2006RUS

One location President Obama, Speaker-To-Be John Boehner, Congressman Paul Ryan, or Sarah Palin could turn to for wisdom to the current dollar crisis is the editorials with the The big apple Instances. Not the editorials of right now, but those that had been issued throughout the mid-1940s, once the nations about to grow to be victorious in Globe War II have been meeting at Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, to lay the groundwork to get a post-war financial method. The Occasions issued editorial right after editorial vital with the Bretton Woods negotiations and their architect, John Maynard Keynes. It turns out that the editorials had been the work of a single, prophetic editorial writer, Henry Hazlitt.

Hazlitt warned that what was becoming set up at Bretton Woods was an inflation trap. He turned out to be appropriate, as well as the method unraveled in 1971, when President Nixon closed the gold window. Bretton Woods unraveled around what, in retrospect, seems a modest drop inside the value of the greenback – one thing like 10% – to a 38th of an oz. of gold through the 35th that obtained beneath Bretton Woods. This ushered monetary arrangements that, beneath the leadership of President Reagan and the Fed chairman at the time, Paul Volcker, proved serviceable to get a whilst but is turning out to be inadequate in an era of lesser leaders.

No doubt Hazlitt, had he lived, would have said the failure was inevitable. His warnings in the The big apple Instances stand as one from the fantastic scoops in all of newspapering. The oeuvre is anthologized inside a book that Hazlitt himself place together referred to as “From Bretton Woods To World Inflation.” Issued in 1984, it contains a lot more than twenty of his editorials through the Instances, most of them in the 1940s, but beginning with a single from the 1934, referred to as “The Return to Gold,” which includes a warning that couldn’t be much more relevant to today’s debate when the G20 is feuding around the prospect of ambitious devaluations:

“There is no much more a ‘natural value’ for an irredeemable forex than there’s to get a promissory note of the particular person of uncertain intentions to pay for an undisclosed sum at an unspecified date. Finally, it has been learned that competitive depreciation, unlike competitive armaments, can be a game that no Authorities is just too poor or as well weak to play, and that it can cause absolutely nothing but common demoralization.” Later, he warned, through an editorial in the Instances: “The Greatest solitary contribution the United States could make to world currency stability after the warfare is to announce its determination to stabilize its very own currency.”

Yet another memorable 1 of Hazlitt’s editorials from the Occasions, from February 1945, is called “Supply Creates Demand.” It cautioned against the fallacy that we could possibly be “saved from disaster after the struggle only by a continuation of huge Government spending and deficit financing.” The fallacy was based around the notion that “purchasing power” must be kept above “production.” Hazlitt cautioned that would lead to the “crude inflationary theory that we are able to preserve gong right after the war only by the procedure of continuously increasing money payments regardless of production.” Does this sound familiar?

The Hazlitt compendium also consists of a celebrated editorial called “Gold vs. Nationalism,” which was issued within the Times on March 17, 1945. It sketched one of the famous paradoxes, which is that agreements like Bretton Woods, which seem, to the face of it, to get archetypes of multi-nationalism are actually the opposite. The genuine trans-national concept of a single normal to which all nations could, or couldn’t, repair is gold. The reverse, the recipe for strife, was a “system beneath which every nation individually would be free to permit whatever unsound policies it wished, although the nations collectively would need to bail it out of the difficulties into which it fell as a consequence.” Greece couldn’t have set it much better.

* * *

Years later, Hazlitt himself was asked, in an interview by the Austrian Economics Newsletter, why he thought the editorials didn’t have a lot more impact. Quoth he:

“As you’ll remember the guiding spirit at that conference was John Maynard Keynes. The delegates have been creating inflationary choices every single day. I was tirelessly pointing out that these selections were inflationary. No one else seemed to become pointing this out and no one paid any interest to what I was saying. Actually, I think an awful lot of people were astonished that the new York Occasions was taking this strange eccentric position. In the event the 43 nations represented all signed the agreement adopting the Bretton Woods program, Arthur Sulzberger, then publisher with the Occasions, referred to as me into his office and stated, ‘Look, Henry, I’ve been letting you create these issues, despite the fact that I had misgivings about them, but now that 43 nations have agreed to accept the settlement, I don’t see how the Times can carry on to oppose it.’ I replied, ‘Mr. Sulzberger, in the event you feel that way, I cannot proceed to create any more editorials inside the New york Occasions around the settlement; I believe it really is as well harmful.’”

The Instances has stuck with the Keynesian errors all the way up via Professor Krugman, and it has been by no means alone in its willingness to swing behind Bretton Woods. However it has left, in the oeuvre of Hazlitt’s editorials, a record that will repay a visit through the politicians of right now, in the event the greenback – which under Bretton Woods was worth a 35th of an oz. of gold – is really worth less than a 1,400th of an oz of gold and in the event the twenty leading countries with the planet are in disarray and when a fresh generation of politicians is rising in a new Congress that can be trying to find a way forward.

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Freedoms Decline Partly From Entertainment

Many Are Learning About Entertainment and the Dangers Posed to Freedom That Come From Spending Too Much Time Observing Fake Life Instead of Living Real Life.

We all live stressful lives and this is one reason we are interested about entertainment. When we return home from a hard-day’s work, we often relax in front of the TV, so we can quietly sit and let the entertainment think for us.

Entertainment is great and it helps us to relax and unwind. There are more TV channels than ever because of this, so many people sit on their butts all day that they get very fat and are unable to move.

Entertainment does have a dark side, and this is because there is so much entertainment available it is making the population stupid. Many of these TV shows are addictive and you will find that some peoples’ lives revolve completely around the TV.

Entertainment Distracts Masses From Reality

TV and films are making sure that we don’t have time to think about what’s really going on; everyone is too interested in watching TV. We no longer have the ability to think for ourselves because everything is given to us on a plate. There is of course one problem for the elite and that’s the internet.

The internet can be used for entertainment, and it can also be used to gather knowledge. As knowledge is power, the elite are not keen on us knowing any of this information which is why they plan to destroy the internet by 2012.

The elite are the mega-rich families from all over the world that are pushing for a single world government. It’s these rich families that have been behind many of the terrorist attacks to show us exactly why we need to do something to protect this country. It’s also the elite that have drummed up the idea of global warming so that we have to all pull together and do things as a team.

The elite have controlled the media for years, consolidation has meant that there are now only a few media companies. This means that the elite are able to control what people know and the TV is their greatest weapon. TV can be used to control us and make us stupid.

Social Engineering With Entertainment

TV is a science that the elite have been perfecting how to use for generations. TV programs are now used to condition us ever since birth. Think about the number of TV programs aimed at children these days; these are all created to mould the minds of the young and to stop us asking questions.

As a result of TV, we will be much more open to being told what to do. TV changes brain activity patterns and is actually a form of hypnosis.

Entertainment is not scary; it’s actually what’s going on behind the scenes that is. If you dig around and start asking questions about entertainment, then you will quickly learn that lots of things are going on that we don’t realize.

TV is keeping us from asking questions while genetically modified foods creep onto our shelves. Our constitutional rights are also being violated, but we sit down and take it. Entertainment is stopping us from thinking, and the likes of Rupert Murdoch, aka the Devil, are using it to their advantage.

It’s important to start asking what entertainment is doing to our society and to find out what is really going on. We simply don’t know enough about entertainment and what’s secretly happening behind the scenes.

Learn more about Mark A Cella. Stop by Mark A Cella’s site where you can find out all about Mark A Cella and his work.

categories: entertainment,freedom,civil rights,free press,media

Mark Cella on Civil Rights and Liberties

Civil Rights and Liberties Are Under Serious Attack. Without Our Basic Freedoms as Afforded by Constitutional Law, We Are Stripped of All Means by Which to Fight NWO.

Our civil rights and liberties have always been under threat and challenged, but never more so than in these times as the war on terrorism is the buzzword on everyone’s mind. Our government is taking away our rights under the guise of keeping Americans “safe.”

Add new technology to the equation, new technology that allows the government to invade our privacy any time they choose, and our freedoms are backed into the corner.

Americans of all backgrounds are feeling the threat against our rights, but none more so than people of Arab descent. We need to work together as one with the government to repair our civil rights and freedoms, starting with abolishing the Patriot Act.

Other ways in which we can protect our rights are by putting an end to the arrest of civilians without cause or warrant as well as prevent the secret detention of people suspected of terrorist activity.

And don’t forget repealing the phrase ‘probable cause’ which has led to the invasion of privacy in countless incidents anytime the government felt like taking a look. All of these policies point to the weakening of judicial power in the government, power the executive branch has taken over.

Americans, in the name of fighting terrorists, are now subjected to policies and practices that do nothing to apprehend terrorists, but do everything to take away our civil rights and liberties.
We once fought for the civil rights of people with disabilities, people of color, for women, and for people of different religions. Now we find ourselves fighting for our basic rights that are clearly outlined in the United States Constitution.

Mark Cella on Civil Rights

Congress passed the Patriot Act in 2001 in an effort to aid in the fight against terrorism. This bill alone has destroyed and eaten away at many of our civil rights and liberties. The Patriot Act allows the United States government to detain and hold any foreigners they feel may be a threat to the security of the country.

The act also allows the government to eavesdrop on conversations between lawyers and their clients who are being held in a federal prison if it’s suspected it might deter future acts of violence or terrorism.

Under the Patriot Act, the government and federal agents are now allowed surveillance of e-mail and telephone conversations. They also have the authorization to search anyone’s home or personal property.

These operations, called ’sneak and peak,’ don’t require a warrant or prior notification to the individual being searched. The Patriot Act has overtaken and overwhelmed this country in so many ways that it’s hard to fathom it’s actually happening.

This type of government authority is something we once expected of communist countries, but now we’re experiencing this extreme violation of our freedoms here in our own country.

Mark Cella on American Civil Rights and Liberties

Even though the government will tell you the curtailment of these civil rights and liberties are directed toward suspected terrorists, the truth is that all Americans are affected by these conditions. The atmosphere of war is contagious and there isn’t one person who isn’t affected in some way, no matter how small.

Our right to freedom of speech, to voice our opinions, has been severely threatened all around the country. On December 15, 2001, Janis Besler Heaphy, publisher of the Sacramento Bee, was unable to finish her commencement speech at California State University.

Heaphy made the suggestion that the United States government had gone too far in the curtailing of civil liberties since 9/11.

She was immediately booed by hecklers who resented her implication that too much was being done to retaliate for the attacks on 9/11 when in actuality Heaphy was simply exercising her right to freedom of speech, to make her opinion in a public forum.

Mark Cella on Civil Rights and Liberties

In the case of Heaphy, the media stepped in and supported her right to freedom of speech:

“Many interpret it as a troubling example of rising intolerance for public discourse that questions the nation’s response to the September 11 terror attacks.”

- Geoffrey Mohan, December 20, 2001, Los Angeles Times

The Los Angeles Times was not alone in reporting on this incident. The New York Times and other major newspapers also made sure this story was heard, and Nightline on ABC News did a special report on Heaphy.

This is just one example of what’s been happening all around America. If you’re not completely for the war on terrorism and up to losing a few of your civil liberties, then you must be on the side of terrorists. How many more of our civil rights and liberties do we have to justify before many of them are gone completely?

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Mark Cella – Ron Paul Wants to Stop the US Police State

Senator Ron Paul Understands That Personal Liberty is What Americans Should Treasure, Not a Police State and ID Cards.

As Senator Ron Paul becomes more known to the public in his effort to win the presidency in 2008, he also gets attacked more often.

Those who dont want a man talking about abolishing the Federal Reserve or removing the U.S. from Iraq try to spin information in a way that makes Ron Paul look unworthy to be president.

Heres the thing, Ron Paul isn’t perfect because no one can be perfect. However, in our opinion, hes the closest anyone can come to being the best fit to lead America in a time of great trouble.

Mark Cella on Ron Paul

In a time where the current president, George Bush, is passing legislation to enslave Americans inside a police state, Ron Paul understands the need to return to our constitutional ways.

Understand that if another puppet of the banking cabal replaces Bush, America is in for more of the same police state legislation.

One look at Bushs actions recently shows clearly why a man such as Senator Ron Paul is needed.

In May, Bush signed the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. This would give the president almost full dictatorial powers in the event of a national emergency.

On Aug. 4th 2007, the Senate passed the Bush backed spy bill, which preserves expands the illegal domestic spying program.

Combine this with the Patriot Act, Military Commissions Act of 2006, etc., and it should be clear to anyone paying attention that someone is planning to enslave Americans. Ron Paul recognizes this plan and is speaking out against it.

Mark Cella on Ron Paul

Ron Paul also understands the truth behind the failed War on Drugs.

For the first 140 years of our history, we had essentially no federal War on Drugs, and far fewer problems with drug addiction and related crimes was a consequence. In the past 30 years, even with the hundreds of millions of dollars spent on the drug war, little good has come of it.

We have vacillated from efforts to stop the drugs at the source to severely punishing the users, yet nothing has improved.

This War has been behind most big government policy powers of the last 30 years, with continual undermining of our civil liberties and personal privacy. Those who support the IRSs efforts to collect maximum revenues and root out the underground economy, have welcomed this intrusion, even if the drug underworld grows in size and influence.

The Drug War encourages violence. Government violence against nonviolent users is notorious and has led to the unnecessary prison overpopulation. Innocent taxpayers are forced to pay for all this so-called justice.

Visit Mark Cella’s site, www.Mark-Cella.com for more Mark Cella fun and serious matters.

categories: ron paul,freedom,police

Mark Cella on History of US Jury System

The History of the US Jury System is Important. One of the More Beneficial Components of Our Existing Government is a Court System That is Fair “in Theory”.

The history of the US jury system shows that justice is dispensed only to the members of the elite, while minorities and the poor are singled out for cruel and unusual sentences. There is little doubt that in practice, this is the way our system works.

Still, it is considered to be in compliance with the 6th Amendment of the Constitution of the Republic of the United States of America.

A trial jury is composed of six members, whom are supposed to be peers, or more or less homogenous with the background of the person being tried (the defendant).

Mark Cella on History of US Jury System

For crimes that are considered felonies, trial by jury is guaranteed in the US civilian courts. Some societies such as Japan consider trial by jury to be much too risky for an innocent person, placing their fate in untrained lay people, rather than schooled judges.

And while it was once a voluntary part of the Japanese legal regiment, it was terminated in 1943. In other societies, like the UK and the US, a jury trial is considered an objective arena, in which the peers of the accused can judge the defendant, in order to provide the fairest and most impartial process possible.

It is considered to be a constitutional right that defends one accused of a felony from possible capricious behavior, overzealous or corrupt actions on the part of judicial officials and prosecutors.

Mark Cella on Jury Activism

The history of the US jury system goes back to the Magna Carta, although it has evolved since then. It was not until the late 17th Century that the complete independence of a jury was legalized in England, the predecessor and template of the judicial process of the USA.

It was in the year 1670 that the jury was legally left free and without threat of punishment for deciding by conscience, even when that contradicted written statutes of the law.

Mark Cella on History of US Jury System

In recent years the history of the US jury system has entered into a new moment. A growing percentage of Americans have become skeptical of the legal system and its ability to resolve in favor of justice, rather than in favor of moneyed interests.

It is within that framework, that a growing number of juries in the past two decades have come to utilize jury nullification. A process that releases defendants that were in clear violation of the law, but had acted with a moral imperative.

Mark Cella on Jury Activism

The history of the US jury system has shown a tendency toward maintaining the ignorance of jurors, regarding the full spectrum of the power of the jury as the last defense for citizens within the legal system.

Court rulings have gone as far as to gag defense attorneys from expanding on the rights and powers of the jury, to break from the instructions of judges, regarding how to arrive at a verdict. The instructions are based solely on legal arguments, obviating decisions based on moral imperatives.

US citizens must come to understand the importance of educated and conscious participation as jurors, in order to protect the rights of fellow citizens from the possible excesses of power by judges and prosecutors.

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Mark Cella on What a Freedom Fighter is

A History of Freedom Fighters is Revealed to Many People. Activism Gives the Common Masses a Way to Rise Up and Become Powerful so Righteous Rule Can be Restored.

A history of freedom fighters is used for those engaged in an armed struggle. The main goal is to achieve freedom for themselves or obtain freedom for others. Those willing to engage in battle to gain freedom are heros.

Even though the literal meaning of the words could include anyone who fights for the cause of freedom, a history of freedom fighters as a phrase shows that the term is commonly restricted to those who are actively involved in an armed rebellion.

However, a person who is campaigning for freedom through peaceful means may still be classed as a freedom fighter, though they are usually called political activists.

In India, Freedom Fighter is a term very popularly used for those who followed Mahatma Gandhi in the Indian Independence movement against British rule, which was waged without the use of violence.

Mark Cella on What a Freedom Fighter is

The organizations of those freedom fighters in India are called Freedom Fighter’s Association and they are well recognized and respected countrywide. People who call themselves, or are considered by their supporters, as freedom fighters are sometimes called assassins, rebels or terrorists by others.

During the Cold War, the term freedom fighter was used by the United States and other Western Bloc countries to describe rebel groups that they backed which were in almost all cases terrorists seeking to overthrow stable governments. This was the case with the brutal Contras in Nicaragua and the butchers of UNITA in Angola.

Mark Cella on Being a Freedom Fighter

Even though the label freedom fighter is associated with specific groups, freedom fighters are often seen as people who are using physical force in order to cause a change in the political and/or social order. A history of freedom fighters tells us that this is usually done in response to oppression or perceived oppression by an internal or external body.

A freedom fighter is different from a mercenary as they gain no direct material benefit from being involved in a conflict. They are not considered mercenaries under the Geneva Convention, so they are protected by it. Mercenaries and terrorists are not protected under the Geneva Convention, and they can be tried as criminals.

That is the irony and contradiction of most of the so called freedom fighters that the United States tends to fund. Time and again, their ranks have been filled with mercenaries.

Mark Cella on Being a Freedom Fighter

From the beginning, America has a history of freedom fighters, most notably during the American Revolution when all they wanted was freedom from oppression, just as many freedom fighters do today.

On March 5, 1770, Crispus Attucks and a noisy group of Boston Patriots were jeering and harassing a mass of British Redcoats who were sent from England to keep the American colonists in check. These freedom fighters were a mixed group of disgruntled sailors, dock workers, servants and apprentices who were tired of the steady appearance of the British soldiers amongst them.

Ideas of liberty were being thoroughly discussed by most colonists and Attucks’ martyrdom is said to have acted as a catalyst for the American colonists’ eventual war for liberty and freedom from British rule.

Mark Cella on Being a Freedom Fighter

Today the American supported freedom fighters are anyone who will seek the overthrow of sovereign governments that refuse to be puppets to U.S. based big capital and their quest for control of profitable resources at any cost.

It is a crude form of doublespeak in which terrorists are called freedom fighters and democratically elected, and progressive regimes are demonized for not submitting themselves to the whim of U.S. based profiteers.

Learn more about Mark Cella. Stop by Mark Cella’s site where you can find out all about Mark Cella and his work.

categories: freedom,slavery

Mark Cella on Common Law

Common Law in the USA is the Ghost of English Feudalism. America is Thought to be Based on a Fair Legal System but the Tyranny of Old England Lives on in Our Laws Today.

Common law in the USA is the injustice of the legal system that guards property for the banking mafia. Despite the Founding Fathers having sought a systemic change to get out from under the oppressive reign of the English crown, injustice lives on today.

In the 21st Century, this is still the case. US law in the new millennium is still based on common law from pre-colonial England.

Some of the essence of laws considered to be sacred in the United States actually date back to feudalist England in the 12th Century as is explored by S.F.C. Milsom of Cambridge University in his 2003 book, Historical Foundations of the Common Law and Legal Framework of English Feudalism.

Mark Cella What About Common Law?

These laws were ‘discovered’ in feudal courts onward based on arguments and the practical decisions of judges in a trial and error basis. In other words, in the US today, the legal system is based, in part, on what the feudal lords and later the Englishmen convinced judges based on the individual interests of accused and plaintiffs at the time.

This contradicts the idea that the modern legal system is based on the common good or on improving society; it is based on a literal trial and error process that began in the 12th Century with the signing of the Magna Carta, where the basic but limited notion of freedom first appears.

The defense of property and the rights of property as a fundamental principle, outweighed any implicit rights for human beings.

From then onwards, common law in the USA and other laws continued to be developed in a process of expanding the rights of defending individual property and the rights of property holders. Thus, naturally evolving over time into the laws of the modern US capitalist society.

Mark Cella on Common Law

The common law system of judges ruling based on custom, or legal precedent has evolved in the United States. Common Law in the USA has been mingled and mixed with a system of equity law over the past two centuries.

Equity Law also comes from England where it was created by the Crown in order to address matters not covered under existing common law. It seeks equity or justice through a set of principles and codes. Common Law in the US also lives alongside a set of codes and principles that are theoretically aimed at leveling the playing field and protecting the weakest.

However, even in a mixed system, the court’s prerogative to stick with custom rather than set precedent in most cases means that common law, which privileges the propertied, usually wins out over laws having to do with moral imperatives and the concept of justice.

This concept, justice, is an abstract concept; yet it is primordial to any society that truly seeks to promote an equality of freedoms.

Mark Cella on Common Law

A series of documents, which on the whole are referred to as the ‘Freedom Charter,’ laid the basis for the foundation of the United States. These documents, drafted and signed by the founding fathers that led the movement to secede from England, are the Declaration of Independence the US Constitution and the Bill of Rights (the first amendments to the US Constitution).

The first of these documents discussed certain inalienable rights of equality that it considered self-evident. The second document laid out the three branch government and its functions, clearly seeking to place greater power, that of making law in the most representative of those branches, the U.S. Congress.

The third was the judicial system, charged with interpreting the law. The third, and no less important of the documents, provided for a number of basic rights of citizens intended to guarantee against dictatorship and protect citizens from the whims of the State overstepping its power.

Mark Cella What About Common Law?

Common Law in the USA, as in England, has always evolved to meet new circumstances. But a legal system based in custom or in past behavior can also be an obstacle to change and improving society.

The new society that the founding fathers sought to create based on representation, freedom and equality was stillborn on the American Continent. It was held back by a legal system based in the protection of property.

Today, for real change to occur, common law in the USA does not hold the solution. A new legal system based on the future must be created to eliminate the ghost of English feudalism that plagues the American judicial system that only protects the dominant economic order.

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Mark Cella on Homeland Security

Does the US Department of Homeland Security Really Secure Anything or Does it Work Against the American People? Big Brother is Watching Us More Than We Think.

Many things came from that dreadful September day in 2001, the US Department of Homeland Security was just one amongst many. Terrorist’s attacks–or so we were told they were terrorists–were successful on U.S. soil and thousands of Americans died.

Parents were lost; brothers died; children became orphans; families were ripped apart. The sense of security that came with being a citizen of this country was taken, perhaps forever; the US Department of Homeland Security was created.

Never before had such an attack been carried out within the continental United States. Yes, there was Pearl Harbor, another American tragedy that resulted in the loss of thousands of lives, but it was a military installation separated from the bulk of the nation by an ocean.

Many questions arose about how something like this could have happened and why it was not stopped.

Mark Cella on the US Dept of Homeland Security

After all, it would make sense that coordinating plane crashes into various targets at the same time of day would take years of planning, numerous people, and lots of discussion.
Yet somehow the terrorists involved were able to train and do what was necessary to carry out their cowardly act.

In the days and months following the deadly attacks of September 11, there was much discussion as to why these terrorists were not discovered prior to these attacks and why weren’t they stopped.

Perhaps one of the problems was not a single agency was responsible for keeping the homeland safe.

In fact, there were over 100 government agencies that had some type of responsibility related to homeland security, but none with homeland security as its primary task.

It is no wonder than there was no single entity with enough information to see these attacks coming.

Mark Cella on Homeland Security

In an attempt to learn from the mistakes of the past and to prevent another attack on American soil, the US Department of Homeland Security was created to be that one agency intended to ensure the homeland would be secure.

One has to wonder whether or not the terrorists considered the September 11 attacks a success. After all, they killed many of those darn infidels and disrupted the harmony in which the nation existed.

Many pundits would probably quickly answer no and refer to the response which the American government and public gave. The government went through the most intensive restructuring in years to improve and reinforce the sense of homeland security. Citizens were more than giving of their time, money, blood, etc.

Shortly after 9/11 this was all true. A look at the state of the nation now tells a different story.What began as the war against terrorism has bogged down into a never ending conflict without a reasonable and definitive end in sight.

Instead of being grateful for increased security at airports, more and more people complain about how long it takes to get through the lines.

Mark Cella on the US Dept of Homeland Security

The US Department of Homeland Security is even coming up with an automated system for foreign nationals travelling into or out of the U.S. The Patriot Act has been a mess of controversy since it was implemented. More government wiretaps with little or no cause? Whatever happened to the right to privacy?

The government can even read emails that may appear suspicious. How do they differentiate the suspicious from the non-suspicious? More than likely they just read whatever they feel like in hopes of finding suspicious activity.

The US Department of Homeland Security may be keeping us more secure now, but we will not know how secure until the next serious attack is attempted. Maybe it has already happened and the general public does not know. Maybe the government is not telling the public in order not to incite mass hysteria or encourage hate crimes against Muslims.

Is the mass restructuring of the government doing a better job? Citizens of New Orleans would say a resounding NO!

Fast forward from September 2001 till 2009 and we see a United States that is much different. Distrust in the government is rather high with the massive failure to act in New Orleans after Katrina and the suspected unnecessary abuses of civil liberties prominent in the minds of the people. Citizens live in a state of perpetual fear, being told by the government that another attack is coming but they do not know where. Faith in government is down. Fear in the unknown is up.

The creation of the US Department of Homeland Security might just be the symbol of success terrorists worldwide were looking for and not the symbol of security a nation needs.

Want to find out more about Mark Cella, then visit Mark Cella’s site on for a variety of humor and serious topics Mark Cella.

Mark Cella the Story of the Creation of Amazing Grace

[John Newton] (Mezzotint by Leney after Russell, n.d.). Prints and Photographs Reading Room, Library of Congress.

Arguably the best-known Christian hymn is “Amazing Grace.” Its text, a poem penned in 1772 by John Newton, describes the joy and peace of a soul uplifted from despair to salvation through the gift of grace. Newton’s words are also a vivid autobiographical commentary on how he was spared from both physical and spiritual ruin. It relates the happy ending of the tale of a defiant man who manages again and again to escape danger, disease, abuse, and death, only to revert to “struggles between sin and conscience.”

Newton was born in 1725 in Wapping, a London suburb that thrived on shipping and sea trade. His father, a merchant ship captain, was often away on sea voyages that typically lasted two to three years. During one of these absences, Newton’s mother succumbed to tuberculosis, leaving him in the temporary care of her friends, the Catlett family in Kent. His father remarried and Newton was placed in boarding school. He stayed in close contact with the Catletts, however, primarily because of their daughter, Mary, whom he eventually wed. Mary was the cornerstone of Newton’s existence. No matter what befell him, his goal always was to return to her.

In spite of the powerful message of “Amazing Grace,” Newton’s religious beliefs initially lacked conviction. Raised far afield of the prevailing Anglican traditions, Newton’s youth was marked by religious confusion and, as he later confirmed, a lack of moral self-control and discipline. His father was educated as a Catholic by Jesuits in Spain and his mother was a so-called Nonconformist Christian who rejected the liturgy-based worship of the Church of England.

Nevertheless, Newton’s life, rife with the “dangers, toils and snares” at which his text hints, repeatedly brought him face-to-face with the notion that he had been miraculously spared. On one occasion, he was thrown from a horse, narrowly missing impalement on a row of sharp stakes. Another time, he arrived too late to board a tender that was carrying his companions to tour a warship; as he watched from the shore, the vessel overturned, drowning all its passengers. Years later, on a hunting expedition in Africa on a moonless night, he and his companions got lost in a swamp. Just when they had resigned themselves to death, the moon appeared and they were able to return to safety. Such near-death were commonplace in Newton’s life.

Yet no matter how many times he was rescued, Newton relapsed into his old habits, continuing to defy his religious destiny and attempting to dissuade others from their beliefs. Of all of the sins to which he later confessed, his habit of chipping away at the faith of others remained heaviest on his heart.

In 1744 Newton was press-ganged–taken by force into service in the Royal Navy. He was disgraced, relieved of his post, and traded for another man from a passing merchant ship, a slave vessel.

Beginning his career in slave trading, Newton soon became tempted by its profits. Merchants believed that trafficking in human trade was justified since slavery was permitted in the Bible as long as slaves were treated with dignity and kindness. [ 2 ] That Newton engaged in the slave trade in such a manner was demonstrated by the willingness of slaves to secretly carry his letters to port to send to Mary.

Despite a promising start with a slaver off the coast of Sierra Leone, Newton once again found himself in tough straits. Felled by malaria, he was at the mercy of the slaver’s native mistress, whose abuse reduced him to the condition of the “wretch” he later described in “Amazing Grace.” He recovered, however, but was soon to face another trial during which he was strengthened and inspired by Thomas Kempis’ Imitation of Christ.

Newton was aboard ship one night when a violent storm broke out. Moments after he left the deck, the crewman who had taken his place was swept overboard. Although he manned the vessel for the remainder of the tempest, he later commented that, throughout the tumult, he realized his helplessness and concluded that only the grace of God could save him. Prodded by what he had read in Kempis, Newton took the first–albeit small–step toward accepting religion. In the words of his hymn, this incident marked “the hour I first believed.”

Mark Cella the Story of the Creation of Amazing Grace

Upon his safe return home in the late 1740s, Newton immediately wrote to the Catlett family to plead his case for Mary’s hand, although he could offer her no financial security. When Mary herself replied that she would consider his suit, he returned to slaving to better his fortunes, this time on a ship full of slaves bound across the Atlantic to Charleston, South Carolina.

Newton wed Mary Cartlett in 1750. A changed man, he accepted the helm of a ship bound for Africa. This time, he encouraged the sailors under his charge to prayer rather than taunt them for their beliefs. He also began to ensure that every member of his crew treated their human cargo with gentleness and concern. However, it would be another 40 years until Newton openly challenged the trafficking of slaves.

Some three years after his marriage, Newton suffered a stroke that prevented him from returning to sea; in time, he interpreted this as another step in his spiritual voyage. He assumed a post in the Customs Office in the port of Liverpool and began to explore Christianity more fully. As Newton attempted to experience all the various expressions of Christianity, it became clear that he was being called to the ministry.

Since Newton lacked a university degree, he could not be ordained through normal channels. However, the landlord of the parish at Olney was so impressed with the letters Newton had written about his conversion that he offered the church to Newton; he was ordained in June 1764.

In Olney, the new curate met the poet William Cowper, also a newly-born Christian. Their friendship led to a spiritual collaboration that completed the inspiration for “Amazing Grace,” the poem Newton most likely penned around Christmas of 1772. Some 60 years later in America, the text was set to the hymn tune, “New Britain,” to which it has been sung ever since.

Even though many of England’s great shipping cities prospered from the slave trade, social critics began to speak out against the practice by the mid-18th century. By the 1780s, the powerful voice of William Wilberforce (pictured to the right) was added to this chorus.

Wilberforce, a Member of Parliament, was the nephew of one of Newton’s London friends. Inspired by the former slave trader, and paralleling Newton’s own conversion, Wilberforce began to question his role in life. Although Newton, then a lowly Olney curate, was convinced that Wilberforce was just another wealthy politician, he persuaded him to crusade for change and use his station in life and his powerful friends (including Prime Minister Pitt) to seek reform. One of the chief topics for such advocacy was abolition. In fact, Wilberforce wrote in his journal on October 28, 1787, that one of the two goals that had been set before him was “the suppression of the Slave Trade.”

Newton joined in the fight for the abolition of slavery by publishing the essay “Thoughts upon the African Slave Trade.” Because Christians still felt that slavery was justified in the Bible, Newton and Wilberforce wisely avoided building their protests on a religious platform. Instead, they condemned the practice as an inhumane treatment of their fellow men and women. Newton, speaking strongly from his own experiences, also proposed that the captors were in turn brutalized by their callous treatment of others and cited offences including torture, rape, and murder. Newton’s friend, the poet William Cowper, joined their fight by writing pro-abolition poems and ballads.

In 1789 Wilberforce introduced a “Bill for the Abolition of Slavery” in Parliament. The bill faced opposition in both Houses, but the forces against enactment became weaker each time it came up for a vote. The bill finally was passed by the House of Commons in 1804 and by the House of Lords in 1807 after which King George III declared it law.

There is no direct link between “Amazing Grace” and the abolition of slavery in Britain. Nonetheless, the hymn was written by a man who was moved to speak out against something from which he had once profited. In an essay Newton said: “I hope it will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me . . . that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders.” Thus, it seems fitting that his hymn has become for so many–including those fighting for Civil Rights–an anthem against all forms of social injustice.com

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