Friday 31 January 2014

SATANIC USURY, THE DISEASE OF THE MODERN WORLD!




SATANIC USURY,
THE DISEASE OF
THE MODERN WORLD!
Michael Hoffman on USURY


<p>Bloomberg</p>
Bloomberg

  Sheikh Imran Hosein on Riba (Usury)

 

Jesus Saves, Moses Lends, Muhammad Invests

While orthodox finance is in a mess, Islamic finance is growing strong. Maybe a little financial sharia law would help everybody? Before you cast judgment, let us explain about God and mammon.

It's pretty clear what Jesus thought of the financial sector.
The only example in the Gospels of him using physical force against anyone was when he upset the tables of the moneychangers in the temple.
It's pretty clear, too, what Shakespeare thought. Take Lord Polonius's advice in Hamlet, oft quoted over the 400-odd years since it was written: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend."
How vindicated would they feel if they were alive today? Our heedlessness is ruining us all.
It's been almost five years since the start of the so-called global financial crisis, and almost every day, it seems, brings some piece of news showing again how hopelessly we are in thrall to the moneylenders.

“Big banks continue to have an interest in driving up their leverage without enough regard for the consequences of failure: …they expect the public sector to cover the downside.”
The last week of June, for example, saw the release of the 82nd annual report from the Bank for International Settlements — an intergovernmental organisation comprising 60 central banks, including all the world's major economies. And what a depressing read it is. It foreshadows no end to the crisis.
It notes with alarm the fact that since 2007 — the year the financial crisis began — government debt in the advanced economies has increased on average from about 75 per cent of GDP to more than 110 per cent. And the debts of governments to the moneylenders were still growing apace; government deficits had more than quadrupled on average over the period.
The "fiscal maelstrom", as the report called it, is seeing national governments lose their status as essentially risk-free "at an alarming rate".
Meanwhile the financial sector has increasingly displayed "the same high-risk profile it had before the crisis.
"Big banks continue to have an interest in driving up their leverage without enough regard for the consequences of failure: because of their systemic weight, they expect the public sector to cover the downside.
"Another worrying sign is that trading, after a brief crisis-induced squeeze, has again become a major source of income for large banks."
We could go on quoting from the BIS report's long, complex exposition of the enormity of the problem, but there's no need. The situation is summarised in a single sentence on page 26: "Unsustainable debts were ultimately the source of the financial crisis, and there is little evidence that the situation has become much better since."
And yet, the bottom line, the common thread to it all is not just debt, as the BIS says, but something darker. There is an old word for it — usury.
At the time Shakespeare was writing, it referred to the charging of interest, any interest at all, on money loaned. Later it came to refer to excessive interest.
The simple old word struggles to describe the complex financial practices which have brought us so much grief over the past five years or so. But nor is there any better word to describe the way the sub-prime loans, the rigging of capital markets, the complex derivatives, the short-selling — all the ways modern financiers have invented to make gross, excessive amounts of money from money, without reference to actual tangible assets — than usury.

<p>Karim Sahib/AFP</p>
Karim Sahib/AFP

So, to a quick history of usury.
The word itself only came into use some time in the 14th century, but for thousands of years previously, the wise and the spiritual, the lawmakers and the seers, had wrestled with the concept of usury.
Almost 4,000 years ago the Code of Hammurabi (282 laws formulated in Babylonian times to address the rights of any oppressed person) expressed concerns about the ethics of finance and the exploitation of lending. Ancient Vedic texts of India condemned usury. In fact, it was a common concern among most religions.
The Bible is replete with warnings against usury. Right back near the start of the good book, in Exodus, people are warned by God against extorting money from their fellows by demanding interest on loans. According to one tally, this prohibition is repeated no fewer then 22 times in the Old Testament.
Chapter 23.19 of Deuteronomy (quoting the King James Bible) would seem to make the point pretty well: "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of any thing that is lent upon usury."
Ah, but there was an escape clause. Deuteronomy 23:20 continues: "Unto a stranger thou mayest lend upon usury; but to thy brother thou shalt not lend upon usury…"
Well, that was good enough for the Jews, but the Christians had the New Testament to contend with. And Jesus did not make this distinction between co-religionists and others. He said we should treat everyone as brothers.

Since 2007 government debt in the advanced economies has increased on average from about 75 per cent of GDP to more than 110 per cent. 
This difference between the let-out clause accepted by the Jews and the absolute prohibition apparent to Christians has had a profound effect on western economic history.
"This important exception [allowing Jews to charge interest of non-Jews] in Deuteronomy will be very important in creating the phenomenon where Jews become known as the moneylenders of Europe," says professor Constant Mews, director of the Centre for Studies in Religion and Theology at Monash University.
No question, he says, there were Christian moneylenders during the religion's first few hundred years. Moneylending was a Roman practice.
It is equally clear that the church frowned on the practice. And coincident with the decline of Rome, Catholic theologians took a tougher line on usury. By the late Middle Ages the view was that lending for a fixed rate of interest was, literally, damnable.
Indeed the Catholic church still holds that view, officially, as is noted by Paul Oslington, professor of economics at Australian Catholic University (a joint appointment in the School of Business and School of Theology).
"The Catholic church's usury prohibition is still on the books. The papal prohibition is still on the books," he says.
So, how were things financed during that theocratic millennium between about the fifth and fifteenth centuries after Christ? To a great extent, they weren't. There was not a lot of capital around in medieval times, though, as Mews says, "Jews were certainly engaged in moneylending because there was a great shortage of credit in the medieval period and that was the only job they were able to do."

<p>Saeed Khan/AFP</p>
Saeed Khan/AFP
In the later Middle Ages, they lost their privileged position; first the Italians and then others got involved as Christians found their own ways to work around the rules.
"One way around it was the convention of a wealthy merchant on his deathbed giving back to the community the money they were suspected of having stolen through usury. The prohibition facilitated, in some ways, great works of patronage in public buildings, churches and hospitals," says Mews.
There developed another way to obtain finance, not dissimilar to what we now think of as venture capital. It was generally accepted that if the lender and borrower agreed to share in the risk of the venture, the loan was legal. If the venture was profitable, the lender got a cut; if it failed, the lender missed out. The key point was that, whatever transpired with the venture, the lender was not entitled to a return in the form of interest.
"Until about 1570," says Mohamed Ariff, professor of finance at Bond University, "most of the lending in the world was based on profit share.
"That was the way the East India Company first raised money, the way the Dutch East India Company raised money. That is the way commerce was conducted."
But over the next 400-odd years, with the rise of modern banking, he says, "this form of borrowing largely disappeared".
That is not, however, to say concerns about usury disappeared. Indeed with the Enlightenment and the Reformation, and the rise of some early semblance of Christian capitalism, the issue of usury got hotter.

Regulators are fighting an uphill battle to put ethics back into the Judeo-Christian financial system. But the Islamic system has them built in. 
The big question, says Paul Oslington, was whether it was prohibited absolutely, or whether it was a relative thing. In summary, the newer brands of Christianity gradually came to the more practical view that clever financiers had developed so many ways of getting around the prohibition on usury that it was more sensible to regulate than to prohibit.
"So," says Mews, "in the Reformation there's a move… to say a payment is acceptable if you don't go above a certain amount, like five per cent.
"In other words usury is redefined as interest beyond what might be generally accepted as legitimate compensation for a lender."
And so were born usury laws, which still exist in some mild form in many countries today.
But even as what might be called the Judeo-Christian, or perhaps the Judeo-Protestant system of finance evolved, eventually becoming the complex, ill-regulated mess it is today, another model for lending existed.
The third of the great monotheistic religions, Islam, always took God's word more seriously when it came to usury.
It developed its own way of capital provision, which did not rely on charging interest. It was, in fact, the model which Christians had begun to copy in the late Middle Ages — the risk-sharing model.

<p>Courtesy of Monash University</p>
Courtesy of Monash University
Professor Constant Mews
"The interesting thing about Islam," says Mews, "is that it was a much more commercial culture from the outset than Christianity."
And from around the middle of the eighth century to the middle of the 13th, while European Christians were struggling through the Dark Ages, the Islamic world enjoyed a golden age.
Arab merchants had a lot to do with it.
"They developed alternative ways of regulating funds," says Mews.
"In particular the core Islamic principle is simply one of sharing profit and loss. The desire is to promote investment by taking commercial risk.
"Risk, incidentally, is an Arabic word, referring to where you lend money to others without requiring a return unless there is profitable growth."
Latin didn't even have an equivalent word, he says. "The nearest equivalent was danger, which is quite a different thing. It is a negative word."

“Risk, incidentally, is an Arabic word, referring to where you lend money to others without requiring a return unless there is profitable growth.”
And for some 500 years, this financial model underpinned advances in science, the arts, architecture, and innovation generally. Then came the Crusades and the Mongol hordes, and the Islamic model of finance declined, the space becoming filled by that other model.
Islamic finance, however, is undergoing something of a renaissance.
It is now a USD1 trillion industry. Sure, that's still tiny compared with orthodox finance, but it's a substantial number, and it's growing fast. The phenomenon is all the more impressive given that Islamic financial institutions have only been back on the scene for a few decades.
Since the late 70s, however, says Hayat Khan, lecturer in finance and co-founder of the masters course in Islamic Finance at Latrobe University, it has experienced double-digit growth.
"Until recently it averaged 15 to 20 per cent [growth], and now is still more than 10 per cent.
"It is projected by 2020, the Muslim world will be doing 50 per cent of its banking with Islamic institutions."
Mohamed Ariff continues the litany of statistical growth: there are 57 majority-Muslim nations, 76 countries which already practice Islamic banking, 350 banks, 15 insurance companies and about 1,200 mutual funds.

<p>Bloomberg</p>
Bloomberg

But perhaps the most interesting statistic of all is contained in a paper published in April this year by professor Kerrie Sadiq of the school of accountancy at Queensland University of Technology and Dr Ann Black of the TC Beirne School of Law, Queensland University.
They cite a Standard and Poor's report of 2009, which showed that in that year, while many of the world's financial systems were deleveraging, assets of the top 500 Islamic banks expanded by 28.6 per cent.
"Given such statistics," the authors wrote, "it is suggested that Islamic finance…can contribute to global financial stability."
The balance of the paper was devoted to analysis of the steps that Australia could take to put Islamic finance on an equal legal and regulatory footing with traditional finance — of which more later.
So what is it that makes the Islamic model distinctive and, apparently, more stable?
Sadiq and Black summarise the distinguishing tenets as: the ban on interest, the ban on speculation, the ban on financing certain economic sectors, the profit- and loss- sharing principle and the asset-backing principle.
Khan boils it down further still: "The broad way of putting that is that Islamic finance is asset-based and conventional finance is debt-based."
“It is projected by 2020, the Muslim world will be doing 50 per cent of its banking with Islamic institutions.”

"Islam says that you want to identify a real project and share the returns — profit or loss. Whereas [with] conventional finance you lend me money and whatever I do with it, you get interest.
"It assumes that profit will be greater than the interest rate and that the deal is viable. In fact, what we've seen is that when you don't tie the loan to something real, it creates problems."
Islamic finance eschews those complex deals on the secondary market — the layers upon layers of debt and interest, side bets and speculation built on tenuous tangible assets, which Khan says are "completely detached from reality".
During the GFC, conventional finance fell into what he calls this "chasm between real economic activity and nominal economic activity".
"The reasons for the GFC are practices prohibited by Islamic finance," says Khan.
Professor Michael Skully, of the faculty of Business & Economics at Monash University, agrees.
"The things that killed us [during the GFC] were the financials. When we talk about the Islamic funds doing better, it was a function of them not being exposed to financials and highly levered companies.

<p>Atta Kenare/AFP</p>
Atta Kenare/AFP

"In fact they had almost no leverage. In a downturn, if you don't have any debt, you are more likely to survive and prosper than if you have a lot of debt."
So how exactly does it work?
Skully explains: "Say you want to borrow to buy some inventory for your business. The bank says 'I'll buy the inventory for you and then as you go to sell it you can buy it back from me.' And the difference between the profit and the resale is the bank's profit."
Or, in the case of housing finance, the customer selects a property, the bank buys it, and the customer then buys it back over time from the bank.
"So the real estate is actually on the balance sheet of the bank," he says.
"The big difference is that in the Islamic system, these institutions actually own the assets. If you look at an Islamic bank's balance sheet, you will find it has a lot of fixed assets on it. A bank in Australia for example would own some computers and ATM machines and other bits and pieces, but not much in the way of other assets…"
The other key difference is that Islamic finance has, as the very name implies, a religious and moral component to it.

“Australia could lay the foundation to become a leader in the Asia-Pacific Islamic-finance market.”
"There are some scholars who specialise in deciding…whether a financial product is compliant with Islam," he says.
"These are not just your ordinary mosque imams, but people who specialise in finance and theory as well as Islamic law. And all the big institutions use them. So if you want to do well, you will populate your sharia advisory council with people who have a good brand presence.
"They're not concerned with return, but with getting a product that is compliant with Islam."
It can be a very well-paid job.
Indeed the whole world of Islamic banking is looking pretty lucrative these days, so it's not surprising that conventional financial institutions and markets are looking for a piece of the action. Britain in particular has gone a long way towards making its system welcoming to Islamic banking. Australia is lagging somewhat.
Our system, also unsurprisingly, faces are legal and logistical hurdles in integrating Islamic banking. Stamp duty, just to cite one of the simpler issues, might be doubled by the two-part transactions in which banks buy and then on-sell to clients. There are a host of others.
The Federal Government is well aware of all the difficulties. A couple of years ago, there was a flurry of activity and publicity as it indicated an intent to make changes.
That intent, according to all the experts The Global Mail spoke to for this article, has now been placed on a backburner. The government has a lot on its plate just now.
No doubt it is also leery of the inevitable controversy. Just think of the scope for a scare campaign inherent in the words "sharia law".
But the case for Australia to clear the path for Islamic banking seems overwhelming. All our big banks are interested. The expert reports call for it.
To quote Sadiq and Black, with the right regulatory measures, "Australia could lay the foundation to become a leader in the Asia-Pacific Islamic-finance market."
To quote Michael Skully:
"One of the big attractions is that we have all this infrastructure that we need to develop. And we need to have people willing to make long-term investments. Islamic finance — your purchase and resale arrangements or joint-venture arrangements — are perfect for it.
They're exactly what you need for infrastructure funding."
But beyond that is the broader consideration of encouraging financial practices which are not usurious, not speculative, and based on real assets and real ethics.
Around the world, regulators are fighting an uphill battle to put ethics back into the Judeo-Christian financial system. But the Islamic system has them built in.
We should clarify that no-one's arguing the Islamic system is perfect; Constant Mews notes concern among some Islamic thinkers that "Islamic finance may go the same way as Christian scholasticism went, in finding very clever ways to legitimise financial self-interest."
But to him, it all points back to those ancient verities about finance. "You could argue," he says, "that all the currently proposed credit controls and legal reforms are attempts to get back to some form of regulation like there has always been in these religious cultures."

Amen to that.

 THE MONEY CHANGER AND HIS WIFE
The Money-Changer and his Wife

What Does the Bible Say About Lending?


Bible Summary. The Bible does sanction the lending of money. The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. See below for Biblical commentary, meaning, and advice concerning Biblical lending.

The Money Changer and His Wife


The Money-Changer and his Wife
Find More Christian Artwork...
Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
See Scripture Commentary: Proverbs 3:27 advises us to not withhold good things to those who are in need.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf



Jesus Christ
“But love your enemies and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great”

Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
See Scripture Commentary: Proverbs 3:27 advises us to not withhold good things to those who are in need.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

The Money Changer and His Wife


The Money-Changer and his Wife
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

What Does the Bible Say About Lending?


Bible Summary. The Bible does sanction the lending of money. The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. See below for Biblical commentary, meaning, and advice concerning Biblical lending.

The Money Changer and His Wife


The Money-Changer and his Wife
Find More Christian Artwork...
Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
See Scripture Commentary: Proverbs 3:27 advises us to not withhold good things to those who are in need.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

What Does the Bible Say About Lending?


Bible Summary. The Bible does sanction the lending of money. The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. See below for Biblical commentary, meaning, and advice concerning Biblical lending.

The Money Changer and His Wife


The Money-Changer and his Wife
Find More Christian Artwork...
Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
See Scripture Commentary: Proverbs 3:27 advises us to not withhold good things to those who are in need.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

What Does the Bible Say About Lending?


Bible Summary. The Bible does sanction the lending of money. The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. See below for Biblical commentary, meaning, and advice concerning Biblical lending.

The Money Changer and His Wife


The Money-Changer and his Wife
Find More Christian Artwork...
Biblical Lending: The Bible Does Sanction Lending.
The Bible does sanction the lending of money. Having the ability to lend or give to others is evidence of God’s blessing of abundance to believers. God desires for us to be blessed, being able to lend and not having to borrow. God desires us to be free from lenders as well as free from the domination of others.
See Scripture Commentary: Deuteronomy 15:6 advises us that we should be lenders and not borrowers.
Biblical Lending: Do Not Lend to the Poor, Give to the Poor.
The Bible does not sanction lending money with interest to the poor. If a person is poor, they do not need a loan. They need charity and a help up.
See Scripture Commentary: Exodus 22:25 advises us to not to lend with interest to the poor.
Biblical Lending: Fair Lending Versus Predatory Lending.
The Bible teaches us that lending should be fair and it should not be an object of extortion and greed. When a lender seeks to maximize short-term gains at the expense of the borrower, the lender is out of the will of God.
See Scripture Commentary: Ezekiel 22:12 advises us against predatory lending.
Biblical Lending: Lend to Those Who Are in Need.
The Bible tells us that we should lend to those who are in need if it is in our power to do so. In many cases, it would cost us little or nothing to help someone else out that is in need. We should look for opportunities to help people that are in real need versus avoiding them.
See Scripture Commentary: Proverbs 3:27 advises us to not withhold good things to those who are in need.
- See more at: http://access-jesus.com/biblical-lending.html#sthash.1gJHj7NB.dpuf

Thursday 30 January 2014

The West, War and Islam - Ernst Zundel 1970



The West, War And Islam
Ernst Zundel 1970
Commentary From Ingrid Rimland
irimland@mail.bellsouth.net
3-6-5
Rense.com

Off Your Knees, Germany!

 Ernst Zundel 1983 - 2003

In 1984, Ernst Zundel was charged for "spreading false news" by a wealthy Holocaust survivor, Sabina Citron, on the basis of two documents: "The West, War, and Islam" and "Did Six Million Really Die?" At the conclusion of a dramatic seven-week, head-line making trial, he was pronounced innocent of having "spread false news" with his 4-page pamphlet, "The West, War, and Islam" but was pronounced guilty for having published - not written! - "Did Six Million Really Die?"
 
The rest is history.
 
Ever since, as all the world now knows, the Zundel name became synonymous with "Holocaust Denier."
 
The first pamphlet was conveniently forgotten. The booklet, "Did Six Million Really Die?" became the Zundel Mark of Cain.
 
Only recently has Ernst been cleverly "re-christened" by Judge Blais, a former CSIS boss, as the world's most influential "White Supremacist", allegedly intent on "destabilizing Germany" and being an "international threat to the community of nations."
 
====
 
As I have mentioned many times, only in 1994 did I meet Ernst and launch the Zundelsite to help him in his outreach. It must have been that year when I first read, edited, and updated "The West, War, and Islam" to make it more relevant to the mid-Nineties in order to ward off the various censorship attempts by vested political interests to silence Ernst's message and voice.
 
Then I forgot all about it.
 
Only this morning, as I re-read the small pamphlet, did it strike me as highly ironic - here is a man, decried as the world's most vociferous "racist" - and what did he say already more than 20 years ago? In the defense of which he paid hundreds of thousands of dollars? While his enemies had their fat bills paid from the government trough? And for which he is now held in prison in his native Germany?
 
You be the judge. It doesn't sound "racist" to me - as "racism" is now understood.
 
(One final thought, in brackets: The "Communism" Ernst describes in the pamphlet below is what good people now confront as Neo-Con style ideology. In previous decades, it was to us, who are of European background, plain murderous Soviet-style, Stalinist-style Communism. I disclaim any knowledge of what Arabs now call "Communism" which seems to be a different critter altogether, apparently connoting a liberation struggle of which we in the West don't have sufficient knowledge - or even curiosity.)
 
[START]
 
The West, War And Islam
 
By Ernst ZUNDEL
 
A message to the Islamic World: The Battle for Freedom Is Won Only in the Minds of Men: The West's distorted viewpoint of what is loosely called "the Arab world" is Danger Nr.1 for all the Islamic Nations
 
If the typical Islamic person could perceive what the typical Westerner thinks about him - his traditions, culture and religion - he would be amused, shocked, or perhaps even frightened. To the Western mind, the Islamic world is inscrutably bemusing - an exotic enigma, part fairy tale, part attitudes formed in colonial times in which, frequently, perfectly normal and logical acts are construed with misunderstandings and misgivings.
 
To the Westerner, the Islamic world is a lurid hodge-podge of exotic imagery - a myth adapted from 1001 Nights - comprised of huge harems, wild sex orgies, opulent palaces, flying carpets, incredible wealth, fierce warriors, hordes of thieves, shrewd and dishonest traders, cruelty and religious fanaticism.
 
Take away the flying carpets, and the West could be described in similar terms - but neither description would be accurate.
 
Not only do we need to consider this distorted Western viewpoint - which by itself, and minus its negative aspects, would be mere ignorance and relatively harmless - but we all must consider that these distorted viewpoints are deliberately being used and often magnified to goad the West into a future criminal war against the Islamic world. These unjust views, already previously held and reinforced since the Gulf War, are now the standard thinking by many Westerners - and are being used to JUSTIFY such wars!
 
The West has at its disposal tremendous media facilities for the education of the public, but until now, these facilities of information, education and entertainment have been largely used purposely to misinform, to miseducate, and to instill hatred against the Islamic peoples. Just as certainly, this situation has not come about by accident.
 
The West's mainstream media are controlled by a small group of unscrupulous men who know exactly what they are doing, and who will stop at nothing in order to attain their often criminal and murderous ends. This same group of media manipulators and its predecessors broadcast and published anti-German propaganda in both world wars and included the Japanese as victims and targets of their hate campaigns in the Second World War. These men are brainwashing experts. On their account, millions of Westerners, who had never met a German or Japanese, were inflamed with murderous hatred - sufficiently so that they killed millions of persons who might otherwise have been their customers and friends.
 
If it can be done against Germans and Japanese, it can be done against the Islamic peoples - and it is being done since 1947 against the Palestinians and Israel's neighbors.
 
We Germans have learned through our own sad experience since World War I and II that a nation's salvation lies in its reputation, and a nation's reputation depends upon truthful, unbiased information - not deliberate misinformation and misrepresentation! The same principle is true for the Islamic nations.
 
Let us now look upon the face of the enemy - your enemy and ours - who is responsible for endangering world peace, international understanding and, in consequence, your lives and ours.
 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL ZIONISTS
 
The leadership of the West is heavily influenced and often dominated by a small minority of this alien political persuasion. Political and religious Zionism plays a disproportionately large role in the West because of the Zionists' domination of the mass media of information, education and entertainment, the banking system, the secret societies and a globalist One World conspiracy by an out-of-touch financial and political, societal oligarchy of accumulated wealth and power.
 
Worse yet, these Zionist elements are aided and abetted by millions of brainwashed Christians and non-Christians who suffer from the previously mentioned media-created distortions about the Islamic world and its peoples, whom they believe mistakenly to be "bad", based on the stereotypical propaganda image.
 
Just as mistakenly, the brainwashed Christians of the West have been led to believe that some of these frequently quite vicious, greedy and often militant people who call themselves "Jews" are "good" - simply because the Christian Bible mentions "Jews" as "God's Chosen People". Ever since the beginning of World War II, the Zionists and their dupes and hirelings have used this self-serving myth as a tool for the deception of the Western Christian masses.
 
I as a German should know, for in Germany a person who questions any aspect of the Zionist version of history as expressed in the so-called "Holocaust" faces prison for up to five years! In Germany alone, over 5,800 people have been prosecuted and fined in the last few years. Hundreds have been jailed for expressing doubt about what even Jewish Professor Norman correctly refers to as "this Zionist version of the history of World War II"!
 
We see the results of this massive deceit - that is, that Zionist interests are identical to Western interests - in the many publications and pronouncements of organizations such as the "Councils of Christians and Jews", so-called "Brotherhood Weeks", "Interfaith Services", conventions, ecumenical workshops, and the like. Western Christians have become circumcised mentally by this incessant yet false propaganda!
 
Many Western people, and unfortunately even leaders of governments, have come to falsely identify "Jewish" - that is, frequently Zionist - interests with their own country's interests, which is exactly like a hypnotized person mistaking a deadly poison for nourishing food. We have even heard the famous singer and media personality, Pat Boone, a Christian, say that there are really only three kinds of Judaism: Orthodox, Reformed, and Christian - saying that Christianity is just another form of Judaism!
 
 

THE INTERNATIONAL SECRET SOCIETIES
 
Unknown to most people of the Islamic world is the tremendous power and influence exercised in the Western world by some branches of a politicized Freemasonry and all its cover organizations, such as the Kiwanis, Rotary, Lions, etc. Many important Western decision makers, politicians, economists, and military officers are either members of a secret society or are influenced and often dominated by such members. Any educated Muslim can recognize immediately the identity of Freemasonry with that of its secretive organizational predecessors in Arabic history. This is the same globalist satanic structure which we detect in some lodges of Freemasonry, such as the PII Lodge involved in the Calvi Affair in Italy in the early seventies - secrecy, duplicity, the exercise of undue influence, infiltration, corruption of officials and, where necessary, it seems, even assassination. That most Freemasons are often unaware of the directors and real directions of their secret organization or brotherhood does not, it seems, preclude their blind, uncritical support of this organization and their obedience to its directives.
 
The orientation and many of the rituals, emblems and graphic images of these secret societies of the West came directly from the Kabbala of the Babylonian Talmud. Their content is of allegedly ancient Egyptian-Jewish origin; many of their goals today are serving Jewish ends; and many of their lodge members and high-ranking Masons have been, and are, Jewish. This explains the consistent support of Freemasonry for the goals and machinations of International Zionism in its many forms. It also explains the politically involved Freemasons' consistent role in directing the advance of world crime, corruption, vice, poverty, war, revolution, collapse and chaos. All this is frequently directed from their high-ranking positions in the Western political, economic and, unfortunately, law enforcement and military establishments.
 
On behalf of the Zionists, the Gentile members of these secret societies have spread these plagues not only in the West, but throughout the entire world in which Western influence today has become all-pervasive. Many members, who become aware of their organizations' role in causing world suffering, leave disenchanted. Others obviously rationalize these horrors as mere desirable "change" and as necessary steps in the creation of a utopian world government, thus helping to fulfill their Zionist masters' messianic dreams.
 
President John F. Kennedy stated before his assassination that there were 17 million members of various quasi-Freemasonic secret societies in the U.S. alone. The most famous one of recent times is George Bush, who was a member of "Skulls and Bones" - some weird occult outfit. Most U.S. Presidents have been members of such secret societies - two notable exceptions being John F. Kennedy, who was removed from office by assassination, and, apparently, the non-Mason Nixon, who was replaced by 33rd degree Freemason, Gerald Ford.
 
In one's travels through America and other "Anglo-Saxon" countries, one frequently notices that the local Freemasonic temple is usually in close proximity to the seat of federal, state or local government - usually within easy walking distance of the various state capitals. So deeply accustomed are Westerners to the acceptance of these secret societies in their midst that they have no misgivings in electing or appointing known Freemasons to public office, even clearly though it will not always be in the public interest how these public officials act. Their acts will, of necessity, sometimes be in the interest of their secret society - otherwise, why become a member? And why all the secrecy - the secret passwords, the secret handshakes etc., which in itself makes the institution anti-democratic in that it gives its members a secret edge or "in"?
 
One has a right to suspect that such public officials' public policies will not be made in the broad, open, well-lit public offices, but often in the narrow, smoke-filled confines of secret conclaves in the company of their equally secret "lodge brothers". No wonder U.S. policy always differs in practice from the public pre-election promises made by many of these hypocrites!
 
Even a child could readily perceive the simple and obvious truth: no organization which claims to do only good, as claim the various Freemasonic organizations, need be secret. But brainwashed children become brainwashed adults, and the thorough Zionist brainwashing has made the Western majority blind to the enemy of Western traditions that works in their very midst. America as a nation is thoroughly brainwashed. But Americans are slowly waking up, thanks to the as yet uncensored information previously suppressed, but now ever more widely available - on the Internet!
 
But if many Westerners are blind to the dangers of secret societies, there is no need for the Islamic peoples to be equally blind!
 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL BANKERS
 
These men are the focal point for the dark forces arrayed against all mankind, for their control of the world's wealth directs and determines largely what is done or not done in the real world of commerce, industry and government, or whether what is done is for the greater public good or will produce evil for those who engage in evil schemes.
 
While the world bankers, it seems, act in perfect harmony with the Talmud, they act in perfect defiance of the Koran, for their wealth is based on the evil and sin of usury and thereby their wealth is acquired without honest, productive work. Judging from the state of the world today and the fruits of the bankers' policies, there can be no doubt about what these evil men are doing with the vast wealth we in America and Germany and the Arab nations have put at their disposal!
 
It is rarely, in the end, to our benefit. More often than not, it has led to hardships, wars, and the destruction of morals and ethics in our societies.
 
The Islamic nations are vulnerable to blackmail by the bankers of the world who can devalue the currencies of the Arab countries and thus, with the stroke of a pen, debauch their money derived from oil earnings. They can bribe and browbeat Western governments into freezing or seizing Islamic assets - as has happened to Iran, Iraq, and Libya, just to name a few.
 
But the foremost evil concocted and directed by the International Bankers was, and to some degree still is, International Communism!
 
 
INTERNATIONAL COMMUNISM
 
It is fashionable to say that "Communism is dead!" Nothing could be farther from the truth! Communism is not dead in the heads of tens of millions of brainwashed individual intellectuals, teachers, professors, influential individuals in the media and in education, both in the East and West. Communism has merely been repackaged and recycled - Red China is still Communist with its 1 billion people. Although the "threat of Communism" has been removed from Western thinking, the fear of Communism is deep. That's why it is still being used to smear the image of some of the Arab countries.
 
We of the West are constantly exposed to Zionist propaganda which claims that most Islamic peoples are pro-Communist, and that "little Israel" is our only "democratic", anti-Communist ally and bastion in the Middle East. This is an outright deception. The Laws of Islam forbid atheism!
 
Much is made by Zionist propagandists of the Islamic world's supposed connections with the former Soviet Union, and unfortunately all too little is known about the Islamic people's constant antagonism and often heroic resistance against the dark forces of atheistic, Soviet-style Communism. Few Westerners are aware of the contradictions in terms of a so-called "Islamic-Communist Revolution" - for that would be as absurd as to believe in "idealistic materialism" or "divine godlessness".
 
Even though "official Communism" is now supposedly dead, Communists of greater or lesser degrees still permeate the entire Western political, economic, industrial, mass media, and educational establishments. So "Red" have many Western government policies become that their own people no longer discern them as objectives of a Communist world domination by convinced Marxists who pursue their goals as ever. Its ways and means still are class struggle and revolution - by more clever means! That is the reason why we see crippling, politically motivated, recurring waves of strikes, inflation, deflation, and more strikes, combined with the systematic de-capitalization of the Western industrial economies.
 
Communism has always fed off and continues to feed off crisis situations - therefore, its agents of every hue from pallid pink to flaming red act to create as many crises as possible within the economic, cultural and social fabric of the West - in order to divide, conquer and yet rule the world. Their tactics have changed - not their goals! There has only been a change in the tactical applications.
 
The degree to which the West has been infiltrated and dominated and largely destroyed by Communists and their sympathizers for about 100 years is often unknown even to Westerners and most definitely to non-Westerners alike. What remains of the West is the glittering facade of an internally dilapidated edifice which has been so weakened and robbed of spirit by the many internal parasites and traitors, who have worked as diligently as termites, that the entire structure of the West is threatened with a Soviet Union-like collapse or implosion.
 
It has happened before to great nations. If it could happen to ancient Egypt, Greece, Persia and Rome, it certainly can also happen to the West, which each day more resembles these ancient civilizations in its abundance of material possessions and in its poverty of spirit, courage, and wisdom - especially in its will to defend itself in order to survive.
 
What can be done to arrest and, finally, to reverse this dangerous decline? How and when can we begin to save ourselves from the international destroyers and enslavers of mankind?
 
 
SALVATION MUST COME THROUGH INFORMATION: OUR PROPOSAL FOR TODAY - TOMORROW MAY BE TOO LATE!
 
The ancient writings of many peoples have noted the fundamental importance of information in statements such as: "The Truth Shall Make You Free" and "Our people are destroyed for lack of knowledge". Resolute human action has always depended upon sound, solid information, and the best way of bringing truthful information to the people who need it is via the mass media of the press, radio, television, educational material, motion pictures, mainstream novels - and now the globe-girdling Internet!
 
The Islamic world has the financial means to publish, broadcast or otherwise disseminate the historical, factual data leading to the truth - which alone can halt the Zionist drive to new wars and more chaos - but because this information would come from and by means of "foreign sources", it would be subject to disbelief, censorship, interception, jamming and/or outright confiscation. Open or outright Arab ownership, like Iranian- or Syrian-owned newspapers or TV stations of any major Western newspaper, magazine, radio or TV station would also face swift government sanctions, including censorship and seizure.
 
A practical alternative would be the establishment of independently owned and operating channels of communication and information within the countries of the West, staffed by more fair-minded native Westerners. There are still many independent, well-informed, courageous and talented people with organizational ability here in the West. Even at this late hour, not all Western men of worth, intelligence and courage have sold themselves into Zionist control or mental slavery. Many are alert and wise to what has happened to Western society - and why.
 
Many more are waking up daily! Many millions are now ready to listen.
 
There are at this moment already in existence organizations which, if properly funded, could become the nucleus of an independent, worldwide information network capable of countering the now virtually unopposed Zionist disinformation and hate propaganda networks. One such example is the Zundelsite, a United States based website that has exposed the so-called "Holocaust" as an extortion tool used systematically against the two most ardent supporters of Israel - Germany and the United States.
 
No Internet website has been so attacked by German and Canadian government and private censorship forces as has the Zundelsite. This California-based website has, so far, withstood all attacks because it operates under the umbrella protection of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing freedom of speech, and it is flush with information supplied by independent Western thinkers who call the Zionists' bluff and the so-called "Holocaust" the "Hoax of the Century" that yields Israel the money, power and excuse to occupy the Palestinians and to intimidate its neighbors such as Syria, Lebanon, Iran and other Arab nations. Since its brief existence, more than 2.5 million Holocaust-related documents have been accessed by people the world over.
 
Take the Holocaust away, and you will have severed the financial water well that feeds an evil oligarchy and repressive system!
 
That is what we CAN do with carefully packaged and tailored information. We have already done some of this work in a limited fashion, but we lack the money to do so much more. The Nations of Islam are entitled to an adequate informational defense. Many people of the West are growing wary and weary of Zionists and their criminal claims and aims.
 
If the necessary funds were available to us and to our organization, we could begin such a public truth-in-history information campaign immediately.
 
Please consider seriously what we are proposing:
 
* For the cost of one airplane, a whole nation could be informed about the true aims of one or more Islamic countries.
 
 
* For the cost of one tank, a public information film could be produced and shown, over and over again, on Satellite television covering all of North America, to audiences eager to be informed.
 
 
* For the cost of a missile, a book could be published and sent free of charge to all the news media representatives of the West
 
. * For the cost of one artillery shell, a well-trained speaker could present the Islamic cause at a university symposium or international gathering.
 
 
* For the cost of a few rifles, 500 information-packed video or audio tape cassettes could be sent to radio stations around the world.
 
 
* For the cost of one rifle bullet, stamps could be bought for 10 letters bearing the message of inter-ethnic harmony through truth and understanding to the remotest corners of the world.
 
 
Are expensive and rapidly obsolescent military weapons preferable to information about the harmful nature of the "Holocaust" - information which can bring better understanding and thus more balanced policies which will achieve lasting peace? Are weapons purchases preferable to the word of God? Are we just going to continue to enrich the capitalist and Zionist warmongers of East and West by continuing to buy their killing machines so as to destroy ourselves all the more efficiently? The Gulf War should have been a wake-up call for us all - East and West, North and South! First World, Second World, or Third World!
 
Surely, none of us want this! Not Muslims, not Westerners!
 
There is a better way - the way of truthful information. Our way.
 
Roger Garaudy, the French Revisionist and convert to Islam has already taken the Arab countries by storm. And why? It's very simple: The key is in the exposure of the so-called Holocaust or alleged genocide of the Jews. This evil hoax has made two of the richest Western nations mentally subservient to the Zionists, helped them spread their misinformation, and is giving them practically unlimited financial means for their repressive and destructive policies and ends.
 
We are ready to help you today. Do you understand us? If yes, are you ready to help us? Tomorrow may be too late for both of us.
 
Ernst Zundel

The Ugly Truth Podcast August 3, 2010

August 2, 2010
The enemy within--Mark Dankof and former Green Beret captain Joe Cortina join the discussion concerning the latest inane 'articles' written by Devvy Kidd pinpointing 'Islam' as the real threat to America.
Listen Now:
 

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