Rick Joyner’s Oak Initiative Summit Promotes 2008 “Economic Terrorism” Theory

Neo-Pentecostal evangelist Rick Joyner has published an account of the 2012 Oak Initiative Summit, which took place earlier this month:

…It was an exceptional gathering with many calling it the best yet. It began with a stunning presentation by Kevin Freeman, the author of Secret Weapon, which well deserves its present rise on the New York Times bestseller list. It is a brilliant and scholarly work on one of the greatest threats to America in these times—economic terrorism.

It is well-known that events like the 2008 stock market crash were caused by someone trying to do great harm to America. … Secret Weapon is an evaluation of how economic terrorism caused the U.S. Stock Market crash in 2008, who the source was, and how it can happen again

…We will do all that we can to circulate the DVD of this presentation. I encourage all Oak members to watch it carefully and to buy this important book. This is not just another conspiracy theory but illuminates a very real threat to America.

Freeman’s “not just another conspiracy theory” has been around for a while; in March 2011 it featured in both the Washington Times and on the Glenn Beck show. Ryan Chittum took the measure of it, for the Columbia Journalism Review:

…This is the perfect Fox News story: based on innuendo rather than fact, fear rather than reason, and swarthy terrorists are to blame instead of ruddy capitalists. The icing on the cake: Reporting the story sows confusion, misdirecting attention from Murdoch-supported policies like deregulation that actually caused the crisis and onto our enemies, including Al Qaeda, Iran, China, and even Hugo Chavez. Hey, maybe George Soros is involved? See: You can report anything when you put a question mark after it and say you were just asking a question.

Some reports described Freeman as a “Pentagon contractor”, although “Pentagon subcontractor’s subcontractor” would appear to be a more accurate designation. Freeman produced a report in 2009; according to the preamble:

The report was originally published under contractual arrangement with a subcontractor of the Department of Defense Irregular Warfare Support Program (IWSP) per contractual arrangement between the sub-contractor and Cross Consulting and Services, LLC.

Cross Consulting is Freeman’s business, operating as part of his “Freeman Global Investment Counsel”; according to a blurb, he used to work for Sir John Templeton’s Templeton Private Client Group, and he

…has consulted for and briefed members of both the U.S. House and Senate, present and past CIA, DIA, FBI, SEC, Homeland Security, the Justice Department, as well as local and state law enforcement.

Alas, however, Andrew Leonard noted at Salon that

It seems the Pentagon no longer wants to have anything to do with Freeman’s thesis, and even though it was submitted as source material to the Financial Crisis Inquiry Commission, failed to be included in the final report. So clearly, there is a conspiracy to suppress Freeman’s truth-telling.

Joyner continues:

After Kevin, I spoke on “the four winds of the earth” from Revelation 7. In 1990, I was shown that these are the Military, Religious, Political, and Economic powers that bring sweeping civilization-wide changes to the earth, have set the course of history, and are determining present events in the natural realm. 

Nothing in the text of Revelation 7 supports this interpretation, but the rest of us don’t have secret meanings to the Bible “shown” to us by God. It should be recalled that God has also warned Joyner that the west coast of the USA is about to be destroyed by an earthquake.

Other Summit speakers included Janet Folger-Porter (previously blogged here) and Bob Weiner, as well as two men with whom Joyner is particularly close: these are the perennially controversial Gen “Jerry” Boykin, and Nicholas Papanicolaou, with whom Joyner shares membership in a “chivalric order” (see background here):

Last year, The Oak circulated a seven-minute video on the theme of Marxist Insurgency by Gen. Boykin and it went viral very fast, reaching millions. To some degree, this has been a topic of conversation around the world. The extended message Gen. Boykin gave Friday morning backed up and well established the precepts of the short video. It was as captivating as Kevin’s presentation had been the night before and helped to even further establish some of the conclusions of Kevin’s message. This is another “must-see” DVD we will be circulating.

… Nicholas pointed out that the Constitution is clear that the “Congress” shall not establish a religion or prohibit the free exercise of it. This means that as the Constitution also makes clear that any authority not specifically given to the Federal Government by the Constitution is reserved by the States, so the States do have the freedom and the authority to establish religion.

Somewhat surprisingly, Joyner’s report includes the suggestion of a third-party candidate to fight the next election:

Even Republicans are beginning to talk about the possibility of a third party candidate. Most react to even mentioning this with the traditional wisdom that a third party candidate would ensure the re-election of Obama, but not necessarily. The right one would not only cause Obama to have to fight on two fronts, but would also have a very serious chance of winning. Even some of the most loyal Republicans are now getting increasingly distraught at the GOP’s establishment that they see leading them to a second defeat by Obama.