https://soundcloud.com/trumpethour/french-elections-turkey-vs-russia-university-tomfoolery-and-more
Trumpet Hour is a new radio program on kpcg.fm. Writers for theTrumpet.com discuss the most important news and why it’s important to you. This episode’s discussion includes:
France held elections this past Sunday—and the results shocked leaders all over Europe: The extremist National Front has suddenly become the number one political party in France.
Tensions between Turkey and Russia are escalating after Turks shot down a Russian plane near the Syrian border. What will come of this conflict between these two major powers—and how will the competition in Syria play out, between Russia, Turkey, Iran, and the Islamic State?
High-profile incidents on college campuses have put hostile young people in control of these institutions. What’s going on on America’s college campuses?
And finally, a duty you need to fulfill as you gain experience and success in life.
This episode aired on December 9. Tune in at kpcg.fm every Wednesday at 8 a.m. cst or Friday at 4 p.m. cst to listen to Trumpet Hour.
TRANSCRIPT:
JOEL HILLIKER: Hello, this is Joel Hilliker, managing editor of The Philadelphia Trumpet newsmagazine and your host for Trumpet Hour. This past Sunday, France held elections and the results shocked the country’s political establishment and, really, leaders all over Europe. The National Front, a fringe political party just a few years ago—a strongly anti-immigrant party that has held some pretty extremist views—received the biggest share of the vote in this election. And what does this mean for France and what does it mean for Europe? We’re going to talk about this with Trumpet writer Richard Palmer.
A couple of weeks ago a Turkish plane shot down a Russian plane near the Turkish-Syrian border. This was a significant provocation in what has to be one of the most fascinating places in the world right now: Syria. This pits two major powers against one another in this volatile area—this area where a civil war has been raging for many years that has killed a quarter of a million people and produced millions of refugees that are creating problems for many other countries. Meanwhile, you have Iran with a vested interest in Syria, and you have the barbaric Islamic State making gains there. We’re going to talk with Trumpet writer Robert Morley about this situation. It’s a pretty complicated situation with a lot of ramifications for many countries. We’ll talk about Russia’s interests and Turkey’s interest—and how this conflict might play out— and then what the longer-term picture will look like in Syria.
Recent high-profile incidents on college campuses have put hostile young people in control of these institutions. And we’re really getting a remarkable picture of what’s going on in America’s college campuses. And a lot of people are pretty concerned about it. We’re going to talk about an article that Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry is preparing for the coming edition of the Trumpet magazine about what is wrong with higher education, and we’re going to offer you a free booklet that shows what true education looks like. And finally we’ll finish the program by talking about a duty you need to fulfil as you gain experience and success in life. All this on today’s Trumpet Hour.
Just a few weeks after the terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 130 people, France held regional elections just this past Sunday. And French voters awarded the most votes to a far-right party, the National Front. They gave them 28 percent of the vote. This is an anti-immigration, anti-European movement in France. Second place was Nicolas Sarkozy’s center-right party with 27 percent. François Hollande’s socialists won only 23.5 percent. So this was a real shocking result. It sent a shock through the French political establishment. It has people and leaders all over Europe asking a lot of questions: how did this formerly fringe movement become France’s top political party; what does this mean for Europe in this time of crisis? I have Trumpet writer Richard Palmer here to help us answer these questions. Hello Richard.
RICHARD PALMER: Good afternoon.
HILLIKER: So first just put this election in context for us. This was just the first round of voting, so what happens next?
PALMER: Well, next Sunday they will have a runoff vote. The top few parties in each of these regions—it was regional elections held in 13 different regions across France—the top few parties in each region will go through to a runoff, and then at the end of that process, whoever gets the most votes will win control of that region.
HILLIKER: So before we talk about anything else, let’s just talk about the National Front. What do they stand for? What are the French voting for?
PALMER: Right, well the National Front is usually characterized as being far right. That’s not really the most useful label. I prefer to call them extremists or a non-mainstream party. You could probably just as accurately call them far-left. Economically they’re very socialist, bordering on Communist. They want to privatize a whole lot of the French industry. They’re also nationalists—so they’re the nationalist socialists. I don’t want to call them Nazis, they’re not the same as Nazis, but that’s a good description of who they are. They also tend to be very Catholic—very socially conservative. They used to be led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. He was definitely very extreme. He was anti-Semitic. He was one of those kinds of people who was not so sure about the Holocaust; whether that actually happened or whether it’s part of some big Jewish conspiracy. Marine Le Pen, his daughter, who took over the party in 2008, has worked hard to distance herself from her father and from his views. So she’s dropped this anti-Semitic, holocaust-denying conspiracy theory stuff, though, how many people in her party and her supporters still believe that, we don’t really know. There are still quite a few who would say that the party is anti-Semitic. She’s focused a lot on being anti-immigration and opposing a lot of the Muslim immigration coming into France. And then finally they’re also very euro-skeptic. They want out of the Euro. Ultimately they’re a nationalist party so they don’t want Germany or Brussels dictating to France what they can do with their economy, and so they resent that part of being in the euro as well.
HILLIKER: So this party—this is the best election result that they’ve ever had. Just bring us up to speed, looking back at their history, how they got to where they are today.
PALMER: So in 2002, Jean-Marie Le Pen was one of the top two candidates in the French presidential election. That means he went through to the next round—he faced off against Jacques Chirac—and he lost spectacularly. Chirac won 82.2 percent of the vote, and from then on the National Front—that was kind of their peak for that period—they started going down pretty fast. By 2007 in the legislative elections there, they won 4.3 percent of the vote. So things weren’t looking good for them. They were a pretty small insignificant party by that time.
Then in 2008, two very important things happened. Marine Le Pen took over from her father, and as we spoke about earlier, she kind of softened some of the extreme rhetoric. But probably more importantly, the economic crash hit. So you had the big economic crash in America. That led to the euro crisis and everything that was going on in Greece and spreading across Europe, and as soon as that happened, far-right groups started shooting up—or extreme groups—started shooting up in popularity across Europe. So in Greece you had the far-left Syriza. It went from nothing to now being the government of the country. In the Netherlands, a few years after Geert Wilders’ Party for Freedom toppled the government, you had far-right parties in Hungary, in Austria. By 2012, you had two neo-Nazi Party’s controlling one-third of their seats in parliament. And so by 2012, after the economic crisis, the National Front was on about 18 percent. So they’ve seen some huge growth, going from 4.3 to 18 percent in just five years. And now they’ve taken that even further. So as the economic crisis has dragged on, their growth has then been given just so much further impetus by the refugee crisis. That was building their popularity. And then you had the Paris attacks in France hit. And so just a few weeks out from that, they’re now on 28 percent—the most popular party in France—their best ever election result in an election. And then it’s looking very likely that you’ll have Marine Le Pen being a serious contender for the French presidency in a few years and very probably will be in at least the runoff election as one of the top two candidates for the French presidency.
HILLIKER: You can’t help but view this result in the context of the Paris attacks. Is there any sense of how much those attacks influenced this result?
PALMER: The consensus from the media is actually not that much. Now I would take that with a pinch of salt—the media does tend to hail from the left. But I do think is there is a lot of evidence that their popularity was building just in response to the migrant crisis even before the Paris attacks hit. And I think a lot of their message was being proved correct even with the Paris attacks. So I think it probably—my guess would be that it added 4 or 5 percent to their vote, but it’s not the only reason for their popularity. There’s already a lot of dissatisfaction there, and perhaps in the short term there is also this kind of “Rally ‘Round the Flag Effect.” So François Hollande’s popularity went up a bit after the Paris attacks because he’s there looking presidential, making strong sounding statements. I think actually we’ll probably see the Paris attacks having a more long-term effect on the National Front’s power and their popularity. I think it will help them sustain their popularity; will help them build it even just in the coming weeks and months now beyond even just this election. So I think it is ultimately fairly hard to say exactly how much it influenced this election.
HILLIKER: Well just to follow on from what you just said, it seems to me like in a lot of European countries—you were mentioning the rise in these far-right and extremist parties throughout Europe—but they’re still in the minority. It’s not like—they’re not going to be parties that would be able to put together a coalition and govern with any kind of majority—yet, the fact that more Europeans are flocking to them, and the fact that this election result happened in France, it seems to indicate a shift in public opinion that the mainstream parties are having to accommodate, or they’re having to make adjustments to. Is that what we see happening in this situation?
PALMER: Yes, absolutely. I think you’re already seeing almost a competition by especially Manuel Valdés of the socialists and Nicolas Sarkozy of his center-right party trying to make almost National— they’ve both been making statements that only the National Front would have been making say five years ago. So their rhetoric has already shifted toward—I’ll say the right, even though maybe it’s not the best label—but it shifted to the right. Then you’ve also got what is very unique about the runoff elections coming up on Sunday, is typically what happens is the two more mainstream French parties—the Socialists and the center-right group—have a kind of unspoken unwritten agreement whereby they both gang up—they both team up—to oppose the National Front. And the Socialists, Francois Hollande’s party, [are] sticking with this. They’ve withdrawn three of their candidates in the region where their party came third. The thinking is, OK we’re not going to win here, it’s not going to be our candidate that wins; therefore we will tell all of our voters to support the center-right party because we want to stop the National Front. They’re not a legitimate party; we’re not going to engage with them; and we’re going to do everything that we can to stop them. You saw exactly this process in 2002. We talked about how both parties kind of put their support behind Chirac to oppose the National Front, and actually Chirac would not even debate Jean-Marie Le Pen. He wouldn’t talk to him; he just really spread this view that this is an illegitimate party; the views they hold are not acceptable in modern France; we’re not even going to engage with them. Now, though, you’ve got Nicolas Sarkozy’s party—they’ve changed that. They’re not withdrawing their candidates from regions where they came third, and that, as far as I know, is unprecedented. Usually, typically, they would be withdrawing their candidates to support the Socialists. So I think that shows a shift in thinking from Sarkozy. I think he’s trying—the National Front now has 28 percent support. If Sarkozy goes out now saying the National Front is illegitimate—their views are illegitimate—no decent person can hold those views—he’s alienating 28 percent of the French public. So he’s not going to do that. Instead he’s going after their votes. And so that shift now has put the National Front in a position where they’re no longer seen as beyond the pale, at least for Sarkozy and his supporters. It’s brought them much more into this mainstream consensus. And we have actually seen this in some other countries. For example, Geert Wilder’s has been supporting, and basically part of, the Dutch ruling coalition in the past. So we’ve seen that a similar pattern where these parties were seen as beyond the pale, he was then informally supporting the government, and then the government kind of moves to the right and adopts some of his positions.
HILLIKER: And for Sarkozy to say that we’re going to keep our parties—we’re going to keep these candidates in the race—it’s essentially conceding victory to the National Front, is it not?
PALMER: It’s definitely making it more likely for them to win. I don’t have all the polls in front of me—it could well be in some of these regions the socialists are in first place; the National Front is in second. So in that case by staying in the race, they’re not necessarily guaranteeing the National Front will win. But I think they’re definitely giving the National Front a much greater chance of having victory.
HILLIKER: So one of the effects of the Paris attacks, and what’s been happening over these past few weeks, is the unification and kind of binding together among European nations. Paris or France going to—invoking the EU mutual defense clause rather than nato and kind of turning inward and saying we’re going to form a united front against a common enemy. The fact that the National Front is an anti-EU party is an interesting factor in what’s happening here. How does that play in, and just this more nationalistic kind of spirit—it seems like in some ways we’re seeing an anti-immigrant, pro-Europe push taking place maybe on a broader scale. Here’s anti-immigrant, anti-EU.
PALMER: Yeah, I think that absolutely is a very interesting dynamic. And actually I kind of give a whole Trumpet Daily radio program on a similar subject, just talking about how crisis does tend to lead to this rise in nationalism; that people do look to their own—their own nation—their own ethnicity in times of major crisis; and that if Europe doesn’t start getting its act together, this is a powerful force that is going to tear Europe apart. So that that’s one part of it. The other thing though is, if you look at Europe’s kind of political identity, it is very much kind of liberal lefty, and it is a lot of what the National Front does not like. For example, they’re pretty secular. A lot of the government in Brussels is—they’ve done things in Italy like forcing them to remove crosses from schools etc. A lot of the immigration crisis has been Europe’s fault. The open borders—that’s a European Union policy. They are … Germany through the European Union is forcing fairly center-right economic policies on other countries around Europe like Greece, whereas from an economic point of view, the National Front are far-left, so they oppose that. So rather than kind of opposing the idea of Europe, they oppose who Europe is at the moment. They oppose this kind of mainstream left identity that Europe has. Now, the Trumpet, we’ve talked a lot about how this crisis is going to force Europe’s identity to change. We talked about on the Trumpet Hour on Friday how the Catholic Church is going to have to be brought back into—it’s part of keeping Europe together. And so you’ll see a much more Catholic presence in Europe. Europe is going to be forced to clamp down on a lot of this immigration and Muslim immigration that’s coming in from outside Europe. So once these things start to change—it’s this kind of identity that the National Front dislikes. If Europe changes—once its personality start changing—I don’t think they’d necessarily be opposed to Europe at that point. And especially if Europe—or there’s the other dynamic as the world becomes more dangerous, you need good friends and you need these alliances. And they’re going to also have—at the same time as things become more dangerous—be forced to rely more on Europe for their safety, because ultimately—in the dangerous world that’s coming—France doesn’t stand much of a chance it goes it alone.
HILLIKER: Right, very interesting. We’ll have to watch this develop. We’re talking with Trumpet writer Richard Palmer. Appreciate you helping us to understand the French political scene here. Second round of French elections this coming Sunday. We’ll have to keep our eyes on that. Thanks a lot, Richard.
PALMER: Thanks very much.
HILLIKER: A couple of weeks ago, Turkish combat aircraft shot down a Russian bomber aircraft close to the Turkish-Syrian border. Russia has been making aggressive moves into the Middle East, particularly into Syria, and this is really the first time that a nation stood up to them. Now there are a lot of factors that make this very interesting—we haven’t said a whole lot about it at the Trumpet yet—but it’s not because we haven’t been watching what’s going on here. I have Trumpet writer Robert Morley here to give us some insight into what’s happening over here. Hello, Robert.
ROBERT MORLEY: Good to be here.
HILLIKER: So I’d like to start by just talking about the interests that these two powers have in Syria—Russia and Turkey, and—in Syria and in the broader Middle East. First of all, just remind us what stake Russia has in this area.
MORLEY: Sure. Well for Russia, probably the biggest stake is maintaining its relationship with Assad and keeping Bashar Assad, president of Syria, in power. If you recall, Russia’s only significant deep water naval base outside of Russian proper is located in Syria—the port of Tarsus on the Mediterranean coast there—and that’s extremely valuable from Russia’s perspective. All the other bases—whether it’s in Northern Europe—are locked in by ice in the winter time, or if it’s in the Black Sea, it’s shuttered by Turkey which is actually playing into, right now, some of that tension that is growing between Russia and Turkey.
HILLIKER: So—and Turkey’s interests—what they’re interested in.
MORLEY: Absolutely. From Turkey’s perspective, they are working to remove Bashar Assad from Syria. They see the Assad regime as strong allies of Iran; they see them as allies of Russia; and they are becoming more and more involved with trying to remove Bashar Assad’s regime. And to increase their own influence in the region. There [are] other factors at play. They want to make sure they keep tabs on the Kurds, and they don’t want the Kurds establishing their own autonomous region spanning parts of Turkey—the Kurdish speaking population in Turkey, in Iraq and in Iran as well. So there’s some of those factors at play too.
HILLIKER: So since the United States has been pulling out of the Middle East, that’s obviously created a vacuum. Russia views this as an opportunity, and they’re moving in—particularly in Syria—but they’ve really established themselves as quite an authority in Middle Eastern affairs here. How does that threaten Turkey? How does Turkey feel like that’s something that it has to check?
MORLEY: Well, I think Turkey’s a little afraid that Russia is setting up shop in Syria and has no plans to leave the region anytime soon. And if you think about it from Turkey’s perspective, having a strong Russian presence on their southern border like that, does give Turkey some cause for concern. It was just a couple years ago that Turkey took Crimea from Ukraine, and that’s basically Turkey’s northern border—straight across the Black Sea. Sevastopol—that big base that was based in Ukraine—is now Russia proper. And Turkey is seeing aggressive Russian actions from that sphere. But then you can look across at Armenia, and Russia has been moving in forces into Armenia, which is on Turkey’s eastern border. And now with Russia’s presence in Syria, Turkey is taking a look at its position—its geostrategic position—and it is seeing that Russian influence is growing dramatically in that region. And any growth of Russian influence is going to be linked to a growth in Iranian interests as they are closely allied and see the world through a very similar world view. And that’s anti-Turkey—that’s going against what Turkey is working at in Syria.
HILLIKER: The evidence that they have of Russian entrenchment in Syria, is it more than say the track record that they’ve established in those other arenas that you’re talking about, or what hard evidence do they have on the ground of Russia’s infiltration?
MORLEY: Yeah, great question. So over the last month or so, there have been increasing reports of Russian ground troops actually on the ground—bases being developed; Russian armor. Even Cuban military forces via Russia—there’s reports that came out—I think that was last month; maybe a little bit before that; maybe between a month and two months ago—that Cuban forces training in Russia that should be moved down and spotted in Syria. Russia has been increasing its presence, but even more than the ground forces has probably been hit the air force that Russia’s committed to the region. And then even today there [were] reports of a Russian nuclear sub that had surfaced off the coast of Syria that sports the same sort of surface-to-surface missiles that were launched from the Black Sea and pounded targets within Syria from the other side earlier on this year.
HILLIKER: It’s interesting—Russia has—they came in, and we’ve drawn attention to the fact that it was using the Islamic State’s incursion in Syria as a pretense for their stepping in—but it was—most of their targets were actually against the rebels that the United States was backing, the anti-Assad rebels that—I guess they had a few isis targets, but most of them were against this other entity that you have within Syria. But there’s something about the fact that the Islamic State is really making a strong push in this area that’s kind of opening the door for these outside forces to say, we’re stepping in and we’re going to deal with them. The United Nations—they just sent this message out saying that this is like an unprecedented threat to civilization. So in Turkey, you have two outside powers that are kind of using the Islamic State as somewhat of a pretense to get involved there where they might otherwise not have that legitimacy.
MORLEY: That is just an interesting point that you bring out regarding the Islamic State. They have shown themselves to be so atrocious, and so savvy at manipulating the media to show their intimidation factor, that virtually every player in that region can look at isis and use that as an excuse to be involved in Syria. And we’re seeing that. Russia—it’s involved in Syria. Well we’re fighting isis; meanwhile their targeting other forces—free army forces etc.—that are against the Assad regime. Iran looks at isis and that’s an excuse to be involved in Iraq and in Syria. Even Erdoğan—Turkey—looks at isis, and when their troops crossed into Syria, it’s, we’re fighting isis, even though from Turkish perspective—geopolitical perspective—anybody who’s fighting against Assad would be welcome. So I think that is an important point to consider when analyzing that region.
HILLIKER: So it’s interesting that this is going down in Syria. I don’t think—when the Syrian civil war started five to six years ago—that anyone would have foreseen that country becoming this … kind of the center of the chess board in a lot of ways. But when you’re talking about Iran—you’re talking about Turkey, you’re talking about Russia, you’re talking about Europe also having a real, strong vested interest, particularly because of the migrant situation that has developed largely from Syria—you have a lot of large important outside powers who are really interested in what’s going on here and have a lot at stake in this country in the Middle East. The reason why this is so interesting to us is because of what biblical prophecy says about Syria. And we have an overview—we’ve talked about this and written about it quite a lot at theTrumpet.com about what we can expect in Syria’s future. Maybe you could give us a sense of how what we’re seeing right now could be unfolding along the lines of what we’re expecting prophetically.
MORLEY: Sure. Looking at Syria, we know from the prophecies, that we can expect a political reorientation at some point in the future. You can take a look at Psalm 83; you can take a look at Daniel 11 and various other prophecies that either directly or indirectly involve Syria. And if you look at how the Middle East is aligning right now, you can kind of see the various camps that the Bible talks about and prophecy that we can expect to keep solidifying and opposing each other. And in the one camp we have Iran, known in Bible terms as the king of the south. We have Russia, the Prince of Rosh, and his forces. And we have this Psalm 83 alliance of nations that are forming in the Middle East that are separate and distinct from the king of the south’s bloc of nations and from Russia’s influences. And in those nations that are listed in Psalm 83, we have Turkey and Syria and Saudi Arabia and some of these quote-on-quote moderate nations—moderate Islamic nations—they ally together. And according to the prophecies we see, we also know that they will ally with Germany and with a European power at some point. So, when we look at Syria today and we see Russia involved, and we see Turkey involved, and we see Iran involved, we know that there is a power play that’s going on in that nation, and although we may not know all the details, we know the endgame. And the endgame is that Syria at some point allies with Turkey, with Europe, with Saudi Arabia and does not fall into that Iranian King of the South camp. So when we see this conflict between Russia and Turkey right now, fighting in Syria, and we see tensions rising very dramatically—Stratfor came out today and said that Turkey is reasserting itself in the world stage like it has not done since the Ottoman Empire—that’s going back to World War I. And they said that Turkey’s actions against Russia had surprised the world—they had surprised many analysts—because nobody had expected Turkey to stand up against Russia. They expected them to back off—apologize for shooting down the jet. But since then we’ve seen exactly the opposite. Tensions have been escalating. Russia’s come back and slapped sanctions on Turkey to the tune of 9 billion dollars. Putin came out and he accused Erdoğan of laundering isis oil through Turkey. Erdoğan said, hey, prove it; if you can prove it I’ll resign. And then he challenged Putin and said, but if we can prove that you guys are laundering isis oil, well you resign. It’s just tit-for-tat, going back between these two world powers, and we’re seeing things escalate in a way that a lot of people didn’t predict. So these are the kind of things that can tend to lend a lot of confusion to people looking at it from outside, but if you view it through the lens of Bible prophecy, you’re seeing all these conflicts … how they will ultimately resolve themselves.
HILLIKER: So we’re kind of looking at, say, Russia, and their alignment with Iran, giving some indication of where Russia fits into that. Not that that would be a dramatic—or that there’s a strong prophetic tie there. But if we’re looking at it in terms of camps, that we would expect some sort of alignment to occur between Turkey and Syria and it could be that … you know what, what has been on my mind is how much is Russian provocation forcing the Turks, the Germans, to sit up and take notice and say, it’s time for us to do something about this because Russia is being very aggressive. They’re moving fast. If we sit back and wait, then this is going to slip from our grasp. How much is that accelerating the timetable in terms of their trying to assert themselves in that arena?
MORLEY: Yeah I think you’re right, and remember, Turkey is a nato ally at this point and I think we would expect them, geopolitically speaking, to continue to look to America and European allies for support. But with America moving out of the region, we should expect Turkey to look more to Europe in the future for the support. I think we saw probably inklings of that earlier this year with Germany’s support of Turkey and cutting deals over the refugee crisis and trying—
HILLIKER: We just talked about that a couple of weeks ago.
MORLEY: That’s right—continuing to work closely with Turkey over that. And I think Turkey probably looks at conditions, with what’s happening in Ukraine and seeing the West lined up against Russian, and it’s probably encouraged Turkey a little bit more to be aggressive with Russia in a way it may not have been, had the Ukraine crisis not happened. So there are a lot of factors that are at play here. I just want to remind our listeners of the strategic importance that Turkey plays in that region with controlling the Dardanelles and the Bosphorus there. Trade does not go in and out of the Black Sea unless Turkey allows it to do so. And just a couple days ago, Russia sent one of its warships through the Strait and Turkey let it go through. But a Russian soldier on that ship came through holding a surface-to-air missile and was pointing at Turkish forces in the area. And that set off a little bit of a diplomatic spat and that’s just emblematic of how important that this is to Russia as well. So we’re going to see tensions ratcheted up in this area and I don’t think it’ll be anything that’s nice and smooth. Not a lot of easy solutions in that region.
HILLIKER: Right, well if you consider Turkey is digging in its heels, and they’re pushing against a dictator in Russia that doesn’t seem to be too interested in backing down from any situation, you do wonder how far is this going to go. I’ve just asked myself, how much does Turkey shooting down a Russian jet, how much pressure does that put on Putin to have a show of force and to say… I think it’s interesting, he doesn’t necessarily want to provoke a fight with—what is it, the second-largest military in nato?—
MORLEY: In uniforms in Turkey.
HILLIKER: Right, and yet he has a lot at stake in preserving this reputation as a strong man who is going to defend Russia’s interests in the world. And a lot of the Russian people, they’re invested in that image that he’s created. So it’ll be interesting.
MORLEY: It is, and Putin does have a lot of power. We think of Russia as a nuclear power and with big armored divisions but let’s not forget its oil power and its natural gas power. Turkey is incredibly reliant on Russia for its natural gas. Seventy percent of its natural gas comes from Russia, and it doesn’t have an alternative to that. I think 6 percent comes from Iran and a couple of liquid natural gas facilities. So even though Turkey has Russia over a barrel with its transport in and out of the Black Sea, Russia also has some weapons at play with oil and gas reserves as well. So it’ll be interesting—I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they have to come to an agreement. And we’ll have to see what kind of agreement they come to—
HILLIKER: Right, because what’s the alternative? You could see this escalating into war very quickly. And at the same time, I think it’s also interesting to just look at the dynamic between Turkey and Germany specifically because we’ve really drawn attention to the fact that Germany is very threatened by the rise in Russia, and that’s another thread of prophecy that we’ve followed where we really view the rise in Russia and in Vladimir Putin specifically as being a catalyst for European unification and so on. So for Germany to be looking at what’s happening in Syria, you know that this is yet one more arena where they’re really concerned about Russia’s rise. So for them, I could see them having a somewhat of a… being on side with Turkey in the fact that they hear somebody that’s willing to stand up to them they’re not having to do it themselves in this particular case.
MORLEY: Yeah I think you’re absolutely right, good point.
HILLIKER: It’s very interesting to watch. We’re talking to Trumpet writer Robert Morley. He’s working on an article on this subject. Robert, you’ve got a lot of points to put together in that article. At this point, the working title is “Turkey Confronts Russia as America Withdraws From the Middle East.” You can watch for it in the coming days on theTrumpet.com. Sure appreciate your time on this.
MORLEY: You’re welcome.
HILLIKER: We’re working on the February edition of the Trumpet magazine this week and next, and we have a lot in there about what’s happening in the world with respect to the Paris terrorist attacks and everything that has happened in the wake of those attacks. We also have a story from the editor in chief of the Trumpet, Gerald Flurry, on an issue that we’ve been following for some time—that is the strife that you see developing on university campuses. There’s a terrific article in the works for this next issue that just makes some very strong points about these students and how colleges are essentially being taken over by spoiled children. This article says, “Look at what is happening to the education of this world. Nasty, empty-headed children are taking over the universities. Many of their classes and much of their instruction borders on insanity.”
This article draws attention to several incidents that we’ve been talking about on this program and on other programs on kpcg, the primary one being what happened at the University of Missouri recently. In November, the University of Missouri football team went on strike to protest racism on campus. One student went on a hunger strike. They criticized the university president for inaction over racist incidents and demanded that he resign. And they were of course successful in that. This [article] describes these tremendous offenses that outraged these students so much. This movement was very short on specifics but it all boils down to three incidents: a poop swastika and two supposed racial slurs, and all of it ended up just being really amounting to nothing. This article says, “There was no evidence of any university officials failing to properly address any problems. No crimes were committed; no one was harmed. Yet the University Chancellor and President lost their jobs and the media treated the protesters like civil-rights heroes. Now little children are ruling that campus. This problem will continue to spread; they are taking over.”
Another incident discussed in this article: “In September, students at the University of Delaware cried out in indignation when they found nooses hanging from a tree on campus. Security staff investigated and found that they were actually the remains of paper lanterns left over from the previous event, but after the truth came out, students continued to insist that they were nooses. One sophomore said she had a hard time accepting as credible sources the college public safety staff. The truth does not matter to these people”—that’s what this article says. “That fact surfaces again and again in these stories. They don’t care about the truth. They want to destroy truth. That is very telling as to the real nature of this movement and the evil spirit behind it.”
Isn’t higher education supposed to be about truth? Isn’t it supposed to be about helping people to prove what is true? Well that’s not what is happening here. They have higher goals, and if you have to exaggerate and lie and make false accusations and invent grievances, then so be it. That’s what these students are learning. Somehow in spite of many problems with the university systems, the college label is still amazingly popular. Everybody looks at going to college as an unmitigated good—it’s just wonderful. Everybody’s got to go to college. There’s a push to get as many young people to go to college as possible.
Between 1992 and 2002, college and university enrollment rose 15 percent. And then between 2002 and 2012, enrollment rose 24 percent, from 16.6 million to 20.6 million. College is now the place where 41 percent of all 18 to 24 year olds reside. So a whole lot of people going to college. But is it helping us? Are these kids really becoming better people? I mean these are legitimate questions to ask, aren’t they, in the face of the kinds of stories that we see emerging from college campuses? One hundred years ago, only 4 percent of 18 to 21 year old men went to college. But now we’re just in this fit to try to get as many kids as possible into college. Is it helping us? Are they learning what they need to learn? Are they actually becoming more responsible members of society?
Personally, I’m very suspicious of this push to get people into college—come what may, regardless of their qualifications; regardless of their goals; politicians talking about how everybody should have a right to free college—we’ve got to get more kids into college. Really, when you look at what’s happening, it looks very much like liberals trying to use these institutions to indoctrinate the next generation in their own failed poisonous ideas. And these stories that are coming out give us a remarkable picture of what’s happening on these campuses, and the problems with higher education are becoming clearer and clearer—the liberal thinking that gets these students thinking like victims when they’re actually bullies. It teaches them how to be offended over nothing. It makes them over sensitive and it actually makes them openly aggressive over micro-aggressions and fictional aggressions. Now, these are problems—the fact that these students are actually out-radicalizing their radical teachers; the fact that they actually consider their liberal university educators racist oppressors. That’s phenomenal—that these students are actually succeeding in getting these folks kicked out of their jobs because they’re not liberal enough.
I watched one video—we actually posted it in one of our articles on theTrumpet.com—of a student journalist who was trying to take pictures of the student at Mizzou who was on a hunger strike, and that video showed this crowd that was ready to throw out the first amendment, throw out the freedom of press, to use bully tactics, to use muscle, to try to get rid of somebody that they didn’t like, who just wanted to report what was going on—just to record what was going on there. They would have nothing to do with him. They wanted him out and they pushed him out.
There’s a demand on these campuses for diversity but there’s a sameness in the way that they think. There’s a diversity in skin pigmentation but there’s strict conformity in reasoning. There’s a group think; there’s intellectual intimidation. And more and more there’s aggression; there’s hatred that they are fomenting and encouraging.
Just to go back to that Mizzou case, here’s another quote from this article by Gerald Flurry: “The man the University of Missouri brought in to replace its ousted president was Michael Middleton. He founded the Legion of Black Collegians back in 1969 and personally delivered his own list of race-related demands to the University of Missouri in 1969. He said, “We have to understand our ugly history permeates everything that we do at this institution and in this country.” This is the new president at this college. “I intend to lead this university towards satisfying each and every one of those demands that can be satisfied.” And among the demands: raising the pay for non-faculty staff, increasing the number of black faculty. He labeled Missouri University a haven for a comprehensive, institutionalized racist and political repression.” This is what Gerald Flurry wrote about that.
How do you appease someone who thinks that way? There’s no evidence of systemic racism at the University—none. There is no truth to this man’s racist statement—it is a satanic lie. What kind of university is this becoming? Is there nobody who will stand up to this outrageous situation? Yet the media love it. They are dangerously ignorant. Many commentators have asked what these students are really upset about. The students insist they want social justice, but that is not what they want; they want injustice. They want their own way like nasty, spoiled children. For people to think that they just want justice is terribly naïve.
There’s something really wrong here; something really wrong with what these students are learning at these institutions. And we haven’t even talked about how in so many cases you just have worthless classes; worthless information not preparing people for life in the real world; race studies; gender studies; lgbt studies; silly studies in sociology and humanities, the kind of things that will give you a master’s degree in non-profit administration with eighty five thousand dollars in debt so that you can work as a barista at Starbucks. That’s a problem. I mean the cost is a problem—the cost of universities keeps rising at rates that are far higher than inflation and that’s just very gutsy of these colleges when the value of the degrees is falling; the quality of the education is falling; the price keeps going up. Average tuition room and board rates of four-year institutions [are] now 23,600 a year. So you’re paying one hundred grand for a four-year degree and a massive sense of entitlement. And what happens with these kids when they graduate, according to an Accenture college graduate employment survey recently, 49 percent of students who graduated college 2013 and 2014 consider themselves underemployed. They’re getting jobs that are less than what they feel they deserve or what their college degree would promise them. But is it any wonder that employers aren’t interested in these graduates. Would you hire somebody who needs a safe space or who’s going to stage a protest to demand that you be fired if someone insults them? I don’t think that too many employers would be very interested. Again, this is the state of higher education in America today. As this article says, I read this quote already: “Look at what’s happening to the education of this world. Nasty, empty-headed children are taking over the universities. Many of their classes and much of their instruction borders on insanity.”
I’d like to direct you to a free booklet that we offer called Education With Vision. This booklet is especially relevant in light of all that’s happening right now. You can go to theTrumpet.com—go to the literature tab—you can find this booklet Education With Vision—it’s free. You can read it or download it for free. You can even order a copy—we’ll send you a copy of it for free. The first chapter is called “The Origin of Modern Education,” and it describes this paradox of an explosion of knowledge and a simultaneous explosion in problems. Supposedly higher education is to produce the leaders to lead us out of these problems, but that’s not what’s happening, and you can see why. When you see the way that these students are handling the issue of racism—they’re not interested in stopping racism. Their methods for supposedly solving the race problem are making the race problem far, far worse. They’re going to lead to a racist explosion. That is a perfect illustration of this terrible paradox, just the fact that this profusion of knowledge is not solving our problems—in fact it tends to make them worse. Something is wrong with this knowledge. We have so much of it and it isn’t helping us.
The first chapter in this booklet explains it. It shows what’s wrong with it; how so much of it is based on the wrong premise. It shows the origin of this educational system going back to Plato. It talks about Nietzsche and German rationalism—it basically demolished moral absolutes and demolished biblical instruction and exalted human reasoning above all else. And you read this booklet and then look at the fruits of the educational system today. It’s a very eye-opening read, and it’s really does provide a perspective that you need in order to understand just how dangerous what’s happening at the universities today is and to understand why it’s happening.
The second chapter of this booklet: “What is True Education”; the third chapter: “Education With Vision.” It contrasts a true godly education—a productive education—with what you see in the universities today. This booklet really is how to become truly educated it tells you how to become educated. And it really is terrific to look at in light of this deplorable state of modern education. I encourage you to read this booklet. You can find it for free at theTrumpet.com: Education With Vision.
If you’ve achieved any success in life, you’ve probably had help; someone to teach you; guide you; give you an opportunity; open a door in your education or your career. Now with experience and success comes a responsibility you might not have considered, and that is to turn around and help those behind you; to give back by being a mentor. A mentor is a trusted counselor or guide—someone who teaches helps, or advises a less experienced, often younger person. Mentoring is a partnership between one person with knowledge and another who wants to learn. It’s a relationship that builds up society. General Wilbur Lyman Creech—he was commander of the U.S. Air Force Tactical Air Command about 30 years ago—he said, “The first duty of a leader is to create more leaders.”
There are probably many younger people in your life you could help if you embrace this challenge. And it is a challenge. Training young people takes time, energy, investment. But it’s also an important duty and an opportunity. There’s power in sharing knowledge. The Bible is loaded with admonitions about this teaching dynamic. Most of them revolve around teaching your children God’s truth. It talks about teaching them diligently when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, when you rise up. It tells fathers bring up your children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Titus 2 has an amazing passage with detailed instruction to older women telling you to work not just with your own daughters, but also with younger women in general. And not really in spiritual, but in physical matters. You don’t even have to have children to develop the mindset of a mentor.
The way you treat young people, or the way you treat those with less experience and expertise, says a lot about your character. To think like a mentor you must do two things: first, recognize someone’s potential, and second, recognize your own power to help him or her achieve it. These aren’t easy. They take unselfishness; maturity; big-mindedness. You have to see people the way God does, and then care enough to actually help them. But once you begin building this mindset, you’ll see opportunities all around you.
The act of mentoring includes two components: providing guidance and providing opportunities. It’s more than just giving counsel, advice and instruction. It also means arranging opportunities; opening doors; providing challenges; giving assignments that will help your student’s growth. A mentor asks himself these questions: What do I know that can benefit others? Who can benefit from this knowledge? What can I learn that will be useful knowledge to teach others? What do I wish someone had taught me? What opportunities can I provide?
If you have a son or daughter, start there. Double the amount of time you spend together. Look for every opportunity to do things together. Look for appropriate challenges to give them. Think of every little thing you can do or teach them to prepare them for adulthood. How much better equipped for manhood would a boy be, for example, if his father took the time to teach him how to stay focused on a task; how to tie a tie; how to build a fire; how to treat a wound; how to change a car’s oil; how to fix a leak; how to hunt; how to have meaningful conversation; how to treat a woman; how to be a man of your word, and so on. Once you make headway at home, look for other people you can help: people who work for you; your students; other young people in your community. Pay attention to them. Show interest. Develop a rapport. Think about whether you can include them in your work and your plans. Look for opportunities to teach and pass along something of value. Young people have so many things they need to learn.
In addition to benefiting your student, mentoring also benefits you. You need opportunities to think beyond yourself. Mentoring requires genuine effort. It takes sacrifice and time—time you may not want to give; frustration you may wish to do without; sacrifice you’d prefer not to make. But that’s thinking selfishly. We all need to learn to think unselfishly, like God. The real joy in life comes from giving, not taking. Devoting attention to helping someone else grow, to struggle through setbacks and learn from mistakes, is truly a blessed act. Your life isn’t just about bettering yourself. It’s about bettering yourself through bettering others. It’s about growing by helping others to grow. There are young people all around you who are waiting for you; who need you and they don’t even know it. But now you do, so wake up to this critical duty: being a mentor.
I’m Joel Hilliker. We’re coming to the end of Trumpet Hour. This program is the voice of the Trumpet magazine. You can find us online at theTrumpet.com. That’s where to find the stories like what we talked about on this program, and where you can go to get a free subscription to the monthly newsmagazine The Philadelphia Trumpet. We’d like to hear from you. Please send us comments or questions by emailing letters@thetrumpet.com. I want to thank my guests today: Richard Palmer and Robert Morley. Thanks to our technical staff: Dwight Falk and Josh Sloan. And I’ll leave you with this thought from Noël Coward: “The higher the buildings, the lower the morals.” Thank you for joining us on Trumpet Hour. It’s been a pleasure. Until next time, keep watching your world.