—By Father DavidDO 90926 April 1980

1. THE WORST THING ABOUT CARTER IS HIS POOR TESTIMONY AS A CHRISTIAN! He's confirmed just what the World believes about the Church & Christians anyhow:—That they're a bunch of stupid ignoramuses & idiotic dummies that don't know anything & bungle everything & never know what to do & ask counsel of everybody else but the Lord & obviously aren't led by God. They're supposed to be led by God, but if they're led by God, why do they make so many horrible mistakes & mess up things so terribly? If he's supposed to be a Christian leading a Christian nation, what the hell's the matter with his God & his religion, & why does he make such a mess of everything?

2. IT LOOKS TO THE WHOLE WORLD LIKE GOD'S ON KHOMEINI'S SIDE, so Khomeini's must be the right religion. He's winning every battle & keeping at bay the most powerful nation on the face of the Earth, or at least the second most powerful, not days but months & months, unable to even liberate a little handful of their prisoners! (Maria: It does fit exactly the picture of what most people have of the Christians.) Exactly! Indecisive, don't know how to make up their minds‚ uncertain of everything, they don't have really any very good faith‚ they're supposed to have faith in God but can't seem to get any signals from Him, they don't know how to do anything.

3. CARTER IS A MESS, HE BUNGLES EVERYTHING HE DOES! That's the worst thing about him: His poor testimony to the World of what a Christian is. He has no firmness, no decision, no conviction, no led-by-God boldness or purpose & direction, no decisiveness, & nearly everything he does is a flop, & whatever decision he makes, he makes a mess out of it.—So it obviously wasn't of God. If he thinks his testimony is supposed to inspire faith in Christians & his kind of religion, he's got another think coming!

4. WHAT LITTLE HOPE THE WORLD HAD THAT HE WOULD SHOW SOME KIND OF EXAMPLE & some kind of Godly leadership & be inspired by the Deity that he claimed to worship, what little hope they had has virtually been destroyed by his total irrationality & ridiculous stupid idiotic tricks!—No conviction, no guts! I mean, you admire a guy, even Nixon, that at least was decisive & had some guts & did something‚ instead of a guy that just piddles around, piddles around & doesn't know what to do.

5. HE'S OBVIOUSLY NOT LED BY GOD, BECAUSE HE DOESN'T SEEM TO KNOW WHAT TO DO, he's just totally confused.—Looks like God's on the other side! (Maria: How tragic, when he finally had a chance to show the World what a true Christian really is!) What other international figure in recent times has claimed to be a born-again Christian & testified by their strength of leadership & effectual fruitful decisions that Christ was the answer? He was given the one opportunity‚ & the World was waiting to see. He publicly testified that he was not only born-again but also filled with the Spirit, had had a second great powerful experience under his Pentecostal sister‚ or at least supposedly been greatly influenced by her.

6. BUT HERE HE TURNS OUT TO BE THE WORST PRESIDENT THE COUNTRY EVER HAD! He's made a bigger mess out of things, had less guts, less conviction, less decisiveness, less knowledge of what to do! He has compromised, has been namby-pamby & backed down time after time! Every now & then he comes out with some grand statement & some great platitude like, "The poor Palestinians should have their own country," & then turns right around & denies it the next week! Then he comes out & chides the Israelis for putting settlements on the West Bank—it's totally against International Law & the agreements—but turns right around Monday & says it was a mistake made by one of his cohorts!

7. THE WORLD'S JUST TOTALLY LOST FAITH IN HIS IRRESPONSIBLE LEADERSHIP! (Maria: He comes out & says the Jews were responsible for crucifying Jesus, & then the next day he retracts it.) Yes, next day he retracts it, recants because ... the scribes & the Pharisees‚ waited on him & said, "You'd better recant or else!"—So he comes out & retracts it. He is just gutless, willy–nilly, string-for–a-backbone; he's got milk & water in his veins instead of red blood, it's sickening!

8. THE WORLD IS ABSOLUTELY DISGUSTED WITH HIM! They've been angry at other Presidents & they've hated them & haven't liked them, but this guy just absolutely has the contempt of the World, they are disgusted with him, just disgusted that he's such a weakling & such an ignoramus & so gutless, so indecisive! I mean, he's anything but a leader! He goes around being led by the nose by his wife or by the [ACs] or by his cohorts or by every Tom, Dick & Harry that comes by & voices his opinion!

9. HE TRIES TO PLEASE EVERYBODY, BUT OF COURSE AS A RESULT HE DOESN'T PLEASE ANYBODY! He even has done his best to please the Jews, & even they despise him! I hate Begin & everything he stands for‚ but I must say that I admire his guts & his conviction & the way he sticks to his guns even if the whole World is against him! He doesn't give a damn what the rest of the World thinks, he plunges right ahead, bulldozes ahead & does what he thinks he ought to do!

10. I ADMIRE BEGIN'S CONVICTION & HIS GUTS & HIS DECISIVENESS & his consistency, & this is one thing that even his enemies say about him, "Well, at least he's been consistent. If he's wrong, at least he's been consistently wrong!" This guy Carter isn't even consistent! He's right one day & wrong the next, & switches back the next. He's just absolutely going around in a total cloud, he doesn't seem to know what to do, he has no conviction, no leading of God, no firm purpose, no direction! He's just going around in circles, just sickening, disgusting!

11. ALMOST EVERYTHING HE PUTS HIS HAND TO FAILS! He hasn't been able to stop the recession‚ hasn't been able to really stop the oil waste, conserve oil, he hasn't been able to settle the Israeli-Arab issue, he hasn't been able to settle the Iran thing, he wasn't able to settle the Afghanistan situation—he's not even able to settle anything! He has no guts, & when he does try to make a supposedly resolute move‚ why, he bungles the whole baloney!

12. THE WORLD IS ASHAMED OF HIM, they're actually ashamed of the U.S. for having elected such a man President! They were ashamed enough of the last crook, but at least he was a clever crook, & he really was a hell of a lot smarter than this guy! He just happened to get caught that time, caught by the [ACs] at that! Carter just changes his mind almost every day. One day it's one thing, one day it's another.

13. THAT'S ABSOLUTELY THE WORST PART ABOUT HIS EXAMPLE TO THE WORLD AS A CHRISTIAN: I think they're absolutely ashamed of him! They look sometimes to Christians & the Church for some kind of guidance or leadership‚ & he failed them, he failed them. He was supposed to be a man of God, & he failed the World! That's the worst thing about him—his very poor testimony & horrible example as a supposedly born-again, real genuine Spirit-filled Christian. Well, he's obviously not Spirit-filled, or if he is, he sure got the wrong one! He has made nothing but a mess out of everything, it's pitiful!

14. SO, THEY'RE PROBABLY GOING TO GET A TYRANT NEXT TIME. I think everybody's so disgusted with him over this thing, he couldn't possibly win; unless the Americans are absolute idiots, too‚ & that's probable. They might just stick by him because he's our little boy, he tried to do his best, he's bungling his very best, bungling through.—Only I'm not sure he's going to get through!

15. THEY MIGHT FEEL SO SORRY FOR HIM THEY'LL RE-ELECT HIM! (Maria: But it looks now like his election in the first place was almost an absolute triumph for the Devil. It looks like that's what the Devil wanted all the time...) It looks like that now. At first it was supposedly a triumph for goodness & Christianity & the Christian faith & a good righteous man & a born-again saved Christian.

16. IT LOOKED LIKE GOD WAS GOING TO HAVE MERCY ON AMERICA because they had elected a good saved Christian man. Even a lot of the ignorant & the unbelievers voted for him thinking, "Well, here's a good man, claims to be a man of God. Let's see now what God can do for us." And now they're absolutely disgusted with him & with God, because of the horrible mess he's made of things, the way he's bungled things‚ the stupid idiotic things he's done & his inability to make the right decision. If he does, he goes back on it the very next day. All this has absolutely ruined his reputation & his example, his testimony & even some people's faith in the Lord.

17. AS YOU SAY, NOW IT LOOKS MORE LIKE THE DEVIL WAS IN IT THAN THE LORD:

"Confound their politics,

Confuse their knavish tricks!"

He sure has done it! He is a mess! So apparently it was the will of God. We thought maybe God was going to have mercy on America because he got elected, because he was supposed to be a Christian—that dear America had repented & voted for the good man, the right man, the Christian man. But look what he's done to them!

18. IT SHOWS THAT GOD STILL ISN'T GOING TO FORGIVE THEM, BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T REPENT & quit their wicked ways! So even a righteous man can't even rule them. They are still a mess & they're still making a mess of things. I think the guy seems like he's almost lost his marbles! He's almost sickening to look at now. He has a sad face of almost a woman‚ a weak face‚ a very weak face. His mother's practically a nut, she's really tutty–fruity! How he ever got elected I don't know, except that

19. HE GOT THE LIBERALS & THE REBELS & THE YOUTH & THE NEGROES & THE JEWS & the evangelicals & practically everybody behind him, practically all the minorities, they all voted for him, hoping there'd be some kind of a change. Instead of that, he let everybody down, just let the whole World down, it's pitiful!

20. AT THE RATE HE'S GOING HE'S PROBABLY GOING TO GET THE WHOLE WORLD INTO THE NEXT WAR! If he'll do a stupid idiotic thing like that Iran invasion & all the rest of the things he's done, why he'll probably stumble-bum right into the next war by accident! Well, I guess that's just what America deserves, they got what they deserve, & the World is getting what they deserve. But it does seem a shame that here was a man that had a chance to really set an example to the World, to show them a testimony of real faith, Godly leadership & conviction & righteous decisions, but

21. INSTEAD OF THAT HE LET THEM DOWN, he let them down! (Maria: One chance in millions to show the World what a real Christian should be like!) First time in years or maybe ever that the U.S. had a real supposedly Godly‚ born-again, saved, Spirit-filled Christian as President, & he has just been the worst, most ridiculous little monkey on a string that they ever had, & he doesn't seem to care who pulls the string, he'll jump!

22. HE HAS NO GUTS, NO CONVICTION! One day he has, & the next day he'll lose it. He's just utterly, totally indecisive; he's a stinking compromiser! He is so compromising that he follows every little suggestion his staff makes, "You gotta please the Jews or you gotta please the Negroes or you gotta please the military‚ now you've gotta please the Jews again, now you've gotta please somebody else!" And he goes around in circles trying to please everybody, & of course nobody can please everybody!

23. A GUY WHO'S A LEADER HAS GOTTA BE A FIGHTER, HE'S GOTTA TAKE SIDES, he can't be jumping back & forth across the line on both sides trying to please both sides at once, it's impossible! He's got to stand up for his convictions, choose a side & declare all out war & have a battle, right? Instead of that,

24. HE'S TRYING TO BE EVERYBODY'S FRIEND & HATE NOBODY, love everybody & even the forces of the Devil, especially the [Israelis] of all people, trying to please them in everything! He hasn't even slapped them on the wrist for these last invasions of Lebanon! There hasn't been a word of protest from the U.S. about the invasion of Lebanon! The UN protested, but not him! I think almost anybody could have done a better job than him‚ almost anybody! It's just pitiful, but "All things work together for good to them that love the Lord." (Ro.8:28.) But,

25. SINCE AMERICA DOESN'T LOVE THE LORD, ALL THINGS ARE WORKING TOGETHER FOR BAD FOR THEM‚ no matter what! Even if they elect a Christian President, he turns out bad, rotten & ineffective, indecisive & gutless & confused, confounded at every turn!: Everything a leader shouldn't be! Everything he puts his hand to seems to fail! He's almost like he's accident-prone!

26. SEEMS LIKE SOME PEOPLE ARE JUST ABSOLUTELY JINXED, CURSED, ACCIDENT-PRONE & DEAR CARTER SEEMS LIKE ONE OF THEM! He just can't seem to do the right thing ever. Here he had everything going for him. He had finally persuaded all these countries to agree to sanctions, progressive sanctions to put the pressure tighter & tighter on Iran, he had turned World opinion in his favour & against Iran & had everything going smoothly & beautifully for him.

27. THEN HE PULLS A STUPID IDIOTIC STUNT LIKE THAT INVASION right in the middle of it, to make himself a laughing stock of the World & make all of his friends just absolutely hopping mad because he betrayed them‚ literally betrayed them just when they were cooperating! He jumped the gun, did exactly what they didn't want him to do, & he knew they didn't want him to do it, that's why they were beginning to cooperate‚ because they were afraid he would do some stupid stunt like that! So they were trying to please him, trying to do something, & he drops the bomb right in the middle of it all to blow up the whole deal! I mean he's jinxed, more like he's cursed than blessed!

28. (MARIA: HE HAS A LOT OF YOUNG POWER–HUNGRY PEOPLE AROUND HIM AS HIS ADVISORS, INCLUDING HIS WIFE.) Boy oh boy, the Lord certainly brought that out, if there was ever anything brought out of the Bible! When Solomon died & his young son came to the throne the people besought him to relieve them from the heavy burden of taxes & other things that they didn't like‚ so he asked the old men & the elders what he should do & they said he should lift the taxes. "If the people want it, you're going to have to, or you're going to have trouble." Then he turned around & asked the young men what he should do. Sounds like Carter huh? Didn't know what to do, so he asked everybody what to do.

29. BUT HE TOOK THE YOUNG MEN'S ADVICE, WHICH IS WHAT CARTER SEEMS TO DO. (Maria: Instead of taking the advice of his Cabinet, he takes that of his close advisors.) Exactly! He's got his own little private White House staff; the Cabinet is nothing anymore. The Cabinet used to be supposedly the intimate staff of the President, but now they're so remote & removed from him that he hardly ever sees them. So the wise men, the elders of Israel told Rehoboam, Solomon's son‚ "Ease up, lighten the people's burdens. Lift the taxes." Then he asked the young men, & you know what they said?: "No, make them heavier!" They as good as said, "Make them sweat it out, put on heavier burdens, lay on more taxes!"

30. AND HE TOOK THEIR ADVICE‚ & AS A RESULT STARTED A CIVIL WAR! The ten Northern Tribes under the leadership of Jeroboam, who wasn't even the royal line, he was just a so-called servant, led the Northern Tribes into rebellion & they split off from Judah & Benjamin & took off for the North & left the idiotic little stupid young-sprout king behind! That's what created the division of the kingdom: Because he listened to the young sprouts instead of the wise old elders! And that seems to be what Carter does continually.

31. WELL, I'M SURE THE LORD'S ALLOWED IT JUST BECAUSE AMERICA DESERVES IT. THE BIBLE INDICATES THAT PEOPLE GET THE KIND OF KING THEY DESERVE, righteous people get a righteous king‚ & wicked people get a wicked king. And apparently it must be that the Americans have become very stupid, because they sure got a stupid king‚ a gutless witless king!—And they're in total confusion! Americans don't know what they're supposed to do either, & so they elected a guy who doesn't know what he's supposed to do! He's like Mat.15:14:

32. THE BLIND LEADING THE BLIND! They're blind & they don't know what to do, so they elect a guy who's also blind & doesn't know what to do! They're going to all fall into the ditch, & the pity of it is they're going to bring the rest of the World down with them! But Praise God, the quicker things get worse, the quicker it'll all be over‚ the quicker the Lord'll have to come to rescue things, & the quicker the Antichrist'll have to come to try to straighten things out first! Even the Antichrist can do a better job than that!

33. HERE THE MAN OF GOD MADE A BOTCH OF THE WHOLE WORKS, THEN THE MAN OF THE DEVIL IS GOING TO RISE & DO MARVELLOUSLY & wonderfully, think of that! The Lord's sifting the people. He looks like a sad defeated doomed man, kind of like his country! They used to say, "Men of force are men of faults‚" & at least when they make a mistake they make a big one; but all he does is make all kinds of little mistakes; this invasion is at least one big one he made! This is the first time he's shown a little bit of force, & he made a big one!

34. AT LEAST MEN OF FORCE DON'T DO ANYTHING HALFWAY! He got halfway through the Iran thing & stopped them! He probably had a terrible time making up his mind about that! It'd really be a comic opera if it wasn't so tragic! Everybody's telling him what to do except the Lord. When did you ever hear him say (& what a testimony that would be!): "I asked the Lord about it, & God told me to do so & so." (Maria: And even then it would probably turn out to be wrong, because he wouldn't get his signal straight.)

35. IF YOU SUCCEED, NO MATTER WHAT YOU DO THE WORLD WILL HAIL YOU AS A HERO!—BUT DON'T DARE FAIL! The World doesn't like losers! If he had won, he might even still be a World hero. But in the hour of America's greatest trial‚ they have their weakest President! God help us!

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CRISIS SCENARIOS:

The more I read of Carter's actions, or lack of action, in the presidential election campaign, the more nervous I become. Carter has been a totally inept leader. Even those who are for him, attribute him with honesty, good intentions and the like, but nobody ever calls him efficient‚ or says he has shown any leadership qualities, or that he has any notion on how the wheels of government operate, i.e., how to manipulate Congress to get things done. We have two camps; those against Carter who attack him, and those for him who claim he has worked under difficult circumstances and nobody else could have done any better. There is not one positive thing, even the Carter advocates can point to with pride. This, of course, is why Jimmy Carter has not entered the presidential race. He dare not. If he stood up in open confrontation against his opponents just once, all would be lost. I do not expect him to do much campaigning at all, unless some other candidate from either party comes up over night on a groundswell of popular support. So far nobody has. John Anderson might, but that has yet to be proven. Reagan is liked but does not have the necessary force and charisma to override the Carter image.

In fact, and this is both unfortunate and very dangerous for the American people, the cleverest thing Carter has done in his four years in office is organize his game plan for re-election.

By staying out of the race, he has placed himself psychologically in the role of monarch with all other candidates as pretenders in the tradition of "divine right of kings". The moment he joins the race, he meets these people as an equal, and would, in fact, become very much less than equal. It all reminds me of Roosevelt during the 1944 election campaign. He was too sick a man to campaign (although this was not known till much later) so he sent his wife to do his campaigning for him. He played up the crisis aspects of an election happening during a war period. By the time he actually ran‚ it was more or less known that Germany would collapse, but the ordinary guy on the street wasn't fully aware of this, so the concept of changing the man in charge during an endless war was not favourable. Also, there was the element of "underdog" about it all. "Gee fellers, I am too busy coping with running this country in times of dire emergency to let you all down by taking time out for selfish ends to campaign for re-election." The concept that the President was too busy taking care of the American people to have time to sell himself in the political market place was a good ploy and it worked.

Carter is using exactly the same strategy. Why hasn't he joined the race? Because he is too busy coping with Iran? The hostages' plight gets worse by the day. Because he is forcing Russia out of Afghanistan? I hadn't noticed. Because he is bringing down inflation? Inflation has never been higher, and I find myself wondering where the excuse of raising interest rates to lower inflation is simply that...an excuse, and the real reason that interest rates are being jacked out of sight is because the Arabs are threatening to withdraw from the dollar totally unless they get inflation or better. So far from controlling inflation perhaps the Fed is merely chasing it with interest rates.

Anyhow‚ the latest now is more of the same. Carter hasn't slapped on any controls that will really hurt and/or do anything immediately. He has merely promised a balanced budget in 1981! Oh? Is that another act of subliminal advertising, in that if he can focus the public's attention on the 1981 budget then de facto they must re-elect him to balance it for them.

All this pre-amble is to explain that Carter has created a crisis atmosphere in the last month, without making any attempt to solve any of the crises. I expect him to continue this as part of his campaign. This will mean that we can expect more crises and no solutions. Which bodes well for gold, and terribly for US prestige and safety.

MIAMI SEMINAR:

I was invited to speak at a seminar in Miami March 6th through 9th. The seminar in Miami was predictable, the standard conveyer belt type, and nothing happened which I didn't expect, except a uniform bullishness on gold, since proven to be a classic contrary opinion case. However‚ the highlight of the trip was something which started out as a mere side trip.

Craig Sallin, who operates a freeze-dried food operation in Fort Lauderdale (710 S.E. 17th St., Causeway, Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33316), invited me to first visit a retreat north of Orlando. I was taken by private plane, then later in the day gave a small seminar to about 100 people, most of whom were Craig's clients.

I must admit I was skeptical. As I have said many times before, I am basically an optimist and have never fully accepted the sellers of doom and gloom in the USA, believing they were too extreme. As a European, I have always taken a slightly patronizing view of the American sense of drama. However‚ to a degree I was forced, during this trip, to reconsider. The world is heading for trouble. Of that there is no doubt. It is mainly a question of how much of that trouble will slop over into the United States. After my trip to northern Florida‚ I am now not quite as optimistic.

The retreat I visited is an island connected to the mainland by a causeway which can be destroyed, if necessary, making the island completely surrounded by water. Within the context of retreat living, this island is luxury. It has all the comforts of home and self-sufficiency besides. But what struck me most was that those people who have already moved out to the island are not ignorant people. They are serious, thinking, usually professional people, who really believe that things could get bad enough to need such a retreat and are building their "ark" just in case and using it in the interim as a quiet holiday home. When I got back to Fort Lauderdale for the evening‚ I was very impressed with the level of sophistication and awareness of the audience, which was incidentally far above that of the audience at the main seminar in Miami. Hence, I arrived with one set of prejudices...that certain extremist groups in America are predicting the end of the world and retreats and freeze-dried foods are catering to them, and left with a very different opinion. That a lot of thinking, educated and aware people in the United States are very frightened, and are taking steps to find a retreat and/or to stock up their escape boat, house trailer or retreat home with non-perishable foods. I have not yet decided if I am indeed too optimistic about the future of the United States. I only know a lot of thinking people believe I am. In any event, if you are interested in learning more about freeze dried foods, or the retreat, then write to Craig and he can tell you more about them.