Miner's Insurrections / Convict Labor

edited by Fran Ansley and Brenda Bell, for "No More Moanin': Voices of Southern Struggle" special issue of "Southern Exposure" (1974), pgs. 144 to 147.
Among the most dramatic events in the history of the Southern Appalachian coal fields were the East Tennessee miners' insurrections of the 1890's, still known as "the wars" by many people around the coal camps of the area. In a series of massive armed confrontations, the coal miners of Tennessee rose up against the state convict leasing system to defend their jobs which the coal companies were trying to fill with convict laborers. As with so many of the significant battles of the South's working class, the story of this rebellion is little known to younger people in the area today, although there are several songs which have survived the years, and scholarly information about it is stored away in city libraries. We will not be able to tell the full story of the miners' insurrection here, but we would like to share some pieces of a "history-in-progress."
The convict lease system first began in Tennessee in 1866, as part of a wave of such legislation which swept through the South and Midwest after the Civil War.1 A Nashville furniture company built workshops on the grounds of the penitentiary, fed and clothed the men, and paid 43 cents a head per day to the state. One year later, the prisoners burned the workshops to the ground in protest over the treatment they were receiving. From that time to this, prisoners have waged battles to win decent working conditions and fairer wages. Meanwhile the labor movement has often agitated for an end to convict labor, but usually on the grounds of unfair competition rather than of justice for convicts. For example, the Mechanics and Manufacturers Association of Tennessee began agitating against convict leasing very early, saying it was unfair to labor. And in fact, the bulk of convicts were shortly switched to the coal and iron mines and to farms in order to avoid competition with the mechanical trades. When the Tennessee legislature abolished the convict lease system in 1896, they didn't stop working the prisoners, they simply bought a piece of land and set up a state-owned coal mine at Brushy Mountain where convicts continued to mine coal until the mid-1950's. (Despite this fact the Nov. 1, 1938, UMW Journal ran an article entitled "Historical Rebellion Brought End to Convict Miners in Tennessee." The rebellion eventually brought an end to convict leasing, but not to convict miners.) Of course it was no easy victory getting convict labor out of the hands of private companies. By the time of the miners' insurrections all of Tennessee's convicts were leased by the Tennessee Coal Iron & Railroad Co. (TCI), a New York-based corporation. They leased about 1600 men from the state for $101,000 per year. [That comes out to about $63 per year per man.] Part of these men they worked in their own mines in Grundy County; part of them they sub-leased to other companies in that area and north of there in Anderson County around Coal Creek and Briceville. TCI already had a monopoly on coal in the North Alabama fields (where they also used convict labor). They were a highly successful company, becoming a subsidiary of US Steel in 1907.4 It was the convict lease system which built TCI's fortune.
Besides the outright super-profits TCI made off its convicts, they were also able to use the convicts as a club against free miners. A TCI official told the New York Times: "One of the chief reasons which induced the company to take up the system was the chance it offered for overcoming strikes. For some years after we began the convict lease system, we proved that we were right in calculating that the free miners would be loath to enter upon strikes, when they saw that the company was amply provided with convict labor."

So it is clear why TCI fought so hard to prevent the end of the convict leasing system. The state, though, had quite an interest in the system as well. Between the years 1870 and 1890, Tennessee made a total net profit of $771,000 from its convict leasing system. This was only $176,000 short of repaying the state for all expenditures on all its penal institutions since the first penitentiary had been built in 1829 under Governor Sam Houston. So, of course, they kept working the prisoners and selling their products even after they were forced to stop leasing them to private industry. Then in the 30's, federal legislation was passed making it illegal for any prison-made goods to be sold in the free market. 

But the states, including Tennessee, still work their convicts and still pay them scandalous wages; it's just that they have them manufacture goods directly for the state. Prisoners, however, are still fighting. Another issue raised by the insurrection is that of racism. The state prison system began to take on its modern character immediately after the close of the Civil War, when the percentage of blacks in the prisons began to rise astronomically month by month from the tiny percentage they had comprised in the days when plantations took care of their own. (Then as now, the majority of prisoners, black and white, were convicted of crimes against property. Dombrowski says that over half of all convicts in Tennessee at the time of the rebellion were imprisoned for larceny.) Blacks made up two thirds of the convict miners in East Tennessee. Evidence of what role racism played in forming the attitudes of East Tennessee miners toward the convicts is scant. One woman told Dombrowski that "free niggers" had been forcibly driven from the Tracy City area some years before, but that there were free blacks who worked at the coke ovens at the time of the rebellion. Another man related that years later when they finally succeeded in forming a union, "We took the niggers into the union and gave them a union of their own." (There is no evidence that free blacks were similarly run out of the Anderson County area.) On the other hand, many comments in the interviews show that among rank-and-file miners and their families there was substantial sympathy for the convicts, black and white. Archie Green quotes "an early observer" as saying, "Whites and Negroes are standing shoulder to shoulder." He also reports that a black man was shot by militia, and several thousand fellow-workers and neighbors attended his funeral. It seems likely that the ambiguity of the evidence reflects a mixed situation and an ambivalence on the part of the miners toward blacks which was similar to their ambivalence towards convicts as a whole. What would be interesting would be more knowledge of what the Knights of Labor and the UMW (both involved in the insurrection) said and did about racism. Also, of course, first hand testimony from blacks themselves would be invaluable. What does seem clear is that in the course of their fight against the convict leasing system, the miners were forced by the logic of the situation to ignore more and more the distinctions between themselves (as law-abiding, predominantly white citizens) and the convicts (as law-breaking, predominantly black criminals). And it was to the extent that they ignored these distinctions, in a massive and popularly-supported way, that they succeeded in winning their demands. 

Chronology of Convict Labor Wars 

1871
First convict miners brought to Tracy City and Sewanee. 

1876
First strike of miners at Coal Creek. 187/ First convicts brought to Coal Creek. 

1884
The Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company (TCI) signed a five year contract for all Tennessee convicts. 

1887
Law guaranteeing miners the right to elect a checkweighman passed in Tennessee. 

1889
TCI signed a second six-year contract. 

1890
United Mind Workers of America founded. 

April, 1891
The Tennessee Coal Mining Company at Briceville fired their men's checkweighman and demanded that they sign an "ironclad" agreement promising never to join a union. When the men refused, the company locked them out. 

July 4, 1891
The company announced it had signed a contract with TCI for convicts to work the Briceville mine. (There had been some convicts at Coal Creek before, but never at Briceville.)

July 14, 1891
First Insurrection. Three hundred armed miners and citizens marched on the Briceville stockade, walked the convicts to Coal Creek, and put them on a train for Knoxville. They sent a telegram to the governor explaining their action and appealing for his help in ridding the state of the convict lease system, not only at Briceville, but in all of East Tennessee. 

July 16, 1891
Governor arrived with the convicts and with state militia to install and protect them. He addressed a mass meeting, urged law and order. 

July 17, 1891
Lots of public support for miners appears, including from the militia units. 

July 20, 1891
Second Insurrection. Miners poured into Anderson County from all over, marched quietly and with discipline to the Briceville stockade. Two thousand armed men lined the surrounding ridges. Sent convicts again to Coal Creek and then Knoxville. Then marched on the Knoxville Iron Company mine at Coal Creek, sent those convicts off too. Not a shot fired. Women gave out sandwiches to miners and soldiers as they marched that night; governor mobilized all fourteen companies of Tennessee militia. 

July 24, 1891
After negotiation, governor says the convicts must return. But he will call special session of legislature to consider taking action on convict lease law.

August, 1891
Legislature met, and rather than repealing the law, reinforced it by increasing the governor's "emergency powers," making it a crime to lead a protest group or to interfere with the work of a convict. Miners and their committee tried various tactics in the courts. Failed.

October 28, 1891
Miners' committee resigned, saying they had done all they could.

October 31, 1891
Third Insurrection. Meetings held in mines at Briceville and Coal Creek in the dark for secrecy. That night 1500 men marched on the stockades, the leader disguised in a 'kerchief. They set the convicts free and burned the stockade at Briceville. At Coal Creek they spared the stockade because the warden's wife was sick, but burned everything else, and released the pri-soners. Citizens helped convicts escape by giving them food and clothes.

November 1, 1891
Men marched for first time to Oliver Springs where convicts were also being worked. They released them and burned the stockade there. Governor offered cash rewards for leaders and participants. For a month or so, things were quiet. Miners met with companies, agreed on terms, and went to work.

January, 1892
Convicts returned to Coal Creek with a company of militia, and a military occupation was established. They built a fort and set up Gatling guns. The Tennessee Coal Mining Company at Briceville refused to take convicts back, despite pressure from TCI. The company at Oliver Springs also tried to refuse, but TCI bought them out and returned the convicts.

Spring, 1892
At Coal Creek, Tracy City and Oliver Springs, work is slack for free miners, but convicts work full time. Briceville had no convicts but discriminated against strikers and men in the Knights of Labor.

July, 1892
Tracy City miners, who had suffered under the convict system the longest, but had not yet rebelled, were cut to half time work.

August, 1892
Fourth Insurrection. A committee at Tracy City got keys to stockade at gun-point and put convicts on train to Nashville. Intercepted a trainload of guards sent to Inman (where TCI also had a mine) and disarmed them. Unrest in Coal Creek at this news. People there already upset by the arrogant and high-handed soldiers. A black man had been shot, and another young man lynched. Unsuccessful attack on stockade at Oliver Springs. Governor ordered more troops; called for volunteers, too, but the response was slow. For Coal Creek's final showdown, miners poured in and put Fort Anderson under siege. Soldiers and prominent citizen-type volunteers had many setbacks in the strange terrain. But finally enough soldiers got through that the miners knew they were beaten. Ten day reign of terror began, with 300 arrested. Militia stayed to occupy town. Men in Briceville forced to sign "iron-clad" agreement.

April, 1893
Fifth Insurrection. At Tracy City, 50-100 men staged unsuccessful attack on stockade. Troops were sent in to hunt for leaders. Eventually most went back to work, but had to sign disclaimer of any involvement in release of convicts.

1896
Despite appearance of miners' defeat, when the TCI contract expired, it was not renewed and convict leasing in Tennessee was abolished by the legislature (twenty years before it was ended in neighboring Alabama). Same legislature buys land and sets up state-run convict mine near Petros, Tennessee, as alternative. 

China: 34 Problems with the idea that the Cultural Revolution was a "calamity"

Commentary in (parentheses) are added by the editor
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"Without the Cultural Revolution, China was the Soviet Union and North Korea situation (fragmentation and isolation)" (2015-05-16) [archive.is/9Jv2Q]:

Heavy stick: If the Cultural Revolution is a "decade-long calamity", the following thirty-four problems are difficult to explain.

[1], it is difficult to explain in that case China still stands firmly in the East, became the United States, China, the Soviet Union three pillars "world pole";

[2], it is difficult to explain in that case China also deserved to be recognized worldwide as the military power and economic power;

[3], it is difficult to explain in that case China will become the world's widely acclaimed "the most honest and clean government";

[4], it is difficult to explain in that case there will be "two bombs" God so brilliant scientific achievements;

[5], it is difficult to explain in that case our self-developed ton freighters can sea voyage, tons of hydraulic machine also successfully developed;

[6], it is difficult to explain in that case our own design and construction of the Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge opened to traffic will be smooth;

[7], it is difficult to explain in that case China's tens of millions of unemployed workers, there is not even a person laid off;

[8], it is difficult to explain Linxian people rely on their own hands to build a Hongqiqu thousands of kilometers on the Taihang Mountains in that case that shocked the world and create miracles;

[9], it is difficult to explain the rapid development in that case socialism with Chinese industry, agriculture bumper harvest, the total amount of the national economy into the fact that a world power;

[10], it is difficult to explain in that case the workers and peasants, the kind of change the world full of great enthusiasm and heroism;

[11], it is difficult to explain in that case the world's most populous country, most in rural areas have solved the food problem;

[12], it is difficult to explain in that case the workers and peasants will rejoice; but also difficult to explain the reform and opening up anger and despair of landless peasants mentality of laid-off workers;

[13], it is difficult to explain in that case China will eliminate and eradicate dozens of malignant diseases against humanity;

[14], it is difficult to explain in that case socialism in China except Taiwan have eliminated ugly whore system fundamentally;
[15], it is difficult to explain in that case China's rural cooperative medical implements, millions barefoot doctor active in the vast rural areas, the drug to the field, sent to the courtyard, to the white picket fence, solved hundreds of millions of small farmers illnesses within the village, township serious illness "difficult", "medical treatment difficult" issue;

[16], it is difficult to explain in that case, "the father of rice" Yuan Longping also create so brilliant research results, for the world to make a unique contribution;

[17], it is difficult to explain in that case, "nerd" ChenJingRun also in his study, dedicated to the removal of "crown jewel";

[18], it is difficult to explain in Tibet burning does not occur in that case, no riots in Xinjiang, "mob" no burning of police cars and government buildings;

[19], it is difficult to explain in that case Taiwan, Lee Teng-hui and Chen Shui-bian did not appear similar as traitors, traitors and lackeys;

[20], it is difficult to explain in that case KMT presidential primary Li Tsung-jen also traveled back in mainland China;

[21], it is difficult to explain in that case the last emperor of China in his memoirs will sincerely express their grateful feelings Communist Party Chairman Mao;

[22], it is difficult to explain the death of Chairman Mao in that case will cause millions of people spontaneously, without reservation, unquenchable grief;

[23], it is difficult to explain in that case Chinese border guards dared to "polar bear" Sword of the Soviet Union and achieved a great victory in the battle of Treasure Island;

[24], it is difficult to explain in that case we'll be defending the inviolability of the territorial waters of a complete "Battle of the Paracel Islands";

[25], it is difficult to explain in that case would enthusiastically Western scholars fair for China to give a high evaluation and praise;

[26], it is difficult to explain in that case after Prince Sihanouk was overthrown US-backed puppet government, the Soviet Union can not accept, would go to China;

[27], it is difficult to explain in that case the US President Richard Nixon's national security adviser Henry Kissinger will come to China to visit and listen to the Oriental giant Columnists world events in Chairman Mao's study;

[28], it is difficult to explain in that case the world has so many nation dare to withstand the tremendous pressure the United States to China, "carried into the" United Nations;

[29], it is difficult to explain in that case the Heads of State of Africa and Latin America will be streamed to China, and to see Chairman Mao and tears;

[30], it is difficult to explain in that case would be to get out as soon as the Americans from the Vietnam War and help China to help;

[31], it is difficult to explain in that case there are dozens of countries have established diplomatic relations with China during the Cultural Revolution, and even the United States and Japan and other Western powers have also to China, "worship";

[32], it is difficult to explain the reality of US imperialism in that case although China did not dare eyeing violations;

[33], it is difficult to explain in that case China also appear long-term stability and peaceful environment at home and abroad, 800 million people live and work;

[34], it is hard to imagine when China may declare to the world: China has neither the foreign debt, but also is among the countries without domestic debt.
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"How to evaluate the historical status of Mao Zedong?"
(by Xia of the Department of the CPC Beijing Municipal Party School graduate division, published by Communist Party of China News, cpc.people.com.cn) [archive.is/Bw7k1]:
Mao Zedong was a great Marxist, proletarian revolutionary, strategist and theorist. Although he was in the "Cultural Revolution" made a serious mistake, but on his life, he's contributions to the Chinese revolution far outweigh his mistakes. His achievement is the first one, the error is secondary. He is the creation and development of the Communist Party of China and the People's Liberation Army for the liberation cause of the Chinese people of all nationalities victory for the development of China's socialist cause and create a People's Republic of China, and the establishment of a forever indelible contributions. He was oppressed peoples liberation and human progress for the world has made a significant contribution. Mao Zedong in his later years that mistakes negate all his historical merit, and does not recognize the error of his old age, and even continue to adhere to the new practice, the attitude of his error is extremely harmful to the attitude of historical idealism. Mao Zedong's name and glorious achievements will always be remembered in the hearts of the Chinese people.

"Plans for a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union in September 1945"

Adapted from a machine translation, original article at [mil-history.livejournal.com/956037.html] [https://archive.is/qdMWk]:

The nuclear powers are wondering how big nuclear potential should be there to nuclear deterrence. For the common man it sounds like - how much we need to have atomic bombs to be safe?
It is - quite a fair question, though ... how course, many people know that there are many sides of the issues, as can be concerned about and hold on so many that find yourself sitting on a powder keg ... ..
It was there, in the Second World War, the United States of America our real allies to the Soviet Union? Or is America acted on the principle: "The enemy of my enemy - my friend"? .. Yes, in fact it was.
A good example of this "genuine" American friendship is and that this is one of many examples: by 30 August 1945 - before the Second World War was officially over - The US military has already drawn up a list of targets for the atomic bombing of the Soviet Union ... and even made ​​a map of the Soviet Union with a range of its bombers, along with "first" and "second" priority objectives marked on this map.
Today, aware of numerous plans of a nuclear war against the Soviet Union, which intends to implement the US government. All came from the US monopoly on nuclear weapons, which was to become the primary means of drawing the Soviet Union irreplaceable losses. Recall that until August 1949 the Soviet Union did not possess nuclear weapons.
In September - October 1945 the US Joint Chiefs of Staff approved a directive №1496 / 2 "The basis of formulation of military policy" and №1518 «strategic concept and plan the use of armed forces of the United States," in which the main military objective was designated the Soviet Union.
The directive of the Joint Military Planning number 432 / A of 14 December 1945 for the atomic bombing were scheduled 20 major cities and industrial centers of the Soviet Union. Then it expected to lose 196 atomic bombs. It was a plan called «Peancer» (Ticks). It was followed by a number of other plans with daunting names: "Hot day," "radiant heat" "Shake" and so on. Each of them was planned more and more targets for destruction and more victims. Inevitably, this was a war to prevent Soviet tank armies, stationed in Eastern Europe, which in the case of conflict, according to estimates of US experts, would arrive within a week or two out on the Atlantic coast.
Zest American generals also hamper the ability of large, up to 55%, the loss of American bombers during raids on Soviet cities.
This is what these honest allies can pretend to be a friend at the same time and at the same time to make plans and to plot to nuke his ally? Such rotten friends are - and this is the United States.
Notice the following documents. Earlier, they are nowhere and never presented and only now declassified. First of all, I want to note that we are talking of 1945, when nuclear weapons were only one country and the nuclear deterrence of the question. Nuclear weapons are none other than America, no one threatened ... Moreover, America has a monopoly and demonstrate its nuclear weapons on Japanese cities of peace, no one at all, and did not threaten ...
First of all, this card is a package of documents from the archives of General Groves and was scanned from microfilm Vellerstaynom. The Second World War is not over yet! I predstalyayu it to you. Radius shaded triangles - a range of American bombers B-29 and B-36, which had not yet been built, but already designed.
B-29 is the aircraft that carried the nuclear bombing of Japan. In 1945, the B-36 still in the project, they were adopted in the United States in 1949 and had a longer range than the B-29, but the US military has built for them grandiose plans.
The map shows the possible points on the basis of America's friends, who gladly would give the Americans a place to start a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. This Norway (Stavanger), Germany (Bremen), Italy (Foggia), Greece (Crete), Saudi Arabia (Dhahran), Pakista (Lahore), Japan (Okinawa, Shimushiru), United States (Adak and Nome, Alaska). See the map in high resolution [archive.is/eWcKu].
The document is a plan of analysis with distribution of power and resources needed for a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union.
The architect of this document was Major General Loris Norsted US Air Force (USAAF). Major General Loris Norsted was one of the main planners of the Military Air Force and later - the Supreme Allied Command in Europe for NATO. This hero of the American nation, plans to destroy us, even put on the cover of the magazine. That's it!
September 15, 1945 - just less than two weeks after the formal surrender of Japan and the end of the Second World War - Norsted documents sent to General Leslie Groves. As you might guess, the classification for this document was high: "TOP SECRET LIMITED," which is the highest during the Second World War. This document had a map which laid out the purpose of the US nuclear bombing of the territory of the USSR.
Let's turn to the document. So in this paper provides an account of a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union, i/e a calculation of the question - "How many bombs you must USAAF estimated that the US" ally "for the bombing of the Soviet Union?" So .... At least they wanted 123. In this case, the document states that the ideal would be to have 466. This was after a little over a month after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That's how it is!
That's the document. Click on it to see the full document (.pdf)[web.archive.org/web/20130117032650/http://nuclearsecrecy.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/1945-Atomic-Bomb-Production.pdf].
Of course, a true bureaucratic fashion, they provided a document clearing the table:

Let's look at it. The left column - at least right - optimum. The purpose of the requirements of the plan - "M. Day », defined in the report as the day on which the United States would want a nuclear strike on the Soviet Union. In other words, an attack with a nuclear strike by the United States for the Soviet Union - Nuclear knockout designed to immediately lower the USSR in the Stone Age.
For the "minimum" nuclear attack identified 15 preferred targets for the "optimal" nuclear bombing identified 66 cities of strategic importance. Surprisingly, these American planners decided that the Soviet city need about three nuclear bombs over the city to really destroy and annihilate us !!! That's the fucking crap! And that, I can not be called Americans fagot then !?
And "completely destroy them," not too tolerant and friendly to those documents amers write about our cities and us ...., The text: "The main purpose for the use of the atomic bomb - a full fifteen simultaneous destruction of these preferred goals." They do not do any of diplomacy , stealth, and indicate clearly and specifically - "completely destroy"!
Here is a list of 15 priorities, in order of priority: Moscow, Baku, Novosibirsk, Gorky, Sverdlovsk, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Kuibyshev, Kazan, Saratov, Molotov, Magnitogorsk, Grozny, Novokuznetsk and Nizhny Tagil. You might wonder why there are Baku, and, say, Leningrad there. Priority objectives are based largely on an important volume of industrial production; Baku was responsible for 61% of all Soviet production of crude oil, 49% of oil refining, and 15% of steel products. Leningrad, at that point, was responsible for a much smaller number of things.
A complete map of the Soviet 66 goals - and 21 goals in Manchuria which they decided not to have a sufficiently high priority, but they still caused them to your map. Here is the map of the document, high resolution at [archive.is/CtRAB]. :

Now think ... Are these documents were under a reasonable containment of which we speak? It is if we consider the fact that now we are some "piss in his ears," that the Soviet Union represented after 2 World War threat to the world and all that .... No! These documents clearly show that US objectives were not only industrial and military sites as such, but the entire population and all our Soviet culture. This is not a strategic containment of Stalin or anyone else! They did not plan containment. They planned the destruction!

Back to the plan: the only difference between "minimal" and "optimal" plan - the total number of designated cities. Three bombs on the city, it is 39 "minimum," 204 "optimum".
The document also indicated 10 bombs to "neutralize possible enemy threats in the Western Hemisphere" - the report explains that this is the case if the Soviet Union will be able to capture the American bases in the vicinity of the borders of the USSR, that is how I understood retaliation the Soviet Union after the nuclear bombing amers us. Yet Pindos do not exclude that we Silenko still remain .... What kind of database, and where - the plan does not specify this. Let's assume that at least one of them is located in West Germany .., it is no wonder they show there "Western Hemisphere" ...
So, to stop the retaliation of the Soviets in Europe need 10 bombs for "strategic isolation of the battlefield" - that is, keep the board within their continent and to prevent the possibility of their vessels, tanks and aircraft to advance in the direction of the United States. Practically, they indicate in their documents to blow the Dardanelles, the Kiel Canal, the Suez Canal ... And in fact - to bomb and Europe!
And so it turned out a total of 59 nuclear bombs for the "minimum" and 224 for "optimum". But they did not stop there. They take into account the practice of the Second World War that a certain number of bombers to be destroyed have technical problems, will miss the target. Thus, they are calculated, that all the bombs to be effective only 48%, and thus they will need to double the total number of charges. So instead of three bombs into the country, they are in the document will be six.
Thus, we share our original totals 0.48, and we end up with a final number of 128 as the "minimum" and 466 as "optimum".
This is still a "small" number in September 1945, but still - bloodthirsty. We know that the peak US nuclear stockpile was more than 32,000 warheads (in 1966), a paltry 466 similar to the "pranks of the child".
Do you like our soyuznichki !? How do you all !? And that scares me marazota "tyrant" Stalin !? But now, after taken away my documents, I am even more thanks to Stalin that he has done everything to save our country and our people from these rotten allies !!! Really - he is a head of state that has led us to victory, he organized the protection and defense of my country, so that all these bastards scared us ... to climb.

"Jewish financiers who pulled Hitler out of the ditch" / "several Jewish bankers are backing Herr Hitler"

Pierre van Paassen (1895 - 1968), Dutch-born Canadian journalist, Unitarian minister, philosemitic, Zionistic and staunchly anti-Nazi; pictured at the Jewish Public Library in Montreal during 1945. From "This Week in JPL History: Pierre van Paassen – The Forgotten Ally" (2013-11-25, jewishpubliclibrary.org) [archive.is/5lnwm], caption: During his visit van Paassen presented the library with the manuscript for “The Forgotten Ally” a novel on Israel.

Van Paassen wrote an article in February, 1933 interviewing Wilhelm Frick, German Minister of the Interior and the first member of the NSDAP to attain political office. Read the entire article, page 1 [archive.is/R8RgY], page 2 [archive.is/hMbGk].
During the interview Van Paassen put it to the then German Minister of the Interior: "Moreover, anyone who care to investigate Jewish life but superficially soon discovers that instead of an indissoluble international solidarity as you claim, the same lines that divide society in classes operate in Jewish life. The best proof probably is that several Jewish bankers are backing Herr Hitler financially and that a Jewish bank is backing Prince Starhenberg in Austria. Since you say you are going to act strongly against the Jews, these Jewish banks are indirectly your aids. How can you speak of Jewish solidarity under the circumstance?"

Another article from 1933 by Van Paassen expands on his knowledge about Jewish bankers financing Hitler and the NSDAP, read the entire article at [archive.is//bq6jN]: "I do not blame those Jewish financiers who pulled Hitler out of the ditch by financing the Nazi Organization. It was in their interest to do so. Class interest far outweighs racial or religious associations. These men simply were consistent capitalists. They looked after and saved the interests of big business and finance in a critical hour. There is nothing to be gained in denouncing these men as traitors to the Jewish people. They never had anything in common with the Jewish masses except that they have always tried "as great Jewish Leaders" in Germany to exert their influence on the Jewish masses in one issue or another. Herr Oscar Wassermann is loyal to his class in society. Inflexibly loyal. Nothing in the world is capable of coming between him and that loyalty."

Oscar Wassermann (1869 - 1934), photo at left, head of the managing board of the Deutsche Bank between 1923 - 1933, who described himself as a non-Zionist but was president of Keren Hayesod (The Foundation Fund) the fund raising agency for Jewish settlement in Palestine, and in 1932 became the honorary chairman of the Administrative Committee of the Jewish Agency, the de-facto Jewish government of British Mandate Palestine. He believed all Jews, whether Zionists or not, should support Jewish settlement in Palestine.
Van Paassen's allegation that Oscar Wassermann, the effective CEO of the Deutsche Bank, was providing funds for the NSDAP (Nazi party) is corroborated by something Heinrich Bruening, Hitler's predecessor as German Chancellor, wrote in 1948: "... from October 1928 the two largest regular contributors to the Nazi Party were the general managers of two of the largest Berlin banks, both of the Jewish faith, and one of them the leader of Zionism in Germany." - from a letter Bruening wrote to Churchill's publishers in 1948, referencing something he wrote to Churchill in 1937, read the full quote in context at [archive.is/3p7EM], published in the scholarly book "Churchill's War, vol. 1: Struggle for Power" [archive.is/9CyMK], you can also read book's 2nd volume [archive.is/wVoMn], a set of books whose author devoted attention on the Jewish financial leaders who funded Hitler [youtube.com/watch?v=rsls6WcYgtE]. More about Bruening's views on Jewish Citizens within Germany before and during the 1st half of the era of Nazi administration [archive.is/7ALHy].
According to JTA newswire (1930) [archive.is/4w6w6], it was reported, that "in London, Lord Melchett, Chaim Weizmann, Oscar Wasserman, Felix Warburg and Max Warburg will meet this afternoon in an attempt to reach a settlement regarding the functions of the Administrative Committee and the Jewish Agency's Executive, the immediate raising of an internal loan of $5,000,000, and Lord Melchett's demand that before any larger colonization scheme be undertaken in Palestine, the 1,500 Chalutzim in Palestine for many years be settled on the land."

Industrialists of many nationalities contributed to the rise of the NSDAP, including Henry Ford and Thomas Watson (Founder, IBM) of the USA, and Eugene Schneider of France, of whom not much information is available, but is mentioned in the following.
"Merchants of Death: A Study of the International Armament Industry" book by H. C. Engelbrecht, Ph.D., and F. C. Hanighen (Dodd, Mead & Co., New York, 1934): [...] In Europe their colleagues are even more active. Hitler has now become the symbol of the return of German militarism. Even before he managed to obtain supreme power there was speculation as to his financial backers. Obviously they included German industrialists fearful of socialism, communism, and the labor unions, nationalists smarting under the "insults" of the Versailles treaty, and a host of other discontented folk. But on the list of these contributors supplying funds to the Hitler movement were the names of two capitalists Von Arthaber and Von Duschnitz directors of Skoda, the great armament firm of Germany's neighbor and enemy, Czechoslovakia.
Interlocking directorates are a familiar phenomenon in the United States. The real controller of industries is frequently found in the most unexpected places. In Europe the same system prevails. And so it appears that Messrs. Von Arthaber and Von Duschnitz represent a firm which is controlled by still another firm. The head of this holding company is neither German nor Czech. He is a French citizen, M. Eugene Schneider, president of the Schneider-Creusot Company which for a century has dominated the French arms industry and which through its subsidiaries now controls most of the important arms factories in Central Europe. Some of Hitler's financial support, then, was derived from a company owned by a leading French industrialist and arms maker.
Arms merchants also own newspapers and mold public opinion. M. Schneider is more than just president of Creusot. He is the moving spirit of another great combine, the Comite des Forges. This French steel trust through one of its officers has controlling shares in the Paris newspaper Le Temps, the counterpart of the New York Times, and the Journal des Débats, which corresponds to the New York Herald Tribune. These two powerful papers constantly warn their readers of the "danger of disarmament" and of the menace of Germany. Thus M. Schneider is in a position to pull two strings, one linked to Hitler and German militarism, the other tied to the French press and French militarism. [...]

Fascist Legacy Politicians

"2003 Recall Vote: How Come Only Two Choices Were Pols With Nazi Family Ties?"
Adapted from a posting at "Los Angeles Topix Forum" [archive.today]:
This is a big state, in a big country.
Was it just a coincidence that the governor, Gray Davis, was the grandson of Nazi agent, William Rhodes Davis, [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gray_Davis]: "...Early life and political career.. ...It was not documented, until July 20, 2008, and never previoulsy disclosed by Davis, that his grandfather was WWII Nazi agent, William Rhodes Davis, an American working to supply oil from Mexico for Hitler's Germany, and to aid the 1940 presidential election campaign of republican candidte, Wendell Wilkie. William Rhodes Davis died about August 1, 1941, a year before the birth of Gray Davis, reportedly "removed" by British spymaster Sir William Stephenson, aka "Intrepid".[7]"
We now know Arnold's grandfather, Karl, and father, Gustav, were Nazi party members, because Arnold told us... but what is up with this?
In five of the last presidential elections, people with Nazi family ties, Bush father and son, were elected to either the presidency or as VP, five times. In 2004, both Bush and Kerry were members of a tiny secret society, Skull and Bones, that "taps" only 15 Yale Univ. juniors for membership, each year.
Do you know anyone with Nazi family ties? Why are politicians with such ties so numerous in our highest elected offices? JFK was the grandchild of Joseph P. Kennedy, a well-known Nazi sympathizer... George W. Bush is the grandchild of, and George Herbert Walker is the son of Prescott Bush, himself a US Senator and a bonifide Nazi agent in the USA banking networks... California Gov. Arnold is the grandchild of Karl Schwarzenegger, Nazi SS official of Austria... former California Gov. Gray Davis is the grandchild of William Rhodes Davis, Nazi agent...
All elected just on the whim of informed voters... all just coincidence...or....?


"Exposing Arnold Schwarzenegger", (2013-10-13) [OriginalSourceMag.com/2013/10/20/exposing-arnold-schwarzenegger] [archive.org] [archive.today]

Photo showing the elder Schwarzenegger with fascist Germany Leader Adolph Hitler, meeting with fascist dictator Franco of Spain:

Photo showing Franco meeting at the White House with President Ford, 1975, showing how entrenched and trusted fascists are to "the Establishment", and why little Arnold and his family were allowed such success after World War 2.



They were called "Ratlines" because these rats just killed 20+ million Russian civilians and were allowed to continue operations with the help of the USA and allies, and the Church of Rome (with the Knights of Malta)'s sovereign banking system and travel identification:
** "Nazi Hunt: South America's Dictatorships and the Avenging of Nazi Crimes" book by German historian Daniel Stahl
** "Otto Skorzeny: The Vatican Conspiracy" [Szorzeny.greyfalcon.us/Vatican.html][archive.today]
** In 1949 letter, German SS commander Otto Wächter says Nazis on the run entered Brazil without passports [archive.today/tObpn]
** "IN A LETTER, WÄCHTER SAYS NAZIS ENTERED BRAZIL WITHOUT PASSPORTS" [archive.today/d1Mrl]
** "Read the full letter from Otto Wächter about possible escape to Brazil" [archive.today/x84IS]
** War Crimes: How Nazis Escaped Justice in South America [archive.today/41vgT]
** How the Nazis escaped justice [archive.today/Uy7GR]

** "2 SS chiefs who fled to US on new Wiesenthal list of 10 most-wanted Nazis" (2014-10) [archive.today]

Kissinger and the secret spy network of old Nazis and German aristocrats 'who plotted to overthrow West German goverment' [archive.today]
* 'The Little Service' was made up of many former Gestapo and S.S. men as well as titled barons and counts
* Kissnger even discussed with them the possibility of a coup to overthrow the government of Chancellor Willy Brandt
* The Little Service which came into being in 1969 and ran for a decade
* Was lavishly funded and with more success than state intelligence agencies which were riddled with East German moles

"Russia and China Are Not Imperialist" (2015-03-02, by Steven Argue)

[Photo: South Ossetians celebrate independence maintained with the help of Russia. In 2008, an unprovoked military attack by the U.S. and Israeli sponsored Georgian government on the tiny country of South Ossetia left 2,000 civilians dead. Russian military backing of the Ossetian people maintained their independence and ended imperialist aggression in a 5 day war.]

By any legitimate Marxist analysis, neither Russia nor China is imperialist. Russia is a weak capitalist country in the crosshairs of U.S. and EU imperialists who have targeted Russia for isolation, regime change, and to be broken up into three more easily controlled neo-colonial governments. This plan was even laid down on paper by top Obama advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. China is a deformed workers state facing a combined imperialist policy of economic engagement, military encirclement, and threats.

Is Russia Imperialist?
Examples of supposed Russian imperialism do not stand up to scrutiny. Ukraine, for instance, was one of Russia’s close allies before the U.S. and EU sponsored a coup that overthrew their elected government a year ago. This is a country with a long and close relationship with Russia. If we were to find an example of Russian imperialism, it would be in Ukraine. Yet at the time of the imperialist sponsored coup, Russian Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Ukraine was extremely low.
According to 2011 figures, nearly 80% of Ukrainian foreign direct investment (FDI) in Ukraine came from the European Union. The actual number is actually a little bit lower because about 22.2% of that is comes from Cyprus, a location Ukrainian capitalists use for tax avoidance. Still, that leaves about 60% of Ukraine’s FDI coming from the EU. Russia, on the other hand, accounted for only 7.6% of FDI. This is a very low number given the historic ties of former Soviet influence. Much lower than could possibly give credence to claims that the Euromaiden “revolution” liberated Ukraine from Russian imperialist control.
Today, the relatively weak capitalist class that has developed in Russia since the Yeltsin capitalist counterrevolution in 1991 is standing up, in its own national self-interests, against a U.S. engineered and fascist infested coup government in Kiev. That government hates Ukraine’s national minorities and seeks to hurt the entire working class of Ukraine through imposing the austerity and other dictates of the IMF, EU, and USA. It is a deadly threat to the working class of Ukraine and is a dagger aimed by the U.S. imperialists at Russia itself. A victory by relatively weak Russia against U.S. imperialism will be a blow for the world’s working class which suffers under deeply under the terror and exploitation of U.S. / E.U. imperialism. An anti-imperialist victory in Ukraine will also serve to protect the oppressed Russian nationality of Crimea, protect Russia from imperialism, and protect the deformed workers state of Belarus.
The capitalist government of Russia has many problems, and needs to be overthrown in a proletarian revolution that brings back the socialist planned economy and brings workers democracy. Yet, Russia's support for the sovereignty of South Ossetia, Ukraine, Crimea, and Syria from the religious fanatics, genocidal maniacs, and extreme nationalists sponsored by the imperialist governments of the U.S. and E.U. are relatively minor actions by a weak capitalist country (Russia), against the real imperialist powers of the United States and European Union. In these situations, Leninist-Trotskyists side with the weaker countries against the imperialists, as Lenin pointed out:
‘If tomorrow, Morocco were to declare war on France, or India on Britain, or Persia or China on Russia, and so on, these would be “just”, and “defensive” wars irrespective of who would be the first to attack; any socialist would wish the oppressed, dependent and unequal states victory over the oppressor, slave-holding and predatory ‘Great’ Powers.’
(Socialism and War, July 1915)
Leninist-Trotskyists side with Russia against the great powers. This does not mean we support the capitalist system in Russia. Today, Russia still needs a socialist revolution despite Russia under Putin moving away from the total capitulation to imperialism found in the years of the Yeltsin led capitalist counterrevolution.

Is China Imperialist?
Regarding China’s foreign investments, they are in their vast majority socialist state investments, not capitalist investments. Here is part of a piece I’ve been writing on Vietnam and Laos that takes up this question:
In 2014 the People’s Republic of China became the biggest investor in Laos with the Laotian government announcing $5.1 billion in investment from China in January, 2014. Among the Chinese projects are a massive project developing rail from China through Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam. Massive hydroelectric projects are also being developed with benefits both for development and the fight against global warming, but also unfortunate disruptions and damage to the environment as well.
In 2013 the People's Republic of China also announced it is providing Laos with $49 million (US dollars) in aid and an additional $32 million (US dollars) in interest free credits. This will help keep Laos free of some of the debt slavery suffered under the loans countries are given by the World Bank and the International Development Bank. Under those imperialist capitalist loans, poor countries subsidize the wealthy ones with exorbitant interest rates on unpayable loans, causing the flow of wealth to be from poor countries to the rich. Robin Hood in reverse. In addition, restructuring is contingent on harmful policies of austerity and privatization. A form of colonialism.
For many on the left, China's investments bringing development to numerous underdeveloped countries are seen as a form of imperialism. This ignores a few basic facts. First of all, the vast majority of these investments are by the Chinese mainland state run banks or other state owned sectors. Instead of being short-term speculative investments based on the profit motive, as imperialist capitalist investments are, they are investments that seek needed commodities for China's economy which is still largely planned and socialist. Unlike the USSR's planned socialist economy, which was built in a resource rich country, China is now building up its economy, largely through the vast advantages of socialist planning, in a country that is relatively resource poor. To do so they must invest in other countries in order to import needed resources for their collectivized enterprises back in China.
To extract these resources China makes investments. For many in Africa and Asia these investments in schools, roads, railroads, and other needed infrastructure and enterprises are generally seen as a welcome change from the neglect and underdevelopment imposed by the imperial capitalists. This is not to say that there have not been abuses, but these well known abuses have come from the small minority of private Chinese enterprises functioning abroad.
The socialist character of Chinese investments was even recognized by U.S. State Department official Princeton Lyman in a 2005 presentation to the Congressional U.S.-China Commission, who said:
“China utilizes a variety of instruments to advance its interest in ways that western nations can only envy. Most of China’s investments are through state-owned companies, whose individual investments do not have to be profitable if they serve overall Chinese objectives. Thus the representative of China’s state-owned construction company in Ethiopia could reveal that he was instructed by Beijing to bid low on various tenders, without regard for profit. China’s long term objective in Ethiopia is in access to future natural resource investments, not in construction business profits.”
This has produced radically different ways of operating that have been highly praised by important African academics. Chinese investments in Laos, which includes socialist construction, aid, and interest free loans, are also likely to prove mutually beneficial for the people of Laos.

Imperialist Pivot Asia and the Paracel Islands Dispute -
A profound capitulation of the Vietnamese Communist Party to U.S. imperialism is cooperation with Obama’s aggressive military maneuvers aimed at the People’s Republic of China as a part of Pivot Asia. This has included the Vietnamese Coast Guard carrying out attacks on Chinese oil drilling in the South China Sea. These are attacks on the $1 billion deepwater oil-drilling platform that has been deployed in exploratory operations by the People’s Republic of China near the Paracel Islands. The Paracel Islands are about equidistant from the coastlines of China and Vietnam. The People’s Republic of China seized one inhabited section of the Paracel Islands in 1950 from the U.S. backed Chinese Kuomintang government, a government that was overthrown on the mainland and reduced to only maintaining power in Taiwan after the 1949 Chinese Revolution. Another uninhabited section of the Paracel Islands was seized by the French imperialists and became a claim of the South Vietnamese puppet governments thereafter until 1974. At that time, in a brief war between the People’s Republic of China and the U.S. imposed Thiệu dictatorship of South Vietnam, the PRC took control of the entire chain of islands. The islands include the Chinese city of Sansha with an estimated 3,500 inhabitants and infrastructure investments from the PRC, including the 2014 completion of a solar powered desalinization plant that now provides the additional freshwater that the city’s inhabitants needed.
Until very recently, the only people raising a fuss over the PRC’s control of the Paracel Islands have been counterrevolutionary Vietnamese and Chinese. This has changed with Vietnamese cooperation with Obma’s policy of Pivot Asia. Obama’s policy of Pivot Asia involves military encirclement of China, military provocations against China, and an attempt to dominate resources in the China Sea while at the same time carrying out capitalist economic engagement with China as an means of undermining the Chinese Revolution from within. Imperialist aggression towards China includes wrongful Japanese claims and military build up in the Diaoyu/Senkaku islands in the East China Sea. These islands are Chinese, but with the current Japanese military occupation of the islands, they could be used in military attacks against the industrialized east part of China. The islands are also crucial the PRC’s self-defense from potential naval blockade from U.S. and Japanese imperialism if imperialist war breaks out against the People’s Republic of China. In addition, in 2014 within days of U.S. threats against the PRC, the United States, Japan, and South Korea all flew aircraft over Chinese airspace, including nuclear capable B-52 bombers, to test Chinese defenses for a potential imperialist attack on China. The Vietnamese Stalinists also joined in this imperialist campaign by attacking Chinese claims to the Paracel Islands and even allowing the U.S. Navy to dock in Vietnam.
2014 actions of the Vietnamese government included sending Coast Guard and fishing vessels out to aggressively interfere with Chinese oil exploration. This has led to confrontations with China spraying water on these boats and an allegation, denied by the Chinese, of the Chinese sinking one of the Vietnamese fishing boats involved in the confrontation by ramming it. China says the boat “capsized after harassing and colliding with a Chinese fishing boat”.
One sided coverage of these events in the west helped fuel unfair anti-Chinese prejudices that have been pushed by the U.S. government and western corporate media for decades. Likewise, the Vietnamese Stalinists whipped up a nationalist frenzy that included violent chauvinistic riots as 20,000 people marched against Vietnam’s ethnic Chinese minority and carried out nationalistic anti-Chinese violence that left over 20 people dead and a hundred people injured.
The Vietnamese Coast Guard who have been participating in these attacks are themselves now partially funded by the United States, including $18 million dollars in assistance in 2014. They also receive training from the Japanese and U.S. imperialists. In addition, despite the hard fought anti-imperialist victory of 1975, U.S. naval ships are now even allowed to dock in Vietnam. This, as well as massive capitalist inroads into the Vietnamese economy, are a Stalinist betrayal of the 2.8 million Vietnamese lives given to rid Vietnam of blood thirsty imperialist troops and overthrow the capitalist system and throw the imperialists out of Vietnam.
Ultimately, what will be necessary to defend the remaining gains of the Vietnamese, Laotian, and Chinese Revolutions will be political revolutions that overthrow the repressive Stalinist bureaucracies of those countries, institute systems of workers democracy, end Vietnamese capitulations to western and Japanese imperialism, end capitalist inroads into their economies, and build an internationalist revolutionary movement to break the socialist countries out of isolation without capitulations to imperialism. This is part of a Trotskyists program that also defends these three countries from imperialist attack and internal capitalist counterrevolution as well. The lie that China is imperialist only aids U.S. and Japanese counterrevolutionary aggression directed at the People’s Republic of China.
The false notion that China is imperialist only aids U.S. and Japanese counterrevolutionary aggression directed at the People’s Republic of China. Likewise, the lie that Russia is imperialist only aids western imperialist ethnic cleansing of the Russian speaking minority in Ukraine, imperialist aggression against the people of Syria as part of an intervention that formed ISIS and continues to back religious fanatics against the Syrian and Kurdish people, and aids imperialist sanctions against Belarus with its remaining socialist economy, as well as other western imperialist acts of aggression against the world’s working class and farmers.

End U.S. and EU Imperialist Sanctions Against Russia!
End U.S. and Japanese Military Threats and Encirclement of China!

-Steven Argue of the Revolutionary Tendency
Revolutionary Tendency
[https://www.facebook.com/RevolutionaryTendency]

More Material Wealth leads to Less Reliance on Religion

"Faith Versus Finance: Does affluence affect spirituality?" by Julian Archer (2015-03-01, AdventistWorld.org)

Seesaws, or teeter-totters, are common in playgrounds around the world. The name “seesaw” is a direct Anglicization of the French word ci-ça, meaning literally, “this-that.” The seesaw is an “either/or,” a“this or that,” mechanical device. You can have only one side at the top at any given time; never both.Is that how it is with faith and finance? Can we have only faith or finance, never both? Or is it only great faith and great finance that tend to seesaw?

What I’ve Learned in the Playground “Down Under” -
According to the latest reports, my home country of Australia is one of the most affluent nations on earth.The 2013 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report shows that Australian adults have the second-highest wealth level of any country on the planet (second only to Switzerland), and that our median wealth level per adult is the highest on the planet, more than double Switzerland’s. This means that we’re not only extremely wealthy (even though we may not always feel it), but our wealth is also more evenly distributed than in many other nations. As a Christian who spent many years trying to maintain a strong relationship with God while my income was high enough for me to live self-sufficiently. I must ask the question”What impact does affluence have on spirituality, including my own?” Does it lead us nearer to God, to a greater faith? Or does it turn our eyes from Him? Or perhaps finances are completely unrelated to faith?

Searching for the Answer -
In 2009 a Gallup poll reported on their surveys conducted in 114 countries. One of the questions the Gallup organization asked was “Is religion an important part of your daily life?” Gallup also researched the per-capita income levels for each country and then made correlations between the two. The data made it clear that the see-saw effect is in full swing. The higher the per-capita income of a nation, the lower the role of religion in daily life,and vice versa. Let’s zoom in on some of the nations at the top and bottom of the“faith versus finance” seesaw. The accompanying table is based on data from both the Gallup poll and the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. The data clearly show a great divide—in both the importance of religion and levels of wealth—between the world’s richest (less religious) and poorest (more religious) nations. It could be argued that the reason for the high wealth ranking of these`“Top 10” wealthiest nations shown in the table is that they originally based their societies and business practices on Christian principles, and God blessed them. Times are changing, however. The seesaw has tilted, and affluence is toppling both religion and spirituality. Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The fact is, the moment that financial stability is assured, spiritual bankruptcy is also assured.” Gandhi seems to be reflecting Jesus’ words: “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:25). I know from my personal experience that when a person is financially blessed they’re in the most spiritually dangerous stage of their life. The higher my income went, the less I felt my need for God. My income taxed my spirituality.

Living the Dream?
As I run Faith Versus Finance seminars, I see that most affluent Christians, in their deepest hearts, really do want a vibrant, life-changing relationship with God. But they’re frustrated. They feel as if they’re being forced to live a life focused on earthly priorities when they know that true satisfaction and fulfillment come only from eternal things. I can hear their cries because I spent years “living the dream” but aching for a deeper relationship with God. I finally realized that God’s mate-rial blessings had become a curse in my spiritual life. It’s not that God’s blessings are curses, but we often use them in such a way that they become curses. When we allow God’s material blessings to fill our hearts, we can’t open our heart’s door to Jesus. And that’s a curse—an eternal curse. The Bible is full of examples in which the mistreatment of God’s blessings led to curses. In Deuteronomy 6, Moses tells the children of Israel that they’re about to enter a“land flowing with milk and honey”(verse 3). But then he adds the clincher: “When you have eaten and are full—then beware, lest you forget the Lord” (verses 11, 12). It’s a powerful reminder that a full stomach can make us very sleepy

Seesaw Snapshot -
So what does this seesaw look like in the day-to-day life of a comfortable Christian? Let’s look at three areas:Construction: When I “build bigger barns” and store up my treasures hereon earth, it distracts me from eternal riches. I start to worry about them, and I invest increasing amounts of time and energy into protecting and multiplying the blessings instead of trusting completely in Him. My finances rise, but my faith falls; and I often don’t even realize it (see Rev. 3:17).
Time: The first indicator of spiritual apathy is the crippling and cropping of my time with God. This usually occurs during periods of increased time pressures because of financial, personal, entertainment, or other priorities. The problem could last just a few mornings, or perhaps even many years. When I neglect to spend quality time praying and studying the Scriptures, my relationship with Christ weakens.
Heart: Whenever I fill my heart with the gifts instead of the Giver, my faith falls. When Christ knocks on the door of my material-blessings-filled heart (verse 20), the sound of His knocking is muffled. And even when I do hear it, I struggle to climb over all my material blessings to reach out and open the door.
Ellen White referred to this crowded-heart syndrome when she wrote, “The heavenly Guest is standing at your door, while you are piling up obstructions to bar His entrance. Jesus is knocking through the prosperity He gives you. He loads you with blessings to test your fidelity, that they may flow out from you to others. Will you permit your selfishness to triumph? Will you squander God’s talents, and lose your soul through idolatrous love of the blessings He has given?” (Ellen G. White, in Advent Review and Sabbath Herald, Nov. 2, 1886). This is very challenging territory,but it begs the question Does our faith always need to decrease as our affluence rises? Is the faith-versus-finance seesaw an unchangeable, universal principle?

Breaking the Seesaw -
God offers a cure for every person who realizes that their affluent life-style is damaging their spiritual life. It’s a heart attack! Not a cardiac arrest,but a total spiritual heart transplant.In Ezekiel 36:26 God tells us that He wants to give us a new heart, a loving heart of flesh, to replace our materialistic heart of stone. We must be converted again. We can be active church members and financial supporters of God’s work but still contract spiritual heart disease. We need a total heart transplant. Instead of faith versus finance, it can and should be faith and finance. Or even better, faith regardless of finance.May we be true to God in all things, including our material blessings.

Country: Mean Adult Wealth (US$,000) / % Answered “NO” to “Is religion an important part of your daily life?”
Switzerland: 513 / 57%
Australia: 403 / 67%
Norway: 380 / 78%
Luxembourg: 315 / 64%
USA: 301 / 36%
Sweden: 299 / 88%
France: 296 / 74%
Singapore: 282 / 53%
Belgium: 256 / 68%
Denmark: 255 / 83%
THE GREAT DIVIDE
Thailand: 8 / 2%
India: 5 / 9%
Haiti: 4 / 8%
Pakistan: 4 / 4%
Kenya: 3 / 3%
Cambodia: 3 / 3%
Nepal: 2 / 5%