A grassroots coalition concerned with world economic issues hosted the 2009 Freedom Conference… A grassroots coalition concerned with world economic issues hosted the 2009 Freedom Conference at Soldiers and Sailors Memorial Hall yesterday evening.

“We are coming here out of fear of big government,” said organizer Michael McMullen. “We are a broad-based coalition of conservative groups seeking alternatives to the G-20.”

McMullen said close to 450 tickets were sold for the event, but there were fewer than 100 people in attendance.

Keynote speaker G. Edward Griffin compared the United States government to a genie granting the wishes of the American people.

“We should be careful what we wish for,” Griffin said. “Americans are making the wish to the government genie for unlimited quantities of money to protect them from hardships. Instead, they are getting unlimited quantities of money that limit their personal freedoms.”

Griffin wrote a book about the foundation and corruption of the Federal Reserve System. In his talk, he cited the Federal Reserve as the source of the economic crisis, an accusation which feature speaker Thomas E. Woods supported.

Woods, a senior fellow at the Ludwig von Mises Institute, called for auditing a Federal Reserve System that can “make money out of thin air.”

“The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are small potatoes compared to the Reserve,” Woods said, citing central banks as the cause of economic instability.

Woods said the G-20 is the final stepping stone in the process to replace the dollar with a new global currency.

“People aren’t falling for it anymore,” Woods said. “The government wants to limit our currency. When you have a world currency, you’re stuck. You can’t flee anywhere.

“A giant prison is the model for all of this,” said Woods.

Woods apologized to Pittsburgh for having to host the G-20 Summit.

“I’m sorry you have to be here for the G-20,” Woods said. “What a scam.”

Featured speaker Joan Veon, an independent international reporter, said the United Nations is seeking to erase the barriers between countries to “create a new world order.” Veon said the G-20 is finalizing country interdependence.

“They who control the central banks of the world control the entire world and its people,” Veon said. “He who has the gold makes the rules.”

She said that a global economic conspiracy stretched back to the 1970s, with Nixon taking the United States off the gold standard. The G-20’s proposal of a “new global currency” is another step in limiting national sovereignty, leaving countries with no barriers and “nothing protecting its citizens.”

“My only advice is to plan for the unexpected at home, work and church,” Veon said. “Cry out to God to help us.”

She concluded her talk by quoting biblical Psalm 37:4-5, “Delight yourself in the Lord and commit your way to him.”

Audience member Diane Spicher attended the event to obtain an “unbiased” perspective on the G-20 Summit.

“We feel that our republic is in jeopardy. We have to fight attacks against our Constitution, limiting our right to bear arms, taking and taking more and more of our liberties,” Spicher said.

Audra Weiss, who assisted in coordinating the event, said it’s very important to understand the concept of globalization because of its hidden implications.

“The agenda of globalization is eugenics,” Weiss said. “The people who fund the UN want to fund eugenics.”

Weiss said that the United Nations is already practicing eugenics through the fluoridation of water, vaccines and genetically modified food.

“It’s all part of the agenda to control the population,” Weiss said.

Veon briefly referred to the purported United Nation’s eugenics practices in her speech, but she did not expand upon the matter.

Herman Bauer attended the event for educational purposes and said that he agreed with most of what was said at the event.

“That’s not panic in there — that’s unbridled, ugly truth,” Bauer said. “Reports on the economy are being falsified. Whether or not this is true, time will tell. But we can already see that balance of power in the world has ended. Politics is now a two-party race.”