The following information was sent to home-school state leaders from Chris Klicka of The National Center for Home Education. The information copied below will help you answer questions concerning the FBI's Megiddo Report. Ask yourself the question: Why isn't Eagle Forum, Paul Wyrick, and Concerned Women for America looking into this?

Analysis of the FBI Project Megiddo Report

What is Project Megiddo?

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently published a report entitled Project Megiddo. This report was sent to 20,000 police chiefs in early November. It is a strategic assessment of the potential for domestic terrorism in the United States undertaken in anticipation of or response to the arrival of the new millennium.1 Project Megiddo also targets specific groups that could be potential threats to national security.

Home School Legal Defense Association (Note: CDR does NOT endorse HSLDA!) has prepared an analysis of the report for any impact on home school families.

Focus of the Report

The Project Megiddo report focuses on extremist groups far from the mainstream home school movement. These are groups that home schoolers would typically distance themselves from, such as violent militias, apocalyptic cults, and radical white supremacists.

The single reference to home schooling in this report is an allusion to a fear that some groups have that "home schooling will be outlawed and all school curriculum will need to be approved by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO)."2 There is no mention of home schooling in a negative way in this report.

What groups does the FBI think have this fear? Does the FBI include state home school associations or HSLDA? It is hard to know for sure. Thirty-two groups, including HSLDA, have submitted a letter to key congressional leaders requesting a congressional inquiry into Project Megiddo. Among other groups in this coalition are Eagle Forum, Paul Weyrich's Coalitions for America, and Concerned Women of America.

At this point the Megiddo report is not a cause for alarm. The FBI says it is specifically looking at terrorists. However HSLDA believes it is important to clarify the definitions, purpose and goals of this report.

The name "Megiddo" refers to a hill in northern Israel that has been the site of many battles. The Hebrew word "Armageddon" means, "hill of Megiddo." In English, the word has come to represent battle itself. The last book of the New Testament of the Bible designates Armageddon as the assembly point in the apocalyptic setting of God's final and conclusive battle against evil. It is an appropriate title for a project that analyzes those who believe the year 2000 will usher in the end of the world and who are willing to perpetrate acts of violence to bring that end about. Home schoolers typically do not fit in this category, and should not worry about being a specific target as a group.

FBI Concerned About Religious Motivation

The Megiddo report states, Religious motivation and NWO (New World Order) conspiracy theory are the two driving forces behind the potential for millennial violence. As the end of the millennium draws near, biblical prophecy and political philosophy may merge into acts of violence by the more extreme members of domestic terrorist groups that are motivated, in part, by religion. The volatile mix of apocalyptic religions and NWO conspiracy theories may produce violent acts aimed at precipitating the end of the world as prophesied in the Bible.3

When and how Christ's coming will occur is a critical point in the ideology of those motivated by extremist religious beliefs about the millennium. There is no consensus within Christianity regarding the specific date that the Apocalypse will occur. However, within many right-wing religious groups there is a uniform belief that the Apocalypse is approaching.4

The FBI also consulted a Catholic scholar for research on millennial views within Christianity and key dates and numbers. The FBI believes that "religious extremists interpret the symbolism portrayed in the Book of Revelation and mold it to predict that the endtime is now and that the Apocalypse is near. To understand many religious extremists, it is crucial to know the origin of the Book of Revelation and meanings of its words, numbers and characters."5

Project Megiddo has been listed publicly on the Internet. An internal classified version has been given to agents and local officials, discussing the need for local law enforcement to be prepared in the event of an emergency such as Y2K computer failures and further explains the groups that the FBI thinks may pose a threat to domestic security.

Many of the groups who signed the coalition letter believe that the classified version may contain additional home school information. The coalition's letter stated:

"We understand that the classified version of the same report given to
state and local law enforcement officials contains more specific targets on the
Right, such as homeschoolers. It would behoove the Leadership of Congress to
immediately obtain a copy of the classified version of this report in order to
more properly pursue the hearings we suggest you hold."6

At the time this analysis was being written, HSLDA had not been able to obtain a
copy of the classified Megiddo report in order to verify or disprove these
concerns. A definite answer may not be possible until a congressional inquiry
occurs.

Meanwhile, home schoolers should take the public Megiddo report at face value. Most groups mentioned in this report are considered minimal security threats. The FBI says it is most concerned about proactive, not reactive groups. The security threat of most of these groups is considered minimal. The FBI says it is most concerned about proactive groups, not reactive. Most of the following groups listed below fit in the latter category. The FBI believes the problem is the combination of apocalyptic beliefs about the millennium, increased domestic tension, and the year 2000 computer bug that might set off problems in the United States.


Targeted Groups:

The report lists some of the following groups as potentially dangerous:

Black Hebrew Israelites
Odinism Groups
Christian Identity churches
Militias
Apocolyptic Cults
Aryan Nation
Ku Klux Klan
Church of the Creator
Nation of Yahweh
Islamic, Jewish, and Christian militant fundamentalists who believe in violence to accomplish theological goals and objectives.

Doublethink and What It Means...Or Doesn't Mean. What Is It?

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them.

Doublethink.....The prevailing mental condition is controlled insanity.

The rules of the Inner Party are held together by adherence to a common doctrine. In a Party member not even the smallest deviation of opinion on the most unimportant subject can be tolerated. But it is also necessary to remember that events happened in the desired manner. And if it is necessary to rearrange one's memories or to tamper with written records, then it is necessary to forget that one has done so. The trick of doing this can be learned like any other mental technique. It is learned by the majority of Party members, and certainly by all who are intelligent as well as orthodox. In Oldspeak it is called, quite frankly, "reality control." In Newspeak, it is called doublethink, though doublethink comprises much else as well.

Doublethink means the power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. The Party intellectual knows in which direction his memories must be altered; he therefore knows that he is playing tricks with reality; but by the exercise of doublethink he also satisfies himself that reality is not violated. The process has to be conscious, or it would not be carried out with sufficient precision, but it also has to be unconscious, or it would bring with it a feeling of falsity and hence of guilt.

Doublethink lies at the very heart of Ingsoc, since the essential act of the Party is to use conscious deception while retaining the firmness of purpose that goes with complete honesty. To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing them and to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies - all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. Ultimately it is by means of doublethink that the Party has been able - and may, for all we know, continue to be able for thousands of years - to arrest the course of history...

But since in reality BIG BROTHER is not infallible, there is need for an unwearying, moment-to-moment flexibility in the treatment of facts. The key-word here is blackwhite. Like so many Newspeak words, this word has two mutually contradictory meanings. Applied to an opponent, it means the habit of impudently claiming that black is white, in contradiction of the plain facts. Applied to a Party member, it means a loyal willingness to say that black is white when Party discipline demands this. But it means also the ability to believe that black is white, and more, to know that black is white, and to forget that one has ever believed the contrary. This demands a continuous alteration of the past, made possible by the system of thought which really embraces all the rest, and which is known as doublethink.

The official ideology abounds with contradictions even when there is no reason for them. Simultaneously, true to the principles of doublethink, the Party rejects and vilifies every principle for which the Socialist movement originally stood, and it does this in the name of socialism. It systematically undermines the solidarity of the family all the while appealing to the sentiment of family. Even the names of the four Ministries by which Oceania is governed are a deliberate reversal of facts:

• The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with War;
• the Ministry of Truth with Lies;
• the Ministry of Love with Torture;
• the Ministry of Plenty with Starvation.
  

These contradictions are not accidental. They are a deliberate exercise of doublethink. If the High are to keep their places permanently - then the prevailing mental condition must be controlled insanity.


The subtlest practitioners of doublethink are those who invented doublethink and know that it is a vast system of mental cheating. In our society, those who have the best knowledge of what is happening are also those who are furthest from seeing the world as is. In general, the greater the understanding, the greater the delusion: the more intelligent, the less sane.

Justices Broaden Immunity for Officers

By LINDA GREENHOUSE

Published: January 23, 2008

WASHINGTON — Federal law enforcement officers are immune from lawsuits for mishandling, losing or even stealing personal property that comes under their control in the course of their official duties, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday in a 5-to-4 decision.

The case was brought by a federal prison inmate, but the ruling was not limited to the prison context. It was an interpretation of the Federal Tort Claims Act, which applies to federal employees’ liability for damages and generally waives immunity from being sued.

The statute has numerous exceptions that preserve immunity in particular situations, however. The exception at issue in the case provides that “any officer of customs or excise or any other law enforcement officer” will be immune from suit for “any claim arising in respect of the assessment or collection of any tax or customs duty or the detention of any goods, merchandise or other property.”

The question was the meaning of the phrase “any other law enforcement officer.” Did Congress mean to confer blanket immunity for property-related offenses on the part of any federal law enforcement officer? Or was the immunity limited to officers engaged in tax or customs work?

The answer was sufficiently ambiguous that of the 11 federal circuits of appeals to address the issue, six had interpreted the exception as applying broadly to all officers, and five had read it narrowly to apply only to property seizures connected to revenue or customs enforcement.

The Supreme Court majority, in an opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas, chose the broad interpretation. When Congress enacted the law in 1946, “it could easily have written ‘any other law enforcement officer acting in a customs or excise capacity,’ “ Justice Thomas wrote, adding, “We are not at liberty to rewrite the statute to reflect a meaning we deem more desirable.”

Beyond the holding in the case, Ali v. Federal Bureau of Prisons, No. 06-9130, this first 5-to-4 decision of the current term was notable in several respects.

Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote a dissent that was signed by the three other dissenters, John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Stephen G. Breyer. In the court’s last term, Justice Kennedy voted with the majority in all 24 of the 5-to-4 decisions.

His position on Tuesday meant that the swing vote was cast by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who in closely divided cases can almost always be found with Justices Stevens, Souter and Breyer. She did not write separately to explain her position.

Justice Kennedy said the majority had failed to adhere to longstanding principles of statutory interpretation, including the rule that “a single word must not be read in isolation, but instead defined by reference to its statutory context.”

He said the majority had mistakenly focused on the word “any” in the phrase “any other law enforcement officer,” when it was clear from the context that Congress was discussing only customs and revenue seizures.

Justice Breyer made a similar point in a dissenting opinion of his own. “It is context, not a dictionary” that matters the most, he said.

The plaintiff, Abdus-Shahid M. S. Ali, was being transferred from a federal prison in Atlanta to one in Inez, Ky., and left two duffle bags of personal property to be shipped. When he received the bags, religious articles, including two copies of the Koran, were missing.

Valuing the missing items at $177, Mr. Ali filed suit, appealing to the Supreme Court after the federal appeals court in Atlanta had dismissed his case in the decision that the justices affirmed.

CBO sees $250B federal budget deficit

By ANDREW TAYLOR, Associated Press Writer Wed Jan 23, 1:46 PM ET

WASHINGTON - The deficit for the current budget year will jump to about $250 billion under Congressional Budget Office figures released Wednesday, as a weaker economy and lower corporate profits weigh on the government's fiscal ledger.

And that figure does not reflect more than $100 billion in red ink from an economic stimulus measure in the works.

"After three years of declining budget deficits, a slowing economy this year will contribute to an increase in the deficit," the CBO report said.

The figure greatly exceeds the $163 billion in red ink registered last year. Adding likely but still unapproved outlays for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brings its "baseline" deficit estimate of $219 billion to about $250 billion, the nonpartisan CBO said.

House Budget Committee Chairman John Spratt Jr., D-S.C., said the 2008 deficit might reach $379 billion once the costs of an upcoming economic stimulus measure under negotiation between the Bush administration and Congress are factored in.

The CBO crunches economic and budget data for lawmakers.

Unlike an increasing number of economists, CBO does not forecast a recession this year. It instead forecasts a growth rate of 1.7 percent, down from 2.2 percent real growth in the gross domestic product (GDP) last year.

"Although recent data suggest that the probability of a recession in 2008 has increased, CBO does not expect the slowdown in economic growth to be large enough to register as a recession," CBO said. The CBO economic forecast was completed last month, before a recent spike in unemployment and the release of disappointing holiday retail sales figures.

"A number of ominous economic signs have emerged since CBO finalized last month the forecast underlying today's report," Spratt said. "Today's new economic forecast thus adds to the growing evidence that the economy has weakened, and that policymakers in Washington must take action."

CBO Director Peter Orszag testified before the House Budget Committee. He warned them again that regardless of the short-term fluctuations in the deficit, the longer-term picture remains bleak due to expected spiraling costs of Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security as the Baby Boom generation retires.

"A substantial reduction in the growth of spending, a significant increase in tax revenues relative to the size of the economy, or some combination of the two will be necessary to maintain the nation's long-term fiscal stability," Orszag said.

Officially, CBO predicts the 2008 deficit at $219 billion, but that figure fails to account for at least an additional $30 billion in war costs and the likely infusion of deficit-financed economic stimulus measures such as income tax rebates, business tax breaks and help for the unemployed now under discussion on Capitol Hill and at the White House.

The deficit seems to be an afterthought as lawmakers race toward agreement with President Bush on a plan to pump perhaps $150 billion worth of deficit spending into the economy. The bulk of the plan would come as tax cuts, though Democrats are pressing for additional help for the unemployed and people on food stamps. Constituency groups in both political parties are pressing for even more, such as Democratic-sought aid to cash-strapped states and people with high heating bills.

"I am concerned that, in our rush to help, we will talk ourselves into a quick, feel-good hit today that will leave us with a bigger budgetary hangover tomorrow," said Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, top Republican on the Budget panel. "We simply cannot spend our way to prosperity ... (and) use the excuse of fiscal stimulus to push through a wish list of new spending, further worsening our budget outlook and our nation's economic future."

Most of any economic stimulus bill would be released before the Oct. 1 start of the 2009 budget year, with any benefits to the economy — and therefore federal revenues — lagging behind.

The White House is set to release its 2009 budget on Feb. 4, and Bush has promised a plan that would erase the deficit by 2012 if his policies are followed.

The 2006 deficit was $248 billion and had closed from a high of $413 billion registered in 2004.

The deficit picture remains worse than it was when Bush took office seven years ago. Then, both White House and congressional forecasters projected cumulative surpluses of $5.6 trillion over the subsequent decade.

But a revenue bubble burst, a recession and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks adversely affected the books. Several rounds of tax cuts, including Bush's signature $1.35 trillion 2001 tax cut, also contributed to the return to deficits in 2002 after four years of budget surpluses. The national debt has risen to $9.2 trillion.

"This guy will come close to doubling the debt of the country during his period of presidency," Conrad said.

US film studios and television networks announce layoffs and cutbacks

By Andrea Peters15 January 2008
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In response to the film and television writers’ strike, now in its twelfth week, Warner Bros. and ABC Studios are carrying out or preparing significant cutbacks.
Warner Bros., a unit of giant Time Warner, sent notices last week to approximately 1,000 television and film production workers warning that an unspecified number of layoffs would soon be announced.

ABC Studios has cancelled nearly two dozen production contracts, claiming force majeure (a clause in contracts covering events or circumstances beyond the control of one or both of the parties). According to the Hollywood newspaper Variety, this signifies a 25 percent reduction in ABC’s roster.

All the major studios had previously suspended such production deals, but ABC (owned by Disney) was the first to take the drastic step of ending them. There are media reports that the network is using the strike as an opportunity to downsize operations and even get rid of the pilot season entirely.

These are aggressive moves by the entertainment conglomerates, designed to make workers at all levels of the entertainment industry suffer the consequences of the writers’ walkout, which was provoked by the companies’ intransigence. In addition to saving money, the companies clearly hope that these actions will undermine support for the strike.

News of the cuts comes on the heels of the cancellation of the Golden Globes Awards ceremony, which was shut down by the refusal of numerous high-profile actors, members of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), to cross the Writers Guild (WGA) picket lines.

This was a blow to the studios and networks, currently bracing for the possible cancellation of the airing of the Academy Awards ceremony. If no settlement is reached in the next several weeks, either on a general contract or a temporary agreement for the night of the awards ceremony, it is likely that many SAG members will support the writers’ strike and refuse to attend.

Organizers of the Oscar ceremony claim they are intending to go ahead with the program, no matter what. Gil Cates, producer of the broadcast planned for February 24, told the Associated Press, “We are going to do it. I can’t elaborate on how we’re going to do it, because I don’t want anybody to deal with the elaboration in a way that might impact its success.” Significantly, Cates is also a chief negotiator for the Directors Guild of America (DGA), the outcome of whose negotiations with the studios and networks could undermine the writers’ struggle.

There have been no talks since the AMPTP walked out of the negotiations December 7. On January 11, George Clooney announced that he would attempt to set up a “mediation panel” to bring the two sides back to the bargaining table and help them come to a deal. He is trying to enlist the support of Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg and former WGA head John Wells, who was accused by rank-and-file members of selling out the writers on the DVD residual issue.

Whatever Clooney’s intentions, this kind of maneuver will be of no assistance to the writers. The stark reality is this: a number of massive corporations are determined to defeat the writers and send a message to every other worker in the industry. In the face of corporate ruthlessness, various efforts at conciliation and the tactical maneuvers of the WGA leadership have come to nothing.

The union has cut temporary deals with a number of smaller production companies, including David Letterman’s Worldwide Pants Production, Tom Cruise’s United Artists, and most recently, the firm owned by Harvey and Bob Weinstein.

These agreements have been presented by the WGA as victories and a sign of its reasonableness and ability to reach agreements—contrary to the claims of the AMPTP.
Such tactics will get the writers nowhere. Among the rank-and-file the effect has been to create tension, with some members angered over the fact that their colleagues are able to get back to work while they are still out on the picket lines. This can only serve to demoralize the strikers.
The pro-business Los Angeles Times pointed out in an editorial published on January 9 that the WGA’s deals with smaller companies were undermining its efforts.

“The deals mean some small amounts of revenue are again flowing for, respectively, CBS and MGM. As a result, those organizations have incrementally less incentive to give in,” opined the newspaper. “The guild’s argument seems to be that the independent deals will be a Trojan horse to get the writers’ demands inside the producers’ camp. But the Trojan horse is a made-up story. It doesn’t work in an actual fight,” they continued.

The shutting down of “Oscar Night” would not be a small matter. The ceremony is second only to the Super Bowl in the millions of dollars in advertising revenue it generates. In addition, its cancellation would result in losses for the local economy estimated at $130 million.

Moreover, the weeks of media hype in the lead-up to the Oscar ceremony, the endless pre- and post-event discussions of the fashions being paraded on the red carpet and the general fawning over the wealth and glitz of Hollywood are things that the entertainment elite is loath to give up, particularly under conditions in which wide layers of the population are becoming disaffected with the present state of everyday affairs. The cancellation of the Academy Awards due to a conflict between writers and their employers would remind people of certain social realities.
The WGA leadership is presenting the possibility that the strike could force the cancellation of the Oscar ceremony as a sign of the union’s strong position. Of course, such an eventuality would underscore the writers’ indispensable role and the support for their cause within Hollywood. But to imagine that this would deliver a decisive blow is an illusion.

The writers are engaged in a struggle with powerful elements of the American ruling elite. The defense of the writers’ interests demands nothing less than a stand against the companies and the entire socio-economic order of which they are a part. Such a struggle raises the need for a massive industry-wide mobilization, based on an appeal to all sections of Hollywood workers, to completely shut down the studios and networks and all their operations.

Most importantly, only a socialist outlook and strategy corresponds to the reality of the present situation. The conglomerates want to drive the majority of writers back to the conditions that existed prior to the formation of the Screen Writers Guild in the late 1930s, when writers were entirely at the mercy of their employers. Decent economic and cultural conditions depend on the transformation of the entertainment conglomerates into publicly-owned and democratically-run enterprises.

Writers and supporters

The WSWS spoke recently to writers and supporters both in New York City and the Los Angeles area.

At the picket line outside Viacom’s headquarters in Times Square in New York City, screenwriter Steven Katz spoke about the overall issues in the strike: “The companies say that they don’t know if they will make money on the Internet, and yet they tell their shareholders that this will be a lucrative market. Telling us that the new media is of questionable value is what they said about VCRs and DVDs, and they creamed us on that.

“It is clear that the Internet is the future. The issues around the new technologies that we are debating here will affect everybody. Eventually the computer and the television will no longer be two separate machines. They’ll become united in one machine. This technology impacts on every employer and employee. The evolution of this technology is like the development of the assembly line was in the early 1900s. They pay residuals for movies and television, but now they are saying that they don’t want to pay for residuals on the internet.”

Greg Parker, a retired maintenance worker who came to express his solidarity at the Viacom rally, noted:

“I have been to a number of strike rallies. I see the writers as part of the entire labor movement. What affects them affects all workers. They should get more support. I don’t know why my union or all the unions aren’t on this picket line showing their solidarity. The unions could be here if they wanted to, but I guess they feel that this struggle is not their struggle.”
On the other side of the continent, picketing outside CBS Radford Studios in Studio City, California, Doug Allen, a comedy writer, told the WSWS:
“I think the strike will be successful in the end. We’ve seen how much money the studios are losing by not broadcasting the Golden Globes and their usual awards broadcasts. It shows that we’re hitting them.”

Also at Radford Studios, picket captain Steve Skrovan spoke with the WSWS about the tactics of the other unions. He noted that the Directors Guild was entering into negotiations with the AMPTP and that the former had not come out in strong support of the writers, because the DGA leaders were trying to “cut their own deal. ... We’re always afraid they’re going to sell us out,” he added.

About the possibility of expanding the strike throughout the industry, Skovran was skeptical, because he didn’t believe that actors and others in Hollywood would breach their contracts in defense of the writers.

Instead, he described the WGA’s tactic as follows: “It’s a slow bleeding. There’s no knock-out punch. I make the analogy—it’s David versus Goliath but David is not going to bring Goliath to his knees, he just needs to bloody his nose a little bit.”

The difficulty is that the writers are facing massive corporations whose determination is proven by the fact that that they have already lost hundreds of millions of dollars as a result of the strike and have made no move to return to the bargaining table.
Many striking writers do have a sense of some of the larger political and economic issues in the strike.

As Allen told us, “A lot of what we’re seeing now, and not just in this industry, is the constant squeezing of the middle class. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer, so this is just part of that.

“I don’t subscribe to either of the two parties, because I don’t believe that there’s a big enough difference between them, and the needs of the country can’t be represented by just two parties. They fight each other for a power, and a three, four, or five-party system would be a nice change,” he added.

Skrovan also expressed considerable skepticism about official politics. When the WSWS asked him about the intimate relationship between the public relations firm run by Mark Fabiani and Chris Lehane, hired by the AMPTP to smear the writers, and the Democratic Party, he replied, “If I can be blunt, they’ve obviously proven themselves to be whores. They’ve also worked for the ‘Change to Win’ unions. It just shows you the state of liberalism and progressivism in this country, where somebody like Hillary Clinton can be depicted as a wacko lefty, when she is to the right of Eisenhower.”

He continued about the Democratic Party-connected public relations outfit, “They called us ‘organizers.’ God forbid people should organize! This is the term this supposedly progressive PR firm is using in the service of six or seven mega corporations.”

See Also:Film and television writers plan "Strike TV" Internet programming[14 January 2008]Film and television writers’ strike: picketing resumes and so does the political discussion[10 January 2008]Film and television writers confront big political and cultural issues[21 December 2007]