PropheZine # 42 June 2, 1997 Ray Gano...............Welcome to PropheZine #41 iNews Digest...........Intermind Communicator is free James BeauSeigneur ..The Lost Ark, the Shroud of Turin, and Enough Rope to Hang Myself Berit Kjos.....Character Training For Global Citizenship POINT - COUNTERPOINT William Bonville ...What Is Outcome Based Education? G. Edwin Lint .....Outcome Based Education PropheZine Newsbytes Lee Underwood...FYI Israel in the News Wendy B. Howard ...Australia - Great South Land Of The Nwo? Sylvia Genders LeReverend...Privacy Standards For "Smart Cards" Kepi .....Reservation System for National Parks ******************** Note: this issue is archived in HTML format in the PZ archives as http://www.prophezine.com/search/database/is42.0.html ******************** Welcome to PropheZine #42 Hello everyone, Here is PropheZine #42. In this issue we are focusing primarily on Global education and Outcome Based Education. If you are a parent, then this is the issue for you. I am also proud to introduce to you a new friend, James BeauSeigneur. He is the author of "The Christ Clone Trilogy," from Selective House Publishers. This is a GREAT book and those of you who enjoy the Tribulation Force will TOTALLY LOVE "The Christ Clone Trilogy." Jim has written a very good article on the Ark of the Covenant and has thrown a new theory into the pot. It is a very good theory and I asked him to expand on it for you. I think you will enjoy it. I found it very stimulating. I am also pleased to bring to the PZ newsletter a new feature. Point-Counterpoint is written by The Monroe Weekly (http://www.monroeweekly.com) a new Christian conservative monthly newsletter. I really enjoy this because it also shows what the other side is thinking. I found the counterpoint reply for this month very interesting. It seems that the author has more against Christianity that interest in education. Read it and enjoy. I also want to remind you that PropheZine going to be putting on a three-day international Prophecy Conference. This is going to be free to attend and will be held on Sept 19, 20, 21 in Alta Loma, CA. Those who are going to speak will be: Gary Kah: Gary is the best selling author of "En Route To Global Occupation" and The Demonic Roots of Globalism. Gary shows that the movement towards a one world government is nothing more than a policy of deceit and disaster, especially for the Christian community. Berit Kjos: Berit is the author of "Brave New Schools" and "Your Child In The New Age." She is a concerned parent and a widely respected researcher, columnist, and conference speaker. She is considered "the" expert in regards to the UN Global Education System and Goals 2000. David Hocking: David is the speaker for "Hope For Today" radio broadcast, heard on 34 stations plus satellite, he has authored several books, and is on staff at Calvary Chapel of Santa Ana with Chuck Smith. Steven Wright: Steven is the author of "Weather Modifications and UFO's" and "Superpowers in Prophecy" plus several other books. He is also the host of "The Prophetic Perspective." A syndicated radio weekly call-in talk show on the Amerinet Broadcasting system. Ron Graff: Ron is the author of "The Prophecy Puzzle" book and computer program. He also the webmaster / publisher of PROPHECY CENTRAL (http://www.Bible-prophecy.com) a monthly newsletter that is broadcasted via email. Prophecy Central deals with Bible Prophecy on the Internet. John Kinsella: John is the author of "The Eternal Generation." John has contributed many excellent articles and television scripts for both Hal Lindsey's "World Intelligence Briefing" and Peter Lalonde's "This Week In Bible Prophecy". His extensive experience in the military and as a police detective prepared him to be one of the best researchers in the field. Scott Pearson: Scott is an up-and-coming conference speaker. He has spoken for the last three years at the very well known prophecy conference that is held every year in Tampa Florida hosted by Ray Brubaker of "God's News Behind The News" TV show. Scott, a personal friend of mine, is blessed with gift for scripture memorization. He is known in the prophecy circles as the next Jack Van Impe. .......Plus other special guests will be showing up as well! These are all good friends of mine and I am very proud to invite them to my conference. If you attend, you will be greatly blessed. We are working on getting special hotel rates for our visitors from outside southern California. We are also looking into selling VIP/sponsorship tickets. These tickets will guarantee you seating in the front and center of the conference room. We have not figured out how many of these tickets we will put on sale, but when we do, I would advise that you try to get some. So far the response to the conference has been outstanding and we are expecting standing room only with this lineup of speakers. Keep an eye on the PZ WWW site for more info. I urge you to try to attend. Well, that is all for now. If you have any questions, please feel free to drop me an e-mail at ray@prophezine.com. So, till we meet here on this earth or in the clouds with our Lord, Always in His service, Ray Gano Editor PropheZine ****************** PROPHEZINE using INTERMIND for iNews Digest Department PropheZine has adopted an exciting new technology to more efficiently get timely news into your hands (or should we say, your website browser?) PZ is using Intermind Communicator for the PZ iNews Digest department, which "pushes" timely news to your browser on a frequent basis. Intermind Communicator is like the "bookmobiles" (almost a thing of the past) used by library districts. The bookmobile, loaded with a select number of books, travels around the district, bringing books to those who cannot get to the library conveniently. A visit to the library takes extra time and often requires the assistance of a librarian to help in a search. Intermind Communicator(TM) is the best of both worlds: it provides new information virtually instantly, and it does so without requiring the user to plough through an elaborate search process. In addition, access is usually easily available to past news. Intermind Communicator(TM) is a program used on your own computer. When you have Intermind Communicator running on your computer, it will automatically poll the servers to see if new updates are available. If so, the new information will be "pushed" right to your browser and you'll be notified. This way, you have the advantage of receiving timely new information without having to scour the contents of a number of websites. You can also "filter" the information based on "topics," which categorize the information. If certain topics are of no interest to you, then you need not be inconvenienced by their appearance in the update. If you have WWW access, you'll want to try this by visiting: http://www.prophezine.com/inews/pzim.html Download Intermind communicator for free and subscribe right now! *********************** Editor's Note: The following is the first of several articles adapted by the author from his new novel, "In His Image: Book One of The Christ Clone Trilogy," from Selective House Publishers. I am currently reading the book and can highly recommend it. It is by far the best end-times novel I've ever read to date. For ordering information, including a discount and autographed copies for PropheZine readers, see the information at the end of this article. Ray Gano PropheZine ----------------------------------- The Lost Ark, the Shroud of Turin, and Enough Rope to Hang Myself by James BeauSeigneur There are a lot of theories and claims about where the Ark of the Covenant is. A few people claim to have actually seen it. Strangely, they all claim to have seen it in different places, so to such claimants I think it's prudent that we take a "put up or shut up" attitude. Me, I've got my own theory. And if you'll give me enough rope to hang myself (for the non-US readers, that's just an expression) I promise to raise some interesting questions, even if I don't convince you my theory is correct. The Bible doesn't mention the whereabouts of the Ark after the Temple was destroyed in the Babylonian invasion. It's generally assumed that when the Persians plundered the Temple they took the Ark with them. But the Bible says that when Ezra returned from Babylon to rebuild the Temple, he brought back what the Persians had taken.1 Some people have speculated that the Ark may have been taken from the Temple when it was destroyed by Titus in 70 A.D. and that it was either melted down or perhaps locked away and later hidden in some secret treasury room in the Vatican. However, there is some evidence to dispute that theory. In Rome there is an arch which was dedicated to Titus in honor of his successful siege of Jerusalem. Carved into the arch are scenes of the Roman destruction and looting of Jerusalem, including a detailed carving showing the treasures taken from the Temple. The Ark is NOT among the treasures depicted, even though, as the most highly valued item, it surely would have been included had Titus taken it. One possibility that I've never heard of anyone pursuing is based on II Maccabees, one of the apocryphal books appearing in the Catholic Bible. According to that text, the Prophet Jeremiah hid the Ark in a cave on Mount Nebo in Jordan to prevent the Persians from finding it.2 I think it may be somewhere in southern France. I never really gave it much thought until a few years ago when they announced the results of the carbon 14 dating of the Shroud of Turin. "What does all this have to do with the Shroud?" you ask. It really isn't important to my faith whether it's real or not, but from a purely scientific point of view, I believe the Shroud is just too good to be a fake. Until recently though, the carbon 14 dating seemed conclusive. Then one day I was reading some of the writings of St. Jerome. Jerome lived in the fourth and early fifth century and was the person who first translated the Old Testament directly from Hebrew to Latin. In the piece I was reading, Jerome quotes from a book which he called the 'Gospel of the Hebrews,' a book which unfortunately either no longer exists or is lost. Jerome doesn't quote from it very extensively, but the small piece he does quote reveals a very interesting piece of information about the Shroud. Of course, there's no way of knowing how authentic this gospel really was. It may have been as spurious as some of the other apocryphal writings. But what it says is that after Jesus rose from the dead, he took his burial shroud and gave it to the servant of the High Priest.3 That's not very much, but it's the only record we have that indicates what happened to the Shroud following the resurrection. You may remember reading about the servant of the High Priest in the Bible. He's a rather minor character but he's mentioned in all four Gospels.4 We even know his name: Malchus. Malchus was among those who went to arrest Jesus on the night before his crucifixion. The Apostle Peter attempted to fend them off with a sword and in the scuffle he cut off Malchus' ear. Jesus told Peter to put his sword away, and then picked up the ear and placed it back on the side of Malchus' head and instantly healed it. This same Malchus would have been in the Temple on a daily basis and would have seen the curtain which separated the people from the Holy of Holies inexplicably torn in two after Jesus' crucifixion.5 (The Holy of Holies was the most sacred place in the Temple. According to I Cor. 15:6, when Jesus died, God himself tore the curtain from top to bottom, allowing ordinary men and women--not just the high priests--access to his holy presence.) And Malchus, like everyone else in Israel at the time, would have been very much aware of Jesus’ miracles and especially the evidence of his resurrection. It seems reasonable to me to assume that Malchus, having experienced all this - especially the healing of his ear - may well have become a follower of Jesus himself. If so, it would explain Jesus' contact with him after the resurrection: the Bible says that Jesus appeared to more than five hundred people in and around Jerusalem after the resurrection.6 If Jesus did give the Shroud to Malchus it must have been to preserve the Shroud as evidence of the resurrection! I believe Jesus may have told Malchus to put the Shroud in the Ark of the Covenant. Why would he do that? It's a little complicated. As I said, we're pretty sure that the Ark wasn't in the Temple when it was plundered by the Romans in 70 A.D. So where was it? I believe it was hidden by the High Priest. Between the time of the Babylonians and the Romans there were several other times that bandits tried to rob the Temple. I think the priests probably developed an evacuation plan to hide the Ark whenever the Temple was threatened (much as the National Archives of the US protects the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence by lowering them into a vault below the building). Surely when the Romans conquered Israel, the priests realized that the Temple was once again an extremely attractive target for those seeking their fortune. Are there really tunnels and hidden passageways under the Temple where the Ark could have been hidden? Absolutely. In fact, not just tunnels, but large vaulted rooms. Most haven't been excavated but they have been identified by radar soundings.7 My theory is that the Ark was hidden somewhere in the tunnels beneath the Temple to protect it from the Romans. If so, very few people would have known about it, but certainly the High Priest would have known. And if the High Priest knew, it's likely that his servant--that is, Malchus--would have known as well. Okay, now let's move ahead in time about eleven hundred years, during the time of the first Crusade. Not many people realize that the Crusaders, who were mostly French, were quite successful in their first attempts to take the Holy Land from the Muslims. They even succeeded in capturing and holding the city of Jerusalem and establishing a French-born king (who claimed to be a descendant of David) over the city. Shortly after that, an order of knights known as the Knights Templar was formed in Jerusalem. The stated purpose of the Knights Templar was to protect Jerusalem and to aid European pilgrims coming to the Holy Land. This was a rather unrealistic undertaking, since originally there were only six or seven members in the order. And they were very poor. Ironically, poverty was one of their vows. I say "ironically" because somehow over the next hundred years, this small group of knights not only grew in number, but grew unbelievably in wealth. In fact, these men became the first international bankers, loaning money to kings and nobles throughout Europe. How they acquired their immense wealth has been the subject of great speculation. The headquarters for the Knights Templar was in the Mosque of Omar, that is, the Dome of the Rock, which sits on the site of the old Temple. It has been suggested that the knights excavated the tunnels beneath the Mosque and found the treasures of Solomon's Temple and that was the source of their wealth. But how does the Shroud of Turin fit into all this? One of the reasons God had Moses build the Ark was to act as a container for certain sacred objects: the stone tablets on which God wrote the ten commandments; the first five books of the Bible written by Moses; a container of manna, which God caused to fall from the sky each morning for the Hebrews to eat while they were in the desert; and one other thing, Aaron's staff, which God had miraculously caused to sprout, bud, and bear almonds.8 Those things were placed in the Ark as a witness to later generations of God's covenant with Israel. But something always struck me as odd about that list of items. Stone tablets will last forever. Protected in the Ark, the parchment that Moses used to write the first five books of the Bible might last for thousands of years. But the container of manna, under normal conditions, would turn to dust within just a matter of months. And Aaron's staff - though it might survive the centuries as a simple wooden staff - without the budding and the almonds, would not be much of a witness of God's covenant or of His power. That's when it occurred to me that perhaps the power of the Ark is greater and quite different than we may have realized. For instance, think about the staff for a minute. How tall do you imagine Aaron's staff would have been? Shepherding hasn't changed much over the centuries, and if you visit the Middle East you'll still see most shepherds' staffs are about six or seven feet long. So when you think about Aaron's staff, with the limbs and sprouts and almonds growing from it, it would have had quite a large diameter. But, based on a standard 18 inch cubit, the absolute longest that staff could have been and still have fit in the Ark is four feet, nine inches, and that's without any branches. The only way that a six to seven foot shepherd's staff could have fit into the Ark is if the inside dimensions of the Ark are not limited by the outside dimensions. Now, for the container of manna and Aaron's staff to have been a witness to future generations, there must also be some miraculous, preservative power to the Ark - something which prevents deterioration of items that are placed inside of it. What I'm suggesting is that perhaps inside the Ark there is a total absence of dimensions: no length, width or height (which would explain how Aaron's staff could fit); and no time (which explains how the manna and the staff could be preserved)! Further, I'm suggesting that the servant of the High Priest put the Shroud in the Ark to preserve it, and there it remained until it was taken out, over a thousand years later, by the Knights Templar when they discovered the Temple treasures! Of course, it's mostly just conjecture - but it does offer a unified theory that would provide a consistent explanation for a number of unanswered questions. Besides, it makes sense that the Shroud - the only physical evidence of Jesus' resurrection and the consummation of God's new covenant with his people - would be kept in the Ark of the Covenant together with the evidence of God's old covenant. That's why the Shroud flunked the carbon 14 dating. For over a thousand years it totally escaped all deterioration and aging while it was inside the Ark! But what about the Knights Templar? Is there any connection between them and the Shroud of Turin? As far back as it can be traced, the first person who we can positively prove had the Shroud was a man in France named Geoffrey de Charney. Some years later his family gave the Shroud to the House of Savoy, who later moved it to Turin, Italy. So is there a link between de Charney and the Knights Templar? I'm glad you asked. As a matter of fact, there is. As I said earlier, the Knights Templar became very powerful throughout Europe. But then the King of France decided he no longer wanted them around. He accused their members of hideous sins and atrocities. They were arrested and tortured to force them to confess to his trumped up charges. Those who confessed were locked away in prisons; those who refused were tortured to death or burned at the stake. Two of the last to be executed in this way were Jacques de Molay, the Grand Master of the Knights Templar, and Geoffrey de Charney, Preceptor of Normandy. That Geoffrey de Charney apparently was the uncle of the later Geoffrey de Charney, who was the first person that we can positively determine had possession of the Shroud. Additionally, one of the things the king accused the knights of doing was worshipping the image of a man. The Shroud of Turin! What I'm proposing is that the Shroud, the Ark, and the other Temple treasures were taken from Israel and hidden in southern France by the Knights Templar. If so, many of the treasures and the Ark may still be there, hidden away. In fact, there is a secret society in France called the Prieure de Sion, which traces its origins to the Knights Templar. The head of the society has been quoted as saying that he knows where the Temple treasures are and that they will be returned to Jerusalem "when the time is right."9 So there you have it - my theory. The rope is in your hands. To order "In His Image, Book One of the Christ Clone Trilogy," call toll free 1-888-CLONE-99. TELL THE OPERATOR you found out about the book from PropheZine and the publisher will take $3.00 off the cover price ($12.95 - you pay $9.95 plus shipping & handling) AND THE BOOK WILL BE AUTOGRAPHED to you personally (so make sure the operator gets your first name the way you want it in the book.) About the author: James BeauSeigneur's published works include technical manuals on strategic defense and military avionics; newspaper articles; speeches for U.S. Congressional and Senatorial candidates; and lyrics for several songs written with Timothy J. Ripley and Mark Ford. Formerly involved in politics on a full-time basis, Mr. BeauSeigneur has managed several campaigns and in 1980 ran for U.S. Congress against Al Gore, now the Vice President. He has four years of experience in military intelligence including two and a half years as a linguist and analyst with the National Security Agency. Footnotes: 1. Ezra 1:7 2. II Maccabees 2:408 3. Jerome, on Eph 5:4 (Migne PL26, cols, 552 C-D), cited by J.K. Elliot in The Apocryphal New Testament (Clarendon Press, Oxford University Prss, 1993). 4. Matthew 26:50-52; Mark 14:47; Luke 22:50-51; John 18;10 5. Matthew 27:51 6. 1 Corinthians 15:6 7 See example, Dan Bahat , "Jerusalem Down Under: Tunneling Along Herod's Temple Mount Wall," Biblical Archaeology Review, Nov / Dec 1995; vol 21: no. 6:30-47 8. Hebrews 9:4 9. Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh, and Henry Lincoln, "Holy Blood, Holy Grail," (New York, Delacorte Press, 1982), p.200 *********************** CHARACTER TRAINING FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP by Berit Kjos "Encourage an understanding of others, a sense of responsibility, empathy and readiness to cooperate.... Introduce an international or global perspective in primary schools.... to be incorporated into existing curricula, wherever possible."1 (UNESCO, 1983) "There are many Americans...who are skeptical about any expert or federal official, including the US Secretary of Education, having a role in informing them how they should mold their children's characters. Yet, they are deeply concerned about characters and ethics."2 (Richard Riley, U.S. Education Secretary) * * * When fifteen-year-old Kevin walked into his American History class at Cupertino High School in California, he was given a handout. He glanced at the title: "Heterosexuality: Can It be Cured?" "Weird," he thought and looked around. Some of his friends were studying it, too. He read on: "Heterosexuality is a condition characterized by a sexual attraction to members of the opposite gender. Many persons, in all cultures, at all times, have been heterosexual.... "Whatever the cause of this phenomenon, we can state without doubt that there are many problems associated with heterosexuality, both for the individual and society at large." Curious, Kevin scanned the list of problems. Women were especially vulnerable, it said. They could face sexually transmitted diseases and unplanned pregnancy as well as mental and psychological "hazards" such as "a state of homophobia." The suggested treatments included psychotherapy and wide-spread sterilization of the heterosexual population. Was this a joke? The next page gave the source of this bizarre "research." It came from the American Public Health Association Caucus of Gay and Public Health Workers. UNDERMINE TRADITIONAL VALUES. It's no secret that the gay and lesbian coalition have waged an intense campaign to draw young students into their lifestyle. Their demand for laws mandating classroom sensitivity training designed to build "respect" for their values has opened classrooms to unspeakable propaganda. And they are not alone in the battle against concerned parents who would block their "right" to indoctrinate captive young audiences from coast to coast. Planned Parenthood and its partners around the world also demand that children must be set free to indulge in sexual adventures-and without fear of pregnancy. So does SIECUS (The Sex Information and Education Council of the United States). Together they have prepared a titillating display of films, textbooks, props, and promotional material. Most of it is designed to encourage rather than deter sexual activity-and, more subtly, earth-centered spirituality. The two go together. It's not surprising that "Sexuality and Man," a collection of articles compiled by SIECUS board members, sports a yin-yang symbol on the cover. One of its authors, Dr. Lester Kirkendall unveiled the SIECUS philosophy: "The purpose of sex education is not... to control and suppress sex expression, as in the past, but to indicate the immense possibilities for human fulfillment that human sexuality offers. The individual must be given sufficient understanding to incorporate sex most fruitfully and most responsibly into his present and future life."3 The primary goal, however, is to change values. The first steps are: "challenging the students' fixed beliefs"4, shaking their moral convictions, and breaking down modesty and inhibitions. The titillating sex-ed films, suggestive classroom discussions, and provocative literature serve the purpose well. Children are forced to think the unthinkable and visualize the forbidden-until sensuality has replaced Christianity in minds and hearts. Before long, sin looks cool; and what God calls good seems boring. A shocked father described some of sex education programs in his home state, Massachusetts: "A 14-year-old Beverly High School girl came home and told her father that he was a 'homophobe.' She had just returned from 'Homophobia Week' sessions at the school. "At Silver Lake High School, the ninth-grade health text teaches: ''Testing your ability to function sexually and to give pleasure to another person may be less threatening in the early teens with people of your own sex.' Also, 'You may come to the conclusion that growing up means rejecting the values of your parents.' Students were told to keep the book in their lockers and not take it home. "In Brookline, a transsexual had been invited to explain to a class of first-graders how a sex change can take place. Parents had not been notified or prepared to counsel their frightened, confused children. "In Westford, thirteen-year-olds were asked on a quiz: 'What is the best method against pregnancy?' The choice of 'abstinence' was deemed incorrect. "In Falmouth, a mother asked school officials why her son was being shown R-rated movies in school without her permission. The English Department head told her that it was OK because it went along with the themes that were being presented that quarter, and that 'the message of the films transcend the language and violence.'"5 What do students gain from these lessons? They learn to question home-taught values and look with "open minds" at dangerous alternatives. Many educators know that when children are trapped in sensuous lifestyles, they can no longer delight in God. It makes sense. Remember, "the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one." (1 John 5:19, NKJV) Satan has always distorted truth, twisted facts, and seduced people with enticing counterfeits of God's promises. His latest argument is persuasive: Peace and unity are good. War and conflict are bad. Religions that stir guilt and bring division are dangerous. And Christianity, the biggest culprit, blocks progress toward a more evolved set of values based on all the world's religions. DISCUSS ALTERNATIVE VALUES. To understand this planned rebellion against biblical values, look back to 1970. Education psychologist Dr. William Glasser had just pioneered a "daring new program" for changing attitudes. His book, "Schools Without Failure," introduced a manipulative strategy for turning the class into an encounter and counseling group. Children would share their feelings and air their complaints under the guidance of a trained facilitator with a politically correct answer. They learned to empathize with another's lust and respect each other's feelings. Soon they had traded God's moral standards for self-made choices. No longer would authoritarian parents and churches impose their values on submissive children. They would write their own rules! Or so it seemed. Actually Glasser's tactics manipulated students into yielding individual choice-along with privacy and family loyalty. Consider the effect of the following suggestion: "Children will often become very personal, talking about subjects that ordinarily are considered private... A child who discusses drunken brawls at home might quietly be asked to talk about something that has more relationship to school. Changing the subject in this way is sometimes unwise, however, because it is just those drunken brawls at home that have the most relationship to his school progress."6 Today, we know that those private "brawls" become part of a student's computerized portfolio. A child's "honest" sharing about family activities gives school officials the needed data about family values. It enables them to monitor every family member--not just the kids in the classroom. Professor Sidney Simon went a step further. His book, "Values Clarification-A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students," added a more intrusive note to the vast selections of manipulative values-changing strategies used to speed the social transformation. Among the classroom exercises which soon filtered into textbooks and schools everywhere was a tactic called "values voting." The teacher simply asks questions dealing with personal values. The students say "yes" by raising their hands. They answer "no" by pointing their thumbs down. They discuss their answers. Consider some of the questions. For example, "How many of you.... * think there are times when cheating is justified? * regularly attend religious services and enjoy it? * think that women should stay home and be primary wives and mothers? * would like to have a secret lover? * would choose to die and go to heaven, if it meant playing a harp all day?"7 For middle and high schools students, Simon added questions such as: "How many of you think sex education instruction in the schools should include techniques for lovemaking and contraception?" and "How many of you think you will continue to practice religions, just like your parents?"8 You may recognize some of these questions. They have become standard fare in classrooms across the country. Whether teachers or school counselors lead the encounter groups, children are urged to share intimate details of family life. The parents are usually kept in the dark. During this directed dialogue, verbal and written responses are carefully monitored by watchful teachers, who are required to assess each child's individual "progress" toward the new attitudinal goals. Intrusive classroom surveys, "private" journal entries, and classroom writing projects all help expose personal beliefs and values. If teachers and school counselors see anything that might hinder a student from meeting the new affective standards for politically correct attitudes, the child could be labeled "at risk"-meaning more monitoring, state control, and possible removal of a child "whose home environment was felt to have a malignant influence."9 ESTABLISH TARGET VALUES. The rejection of traditional values happened with the approval of our political leaders. Remember what President Bush said in 1992 when he announced America 2000: "Nations that stick to stale old notions and ideologies will falter and fail. So I'm here to say, America will move forward... New Schools for a new world."10 Actually, George Bush endorsed values clarification long before he became president. In 1974, he helped write a report titled, "Man, Education, and Society in the Year 2000." Funded by HEW's Office of Education, it concluded that "the 50 states should organize a commission to establish the values that are significant in approaching problems (e.g., population) that must be faced in the future." The summary explained that "The traditional cluster of knowledge, skills, values and concepts will not help our young face the future in their private life, the international situation.... Perhaps there is a need for the clarification of new values needed to solve future problems."11 George Bush is not the only president who proved his loyalty to global education before winning the White House. In 1987, (then) Governor Bill Clinton served on The Study Commission on Global Education with other education, business, and New Age leaders. Together they prepared a report entitled "The United States Prepares for Its Future: Global Perspectives in Education." Its Foreword stated that "It now seems almost conventional to speak of American citizenship in the same breath with international interdependence and the planetary environment."12 These leaders envisioned a world without war--a global village where young and old would share a common set of values, fulfill their government prescribed civic responsibility, and consent to what Al Gore called "a wrenching transformation of society."13 In this new world, sexual experimentation would be okay, but dissent and resistance would not be tolerated. Group consensus and continued change would be essential. All would live in peace and unity. Their vision of the new world order is not unlike the managed society described by Aldous Huxley in his 1932 futuristic fantasy, "Brave New World": * Children are raised collectively according to the needs of the global labor market. * Group thinking has replaced individual views. * Communal "Feelies" or sensory experiences are encouraged. * Casual sex is obligatory. * Mandatory pills prevent pregnancy. * People are kept too busy with work and trivia to think or complain. * All must participate in mystical group rituals invoking a universal god. * Peer pressure and constant surveillance ensure compliance. The similarities between our schools and Huxley's "Brave New World" is not as strange as it might seem. Aldous Huxley's brother was Julian Huxley, the first Secretary-General of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization). Promoting the same socialist and humanist values as John Dewey, Julian Huxley brought his brother's vision into UNESCO and laid the foundations for the new international education system. Our Goals 2000 is little more than the American branch of what UNESCO, in 1973, called a "continuous and integrated process" of "lifelong learning."14 Dewey, the Huxley brothers, and their utopian followers didn't understood human nature, did they? Peace and goodness comes only through Christ, not through behavior modification or psychological indoctrination. Yes, they gained control over education. Yes, values have changed, and each crisis has persuaded the public to submit to increasing controls. But people are not getting better--and the results are devastating. For the moment, the pressure is on the Church. Faced with shocking suggestions, peer pressure, persuasive arguments, and constant challenges to Christian faith, most children are following peers into the new paradigm where bad is good and good is global. Resistance is costly. A girl who refuses to endorse the gay lifestyle is labeled homophobic. A boy who appreciates traditional gender roles will score low in the new affective (feeling-based) assessments. They simply don't measure up to the new standard for tolerance. TEACH TOLERANCE---PUNISH INTOLERANCE. Seven-year old Sallie loved her school and her classmates. But she felt sad when a teacher at her elementary school in Los Altos, California, told her not to talk about her Christian beliefs on school grounds. "What's church and state," she asked her mother later that day. "Why do you ask?" answered the mother. "My teacher told me to keep them apart and not talk about Jesus. She said I should save that talk for Sundays." The rule made no sense to Sallie. Jesus was special to her every day--not just on Sundays. And she knew God wanted her to tell others. Yet she didn't want to break the rules. So when she wanted to bring her Bible for "sharing day," she hesitated. In the end, she decided not to bring it--even though one of her classmates had brought a small Buddha statue for the sharing time. The teacher didn't seem to mind the Buddhist religion. Sallie's mother was in the classroom for a Thanksgiving celebration when the teacher asked all the students to say in one word what they were thankful for. Sallie raised her hand right away. She knew what she was thankful for: Jesus. But the teacher ignored her hand and called on all the others. Finally, at the very end, she let Sallie say her special word. The teacher squinted, showing her displeasure. Sallie felt shamed. One day, when Sallie was talking about Jesus with a classmate who had come to her Vacation Bible School, the principal came by and heard some of their conversation. "Don't talk about Jesus so much," he told her. Sallie felt confused. "But Kara needs to hear about Jesus," she said. She knew that her friend was hurting. As one might expect, Sallie didn't do well on the new assessments that emphasize the "right" values and attitudes rather than traditional academics. She was assigned to a "Child Study Team" where she would be remediated. Her IEP (Individual Education Plan) would be managed and monitored by the Resource Specialist. "She doesn't smile, Mommy," said Sallie, who felt uncomfortable in her counselor's presence. Her parents asked a lawyer what rights they had as parents to protect Sallie from religious intolerance. The lawyer warned them that the school might consider Sallie "overly religious" and refer her to Child Protection Services (CPS). At that point, Sallie's parents quickly transferred her from the local public school to a Christian school. Sallie misses her friends, but at least she is no longer under the watchful eye of the school-based "thought police."4 Perhaps you are wondering how this could be happening in America. What happened to free speech? To religious freedom? To kindness? Remember the paradigm shift. The new paradigm changed all the rules. The globalist meaning for tolerance permits no tolerance for Christianity. An international "Declaration on Tolerance," prepared by UNESCO and signed by "member nations," defined the new global standard. All nations would be responsible for fulfilling this international contract by teaching the "right" kind of tolerance. Though America didn't sign, our schools are leading the way. As you read UNESCO's international contract on tolerance, ask yourself, "Can Christian children really 'appreciate' what God forbids?" Look up Deuteronomy 18:9-13, Romans 1:18-32 and I Corinthians 10:11, then follow its twisted logic below: * "Tolerance is respect, acceptance and appreciation of the rich diversity of our world's cultures.... It is not only a moral duty, it is also a political and legal requirement. * "Tolerance involves the rejection of dogmatism and absolutism.... [Biblical truth?] * "Tolerance... means that one's views are not to be imposed on others. [Would this end freedom to share the gospel with others? Could the UN still share its views?] * "Intolerance... is a global threat. * "Scientific studies and networking should be undertaken to coordinate the international community's response to this global challenge, including analysis... of root causes and effective countermeasures, as well as research and monitoring.... * "Tolerance promotion and the shaping of attitudes of openness, mutual listening and solidarity should take place in schools and universities, and through non-formal education... at home and in the workplace. * "Promote rational tolerance teaching methods that will address the cultural, social, economic, political and religious sources of intolerance--major roots of violence and exclusion."15 This anti-Christian standard for right and wrong has permeated teacher's colleges, educational laboratories, and curricula for decades. It has torn down God's boundaries, and allowed immorality and deception to flood our land. No wonder children are adrift in a tumultuous current of inner conflict and moral confusion. God warned us long ago that this would happen: "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil... Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight." (Isaiah 5:20) HIDE NEW VALUES BEHIND OLD LABELS. Having created the crisis, education leaders have a ready solution. President Clinton summarized it well in his 1997 State of the Union speech: "Character education must be taught in our schools. We must teach our children to be good citizens." What kind of character for tomorrow's citizens? In 1976, NEA leader Harold Shane spoke for a long line of education leaders when he wrote "...we will educate our young for planetary service and eventually for some form of world citizenship." Shane had been working with Terrel Bell (who became President Reagan's first Education Secretary) on a NEA committee exploring a change in "the cardinal principles of education."16 With support from President Clinton, Richard Riley, William Bennett, Marian Wright Edelman, and global ethicists such as Rushmore Kidder who founded the Institute for Global Ethics, "Character Education" has become a smoke screen for teaching global citizenship. Educators simply decide on the values needed for the managed communities of the 21st century, then market them to schools, parents, and community leaders with nice-sounding labels such as "respect" and "responsibility." It works. Christian parents have always taught their children good character qualities, so the idea appeals to us. We want to believe that the educational establishment still upholds the values that we treasure. And we forget that words take on new meanings when moved from the familiar Christian context into the new global paradigm. Remember North Carolina School Superintendent Causby's words: "We have learned to put the best spin on things."17 Character Education, as touted by the educational establishment and the White House, has put the best of spins on a most alarming plan. Let's see what happens when Christian words are plunged into the New Age context. But first, remember that teaching character began as God's idea. Long after He first told parents to train their children to follow His ways, He gave us this list of godly qualities: diligence, faith, virtue, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, kindness, and love. (2 Peter 1:2-8, NKJV) You know what those words mean. The context of the whole Bible makes it clear to us. Only by His life in us, can His character qualities be demonstrated through us. Only by faith in Him and all He has promised us, can we be "partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust...." When globalist leaders use similar words, the focus changes. The Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD-the curriculum arm of the mighty NEA) has given schools a nice-sounding set of character qualities, but its leaders had no intention of promoting the Christian values they have fought so hard to ban. Their list--justice, altruism, diligence, and respect--may sound biblical, but its intent fits the NEA vision of social control. A broad-based coalition called Character Counts! promotes another impressive list. Its "Six Pillars of Character" include respect, responsibility, justice, trustworthiness, civic virtue, and citizenship. These "consensus ethical values" were chosen in 1992, when a group of psychiatrists, international ethicist, political leaders, school superintendents, and members of state boards of education met in Aspen, Colorado, to share "ideas about character development" and seek "consensus on the ethical values that could be taught at home, in the classroom and at the office."18 The Aspen Conference which birthed Character Counts was organized by the Josephson Institute of Ethics. Its chairman is Frances Hesselbein, chief executive of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management.19 Do you see the link to Total Quality Management (TQM) and the global workplace? The Council of Advisors for Character Counts includes Hillary Clinton's friend Marian Wright Edelman, head of Childrens Defense Funds and a plenary speaker at Mikhail Gorbachev's 1996 State of the World Forum. This is significant, for the CC leaders give us a clue into the values behind the lists of character qualities. They have little to do with God's plan for His people. They has everything to do with a global and political agenda. Take the word respect. Used in a global context, respect--like tolerance--means appreciation for people and lifestyles that fit the globalist plan. Does your child's teacher promote "respect" for paganism and promiscuous lifestyles by commending Planned Parenthood or by organizing "fun" earth-centered rituals in the classroom? In most schools today, "respect" rules out respect for Christian children and parents who refuse to compromise God's truth and moral standard. The biblical standard simply doesn't fit the new goals. But what the world condemns, God rewards: "Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust, and does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. (Psalm 40:4) Their second Pillar of Character, "responsibility," is as misleading as "respect." According to the Character Education Partnership, it prepares students to "guard the fundamental rights of all citizens and carry out the obligations of citizenship by working toward a common vision of the common good."20 That sounds good until we consider what that "common vision" might be--and what kinds of obligations it might demand--now and in the future. And what does "common good" imply? A socialist state where individual goals must yield to collective interests? Knowing what strange bedfellows make up the Character Education Partnership gives us another clue. Two of its powerful partners are the NEA and its curriculum branch, the ASCD. Look again at their philosophy. NEA leader Willard Givens summarized it well back in 1934. "...all of us, including the 'owners', must be subjected to a large degree of social control.... The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order." 21 The "new social order" would emphasize duties instead of rights. Community or collective rights would count far more than individual rights. That's an old totalitarian idea re-packaged for today. More than fifty years ago, NEA Journal editor J. Elmer Morgan envisioned "a world Bill of Rights and Duties". Today his dream is nearing reality. Hard to believe? Not for those who are familiar with NEA and UNESCO plans--or those who has been following President Clinton's speeches. Just review my April 16 (PropheZine #39) article on "Zero Tolerance" and see how the evolving new system sacrifices individual justice for "the common good." "Civic Virtue" and "Citizenship" fit hand-in-glove with "Responsibility." All three are open-ended. Compliant citizens must be ready to conform to changing rules and evolving duties. All three imply obedience to a new "civic framework of rights, responsibilities and respect."22 "Honesty" and "Cooperation" are good Christian qualities. But in the hands of "change agents" they, too, can be used for ungodly purposes. In classroom dialogues led by facilitators trained to draw private information from dutiful children, they persuade children to "be open" and "tell the truth" about church, discipline, and family activities the schools have no right to know or monitor. Don't forget, most of the character qualities were good when used in a biblical context. But when moved into the global paradigm, they became tools for transformation. Notice how the focus changes with the paradigm shift: CHRISTIAN CONTEXT GLOBAL CONTEXT respect - for what God calls good / for earth-centered values responsibility - to God first / to the collective community understanding - from God's perspective / from global perspective co-operation - according to God's plan / according to changing rules citizenship - obey God's guidelines / serve and conform to group altruism - God's love through us to others / mandatory "voluntary" service empathy - compassion for the needy / oneness with all justice - fair trial, compensation / socialist equality, redistribution FOLLOW SUCCESSFUL MODELS. Unlike other experimental teaching programs, character education has been tested. It works. Nazi educators traded academics for character education--and created arrogant, tough, and obedient citizens--ready for unquestioning service to the state. As Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf: "The folkish state must not adjust its entire educational work primarily to the inoculation of mere knowledge.... The training of mental abilities is only secondary.... First place must be taken by the development of character, especially promotion of will-power and determination, combined with the training of joy in responsibility.... "A man with little scientific education but... with a good, firm character... is more valuable for the national community than a clever weakling.... In the hard struggle of destiny, the man who knows least seldom succumbs...."23 Hitler had been watching Russia, where education was "harnessed to the goals of the Communist party." Schools were "drastically changed.... Pupils took part in soviets [local appointed councils] which were responsible for running schools and communities. Teachers were told to eradicate all traces of the old philosophies and instill Communist ideas of education."24 Factual learning was replaced by ideology, and teachers were trained to modify behavior and build the character required of Soviet youth. Homework and exams were forbidden--until chaos forced a change. Using the same propaganda we hear today, Lenin said, "Our schools must give our youth the foundations of knowledge, of ability to work out themselves the Communist outlook. It must make educated people of them." Yet, only a compliant elite would rise above the working classes, for "free secondary education was allowed only to students of exceptional ability."25 >From a Christian perspective, character education both in Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany was a dismal failure. But to globalist "change agents" it accomplished its purpose: it turned children into compliant citizens and zealous activists for the state. Less than a decade after Hitler showed the true colors of Nazi character, the United Nations and its US partners were writing a similar script for America. Its vision for world education would use both Nazi and Soviet-style behavior modification to mold global citizens with world-class character. Like the Clintons today, the first UN leaders used "science" to validate a supposed "need" for government control over families. Soon after the UN was founded, its leaders presented "new discoveries" in mental health research "showing" that children must be protected against traditional values. To raise awareness of the dangers and bring public consensus, the 1948 International Congress on Mental Health produced a statement called "Mental Health and World Citizenship." It declared that, "Social institutions such as family and school impose their imprint early in the personality development of their members, who in turn tend to perpetuate the traditional patterns... It is the man and woman in whom these patterns of attitude and behavior have been incorporated who present the immediate resistance to social, economic and political changes. Thus prejudice, hostility, or excessive nationalism may become deeply embedded in the developing personality without awareness on the part of the individual concerned, and often at great human cost." Does that sound familiar? Remember UNESCO's Declaration on Tolerance. It declared intolerance to be "a global threat." A danger to all humanity! Tom Hanks used the same argument last April 28, during the President's Summit on America's Future. Perhaps you watched as he moderated "I Am Your Child"-a televised film designed to prepare the public to accept state control over child-raising. He began with a familiar script: "...according to startling new scientific discoveries about brain development, the emotional and intellectual environment [the newborn baby] is exposed to during those critical first three years will have a profound effect on what kind of person he will turn out to be. And the kind of person he turns out to be will impact either positively or negatively every other person in the world. That's right." Sounds like another global crisis, doesn't it? But don't worry. Our government has planned a rescue. With an army of trained mentors, monitors, and parent-teachers, it will direct child-raising along the right path. In fact, early childhood training is simply the first part of "lifelong learning"--another UNESCO idea. This "cradle-to-grave" program must involve young and old in the new "seamless human resource" management system based on consensus. Everyone must embrace the right values, demonstrate the right character, and become the right kind of citizen--or lose the social benefits only awarded those who comply. This new citizen will freely offer his or her time to state-organized "voluntary" service--or "service learning." [This origin and dangers of this program are illustrated and explained in "Brave New Schools"] During his Summit on America's Future, President Clinton called for thousands of volunteers to participate in the process. With his typical flair for spin control, he announced, "The era of big government may be over, but the era of big challenges for our country is not. And so we need an era of big citizenship. That's why we're here."26 REVIVE EARTH-CENTERED VALUES. "Big citizenship" refers to the new "democratic" or "civil government" envisioned by globalist leaders. Political decisions would be made by the bureaucratic "councils" which resemble Lenin's "soviets" and--so we are told--represent the views of an entity called "the people." Since the public will be trained in politically correct citizenship and consensus, they will have learned not to oppose this process. Few globalists have advanced the new image of citizenship more zealously than Robert Muller, the Chancellor of the University of Peace in Costa Rico. The former Assistant Secretary-General of the UN led the design team for UNESCO's Global Education Project and helped lay the groundwork for lifelong learning. His own World Core Curriculum--inspired by Alice Bailey's spirit guide "the Tibetan Master, Djwhal Khul"-- became a shining model for teaching values in the US and around the world. Outlining basic assumptions of the global paradigm, it calls for schooling in planetary citizenship long before a child learns his or her national or local identity. In April 4-6, 1997, Muller hosted a Youth Congress in Vancouver titled "Global Citizenship 2000." Sponsored by the International Foundation of Learning, it challenged 14 teams of student leaders to design Millennium projects that would be used to inspire students, teachers, mentors and politicians around the world. Carl Teichrib, who publishes the insightful news letter, Zero Ground, attended, taped and transcribed the sessions. Ponder the following list of Millennium Projects proposed by the students. Do you wonder where their ideas came from? * Develop a Global Citizenship theme park with exhibitions such as an "imagination market" and a ride where people discover what it would be like to be cut down as a tree. It would teach environmental servant-hood and encourage the use of hemp instead of trees. * Develop a Ministry of Water for world wide water management. * Create a Global Citizenship Club in the school, making sure the students get involved in saving the environment. An additional bonus: "We can influence the parents..." * Eliminate prejudice based on race, ethnicity, religion, culture, social status, sex and age... * Create a Global Citizenry Charter of Rights.... Give the kids some morals to live by. * Plan a school course on planetary preservation... * Develop an Inter-Faith Council. "...which could have many different religions...representatives from all the different religions in the school coming together to promote peace and...get rid of tensions. A group of young women performed a skit to dramatize the new meaning of citizenship. One member sat on a round table and held pine branches in her hands. "Welcome to the Council of Human Beings," she began. "I represent Mother Earth." In turn, the other women laid their hands on her and confessed their environmental sins: "I am guilty of wasting water when I'm brushing my teeth, letting the water run, and having long showers." "I am guilty of killing animals by buying and wearing leather sandals." "I am guilty of polluting the environment when I'm fully aware of the oil leak in my dad's car." "I am guilty of supporting the destruction of East Timor by buying jewelry and blankets made in Indonesia." Mother Earth (ME) acknowledged each confession with a brief, "I hear you," then posed the next challenge: "How can you heal me?" "I can stop wasting water by only taking what I need," said the first repentant sinner. "I forgive you," said ME. Each woman proved her repentance by sharing her good intentions. At the end, the group received a hearty applause. Robert Muller must have been pleased. Young activists around the world are joining his campaign for a global code of ethics based on earth-centered values. At a 1995 UN celebration in San Francisco Bay Area, he stressed the need for a such a standard: "Our spirituality is being reborn.... We need a universal Declaration of Ethics.... The first period took up human rights. Now, we must deal with rights of the planet.... "We need... universal Declarations of Duties and Responsibilities.... I would recommend: 1. "A science of ethics. The great religions lead us to discern what is right and what is wrong.... We need a science to define what is good and bad.... 2. "A strategy of ethics: Teach that all are interconnected from infinitely large to infinitely small.... Muller then listed some of the most urgent duties. They dealt with environmental violations such as large families, over-consumption, too much garbage, and religious differences. The World Court would punish violations. "We must start debate in the UN for ethical behavior," he announced, then suggested that the UN "create independent commissions" on spirituality ["I told the Dalai Lama to do it"] and on communication ["I told Ted Turner..."]". He concluded, "Create a new UN office on ethics -- in duties and responsibilities....The world government [must establish ethics] to condemn people who come up with nuclear weapons.... The next millennium must heal what is wrong!" GOD'S ETERNAL VALUES. From Muller's perspective, the biggest wrong is the Christian view of man and nature. He may never have read the passages in the Bible that shows God's special concern for His creation--trees, flowers, wild and domestic animals.... It wouldn't matter if he did. What matters to Muller and other globalists are the deceptive strategies persuasive needed to persuade the public to submit to their international system of oppressive rules and laws--a system not unlike the Huxleys' vision of a tightly managed world. You saw it earlier. It would own each child and control each person. But it would sanction the sexual sins God forbids. Today, this twist on freedom serves a purpose. As in recent totalitarian regimes, well-chosen compensations distract the masses from the anguish of tyranny. "In Brave New World," Aldous Huxley describes the seductive "feelies" that compensate for the loss of freedom. First among them is sexual license : "As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual freedom tends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator... will do well to encourage that freedom. In conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, movies and the radio, it will help to reconcile his subjects to the servitude which is their fate."27 Sensual, earth-centered values are anything but new to the human race. Pagan cultures have indulged in sexual promiscuity along with spiritual rituals since the beginning of time. And whenever God's Old Testament people turned away from their Shepherd, it wasn't long before they were caught up in the same deadly lusts that corrupted their pagan neighbors. Your children are not immune to the world's seductive messages. They hear the same tempting promises and the same alluring voices that others hear and follow. They, too, want peace and safety, friends and fun. So when the counterfeit answers rings out again and again, week after week, they start to sound both true and natural. Concerned about their spiritual safety, our Shepherd reminds them: "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Romans 12:2-3, NKJV) Unless we help our children build a mental framework and filter based on biblical truth, the world's philosophies will probably squeeze them into its mold. It takes discernment, diligence, and delight in God to stand firm in His truth when friends choose the tempting counterfeits. But those who have chosen to stand firm, wear His armor, trust His promises, and follow Him no matter what, will be led by the Shepherd in a peace and triumph the world can never understand. "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love Him," but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit." (1 Cor. 2:9-10) Therefore we can sing with David, "The LORD is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer; My God, my strength, in whom I will trust; My shield and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold. I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; So shall I be saved from my enemies." (Psalm 18:2-3, NKJV) * * * To understand the manipulative strategies used to change our children and persuade the public to accept a global education system, read Brave New Schools (Harvest House Publishers). Available through Christian bookstores, or call 800-929-5646. * * * Endnotes: 1 Education for International Co-operation and Peace at the Primary-School Level (Switzerland: UNESCO, 1983), 9. 2 Richard Riley, White House, Washington DC, July 29, 1994. Internet: http://www.ed.gov/Speeches/07-1994/charactr.html 3 Lester Kirkendall, Sexuality and Man (SIECUS). (I bought this book, but have misplaced it. Contact me for more information.) 4 David Krathwohl, Benjamin Bloom and Bertram Massia, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Classification of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective Domain, (McKay Publishers, 1956), 55. 5 Mark E. Howerter, "The Other Side of the News." http://www.prairienet.org/otherside. 6 William Glasser, M.D., Schools Without Failure (NY: Harper & Row, 1969), 161. 7 Sidney B. Simon, Leland W. Howe, and Howard Kirschenbaum, Values Clarification--A Handbook of Practical Strategies for Teachers and Students (New York: Hart Publishing Co., 1972), 38-39, 41-46. 8 Ibid., 49, 54. 9 Harold Shane, Today's Education (January 1969). Shane worked with Terrel Bell (later President Reagan's Education Secretary) on a NEA Bicentennial Report on "Cardinal Principles" that would "bring about a harmoniously interdependent global community." Cited by Dennis Cuddy, 59-60. 10 George Bush, White House, April 18, 1991. "America 2000: An Education Strategy." 11 Man, Education and Society in the Year 2000, a report issued by the Institute for Chief State School Officers, 1974. Summary written by Dr. Grant Venn, CSSO Institute Director. Cited by Dr. Dennis Cuddy, 55-56 12 The United States Prepares for Its Future: Global Perspectives in Education, Report of the Study Commission on Global Education," 1987. The report is financed by the Rockefeller, Ford and Exxon Foundations. Cited by Dr. Dennis Cuddy, 80. 13 Al Gore, Earth in the Balance (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1992), p. 274. 14 George W. Parkyn, Towards a Conceptual Model of Life-long Education (Paris: UNESCO, 1973), 8. 15 The Declaration of Principles on Tolerance, adopted and signed by the Member States of the UNESCO on 16 November, 1995. 16 Harold Shane, "America's Next 25 Years: Some Implications for Education," Phi Delta Kappan (September 1976). Cuddy, 59-60. 17 Cynthia Weatherly, "The Second Annual Model School Conference," The Christian Conscience (January 1995); 36. 18 Character Counts! Internet: http://www.charactercounts.org/ "Background." 19 Ibid. 20 Character Education Partnership, Internet: http://web2010.com/cepweb/ 21 Willard Givens presented a report titled "Education for the New America" at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the NEA, held in Washington, D.C. in July 1934. Cuddy, 20. 22 Charles C. Haynes, "Character Education in the Public Schools," Character Education Partnership, Internet: http://www.fac.org/publicat/cground/ch14_1.html 23 Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1791), 408. 24 Encyclopedia Britannica, Volume 22 (Chicago: William Benton, 1968), 538, 537. 25 Ibid., 538. 26 James Bennet, "Presidents Call for Big Citizenship, Not Big Government," New York Times, April 29, 1997. 27 Aldous Huxley, Brave New World (New York: Harper Perennial, 1932), xvii. Canadian researcher Carl Teichrib can be reached at: C.T. Communication, Box 612, Gladstone, Manitoba, Canada, R0J 0T0 (204-385-3084). ************************** - P O I N T - WHAT IS OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION? By William Bonville There is widespread public awareness that our public schools have failed to educate our children. There is an equally widespread clamor for change. The people want schools to be good again. This was the excuse for introducing Outcome Based Education. OBE will cure all our problems by restructuring the schools to meet the desires of the people and the needs of children. OBE is the white knight to the rescue. Or is it? Since in recent decades our schools have been run more and more bureaucratically, adopting more and more new and experimental programs, engaging more and more in social engineering instead of traditional education, one might conclude that public schools over the past three decades have been systematically weaned away from their function of education. Indeed, when one looks into the history of educational policy management at all levels, one can argue convincingly that the educational effectiveness of our public schools has been systematically destroyed in order that something like Outcome Based Education, OBE, could be brought in to "save" the schools. While such a notion is alarmingly consistent with the theories of the experts who developed and implemented OBE (to achieve change, first introduce" dissonance" to produce confusion and the consequent desire for change, they advise), there is little appearance of that when OBE first arrives on the scene. OBE has the appearance of being "local" in origin, a system devised uniquely by people on the actual site of the schools to solve the immediate problems of each individual school. But that is mere appearance. OBE is a cleverly packaged system of schooling handed down through federal and state educational bureaucracies which skilled experts, called facilitators and change agents, implant into each school district. On the surface it looks good to pupils, teachers and parents. They like it because, if nothing else, it feels good. Its initial phase of implementation is designed to be easy to swallow, smoothing things out in preparation for the changes to come. The first thing that leads one to question OBE is discovery that it is not a system invented by experienced educators. Instead it was developed and is managed and guided by a fanatical group of sociologists and psychologists originally funded and directed by an assortment of tax-exempt foundations. Principal among them is the Carnegie Corporation, which has sponsored and led the key organizations that have developed and implemented OBE; and the Rockefeller Foundation, which funds several key organizations involved in the school restructuring movement, organizations which are guided by regents or boards of directors on which a man named David Rockefeller holds membership and calls the shots personally or through his representatives. And David Rockefeller, whatever else he may be, is not an educator. Taking a deeper look at OBE, we discover that it is not about education at all. At least, not in terms of traditional academically-based, teacher-directed instruction that once was the foundation of American education until the social engineers began whittling away at it back in the 1960s. The fundamental strategy of the restructuring movement known as Outcome Based Education is elimination of all moral and psychological barriers to social change. Why social change? Because the political, industrial and banking leaders who lead our society have concluded that, the way the world is going, it will be politically and economically unmanageable in the very near future. OBE is a crucial part of the solution to their management problem. The ultimate objective is to gain socio-political control over all present and future generations of children, conditioning them to be cooperative and pliable workers and citizens who will go along with the New World Order. OBE will be the tool by which those children will be conditioned to operate cooperatively in the New World Order. That "Order" will be an egalitarian society (run by a small elite) marked by total conformity to, and control by, the ideas of those in charge of the state, in accordance with state-specified values and attitudes. This is the classic notion of Fabian Socialism carried to its logical extreme. OBE is thus global in concept, socialistic in philosophy, and anti-patriotic. It's design is based on a comprehensive view of the future a generation or two on out into the twenty first century. The sociologists work back from that concept to determine what education must be today to accommodate that presumed future. The outcomes of OBE are thus designed to produce an educational product (a student) who will function appropriately in that future. THIS IS THE KEY TO OBE. Those outcomes, these experts have determined, are only incidentally and at best secondarily what we would call academic. Instead, they are fundamentally associated with what one might call a view of the world, what the philosophers call a weltanschauung. And that is less an intellectual grasp of what the world is all about than it is felt understanding, a nexus of attitudes and dispositional feelings about the world and our place in it. And that is what the "outcomes" of OBE would restructure. The crucial point is that the educational outcomes that a graduate must possess to matriculate from the OBE system are attitudinal and relate to values, not to academic skills. Paramount above everything is that the student's outcome must include a high level of self esteem. He must believe and feel that he is the nicest, best, or whatever positive feeling is appropriate to the learning situation, no matter what the reality is due to his basic possession or lack of talent or intelligence. No matter what his capabilities and capacities, no matter where they place him in the order of things, he must feel good about himself so that he will be satisfied first of all with OBE itself, and then with where he finds himself in the social, economic and political order that the experts in world governments are creating for him to live in. OBE will produce this sort of satisfied, happy person because he or she will be able to succeed in mastering everything the system has to offer. That it isn't very much academically, is not beside the point. For if you educate children too well, at least some of them will be apt to challenge the new order of things. The masters of OBE have gained control of the educational system virtually everywhere in the nation, and have established legislation, implementation plans, schedules, and educational goals that are identical from state to state. In each instance they are instituting a system that is: 1. Brainwashing, not education. It uses Skinnerian techniques of psychological conditioning to obtain politically correct and compliant, dumbed-down workers who feel good about themselves. 2. Challenges traditional family values and religiously-based Judeo-Christian moral absolutes by developing a morality of relativism based on what feels good in situations. The objective is destruction of the Judeo-Christian culture and the conceptual and attitudinal anchors that underlie the ideals of individualism and freedom that dominate our prevailing world view. 3. Undermines academic excellence by de-emphasizing, eliminating or lowering academic standards such that all students can meet all requirements. Meanwhile it adds other standards which are attitudinal and affective, politically correct, verified by behaviors having nothing to do with academics. OBE focuses on changing behavior, attitudes, values, and feelings. These outcomes drive the system; where core academic subjects are taught, they are treated as processes only, used to achieve the real attitudinal goals. The system uses illegal psychological tests to assess those behaviors. 4. Makes a permanent record of the compliance of each child with these outcomes and, under that part of the law called "Parents as Teachers," intervenes in the family if necessary to obtain those outcomes. The laws are written so that families who object and resist the brain washing of their children can be prosecuted, lose jurisdiction over their children, and be forced into psychological counseling (at their own expense) until they have come around to the government's way of seeing things. 5. Makes that record on each child available to other agencies of the government and to prospective employers. Intends by law that a child who does not comply with outcomes will not get employed or be able to advance educationally. 6. Eliminates Carnegie Units (class hour credits in subjects) as a criterion for graduation; eliminates grading in favor of psychological testing of desired attitudinal outcomes. 7. Supplants the diploma with Certificates of Mastery (CIM and CAM), intermediate and advanced, at 10th and 12th grade equivalents. Forces fifteen- and sixteen-year-old students to make career decisions which become difficult for them to change, and reintroduces fixed "tracks" into the educational process. Keeps your children from receiving certificates if they disagree with the values taught in school, no matter how intellectually gifted or academically excellent they may be. 8. Increases length of school year and class length, in part to make possible the "remediation" of children who resist or reject the desired outcomes. 9. Makes the teacher into a "facilitator" or coach in place of conducting a directed learning environment. 10. Introduces "whole word" reading in place of phonics, and employs group, cooperative and coercive learning strategies in place of motivating individual initiative. The approach de-emphasizes individual choices and decisions or the learning of self reliance. Replaces math drills with calculators, vocabulary building with feel-good choices, etc., as it takes the work out of academic learning. 11. Gives control of the system to educators (site based management) in place of school boards and school committees, and thus breaks the last bit of local community control over the educational process. It also assures control of the educators by the system, because teachers and administrators are mandated to learn and utilize the new system, and they will remain dependent upon it for their professional advancement and livelihood. 12. Holds top achievers back by making them teach slower students until all have met the behavioral standards. This allows most members of a group or class to achieve only a small fraction of the academic progress gained under the existing system, bad as it is. For greater detail than above, you are urged to read Ron Sunseri's book: OBE, Understanding the Truth about Education Reform, Publishers, PO Box 1720, Sisters, OR 97759. But how exactly does OBE work? In OBE, a student must demonstrate an approved behavior defined by the state as the required outcome of the educational process. The state: 1. Sets a standard for "mastery" of a specified goal. 2. Tests to verify that the goal has been achieved. 3. Remediates a student who fails to meet the standard until he does. The required outcomes are attitudinal, not academically based. They set outcome attitudes towards and behavioral capacity for adaptability to change, ethical judgment, family living, environment, understanding and appreciating others, and good citizenship (defined as active participation in and support of civic government). The rhetoric of OBE says that children will proceed at their own pace and not be judged by "seat time." In practice, because of emphasis upon group learning strategies, all children in a group must achieve the goals before the group may move on, which puts tremendous pressure on a non-conformist to conform. This group orientation makes OBE a system for education of the group, not the individual. It is "collective" education in which competition is discouraged and the individual learns that the group is more important than the individual. Each school district must develop a plan to meet OBE requirements, submit it to the state and, if state does not approve, or if the district will not fall into line, the state will take over the district. In practice, the state provides the plan to the district, so that the plan is essentially the same in all districts and in all states. A carrot and stick approach is used. If the district cooperates, it gets an open conduit to state and federal money. If it doesn't, it gets taken over at worst, doesn't get money at best. Public Law 103-382, dated October 20 1994, provides $8 billion (yes, that is a B for billion) of grant money for spreading out to those states and school districts who accept the federal mandate to implement OBE in their schools. OBE thus is being implemented as a national curriculum that is to be worked into the system in stages. The following explanation is condensed from Ron Sunseri's book, page 23ff, a book that every parent should buy and read from cover to cover, for we only touch on all that the book covers about OBE. There are four stages in implementing outcome-based education. As you read you will begin to see a pattern that you may be experiencing in your own district. The transition from one stage of OBE to the next is accomplished through gradualism. Bill Spady, the "father of OBE," defines the stages as follows: STAGE 1: TRADITIONAL OBE Here OBE retains its traditional focus on traditional subject area knowledge (math, science, reading, etc.), outcome-based instruction is applied to the traditional disciplines. Shift is made to A,B,I grading (eighty percent = mastery; incomplete (I) doesn't count on grade point average). Teacher takes the role of coach or facilitator. STAGE 2: LOW TRANSITIONAL OBE The focus remains on academic subject areas with some OBE processes such as group collaboration, self assessment on performance terms using open-ended tests and demonstrations with scoring (rubrics) developed by teacher. A,B,I grading continues. STAGE 3: HIGH TRANSITIONAL OBE The instructional focus now shifts entirely to processes and competencies, using subject matter in hands-on, real-life experience situations. Future-driven competence outcomes from spheres of the psychological, sociological, political, using authentic, exit outcome-based performance assessments (portfolios, projects, etc.) Curriculum now becomes interdisciplinary (thematic, traditional disciplines integrated). STAGE 4: TRANSFORMATIONAL OBE Here the educational focus points to functioning in life-roles (knowledge, competence, and orientation towards the community as school, with it defining what we want the student to be like-values). What we now have are future conditions-driven life-role performance outcomes (psycho-socio-political focus) involving authentic role performances (apprenticeship, community service, working in community), with academic subject matters fully integrated into and effectively downgraded, emptied of much content (content is estimated by OBE authorities to be approximately 10 percent of traditional content), and submerged within thematic future-driven curriculum. The outcomes are scored by student- and expert-created rubrics (business and industry will assess and validate competencies through authentic life-role performances), awarding certificates of mastery leading to entry into workforce. Carnegie units are abandoned and criterion validation replaces grading with descriptions of competencies at each level. In 1990: Dept. of Labor formed the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills. Headed by Arnold Packer, author of 1987 report, "Workforce 2000: Workers for the 21st Century." What it spells out are OBE objectives, pure and simple. This led to the School to Work Bill, which requires that states adapt their educational system to facilitate transition from schools into the workplace, and do it as stipulated by the Federal Government. If not, Federal money is cut off. Again, this is a setup for OBE, which is designed to create a flow of compliant, dumb, attitudinally correct cheap labor force. Outcome-based education has a supporting strategy known as developmentally appropriate practices or DAP. While DAP is not technically connected to outcome-based education, proponents of OBE consider DAP imperative to the education of young children, which is why it accompanies the implementation of OBE everywhere. The National Association for the Education of Young Children has described DAP as follows: (again taken from Ron Sunseri's book, p 66ff) Practice: There is an integrated curriculum where learning in all traditional subject areas occurs primarily through projects, learning centers, and play activities. Meaning: No more directive teaching. No more content teaching. Young students will learn on their own by doing fun activities. In this model learning simply occurs, students don't strive to acquire knowledge. Practice: Children learn through active involvement with each other, with adults and older children serving as informal tutors. Meaning: Children learn from each other, not the teacher. The new role for the teacher is a passive tutor or facilitator. Older students are used as passive tutors as well. Practice: Individual children or small groups work and play cooperatively or alone in learning centers on projects that they usually select themselves. Meaning: Children self-direct their "learning." They are not directed by a teacher to do anything they don't want to do. Generally it is inappropriate for the teacher to select work for the student to accomplish. The child decides what is relevant. Practice: The math and science programs enable children to use math and science through exploration, discovery, and solving relevant problems. Meaning: No direct teaching and no rote learning of how to do sums or requiring the memorization of multiplication tables. Children will "explore" these subjects at learning centers. Practice: Social studies themes are identified as the focus of work for extended periods of time and are learned through a variety of projects and playful activities involving independent research through reading, excursions, discussions, relevant use of language, etc. Meaning: No directive teaching of content. Practice: Art, music, movement, and drama are integrated activities in the learning process. Meaning: Obvious Practice: Teachers promote socialization behavior, perseverance, industry, and independence by providing many stimulating and motivational activities. Teachers promote the development of children's conscience and self-control through positive guidance techniques, including setting clear limits in a positive manner and involving children in establishing rules for their class and social living. Meaning: Students begin to learn how to exhibit the behaviors required of them by outcomes. Practice: Teachers view and accept parents as partners. Meaning: The primary responsibility for the children lies with the school. Parents are only one part of a multi-faceted process. "Viewing" and "accepting" parents as partners establishes the teacher and school as the center of control. Parents must fit into the system and know their proper place. Criticisms of OBE on the basis of external criteria are argumentative and arbitrary as far as supporters of OBE are concerned. But internal criticisms are telling. Ask: How do you measure outcomes? For example, the desired outcome of self esteem. How do you score it? How much self esteem is enough? Too much? The only way of measuring such things is by psychological tests, which are illegal. Yet the government has set a standard which a student must meet in attitudes, values and beliefs. Examples: On assessment test the pupil is asked: What is your least favorite country? What is your least favorite religious denomination? Such questions expose a pupil's attitudes and feelings about other people, and tell nothing of his knowledge about the world. The real goal of OBE, it thus becomes clear, is just what the experts say it is in their research journals. It is to condition the populace to rapid adaptability to change without protest. The outcome sought is a compliant, willing, unquestioning worker used to and desiring to cooperate with his fellows as a not too smart drone working in the global industrial complex managed by the global elite. These compliant drones include parents and teachers as well as pupils. This is not education designed to make a child the best he can be; but one that makes him the best the social elite wants him to be. It is a method for implementing a Fabian-like socialistic New World Order and a globalistic viewpoint. This outcome, visited upon a generation or two of functional illiterates dumbed down to where they don't know any better, will be to the advantage of the "controller" of the new society. In the end, government schools using OBE cannot allow competing schools to survive, since they would produce better educated children and reveal the failure of OBE as a true educational system. They would also be breeding grounds for unreconstructed independent thinkers who might lead the drones in opposition to the new order of things. Therefore, the new laws provide that, when the experts deem the time is ripe, private and religious schools will be brought into the OBE system, and home schooling will be outlawed, all by the simple device that the teacher of any child must be certificated in the OBE technology and use it. To make this happen, the Federal government and states are waiving or ignoring all sorts of laws. This includes the Hatch Amendment, which outlaws psychological testing in the schools. Indeed, the federal Education Act, H.R. 6, has provisions specifically allowing the educational establishment to disregard laws which may interfere with implementation of OBE. The National Education Association has been a leader in the transformation process, enthusiastically hopping on board what the sociologists and psychologists have devised in the name of educational reform. In fact, the NEA not only supports the Federal Goals 2000 legislation now being implemented; the Ten Cardinal Principles of the NEA were virtually a blueprint for Goals 2000, which was no accident. David Rockefeller was an active participant in the NEA's development of those principles. Goals 2000 is a federal blueprint for education, over-riding local control and establishing a mandatory curriculum from the top down. It has no concern for academics. It was developed by Chester Finn. The Goals 2000, Educate America Act, signed by Bill Clinton, is legislation specifying: 1. School based clinics. The ultimate goal is to provide life-long services to the child and his family, making the data developed by these clinics part of the total package of information on pupils and families. 2. OBE, with computer data tracking ultimately extending from birth to death. 3. Parents as teachers, requiring "experts" to come into the home to show parents how to bring up their children with the approved attitudes and values. Those who object or fail to cooperate will be labeled as child abusers and be liable for prosecution and loss of their children to the state. This is part of the guideline that "all kids will arrive at school ready to learn." This gives "experts" an entry into home from birth to graduation of child. If parents refuse to let the experts into the home, they are labeled "at risk" and may be penalized. 4. Race norming of testing. Those of different race, color or income status will be scored differently, recognizing that (at least at the outset) they cannot score as well as middle-class Anglos. 5. No parental privacy, no parental input to the schools. The child belongs to the state and the family is an open book to the state. 6. Establishes a new National School Board, which will: a. Install uniform national curriculum and testing. b. Develop mandatory national outcome standards. c. Implement data tracking on an individual basis, with that data made available to other agencies and employers. 7. Mandatory school standards relative to the number of teachers and their salaries, computers, etc. 8. National Educational Goals Panel, which will issue reports on how well each district is meeting the above 7 goals. Bill Jasper writes, "Twisting through the confusing maze of Federal education agencies, bureaus, programs, grants and contracts runs a unifying thread, all leading toward the institution of a centrally controlled computer-based system of schooling employing the operant conditioning techniques of Behavioral Psychologist B. F. Skinner." He continues, "Deceptive and psychologically manipulative courses, curricula, teaching methods and textbooks, running under the label of Mastery Learning Competency Based Learning, or OBE, are replacing the traditional academic curriculum and causing havoc throughout the country as millions of students are purposefully being dumbed down." Nancy Stable, a former high school teacher in Pennsylvania schools, describes the "values clarification" technique used in OBE. It is a method for teaching decision making that teaches a child to abandon all the traditional values and standards taught at home and church, teaches that there is no absolute right or wrong, but that each individual can choose for himself based on what is good for himself. B. K. Eakman, in Educating for the New World Order (Halcyon House, Portland, OR 1991, pp 258-9), quotes William Bonner, Attorney for the Rutherford Institute: "While the public has assumed it retains its historic input into education on a local school district level, in fact education has been progressively federalized, with the bold new America 2000 as the ultimate expression of the consolidation of power over education directed from Washington. The revised Chapters 3, 5, and 6 respond to Washington's demand that the states effect strict compliance with federal regulation in exchange for federal dollars. Freedom, diversity and local control are being increasingly sacrificed in that exchange. "Undergirding this federalization of education has been a massive invasion of the family and the rights of individual students through curricula utilizing psychological programming and experimentation, as well as a broad spectrum of behavior modification techniques. Data periodically gathered through invasive testing within the affective domain has then, through the illegal demand for students' social security numbers...been compiled on computer systems storing vast amounts of intimate and private information on our children and youth, in violation of their constitutional rights... "The traditional interests and rights of parents have been trampled upon, as educators have proceeded on the proposition that professionals know better than parents how to raise children...." About the Author: Bill Bonville is a school board member helping undo the damage to our children resulting from the unproved, experimental nonsense foisted on them by OBE enthusiasts (dupes) and hired guns (consultants). He is not a Christian evangelical, not a right-wing conservative, but is a former military flight engineer with wartime service who made his career in the aerospace industry managing training and documentation services related to high-tech ground, sea and space systems. In the recent election he was a Reform Party candidate for Congress. William J. Bonville 6030 Tunnel Loop Rd. Grants Pass, OR 97526 tel/fax 541-476-5533 mailto: bonville@cdsnet.net http://home.cdsnet.net/~bonville ----------------------------------------------- - C O U N T E R - P O I N T - OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION By G. Edwin Lint Some Real Facts About Outcome-Based Education Much has been written and said against outcome-based education from the political and theological perspectives. Now, consider the facts: OBE Fact 1: Outcome-Based Education is a method for organizing how we run our schools. There is no inherent evil in it, contrary to the beliefs of many evangelicals. The concept of OBE doesn't promote homosexuality, secular humanism, occult practices, immorality, the new age, or a new world order. Not by itself, it doesn't. OBE Fact 2: Outcome-Based Education is nothing but a wheelbarrow. You can use a wheelbarrow to haul fresh fruits and vegetables. Or, you can use a wheelbarrow to haul garbage. Outcome-Based Education can provide good education if the outcomes, methods, and materials are good. Or-- Outcome-Based Education can provide rotten education if the content of the curriculum is poor (or evil). OBE Fact 3: Just exactly what is OBE? Outcome-Based Education is just what the name implies. Instead of being time-based, it is outcome-based. Students get credit for learning specific things-- which are known as learning-outcomes-- not just for putting in their time. For example, if a child can read at the third grade level on the first day of kindergarten, true Outcome-Based Education says that instruction should start at the third or fourth grade level-- not way down at the Fun with Dick and Jane level. OBE Fact 4: With time-based education, WHEN a student learns a skill or fact is more important than WHETHER or not he or she learns it. OBE Fact 5: With Outcome-Based Education, time is irrelevant. WHETHER a skill is learned is the important thing. OBE Fact 6: If Outcome-Based Education is new, what is it replacing? For over 100 years, public schools in the United States have been organized according to calendar-based and clock-based education. Most public schools are in session 180 days a year, five and one half hours a day, for 13 years, counting kindergarten. So, Outcome-Based Education is replacing Time-Based Education. OBE Fact 7: Outcome-Based Education is driven by three cardinal laws of learning: A. Don't teach a skill which has already been learned. This annoys students. B. Don't teach a skill which will never be used. This bores students. C. Don't teach a skill until the student is ready. This frustrates students. Most children come to school loving it. What makes them start to dislike it? Being bored. Being annoyed. Being frustrated. We adults hate anything which bores, annoys, and frustrates us, too. OBE Fact 8: Outcome-Based Education can be of particular value to students who attend private day schools or who are being schooled at home. Since the critical issues are what is known, not when it is learned, students can move into or out of an OBE program without experiencing gaps or overlaps in their education. OBE Fact 9: Gifted students may stand to gain the most from Outcome-Based Education. The converse is true; gifted students may lose the most if it is not fully implemented. Consider the TV sitcom Doogie Howser, a story of a teenager who became a physician while still in his early teens. With Outcome-Based Education, any child could be a real-life Doogie Howser if he or she has the mental ability to learn-- while still in the elementary grades-- the things a fledgling doctor needs to know in order to enter med school. OBE Fact 10: Concerned parents can do some useful things to help a child's education, with or without OBE in place. First, keep a close eye on WHAT is being taught in terms of the planned courses and the outcomes. Make sure that wheelbarrow is hauling fresh fruits and vegetables and not hauling garbage. And second-- get involved in what the school is doing. Go to PTA meetings. Don't miss parent-teacher conferences. Even offer to volunteer to serve as an unpaid teacher aid. And if you smell garbage, yell loud and long. Behind the Scenes at a State Department of Education The revised curriculum regulations spelled out in Chapter 5 of the Regulations of the [Pennsylvania, USA] State Board of Education made it possible to implement outcome-based education. When these regulations were published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin, July 24, 1993, it caused quite a bit of consternation among many evangelicals. At this time, my duties at the Pennsylvania Department of Education included attending many of the training and implementation seminars designed to help put OBE into place. In addition, I was a member of a work group which drafted a section of the original required outcomes. I emphasize the importance of getting involved with the local strategic planning groups as well as the curriculum development committees working on school district planned courses. [In Pa., all curriculum must be in "planned course" format, including lists of outcomes and means to achieve those outcomes]. I didn't change everyone's mind but the fire left their eyes and we were able to talk rationally. I had a subsequent meeting with the education subcommittee of this God and Country Committee and that was positive also. At that time, they asked me for a list of districts in the region by strategic planning wave so they could start getting involved in the process. Let me move on to some comments about evangelicals and their concerns about public education. 1. Evangelicals include blue-collar workers or professionals in some field unrelated to education. They tend to favor stressing the 3 Rs and are not interested in affective areas, as a rule. 2. There is a concern that values-free sex education will be more prevalent under OBE, including condom distribution. 3. The use of the term "lifestyle" is a lightening rod. To an evangelical, this term conjures up visions of alternative lifestyles which are not consistent with traditional family values. The solution: we should stop using this term. 4. There is fear of the occult. This probably comes from other states ... which have had tinges of the occult creeping into the curriculum. This spring, I heard Chuck Colson on the radio trashing Pennsylvania's OBE thrust. He may be an excellent lawyer and an effective minister in prisons, but he clearly lacked facts on OBE. He seemed to be influenced by things which are happening in other states where there is evidence of supernatural powers such as witchcraft in curricular materials .... With many nationally-syndicated radio and TV programs aimed at evangelicals, the thinking and philosophies by people like Chuck Colson are evident in their own philosophies. 5. There is fear of the New Age movement. For the last 2,000 years, we have been in the Age of Pisces, the dispensation of Jesus Christ. The "new age" is the dispensation of man (secular humanism) where there are no moral absolutes. This is the true meaning of the song, "This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius." Evangelicals are opposed to anything which hints of New Age or secular humanism. The bottom line of all this: Although there is no real evidence to support it in Pennsylvania, evangelicals feel there's a real link among OBE and New Age, Secular Humanism, and the occult. Some states with so-called progressive education ideas have had hints of these elements. Therefore, some people have extrapolated this to mean that because OBE is new, it will lead directly to contamination by these things which are feared. When I speak to groups of concerned parents, here's what I say: If you fear unwanted intrusions into your schools' curriculum, you should look to planned courses. This is the community's real line of defense. In Pennsylvania with it's commitment to local control, nothing can be taught legally unless it is supported by a planned course. If it's not in the planned course, it shouldn't be in a lesson plan. And if it's not in a lesson plan, it shouldn't be taught. OBE or no OBE Since then, I have been alert to what's going on in the community in this regard. On January 16, I picked up a copy of an open letter in the foyer of our church (Christian Life Assembly in Camp Hill). This letter talked about the church's concerns pertaining to revising Chapter 5, specifically in the area of the Learning Outcomes. I scheduled an "unofficial" meeting with two of the Associate Pastors in an attempt to learn more about the nature of their concerns. At this meeting, I told them: A. Chapter 5 with its emphasis on outcome-based education rather than traditional clock-hours and credits was at the cutting edge of what is good about the national concern for improving our schools. B. The language of Goal 11 (Appreciating and understanding others) was as close to the teachings of Jesus Christ regarding interpersonal relationships as a public education document could come. C. The local school district, through its Strategic Plan and the subsequent planned courses, had total control of the actual instruction which would be presented to the students. D. A complete education for a student of any age includes the affective as well as the cognitive domain. At first, one of the associate pastors took a strong position that the school had no business teaching in the affective domain and that this was the sole responsibility of the home and church. Later, his opposition seemed to boil down to concerns about such terms as "lifestyle". Let me suggest that during the revision of the learning outcomes which relate to the affective domain, we include recognized representatives of the evangelical movement, in general, and of the Christian day school and home-school movements in particular. It's better to have these people in on the discussions from the ground up than to have them seeing words like "lifestyle" as an issue of contention later on. OUTCOME-BASED EDUCATION (OBE) VIA WILLIAM G. SPADY This is a summary of the OBE workshop which Spady [a national OBE author] and company presented at Hatboro-Horsham School District May 14-15, 1992: 1. Spady's OBE stresses two key concepts: WHETHER is more important than WHEN, and education is the process of preparing persons for adult life. 2. This version of OBE is consistent with what good ... educators have been talking about for years. 3. Spady uses three key terms to describe "curriculum". In descending order of value, they are: A. Traditional, based on subject matter content. B. Transitional, based on higher-order competencies C. Transformational, based on complex role performance in authentic contexts (preparation for adult life). 4 Spady emphasizes the importance of designing curriculum from the top down and delivering it from the bottom up. About the Author: G. Edwin Lint has served as education adviser for the Pennsylvania Department of Education . Presently retired from public education, and works as an educational consultant. You may reach G. Edwin Lint at edlint@ezonline.com For more info by G. Edwin Lint see http://www.opendoor.com/Higher.Ground/gelec.html http://www.opendoor.com/Higher.Ground/pstar.html "1996 G. Edwin Lint; used with the permission of the copyright owner" For more GREAT Point - Counterpoint opinions go to http:// www.monroeweekly.com Let them know you read it in PropheZine *************************** PropheZine News Bytes F.Y.I. - Israel In The News Week Ending: May 31, 1997/24 Iyar, 5757 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "Rejoice, O nations, with His people; for He will avenge the blood of His servants, and render vengeance on His adversaries, and will atone for His land and for His people" Deuteronomy 32.43 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ PALESTINIAN SECURITY AGENTS DETAINED: 76 security agents from the Palestinian Authority (PA) have been detained by the Israeli police for illegal activity in Jerusalem in the past fifteen months. The Israel Government Press Office announced Sunday that despite the fact that under the terms of the Oslo agreement, the PA is barred from exercising any authority or conducting any activity in Jerusalem, plainclothesmen from four Palestinian security forces are currently active in Jerusalem. They conduct a wide range of activities in Jerusalem, including detentions, intelligence-gathering, criminal investigations and enforcing orders and instructions issued by PA Chairman Arafat. Of the 76 Palestinian security agents arrested by Israel, 66 were detained for kidnapping Palestinians in Jerusalem and forcibly taking them to the autonomous areas. There have been more than 120 other crimes perpetrated in Jerusalem in which Palestinian security men were involved. The Palestinian security agents' activities, including frequent patrols, center around the Temple Mount, Orient House, and other locations. (Arutz Sheva) IN THE NORTH: Hizb'Allah guerrillas fired rockets and machine guns at Israeli and South Lebanese Army (SLA) troops in southern Lebanon on Saturday. Israel Defense Force (IDF) and SLA forces responded with barrages of 155-mm howitzer shells at suspected guerrilla hideouts on the highlands of Iqlim al-Tuffah, a suspected Hizb'Allah stronghold. Security officials could not confirm any injuries or deaths. One IDF soldier was wounded on Friday in heavy fighting with Hizb'Allah in south Lebanon. The soldier later died. Meanwhile, Israeli commandos killed two Hizb'Allah guerrillas before dawn Friday. Hizb'Allah denied any of its fighters were killed. On Thursday members of the Islamic Resistance movement, the military arm of the Iranian-backed Hizb'Allah, fired rocket-propelled grenades at an SLA patrol. Israeli warplanes attacked suspected Hizb'Allah guerrilla bases in southeastern Lebanon Monday to retaliate for an ambush, security officials said. There was no word on casualties. The raid came an hour after two SLA soldiers were wounded by a remote controlled bomb on a road near the SLA- controlled Christian city of Jezzine. One terrorist was killed and three were injured in a clash Sunday with an elite IDF unit north of the Security Zone in southern Lebanon. The soldiers were engaged on a mission when they met up with the Hizb'Allah guerrillas. There were no casualties among the IDF troops. In a related story, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has reported a pattern of harassment of United Nations peacekeepers by Hizb'Allah. According to the UN Spokesman there were incidents on Thursday in which five Hizb'Allah gunmen harassed and shot at three Irish soldiers in a UNIFIL truck and demanded to see their identities. On Friday, two vehicles of the Irish battalion were forced to stop by seven Hizb'Allah gunmen near the southern port city of Tyre. Meanwhile, two Austrian peacekeepers from the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) in the Golan Heights were killed inside the area of separation that is patrolled by the Force, a UN Spokesman said on Friday. UNDOF suspected that the action against the peacekeepers was criminal rather than political. However, it was investigating the incident in cooperation with the Syrian authorities, the Spokesman said. After it has been learned that Hizb'Allah terrorists operating in the Security Zone of southern Lebanon are equipped with Stinger anti-aircraft shoulder held missiles, Israeli Air Force (IAF) officials are preparing its combat pilots to deal with the new weapon being used against them. The American-made missile is considered among the better in its class and it uses infra-red to track down low flying planes and helicopters. The missile, which was incorporated into the IAF arsenal in 1989 has a maximum range of 5 kilometers (3 miles). (AP, UPI, Arutz Sheva, UN Daily Highlights, SNS) JERUSALEM DAY: Wednesday is 'Jerusalem Day', marking the 30th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. President Ezer Weizman proclaimed last Monday night the beginning of celebrations marking the 30th anniversary of the reunification of Jerusalem. The ceremony, held at Beit HaNassi was attended by former officers and soldiers who participated in the liberation of the Old City during the 1967 Six Day War. Following the ceremony, Maj.-Gen. Uzi Narkiss, who headed the Central Command during the Six Day War said he is saddened by fact that the younger generation takes the reunification of the city for granted. The Temple Mount and Land of Israel Faithful Movement is planning a march Wednesday from Ammunition Hill to the Temple Mount. They will then blow the shofar in the south eastern corner of the Temple Mount. In the First and Second Temples this was called the "corner of the Jubilee". The Zo Artzeinu movement has announced that it will conduct visits to the Temple Mount this coming Wednesday. The announcement reads, "We will stand up for our right to go up to the Mount and to pray for the survival of the people of Israel in their land." In a related story, a committee of rabbis from Judea and Samaria have decided to encourage people to ascend to the Temple Mount to pray, the first time such a decision has been made other than by groups such as the Temple Mount Faithful and in opposition to the position of Israel's official rabbinate, which prohibits this, reports Ma'ariv. (Kol Yisrael, MED, TMF, VJ, Arutz Sheva) ARAB LAND DEALER MURDERED: A Palestinian who had been questioned by Yasser Arafat's security forces about land sales to Israelis was found dead Saturday with two bullet wounds to the head on a back road leading to the PA-controlled city of Ram'Allah in an area where two other land dealers were found dead. Israeli police set up a special investigation team together with the Shin Bet internal security agency to handle the death. This brings to three the number of suspected land dealers killed since the PA announced the death sentence to anyone engaged in real estate transactions with Jews. On Tuesday, an Arab land dealer from the Hevron area was under PA guard in the hospital after allegedly being tortured by PA security officials who suspect him of selling land to Jews. The PA Justice Minister found it timely Wednesday to reiterate the law applies to Israeli Arabs as well as residents of the PA Autonomous areas. Abu-Meddien's statement means that even Arabs with Israeli citizenship, living within the boundaries of "Israel proper", face a death sentence for selling any land to Jews. The PA has no jurisdiction over Palestinians with Israeli identity cards. This past week PA Attorney General Khaled Al-Qidreh said 12 Arabs had been arrested on suspicion of selling land to Jews. Investigations were expected to be completed within two weeks, at which time "heavy sentences will be handed out to those found guilty." Meanwhile, in protest of the PA land-sales law, US Senator Jesse Helms and US Congressman Benjamin Gilman have pledged to work to block additional financial aid to the PA until the law is retracted. Senator Helms and Congressman Gilman are the Chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations and House International Relations Committees, respectively. The two powerful Capital Hill personalities have already sent a letter to Secretary of State Albright, informing her they intend to work towards blocking future aid to the PA. "Daily reports of extrajudicial killings, torture and repression of the free press provide ample proof that respect is sorely lacking among officials of the PA," they wrote. "The US cannot be in the business of subsidizing such a regime. According to the two, despite a five year aid package that was signed, committing $500 million annually to the PA, they stated the new law is contradictory to accepted international norms and the aid cannot continue. (AP, SNS, ICEJ, Kol Yisrael) PA AUDIT REVEALS SQUANDERED MONEY: Donor countries to the PA will convene in Washington next week to discuss reported misuse of funds. An internal Palestinian audit disclosed that about $326 million, comprising 37 per cent of the PA's annual budget, have been squandered by top PA officials. In a letter to his council, Arafat admitted that public funds had been squandered but he vowed to wipe out corruption. He set up a committee to examine the findings of the 600 page report which he distributed to his 88-member council. Denmark has ordered an investigation into what the PA has done with funds it received from Copenhagen. Norway, which heads the ad-hoc Committee Of Donor Countries, has also ordered an audit of how its money is being spent by the PA. (Kol Yisrael, MED, ICEJ) ARABS MAKE CONTINGENCY PLANS FOR WAR: The Arab states, in particular Syria, had decided to pursue peace with Israel, but in light of the current crisis in the process, they "pulled their plans for war out of the drawer" the head of research in the IDF intelligence branch has said. In a closed address to senior army officers, Brigadier-General Amos Gilad said that Syrian President Hafez Assad is determined to obtain the Golan Heights back. While Assad prefers to do this through peace, he is also ready for war, Gilad said. According to Gilad, Syria has prepared three options for this objective: 1) A surprise military attack on the Golan Heights. 2) Indirect pressure on Israel through fighting in Lebanon with Hizb'Allah and, 3) Investment in the development of missiles armed with chemical and biological warheads, capable of hitting any target in Israel. On the Palestinian track, Gilad said that Arafat is openly using violence to attain political goals. He noted that every time the political process gets stuck, Arafat resorts to terror, which he has found is the only way to influence Israel. He said it is highly likely that non-conventional weapons would be used in the next total war, and stressed that Iraq, Iran and Syria are all developing long-range non- conventional weaponry capable of hitting Israel. (Ha'Aretz, MED) IRAN'S NEW PRESIDENT ON ISRAEL: Iran's president-elect Mohammed Khatami called Israel an "occupying and racist regime" which he said had "imposed its illegitimate domination on the people of Palestine, whether Muslims, Palestinians, Jews or Christians." As for the "so- called peace process", Khatami said Iran would "leave it to the people of Palestine and the people and governments of the region" but added that he did "not believe the current process will come to any conclusion." With Israel, there would be no recognition and no negotiation, he said. In another development, according to a report appearing in the Jerusalem Post, Germany's chief of counter- terrorism Peter Frisch stated Iran already has ballistic missiles that can penetrate deep into Europe. In addition, Iran is working diligently to develop its nuclear armaments. "They are getting missiles that can reach 3,000 km (1,800 miles), and they can reach not only Israel, but Germany," said Frisch, president of the Cologne-based Office for the Protection of the Constitution. "If they can build atomic bombs and put them in their missiles, this is dangerous for us." (ICEJ, SNS) EGYPT MEDIATES OSLO: The Egyptians are taking their new role as peace mediator seriously. Special Egyptian envoy Osama El-Baz came to Israel, carrying the latest from Arafat who El-Baz met with on Wednesday. But Egypt faced new challenges Thursday when two Israeli newspapers published articles claiming to reveal two Israeli plans for a final division of Judea and Samaria. PM Netanyahu denied having any such plan. Earlier in the week, PM Netanyahu and Egyptian President Mubarak met in Sharm el-Sheikh. They defined the meeting as a good start for further discussion during the next few weeks, although they reached no breakthroughs during their two hours of talks. (VOA, Israel Line) CHRISTIAN ARABS ATTACKED IN GALILEE: Christian Arabs in the northern Galilee village of Tur'an were attacked by Islamists last Friday (05-23-97), according to a Mideast Newswire report from Haifa. A correspondent witnessed the burning of two houses and several cars, and the destruction of propriety in Christian quarters. He described the perpetrators as supporters of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the PLO. An official of the Middle East Christian Committee in Jerusalem stated, "If Islamist terrorists can burn our houses and kill our youth under Israeli sovereignty, we can imagine what will happen under Islamist rule?" (ICEJ) YESHA REPORT: MK Tzvi Hendel of the National Religious Party, a resident of Gush Katif, took the surprising step Wednesday of attempting to hold up the transfer of NIS 15 million ($5.1 million) to the Yesha communities. The government had promised to transfer the sum a while ago. Hendel learned that clerks in the Finance Ministry had decided to take the money from the welfare budget, in order to discredit the Yesha residents. Hendel demanded that the 15 million shekels be taken from a different clause in the budget. After a delay of several years, the first residents of the new community of N'vei Ziv began to move in this week. The western Galilee town, some nine kilometers (5.4 miles) east of Karmiel, is scheduled to absorb English and Western European immigrants, as well as native Israelis. Some 150 homes are to be built at first, followed by a second stage of 100 additional homes. Minister of National Infrastructures Ariel Sharon, who was instrumental in the establishment of the new town, said that he sees this as the beginning of a renewal of Jewish settlement activity in the Galilee. According to Col. Yitzchak Aviram, head of Regional Defense in the Central Command, the IDF has spent NIS 250 million ($85 million) to provide additional security in Yesha (Judea, Samaria and Gaza) since 1994, the implementation of the Oslo Accords signed by the previous Labor-led administration. Since the peace accords have been signed, the IDF, together with the government has been required to erect security fences, bypass roads, provide special alarms and early warning devices, armored buses for the transportation of children and public transportation in certain areas and more. It is now being reported that Defense Minister Mordechai has not approved 80% of building plans for projects in Yesha and the Golan Heights submitted to him by Housing Ministry officials. Housing Ministry officials accuse the Defense Ministry of purposely halting the building while creating an appearance that a great deal of construction is taking place. The housing officials explained that units have been approved in scattered areas and this leads the public to believe there is building taking place. (Arutz Sheva, SNS) UN UPDATE: The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting Human Rights of the Palestinian and Other Arabs of the Occupied Territories, responsible for investigating the human rights situation in the 'occupied territories' began on Friday an 11-day field mission to Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Since its establishment in 1968, the Special Committee has not been able to gain access to the occupied territories. During the current mission, the Special Committee will hold hearings to gather testimony from persons having first-hand and recent experience of the human rights situation in the occupied territories. During the visit to Jordan, for instance, the Committee plans to interview persons from Judea and Samaria at the King Hussein Bridge. The Director General of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Mr. Federico Mayor, has called for urgent action in favor of the Palestinian people and the peace process. In a meeting with Arafat, the UNESCO chief declared that "the peace process must progress" and that the agreements of Oslo and Washington must be implemented. The UN Security Council has extended the mandate of its peace force in the Golan Heights for another six months after agreeing that the situation there remains "potentially dangerous." Council President Park Soo Gil says in a statement that "the situation in the Middle East continues to be potentially dangerous and is likely to remain so, unless and until a comprehensive settlement covering all aspects of the Middle East can be reached." The force has more than 1,000 troops from Austria, Canada, Japan and Poland. It was sent to the Golan in 1974 to police a cease-fire between Israel and Syria. (UN Daily Highlights, UPI) RED HEIFER DISPATCH: Two months ago, the birth of a red calf at Kfar Hassidim, a small religious kibbutz near Haifa, caught the attention not only of the local media, but of news organizations worldwide. Rabbi Mordechai Shmaryahu, a Kfar Hassidim resident and keeper of the newborn heifer, bemoans the media's response. "It's ridiculous to assume that the next step for us is to conquer the Temple Mount," says Shmaryahu. "We're looking at this as an opportunity to teach our kids about the Holy Temple." Although some Orthodox groups have been organizing trips to Kfar Hassidim to see the heifer, Shmaryahu plays down its significance as a miracle, and now even calls into doubt the authenticity of the calf as a halachically kosher red heifer. "When the cow was born, rabbis from Jerusalem came here with members of the press and immediately declared it a kosher red heifer," Shmaryahu says. "But after cleaning it we found a few white hairs in its tail, so we're not even sure it's the real thing." The ashes of a red heifer are mixed with spring water to purify high priests before they entered the Temple. Even though mainstream religious groups have not rallied around the cow, some secular Israelis see her as a threat. "The potential harm from this heifer is far greater than the destructive properties of a terrorist bomb," the liberal Ha'Aretz newspaper wrote recently. Menachem Friedman, an expert on religious affairs at Bar-Ilan University, said the birth created "a very delicate situation." (Jerusalem Post, AP) JOURNALIST RELEASED: After spending over one week in PA detention, US citizen Daoud Kuttab was freed by PA security officials. Daoud was arrested for broadcasting sessions of the PA-elected council on the radio. His broadcasts were also jammed by the PA. John Dinger of the US State Department stated his government applied pressure to obtain Daoud's release. However, PA officials arrested another Arab journalist, on Sunday. Muchmad Zukika was arrested by PA security officials on his way to covering a story of the PA arrest of Daoud. Zukika is employed by CBS. (SNS) IN THEIR OWN WORDS: "Despite all the conspiracies, Jerusalem and Palestine from the River to the Sea will remain Islamic until judgment day...." Ikrama Sabri, Palestinian Authority mufti for Jerusalem, in his weekly sermon at the Temple Mount's Al-Aksa Mosque. Reference is to the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, an area including all of the State of Israel. (Voice of Palestine Radio, 9 May 1997) "The Zionist entity exists on seized land. The Jews remain enemies because they expropriate lands, build settlements and pay high sums to buy properties. They are the greatest enemies of us Muslims." Ikrama Sabri, Palestinian Authority mufti for Jerusalem. "The Zionist entity" is a common euphemism used by those who do not recognize the legitimacy of the State of Israel. (The New York Times, 18 May 1997) "We shall always stand against them, threaten their future, and not permit them to expand. We shall stand with all our might against any attempted settlement effort. If they do not implement the agreement, we shall determine what the essential locations are in each settlement, and we will turn the lives of the settlers into hell." Imad Mazen Izz al-Din, the PA's Political Instructor for National Guidance (Al-Hayat Al-Jadeeda, April 30, 1997) (IRIS, Israel Government Press Office) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ FYI - Israel In The News "For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not keep quiet" Isaiah 62:1 'F.Y.I.' may be reproduced & distributed in any form. Please give proper credit. Send comments and subscription requests to Lee Underwood at: fellowship@inet-images.com Web site: http://www.inet-images.com/fellowship/fyi.htm ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ++++++++++++++++++++++ AUSTRALIA - GREAT SOUTH LAND OF THE NWO? By: Wendy B. Howard The Australia we have known as children and young adults is rapidly changing. The New World Order [NWO] agenda of globalisation is being implemented across the land, under the very noses of a naive and uninformed citizenry, few realise what is happening. Some of the main areas of this agenda will be addressed here. In reality, I can hardly present more than the tip of the iceberg, so much is happening now. *Confiscation of private weaponry; *Troop activity, and soldier training in home and town search; *Native title claims to our land being used to steal properties; *Multiculturalism claims, as a cover for the implementation of Global Ethics of the One World Religious System; *The Pauline Hanson phenomenon. SEIZURE OF WEAPONS. The banning and collecting of guns is proceeding in Australia, with all rebellion seeming to have fizzled out! The gun clubs, and other gun owners' groups, demonstrated fervently during the early days of the planned seizure. Not so now, there have even been public statements from the gun owners' representatives that they were wrong to protest, and that they had a "knee-jerk" reaction at first, which will not be repeated again. The whole protest business seems to have died a natural death in the media - but the guns are being collected and destroyed. Approximately 160,000 have been surrendered in Victoria, 60,000 in New South Wales, and 60,000 in Queensland. The other States have lower figures. ALL States are now collecting and destroying weapons. Some comments from the media about the response being too slow in some states. There are hardly any adverse comments on gun grabbing to be heard. Air pistols, small hand-gun Japanese replicas, which fire pellets, were even banned recently. Internet Extracts: This extract from the Australian Christian Coalition Newsletter, 3 June, 1996, gives a positive stand towards gun control. "The commitment of State and Federal Governments to gun control announced on 10 May is very encouraging, but we should not be lulled into thinking that the battle is over. The Gun Lobby has signalled its intent to have that decision modified and is obviously prepared to spend a considerable sum to do so. Those hard core elements of the lobby that harbour conspiracy theories and American style views of citizens rights, will obviously try to manipulate any genuine concern by legitimate groups such as the farm lobby." "Cry from Australia to the USA," Wednesday, May 7, 1997. "Gun owners who did not comply with new regulations in Australia are now faced with the fact that their name is flagged on Govt. computers, they are liable to four (4) years imprisonment and a fine that is about the cost of an average house. Those with firearms licences and those who did not hand in their weapons are liable to search of person or premises without warrant. People cannot organise because what the Govt. has done is now legislated, enacted law. Therefore any attempt to communicate or organise is liable to the charge of subversion. If an individual says to another 'I would suggest that you do not hand in your firearm ' the speaker may be charged with subverting another to commit a criminal act. They have started mounting raids to retrieve firearms and this is likely to intensify." (C.Dillon). TROOPS AND SOLDIER TRAINING. There are thousands of foreign troops in Australia, including troops from the United States of America. These are involved in "war games", often secret. It is all alarming, as those who are investigating the New World Order sense that we are being manipulated by global forces in order to bring our nation under the full control of the international elitists. The training of soldiers for rural and urban search of towns and homes is equally intriguing, sinister and most odd! I quote from "The Australian", April 17, 1997: "A $4 million township built especially to train soldiers in urban warfare was christened yesterday with a noisy exercise featuring the clatter of machine gun and rifle fire, lurid pink and purple smoke grenades and troops falling dead in the streets like actors in a theme-park performance. Built in an army training area in rugged, mountainous country 60km south-west of Townsville, the township, known in army jargon as the Military Operations in Urban Terrain training facility, has 37 solid concrete buildings. It even boasts a sewerage system which allows training soldiers to disappear down tunnels under the streets. As senior army officers watched from the verandah of the Drover's Dog Hotel - a pub that has no beer - infantry soldiers from 1st Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, were dropped on the town's Beersheba Oval by Black Hawk helicopters and recaptured Line Creek Junction, building by building, from 'enemy' troops. During an official opening ceremony, held appropriately in the town's Anzac Park, the commander of the 1st Division, Major-General Tim Ford, said development of the facility has been inspired by the army's experience with the UN forces in Somalia and Rwanda and the potential for Australian troops to face future urban operations.... Major Withycombe said most future UN operations or any other overseas deployments by Australian forces were likely to involve urban environments. (The Major, of Delta Company, commented). 'We need to have the skills to deal with any kind of enemy scenario within a built-up area.'" A subscriber to our magazine, Despatch, wrote to inform us that persons in her area have had their homes "raided" by troops as an exercise, without prior warning or agreement! She said, amazingly, no one seemed to have complained about this intrusion. We have also verbal info. That some American troops who arrived at Amberley Airbase, Queensland, came in black Russian aircraft. There is no media coverage of these matters, only Christian individuals who have made statements. NATIVE TITLE RIGHTS. The aboriginals of Australia are, it appears to us, being used as a cover to confiscate large areas of lands in all states. The government is honouring Native Title claims, some of which involve mines, oil-yielding areas, pastoral lands, beaches and beauty spots. Yet to be finalised, many native title sites sit, awaiting their fate. Other non-aboriginal people here are contesting these indigenous peoples' title rights vigorously! The racial unrest seems to have been created deliberately. Many of the "aboriginals" seeking to have title over prime pockets of land are whiter than we are! Some protests are heard from full-blood, tribal elders at times, who declare that they are not greedy for "sacred sites" and titles to large parcels of Australia at all. They say that extremists are acting without their consent. MULTICULTURALISM. This ambiguous term is being used to change Australian society in readiness for globalisation. Hans Kung and Leonard Swindler's "Global Ethos" will soon appear here in Australia under our own New Age religious and "multicultural" banner. A conference hosted by the Australian Multicultural Foundation and the World Conference of Religion and Peace, will be held on 28-30 July, 1997. Public policy making and religious diversity is one of the topics on the conference agenda. The conference attendees, which includes political and religious leaders from across the world, will "search for a common ethic and assert shared values" for Australia as a whole. Official papers will be handed out to the delegates. This will most likely set the stage for religious freedom to witness and evangelise, to expose error, and to preach Christ Jesus as the Only Saviour, to be curtailed. A report on the events that take place will be given in Despatch magazine, Vol.9:3., September. 1997. THE PAULINE HANSON PHENOMENON. Overseas readers may not have heard of Pauline Hanson. There is not a single person in Australia who hasn't heard of her! We are witnessing a virtual Joan of Arc style figure, who arose out of obscurity, to cut a swathe through the recognised politicians (and their policies) in our South Land of the NWO. Pauline of many perils is a fish and chip shop owner from Ipswich, near Brisbane. She is an independent member of Parliament who has very bravely risen up to confront the powers-that-be, telling the truth for once. Hanson has begun a new political party called "One Nation", which stands for all the political measures we, as investigators of the NWO, would champion. She is against the native title right scams; insists there is something "fishy" going on globally; wants to end the attempt to stir up this land into a multicultural stew; demands that the gun banning legislation be destroyed and so on. Hanson has won a large following after just a short time of campaigning for support for her One Nation party. Her meetings around Australia have been packed to overflow everywhere she goes. John Howard, the Prime minister, and other politicians, have criticised Hanson mercilessly. The media gives her such wide coverage that not one newspaper or television news does not feature Pauline, every day, every week. Those who oppose her freedom march from town to town, have twisted everything she has said until it is unrecognisable. Cries of "Nazi fascist", "Right Wing fanatic", "racist", "hater of the Asians" and much more, follow her around the continent. She is pelted with tomatoes and rubbish, pushed and shoved, as she rushes along in high heels and glamorous dresses, surrounded by a bodyguard of uniformed police. "Rent a crowd" activists swarm into the political meetings now, shouting "Heil Hitler", waving placards with swastikas on them, and giving the Nazi salute to Pauline. I cannot say that Despatch magazine staff is encouraged by this Pauline Hanson rebellion. It seems very suspicious that the NWO-controlled media is giving her such an immense coverage, for one thing. She is being used, we believe, to stir up racial hatred and unrest. If this beautiful, young, red-haired woman was assassinated the whites would blame the blacks, and racial tensions could become serious civil unrest. This could "necessitate" the UN peace-keeping forces' intervention in our federal affairs. Paranoid statement? Perhaps, we certainly hope and pray that that is all it is. Texe Marrs reported in Flashpoint, May 1997, that Rockefeller puppet and New World Order clone, Henry Kissinger, held a private, two hour meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to insiders, Netanyahu emerged from the meeting ashen and pale. Comments Texe, Kissinger read him the riot act, warning him to go along with the Illuminati's plan - or else. This reminded us so much of the effect that Bill Clinton, also a NWO clone, had on our Prime Minister, John Howard, on Clinton's visit to Australia, late 1996. Howard, and his senior ministers, looked down-mouthed, over-awed, intimidated in almost every photo or video we saw. After that Howard visited China, and, great coincidence, Newt Gingrich was there as well. Was discussion entered into re. Australia's current orders from the Internationalists for our bioregion? All this makes one realise afresh that GOD is the One in whom we must put our trust, not guns and political insurrection. After all, we dissenters, in every country, are struggling against a whole emerging Unity of One Mind One World - and this unity has weaponry, surveillance techniques, and wealth beyond our wildest dreams. It is too late to find answers in the might of freedom-loving men and women. Jesus Christ is the only answer. Do you know Him as Saviour and Lord? If not, it is high time you did! The Lord Jesus Christ will bring in His own One World government, with Himself reigning from Jerusalem. Then we will see true unity under a perfect governmental system - Isaiah 9:2-7. There will never be real justice, peace, harmony or righteousness until then, in His Millennial Reign! Wendy B. Howard...Editor of Despatch http://www.closer.brisnet.org.au/corp/despatch/ despatch@closer.brisnet.org.au ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ PRIVACY STANDARDS FOR "SMART CARDS" The Smart Card Forum, representing 200 companies in the smart card industry, is urging standards to restrict the use of data stored on such cards, which can include financial, medical and other personal information. Columbia University professor Alan F. Westin thinks the Forum's guidelines don't go far enough; he says they should stipulate that all smart card information must be encrypted and should make use of electronic fingerprinting or digital signature verification. (AP 9 May 97) ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Reservation System for National Parks From: kepi58@telapex.com (Kepi) . . . and what criteria will the "state" use to determine who among the bourgeois/proletariat is decreed worthy of a "reservation" to enjoy the scenic views of his/her taxpayer dollar properties? H-mmm, a "mass transit system" . . . I'm sure everyone will be thrilled knowing that they will be safeguarded against potential "terrorists." Check your handguns, rifles, shotguns, archery equipment, knives, tent stakes, baseball bats, etc., at the ATF desk, comrades. Talk about an oxymoron! Yosemite National Park is "closed" because of "overcrowding" . . . sounds familiar: "mandated volunteerism." The novel, "A Confederacy of Dunces" says it all... Kepi =============================================== Babbitt says American parks will have booking plan soon WASHINGTON (May 19, 1997 09:19 a.m. EDT) - Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt predicted on Monday there would be a reservation system as early as next year to get into the country's national parks, to combat overcrowding. "In the next two, three, four years we're going to need to implement a reservation system," Babbitt said in an interview from Yosemite National Park on NBC's "Today" show. "Because otherwise you drive all the way up here and you find it's closed (due to overcrowding). That makes no sense. So I would say next year this time it's pretty likely there'll be a reservation system." An estimated four million people annually visit California's Yosemite, which was closed 11 times in 1995 because of overcrowding. But Babbitt said the problem was not too many people but too many cars, and he said he would like to see a mass transit system as one way of alleviating the congestion. "The problem's not too many people. The problem's too many cars. The plan for Yosemite specifically is to see if we can't rebuild this park in a way that encourages most of those four million people to get out of their cars...and ride on buses," Babbitt said. "They'll have a much better experience and we'll be able to have more people and not have to shut the place down. This park, on the Fourth of July and Memorial Day, can look and sound like Times Square. It's a mess." Copyright (c) 1997 Nando.net Copyright (c) 1997 Reuter Information Service ************************************************************