Holiday Greetings From Gary North

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Gary North's REALITY CHECK Issue 56 November 23, 2000

HAPPY THANKSGIVING DESPITE FLORIDA In this letter, I attempt to kill several birds with one digital stone. First, for subscribers to REMNANT REVIEW, a warning: your December 1 issue may arrive late. I need to wait until Monday morning to find out who unofficially won in Florida. Then I have to write the issue. Then it has to be printed. It may not get mailed on Friday, December 1. If not, this will be only the second time in over 26 years that I mailed it out late. This election has created major problems for us paper-based newsletter writers. I love the Internet! Second, I wanted all of you to read my essay on the economics of Thanksgiving. It was published on Lew Rockwell's site on Wednesday. For over twenty years, I had intended to write this essay, but I never remembered until Thanksgiving week, and then it was too late to submit it to a magazine (probably THE FREEMAN). Then I would forget all about it until the following November. Again, hooray for the Internet -- specifically, the World Wide Web. I wrote this on Tuesday, and it was on-line on Wednesday. What a great technology for communicating unconventional ideas! http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north22.html Third, I want to comment on an e-mail that I received, as well as a reply to my comment on this e-mail. I do not vouch for its accuracy. Nevertheless, the information does not surprise me. It should be verified before we do anything about it. But if it's true, it goes beyond mere moral outrage. It's criminal. First, the e-mail, which I received on Wednesday, November 22. Subject: PRAY FOR KATHERINE HARRIS Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 07:40:10 -0600 Sent: Monday, November 20, 2000 7:33 AM Subject: Fw: urgent prayer for florida secretary of state Please fast and pray Monday for Katherine Harris-Secretary of State-Florida. She is a born-again Christian. Katherine Harris is the sister of Wes King's wife. He is a local Christian artist. Secretary Harris has received hundreds of death threats and has been moved to a safe house. Furthermore she is scheduled to be further harmed by the media. Secretary Harris believes she has been placed in this spot for "such a time as this". Members of the family have asked that we pray and fast as in Queen Esther's day. This is a model of what an impersonal e-mail letter should be: a good headline, short and to the point. Then it presents important, immediately relevant news. It also suggests specific action to take. If the story of the death threats is true, then the news media are covering up a story that would be a front- page sensation -- a way to increase sales or viewers. It is such a huge story that even if it isn't true, it should be covered and shown to be false. Either this letter is completely false or else the news media know how damaging this report would be for the Democrats. Mrs. Harris is no dummy who just fell off the orange juice wagon. She has an MA from Harvard University. http://www.dos.state.fl.us/oss/background.html She happens to be a Republican. But if death threats are involved, it doesn't matter what party she belongs to. Death threats are a form of assault -- a felony. So, after I received this e-mail, I sent a reply. Obviously, either there is a media cover-up or else the information is grotesquely false. But it doesn't sound false. So, I made a very brief reply: If the death threats figure can be verified, she should be interviewed by CBN. The news contact is Drew Parkhill. CBN is Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network. That would seem to be the appropriate media outlet for a woman who is a Christian, who is under assault, and whose plight is being ignored by the establishment media. There were several people on the recipients' list. So, I clicked the "Reply All" button instead of the "Reply" button. I figured there might be more likelihood of getting media access if more than one person got this information. Within a few minutes, I got this reply: I am a Christian but not a Republican. I will pray for protection for the woman, but please take me off your list. I vote for a man not join a sect. Thank you. [name] She will pray for "the woman." Not for "Mrs. Harris." Not for "the Secretary of State." No. The woman. Think about this. The original letter said that a Christian who is an elected civil magistrate has received hundreds of death threats. There was no reference to politics. There was no reference to her political affiliation. There was a call for prayer on her behalf. My letter mentioned only that there is a media outlet available for her to tell her story. I gave the name of the proper contact person. What did this make me? First, a Republican. O, shame of shames! Second, a partisan! Third, a sect member! (Presbyterianism: a traditional, liturgically middle-of- the-road sect.) The fact is, I sent my political money this year to Howard Phillips' U.S. Constitution Party. Politically, I am indeed a sectarian. But not ecclesiastically. The gutlessness of this non-Republican's letter is appalling. But it's not just the gutlessness that bothers me. It is the intense political partisanship, disguised as an attack of partisanship. She made it clear: an elected Republican office-holder who is being threatened with death deserves a prayer, but anything more is just not part of God's Plan for the Ages. It would be . . . partisan! Too many Americans decide who deserves protection and respect in terms of which political affiliation they profess. Political partisanship has overcome the concept of the rule of law. "Tell me what party a person belongs to, and I'll tell you whether he (or she) deserves the protection afforded by civil law." It's Gore or be Gored. Whose ox is it? "Yours or mine?" This determines which laws some people are willing to enforce or respect. Especially in Florida. Has her family called for prayer? I did my best to check this out. I went onto the Web and found Wes King's biography. Then I called his church. The pastor was gone for Thanksgiving. His assistant tried to call Mr. King to verify this story. He was not home. People leave for Thanksgiving, so verifying things is not easy. So, I'm sending out the message as sent. Because of the holiday, I think this is best. Normally, I would wait, but her problem sounds too serious. Fourth, this election is crooked. So? They are always crooked. They are just not equally crooked. The voters know this. They rarely care. They shrug it off. Usually, the votes are not very close, so voters ignore the fact that the system is rigged. They are now re-counting ballots by hand. This is bad, say Republicans. Very bad. Just terrible. "We should trust the computers!" Those Republicans who believe this need to go to the library and get a copy of the November, 1996 issue of CHRONICLES OF CULTURE, published by the Rockford Institute. Read article titled, "A House Without Doors: Vote Fraud in America," by James J. Condit, Jr. It appears on pages 14-17. In it, Condit argues -- with evidence -- that the Republican Party's mainstream faction stole the 1996 nomination from Pat Buchanan, and did it by rigging the computers that were used in the primaries. The turning point came in the Arizona primary. You will also learn some choice things about the company that takes the TV networks' exit polls every four years. Oh, boy. CHRONICLES says it will put up a link to a PDF file of that article on its front page next week. I hope they do this. Go to: http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org Bush failed to win the election two weeks ago because the TV networks announced that Gore had won Florida. This announcement came while the polls were still open in the Florida panhandle's counties. Those counties all went for Bush. But half-committed Republicans, who wanted to vote only for an assured winner, either went home or stayed home. Those voters cost Bush the initial victory. He may or may not be elected. Rigged? Here is one version of the rigging, told by a statistician. This is a story that the media will never pick up. It has to do with fingerprints. Literally. The re-count hoopla was not initially about Dade County and Broward County voters. It was about certain Palm Beach County ballots. It was about how to get a whole lot of new people to pick up these ballots and put their fingerprints on them. I love a good conspiracy theory. This one is a corker. http://www.allegedfraud.com A quarter century ago, Adam Osborne wrote a terrific little book, RUNNING WILD. Osborne later invented the first portable computer, the Osborne 1. He made one catastrophic error. He adopted the CP/M operating system. It was hard to use. His company went broke. The next year, Compaq came out with a portable, Microsoft DOS-based portable. Compaq became the first company in history to generate one billion dollars in revenues in its first year. But Osborne is a smart man. His is the name on the Osborne/McGraw-Hill publishing company. In RUNNING WILD, he offered a warning. Do not computerize three institutions, he said: the New York Stock Exchange, the banking system, and voting. If these become dependent on computers, there will be fraud. It will be very hard to detect. In 2000, the Presidential election was so close that the existence of computer fraud almost became visible. Not quite, however, if the story in www.allegedfraud.com is true. There is a game going on -- a high-stakes game. It has implications beyond this year's winner. What we are seeing is the legitimization of normal voting machine fraud. Here is how the game works. "Look, look -- over here! See these ballots? Count them by hand!" But why? "Because they are the 'true' votes." But what about computer voting in general? "That produces the 'true' votes when an election is not close." Nobody has raised the crucial questions: "How do we know that the computers were not rigged to begin with? How do we know that the punching of computerized ballots was not done illegally?" No one is raising the issue of pre- count computerized voting fraud. Why not? Because that would call the whole election system into question. It might undermine the legitimacy of the political system. We do not admit what we all know. That might undermine the system. Better to amuse ourselves with illusions we all know are illusions. They are convenient illusions. If you think I am exaggerating, read that November, 1996 issue of CHRONICLES. Fifth, if Republican incumbent Slade Gorton loses in Washington State, the Senate will be evenly divided: 50 to 50. At that point, Lieberman will become the tie-breaking voter as VP if Gore wins. Then, when Strom Thurmond goes to his reward, it's 51-49 for the Democrats. If Gorton wins, it's 51-49 for the Republicans until Thurmond dies. Then it's 50-50. So, whoever is elected as VP will spend a lot of time in the Senate, listening to boring speeches, unable to leave the room. At that point, former Vice President (1933-1941) John Nance Garner's statement will become obvious to the new VP: "The Vice Presidency isn't worth a bucket of warm spit." Or words to that effect. Well, that's enough the chew on for Thanksgiving. Enjoy your turkey. Watch a football game. And say a prayer for Mrs. Harris. * * * * * * * * * * To subscribe or unsubscribe, mail your request to: ice@ballistic.com

-- North Fan (-@still.waiting.for.disaster), November 24, 2000

Answers

Formerly Scary Gary isn't worth a bucket of warm spit.

-- cpr (buytexas@swbell.net), November 24, 2000.

three words:

Fuck gary north!

-- he's a turkey (and@he.will.pay.eventually), November 24, 2000.


Words have meaning. Watch the gas prices. Nothing new than we haven't been through before. We survived, though we were too stupid to know, Heaven entervained.

-- AndIhaveseenhisname (andiwill@standup.com), January 07, 2001.

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