The SPOTLIGHT November 1, 1999

Genocide Plot Concealed by White House

A former attorney general recently issued a series of reports detailing the devastating effect U.S.-led sanctions have had on Iraqi civilians Few in the Establishment are willing to admit the toll the embargoes have taken on innocents in that Mideastern country.

By James Harber

Aided by a seamless media cover-up and by the complicity of Congress, the Clinton administration is conducting a stealthy and sustained genocidal war against the defenseless population of a nation already conquered and disarmed: Iraq.

During the past year, a number of independent witnesses from America and elsewhere have visited Iraq and recorded their findings in writing.

In September, former Attorney General Ramsey Clark issued a collection of these reports prepared by expert observers and private citizens on their return from Iraq. They document the devastation wrought by a decade of strangling, UN-imposed (but U.S. sponsored) sanctions and relentless aerial bombing, both of which continue to this day.

In legal terms, "these sanctions against Iraq, that have taken more than one-and-a-half million lives` violate the UN Charter; the Nuremberg Charter of 1945; and Protocol I of the Geneva Convention of 1997 that specifically forbids 'the starvation of civilians as a means of war,'" Clark argued.

The Sanctions also violate a number of similar "international covenants, conventions, declarations and treaties, along with the Covenant Against Genocide," the former attorney general concluded.

Other impartial observers reported similar findings after visiting Iraq.

The U.S. warplanes that are daily destroying Iraq's essential infrastructure, including water treatment plants, pumping stations and an entire network of water pipes, are committing "a crime against humanity," warned David Sole, a respected U.S. analytical chemist who heads Detroit's water supply system as well as the American Association of Sanitary Chemists and Technicians.

"Everyone understands the need for clean drinking water," Sole noted. "Only the desire to destroy an entire people UNICEF, another UN agency concerned with global child welfare, issued a dramatic report in April 1998, warning that its survey found more than a million Iraqi children suffering from various degrees of starvation, known, in the technical jargon of relief organizations, as "stunting or acute" or "chronic" malnutrition.

INHUMAN

In late September, the French government officially repudiated the Iraq sanctions regime as "inhuman," "intolerable" and a "massacre of the innocents." It denounced members of the Clinton administration and their insistence in keeping up this economic embargo as "callous."

"These case studies demonstrate that the United States and this allies have created a new zone of destruction, destitution and genocide in Iraq," proclaimed a recent international appeal subscribed to by 31 world leaders and addressed to the Security Council of the UN. "There is no crueler violation of fundamental human rights than this sanction policy. It must end, and soon."

The SPOTLIGHT November 1, 1999

Free Press Coming to Your Town?

By Vince Ryan

This year make Christmas shopping easy. Take advantage of a very special offer from The SPOTLIGHT. We are giving away Christmas gift subscriptions for the ridiculously low price of only $2 each. That's only 18 cents per issue!

This is an offer you can't pass up. We hope it will acquaint a million new readers and potential populists and patriots with America's last real newspaper, the true voice of the American majority. You will find all the exciting details on page 16.

How many times have you thrown down your local newspaper in disgust and wondered when you would be able to read a real local newspaper? You want to know what's going on in your town or state and who the players (both good and bad) are, and what's being done to bring the culprits to justice.

Sure, your local rag has a city hall and court house page, but it never seems to get to the heart of what's happening.

You learn more from your friends in the local coffee shop and hardware store than you do from the local media. Strange, you wonder why the local press hasn't heard these same stories.

You conclude they never will come up with the unvarnished truth because they are part of the problem. Upon checking into the ownership of the local paper you discover that the very people who own that big city paper down the road also own the one you are reading. Upon further investigation, you will discover that the paper, which owns these small one, is owned by a big national newspaper chain that is controlled by plutocrats who aren't even American!

Names like The New York Times Company, Times Mirror (Los Angeles Times), Dow Jones (Wall Street Journal), Gannett (USA Today), McClatchey, Washington Post Company, Hearst and others not only own publications in major cities, but have bought out numerous small town papers.

The news is carefully crafted to pass along the current news myths -- true and false -- or keep you ignorant of the truth.

The only aim of those who own newspapers is to make as much money as possible. They couldn't care less about real news. The contemptuously reject Thomas Jefferson's dream of a free press and his correct theory that a people can't remain free unless the press reports the news.

Still, you wonder, can't something be done? What can I do?

You can start your own newspaper.

Impossible? No.

Don Harkins, the dynamic young editor of The Idaho Observer, did just that. Fed up with the local nonsense publications, he founded the monthly Idaho Observer. He went after the local malefactors with a vengeance. He reported the truth about several corrupt judges and crooked bureaucrats, forcing them to flee their taxpayer-funded sinecures.

The truth, as published in the Observer, also protected many innocent people who were the victims of these corrupt individuals.

The people liked this kind of honest journalism. Harkins did on the local level what The SPOTLIGHT has pioneered since 1975 on the national level. An aware and informed electorate will not tolerate corrupt and will rally round those who fight it.

As a result of his success story appearing in The SPOTLIGHT, Harkins has been flooded with requests for information about how you can start a local paper that is free and unfettered.

He has formed the Committee for Local Media (CLM) to provide help to patriots and populists who want to set up their own newspapers.

To that end Harkins has scheduled the CLM to hold an organizational conference on Dec. 3 in Las Vegas.

The CLM meeting will be held in conjunction with the meeting of the American Media Association, of which The SPOTLIGHT is a founding member. Those who are interested in learning more about starting their own newspaper are urged to attend. There will be experts on hand to help you with any problems and questions you might have.

All potential editors and publishers must remember to have a true dedication and a firm commitment to their work.

Harkins pointed out in the Oct. 4 SPOTLIGHT: "Rather than being the watchdog media for which the First Amendment of the Constitution was created, the Establishment, or dominant media, have degenerated into the lapdog media.

"In other words, rather than reporting the news from a constitutional perspective that intends to protect citizens from intrusive government, the dominant media report news from a perspective that promotes and justifies government intrusion into our lives."

Harkins like to note that the talent for editing newspapers is out there. He is confident that once these novice editors realize they have the ability and talent to produce a monthly newspaper, there will be no sping them.

A project such as starting an honest newspaper attracts a lot of kindred souls to you and your work. They bring with them not only good ideas but often money and advertisers.

But that could be your story.

To begin your adventure call Harkins at (208) 687-9441 or (208) 267-8037.

Remember: Your influence counts. Use it!

The SPOTLIGHT November 1, 1999

Kofi Calls for New World Order Now

By Sam Francis

You don't hear a lot about the "New World Order" these days, but don't think that means it's not there. The phrase was popularized by President Bush back in 1990 when he used it in a speech about the glories of the coming era of globalized economies, countries and cultures.

It was Annan's message in his opening address to the UN General Assembly on Sept. 20 that the organization they represent has the authority to ignore national borders in UN military missions to enforce human rights. In other words, the United Nations will simply ignore and violate national sovereignty if it gets in the way of what the transnational gang wants to do.

Specifically, Annan said, "If states bent on criminal behavior know that frontiers are not an absolute defense, if they know that the Security Council will take action to halt crimes against humanity, then they will not embark on such a course of action in expectations of sovereign impunity."

If Annan were merely some globalist ideologue scribbling out his fantasies of world adventurism in The Weekly Standard, we could ignore him, but that's not what he is. As the head of the United Nations, he has to be listened to, and he was seconded by a host of leaders from the member states.

The prime minister of France and the foreign minister of Great Britain both concurred with Annan. The mission of the United Nations, French Foreign Minister Lionel Jospin told the General Assembly, should be expanded to include the armed "protection of human dignity, within each state and, when necessary -- as the Charter allows -- against states." British foreign secretary Robin Cook said much the same thing. What they were agreeing to, whether they know it or not, is the suicide of their own nations.

The UN Charter does indeed allow for "peacekeeping" but peacekeeping is not exactly what the globe-trotting warriors at the General Assembly were yattering about. One of the preconditions of UN peacekeeping missions has always been that the conflicting parties agree to receive them. The purpose of the precondition is to respect the national sovereignty of the conflicting parties. Protecting national sovereignty, of course, is precisely what the United Nations was ostensibly created to do.

But what the secretary general and his little helpers from Britain and France are saying now is that national sovereignty won't be allowed to protect enemies of the New world Order from the long arm of the UN forces. What they are proposing is in fact the embryo of a world government that would supersede the governments of independent nation-states -- the New World Order itself.

What they're proposing is noting new, of course. The attack on national sovereignty has escalated ever sing the end of the cold war and the conscription of the United States into the New world Order legions. The Gulf War of 1990-91, the Somali invasion in 1992-93 and similar interventions in Haiti, Africa and the Balkans, and back again to the Gulf, are all UN (or NATO in the case of the recent Balkan bombing war) crusades.

Exponents of this kind of transnationalism are also advocating creating a permanent UN army responsible only to UN authority -- not the governments of the states that make up the United Nations -- as well as direct UN taxation of the peoples of sovereign states and UN-authorized currency that would replace the money issued by national governments, as well as transnational law enforcement. What is being established, slowly but surely, is the skeleton of a global Frankenstein, a monster that would replace the governments of sovereign nations.

The rationale for all this, of course, is "humanitarianism," the invocation of "human rights" and lots of bloodcurdling stories about war crimes and other atrocities visited upon the helpless victims of tyrants. And of course, the UN crusades against war criminals and tyrants are always supposed to take place in somebody else's country -- Iraq, Somalia, Serbia -- not here.

But eventually, if intervention in other people's nations is legitimate, Intervention in ours will be too. UN officials have already started grousing about the unfair infliction of capital punishment in the United states. Will Annan and his colleagues some day launch "a course of action" against the United States to tell us which criminals it's OK with him for us to execute?

It would be nice to know what the leading presidential candidates think about the prospect of UN intervention across national borders in general and across ours in particular. Maybe in the coming campaign, someone will ask George W. bush and Al Gore -- and Pat Buchanan -- what they think about it*

The SPOTLIGHT November 1,1999

Bombing People for Peace Not a Humane Policy

By Charley Reese

After I squawked about the United states getting involved in East Timor, someone asked: "Just what kind of humanitarian disaster would you think qualifies for U.S. military intervention?"

That's a fair question. The answer is none. To claim to go to war for humanitarian purposes is a contradiction in terms. Nothing is more inhumane than war, regardless of who wages it or for what reason. To say you are going to kill people and destroy their homes and jobs for humanitarian reasons is insanely hypocritical.

It's about as nutty as a Special Weapons and Tactics team warning some guy threatening to kill himself that if he doesn't surrender, they will kill him. That actually happens. Making war for humanitarian reasons is like ending a hunger strike by withholding food. It plain makes no sense to create human misery in the name of sping human misery.

Besides, since when is a conflict between two factions over political control of territory a humanitarian crisis? People always get killed in such conflicts. If the pro-independence faction were slaughtering the pro-Indonesian faction, would these people clamoring for intervention call that a humanitarian crisis? I would even bet a lot of people supporting intervention have no idea who the people in the independence faction are or what their political beliefs and intentions are. For all we know, they may be planning to create a more oppressive government than Indonesia's. Just because on side is bad doesn't mean the other side is good.

The original pro-independence group that came out on was a communist outfit supported by China, which is one reason the Indonesian military intervened in the first place. I know nothing about the present group. They may be saints, but it doesn't change the fact that it is none of our business. Be careful these days. Language is being mutilated more than even George Orwell could imagine. Humanitarian, once a legitimate word that meant promoting human welfare, is now the fashionable excuse to send in military forces for the express purpose of injuring the human welfare of whatever faction our government or the United Nations decides to call enemy.

I would call the unnecessary deaths of 500,000 Iraqi children (that's a UN figure, not mine) a humanitarian crisis. We are the cause of that, and we could end it with nothing more than these words: The embargo is lifted. But, of course, the U.S. government will not speak those words. It will not even admit responsibility for the deaths.

After being called on its obvious inconsistency (all humanitarian crises are equal, but some, apparently, are more equal than others), the U.S. government now boldly proclaims that of course it's inconsistent. That's really weird. Imagine asking someone why he or she was acting in an inconsistent manner and have the reply be, "Well, of course, I have to be inconsistent." Where's the guy with the net when you need him?

Let's get down to the bone of it. The United states armed forces have only one constitutional duty, and that is to defend the United states and the American people. Any other use of them is unconstitutional. The present administration apparently sees them as a sort of globalist foreign legion that can be asked to dig sewers in Haiti, shoot people in Somalia and bomb them in Serbia, Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and anywhere else when the president needs a diversion. That's wrong, and it should never be supported.

As for humanitarian crises, that's what the Red Cross is for. If you want to promote human welfare, send food and medicine, not soldiers and bomb.

Charley Reese's e-mail address is OSOreese@aol.com

The SPOTLIGHT November 8, 1999

UN Owes U.S. Taxpayers $Billions

Claims that the United States is in arrears with its debt to the UN have been contradicted by a new report charging exactly the opposite -- the UN actually owes U.S. taxpayers billions.

By James P. Tucker

What the backers of world government, who spent "United Nations Day" (Oct. 24) whining about the United States being "behind on dues," do not want you to know:

* Rather than being a "deadbeat nation." the UN actually owes the United States $15 billion; and

* The globalists are still pushing for a direct tax on citizens of the world, which would mean another giant step toward global government and control of your life.

The alleged $1 billion "debt" claim ignores the fact that the United States pays 25 percent of the UN's annual budget -- more than the combined assessment of 177 member states.

The debt claim also ignores the additional "peacekeeping" payments. According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, U.S. contributions to UN operation in Haiti, Yugoslavia and Somalia from 1992 to 1995 exceeded $6.6 billion.

Of this $6.6 billion, only $1.8 billion was counted against U.S. "dues" and only $79 million of the rest was reimbursed to the United States. Thus, the United States paid the UN an extra $4.7 billion.

Department of Defense (DoD) documents show, according to a report by Cliff Kincaid entitled "The United Nations Today," expenditures to implement resolutions of the UN Security Council in Yugoslavia, Iraq and Haiti totaled $6.1 billion from 1996 to 1997.

In 1998, the figure was $3.5 billion for UN military operations in Iraq and Yugoslavia and $565 million was spent in the first quarter of fiscal year 1999 on the same missions, Kincaid reports. This totals $10.1 billion for 1996 t01999 (first quarter) given to the UN from the Defense Department budget. (The final bill for the continued occupation of defeated Yugoslavia is still in the mail.)

"These expenditures have not been reimbursed or credited" to the United States, wrote Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-Md.) in a "Dear Colleague" letter on Sept. 28, 1999. Bartlett is the leader of an effort to obtain a true accounting of U.S. tax dollars given to the UN and prevent payment of this wrong but widely publicized "debt."

DoD figure of $10.1 billion and the extra payments of $4.7 billion reported by the GAO means that the UN owes the United States nearly $15 bullion.

Most Americans are unaware of their generosity because the Clinton administration ships money from the Pentagon to the UN without congressional approval or broad publicity.

Some years ago, UN leaders started talking about a direct tax on the citizens of the world. It was first proposed at a secret Bilderberg meeting and then was publicly urged. It was suggested that a tax of 10-cents-per-barrel on oil be levied, meaning anybody in the world who puts gas in his car would be paying a tax to the UN. Hearing public outrage from "the right wing," UN bureaucrats fell silent.

But the UN is still fighting for a direct tax on the people of the world. The UN's 1999 "Human Development Report" called for raising "global financial resources" by imposing a tax on international airline travel, a fee on international currency transactions and charges for use of the "global commons" such as under-seabed mineral resources or radio waves.

To "find the resources to fund the global communications revolution," the report called for a "bit tax" on the amount of data sent on the Internet, explaining: "The costs for users would be negligible: sending 100 e-mails a day...would raise a tax of just one cent. Yet with e-mail booming worldwide, the total would be substantial...Globally, in 1996, it would have yielded $70 billion." Upon learning of the report, House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.) said: "U.S. taxpayer dollars should not be used to support UN reports pushing this 'redistribution policy."

The SPOTLIGHT November 8, 1999

Bilderberg to Confer in D.C. to Discuss 'The Buchanan Problem'

Will your tax dollars help subsidize a meeting of super-rich globalist power brokers at a public facility on Capitol Hill in Washington? That's just one question raised by Bilderberg watchers.

By James P. Tucker

The steering committee of the deep-cover international Bilderberg group will meet at the Library of Congress in Washington, Nov. 4th and 5th, sources within the Shadowy organization have confirmed.

Bilderberg, financed jointly by the Rockefeller and Rothschild families, is composed of roughly 120 high-level elite policy makers, financiers, media controllers, corporate officials and others from NATO countries. They gather annually, behind locked doors, surrounded by armed guards, to chart the course of world affairs.

Certain to attend are David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, who are powers in both Bilderberg and its more public brother group, the Trilateral Commission.

Festivities begin Thursday night, Nov. 4, with a dinner in the huge ornate Great Hall of the Jefferson Building -- the oldest and grandest of the three federal library buildings. Work will take place all day on Friday, Nov. 5, in room 119 -- also known as the "Members" Room" of the Jefferson Building. (Members" refers to congressmen.)

A major agenda item will be control of the White House. Bilderberg owns almost every horse in the White House derby -- but not Pat Buchanan. It owns Vice President Al Gore because his boss, Bill Clinton, is a Bilderberg man and a aide, Thomas Labreque, is chairman of Rockefeller's Chase Manhattan Bank.

Bilderberg also owns Texas Gov. George W. Bush Jr. because his father, The former president, was a long-time Trilateral member. As a senator from New Jersey, Bill Bradley attended a Bilderberg meeting in Gleneagles, Scotland. Similarly, the other candidates -- except Buchanan -- are surrounded by Trilaterals and Bilderbergs.

Pat Buchanan is the subject of much nervous discussion among Bilderberg leaders. Buchanan has for years denounced international control of American foreign policy. His opposition to world government, which he loudly proclaims, his "America-First" position, his opposition to sending Americans to fight wars in which there is no national interest and opposition to such economy-gutting treaties as NAFTA and the World Trade Organization anger Bilderberg.

If nominated by the Reform Party, which he has now joined, Buchanan could be on the ballot in all 50 states. It would be hard to deny Buchanan the right to debate the two major party nominees. In such debates, the fiery Buchanan would blow out his fastidious opponents. It is a scenario that strikes fear in Bilderberg hearts.

Having Buchanan educate millions of Americans in TV debates on its secret agenda for achieving world government, with America and all nations surrendering their sovereignty to the United Nations, is a prospect Bilderberg dreads. For 45 years, Bilderberg has employed immense measures to maintain its secrecy.

Among routine business, the committee will decide where to meet next spring. One site being considered, according to a Bilderberg source, is the Schloss Hotel about 30 miles outside Frankfurt, Germany. It is a typical site: a former castle and now a luxury resort easily sealed off by Bilderberg's private security and the German military and police.

Also to be decided is what "fringe" participants to invite. Every year, a few non-regulars are invited, some discarded and a few brought back. If someone is invited for the first time, it's important to follow their careers. Clinton, a long-time Trilateralist, was invited to Bilderberg at Baden Baden, Germany in 1991 and was elected president in 1992.

An Internet report claimed Gore and Republican presidential contender Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) along with Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) would be attending. However:

* McCain's office said he would be out of town.
* The White House said the vice president is not scheduled for the Lobrary of Congress on those dates; and
* Hagel's office told The SPOTLIGHT that the senator's schedule did not include attendance at the Bilderberg confab.(Hagel did, however, attend the Bilderberg meeting in Portugal this past June.)

Last spring, after The SPOTLIGHT reported factual data about the planned Bilderberg meeting in Portugal, the same Internet site reported (falsely) that Pope John Paul II was scheduled to attend the Portugal meeting. In fact, the pope was in Poland when Bilderberg met at Sintra, Portugal, June 3-6.

All of this suggests that there is a great deal of misinformation -- perhaps deliberate disinformation -- being circulated. The SPOTLIGHT will report just the facts.

The SPOTLIGHT November 8, 1999

Spotlight on Y2K

Feds Target Right Wing Christians

Attention Christians: If you believe in Armageddon, you've been targeted by the FBI for special attention.

By F.C. Blahut

Police chiefs from around the country are gathering in Charlotte, N.C. on Nov. 2 to get a lesson in eschatology from the FBI.

It seems the feds think that Christians who believe that there will be a final battle between the forces of good and evil -- Armageddon -- might be tempted to help the situation along when the clocks roll over to the Year 2000 (Y2K).

To quote published reports, the federal government fears that "fanatics" will act out their apocalyptic visions of the new millennium.

Therefore, FBI Director Louis Freeh is warning police departments around the country to "closely monitor" militias, cults and hate groups who "may see the changing of the calendar as an opportunity for violent disruptions," according to a report by NBC News.

Included are Bible-believing Christians, often singled out by the Clinton administration and sycophants in the mainstream media as troublemakers at best and raving lunatics at worst.

According to published reports, special for the Nov. 2 event, the FBI has produced a 40-page report titled Project Megiddo. The report refers to Har Megiddo, an ancient battleground in Israel that some think will be the site of the aforementioned Armageddon.

U.S. News & World Report says that the FBI lists eight factors "that could indicate a specific group poses a threat, including 'violent or destructive rhetoric.'"

The First Amendment notwithstanding, the feds are also involved in a project to monitor electronic mail for any signs of "dangerous" communications.

The Nov. 2 meeting of the International Association of chiefs of Police will be a closed-door session, but reporters were told that an edited version of the Project Megiddo report may be made public at a later date.

Published reports indicate that lawmen think the greatest threats will come from two separate groups: i.e., those who see the Y2K computer bug as part of a plot by the government and "others" to establish a New World Order, and "far right Christians" and militias who believe the coming of the new millennium will trigger Armageddon.

NBC News says it has obtained an internal Clinton administration memo which classifies New Year's celebrations as "lesser risks," as compared to, for instance, the recent NATO meeting in Washington. In other words, if you want to celebrate New Year's in Washington or New York, you're probably safe, even though those "targets" may seem "attractive."

According to David Kessler, executive administrator of the Center for Millennial Studies at Boston University, "many Christian fringe groups attach particular importance to the year 2000," including the second coming of Jesus Christ.

Also, says Kessler, there are those who expect a massive failure of technology caused by the inability of computers to deal with the digits "00" for Y2K. These people envision a "secular apocalyptic scenario," he said.

These groups will be under federal scrutiny, it was intimated, in the event they plan some sort of disruption.

The SPOTLIGHT November 8, 1999

'Netizens' Battle NSA Snooping

Internet users hit back at Big Brother, but few see any significant results.

By William Carmichael

There's a government organization called the National Security Agency (NSA) about which little is known. Public records indicate that one of the things it does is collect information -- mostly electronic -- from around the world.

Congress says the NSA isn't allowed to spy within the United States, but whether it does or not is a matter of contention. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) told reporters he would support hearing to determine just what the NSA hears -- and reads.

It is presumed that one of NSA's targets is the Internet, and thereby hangs a tale of secrecy, spying and a citizens' revolt.

One question Barr would like answered is the charge that the secret spy network is reportedly eavesdropping on e-mails, looking for works suggesting terrorist plots and other nefarious acts. This, in turn, prompted angry Internet users to try to overwhelm the listeners by flooding the system with fabricated messages in a one-day protest in late October.

For those unfamiliar with routine "tapping" activities, particularly those that are of such volume computers are necessary, it should be explained that certain words and phrases are "red flagged." In other words, if you e-mail someone of your intention to blow up a government building, certain words will alert the computer to take a closer look at the message, its origin and its destination.

RESISTANCE

Regardless of denials, some Internet users are convinced NSA is monitoring e-mail, at home and abroad. So, according to published reports, in an attempt at electronic civil disobedience in late October, organizers urged Internet users on dozens of web sites, and in discussion groups, to bombard the NSA with millions of e-mails with subversive-sounding language. "Give the NSA their keywords!" one person wrote.

It was unclear, according to published reports, who though up "Jam Echlelon Day," as it was called in one message from an Australia-based web site. But the intent was clear: Flood the NSA's powerful computers with enough suspicious traffic to crash them and disrupt the high-tech listening system, code-named "Echelon."

ROUTINE MESSAGE MONITORING

A 1997 report commissioned by the European Parliament described "routine and indiscriminate" monitoring of fax, e-mail and telephone messages in Europe by the global spy network which it said was coordinated by the NSA with the help of other nations' security organizations. A follow-up study for the European Union this year found the same thing.

The NSA which is barred by law from spying on U.S. citizens, declined to comment on its network or the potential impact of the day's e-mail campaign.

According to published reports, even supporters of the jamming campaign were pessimistic that their efforts would have much effect. They suggested the spy network was smart enough to ignore the e-mail typically sent with lists of random word, especially since many of the messages were in English -- not in Arabic or Indonesian, for example.

Wayne Madsen of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, who tracks news about Echelon, told reporters: "I think it will cause a lot of laughter up at NSA, to tell the truth. If they seriously think they're going to bring the computers at the NSA to a grinding halt, they're going to be seriously disappointed."

Supporters said even if their e-mail campaign didn't cause the NSA's computers to crash, it was important to raise awareness of the spy network's rumored abilities.

On the Internet, it was impossible to count how many e-mails protesters might actually have sent, much less determine their effectiveness.

Said simon Davies, who heads London-based Privacy International, a human rights organization: "I don't think we'll ever know. I Would guess maybe it will be 10 years before we understand the ramifications of any civil disobedience campaign."

The SPOTLIGHT November 15, 1999

Is John McCain America's 'Unfavorite Son'?

Questions are surfacing about the golden boy image of Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who remains the main challenger to Texas Gov. George W. bush for the Republican presidential nomination.

By Mike Blair

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has emerged as the darling of the Establishment news media among the presidential candidates of the Republican and Democratic parties.

McCain is being portrayed in the media as a soft-spoken intellectual with a keen leadership ability and an acute sense of decency, particularly when compared to the current tenant of the White House.

Not surprisingly, the media is again hoodwinking the American public with a counterfeit "good guy" candidate to replace the disgraced Bill Clinton.

The Arizona senator, however, is not what he is being portrayed in the fluff pieces on television nationwide, as the push for the widely characterized "war hero" intensifies.

In the weeks to come, The SPOTLIGHT will focus on the McCain candidacy and, especially, McCain the man. SPOTLIGHT readers will find the well-nurtured misconceptions about the candidate swept away, revealing quite the opposite of what the Establishment media portrays about him.

McCain reached this high point in his political career through three factors working in his favor.

FAMILY, MONEY, MOB

* He is the latest in a generation of American military figures dating back to the American Revolution. His father, Admiral John S. McCain II, was commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific during the Vietnam War. His grandfather, Admiral John S. McCain, was a highly regarded naval commander in the Pacific during World War II.

* He married into a family of wealth and influence, with numerous under world ties in Arizona, after abandoning his first wife, who had been confined to a wheelchair following a serious automobile accident. His first wife stuck by him through his five-and-a-half years as a prisoner of war (and a celebrity figure of some note to the North Vietnamese communists), with whom he acknowledges having collaborate to receive better medical treatment.

* The general "line" of the media is that McCain is a true American patriot. The contrast McCain's Vietnam War record and long imprisonment as a badge of courage in comparison to a draft-dodging, anti-military President Bill Clinton.

MO 'MR. NICE GUY

McCain appears on national television as a well-choreographed "Mr. Nice." He displays a combination of sound wisdom of military and foreign affairs with a kind and gentle demeanor -- a true gentleman of high moral repute.

But the well-groomed image of the gray-haired sage does not depict the true man, who is known in various circles, including among his classmates at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md., as "McNasty."

McCain had been characterized by The Wall Street Journal as Arizina's "unfavorite son." In its Oct. 30 editorial, The Arizona Republic, pointed out that McCain may not have the "presidential mettle" to lead his country as its chief executive.

He has long been known as a bully, who does not differentiate between the sexes. Women are just as likely to be targets of his viciousness as men.

At the Naval Academy, where he graduated fifth from the bottom of his class, McCain was known as a carousing party animal. He was far more interested in womanizing and drinking than attending to his studies and following in his forebears' footsteps.

A 'VOLCANIC TEMPER'

"Many Arizonans active in policy making have been the victim of McCain's volcanic temper and his practice of surrounding himself with aides and allies who regard politics, in the word of his paid Arizona chairman, state House Speaker Jeff Groscost, as a contact sport," noted the Arizona newspaper in an editorial.

Arizona's Republican Gov. Jane Hull, who has endorsed Bush, advised "that John has to keep control of his temper."

McCain replied that he doesn't "insult anybody or fly of the handle or anything like that.

"This is, quite simply, hogwash," McCain said. "I think it's pretty obvious as we've [he and Bush] closed in the polls...that the memo came out from the Bush campaign to start attacking John McCain."

The Arizone Republic noted that "this is sadly, not an untypical McCain remark: unfounded, sarcastic and condescending. It demeans Hull as an independent political actor, and pretty well validates rather than refutes her description of their relationship and his treatment of her," the newspaper said.

The newspaper pointed out that McCain has enjoyed "a fawning national press" and concluded: "There is also reason to seriously question whether McCain has the temperament, and the political approach and skills, we want in the next president of the United States."

POW-MIA

McCain is famous in POW-MIA activist circles for his clashes with those who disagree with his conclusion that no American POW or MIA was left alive in communist hands when he was repatriated by the Hanoi government in 1973.

Perhaps the best example of his crude treatment of the loved ones of still-unaccounted-for POWs and MIAs is illustrated by an incident that occurred in 1996 when the senator's path crossed with a number of POW-MIA family members outside of a hearing room in Washington.

Upon leaving the room, McCain immediately quarreled with family members, who were eager to question him on the issue. Instead of answering their questions, the Arizona senator pushed and shoved them out of his way, nearly pling the wheelchair of POW-MIA mother Jane Duke Gaylor, whose son, Charles Duke, a civilian worker in Vietnam, is among the same 2,300 American POWs and MIAs still unaccounted for by the communists.

The Duke case file contains sufficient evidence that Duke was a prisoner of the communists, according to Garnet "Bill" Bell, who headed the U.S. government POW-MIA office in Hanoi.

The POW-MIA activists, shocked and horrified by McCain's crude behavior toward Mrs Gaylor, registered their complaints with Senate officials. Mrs Gaylor and her niece, Geannette Jenkins, who was pushing her wheelchair, were advised by Sgt. Dana Sundberg of the Capitol Hill Police to file assault charges against McCain. They declined, fearful of the power of the Arizona senator.

The SPOTLIGHT November 15, 1999

Bilderberg Prefers Shadows; Wants Lower World Profile

Recently Exposed, Group Meets to Set Agenda for Security, Secrecy

Angered by exposure in the worlds press, the shadowy Bilderberg group is hastily gathering in Washington, D.C., to discuss this year's agenda.

By James P. tucker Jr.

At the of the worry list of the Bilderberg steering committee, which is meeting Nov. 4-5 in accommodations made private by the Library of Congress in Washington, is security penetrations of recent years.

The committee will approve its hiding place for the full-membership meeting next spring with a view of regaining the near-total secrecy it had enjoyed for decades. Members expressed great concern at the flood of newspaper and broadcast attention generated in recent years.

From 1971 through 1975 Liberty Lobby in its Liberty Lowdown, a publication for Board of Policy members only, was a lonely voice in the wilderness exposing Bilderberg's conspiracies. In 1976, The SPOTLIGHT, FOUNDED BY Liberty Lobby in late 1975, began exclusive reporting on the Bilderberg meetings. Up until 1994, Bilderberg leaders insisted the organization existed only as a "right-wing mirage." The media blackout was total, except for this newspaper.

This blackout was lifted in Europe in 1994 because of an initiative, not by The SPOTLIGHT, but by the readers. Having read that Bilderberg would meet at a resort near Helsinki, Finland, that spring, readers contacted The SPOTLIGHT and offered to alert local newspapers and broadcasters were full of photos and stories of stunned Bilderberg participants gaping at TV cameras and reporters as they left airplanes for helicopters and limos in Helsinki.

Having been enlightened about the potential by Helsinki readers, Liberty Lobby, publisher of The SPOTLIGHT now informs local readers in advance when Bilderberg meets and they, in turn, alert the press.

Typically, Bilderberg has its own private security team, plus the local police and military sealing off the resorts where thy meet. So the question kept popping up at the committee meeting: What else can we do?

One of the guards sealing of the Bilderberg resort near Sintra, Portugal, last June told a reporter from a local newspaper that snipers were positioned nearby and were prepared to shoot to stop intruders. Yet much information about the meeting appeared in The SPOTLIGHT and many European newspapers.

Reporters for a television channel in London spent a day with this reporter in Washington, a week with him pursuing Bilderberg in Sintra and then came back for another day in Washington. They plan a sex-hour series on the New World Order with Bilderberg as a main attraction.

On their return to Washington, the British TV team told this reporter about trying to interview Bilderberg luminaries and talking to Charles Heck of the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderberg brother group.

Heck, they said, was greatly disturbed by the publicity. Bilderberg participants, refusing interviews, also expressed outrage.

The SPOTLIGHT Winter

American Family Preparedness

New Millennium Just Around the Corner

Government Officials Not sure How Things Will Go; DoD Concerned

Government: I'm OK, you're OK. Or maybe we're not.

By F.C. Blahut

On Sept. 23, the special Senate committee concerned with the possibility of Year 2000 (Y2K) problems released an encouraging report. Essentially, what the report said was that although serious concerns remain, especially in health care, small businesses. Local government and education, the United States is largely prepared for Y2K computer problems.

On the other hand, two days earlier, on Sept. 21, there were published reports that an expected Y2K computer glitch could open the door to a sneak attack on the United States. That's especially true if many of the government's automated systems crash. According to the published reports, that opinion ws contained in a Defense Department contingency planning memo. Meanwhile back on capital Hill, the Senate committee said it has become increasingly worried that lagging preparations overseas could lead to economic disruptions severe enough to hurt American businesses and generate pleas for international aid.

WORRY OR DON'T WORRY

According to postings on the Internet, Government press releases and other sources, there are two prevailing -- and opposing -- opinions on what will happen when the clocks click over to 0/00/00. The conflict is between those who feel the biggest Year 2000 danger is from over-reactions of possible threat. The far smaller groups of Year 2000 activists believe the nation is drowning in 'happy talk" about the issue and as a result, failing to invest enough in preparations.

Sen Robert F. Bennet, the Utah Republican and chairman of the Senate Special Committee on the Year 2000 Problem, said" "There is probably more complacency that will come out of this than we would like. We are in much better shape than I would have anticipated a year and a half ago but people who go through the details of the report will find plenty of indication that there is still much work to be done.

According to the Sept. 10 memo from the Joint Chiefs of Staff, not everyone is so confident. For instance, the Pentagon is working out worldwide staffing and emergency procedures to cope with vulnerabilities that could be caused by computer mix-ups. The document, sent to U.S. commanders worldwide, spelled out five alert levels to streamline the Defense Department's response. The highest, "Y2K Posture level one," would reply to "widespread" systems failures sparked by the century date change. It assumes that civilian authorities would seek military help to cope with disruptions.

In such a case, according to published reports, "deliberate information operations attacks and opportunistic engagements by hostile forces are possible." "Information operations attacks" refers to computer-bases efforts to knock out critical electronic infrastructure such as financial networks or military data banks.

TIMED ATTACKS

"Opportunistic engagements" -- according to published reports -- means surprise attacks timed to cash in on any Y2K-related confusion in the United States, the world's most technologically dependent nation. Under such a Y2K-alert level, "strict" caps on communications throughout the Defense Department might be imposed, presumably for fear of playing into the hands of a foe seeking to take advantage of Y3K-related disruptions, the document said. Y2K glitches have been popping up for years in software. A report released on Sept. 22 said that 82 percent of large companies had already encountered glitches up from 75 percent in June -- but the first weeks of January are expected to bring the largest volume of malfunctions.

RISK PERCENTAGE

Back in the world of business, Cap Gemini America, an information technology consulting company based in New York said, that although nearly half do not expect to have all of their critical computer systems fixed before the end of the year, 12 percent expect such vulnerable systems to pose a "significant business risk." Also, according to published reports, 44 percent of the Y2K malfunctions to date occurred in systems the companies had repaired. Computer experts say that it is common to introduce new errors when remediating software, which is one reason contingency planning for breakdowns are an essential part of Year 2000 preparations.

For instance, in the United Kingdom the attempt to fix the Passport Office before Jan. 1turned into a giant snafu, when the new system malfunctioned, leaving passport seekers out in the cold. James Woodward, head of CAP Gemini America's information systems management group, said: "We can't say everything is fine and rosy." But a poll published during the third week of September by the Information Technology Association of America summed up Year 2000 as "Apocalypse Not," noting that just 7 percent of the companies subscribing to its regular Year 2000 newsletter expect major disruptions of their business.

VITAL CONCERNS

A national Association of Manufactures poll of vital concerns of small manufacturers, also published during the third week of September, did not even bother to pose a question about Year 2000. Earlier this year, the manufacturing group had seen the threat of Y2K problems and lawsuits as so important that it made legislation restricting litigation as one of its main policy objectives.

The Senate report contained no major surprises for computer experts and others involved in Year 2000 activities. The main pillars of the nation's economy -- banking and utilities -- were rated as highly prepared, based on assessments of testing, repairs and backup plans. As with other reports, the committee warned that there could be local disruptions and that citizens should be checking with their providers.

SAY WHAT?

The committee's biggest areas of concern, according to published reports, were generally in sectors where information about preparations has been hard to obtain. In the $1.5 trillion health care industry, the committee praised Y2K programs at drug companies, distributors and major hospitals, but expressed grave concerns about the readiness of computer systems in the nation's 50,000 doctors' offices and 15,000 nursing homes. "The main reason is that we simply can't get information about them," Bennett said. Most Doctors are skeptical about Y2K repairs ahead of time, according to the committee.

The report concluded by highlighting a concern raised in committee hearings last summer. It said Y2K work had forced computer users to relax security enough so that criminals, foreign governments and terrorists, may have had opportunities to penetrate critical computer systems. At the very least, the committee said, Year 2000 should heighten awareness of the potential for cyber-terrorism to cause widespread disruption.

The SPOTLIGHT Winter

American Family Preparedness

White House Quickly Kills Official Readiness Report

Bill Clinton wants you to think Y2K is under control. But is it?

By Mike Blair

Despite rosy pictures from the Clinton White House about how everything is looking good as far as the impact that Y2K will have on the American public, there are those that have been issuing contrary reports -- even government sources that have escaped administration censors.

A good case in point is a report issued by the U.S. Navy that predicts probable or likely failures of public utilities in dozens of U.S. cities, large and small, as the turnover to the new millennium occurs. The White House was quick to quash the Navy report as being "overly cautious" and countering that the document was much ado about nothing, stating that the report of predicted failures was based on "interim" or partial assessments.

Nevertheless, the Establishment media is beginning to report dire consequences as a result of Y2K. As an example, on the Drudge Report on Fox News Network over the weekend of Oct. 9 and 10, the host, Internet news guru Matt Drudge, shocked his audience by discussing for half of the hour-long show the potential consequences of Y2K with a West Coast radio talk show host, Roy Masters

BIGGEST PROBLEM

During the show, which was broadcast several times over the weekend, Masters claimed that the biggest problem to result from Y2K was in not preparing the people for what he termed "planned chaos," which he fears will be used as a "trigger for partial law" by President Bill Clinton. Masters, with Drudge seeming to agree with what he was stating, accused Clinton of wanting to create a situation in which he would not have to leave office at the end of his term.

"Panic is the plan," Masters declared. The radio host said that Clinton was working with communists and socialists to create a national panic, in which people would flock into the street, making local law enforcement impossible and thus paving the way for a "martial law" declaration by the president.

Masters also indicated that during such a period of emergency terrorist attacks in the United states could be expected. Although not using the term "cultural communism," which The SPOTLIGHT has warned about for some months in a number of its editions, Masters said that communists and socialists, working with Clinton, had seduced men and women against their moral state. He noted that in a nation of moral citizens with spiritual values, "planned chaos" could not occur. At the beginning of the presentation, Drudge presented the disclaimer that neither Fox Television not his program's sponsors would necessarily agree with what he was going to present, noting that he felt it was important to be discussed. Drudge, as he predicted on the show, was quick to receive criticism for the presentation from those wishing to just rub away the looming Y2K crisis with a soothing balm.

In the shocking Navy report, deep sexed by the White House, Navy experts predict that 43 U.S. cities will probably experience "partial failure" of utilities, 38 cities will also experience partial failure, and in 44 cities total failure is likely.

The SPOTLIGHT Winter

American Family Y2K Preparedness

Here Are Some Easy Steps To Stave Off Y2K Problems

Common sense can save you problems in the event of possible year 2000 glitches.

By James P. Tucker

There are simple steps you can take to guard against problems when the clock strikes midnight on Dec. 31. Contingency planning: Buy canned food and bottled water. Alternative light and heat sources are extremely important. Make sure your prescription medications and other health necessities are plentiful.

PRECAUTIONS:

*Don't fly on Jan. 1. The U.S. government assures us that the airline industry is "Y2K compliant," but they can't be absolute about that despite al their code remediation tests. Experts suggest limiting flights outside the United States. Many foreign countries are far behind the United States inY2K preparedness. Underdeveloped nations might get more than "just a bump" in the road.

* If your annual physical examination or other optional medical procedures are scheduled for January, get it done in December. Hospitals are working hard to be Y2K compliant, but, many health care providers are not prepared, according to the General Accounting Office. This suggests that the data from various tests dated "00" could be interpreted as the first, not the latest reading. Notwithstanding, medical devices vital for patient examinations might become faulty.

* Sometime before December's end, withdraw extra cash from your bank and stash it safely in your home. Do not withdraw large amounts of cash on the last banking day in December. Police warn that muggers are ready to rob the unsuspecting individual in anticipation of a Y2K "bank-run." Keep in mind, if your bank's computers are compliant and respond in real-time online, that's fine. If not, you will have cash on hand!

* Save all deposit slips and bank statements for November and December. In the event that your bank's computers "wipe-out" all your records, you can prove that you put your money into the bank.

* If you greet the New Year in a high-rise building, find the stairwell that would lead you to safety. Y2K is not expected to cause fires, but, the elevators may not work. Are you taking a train or subway to your celebration? Plan now on how you will return if the public transportation system collapses. If it does, taxicabs will be hard to get because of the competition.

* If your power goes out, listen to your batter-operated radio. In the event that a significant portion of the doomsayers' predictions come true, and chaos erupts, you must be prepared to defend your home and your family. Decide where the safest place in your home.

* If you have alternative energy sources, have them within arms reach. Light up the land around your house. If you have a megaphone, use it to warn trespassers. If not, speak in a loud directed voice. Friends and acquaintances should identify themselves. Those who don't will ultimately threaten their own presence. Some experts express confidence that Y2K won't get this bad. They can give no absolute assurances. With that in mind, it's better to be prepared and stave off what would otherwise be an emergency.

The SPOTLIGHT Winter

American Family Y2K Preparedness

Forget Y2K: Preparedness Makes Sense

A chilling report, issued by U.S. intelligence agencies, shows that Americans need to prepare for possible future terrorist attacks committed against the citizens and landmarks of the United States.

By James P. Tucker Jr.

No matter how well Americans prepare, some may die at the hands of terrorists in the next century. These are the findings in a new report from the U.S. Commission on National security in the 21st Century, relating nightmarish predictions for the next 25 years. It is co-chaired by former Sens. Waren Rudman and Gary Hart.

Nuclear, chemical and biological weapons will proliferate, the report says. Our adversaries, with "cultural affinities different from our own, will resort to forms and levels of violence shocking to our sensibilities." The time to prepare is now. According to State Department officials, Americans are at risk. The reason? Over the past 50 years, the United states has embraced a high handed manner of interest in foreign affairs. This mask of deceit for self serving elitists will cost us dearly.

It began in the Middle East, where the United states made Israel the third-strongest military power on earth and drove its Arab neighbors into the arms of the Kremlin. It continued through the U.S.-led invasion of the sovereign nation of Yugoslavia, which posed no threat. "The Serbs feel exactly as you and I would if a powerful country bombed us into the stone age without provocation," said one official. "You would believe it patriotic and the will of God to strike back in any way you can...sneaking bombs and biological weapons into the United States is the only way they believe they can fight back." The best way to ensure national tranquility and reduce the risk of imminent terrorism, is to elect a president who will promise the world that the United States will never again meddle in foreign affairs. It's that simple. When it is not in our national interest to poke our noses elsewhere, we won't. Arming one side of a conflict to create enemies on the other has only led to wanton killing sprees in Africa, Europe, the Middle East and elsewhere, they said.

ONLY ONE

The only presidential candidate fit to fulfill this promise is Pat Buchanan. Notwithstanding, the government says the time is coming when Americans must be prepared. What of all those "allies" with whom the United States collaborated in patrolling the world?

The United States "will find reliable alliances more difficult to establish and sustain," the report said. Americans will be "limited in our ability to impose our will, and we will be vulnerable to an increasing range of threats." "States, terrorists and other disaffected groups will acquire weapons of mass destruction and mass disruption, and some will use them," the report says. "Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers." Americans have years to prepare, and they are needed.

Obviously, there is no way to guarantee that you and your family will survive unscathed. Preparations are a challenge. Such attacks, experts say, will come in highly populated areas. In those populated areas, the likely targets are practical and symbolic: the White House, Capitol or the Pentagon. Military bases, with high concentrations of fighting men, are also likely targets.

Consider living in small remote towns or rural areas. Those who must live and work in target areas may want to consider obtaining a cabin in the woods. During periods of international tension or after the first domestic incident, the aforementioned works as a retreat for your family. Make arrangements with family or friends who are already set up in various remote areas.

In these arrangements can't be made in the next decade or so, and you are stuck in the city, there are steps you can take to protect yourself. Vacation time? Visit the Capitol, the White House or the Washington Monument on a day that has no historical significance, nto on a holiday like the Fourth of July.

The SPOTLIGHT Winter

American Y2K Family Preparedness

Navy Report of Cities That May Experience Y2K Problems

The SPOTLIGHT November 22, 1999

Bilderberg Gunning for 'Isolationists'

Growing 'America First' Sentiment Disturbs Elite

A major focus of the recent Bilderberg gathering in the nation's capital was the rise of a solid America First bloc that threatens Bilderberg's plans for increased, forced globalization of America's resources.

By James P. Tucker Jr.

Bilderberg devoted much of a day-long meeting of its steering committee in Washington to expressing fears over growing populist and nationalist sentiment (long cultivated by Liberty Lobby and The SPOTLIGHT) and which is being successfully harvested by Pat Buchanan's burgeoning Reform Party presidential candidacy.

Bilderberg's committee gathered for dinner on the evening of Nov. 4 and worked all day Nov. 5. The dinner and meetings were held in sealed-off, guarded areas of the Thomas Jefferson building of the Library of Congress.

In addition to the regulars -- David Rockefeller, Henry Kissinger, Vernon Jordan and Sen. Christopher Dodd (D-Conn.) -- former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.), Energy Secretary Bill Richardson, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) and National Security Advisor Sandy Berger also attended.

The steering committee always gathers months in advance of the full membership meeting of Bilderberg for routine housekeeping, such as approving the location of their next hiding place, preparing an agenda and giving another shove to its long-term goal of world government.

What was unusual this year was giving so much attention to its concern about growing "isolationism" in the United States.

In a speech by Samuel Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor, and in a book entitled New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century, which was assigned to each participant, fears of "isolationism" and "nationalism" were expressed repeatedly.

SANDY SAYS...

The text of Berger's speech and a copy of the book were obtained by The SPOTLIGHT on site at the Library of Congress, although the White House actually posted Berger's published remarks on its own Internet web site [www.whitehouse.gov].

"After 50 years of building alliances for collective security, common prosperity and wider freedom, we now have an unparalleled opportunity to shape, with others, abetter, safer more democratic world." Berger told his Bilderberg colleagues.

Berger objected to "isolationism" among Republicans and Democrats that "isolates" America.

"Over the last six and a half years, the administration has worked with Republicans and Democrats in Congress to enlarge NATO and bolster "democracy" in central Europe, to extend NAFTA to Mexico and create the World Trade Organization, to ratify START II and the Chemical Weapons Convention, to support our troops in engagements from the Balkans to the Persian Gulf and to launch a host of other international initiatives," Berger boasted.

He blamed isolationists for the rejection of the test ban treaty in the Senate.

"That same small but increasingly powerful group is responsible for the steady decline in our international affairs budget -- to the point where the gulf between America's aspirations in the world and our ability to realize them as growing," Berger said.

He complained about congressional cutbacks to the World bank and the International Monetary Fund -- the two major conduits for shipping American tax dollars overseas -- and cutting the request for United Nations "peacekeeping" funds by 60 percent.

"These congressional actions do not result from simple differences over policy or from partisanship," Berger said. "They reflect the coherent philosophy of a dominant minority, which sees international spending as inherently opposed to America's interests," Berger said.

"It is urgent that internationalists find common ground around a common agenda of our own," Berger said. "We must defend them together."

Bilderberg participants expressed concern over institutions such as Liberty Lobby promoting "isolationism" -- a Bilderberg synonym for a policy of nonintervention -- and fear that Buchanan may be nominated by the Reform Party, picking up $11 million in campaign cash, making the ballot in all 50 states and participating in a three-way debate among presidential nominees in the fall of 2000.

In such a debate, most agreed, Buchanan would mop up the Republican and Democratic nominees, whether their names are George W. Bush, John McCain, Al Gore or Bill Bradley. For Buchanan to have the opportunity to educate millions of Americans, who watch TV but rarely read, strikes fear in Bilderberg hearts.

RISING TIDE OF PATRIOTISM

The book assigned to Bilderberg participants to read was prepared by the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century, headed by hart and former Sen Warren Rudman. It reflects much of the Bilderberger concerns about a rising tide of patriotism in America. The book worried that isolationists "sense conspiracy" and make it difficult to "stand together in an era of dissolving borders," warning that, as a result, "further global economic integration is not a certainty."

There is "nothing immutable about the present arrangements wherein certain peoples are ruled within certain fixed territorial units...the changes ahead have the potential to undermine the authority of states, and the political identities and loyalties of citizens: will be in doubt, the book says. "The principle of state sovereignty and of the state system is wasting away."

It says "globalization is basically good...because it may be a vehicle to transcend the system of state sovereignty." But it warned of isolationists who argue that "globalization is being used by the corporate rich to grow still richer at nearly everyone else's expense."

The "ideal of universal human rights will also challenge the traditional concept of state sovereignty," it says, citing the case of Augusto Pinochet as illustrating "the evolution of international law toward views that undermine sovereignty." It also cited the invasion of Yugoslavia as another giant leap toward the end of nationhood.

"The campaign in Kosovo was the clearest example in modern times of a major power or alliance intervening militarily in the internal affairs of another sovereign state avowedly on behalf of minority rights," the book approvingly says. Leaders 'applaud the erosion of sovereignty over such questions, as well as others."

GLOBAL GOVERNMENT

The book also follows the Bilderberg program for global government by dividing the world into three great regions for the administrative convenience of the UN, which is to emerge as a de jure, as well as de facto, world government. Each region -- the European Union, the American Union and the Asian-Pacific Union -- is to evolve into a single state with a common currency.

The book reports with approval the giant steps taken toward each of the goals of regionalization and celebrates the "dollarization" of the western Hemisphere, which Bilderberg called for at its meeting in Sintra, Portugal, last June.

"In addition to trade integration, the Americas will experience greater monetary integration," the book said. "Proposals for dollarization are being debated by the public and/or private sectors in Argentina, Mexico and El Salvador. Currently, Latin Americans hold a majority of their savings in dollars and 70 percent of banking assets and liabilities are dollar-denominated in Argentina, Bolivia, Peru and Uruguay."

Global trends "indicate that a regional currency bloc is a strong possibility," the book concludes.

The SPOTLIGHT November 22, 1999

Bilderberg Outsider Makes It Inside

A reporter relates his first-hand experiences prowling around the Library of Congress in an effort to find out just what was going on with the Bilderberg steering committee meeting.

By James P. Tucker

"Good evening," I said, shaking hands with a smiling David Rockefeller as Bilderberg luminaries gathered for food and drink inside the Great Hall of the Library of Congress' Thomas Jefferson Building in Washington.

Rockefeller's smile froze and his eyeballs were spinning. We have been eye-ball-to-eyeball over Bilderberg many times over the last 20 years and he doesn't like me. I would be embarrassed if he did. It was only after we shook hands that David realized who I was.

I had just failed in an attempt to obtain Bilderberg's agenda and list of participants. It was late in the afternoon and a few tourists and researchers were still inside the Library of Congress, even as the Bilderberg set was beginning to arrive.

But after David and his entourage recognized me, my fate was sealed. The cops threw me out. I guess that was inevitable.

Earlier in the day, I had been scouting around the Library of Congress building as Bilderberg's advance staff made preparations.

At 7 p.m., I was stationed outside at the building's main entrance as lon black limos began to roll up.

As one luminary stepped out, I smiled and said, "You are here for Bilderberg, too."

"Yes," he said with a smile and we entered together as I was tilling him that "Bilderberg does good work." (For give me, oh dear Lord.)

For Bilderberg luminaries, there is no normal security: briefcases don't go on conveyor belts and you don't walk through airport-style metal detectors. "Security" is defined as keeping outsiders outside.

Once inside, I trotted upstairs to the meeting room and agian asked for a list of participants and the agenda.

"First you have to have your name tag," another woman explained, directing me to the line downstairs that I had just left.

It was there that Rockefeller chanced to arrive for our gracious confrontation. As I reached for the documents, a guard grabbed my arm and said: "You don't belong here." as he escorted me out, I explained that "I do, too, belong here because I am a taxpayer and they are conducting public business in secret."

"I have my orders, Mr Tucker," said the guard in a gentle voice.

The following day, during Public visiting hours, I was honored with guards all day long. One would relieve the other.

I observed Bilderberg people moving out of the room where they had been meeting and marching to another room at the opposite end of the building, down another long corridor. I followed at the end of the line until the guard sped me. But I was able, for future reference, to know which room they were using.

I returned two hours later when I judged that the session was over.

I roamed around the room where the morning session had been held, picking up a book called New World Coming: American Security in the 21st Century prepared by the United States Commission on National Security/21st Century. Each Bilderberg participant was given this assigned reading. The room had seats for 48 participants and a podium for the speakers.

I also obtained the text of a speech by Samuel Berger, President Clinton's national security advisor and a Bilderberg regular.

It was these documents, and contributions from collaborator Michael Collins Piper, plus interviews with a high State Department official and an international entrepreneur who personally deals with several Bilderberg regulars that provided the information about what transpired during the secret meetings.

The SPOTLIGHT November 22, 1999

Bilderberg Meeting Highlights

NOT RELIABLE. Hardly any of the long list of "big names" that the Internet based World Net Daily claimed would be attending Bilderberg's steering committee meeting actually attended. The last time World Net Daily got in on the act, they claimed that the pope was going to be there. He wasn't. So where is World Net Daily getting all this disinformation?

WHO OWN THIS JOINT? While patrolling outside, police told Jim Tucker and his collaborator, Michael Collins Piper, that Bilderberg wanted them to go away. "Who owns this joint?" Tucker asked. "Does Bilderberg or the taxpayers own the Library of Congress?" The cops walked away. The SPOTLIGHT people remained.

WATCHERS. Although it had the taxpayer-financed Library of Congress police to protect them, Bilderberg had its own plainclothes security on the scene as well. One particularly diligent Bilderberg security man actually went to the trouble of following Piper and a colleague for an entire block after they left the Library of Congress grounds once they concluded monitoring Bilderberg activity.

COSTLY CONFERENCE. It costs $40,000 to rent the Great Hall in the Thomas Jefferson Building of the Library of congress in the evenings when it is otherwise closed to the public. For Bilderberg, that's pocket change.

REJECTED BY HIS OWN: Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) had learned that important people called Bilderberg would be having food and drink together on opening night, so he thought he would join them. He was turned away at the entrance. Wexler was so embarrassed and upset he was last seen crossing Independence avenue talking agitatedly on his cell phone and nearly being hit by a car. You have to be recruited by Bilderberg; you can't volunteer. When questioned the next day about the congressman's predicament, Wexler's office claimed the congressman made a mistake and wasn't really trying to get inside the Bilderberg meeting after all.

NOT PICKED? When former Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.) left the Bilderberg meeting, Piper asked him: "Senator Hart, have you been selected for the presidency by Bilderberg?" Hart never actually answered the question but chuckled with amusement. Hart's last appearance on the presidential scene ended when he withdrew from the Democratic primary campaign after an unpleasant scandal involving a young lady not his wife.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE. Bilderberger Henry Kissinger got a big surprise when he was greeted on the Library of Congress steps by Piper who reminded Kissinger that they had met previously at a private dinner. "Oh yes, great fun," remembered the Bilderberger extending his hand, not realizing that Piper was on the scene as an ally of Tucker, Kissinger's longtime tracker.

The SPOTLIGHT November 22, 1999

President Abuses Executive Orders

Bill Clinton's aggressive use of executive orders (Eos) raises fundamental concerns among many House members -- and with the Supreme Court -- about the separation and division of powers -- the system of checks and balances -- under the Constitution.

By Margo Turner

The power of a president to create laws by executive Order (EO) has sparked debate in the House and may be an issue once again before the Supreme Court.

The controversy stems from the 301 Eos President Clinton has issued since he took office in 1993. Clinton is second only to former President Reagan, who holds the record with 381 Eos. Clinton's orders, however, "push the limits of presidential power," an observer on Capitol Hill noted.

Constitutional experts and congressmen raised concern about the use of executive orders at two separate House subcommittee hearings on executive orders in late October.

"The Constitution does not provide for the power of a president to rule by executive order" William Olson, a McLean, Va., attorney and co-author of a new Cato Institute study on the abuse of executive orders, told the legislative and budget process panel of the House Rules Committee.

Olson and Alan Woll, an attorney in Blevins, Ark., pointed out in their study that liberals and conservatives have used presidential directives to legislate to accomplish political objectives to the detriment of the American political system.

"No constitutional power should be misused, irrespective of the benefit perceived for a political objective," They noted. "If the constitutional processes are violated, in the end, we all lose."

The Supreme court has upheld every challenged congressional delegation to the executive branch since 1935, according to Thomas B. Griffith, a Washington attorney who testified before the House Judiciary Committee's commercial and administrative law panel.

In Industrial Union Department v. American Petroleum Institute (1980), chief Justice William Rehnquist pointed out "that Congress, the governmental body best suited and most obligated to make the choice...has improperly delegated that choice to the executive and, derivatively, to this court,' testified Griffith, who served in the Office of Senate Legal Counsel for three and a half years.

The Founding Fathers vested federal powers equally in the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, providing a system of "checks and balances." "This system of 'checks' has grown drastically out of balance," Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.) warned the House Judiciary's commercial and administrative law subcommittee.

Extremely critical of Clinton's use of presidential orders, Paul is the sponsor of H.R. 2655, the Separation of Powers Restoration Act. His legislation would restore the separation of powers between Congress and the president under the Constitution; terminate all existing states of national emergency and remove from the executive any power to declare national emergencies; vest power in Congress alone to declare states of national emergencies; restrict presidential power to issue executive orders by denying them any force of law except as provided for by Congress; and repeal the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which, Paul noted, granted broad war-making authority to the president.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.), another critic of the Democratic president, seeks to stop the enactment of EO 13132, the Federal Protection Act of 1999. Issued by Clinton's "second attempt to usurp the powers of state and local government and hand them over to the federal government," Barr said.

EO 13132 is "a clear violation of the principles of federalism and separation of powers," he pointed out.

In 1998, Clinton issued EO 13083. That order would have revoked the 10th Amendment of the Constitution, given the federal government nearly unlimited power to enforce regulations on the states, given the president the power to implement UN treaties with out senate ratification and given the president power to send American troops anywhere. The order was rescinded in August 1998.

Also proposed in the House is a concurrent resolution. Rep., Jack Metcalf (R-Wash.) introduce H.Con.Res 30 in February and already has 82 co-sponsors.

The resolution expresses "the sense" of Congress that any executive order that infringes on the powers and duties of the congress under Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution or would require the expenditure of federal funds not specifically appropriated for the purpose of the executive order is "advisory and has no force or effect unless enacted as law."

The framers of the Constitution "believed in careful deliberation conducted in a representative assembly, subject to all the checks and balances that characterize our constitutional system," Metcalf told the House commercial and administrative law subcommittee.

Clinton uses executive orders to do what has been denied him by the regular legislative process, Metcalf said. He used EO 13061, the American Heritage Rivers Initiative (AHRI), as an example of Clinton's attempted takeover of the legislative power of Congress.

Issued by Clinton on Sept. 11, 1997, the AHRI enabled Clinton to take governing authority away from states and localities. States are required to give up 14 specific rivers to federal control. Critics say this threatens the private property rights of American citizens.

Under the AHRI, Clinton has the power to allocate $500 billion for the new program from various federal agencies without congressional approval. The Constitution, however, requires Congress to first approve all revenue spending, Metcalf explained. Following an oversight hearing, the House Committee on Resources issued a report criticizing EO 13061 as a violation of the doctrine of separation of powers "by completely bypassing the Congress."

A staunch critic of Clinton for issuing EO 13061, Rep. Helen Chenoweth-Hage (R-Idaho), along with Republican Reps. Bob Shaffer (Colo.), Don Young (Alaska) and Richard Pombo (Calif.)., filed a lawsuit, Chenoweth et al. v. United States, in U.S. District Court in Washington in December 1997. The four congressmen claimed Clinton violated the Constitution by issuing EO 13061, through which the AHRI was created in April 1998, and deprived them of their rights as members of Congress to vote on the initiative. (The SPOTLIGHT, Aug. 16).

The District court dismissed the case in March 1998. Embers of Congress have no legal standing to sue the president for violating the Constitution, the court ruled. The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington upheld the lower court's decision in July.

The Supreme Court will be asked in December to consider an appeal of two court decisions, The SPOTLIGHT has learned. The appeal will be made by the Mountain States Legal Foundation (MSLF), a Denver-based nonprofit, public interest law firm working with Mrs. Chenoweth-Hage.

According to Olson, Congress and the Supreme Court have not "acted boldly in the defense of the Constitution."

"Witness the inability of representatives and senators to obtain judicial review of Clinton's War Powers Resolution," Olson said. "Likewise, notwithstanding the National Emergency Economic Powers Act, the number of presidentially declared national emergencies has exploded."

He suggested that Americans should heed the warning of Thomas Jefferson, who said to President Washington in 1792:

"If the equilibrium to the three great bodies, Legislative, Executive and Judiciary, could be preserved, if the Legislature could be kept independent, I should never fear the result of such a government; but that I could not but be uneasy when I saw that the Executive had swallowed up the Legislative Branch.

The SPOTLIGHT November 29, 1999

Expert Says Public Utility Disruptions Almost A Certainty When New millennium Finally Hits

Radio Free America with Tom Valentine

The strong likelihood that public utilities will be subject to severe failure because of Y2K was discussed on the Nov. 7 broadcast of The SPOTLIGHT's weekly call-in talk forum with host Tom Valentine.

The authoritative guest was J.C. Cunningham, an entrepreneur whose business is selling control instrumentation to the utility industry. Cunningham, who has traveled through 30 countries around the world in pursuit of his business ventures, recently finished three years of research on basic tips for Y2K survival that are summarized in his new book, The Y2K Survival Guide: Protect Your Family from the Coming Crisis.

Cunningham's book is available at $19.95 through Barnes & Noble bookstores, Amazon.com on the Internet or by writing: J.C. Cunningham, P.O. Box 692, Menonomee Falls, Wis. 53052. You may also refer to Conningham's web site at: http://www.theY2Ksite.com

What follows is an edited transcript of the interview. Valentine's questions start with a "Q". Cunningham's responses start with an "R".

Q. Your excellent book is by far the most thorough guide to preparing for the Y2K crisis that I've seen.

R. I've been on this subject for about three years. It started by accident. I was cruising the Internet back in early 1997 and I ran across the ic of Y2K. I had never heard of y2K before and I found it amazing that sonething as simple as two missing computer digits would have the potential to disrupt so much of our society.

The first chapter is about Y2K. The remaining 14 chapters contain generic information about preparing your family for any typw od disaster that could befall us at Y2K or within the next 10 years.

Q. You have some very special expertise in the subject of Yek power failures, don't you?

R. My primary business is selling control instrumentation to the utility industry and that industry could be hit hard in a Y2K crisis.

Q. Evidently a lot of people agree with you.

R. There are a lot of people who agree, but there are more people who disagree and I think that's because you can't study Y2K from newspaper headlines or from television sound bites. You have to jump in Knee-deep and study it. Very few people have the time or inclination to do that. So they take what's given to them in public relations press releases at face value and they think that everything's going to be fine.

Q. In other words, if the IRS says "we've got everything under control," it's quite possible that hey really don't?

R. The government, is an interesting study in Y2K. It makes a great microcosm study as to what's going on with Y2K in the larger scale. The government, typically, started their repair programs late. They underestimated the size and scope of the Y2K effort. They've misrepresented their progress along the way, prematurely reported that they had it solved, and now they are admitting they don't have it solved, but they think they can manage the disruptions.

Q. A group of scientists signed up a full-page advertisement in The New York Times talking about the potential of nuclear warfare as a consequence of possible Y2K glitches.

R. There is a lot that could go wrong. I do a lot of public speaking on this subject and inevitably, the first question is generally: "What do you really think is going to Happen? On a scale of 1-10, where do you think it will fall?" People want the bottom line.

My honest belief is that somewhere in America it is going to be everything from a "one" to a "10." We can't tell exactly where the problems are going to be because no enough information is being released to the public.

Q. I've talked to people at Florida Power & Light (one of the best companies in the country) and they say they've got everything under control. Chicago must be among the worst.

R. Chicago suffered electrical power outages repeatedly with no Y2K problems this summer, due to overloads. The whole power industry is very complex in terms of Y2K.

The North American Electrical Liability Council (NERC) was appointed by the Department of Energy to be the point man and coordinator for Y2K repair efforts for the utility industry. NERC is a voluntary trade association that attempts through engineering committees to establish standardized protocols for the utility industry. It is funded by the utilities it serves. It is managed and the board of directors is drawn from the utility industry that it serves. It is, in effect, a house trade association. It is not a government agency. It has no authority. All of its programs are voluntarily administered.

We've seen NERC issuing quarterly surveys and, typically, the person responding was the corporate spokesperson or the person who was just appointed to head up the Utility's Y2K program. They were saying: "We're just getting started, but we have 99 percent expectation that we will get completed on time." However, as the months rolled on and public pressure increased, NERC established a June 30, 1999, deadline and said all utilities would be Y2K compliant by that date. They set this date back in 1997.

As time rolled on, they became increasingly sensitive to the fact that that date was not going to be met. So NERC, in February 1999, issued a memorandum to the utility companies, saying that they would support the utilities' claim for Y2K readiness -- that's readiness, not compliance -- if the utilities would submit a confidential list of those items which they had not yet completed or repaired.

NERC agreed to keep this confidential and not release it to the Department of Energy or to the public and would support the utilities' claims that they were Y2K ready. In other words, Y2K "ready" essentially means that you are still working on the problem, that there's a confidential list of items not yet completed and that you are working on contingency plans. It is not the same thing as Y2K compliant.

So what we saw on June 30, about 30 major U.S. utilities issued public relations press releases saying that they were Y2K "ready" based upon information supplied by NERC.

Q. At these huge power companies, isn't there a hand-switch somewhere that somebody can pull to keep things running?

R. It's not as simple as that. I guess there are three levels of problems that could occur. First understand that all power plants can be run manually. You are absolutely correct. However, the people in the control room are blind, deaf and dumb. They are dependent upon instrumentation in the plant to tell them what's going on in their process. They are physically located in one small room with gauges and deals and computer screens.

If that instrumentation is faulty and has a Y2K failure because it is microprocessor-based, they can run the plant in a manual mode, but their decisions are going to be based upon potentially faulty information.

Q. Aren't they running tests?

R. They can't do that when the power plant is on line. Here's the catch-22 for power plants. It doesn't matter if we're talking fossil or nuclear power plants here. The typically have two outages a year, one in the fall and one in the spring. An outage is when they go offline and cease producing electricity to perform regularly scheduled maintenance.

Typically and outage is about one to two weeks. It can last up to a month depending upon the maintenance they are performing. It is only during these outages that they can test and repair equipment for Y2K.

So understand that they are already busy during those outages, trying to repair and replace things that need periodic maintenance. Added on of that is a level of complexity to address the Y2K issue during the same power outage.

Q. When it goes off-line, that's when the grid kicks in.

R. If you have 30 power plants in your network and each of these power plants requires maintenance in the fall and spring. The grid was designed so that power plant No. 1 and power plant No. 10 could go off-line on a scheduled maintenance and repair and the other functioning 28 plants pick up the slack. Then, those plants would come back on line and two other plants would go off-line for their maintenance. The grid is not designed to handle catastrophic failure where a quarter or a third or even a 10th of the power plants of off-line in an unpredictable and unscheduled manner.

Currently, North America is divided into four power inter-connections or grids. There's the West Coast grid. Texas has its own grid. So does French Quebec. The rest of North America, including the balance of Canada and Mexico, is on one grid. Known as the Western Interconnectivity Power Association. Conceivably, that could all go down at one time.

The option for utilities is what is called 'islanding." That is where a utility disconnects itself from the grid and it says: "We're no linger going to provide power to other utilities through the common interconnectivity, nor are we going to attempt to consume power from other utilities. We are going to be self-sufficient."

If a utility were to island and if their generation plant was not affected by Y2K, then, theoretically, they could provide local power just to their immediate geographic area and not be affected in a neighboring state.

By disconnecting the grid, utilities that are not affected by Y2K can stay up and stay on line. But you have to understand that the utility is load-driven, not capacity-driven. The load in the area determines how hard the power plant works.

Let's say, using hypothetical numbers, that my two power plants in my area have the capacity to produce 1,000 megawatts of energy. That's a lot of energy. Let's say that the typical load in that area is 900 megawatts during a cold winter day or a hot summer day. That means I have a hundred spare megawatts of energy that I can feed on to the grid and sell to other utilities.

If one of my two power plants goes down, and I lose 50 percent of my production capacity because of a Y2K computer glitch (and even though I've "islanded" from the rest of the grid and separated myself), I only have 500 megawatts of production capacity since one of my two plants has gone off-line but my load is still 900 megawatts. So I'm isolated and 400 megawatts short of providing the load on my area.

As a utility, what are my options? To have rolling blackouts and brown-outs or turn off selected customers and typically, commercial and industrial customers get turned off first and then residential customers and then medical facilities last.

Q. Do you think that the potential for the grid to have trouble could be very high?

R. I would say yes on a 7 to 8 based on 1-10 scale. Here's what I think there's going to be a bit of islanding with utilities. You're going to find certain sections of the country with the power not interrupted. These are selected areas where the utility has been aggressive and thorough. There are other areas where the power becomes what is called "dirty power" and the power may dip and motors in things like freezers will burn out.

Q. In your book you wrote that if the nuclear industry is not Y2K compliant by July 1999, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission should shut down nuclear power plants which support 20 percent of the national power grid?

R. They did not. Here's why. What the Nuclear regulatory Commission said was not that they were going to close plants down, but that they were adding a loophole. They said they would close down on July 1, 1999, any nuclear power plant that was not Y2K ready if that utility could not produce a written plan that demonstrated how the plant was going to be ready by the end of the year.

Most nuclear power plants generate about $1 million a day in profits for the utilities that own them.

So if we were looking at a July 1 deadline, with 180 days remaining in the year, and therefore $180 million in profit loss potential, couldn't you produce a document that would convince the regulators that your Y2K program would be ready and working? So the NRC did not close any power plants on July 1. That was not a surprise.

Q. Will trains still be able to deliver coal to the fossil-fuel burning power plants?

R. Trains tend to be problematic. A fellow who had 17 years with a train system as a union switchman explained to me, in great detail, how it is no linger possible to switch trains manually at any of the large switching yards where the tracks cross together.

Q. Here's Matt with a question.

With the time zones all being different, when Y2K hits the first time zone, will that give us an indication of what's going to happen?

R. That's a good question. You'll actually get a 17-hour ahead notice if you pay attention to what's happening in New Zealand. They are the first highly computerized country that will cross over the rest of the world. Then Australia and the Pacific Rim countries as the time line moves from East to west. The story seems to be that New Zealand is not as prepared as the United States.

Q. Now here's Ken calling from Fall River, Massachusetts.

Are imbedded chips date sensitive?

R. Another very good question. Some are but the majority of them are not. The Gardner Group, which is the fair-haired research group that testifies most frequently in front of Congress on this, suspects that in the area of imbedded chips, only one-10 of one percent are actually date-sensitive and therefore vulnerable.

However, we're not talking about the chip itself. We're talking about the software program that runs on the chip firmware. That's the issue: How does the software handle the date change when that software is loaded onto the chip. While it's true that only a fraction are vulnerable to the date change, what we find (and this is the bad news) is that industry has a much higher concentration, because much of the software that's downloaded onto these chips does perform time and date averaging functions which make these chips more susceptible to the Y2K bug than, let's say, consumer chips.

Q. You suggest in your book that there are not enough qualified programmers to fix all of this software.

R. The Y2K problem is a software problem, either in mainframe computers or in the imbedded chips. We don't have programmers qualified to tackle the problems in the mainframe systems. We're trying to re-write 40 yeas worth of code in just two years worth of repair effort. You just can't do that.

Q. What's your bottom line?

R. No matter where people live there's going to be some disruption. So here's some advice: Do not appear "better off" than your neighbors. Assume the lowest common denominator of your community. If the Red Cross starts handing out food, even if you are prepared, trot down and get in line and be thankful and don't attract attention to yourself.

The SPOTLIGHT November 29, 1999

How to Find Radio Free America

Radio Free America is carried live over the Truth Radio Network in Delano, Calif. This includes KMAK FM 100.3 covering the central valley plus Galaxy 9, transponder 2, audio 6.2 and on the Internet via truthradio.com.

The program is broadcast every Sunday evening from 9 till 11 Eastern time(6-till-8 on the West Coast) and is carried on two shortwave signals and simultaneously over the sideband at 6.890 MHz. The two shortwave signals are WHRA 7.580 MHz and WGTG over 5.085 MHz. The new call-in number for the show is 1-800-850-5043.

For audio tapes of RFA programs call 1-888-31-RADIO (1-888-317-2346) to order with a credit card. Both hours $15, which includes shipping and handling.

The SPOTLIGHT November 29, 1999

Globalists Win Big with China -- World Trade Organization Deal

Unless congress gets into the fray, the deal struck with China, setting the stage for its entrance into the world Trade Organization, likely means a big win for multinational corporations and a huge loss for America.

By James P. Tucker Jr.

American negotiators, under orders to reach a deal with Red China at any price, remained days beyond schedule to open a door of the World Trade Organization (WTO) from which more American jobs will exit.

In the years ahead, Americans will not only sell cars, computers, industrial and agricultural products to China, they will produce and grow them there, employing communist labor at slave wages and without the huge economic burdens of government-imposed "fringe benefits" and environmental standards.

Getting the world's most populous country into the WTO is another giant step toward the Bilderberg goal of creating a world government under the United Nations. The WTO is to function as a global Department of Commerce and Red China's membership is essential.

President Clinton hailed the agreement -- which he fancies to be an important piece of his "legacy" -- while traveling in turkey as a "profoundly important" step.

"The China-WTO agreement is good for the United States, It's good for China, it's good for the world economy," Clinton said, in word that echo the acclaim for NAFTA, which has cost many thousands of Americans their jobs.

Since the agreement with China is a "trade deal" and not a treaty" under today's strained definitions, Senate ratification is not required. There is little doubt that the European Union will also reach an agreement that virtually assures China's entry into the WTO.

There is one last chance for Congress to blow the deal apart. Congress must approve China's trade relationship each year under what has long been know as "Most Favored Nation" status.

In the next session, Congress will be pressured to give trade with China permanent approval. Failing to do so, according to the White House, would be an American violation of the WTO agreement, which is permanent and not subject to annual reviews. This could torpedo the agreement, administration officials said.

An assortment of odd political bedfellows -- patriotic America-first advocates, labor unions and environmentalists -- are opposed to the WTO. They will be heavily represented in protests when the WTO meets in Seattle at the end of November. They have muscle in Congress.

Pro-labor members of congress, especially from the industrial Northeast and Midwest, expressed fear that the deal will result in job losses if companies relocate to China and cheap, slave-labor Chinese goods flood the U.S. market.

"It will be a huge fight in Congress, Rep Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) said. "I would hope most members in Congress would look askance at forging a permanent relationship with a country that performs forced abortions and engages in child labor."

Huge, multinational corporations, which are heavily represented at secret Bilderberg meetings, had also applied pressure for a deal at any price.

Alan Tonelson of the U.S. Business and Industry Council said the pressure came from multinational companies interested in cheap labor in China rather than providing mobs in America.

"When they look at china, they see a low-cost market for manufacturing" and "the big victim is the American worker," Tonelson said.

China will become immune to U.S. trade laws once it becomes a member of the WTO because WTO rules take precedence over those of member nations. That will leave the United states with little leverage if china dumps products on the American market, subsidizes imports or steals intellectual property.

"The history of U.S.-China trade policy is: We negotiate agreements, we show no interest in enforcing and they negotiate agreements they have no interest in complying with," Tonelson said.

China will gain huge economic and political benefits at the expense of the United States on entry into the WTO.

World Bank officials said the deal could cause china's share of global trade to more than triple to 10 percent, making it the world's second largest trading nation.

On the political side, the deal will further diminish Taiwan's sovereignty and force the island nation closer into the bosom of Red china. When China enters the WTO, Taiwan will also become a WTO member as a separate customs territory. This will force Taiwan to eliminate most, if not all, bans on direct trade with Red China.

Mainstream newspapers are collaborating in the propaganda war to sell Americans on this sell-out. For example, there is much hailing of China's promise to reduce tariffs on farm products. Actually, tariffs on farm products will fall from 15 percent to 14 and one-half percent.

"American negotiators were not concerned with American interests," said a high State Department official who has been a reliable observer for a decade. "They were interested in Bilderberg's world government agenda."