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December 2006 Volume 3 Issue 12

  Feature Article:

The Historical Truth of Thanksgiving

 George A. Torres, MBA, Law Enforcement Specialist, The VonFrederick Group

Traditionally, Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks, a time of family and friends. Sadly, the true history of Thanksgiving has been lost to most. Liberal academia has rewritten the real events to support an agenda. The following includes some excerpts from an accurate historical account of the events that led to this holiday. 

In the early seventeenth century the Church of England under King James I persecuted those who did not recognize its absolute spiritual authority. Anyone who challenged its authority and believed strongly in freedom of worship were imprisoned, and sometimes executed, for their beliefs. So, a group of separatist agreed to make a perilous journey to the New World in search of religious freedom to live and worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences.

On August 1, 1620, the Mayflower set sail with 102 passengers led by William Bradford. During the journey Bradford set up a contract that established just and equal laws for all members of the new community, irrespective of their religious beliefs. This contract, the Mayflower Compact, was based on principles found in the Bible. 

The journey was a long and arduous one and when the Pilgrims landed in New England in November, they found a cold, barren, desolate wilderness. There were no friends to greet them, no houses to shelter them, nor no inns to refresh them. Yet, the sacrifice they had made for freedom was just beginning. During the first winter, half the Pilgrims died of starvation, sickness or exposure. When spring finally came, Indians taught the settlers how to plant corn, fish for cod and skin beavers for coats. Life improved for the Pilgrims, but they did not yet prosper! 

Modern American history lessons often ends here. In nearly all textbooks (including those of my youth), Thanksgiving is actually explained as a holiday for which the Pilgrims gave thanks to the Indians for saving their lives. 

This is the history has been omitted: 
The original contract the Pilgrims had entered into with their merchant-sponsors in London called for everything they produced to go into a common store, and each member of the community was entitled to one common share. All of the land they cleared and the houses they built belong to the community as well. 

Bradford, who had become the new governor of the colony, recognized that this form of collectivism was as costly and destructive to the Pilgrims as that first harsh winter, which had taken so many lives. He decided to take bold action. Bradford assigned a plot of land to each family to work and manage, thus turning loose the power of the marketplace. 

The truth is that before Karl Marx, the Pilgrims experimented with socialism and it didn't work! What the Pilgrims found was that the most creative and industrious people had no incentive to work any harder than anyone else. They decided to scrap “socialism” permanently. This is what Bradford wrote about this social experiment. 
"The experience that we had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years...that by taking away property, and bringing community into a common wealth, would make them happy and flourishing – as if they were wiser than God," Bradford wrote. "For this community was found to breed much confusion and discontent, and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For young men that were most able and fit for labor and service did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense...that was thought injustice."

The Pilgrims found that people could not be expected to do their best work without incentive. So the Pilgrims invoked capitalistic principles of private property and free enterprise. Every family was assigned its own plot of land to work and permitted to market its own crops and products. Bradford wrote of the results stating, "This had very good success," wrote Bradford, "for it made all hands industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been." 

The Pilgrims found they had more food than they could eat themselves. So they set up trading posts and exchanged goods with the Indians. The profits and prosperity allowed them to pay off their debts and initiated the "Great Puritan Migration" to the new world. 

The truth liberals deny is the Pilgrims thanked God for their plenty and blessings, not the Indians. Due to their capitalistic prosperity the Pilgrims were able to share what they produced with the Indians who had helped them. They were simply sharing their bounty as good will. Have a happy Thanksgiving!


See, I Told You So! By Rush Limbaugh (Chapter 6)

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Lebanon 2006: Tragedy Goes In The Country Of The Cedar Tree!

Eric Chevreuil, Retired Captain, French Military, The VonFrederick Group

For the past 18 months, following the murder of the prime minister of the time, Mr. Rafik Hariri, roadside bombs have claimed the lives of politicians and journalists.

In February 2005, an improvised explosive device (IED) estimated at one ton of high explosives blew up while Hariri’s motorcade drove by.

Hariri was openly opposed to a Syrian plan to extend the presidential term in Lebanon, extensions that would have benefited a puppet government. His death was attributed to Syria of course, but for a while the BBC also blamed America and Israel and pushed forward a conspiracy theory stating that because both countries were interested in having Syria turned into the “Black sheep” of the world, for its active support to the insurgency in Iraq and to the anti-Israel Hezbollah in Lebanon, both had a good motive for such a twisted plan.

Eventually, that assassination led to the withdrawal of the Syrian forces from Lebanon and their redeployment on the 600kms Syrian border with Iraq, and the UN just passed a resolution to setup a special tribunal to bring the murderers to justice and find who pulled the strings.

A couple of weeks ago, pro-Westerner and anti-Syrian Pierre Gemayel, son of the former president, Minister of industry and Christian Phalangist was murdered in public, shot along with his bodyguard. Actually, the hit men that ambushed his car used silenced pistols, a first in the Lebanese political crime history that has been dominated by roadside bombs (the higher the target, the bigger the bomb!).

What has happened?

Syria was officially collaborating with the investigation and complying with the UN, the USA, Israel, and their specific demands. 

Would Bashar Al Assad, President of the Syrian Arab Republic (actually more like a religious Allawite dictatorship over a Sunni-Shia majority), be so shortsighted as to have ordered that execution? After all, he already seems to be deeply involved in the Hariri assassination.

The Syrian president had overtly tried to get the term of the current Syrian puppet president in Lebanon extended (Emile Lahoud) and Gemayel were strongly opposed to the idea. That is a possible motive!

Furthermore, the Lebanese law states that the government must be dissolved if one third of its 24 members becomes “unavailable” or resigns. Some see the recent crime spree as a mean to covertly overthrow the current administration that is now two resignations or deaths short of the required third. That could be a motive too!

Finally, two “rival” Christian parties (one pro and one against Syria) represent the Christians of Lebanon and the murder could have had some negative effect in the Christian community and profited the pro-Syrian group led by Aoun. Another motive?

Throw the Hezbollah in the mix and its claims of political legitimacy (the group was one of the government’s majority faction until its 6 members resigned to protest the anti-Syrian campaigns conducted after the Hariri assassination), the Israeli-Hezbollah war conducted from the Southern borders, and the historical Syrian claim for the land of Lebanon that should have been part of a Great Syria ,and you will understand why the powder keg is ready to blow.

Now what?

Lebanon is in trouble and a civil war looms again:

Pro-Syrians versus anti-Syrians

Sunnis against Shiites, and Druzes.

Christians against Muslims.

Pro-Syrians Christians against anti-Syrians Christians

Lebanese against Hezbollah.

Pro-Syrians and Hezbollah versus anti-Syrians.

Israel against Hezbollah and eventually against Lebanese forces.

Syria against anti-Syrian Lebanese to help pro-Syrian Lebanese that called for help.

Israel against Syria.

Israel against Syria, Iran, and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The combinations are endless and a troubling reminder of another civil war, another time, when all the religious groups and factions had their militias slaughtering each other while Israel was fighting Arafat’s PLO in Beyrouth. 

To top it off, America will certainly use as the leverage any proof of the Syrian involvement in the murders as a tool to force Bashar Al Assad to stop supporting the insurgency in Iraq and definitely shut the Syrian border with Iraq to any kind of traffic in exchange for some kind of “immunity”.

Most likely, Lebanon will soon pay a big price in the name of a bigger picture, another lamb sacrificed on the altar of a local but bigger geopolitical game. 

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It was in broad daylight when Cecile Ham was abducted from a Houston drugstore parking lot. The assailant, Spencer Corey Goodman, killed ham and then used her credit cards for shopping. The crime occurred one day after Goodman was released from prison, where he had been serving time for auto-theft, burglary, and for violating a previous probation. He was released early, on parole, and was supposed to report to a halfway house. He never showed up.

In recent years, states have enacted some of the stiffest criminal sentences in the world, yet we are losing the war against crime. One key reason is that tough penalties aimed at hardened criminals are being systematically undermined. Plea bargains permit criminals to escape punishment for the crimes they actually commit. And because there is not enough space to house them, convicts are hustled out of prisons as fast as harried cops, prosecutors, and judges can sentence them. Parole is granted to individuals who should never receive it; parole violations are ignored. “Good behavior” credits shave months, even years, off time served. In Massachusetts, for example, ten years may actually mean an inmate serving only 12 months.

The undermining of public safety begins with plea bargaining. This practice allows prosecutors to recommend a lighter sentence if a defendant will plead guilty to a lesser charge. This “bargain” spares everyone the bother of a trial. Because criminals often do not get charged with their most serious crimes, plea bargaining lets them evade serious punishment.
“Parole” originally meant “word” – in the sense of “giving one’s word.” It is the early conditional release of an inmate from confinement, on his pledge that he will behave himself. In theory, a parolee is under state supervision. If he commits a crime or violates parole, he can be “flopped,” or sent back to prison to serve the remainder of his sentence. The reality is very different. Parole has now become a population valve to control prison overcrowding. It bears little relation to behavior behind bars or on the outside. 

In fact, parole horror stories are anything but unusual. One federal study that tracked 109,000 former prisoners found that 63 percent of them were rearrested for serious crimes – including 2300 homicides, 3900 forcible sex crimes, 17,000 robberies, and 23,000 assaults (Bureau of Justice Statistics). A study by the national Council on Crime and Delinquency discovered that half of all the new prison admissions in California were parole violators. And BJS statistics reveal that 32 percent of all the murders solved by police are committed by criminals out on bail, probation or parole.

By far, the most widely used tool for reducing the time criminals spend behind bars is so-called good behavior credit. In most states, inmates are granted generous early release credits for such thing as participating in prison rehabilitation programs, not being a disciplinary problem, going to church, or simply to ease overcrowding. Experts report that problems with this form of early release exist in almost every state. Good time has become a little more than a bribe to entice inmates’ good behavior. It is designed to make life easier for prison authorities – but too often at the expense of the public. To avoid the costs of building and operating more prisons, many states dump thousands of convicts into half-way houses and work-release programs. As a consequence, felons who should not be free end up in programs designed for much less dangerous offenders.
Citizens must have confidence that punishment will bear some reasonable relationship to severity of the crime. Here is what I propose:

1. Build More Prisons: Overcrowding is universally acknowledged to be a driving force behind early release of dangerous criminals. Constructing more prisons to isolate such criminals from society should be a top priority. And yes, I have heard the arguments that we should “build more schools and less prisons, etc.” My conundrum to you; what do we do with the dangerous people out on our streets if we do not have a prison to secure them from your children and families? Think about it (critically) before answering. Another argument is that “people who use drugs should not be in prison, but in a treatment program.” If you think that way, I challenge you to ask the little old lady who was robbed or burglarized by a drug addict to “get his fix.” See if they feel the same way as you.

2. Restrict Plea Bargaining: Many officials protest that without plea bargaining, courts would become hopelessly clogged. Would it not be better to try it then evaluate the pros and cons?

3. Truth in Sentencing: Public safety demands that current parole and good-behavior systems be tightened dramatically.
At a minimum, parole violators should be sent back to prison to serve their full terms. More than a dozen states and the federal government have gone even further, abolishing parole entirely. What say thee?

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Practitioners and researchers have long been interested in whether early childhood victimization is a significant risk factor for later involvement in violence. To examine this issue, information was collected on maltreatment from the Child Protective Service files of the Monroe County, New York, Department of Social Services for all study subjects. Maltreatment includes substantiated cases of physical or sexual abuse or neglect. To examine prior victimization as a risk factor for future violence, I have considered only those instances of maltreatment that occurred before age 12.

The data showed 69 percent of the youths who had been maltreated as children reported involvement in violence as compared to 56 percent of those who had not been maltreated. In other words, a history of maltreatment increases the chances of youth violence by 24 percent. Other analyses of these data indicate that maltreatment is also a significant risk factor for official delinquency and other forms of self-reported delinquency; for the prevalence and frequency of delinquency; and for all those indicators when gender, race/ethnicity, family structure, and social class are held constant.

If childhood victimization increases the likelihood of later youth violence, does more general exposure to family violence also increase the risk? To address this question, three different indicators of family violence were examined: partner violence, family climate of hostility, and child maltreatment.

Partner violence was measured based on parent interview data and his or her spouse. The family climate of hostility scale – also taken from the parent interview – measures the extent to which there was generalized conflict in the family, and to which family members physically fought with one another. The child maltreatment measure is similar to the one used earlier, but now includes cases of maltreatment in which any children in the subject’s family are victimized, not just the study participant. 

For each type of family violence, adolescents who live in violent families have higher rates of self-reported violence than do youngsters from nonviolent families. The results for partner violence illustrate this finding. Seventy percent of the adolescents who grew up in families where the parents fought with one another self-reported violent delinquency as compared to 49 percent of the adolescents who grew up in families without this type of conflict. Similar patterns can be seen for the other two indicators of family violence.

I apologize for boring you with research strategies but as one with a passion for research, I would be remiss not to articulate the methodology, though rather boring for many. In closing the data showed that children exposed to multiple forms of family violence report more than twice the rate of youth violence as those from non-violent families. How are you treating your child today?

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Are The Financial Markets Still At Risk?

 Dr. Melissa K.  Luke,  The Von Frederick Group

The future belong to those who prepare for it. To maintain our current financial lifestyle, we must be aware of the environment. The question remains, how do we plan for financial terrorism? The financial institutions are one of the main pillars of focus for destruction in terror networks. The World Trade Centers are only the beginning of our financial institutional problems. Terrorists take pride in dismantling our economy, if only for a minute. The reality remains that those who conduct acts of terrorism enjoy the fact that we “do not know what to do.” They have succeeded in their primary objective, if on the day after September 11th, 2001, your thoughts were mixed with confusion, fear or immobility. 

Future attacks cannot be underestimated due to their effects on the market place. One thing is certain: attacks will not be deterred indefinitely. Many financial markets are being targeted, such as the NASDAQ, New York Stock Exchange, and large institutions such as Goldman Sacks and Morgan Stanley. As stated by a Muslim citizen in a CNN interview, “Bringing the world’s greatest power to their knees if only for a minute feels good.” The NYSE was closed for 6 days after the attack on 9-11; the deaths of many were miniscule in the minds of the attackers, compared to the destruction it had on our financial systems and the economy. The next attack will be equally as significant or greater, and the future of finance will change. The Red Cross provides five ways to assist in a pro-active game plan: create an emergency contact plan, establish a meeting place away from your home, assemble a disaster supply kit, stay informed, and financial preparedness. 

Are you financially prepared? Last month’s issue, How to Terror Proof Your Financial Portfolio, focused on how you could financially safeguard yourself in times of crisis. If you missed it, I encourage you to read it for its paramount importance.

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Did You Know? Michelle Glisan Blevins       

• That Kazakhstan is the second largest country of the former Soviet Union and the ninth largest in the world

• That Kazakhstan has estimated it will be able to produce 3 million barrels of oil a day by 2015

• That Lake Balkhash in Kazakhstan contains fresh water on one end and salt water on the other

• That Native Kazakhs are descended from nomadic Turkic and Mongol tribe-people

• That Kazakhstan was the first former Soviet country to receive an investment-grade credit rating from a major international credit rating agency

The sky blue background representing the endless sky and a gold sun with 32 rays soaring above a golden steppe eagle in the center; on the hoist side is a "national ornamentation" in gold.

Charlemagne

“Charles the Great”, “Carolus Magnus”, King of the Franks and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire

742- 814

Born in what is now Belgium, Charlemagne’s precise birth-date and original name in his native Frankish tongue are unknown. Following the death of his father in 768, Charlemagne (then 26) and Charlemagne’s brother, Carloman, inherited the rule of the kingdom of the Franks. Three years later Carloman died leaving Charlemagne sole ruler. Through some 30 years of warfare he conquered many lands (leading many engagements personally) and became the first ruler of a united Western Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire. Charlemagne had a love of learning and could read in Latin and some Greek, but he had great difficulty writing. Instead of jesters for entertainment during meals, he invited men to read important works. Charlemagne was appalled with the lack of literacy and education in his realm so he brought in foreign scholars to restore the schools. He called for the leaders of the schools to “take care to make no difference between the sons of serfs and of freemen, so that they might come and sit on the same benches to study grammar, music, and arithmetic.” Charlemagne also did not allow the priests providing instruction to accept fees and in so doing he created the first known instance of a free and general education in history. 

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How To Take A Bullet

1. Face the shooter.
   You do not want to take the bullet in your back or the base of your skull.

2. Get low.
   In addition to making yourself a smaller target, by keeping a low profile you will be better able to protect your head, neck, and midline- all areas where a bullet wound is most likely to cause fatal injury or permanent disability

3.  Sit..
   Sit with your rear end on the ground. Bend your knees and keep your legs in front of you, protecting your midline with your shins and thighs.

4. Move your elbows into the center of your body.
   Place both forearms in front of you, covering your face.

5. Place your hands over your head
   Hold your fingers together, with your palms toward you. Keep your hands an inch or two in front to you to absorb the impact of the bullet.

6. Wait for the impact.
   You may notice little more than a “punch” sensation, or you may feel nothing at all.

7. Determine the site of the injury.
   Bullet wounds in the hands and feet, lower legs, and forearms are rarely fatal, provided blood loss is controlled.

8. Control the bleeding.
   Place firm, direct pressure on the wound to slow blood loss. If the bullet entered an appendage and pressure does not stop the bleeding, use a belt or narrow strip of cloth as a tourniquet on the affected limb. Several inches above the blood flow. A tourniquet may cause permanent damage to the affected limb, and should be used only as a last resort. Never leave a tourniquet in place for more than a few minutes.

9. Get help.
   Seek medical attention as soon as possible.

Be Aware

• If you are crouching next to a wall, stay a foot or more away from the surface. Bullets will skid along the wall after impact.
• Gunshot wounds to the neck are almost always fatal.
• Most interior walls and doors (including car doors) will no stop a bullet larger than .22 or .25 caliber.

(Piven and Borgenicht)

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The VonFrederick Group

Phone: (877) 207-1300
Fax:     (916) 488-7531
Email:

Dr. Lionel C.M. von Frederick Rawlins
Lionel@VonFrederick.com

Dr. Melissa K. Luke
Melissa@VonFrederick.com

George A. Torres, MBA
George@VonFrederick.com

Eric Chevreuil
Eric@VonFrederick.com

Pat McLane
Pat@VonFrederick.com

Albert Globus, MD
Al@VonFrederick.com

General Clifford L. Stanley, Ph.D.
Cliff@VonFrederick.com

Michelle Glisan Blevins
Chelle@VonFrederick.com

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reading at VonFrederick.com

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