad to cause real disaster, then that's what will happen whether North had ever written a word. There is no indication that North's efforts influenced the remediation effort in any way.

Instead, what North was trying to do was to get large masses of people to behave in unusual ways -- to make runs on the bank, or to cause widespread shortages or to send the stock market into freefall or *anything* that would have exacerbated the problem. If only he could have started the snowball rolling downhill (he hoped), the panic would feed on itself and cause major social and economic disruptions even before date bugs became serious. Then the bugs themselves would have been icing the cake and finished us off.

However, he made two critical mistakes: He vastly overestimated the number of triggering failures before rollover (necessary to get peoples' attention); and he made so many wrong predictions of such problems (and reactions to those problems) as to cost himself all credibility except among a tiny minority of True Believers.

Even if North's post-rollover predictions come true, his efforts up to this time have been a complete failure. And, his efforts won't have contributed in any way to what happens. After all, North at most can get *people* to do strange things, not computers.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

I do not buy the argument that North was trying to 'get people to make runs on banks'. He advised people to get their money out BEFORE there were runs on banks. His critique of fractional reserve banking- the same criticism Greenspan made before he was appointed Chairman- is right on target, and has proven itself in other nations such as Argentina that have experienced bank runs. Just because our last big run was in WW II doesn't mean we aren't vulnerable.

North and everyone else thought there would be more dramatic triggering events by now. He was no more wrong than anyone else on that score. Disasters my happen whether North wrote about them or not, but even though I am not a fan of his theology, if I hadn't encountered his website two years ago, I seriously doubt I would be as well prepared for y2k OR hurricanes as I am now, nor would I be sitting here without anxiety watching the show unfold.

BTW- I followed some of his links to his own Reconstruction philosophy, and read an essay he wrote wherein he admitted that his idea of a Reconstructionist society would never happen in America anyway because of our Constitution. I do not know of any mainstream organised religion that doesn't want to remake society in its own image. For that matter, it seems that every religion in the whole world requires its adherents to believe in some patently impossible or goofy idea. It comes with the territory.

Another thing we can all learn from North is that, if you have anything to say in the public forum, NEVER EVER mention religion or refer to yourself as a believer! It discredits you instantly. North is correct when he says that the majority of his critics attack him because of his religion.

I have to admit I admire the guy.... I would never be able to stand the withering blast of personal vitriol in public.

I am quite aware that he has been wrong on many things. But as my original post indicated, he has also been right to a degree. Can anyone here say any more of themselves?

As to any dispute over his assesment of the moral decline in our nation and its institutions, daily perusal of a newspaper will put that to rest.

I also admire you, Mr. Flint, for sticking to your guns and making your points in spite of the mud slung at you. But I bet that the final asessment wil be that you were also only partially right. Why? Because " we see as through a glass, darkly", and "the veil of Confusion covers the eyes of Man." We will know soon enough how it all turned out.

-- Forrest Covington (theforrest@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

Forrest -- Flint slings mud, accusations, slanders and charges against EVERYBODY who doesn't agree with him (in this case, Gary North makes a convenient whipping boy) and you empathize with mud thrown his way! ROFLMAO.

North believes GOD is going to judge western culture for failure to adhere to scripture.

He may be right. He may be wrong. This has nothing to do with North manipulating it into happening and it is ludicrous to believe that he is so stupid as to believe he could. He doesn't, trust me.

The simple bottom line with Y2K is that thousands - and perhaps tens of thousands - of real human beings are prepared for a potential disaster because North consistently blew the trumpet. Period. End of story. It would be nice if our mainstream leaders had done this so that we didn't need to rely on offbeat kooks like North, Milne and myself. Sorry, no such luck in the late 20th century.

I disagree with North's interpretation of scripture. But let's get the facts right about who is throwing mud. Flint is the master and has been for months on this forum.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 19, 1999.

As an FYI, I want to the same seminary as scary Gary (Westminster) and studied under the same "guru", Cornelius Van Til (though I am younger and prettier by far than Mr. Scary). I know what I'm talking about here.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 19, 1999.

Forrest:

[I do not buy the argument that North was trying to 'get people to make runs on banks'. He advised people to get their money out BEFORE there were runs on banks.]

And what happens if everyone tries to withdraw their money before everyone else does? Doh! This very phonomenon is the *definition* of a run on banks!

As for the fractional reserve system, yes, it has weaknesses. As Big Dog makes so clear, a system that works doesn't make it "ethical", anymore than a TV set that works is "ethical". Both can break down, therefore both are dishonest. Uh huh.

Not everyone predicted major breakdowns by now -- such predictions have largely come from the fringe. If fringers are the only people you read, you get the idea that "everyone" predicted the same thing. Yet surely you're aware of the effort spent on this forum mocking all the blind idiots who predicted nothing much would happen. Which happens to be the vast majority!

Your observation about AIDS seems to miss the point. North was envisioning massive worldwide collapse, not epidemics in a few African countries that haven't even caused collapses where they are the worst. Come on!

Big Dog:

Are you now reduced to calling me names? My how the once thoughtful BD has become pitiful. IF North inspired many to prepare and IF they need those preparations, then North has performed a wonderful and worthy service regardless of his motivations, or whether those results were just a side-effect of his intentions. In that case, he deserves our thanks.

-- Flint (flintc@mindspring.com), December 19, 1999.

Nice try, Flint. Anyone who can read can discern your splattering of slander throughout this thread. That's not "calling you names", just not giving you the free pass you would like to have.

As for your ludicrous characterization of me just above, anyone who read the thread that Pat McHenry started and your characterization of him as a hopeless "fanatic" who is "ineducable" can make up their own minds about who calls who "names".

It's really pretty simple. Stop slandering everyone who holds views that you don't happen to agree with and I'll stop calling attention to it.

-- BigDog (BigDog@duffer.com), December 19, 1999.

Wow! Cool thread! To any of you still listening, thanks. I'm printing this out for my archives.

-- StanTheMan (heidrich@presys.com), December 19, 1999.

Flint said: "No, I'm not saying that his next prediction is wrong just because his previous predictions were wrong. I'm saying that if a doctor had badly misdiagnosed all (or nearly all) medical problems, how much trust would you place in his next diagnosis? Wouldn't you consider a second opinion in that case?"

Would I consider a second opinion?? Of course I would! What am I? A freakin idiot??? (don't answer that. g )

I would be suprised if there is a single person on this planet who regards Y2k as being very serious merely because Gary says it is. I'm sure that even Mrs. Gary has done some double-checking. Who are you supposed to be enlightening with this revelation, Flint? "Seek a second opinion..." Well, duh!!! I've spent hours reading what you have to say about y2k, and I still think Gary North has a better grasp on more relevent factors than you do. Is he right about everything-Y2k? It's very unlikely. But, I'm afraid he might well be among those closest to the pin.

-- number six (!@!.com), December 19, 1999.