Moolah

"Crucial message on International Fund"

as printed in the 12-Dec-2001 issue of "The American Baha'i, starting on page 1: "Crucial Message on International Fund" From the National Spiritual Assembly to the American Baha'i Community

Dear Friends, The National Spiritual Assembly received the following message of critical importance from the Universal House of Justice addressed "To the Bahai's of the World" about the pressing need for a marked increase in the contributions to the Baha'i International Fund to sustain the work of the Faith. With loving Baha'i greetings, Robert C. Henderson, Secretary-

General Message of the Universal House of Justice to the Baha'is of the World, dated Nov. 12, 2001.

November 12 is the Birthday of Baha'u'llah, who was born in 1817. Now, on his 184th birthday, the UHJ has decided to use this occasion in order to hit Baha'is up for more money. Already Baha'is pay into countless funds. First there is the local fund to run the local community. Then there is the national fund to fund the workings of the National Spiritual Assembly. Then there's the Kingdom Project, an invention of the American National Spiritual Assembly - 60 million dollars worth - added to the regular National Fund. There is also the International Fund, the fund for the House and it's projects - the main project is mainly for the expensive buildings and gardens and their upkeep on prime real estate on top of Mt. Carmel in Haifa. Go here to see how nice it is. Now here comes the sales pitch.

Dear Friends,

The Major Plan of God is at work throughout the world, hastening the disintegration of the old order as the new one unfolds. While it is propelling forward a social transformation of a magnitude never before witnessed, fear and uncertainty grip the consciousness of a majority of the world's people, who remain unaware of God's purpose in this Day. There is a growing sense of a fundamental change of far-reaching dimensions that chills preoccupation with the pleasures and comforts of material existence.

Really? Hadn't noticed that the Gardens and Buildings in Haifa were doing too badly. Just the standard rhetoric from the House. This is boilerplate stuff, as anyone who has been a Baha'i for any length of time can tell you.

In the midst of this turmoil, the Divine Will for humankind is being acheived. The progress being made by the community of the Greatest Name is a cause for the deepest satisfaction. Its members, undismayed by the surrounding distraction and distress,

Stop. "The surrounding dismay and distress" is probably a reference to the bombings of 11 September and the subsequent hostilities in Afghanistan. Maybe it's not, but it is my opinion that it is. Now, the House might have meant the dismay and distress that almost literally does surround it, the sorrows of the Palestinian people in the occuppied terroritories and of the Israeli Arabs, many of whom live just down from Mt. Carmel in Haifa. Certainly no House member would have to venture very far from his home to witness the horrors in the West Bank.. However, the House has remained completely silent - as it usually is with respect to the many horrors in the world. This is an institution that calls itself the Universal House of Justice that almost never speaks out for justice for any group of people ever - save for the Baha'is of Iran. Ariel Sharon has expressed more sympathy for the Palestinians than the Universal House of Justice.

labour to provide reassurance and insight to those with whom they come in contact, making sure that the confident vision that informs their actions is not clouded by the limited perspective of the mass of humanity.

What? We at Baha'i Angst are most perplexed. Baha'is eschew partisan politics and very few ever get involved these days in anything progressive of any kind - a few do - to their credit. Most just go to Baha'i meetings to plan ways to convert people - ways which usually don't work, thank God.

Current world events offer Baha'is an opportunity to demonstrate the application of the remedy brought by the Divine Physician.

True. One might think that the House would now be ready to call on Baha'is to address issues of war and peace, hunger, starvation and poverty - for example - in many different ways. Help provide food and financial aid to Afghan refugees, maybe to support UN and other international efforts to restore order to Afghanistan to somehow alleviate in some way the suffering of the Afghan people - or a million other things. The world is in great pain. It always has been. There are many good deeds that await being done, like a guardian angel calling silently to its charge. . .telling it to make the right choice.

Instead:

At this critical moment, we find ourselves compelled to turn to you, our coworkers, to inform you of the pressing need for a marked increase in contributions to the Baha'i International Fund.

Yup, that'll sure solve those problems. Give more money to the UHJ. You may as well spend it on lottery tickets - at least you'll increase state revenues that might help pave a road or something. Yes, the world is in despair, much needs to be done - so get out your wallets out and give the UHJ money. What nerve these IAA charter members have.

Now, let's see what they want the money for:

A great portion of the resources in this Fund is expended outside the Holy Land for the advancement of the Cause of God. These expenditures are of special importance at this time when the Five Year Plan gives every indication of fielding a significant advance in the process of entry by troups in the years ahead.

The official Baha'i Faith is utterly obsessed witht the concept of "entry by troops" - a statement made by Abdul Baha nearly a century ago. Each of the multi-year plans, horrid boring stultifying documents filled with pure bullshit, give the impression that entry by troops is about to happen, but it never does. Wonder why? Keep reading.

This same Fund must finance the operation of the Baha'i World Centre, the maintenance of the sacred properties of the Holy Land, the conduct of the pilgrimage programme, and the defence and proclamation of the Faith.

For years and years the House has been working on major construction projects on Mt. Carmel. Very expensive buildings have been built - including a really federal looking monster called the Seat of the Universal House of Justice - but others as well. Probably about 250 million US dollars to build. This is not counting the 19 overdone Terraces defacing Mt. Carmel - making it look even more gaudy than the place where Dorothy's house dropped on top of the wicked witch of east (I think it was the east.) This has severly drained the resources of Baha'i communities. Sources with some access have informed Baha'i Angst that the upkeep of all this ostentatiousness has been crippling the UHJ's budget for some time. From the following text, it looks like these sources were well informed.

We now appeal for a response to this need from all the followers of Baha'u'llah. Our appeal is addressed to all without exception: those of modest means as well as those who possess substantial resources. Your immediate and sustained action is imperative, for the discharge of your spiritual obligation to contribute towards the advancement of the Cause can suffer no delay.

Gotto love it. They've mishandled their budgeting, built a Disneyland on Mt. Carmel that they cannot afford, but it is the rank and file's spiritual obligation to support this. Keep this in mind if you are thinking of signing up. You are spiritually obligated to support the admistrative and financial malfeasance of a bunch of miscreants - themselves on the whole quite rich, btw. We also like the "no delay" part. They must be hurting bad. We suggest they hire one of those firms who send us all debt relief schemes in our email.

The blessings that flow from your sacrificial deeds are assured. The present crisis in the Baha'i International Fund is due, in considerable measure, to the sharp reduction in resources available, consequent to the economic downturn afflicting much of the world.

Yup, the whole world economy is so screwed up that they can't get enough money to mow the grass and water the flowers or maintain their beautiful buildings. Aren't these the same bunch of moolah mongers who started off this harrangue with tripe about how there's "a growing sense of a fundamental change of far-reaching dimensions that chills preoccupations with the pleasures and comforts of material existence"? Also, if it is true that the world-wide economic collapse is hurting the UHJ's fund so much, might it not also be true that other non-profits that actually do something - like feeding the poor, sheltering the sick or the battered, or defending the weak, that they might need money too - now more than ever? So what or who do ya want to support - flower gardens? Or the poor, the tired, the hungry, the ill, the oppressed? It's up to you.

Here's the next reason for the fund's dire need:

It arises also, in part, from the necessity to provide assistance from the Baha'i Internenational Fund to sustain the work of the Faith in the growing number of countries devistated by warfare, internal division, and endemic poverty.

Right. The faith is doing little if anything in any of these places. If it were, it would be bragging about it like hell all over the place. No doubt some Baha'is supported by UHJ money are doing some good, but far too little is spent on doing good - just read the next line.

However,

I knew there was a "but" coming. "However" is just a fancy way to spell "but."

a major cause of our present deep concern is the necessity to maintain at the befitting standard, the buildings and gardens at the World Centre.

So, this whole letter was a setup for the faithful. Give them the stale and pale rhetoric, rhetoric worn so thin from years of abuse, and maybe they'll buy it one more time. I don't think they will and I hope they don't.

An indication of the increase of costs is that the area of the gardens has now more than doubled.

Duh!. Twenty years of building projects coupled with 19 huge hideous terraces greatly increasing both the land area and the real estate that must be maintained and what to you expect? "Entry by troops" was supposed to take care of this problem. But when you have a religion that does not meet people's spritual needs - a religion whose fruits are in building empty buildings and not people's souls, hearts and minds, you won't have entry by troops - an image Baha'i Angst has always found unsettling anway.

The Baha'i International Fund must not fail to meet these needs.

Wrong again, O House of Only Men. Baha'i Angst strongly recommends that the fund fail completely, that these idiots be deprived of their tax-free subsidies which they have squandered, that they be forced to move the whole operation into a couple of flats in the poorer sections of Haifa, while the local communities around the world use their limited resources to build real bridges to others at home.

To assist it, we have decided to set up the World Centre Endowment Fund for the preservation, upkeep, and security of the edifices and precincts of the Spiritual and Administrative Centres of the Faith - activities that currently form so large a part of the responsibilities of the Baha'i International Fund.

Here again is an admisstion that the buildings, the land, the endless gardens are driving the UHJ financially bankrupt. So, the answer is, of course, to set up yet another fund - this time an endowment fund. What a novel idea. Usery for the nursery.

This decision follows the example of Shoghi Effendi, who during his ministry dedicated the income from lands in the environs of the Jordan Valley for the upkeep of the Holy Shrines.

Here is yet another example of Shoghi Effendi behing the
Central Figure of the Baha'i Faith and who, not Abdul Baha, is also the real role model for admin crazy Baha'is. This site has commented on this phenomenon in other places. Browse around and take a look if you are new.

This Endowment Fund, to which you are urged to contribute, beyond your general support of the Baha'i International Fund, will initially be used to defray the related expenses, estimated at the present time to be seven million dollars annually.

So, first poor fund-beaten Baha'is must RIGHT NOW and for a "SUSTAINED" period immediately support the already bloated and wasteful Bahai International Fund - it's their spiritual obligation to support administrative incompetence. But that's not enough - somehow there's always even more, isn't there? Yup, they are also urged to contribute to the Endowment Fund too. Of course that fund won't have enough capital to be useful for years - as the following seems to indicate.

Whatever balance remains unexpended at the end of each year will be retained as an earmarked fund and, as it grows in the years ahead, will provide a continuing source of investment income dedicated to maintaining the magnificent setting of these Holy Places. These precincts were created gradually, during the past centuary, through the sacrificial outpouring of resources by the believers who responded to the vision of Baha'u'llah and supported the strenuous endeavours of the Master and the Guardian.

More bull. Over twenty years ago the place was already way over done - but the House then went on a huge spending spree for twenty more years. The doubling of the area of the gardens, cited by the House above for example, is a very recent phenomena - having been finished just a few months ago - plus the recently completion of several buildings - the arc or whatever they call it. This largess is very recent.

It is essential that this splendour, befitting so sacred a place, be preserved undiminished in the decades and centuries ahead. Our ardent supplication in the Holy Shrines is for the reinforcement of the consecrated endeavors of the lovers of the Blessed Beauty in every land, as they respond to the needs of the ever-advancing cause of God.

The ever advancing cause of God needed to have the flower gardens doubled. In the meantime, Palestine is in flames, war looms in South Asia, Afghanistan is a wreck . . . and so much else. But never fear, for the above letter is signed by:

The Universal House of Justice