There are four bills currently in the House and Senate that we should be watching closely, as they will affect us in a marked way. One
has passed in both the House and Senate. The others are about to be voted on.

Employee Free Choice Act
Significant Issues of this Bill
On March 10, 2009, the Democrats introduced the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). This bill will allow the unions to organize in secret any business with as little as two employees. If 50% of a business’ employees sign a card, then the business is organized. The union employees do not have to notify the employer, and they can have their meetings anywhere. All that is required is a signed card. There is no requirement to check the signatures for forgery, fraud, or duress.

Twenty-three states have laws to protect workers’ rights. The “right to work” laws state that if a union is formed in your workplace you are not required to join. Under this Employee Free Choice Act you will be required to join or you cannot work. The EFCA would void the “right to work” laws.

In the twenty-three “right to work” states, only 20% of employees in unionized companies choose to join. Under the EFCA, the 80% who choose not to join will now be required to join. How is this employee free choice?

If a union forms in the workplace, the employees will not be allowed a secret ballot to ratify an agreement. They will be required to vote on an agreement with their union bosses watching. Their employer will not be allowed to know how they vote, but the union bosses will. This will create an atmosphere of peer pressure. Union violence against those who oppose its purposes will be rekindled.

Wise words about Joining Unions

The trades unions will be one of the agencies that will bring upon this earth a time of trouble such as has not been since the world began (Letter 200, 1903; 2SM 142.1).

Those who claim to be the children of God are in no case to bind up with the labor unions that are formed or that shall be formed. This the Lord forbids. Cannot those who study the prophecies see and understand what is before us (Letter 201, 1902)?

These unions are one of the signs of the last days. Men are binding up in bundles ready to be burned. They may be church members, but while they belong to these unions, they cannot possibly keep the commandments of God; for to belong to these unions means to disregard the entire Decalogue (2SM 143.3).

The trades unions and confederacies of the world are a snare. Keep out of them, and away from them, brethren. Have nothing to do with them. Because of these unions and confederacies, it will soon be very difficult for our institutions to carry on their work in the cities My warning is: Keep out of the cities. Build no sanitariums in the cities. Educate our people to get out of the cities into the country, where they can obtain a small piece of land, and make a home for themselves and their children (2SM 142.3).

We are not to unite with secret societies or with trades unions. We are to stand free in God, looking constantly to Christ for instruction. All our movements are to be made with a realization of the importance of the work to be accomplished for God (Testimonies, vol. 7, p. 84 (1902); 2SM 143.2).

A Matter of Concern
The House had the votes to pass the EFCA by a large margin, but in the Senate it was a very close race. Thankfully, Republican Senator Arlen Specter took his stand against the bill.

Before you sigh in relief, think again. President Obama says there will be no compromising on this bill and he is using his very persuasive powers of communication to work on our senators. The Democrats say the fight is not over. They are determined to pass this bill.


HR 875 and S 425
Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009
The second disquieting bill is HR 875 in the House and S 425 in the Senate. Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro introduced this Food Safety Modernization Act. DeLauro’s husband pollster Stanley Greenberg has worked as a consultant for agriculture giant Monsanto.

Significant Issues of this Bill
In short, this bill will govern all food production. It will require all food producers, including home gardeners, to spray their crops at certain times in the growing cycle with insecticides, herbicides, and other chemicals that big businesses say will protect people from food borne illnesses. Essentially, the bill will completely outlaw organic gardening. These restrictions will help the big companies like Monsanto, while crushing independent and organic producers. Noncompliant food producers could be given a $10,000 fine and two-year prison sentence.

This is what Lin Cohen Cole of OpEdNews said about this bill:

The bill is monstrous on level after level - the power it would give to Monsanto, the criminalization of seed banking, the prison terms and confiscatory fines for farmers, the 24 hours GPS tracking of their animals, the easements on their property to allow for warrantless government entry, the stripping away of their property rights, the imposition by the filthy, greedy industrial side of anti-farming international “industrial” standards to independent farms - the only part of our food system that still works, the planned elimination of farmers through all these means.

The second part of HR 875 will require all gardeners and food producers to use only GM (genetically modified) seeds. It seems that traditional seed gardens are cross-pollinating the fields of these GM seed gardens, so GM food producers want non-GM seeds outlawed.

Why should we be concerned?
Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb that yields seed, and the fruit tree that yields fruit according to its kind, whose seed is in itself, on the earth”; and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, the herb that yields seed according to its kind, and the tree that yields fruit, whose seed is in itself according to its kind. And God saw that it was good (Genesis 1:11-12).

GM seeds do not reproduce after their own kind. Plants produced from GM seeds cannot be replanted. For example, if you take seeds from your GM crop and try to plant them in the next season, those seeds will not produce. This ensures that you purchase new seed every year.

When the time comes that we cannot buy or sell, we will not be able to sustain ourselves if GM plants are all we have. We will starve for lack of food. Satan is instigating laws to hedge in God’s people when the pressure mounts. The pressure will be much greater for families, because if they don’t give in, they won’t eat.

  
HR 1388 Give Act (House) and S 277 Serve Act (Senate)
Another Act that we should keep in prayer is HR 1388. When President Obama was running for Office, he stated his desire for a “national civilian security force.” This force would be made up of all Americans aged 18-24. Obama stated that he would require one year of voluntary service from our youth, to equip them and our military. Obama’s speech on the issue brought to mind “Hitler’s youth,” the program Hitler used to indoctrinate Germany’s youth during the Second World War. Obama said this:

We cannot continue to rely only on our military in order to achieve the national-security objectives we’ve set. We’ve got to have a civilian national-security force that’s just as powerful, just as strong, just as well funded.

Watch a short portion of Obama’s speech

Significant Issues of this Bill
How can service be voluntary if it is required? Under section 6104 of the bill, entitled Duties, in subsection B6, the legislation states that a commission will be set up to investigate whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds. Section 120 of the bill also discusses the Youth Engagement Zone Program and states that service learning will be a mandatory part of the curriculum in all of the secondary schools served by the local educational agency.

This part of the bill made so many uncomfortable that the word “mandatory” was taken out just before it passed. But it was added into another bill, HR 1444. Obama quelled the concerns over the original bill, but removing the word “mandatory” does not change the bill’s intent in any way. Now it says, “fair and reasonable service requirement,” and the word “mandatory” is now in HR 1444. The government’s intent is to cause confusion and to convince us that we need not worry.

HR 1388 and S 277 passed in both the House and the Senate, and we the people never heard a word about it.

Conservative blogger Ed Morrissey said this about the bill:

Ask college-age students how they feel about taking two years out of their post-educational lives to dig ditches and build bridges not because they want to do it, but because it will become illegal to refuse. I suspect they will start Google-mapping the best routes to Canada — or stop voting for the people proposing to enslave them.ii

This is what Fox News said about the bill:

The House of Representatives passed a measure Wednesday that supporters are calling the most sweeping reform of nationally-backed volunteer programs since AmeriCorps. But some opponents are strongly criticizing the legislation, calling it expensive indoctrination and forced advocacy.iii

What this means for us will depend on how lawmakers interpret this bill and what happens to HR 1444.

 

HR 1444 ‘Congressional Commission on Civic Service Act’
This bill is in congress to clarify the “mandatory” issue in HR 1388. H.R. 1444 is a stand-alone piece of legislation that contains the portion of the GIVE/SERVE legislation that would have instituted a congressional committee to investigate possible ways to implement mandatory public service for all Americans.

Bill HR 1444 hasn’t changed from the original bill:

(5) The effect on the Nation, on those who serve, and on the families of those who serve, if all individuals in the United States were expected to perform national service or were required to perform a certain amount of national service.
(6) Whether a workable, fair, and reasonable mandatory service requirement for all able young people could be developed, and how such a requirement could be implemented in a manner that would strengthen the social fabric of the Nation and overcome civic challenges by bringing together people from diverse economic, ethnic, and educational backgrounds.

A Matter of Concern
Passing both laws will have the same effect as if they were one law. These events tell me that Jesus is coming very soon. Events are taking place around us so quickly that it is hard to keep up. These events are being planned in secret, but God sees all and someday He will settle the accounts.

Is there a Christian whose pulse does not beat with quickened action as he anticipates the great events opening before us? The Lord is coming. We hear the footsteps of an approaching God (Mar 220.1).

And do this, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep; for now our salvation is nearer than when we first believed. The night is far spent, the day is at hand. Therefore let us cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armor of light (Romans 13:11-12 NKJV).