BBB:what Anchormen don't tell you

   The nightly "news reports" that pour their poisonous garbage into
the American minds every day at five or six in the evening, and again
at ten (or 11), have used the term "Christian" for years and years
referring to people who fight in the Near East. You should know
something about how the term is used by the press, but of course the
press never tells you how the thing is used. Wouldn't it be something
if, at the end of the newscast, a man came on and said, "The Christians
referred to, who are engaged in the Lebanese civil war," and "fighting
the Moslem private militia" and "the PLO" are not Christians at all.
They are Maronite Phalangists."

   The reason why the news media uses the term, is so the term
"Catholic" is never brought into disrepute, but the term "Christian" is
constantly in disrepute.

   Somebody asked the other day, "Who are these Christian people who go
around butchering Palestinians? Christians shouldn't be doing that sort
of thing." The reference is to the Maronite Phalangist party in
Lebanon. It has nothing to do with Christians. Just as the term
"Catholic" has nothing to do with Christians. "Catholic" is the term
for the Roman Catholic political hierarchy in Rome that controls
religious people throughout the world by professing to believe in a
religion.

   There are nine different professing Christian communities, and they
have names like Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Syrian, Orthodox, and
other groups. The Maronites are by far the largest in the Christian
communities and regard themselves as true Lebanese. They number about
one million. They were originally a professing Christian group in
northern Syria who moved about 800 A.D. because of persecutions by
Roman Catholics into the protective mountains and valleys of northwest
Lebanon. They were named after St. Maroun, one of the early leaders,
and have maintained a fierce independence and community identity ever
since. During the period of the Crusades, they again linked themselves
with the church of Rome against the Moslems, but kept their own eastern
forms of worship. Over the last two centuries, their culture owes a
great deal to the influence of French Jesuits working in the
educational system. It was during the period of the Lebanese war,
1975-1976, that the Maronite Phalangist militia expanded to almost
34,000 members, and fought against Moslem private militias and PLO
forces to maintain the security of the heartlands. They are now a
private army of the Maronite community under the control of the
Germayel family. These are the people the news media call "Christians."
There is just no anchorman on CBS to tell you what they actually are,
so we thought we would help you out.