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Wednesday, March 16, 2016

GROWING NUMBER OF MAJOR U.S. CORPORATIONS EMBRACING EASTERN MEDITATION PRACTICES

spiritual-living
GROWING NUMBER OF MAJOR U.S. CORPORATIONS EMBRACING EASTERN MEDITATION PRACTICES
BY GARRETT HALEY
SEE: http://christiannews.net/2016/03/14/growing-number-of-major-u-s-corporations-embracing-eastern-meditation-practices/; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

A growing number of major American corporations are offering meditation, mindfulness and yoga programs for their employees, practices that are believed to have originated in pagan Eastern religions.
Last week, the California-based software company Salesforce generated media attention for putting meditation rooms on every floor of the company’s newest corporate office building in San Francisco.
Marc Benioff, who is Salesforce’s CEO and an outspoken proponent of homosexual marriage, said the meditation rooms facilitate “mindfulness.”
“There’s a ‘mindfulness’ zone where employees can put their phones into a basket or whatever, and go into an area where there’s quietness,” he stated, according to “Business Insider.” “I think this is really important to cultivating innovation in your company.”
Fifty miles southeast of Salesforce’s San Francisco office, Google offers a meditation course called “Search Inside Yourself” to workers in its Silicon Valley headquarters. More than a thousand Google employees have been through the mindfulness training course, which promotes Eastern meditation practices.
“It’s not just Google that’s embracing Eastern traditions,” a report from “Wired.com” explained. “Across the Valley, quiet contemplation is seen as the new caffeine, the fuel that allegedly unlocks productivity and creative bursts.”
Google’s meditation routines are designed to help employees “search for meaning and emotional connection.”
Google is one of many technological companies that has come to embrace meditation and mindfulness programs. Facebook, also headquartered in California’s Silicon Valley, provides a meditation room for employees and is actively seeking to infuse Buddhist values into its corporate culture.
“While many other Silicon Valley companies are teaching their employees to meditate, Facebook is trying to inject a Buddhist-inspired concept of compassion into the core of its business,” “Wired.com” reports.
Many other technological companies have begun promoting Buddhist-inspired meditation techniques. AOL Time Warner offers quiet rooms for employees to refresh and mentally refocus. Yahoo! encourages workers to take advantage of meditation rooms. And Apple reportedly allows employees to take 30 minutes each day to meditate at work.
Why are yoga and meditation so popular among corporate giants of the tech field? Some trace the trend back to the early pioneers of computers and the Internet.
“Many of the people who shaped the personal computer industry and the Internet were once members of the hippie counterculture,” wrote Noah Shachtman on “Wired.com.” “So an interest in Eastern faiths is all but hardwired into the modern tech world.”
This interest in Eastern faiths is not limited to California-based tech giants, however; many non-technological companies are also working meditation routines into their corporate schedules. According to recent articles from The Wall Street Journal and Harvard Business Review, General Mills, Target, Bank of America, and Goldman Sachs Groups have all started offering mindfulness programs.
“Across the country there’s a loosening up of social mores right now and things like yoga and meditation just are not as foreign or as taboo as they once were,” said David Gelles, author of the book “Mindful Work: How Meditation Is Changing Business from Inside the Out,” in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “Yoga has become extremely popular.”
As meditation, yoga and related practices grow more popular among American workplaces, a number of respected Christian leaders have voiced concerns over the practices’ ties to unbiblical Eastern religions. Dr. Albert Mohler of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary describes yoga as “a spiritual discipline by which the adherent is trained to use the body as a vehicle for achieving consciousness of the divine.”
“There is nothing wrong with physical exercise, and yoga positions in themselves are not the main issue,” Mohler wrote in a blog post titled “The Subtle Body—Should Christians Practice Yoga?” “But these positions are teaching postures with a spiritual purpose.”
“Christians who practice yoga are embracing, or at minimum flirting with, a spiritual practice that threatens to transform their own spiritual lives into a ‘post-Christian, spiritually polyglot’ reality,” he concluded. “Should any Christian willingly risk that?”
________________________________________________________
FROM LIGHTHOUSE TRAILS RESEARCH:
http://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2016/newsletter20160315.htm; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Fortune 500: 
“Meditation Has Become A Billion-Dollar Business”
The New Age effort to transform business is very real and becoming more successful all the time.—Ray Yungen
By Jen Wieczner
Fortune
In 2015 the meditation and mindfulness industry raked in nearly $1 billion, according to research by IBISWorld, which breaks out the category from the alternative health care sector. But even that doesn’t count the revenue from the nearly 1000 mindfulness apps now available, according to Sensor Tower (top app Headspace recently raised $30 million and has been downloaded 6 million times), or the burgeoning category of wearable gadgets designed to help people Zen out (the popular Muse connected headband measures brain activity during meditation for $299).
This year 22% of employers will offer mindfulness training—typically priced between $500 and $10,000 for large-group sessions—a percentage that could double in 2017, according to a forthcoming survey by Fidelity Investments and the National Business Group on Health. The non-profit Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, a mindfulness training program incubated at Google, grew revenue more than 50% last year by offering two-day workshops (up to $35,000 for 50 people) to dozens of other Fortune 500 companies, including Ford F -1.06% and American Express AXP -1.36% . Click here to continue reading.
A Related Article by Ray Yungen Showing the Implications of New Age in Business:
If there was one single group to whom the promise of creating one’s own reality would have specific appeal, it would be business people. The competition in the corporate world is so keen that anything, no matter how unusual, may be eagerly embraced if it offers results. As they say in the business world, the bottom line is success.
The way New Age thought has crept into corporations is simple to understand. Management trainers and human resource developers hold positions where they can incorporate metaphysics into business under titles such as Intuition Development, Right Brain Creativity, and Superlearning. The New Age nature of these seminars may be introduced by employers either intentionally or unwittingly. The New Age Journal states:
An unconventional new breed of consultant has surfaced on the corporate lecture circuit. They speak of meditation, energy flow and tapping into the unused potential of the mind. What’s more, they are spreading their Arcane curriculum not only among the alternative entrepreneurs who populate the capitalist fringe, but within the heart of corporate America as well. General Electric, IBM, Shell, Polaroid, and the Chase Manhattan Bank are sending their fast-trackers to crash courses in, strange as it may sound, intuition.1
Once, while attending a New Age convention, I was told by one of these new breeds that resistance to New Age concepts in business was being replaced by a new openness. “How you focus it is all important,” he began, and then added:
If you barge in with occult lingo it turns them off right away. You have to tell them how you can make their employees happier and get more productivity out of them—then they will listen. You are really teaching metaphysics, but you present it as human development.
The Quiet Revolution
This approach has tremendous appeal because companies naturally want to get the most out of their people. New Agers know this approach works to their advantage. One trainer defines her role the following way:
There is something new in the fact that businesses are taking an active interest in the potential of these techniques to bring about transformational change within large groups of people for organizational ends. You have to deal with the whole person—body, mind and spirit—if real change is to happen.2
In one interview, New Age writer Marilyn Ferguson echoes the same theme:
Business leaders have, by and large, exhausted materialistic values and are often open to spiritual values… What’s more, top-level business people are not afraid of the transformative process, and typically, after I speak to them, they say, “I didn’t know that such things were possible. I don’t understand everything you’re saying, but I’m going to find out about it.” Whereas most people who don’t understand new concepts automatically reject them, business people, who by nature are trained in risk taking, go after them.3
Dennis T. Jaffe, Ph.D., founder and director of the Learning for Health Clinic in Los Angeles, had this to say:
Many progressive companies are incorporating some of the inner-directed exercises I mentioned [in meditation and visualization] into their “manual of procedures” . . . These changes point to a quiet, inner-directed revolution that is reshaping many companies into being agents of self-realization. . . . Many social thinkers, such as Marilyn Ferguson, believe that because of its openness to change, business has the greatest potential for spiritualizing the world. (emphasis mine)4
A number of courses, books, and individuals are having a great impact on the business world. Michael Ray and Rochelle Myers have written a book titled Creativity in Business. The book is based on a Stanford University course that they claim has “revolutionized the art of success.”5 Two people who enthusiastically endorse this book are Spencer Johnson, MD., coauthor of The One Minute Manager, and Tom Peters, coauthor of In Search of Excellence. Silicon Valley Bank Chairman, N.W. Medearis, says the book is “an experience which will leave one significantly changed.”6
Ray and Myers acknowledge that the book takes much of its inspiration from “Eastern philosophies, mysticism, and meditation techniques” and that “dozens of America’s brightest and most successful business practitioners and entrepreneurs have contributed to the course and to this book.”7
It is absolutely amazing how unabashed Creativity in Business is in recommending its source of creativity. In one section we find the heading, “Getting in Touch with Your Inner Guide.” It reads:
In this exercise you meet your wisdom-keeper or spirit guide—an inner person who can be with you in life, someone to whom you can turn for guidance.8
These beings are contacted either through meditative breathing exercises or with mantra meditation. If there is any doubt the book is talking about New Age meditation, it is resolved upon reading:
As meditation master Swami Muktananda says: “We do not meditate just to relax a little and experience some peace. We meditate to unfold our inner being.”9
Tarot cards are even presented as a source of creativity. As with other New Age categories, it begins with breathing exercises (or as the book says, go into silence). The person then picks the cards, which are supposed to give “some important insights.”10
A new generation of New Age business gurus is starting to emerge on the scene. One of the more prominent is T. Harv Eker, who leads “Millionaire Mind Seminars” through his company Peak Potentials Training. This is one of the fastest growing corporate training companies in the country today, with 250,000 trainees to date. What these eager folks learn is apparent by Eker’s statement that his “Mission is to educate and inspire people to live in their Higher Self.”11
This is a typical approach. You will recall an earlier quote, “businessmen eat this stuff up, the experience sells itself.” That is why it is making such headway, it works. If these methods work for people in business today the way they worked for Madame Blavatsky in finding the woman’s lost brooch related in chapter two, then it’s easy to see the implications of metaphysics in the business world.
Quite often I will hear people from a certain age group and social outlook dismiss what I am researching with terms such as “weirdo hippie religion.” When I hear this, I think of articles appearing in such well respected magazines as U.S. News & World Report which paint a far different picture. One article in particular dealt specifically with New Age spirituality in the corporate world. It was called “Shush. The Guy in the Cubicle is Meditating.” The article disclosed that such consultants had become “the darlings of business circles”12 and not just any business circles:
[W]hen 2,000 global powerbrokers gathered for the elite World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the agenda included confabs on “spiritual anchors for the new millennium” and “the future of meditation in a networked economy.” Indeed, 30 MBA programs now offer courses on the issue. It’s also the focus of the . . . Harvard Business School Bulletin. (emphasis mine)13
What this shows is that the dismissal of New Age spirituality as hippy/dippy is very much outdated and unsound. As one corporate trainer proudly proclaimed, “What’s new is that it’s just entered the mainstream.”
Corporate “Wellness”
Creativity is not the only New Age avenue into the corporate scene. Health and fitness programs presented in the context of corporate wellness are becoming increasingly popular. Executives give a willing ear to ways of keeping productivity up and absenteeism down.
Many of these programs have metaphysical motives within them. One such wellness expert promoting total health explained how she was able to teach mantra meditation to a group of businessmen:
Just yesterday I met with a whole room of executives for breakfast—top executives in a huge multinational company. . . . Here were these executives closing their eyes and breathing deeply into their abdomens, and quieting their mind by repeating just one word—“relax, relax.”14
Earlier in the interview this woman related how she had “studied metaphysics” and “meditated three or four times a day for direction.”15
In her joy at being able to subtly introduce meditation to those who would have rejected it as being too “far out” otherwise, she commented: “Ten years ago in an American company I would have been thrown out in the street, I’m sure.”16
Business—The Most Logical Candidate
The New Age effort to transform business is very real and becoming more successful all the time. When asked in an interview about where he thought the vanguard of transformation was in the country today, New Ager James Fadiman replied:
What’s fascinating to me is that when I met recently with some of the old-timers in the movement, I discovered that all of us had expanded from working in growth centers to working in American business. What the business community needs, wants, and appreciates at this time are insights from the human potential movement. . . . I’m finding executives who, twenty years ago, considered the human potential movement a kind of joke and who are now recruiting specialists into the most conservative industries.17
Larry Wilson, coauthor of The One Minute Sales Person, clearly stated in an interview that metaphysics is the core of what is being taught:
The heart of our new management training represents a return to the ancient spiritual wisdom about the true identity and power of the individual. In our courses, we aim to empower people so they can get in touch with their creative Source and then apply the potential to every part of their lives, including their work life. (emphasis mine)18
Wilson also revealed in the interview that it is the higher self that is at the heart of this “ancient spiritual wisdom.” He explained:
Once a sufficient number of employees get in touch with their true potential, the organization changes . . . it helps to have top management in tune with it.19
In another interview, the late futurist and New Age leader Willis Harman acknowledged that:
Some of the most creative and successful people in business are really part of this new paradigm movement. You can find this sort of talk going on in business. In fact, a group of business executives and myself got together and created something we call the World Business Academy, which is a network of business executives who have already gone through their own personal transformations to a considerable extent and are asking: “What’s the new role of business? What’s the new corporation?”20
International Management magazine revealed that many of the major European corporations are also eagerly embracing New Age spirituality. Included in the list were the Bank of England and the UK’s Ministry of Defense and Cabinet Office.21
The previously mentioned individuals, and numerous others like them, are working diligently within the corporate world to bring about a paradigm shift of potentially staggering proportions. Larry Wilson acknowledged this by saying, “This new approach is changing the corporation, and that change will affect other institutions of our Society.”22
This is not an understatement. In the 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World Transforming by the Institute of Noetic Sciences (a New Age think tank), it reveals:
Since 1994 more than 100,000 executives from 56 countries have taken the Self-Management and Leadership Course (SML). SML is a two-day residential retreat inspired by the principles of raja yoga, which advocates inner stillness through breathwork, movement, meditation, and self-inquiry as a path to wisdom and inner balance.23
New Agers know that if they can transform business, they will have transformed the world. The reason for this is that business and government feed into each other, so to speak. Many politicians are also business people, or lawyers with strong ties to business. Also, many politicians go back into the corporate world when they leave office. The two cultures are profoundly intertwined. If the corporate world goes New Age (as we see it doing) the world of government isn’t far behind. (For more information on how the New Age has come into our North American society, read For Many Shall Come in My Name by Ray Yungen.)
Endnotes:
1. E. Armstrong, “Bottom-Line Intuition” (New Age Journal, December 1985), p. 32.
2. “What’s New in the New Age?” (Training Magazine, September 1987), p. 25.
3. Interview with Marilyn Ferguson (Science of Mind magazine, May 1983), pp. 11-12.
4. “From Burnout to Balance,” Interview with Dennis Jaffe, Ph.D., (Science of Mind magazine, June 1985), pp. 88-89.
5. Michael Ray and Rochelle Meyers, Creativity in Business (Garden City, New York, NY: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1986), front cover.
6. Ibid., back cover.
7. Ibid., back flap.
8. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
9. Ibid., p. 142.
10. Ibid., p. 154.
11. T. Harv Eker, author of Secrets of the Millionaire Mind; quote taken from Eker’s Peak Potentials Training website, http://www.peakpotentials.com/new, accessed 11/2011.
12. Marci McDonald, “Shush. The Guy in the Cubicle is Meditating: Spirituality is the latest corporate buzzword” (U.S. News & World Report, May 3, 1999), p. 46.
13. Ibid.
14. Kathy Juline, “Wellness Works: A New Lifestyle for a New World,” Interview with Elaine Willis, Ph.D. (Science of Mind magazine, June 1990), p. 25.
15. Ibid., pp. 19-20.
16. Ibid.
17. Interview with James Fadiman (Science of Mind magazine, June 1988), p. 77.
18. “Changing the Game in Business,” Interview with Larry Wilson (Science of Mind magazine, February 1987), p. 10.
19. Ibid., p. 14.
20. Willis Harman, “The New Age of Consciousness” (Guide to New Age Living, 1989), pp. 18, 20.
21. “Disciples of the New Age,” (International Management magazine, March, 1991), p. 45.
22. Larry Wilson interview, op. cit., p. 31.
23. 2007 Shift Report: Evidence of a World Transforming Journal (Petaluma, CA: Institute of Noetic Sciences, March-May 2007, No. 14, 2007), p. 55.




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Tuesday, March 15, 2016

FEDS ENLIST SCHOOLS IN WAR ON "EXTREMIST" CHILDREN

FEDS ENLIST SCHOOLS IN WAR ON "EXTREMIST" CHILDREN 
BY ALEX NEWMAN
SEE: http://www.thenewamerican.com/culture/education/item/22745-feds-enlist-schools-in-war-on-extremist-children; republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:

In one of its most Orwellian schemes to date, the Obama administration is taking a page from Communist East Germany's infamous Stasi by asking school teachers to start spying on American students so “extremists” can be reported to the FBI and other law-enforcement agencies. Among others in the federal government's cross-hairs: pro-life activists, anarchists, environmentalists, animal-rights activists, Muslims, religious students critical of “Western corruption,” constitutionalists, and even children who simply criticize or question authorities too much.
In a January 2016 unclassified FBI document about “preventing violent extremism in schools,” the FBI comes across as paranoiacs imagining that there are “extremist” children hiding under every bed. “High school students are ideal targets for recruitment by violent extremists seeking support for their radical ideologies,” claims the agency, which has become increasingly politicized under the Obama administration. “High schools must remain vigilant in educating their students about catalysts that drive violent extremism and the potential consequences of embracing extremist beliefs.” It claims there is a "very fine line" between protected speech and thought crimes.
Much of the document sounds unhinged and downright preposterous. For example, the document frets about “violent propaganda,” suggesting the federal government now believes free speech can somehow be violent. The FBI scheme also warns that children are supposedly “embracing violent extremism by maintaining biases towards others due to their race, religion, or sexual orientation.” In other words, mere disapproval of homosexuality, Islam, and more can now considered “extremism,” and the Obama FBI wants schools and teachers to join the war on such “extremism.” In Communist East Germany, the murderous dictatorship and its “State Security” agency, known as the Stasi, were also infamous for using teachers as snitches in addition to their brainwashing duties.  
The Obama FBI warns schools that “more youth” are supposedly ready to “embrace extremist ideologies.” Some of them even “view hatred” as an “acceptable outlet for their grievances.” Why the FBI believes its job description includes students' ideologies, biases, or hatreds is not made clear in the document, despite the ham-handed effort to equate “ideologies” the government dislikes — such as “anti-government views” and"abortion [pro-life] extremism" — with terrorism and violence. The Obama administration has previously claimed that returning veterans, constitutionalists, pro-life activists, liberty lovers, people suspicious of federal authority, anti-immigration activists, Ron Paul supporters, and others are extremists or even potential terrorists, too.
Of course, as The New American reported in 2014, much of the “terrorism” that does exist in the United States today is actually attributable directly to the FBI. Indeed, the U.S. government often manufactures and creates the alleged “terrorism threats” it purports to be fighting, in some cases even prodding mentally challenged dupes into bogus “plots” that authorities concocted in the first place. A report by Human Rights Watch and Columbia Law School’s Human Rights Institute found that almost every high-profile domestic terror case across America between the September 11 attacks and the 2014 report featured the “direct involvement” of government agents or informants. In some cases, virtually the entire “terrorism” plot — from start to finish — was actually led and financed by government operatives.
Those troubling facts aside, the Obama FBI claims to be “committed” to helping schools with “extremism.” Among other ways to address it, the agency calls for enhancing “student social and emotional well-being,” code words for sending in swarms of tax-funded psychiatrists and psychologists. The document also pushes more “information sharing” on American children between government agencies, as if not enough of that was going on. It seeks to “deter youth from embracing extremist ideologies,” too, with “extremist ideologies” defined by the same federal bureaucracies packed full of anti-Constitution extremists.
If finding extremism is the goal, though, a good place to start would be the Obama administration. Obama, of course, famously launched his political career in the home of confessed communist terrorist Bill Ayers, whose Castro-backed terror group, the Weather Underground, murdered police officers and bombed multiple federal facilities. According to the FBI's Larry Grathwohl, who infiltrated the terrorist group, the Weathermen, as they were called, were hoping to round up and exterminate millions of “counter-revolutionaries” with help from the regimes in Cuba, Moscow, Beijing, and more. Now that is violent extremism. But that is not the sort of extremism the Obama FBI wants teachers to seek out.    
Meanwhile, the Obama administration continues to shower weapons and money on violent extremist dictatorships and U.S.-designated terror groups across the Middle East and worldwide. From a deliberate plan to create an Islamist principality in Eastern Syria (now known as ISIS) to unlawfully supporting multiple communist and Islamist terror groups officially designated as banned terrorist organizations by the U.S. government, Obama has violated multiple federal terror laws under various pretexts.
Ironically, the FBI's definition of “violent extremism” in the document —  “encouraging, condoning, justifying, or supporting the commission of a violent act to achieve political, ideological, religious, social or economic goals” — could quite properly be applied to dozens of actions perpetrated by the Obama administration, maybe more. From arming jihadists in Syria and bombing Libya to smithereens in an alliance with al-Qaeda without congressional approval, to admittedly arming the communist PKK, al-Qaeda, and even Mexican drug cartels in Operation Fast and Furious, Obama has flagrantly and repeatedly defied federal terror laws. An everyday citizen would be in prison for a long time.
But instead of investigating those clear, admitted federal crimes, the FBI apparently prefers to focus on schoolkids who question government or disagree with homosexuality.    
The FBI does pretend to be inclusive in its search for extremists in schools. It claims to be looking for movements “including but not limited to white supremacists, animal rights and eco-terrorists, and anti-government or radical separatist groups.” So-called “violations,” the document continues, include “hate-based activities.” It was not clear when the FBI imagines that “hate” became a crime. And while it may sound nice to persecute haters, the document itself suggests that the sort of “hate” the Obama administration is seeking out involves, among others elements, “biases” against “sexual orientation.”
In short, Christians with a biblical worldview who disagree with the notion of a homosexual “marriage” are in the cross-hairs. The far-left Southern Poverty Law Center, which praises communist terrorist Bill Ayers on its website and works with tentacles of the Obama administration, regularly labels mainstream Christian groups as “hate groups” for their religious beliefs on the sanctity of marriage. And the FBI document is packed with SPLC-style rhetoric, even going so far as to attack the influence of families and parents on their children. It says, for example, that the beliefs of adults who embrace “extremist ideologies” can “permeate family norms, oftentimes influencing children.” If you disagree with Obama's “fundamental transformation” of America, they are looking at you. Aside from parental influence, “unobserved space” and the Internet are both key targets.
When students do display views and attitudes the Obama administration dislikes, the FBI calls on schools to create “intervention” plans in conjunction with federal and state agencies. “An intervention cadre should contain professionals from the local community representing multiple disciplines such as mental health, social workers, law enforcement, school resource officers, faith-based organizations, and/or crisis intervention teams,” the document states. Schools should also report children to law enforcement.  
The news that the FBI was conscripting teachers in their hunt for “extremist” children made headlines worldwide. In the United States, across media outlets ranging from Alternet on the far-left to alternative liberty-minded sources such as Infowars, commentators slammed the FBI's scheme as an assault on civil liberties and common sense. Even media outlets backed and controlled by authoritarian-minded governments — Kremlin-run news services, for example, and even media controlled by Iran's mullahs — seized on the document to paint the U.S. government as increasingly unhinged and totalitarian.
Critics from across the political spectrum also blasted the FBI plot. Anti-“Islamophobia” author Arun Kundnani, for example, slammed the government for drawing on “the junk science of radicalization models” and noted that the document “dangerously blurs the distinction between legitimate ideological expression and violent criminal actions.” ACLU staff attorney Hugh Handeyside with the left-wing outfit's national security project, meanwhile, said that “broadening the definition of violent extremism to include a range of belief-driven violence underscores that the FBI is diving head-first into community spying.” “Framing this conduct as ‘concerning behavior’ doesn’t conceal the fact that the FBI is policing students’ thoughts and trying to predict the future based on those thoughts,” Handeyside added. Kurt Nimmo at Infowars, citing whistle-blowers from the intelligence community, highlighted the parallels between the increasingly extreme tactics and machinations of the U.S. government and those used by the brutal communist dictatorship that terrorized East Germany for generations.
Even more extreme “extremism” scheming is happening in the United Kingdom, where authorities are telling teachers to report students with negative views on homosexuality to police and social services. More recently, U.K. authorities, as part of their war on so-called “non-violent extremism,” launched a crackdown on homeschooling families and even Christian Sunday schools, which must now register with the government. Prime Minster David Cameron even asked the United Nations — primarily composed of extremist non-democratic governments of various varieties, such as communist, socialist, Islamist, and military dictatorships — to help wage a global jihad on what he called “non-violent extremism.” Obama and the UN teamed up to launch a planetary war on “ideologies,” too.
In the United States, virtually everyone with an opinion has been declared a potential terrorist or extremist by the Obama administration in recent years. The U.S. Defense Department was even caught teaching U.S. troops that Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox Jews were “religious extremists” like al-Qaeda and Hamas. And now, the discredited SPLC, widely criticized as an “anti-Christian hate group” or a money-making scam, is working with Obama's new domestic “terror” czar to target conservatives, Christians, libertarians, constitutionalists, and others the SPLC hates. The SPLC's propaganda was also cited in 2012 by a convicted anti-Christian terrorist who attempted to slaughter employees at the pro-family Family Research Council. 
Buried within all of the extreme rhetoric urging schools to wage war on ideologies the government does not like, there may be some information that might be useful, perhaps. However, the document paints a picture of a federal government that is totally out of control, suggesting that assaults on liberty, privacy, thought crimes, and people who disagree with out-of-control government will soon accelerate without concerted action to rein in Washington, D.C.
Schools and all Americans should reject the Obama administration's fear-mongering and extremism. Instead, parents and concerned citizens should work to educate others about the dangers of totalitarian government, and hold officials accountable to the U.S. Constitution they all swore to uphold.
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U.S. RANCHERS ON BORDER PLEAD FOR HELP AMID ONSLAUGHT

U.S. RANCHERS ON BORDER PLEAD FOR HELP AMID ONSLAUGHT 
BY ALEX NEWMAN
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:



Hundreds of distraught ranchers and other citizens living near the increasingly dangerous U.S.-Mexico border met with elected officials in the small town of Animas, New Mexico, last week to share their horror stories of lawlessness and plead for proper border security. Despite bogus claims by politicians and the Obama administration about the southern border region allegedly being “secure,” those speaking at the summit blasted the “invasion” and said the security situation was spiraling out of control. It is time for serious action, local citizens said.



Smugglers and other criminals are pouring across the often undefended border, residents explained, jeopardizing their livelihoods and even their lives — not to mention national security. Some of the speakers had even lost loved ones in the lawlessness. And despite years of pleading with federal and state officials for help, residents, activists, and ranchers sounded exasperated, saying their pleas had gone unanswered so far. More boots on the ground are needed, locals said. At least one retired lawman suggested that sheriffs deputize citizens. Some attendees even called for deploying troops to the border. 



 Inspiring the meeting, according to attendees quoted in media reports, was the kidnapping of a local American ranch hand. The victim reportedly happened upon a caravan of drug runners from the other side of the border while working on a cattle ranch in New Mexico's “Bootheel” region along the border with Mexico. Tricia Elbrock, co-owner of the company that employs the kidnapping victim, was quoted in the Albuquerque Journal recounting what happened in December of last year.



“They kidnapped him, tied him up, threw all our tools out and fittings and loaded our company vehicle with all the drugs,” Elbrock explained. “They waited 'til dark to leave the ranch. They needed him to help guide them through to the highway.... This is still pretty raw. We got him back safe. They did rough him up, but we got him back. It’s a mess. I don’t know what to tell you. We have got to have help down here.” The FBI is investigating.



At the meeting, the wife and son of Robert Krentz, a prominent Arizona rancher murdered by a suspected illegal border crosser on his own property, also spoke out. “Fifteen-hundred people have been killed by illegal immigrants since Rob was killed,” Krentz's widow Sue was quoted as saying in media reports. “My message is we need to secure the border. We don't need to create new laws, we need to enforce the ones we have.... We are now witnessing brutal mob behavior and many have no intent to assimilate into the community.”



So far, the government has ignored the desperate pleas for help. “When we asked for better security on the border, we were told security is not to be expected,” Sue continued. “Families on the border — our lives are expendable.” She also displayed a T-shirt after the meeting that was covered with the names and dates of Americans killed by illegal immigrants. “Let's never have more names on a Stolen Lives Quilt or the back of a T-shirt,” she was quoted as saying. “Stop this invasion!”



Robert Krentz, Sue's husband, was murdered in March of 2010 after ranching on the Krentz ranch since 1977. The family had been ranching in the area since the 19th century, according to reports. He was shot and killed after going out and reporting having seen an immigrant in need of assistance — a common occurrence in the area. While law enforcement initially suspected an illegal immigrant of the slaying, investigations later suggested a smuggler could have been responsible.



Frank Krentz, the murder victim's son, told attendees at the meeting that the family used to help out immigrants in trouble on their ranch. “We approached them as Christians, even after we had our house broken into, our vehicles and things stolen, our waterline broken,” the younger Krentz was quoted as saying by Arizona Range News. “But after losing my father, all that has changed. We don't put ourselves in situations where we risk getting hurt.”



“This is a problem that needs more attention than what is given to it,” Frank also said.



Others speaking out at the townhall-style meeting included fellow ranchers who warned of similar problems and called for more Border Patrol agents to be placed along the border, where in the area the agents are often stationed dozens of miles from the border. One speaker also asked that ranchers and residents be notified when there are incidents in their area, because it exposes their homes to danger when criminals are fleeing to elude capture. Also sounding the alarm was a veterinarian, who warned about the health implications for livestock, the economy, and even humans of not being able to properly test people coming across the border for diseases.   



A video that was played highlighted some of the numbers involved, underscoring the enormity of the problem. According to the video, more than 1.5 million pounds of marijuana and cocaine were seized by the U.S. Border Patrol in 2015 in the area. That same year, more than 330,000 Mexican citizens and almost 150,000 “other than Mexicans” were apprehended. That includes more than a few coming from nations known for major problems with terrorism, tyranny, and anti-American hatred.



The meeting, which took place in Animas less than 50 miles away from the border, featured the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association. More than 500 people attended, including local, state, and federal officials, according to media reports. The main goal was to get elected officials to pay attention to the situation, realize the urgency of doing something, and taking serious action, including by putting more agents on the border.



“The folks down there have never gotten any relief from illegal crossings,” New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association Executive Director Caren Cowan was quoted as saying by the Associated Press. “And things have ramped up. These people are desperate. They are absolutely desperate.” Previous cries for help and meetings have not resulted in assistance. “We have had countless meetings with government agencies over the years, and I say this with all due respect, all we hear about is what they are trying to do and nothing gets done,” Cowan added.



Law-enforcement advocate and Homeland Security expert Andy Ramirez, a border-security expert who has testified on the issue before Congress, noted that the problems discussed at the latest meeting are nothing new. “There is no real change from a decade ago when the Bootheel [region of New Mexico] was overrun and Gov. [Bill] Richardson had to call out the National Guard,” he said. “Problem is you have corruption and that was always a weak border zone as I testified back in the day. But this is how it has been under successive administrations.”



He also said the problem originated in Washington, D.C., far from those affected most by it. “Who is most responsible for putting the civilians through this? David Aguilar who, as then-chief of the Border Patrol and later Acting CBP Commissioner before retiring, ultimately destroyed the Border Patrol,” Ramirez added. “Agents put their lives on the line but continue to get no help from DC. Who suffers? Civilians, especially along that line of death and corruption.”



Other experts echoed those concerns, telling The New American that meeting attendees supported the Border Patrol and realized the problems were coming from on high. “One thing that stood out at the meeting was how the people supported the rank and file Border Patrol officers,” said Rick Dalton, vice president of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA), who spoke at the meeting. “These ranchers and farmers know that it's the administration that handcuffs these brave and good public servants, basically guaranteeing failure in the job of securing the border.”



Dalton, a retired lawman, also emphasized that border sheriffs have the authority to enforce immigration laws, “and of course the criminal laws that apply to the activities of the cartels and human smugglers.” He urged the audience at the meeting to pressure their elected sheriffs to help out. “Because of the distances that must be covered, law enforcement help is often an hour or more away,” he added. “Sheriffs can deputize some of the people, giving them the authority to make arrests, though this can be a very dangerous situation, with the way the illegals are armed and equipped.”



“I also urged the people to vet their sheriffs and make sure to elect Constitutional ones,” Dalton explained.



Despite claims from politicians in Washington, D.C., it is clear that the border is nowhere close to what a reasonable person would describe as “secure.” That is by design, of course. But the people suffering on the front lines of that are only the first to be victimized. If Congress does not get serious about demanding the enforcement of federal laws on border security, all of America will face the consequences, too. It is time to restore law and order on the border.   



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