NATIONAL PRAYER FOR RAIN

by Jeremy Lee:

PART 1: FAITH & OBEDIENCE
"If you walk in My statutes and keep My commandments so as to carry them out, then I shall give you rains in their season so that the land will yield its produce and the trees of the field will bear their fruit. Indeed, your threshing will last for you until grape-gathering, and grape-gathering will last until sowing time. You will thus eat your food to the full and live securely in your land." Leviticus 26: 3,4,5.

"If I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or if I command the locust to devour the land, or if I send pestilence among the people, and My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray, and seek My face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7: 13, 14.

POINTS TO PONDER

On November 12, Frank Davis of Nambour, Queensland, wrote to The Sunshine Coast Daily on this issue.
His letter included the following points:
"Nobody disputes we are in the grip of one of our worst droughts …. Some of us remember the drought after WW II when our dust storms were reaching New Zealand. I was in Sydney when it broke and it rained mud! Our Premier last week asked us to pray for rain (like Sir Joh did) and it rained (like when Sir Joh asked!) I hope we also remember to thank Him who answered. If our Prime Minister (better still our Head of State, the Governor-General) asked all Australians to do the same according to their various faiths, believers know we will see the same Australia-wide, regardless of what the atheists say …."

No National Day of Prayer for PM:
Even as the rain was falling in Queensland, however, the Prime Minister was summoning State representatives to a meeting in Canberra to seek their co-operation in his newly established National Water Initiative, under the care of banker MalcolmTurnbull!
There was no suggestion of a National Day of Prayer for rain, involving all Australians. Instead, a process was started which will involve immense works - the diversion of rivers, trans-continental pipelines and grids, huge dams, the re-cycling of sewage and effluent, flooding of fertile farm lands and the forced evacuation of previously viable farmers, the compulsory acquisition of waters from country residents and farmers for city use, enormous regulation, the involuntary shift of State powers to the Commonwealth regardless of the Constitution and the warning that charges for water will rise dramatically for all consumers.
The finance - and ownership -for these projects will be made the province of transnational corporations which, in some cases, have bigger budgets than nations!

Malcolm Turnbull - who is scheduled to be fast-tracked past more experienced representatives to Cabinet status -has announced that the commercial water market will be immensely profitable. This is not to decry human initiative. But a complete reliance on the invincibility of Science and Engineering given full rein by centralised power, to the exclusion of faith and obedience to God is a recipe for disaster!

The fantasy of 'starting at the top' will not work:
It has been very well expressed by internationally-known botanist and Social Credit authority, the late Dr Geoffrey Dobbs, of Bangor University in Wales, who, over 40 years ago, wrote in his book "On Planning The Earth," the following:
"Just as local pollution on an ever greater and more widespread scale can ultimately achieve damaging global effects, so also can local restoration and conservation, spreading here, there and everywhere, ultimately achieve global effects. There is no other way. The fantasy of starting at the Top with some wholesale Saving of the Planet by World Agencies employing super-clever scientists is just childish.
Remote centralised interference can cause enormous, even global, damage; it can never restore. Growth is not of that nature. It is localized, not wholesale. You cannot 'grow' a tree, or a forest, in the time it takes to cut one down!
The most that centralised governments and their agencies can do is to allow local restoration and right treatment of the land to give a reasonable living, as they should, and to discourage centralised agencies from imposing destructive practices, usually by financial means…"

Small scale decentralised solutions is the answer:
There are a number of technical innovations which would allow small-scale, decentralised solutions to water shortages. They would be financially cheaper, ecologically sustainable and far less threatening to personal freedom. But the fascination of big-scale, spectacular schemes in the hands of remote planners - which would maintain and enforce grid-controls on consumers - bewitch those whose dreams coincide with unlimited power. The Communist dictator, Lenin, wrote of the necessity of grid-systems as mechanisms for control.
One suspects this is a main reason why there is such a dismissal of wind and solar power. How can a government control the wind and sun? How do you put a Ministerial brass plate on a breeze or a sunbeam?

Wouldn't it be…:
Wouldn't it be stimulating to Australia if the limited example shown by the Queensland Premier and Church leaders in Brisbane prompted a State-wide, and then a Nation-wide response? Would it not inspire if the Queen's representatives in Australia -the Governor-General and the State Governors - emulated the Monarch in times past by calling the whole nation to prayer in this time of crisis? The nature of their positions gives them the moral authority to make such a call.
Would not a swelling mass of the people respond if church leaders of every denomination - Catholic, Anglican, Protestant, Evangelical, Charismatic, High and Low -cast aside all differences, and drew up a Service of Confession, Repentance and Prayer for rain; agreed to by all leaders in advance for a designated day, publicised by announcements in papers and electronic media?
Would it not produce regeneration in our nation if, after Almighty God responded to such National Prayer, according to His promises, the Nation was then called together again in thanksgiving? Would there be an Australian who would not respond?

WE SHOULD THINK ON THESE THINGS!
It is as true as ever that the Nation follows the Church. If the "salt has lost its savour" and does not PUBLICLY stand for the truth, the nation will slide down the path of destruction.
But God still rules! Christ is risen and reigns! The prayers ~ and actions ~ of ordinary people are seen and heard, and do not remain unanswered.

PART II - SMALL LOW-COST SOLUTIONS

This is lateral thinking which opens up immense possibilities:
Like all sound engineering innovations, small-scale models should be tried before venturing into bigger ones. Over 80 percent of Australia's population lives on the coast. Larger and larger dams at enormous expense are being built on good farmland to provide water for concentrated mega-cities.
The great bulk of coastal hinterlands are flat, thus lending themselves to evaporation channels. Australian innovation, at minimal expense, is quite capable of building channel modules capable of being fitted together for short or long distances, harvesting pure water from the sea.

In Queensland such population centres as the Gold and Sunshine Coasts, as well as cities such as Brisbane, Maryborough, Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Sarina, Mackay, Townsville and Cairns could meet all their water requirements this way - rather than the schemes being put forward by Malcolm Turnbull and Prime Minister Howard. The same would apply to other States.
Country areas, relieved of the pressure and cost of shifting water to the cities, could themselves return to simpler forms or irrigation.
The Key-Line System, designed by the brilliant Australian innovator the late P.A Yeomans, would eliminate the need for such mind-numbing enterprises as Cubbie Station.

Let's hope that these 'alternative' ideas will stimulate more lateral thinking from those who still have the inclination to "think small'. We can then give freedom and initiative back to Councils and local communities, send the global corporations on their way, and re-discover that 'Small Is Beautiful'.

Contact: Jeremy Lee at: P.O. Box 1234, Toowoomba, Queensland, 4350.

BLACK ARCHBISHOP SAYS BBC ANTI-CHRISTIAN

"Here's a strong monarchist for you! And a black Archbishop from Uganda too!" writes Jeremy Lee:
"When I was a kid in Kenya we lived near a retired missionary who had walked the 400 miles from Mombasa to Uganda to set up his missionary post. He was one of the heroes, like Livingston, who brought Christianity to the dark continent at the end of the 1800s. The Catholics too. During the Mau Mau emergency, the Catholic White Fathers kept their mission open in the thick of the murder and mayhem. Now the children of their converts have come back to Europe and Britain, and are standing publicly against the rot which the Church in general is too weak to condemn publicly - "the mills of God grind slowly..."

BBC frightened of criticising Islam, says archbishop, by Jonathan Petre, London Daily Telegraph, 14/11/06:
"The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, has accused the BBC of bias against Christianity and says the broadcaster fears a terrorist backlash if it is critical of Islam. The archbishop, the second most senior figure in the Church of England's hierarchy, said Christians took "more knocks" than other faiths at the hands of the BBC.

Dr Sentamu claims Christians take 'more knocks' at the BBC:
"They can do to us what they dare not do to the Muslims," he said. "We are fair game because they can get away with it. We don't go down there and say, 'We are going to bomb your place.' That is not in our nature."

The Ugandan-born archbishop nevertheless said Christians must be more forceful in promoting their beliefs. Blaming the "chattering classes" for undermining traditional Christian culture, he said: "They see themselves as holding the flag for Britain and that Britain is definitely secular and atheist. I want them to have their say but not to lord it over the rest of us."

In an interview with the Daily Mail, he called for a return to family values and an end to the tyranny of materialism, especially at Christmas. "We have become a society where we all gather around the microwave or the television. Even while you are eating, the television is blaring. Come on! Parents should spend more time talking to children because that is where behaviour is learned, in the home."

Dr Sentamu rejected the idea of the Church severing its remaining ties with the State:
"People of other faiths say to me that the Church establishment is critical because it is a bulwark against a secularising agenda," he said. "The Church of England reminds the nation that in this country the Queen is Defender of the Faith, head of the Commonwealth and head of state."The Queen, he added, was the "real uniting force" and no politician "could ever rise to her level".

Dr Sentamu also questioned whether Muslim women were required to wear the veil by the Koran, and argued that those who did should not expect British society to be reordered to accommodate them. He said Muslim scholars would say three things about the veil.
§ First, does it conform to norms of decency?
§ Secondly, does it render you more secure?
§ And thirdly, what kind of Islam are you projecting by wearing it?

"I think in the British context it renders you less secure because you stick out and it brings unwelcome attention. "On the first question (of whether the veil conforms to norms of decency) I don't think it does conform."
The archbishop said he never wore a cross when visiting a synagogue or mosque, explaining: "Because I am going into someone else's home. And I can't simply say, 'Take me as I am, whether you like it or not.'
I think the thing is in British society you can wear what you want, but you can't expect British society to be reconfigured around you. No minority can expect to impose this on the public or civic life."

A BBC spokesman declined to comment but referred to a newspaper article by Mark Thompson, the director general, which denied that the BBC was systematically biased against Christianity and in favour of Islam, saying that it did not square with the facts. The Muslim Council of Britain said that if women chose to wear the veil on religious grounds it was "their business and no one else's" as long as it did not conflict with the rights of others.

HOW CAN IT BE? by Betty Luks
A black Ugandan man defending the British way of life. A black Ugandan defending the relationship of the Church of England with the Nation/State. Demonstrating his love and loyalty to her Majesty the Queen and having a deep understanding of the importance of her role with and to her people - while at the same time taking the oh! 'so British' BBC to task, for lacking the backbone to criticise Islam's radicals and continually exhibiting its own bias towards the Christian Faith.
The same Faith, whose missionaries first set foot in the land of Albion in the first 100 years after the Crucifixion. Whose missionaries went out from places such as holy Lindisfarne and Iona in the early centuries AD to help convert Europe to the Faith. The Faith that set the standard for community life long before the warring tribes became one United Kingdom.

Now, thank God, as Jeremy Lee writes: "…the children of their converts have come back to Europe and Britain, and are standing publicly against the rot which the Church in general is too weak to condemn publicly."

THE MEAN SPIRIT OF MATERIALISM

by James Reed
"Neo-liberalism, materialism and consumerism… lay waste to anything in their path." So writes Kevin Rudd, Opposition spokesman on foreign affairs, trade and international security, in his paper "Howard's Brutopia," The Monthly November 2006. Rudd locates John Howard and other neo-con (neo-liberal) Right-wingers within the tradition of Freidrich von Hayek (1899-1992).

Von Hayek, a Jewish economist and philosopher was a champion of the thesis that the market is god; morals are just those attitudes necessary for the smooth running of the market. As Rudd aptly puts it for von Hayek "there are virtually no shared values between societies, other than liberty and the desire for limitless material acquisition." Sound familiar?

Rudd distances himself from von Hayek and his disciple John Howard. Rudd is a good guy - a social democrat. The so-called social democrat tradition from Adam Smith sees human beings as both "self-regarding" and "other-regarding," whereas neo-liberals see humans as primarily self-regarding.
But all of this is academic: Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations gave birth to the same individualist, a social, a cultural conception of man that underlies von Hayek and Howard's philosophy.

Although Rudd may like to philosophically distance himself and the Labor Party from Howard, they are all fellow travellers heading down the same road. This road was well described by Dr. Geoffrey Dobbs in a thought-provoking address given in Melbourne and recorded in The New Times, February 1985. Both sides of politics accept Monopolism in one of its forms.

As Dr. Dobbs said: "Such warfare is an expression of Monopolism - perhaps its ultimate expression - whether in the form of Monopolo-theism (belief in a unitary Dictator-God, as in Judaism and Islam) or in the form of Monopolo-humanism (Man is the Ultimate power, which is wielded by the Top Men). But it is of the nature of Monopolism that it generates Dualistic conflict. For if 'We' (the Monopolists) alone are 'good' and have a sacred right to power, any others who challenge us are 'evil' and must be destroyed."

Both Labor and Liberal are united in accepting this philosophy, and no carefully historical hair-splitting between the various liberal camps can really hide it. It is the entire philosophical paradigm of monopolism that social credit rejects.
As Dr. Dobbs pointed out, this is also true for our own doctrine of Trinitarian Christianity, where the doctrines of creation, original sin, incarnation, resurrection and divine grace, save us from the Jewish fate of a "Dictator-God".

GIVING IT ALL TO RUPERT

by James Reed
In October the Federal Parliament overturned media laws which prevented media corporations to simultaneously own metropolitan newspapers and television channels. Rupert Murdoch already owned about 70 per cent or more of Australia's newspapers.
Giving it all to Rupert, or what remained of the media, means all that the writers of this present periodical attack - which is generally from the Murdoch press - will be replicated many fold.

Murdoch has a political agenda of promoting globalisation, Asianisation and a reductionist form of neo-liberal economic rationalism. Those who dissent from the News Corporation's religion of globalism - be they from the Left or Right, watch out! Professor Robert Manne reached the same conclusion in his recent article in The Monthly November 2006 and as much as I hate to agree with Professor Manne on political matters, he is right on this one.

The Australian, he notes, has a "missionary zeal" and a "take-no-prisoners combativeness like a student newspaper". (p.12) All of this amounts to a damaging assault on democracy, Professor Manne argues. Media concentration dilutes political diversity. He says: "Media concentration has already created an almost textbook example of a vicious circle. The more the media is concentrated, the greater the problem for the health of democracy. Yet the more the media is concentrated, the less likely it is that the issue will be debated freely in the only appropriate forum for the discussion, the media itself."

Professor Manne does know an answer to this vicious circle dilemma. Clearly an alternative media - parallel for example to home schooling - needs to be encouraged and to flourish. People need to come to support it with their money votes and gradually starve the giants to death. Although the giants seem to be as vulnerable as Superman, they have an Achilles heel - and that is keeping up sales numbers so that advertisers advertise and the banks are kept happy. In the end, we will need to stop debating our ideological enemies. But perhaps, for me, not yet!

YES! YES! SECTION 59 OF CONSTITUTION REMAINS "IN ALL ITS GLORY"!

We have reported before that constitutional authority, Dr. Mitchell insists the Governor General does have important constitutional powers which the G-G's 'advisers' keep telling him he doesn't have! South Australians Doug and Jean Holmes wrote to the Governor General after correspondence had been flowing between both parties on the partial sale of Telstra: The G-G had responded insisting he did not now have the constitutional power to refuse to sign the legislation.

Doug and Jean responded:
"…If you as the Governor General always take the advice of the elected Government of the day, what does section 59 mean? We think it says that you have the power to go against the Government of the day in certain conditions. What if the Government does something which is against the Constitution, or against the wishes of the majority of the Australian people? What then? Are you also saying that Sir John Kerr, when he was in your position was wrong? Who did he take his advice from on that occasion?" Doug and Jean then sent a copy of their correspondence to Dr. David Mitchell for comment.

He replied:
"It is true that the Constitutional Commission 1988 recommended that sec.59 be repealed. That recommendation was not acted on. Thus sec.59 remains in 'all its glory'".

Australians need to have the 5-set DVD series "The Spirit of Australia's Constitution and History" by Dr. David Mitchell, BA., LL.B., Ph.D., LL.M. that was very successfully launched at the Albury National Weekend. It is essential we all understand the basic structure and concept of law underpinning our legal system and its historical roots. We are in very grave danger of losing sight of its philosophical and historical roots.
Send for your set of DVDs to Heritage Books, P.O. Box 27, Happy Valley, South Australia 5159. Price including postage - $55.00 for the set of 5.