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Below, a strong case has been meticulously laid out that exposes Col Stringer for what he is, another evangelist impostor and conman. Under Australian Intellectual Property Law he is a plagiarist. But he holds himself out to be a fine upstanding Australian citizen, a Reverend. '2008 brings up the 90th Anniversary of the Australian Light Horse kicking the Ottoman Empire out of Palestine, thus making Israel possible, and of course beating Lawrence of Arabia to Damascus. No doubt Mr Stringer will be looking to make even more money out of his plagiarizing ways with the looming WWI Centenary Film and TV productions. So it's finally time to retain a fair dinkum Australian Law Firm, with partners who are at heart fair dinkum Australians, maybe even have grandfathers who were in the ALH, who will use their expertise to get Col Stringer in Court and brought to justice. And maybe somewhere in the washout the Billjim will get their proper recognition, through the efforts of the NSW Law Society. Case Outline It's been difficult enough trying to show how the Australian Light Horsemen have been displaced by the Lawrence of Arabia impostor with my publications on Australians of Arabia ...& Lawrence, now we have a modern day impostor that has plagiarized that 'anti-Establishment' work, twisted it around and given it a pro-Establishment/Judeo Christian slant. Specifically, we've got an Intellectual Property case, involving, not only infringement of the Copyright Act, but also the Moral Rights Amendment. The Plaintiffs: Peter Hogan - "Australians of Arabia ...& Lawrence" published '1997, which leans heavily on the premise: "No Australian Light Horse = No Israel" (The real plaintiffs are the Australian Light Horsemen, the "Billjim".) - Versus - The Accused: Rev. Col Stringer, a plagiarizing evangelist minister, with his book "800 Horsemen" '1998 (later sub-titled "who changed the world"). Background Since WWI some authors and historians have noted the idea "that the ALH played a significant role in Palestine campaign". To my knowledge before I produced AOAL in '1997 no-one had expressed the idea that the ALH played the dominant role, and that subsequently "No ALH = No Israel". The strategy Stringer appears to use to plagiarize my work goes like this: Judging from the titles of Stringer's books prior to 800 Horesemen they weren't very inspiring. I think he was probably one of those writers that trawls the Internet looking for something significant that he can lift for a new book that will greatly lift his standing, especially in the lucrative U.S. market. He found that when he stumbled onto my work. I had produced a 10,000 word monograph called "Australians of Arabia ...& Lawrence" ISBN: 0-646-34870-1 in '1997. It never found a publisher because of the controversial content. In 1998 I put it up on the Web - on the free GeoCities site. The contents page can be found here. He would have also found an introduction article produced specially for the then "Clinton - Larry Lawrence Scandal", click here. (The file in question viz. aoal2.html is dated March 09, 1998.) That's the article he got his mouse and took huge chunks from, and duly pastes them into pp 103-106 of his book. Next, to cover his plagiarizing tracks he does the following: When introducing the extensive quote from my book on pp 103-6 he makes it seem like I am just another person who thinks like him. In the lead-in on p103 just before the start of the excerpting he says, "Obviously I am far from alone in my opinion of Lawrence, read this extract from Australians of Arabia... & Lawrence...' He attempts with that line to limit the specific concept that other people think the same on, to only the "opinion of Lawrence" when in fact he's plagiarizing the wider concept. Thus his book should have reflected the truth of his sources with more honest wording, something like, "Obviously I am far from alone in my opinion of Lawrence and that the ALH made Israel possible, in fact my opinion, and idea for the book '800 Horsemen' was actually formulated after reading Peter Hogan's 'Australians of Arabia... & Lawrence'..." The Smoking Gun He does this again when he highlights my keystone point. On the front cover he has the quote "Without the Australian Light Horsemen's Involvement it is doubtful if there would be a modern nation of Israel" He then indicates on p13 of his introduction chapter where he supposedly got this quote from: "The great British General Allenby summed it up this way 'Without the involvement of the Australian Light Horsemen I doubt if there would be a modern nation of Israel.'" Clearly he's trying to make it look like other people have emphasized this point, even Allenby (the overall British commander of the Palestine campaign). Only trouble is that when the modern nation of Israel was created in '1948 Allenby had been dead for 12 years! ('1861-'1936) When I was writing the monograph I thought long and hard about the word I would use to encapsulate this dominant role and I came up with "spearhead". Stringer plagiarizes that approach by using the word twice just in the foreword, pp12-13 alone. Another key factor: he publishes his book within months of seeing my work. Not 3 years before in '1996, not 2 years after in '1999, but in 1998. Would have to be an amazing coincidence 8 decades after the event that the only 2 works that emphasize the keypoints come out so close together. Though he excerpts specific text only from the introduction article, he was no doubt influenced by the whole monograph. He may even have seen the monograph at the Mitchell Library which he admits to using on p12. In the book Stringer pretends to be excerpting from a hardcopy monograph which is difficult for people to check. He should have referenced the website that he attacked with his mouse button - so the reader could access the work easily and see the original context. Indeed my work is anti-Establishment. He twists my work around to make it pro right wing-Establishment. This was done for his own financial gain -- careful not to include parts that would upset his target audience, especially in the U.S. Also despite having quoted more from my work than anyone else in his book, not too mention stealing the entire theme, he does not mention me in the end "Acknowledgments and Recommended Reading" on p 175. Another point he plagiarizes a lot: The ALH were successful because many were from Outback Australia, true-blue no-nonsense attitude, get the job done with the help of their trusty 'Walers' - encapsulated by part of extensive extract used by Stringer, p 106 : "...the dominant role Australia played ...if not for the 'no-nonsense-get the job done and get home Billjim' mounted on their Walers (as the Australian Light-horsemen called themselves and their beloved war horses... Israel may not be now located as favorably on world maps..." Stringer's title selection viz. "800 Horsemen" also deflects attention away from plagiarism - instead uses graphics i.e. uses Israel and Australian flags on top front cover. And his front page graphic selections are very similar to the AOAL monograph - flag and Light Horse. There are 2 versions of 800 Horsemen listed on National Library of Australia catalog '1998 & '2000 "Revised Edition - both 176 pages (and same ISBN) - what's been "revised"?! Stringer appears to have found himself a whole new way to make money, he followed up 800 Horsemen with another book which maintains the same plagiarized themes: "Discovering Australia’s Christian Heritage" (1st printing '1999). It also includes the ALH on the front cover. "...What eleven bloody Crusades, the military genius of Napoleon and the might of the British Army had been unable to achieve, had been accomplished by 800 young fresh-faced Australians. God had used one of the smallest and youngest nations in the world as His ***spearhead*** to open the gateway to His chosen city---Jerusalem... (Information excerpted from discovering Australia’s Christian Heritage by Col Stringer 2000)" The Australian Light Horsemen by Cindy Jacobs (Colorado) More on Stringer's newfound success from another religious site: "Col Stringer is being used in a powerful way to touch his own nation of Australia, with invitations coming from not only churches but also government officials and business leaders. Col and Jan travel the nation urging the Church to rise to its rightful place as 'salt' and 'light' to the nation. He is successful author of 10 hunting/fishing and 18 Christian books, with total sales of over 180,000. Col’s current book 'Discovering Australia’s Christian Heritage' is one of the nation’s 10 top selling books.Col's best selling books "800 Horsemen who changed the world" and "Discovering Australia's Christian Heritage" have proved extremely popular. The latter has been classed, by one pastor, as "the most important book I have ever read (outside the Bible)"! A movie is now being planned based on the book. Although the Stringer's minister with a powerful anointing and are in great demand to speak at churches and conventions all over the world, Col's unique background of wildlife and humour have won for him the title of "Pastor Crocodile Dundee." In this book another key theme centres on Australia being a special country and a world player in the modern age. "This is Australia's hour, we were born and raised for such a time as this! We are God's History Makers!" From his promotion of the book on the web here As per the photo of the front cover (see right) he subtitles the book: "Australia - Land of the Holy Spirit" The National Library '2000 version apparently has now got the subtitle with the addition of the keyword 'south': "Australia, South Land of the Holy Spirit" This and other themes seem to be lifted straight out of AOAL as per the following quote which can also be found on the web here. Note the emphasis on "the spirit of the 'Great South Land'": "Project Objectives • To right the wrong - to increase the awareness of the Australian and worldwide public. • To restore the honour of our Diggers and elevate Australia to its rightful place on the world stage. Key Themes and Marketing Points • Australia has first rate credentials based on a solid foundation - as exemplified by the spirit of the Pioneer and the Digger / Light-horsemen - skilled and gifted individuals. • Australia epitomizes the spirit of adventure, indeed, the spirit of the 'Great South Land', a stable democracy (fought for by our Diggers) - the 'land of opportunity' as we approach the next millennium." Stringer steals all his key themes from my AOAL work and paints them over with an evangelical religious brush. And then goes off and find other books to pretend it's all a natural progression from his research, e.g. "For some time God has been speaking to me about my Australian Christian Heritage...If God is not interested in heritage and ancestry [emphasis added] how come He devotes the entire first 18 verses of the New Testament to the very subject?" Such sections smell particularly of the subtitle to the original AOAL monograph, "A project of Australian descendants who respect the deeds of their ancestors" Stringer is now using my work to big-note himself with ANZAC activities e.g. "This Anzac Day ['04], honour our diggers at a special service at our sponsor Citipointe COC. The guest speaker will be Col Stringer, Australian of the Year nominee and author of ‘800 Horsemen who Changed the World’, and ‘Fighting McKenzie: Anzac Chaplain - robbie@96five.com" 96five Radio Station (Qld?) Stringer along with his wife Jan, are your typical evangelical media couple, with eerie similarity to the infamous Tammy and Jim Bakker, who were involved in an embezzlement scandal and the collapse of the PTL (Praise the Lord) network. And now the subject of a new documentary: "The Eyes of Tammy Faye is the first documentary about the rise and fall of television evangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker in the 1980s. From the Bakkers' successful 24-hour satellite broadcast and the Christian theme park they built for their followers to their subsequent indictment by the court of public opinion for what was assessed to be a corrupt and greedy enterprise..." What remedy are we seeking? This is not just a simple matter of a letter of demand to desist. If it's possible to win the case in court we would seek compensatory and punitive damages - especially because of the monumental hypocrisy - Stringer holds himself out to be a paragon of virtue and righteousness, but he's really a crook. The bottomline is this: Australians, our ancestors - great/grandparents, did something epochal on the world stage that will reverberate forever. They weren't looking for any credit, and they and their families lost more than we can comprehend. Impostors have profited from it. Generations of Australians since have allowed that to happen. It's very difficult to find an Australian law firm who will take a case like this because the work of the plaintiff is anti-Establishment. And even if you can find a lawyer they want $600 up front even before looking at the case. Then it's $600 per hour. Hopefully out there somewhere is an Australian lawyer whose grandfather was a Billjim. A lawyer who thinks, "What's been happening (or not happening) to the ALH is all wrong. This is one of the most important issues in our country's history" and then step up to that same world stage, just like the Australian Light Horsemen did -- not expecting anything in return (except 1500 grave plots in the now Israel) -- and do the job. The impostor's days are numbered In the meantime, though Australia's legal community is reticent, some people in the media are starting to expose impostors like Stringer. I got this email from Jane Sullivan: "I am a senior journalist at the Age in Melbourne and I'm looking into Col Stringer, the evangelical minister whose book 800 Horsemen somehow got to No 12 on the ABC's My Favourite Book poll..." Jane had her suspicions like many others and soon Googled her way to my AOA and could see a strong case for plagiarism. She ended up doing an article on Stringer. The article (can be found on The Age website here or see the copy below) is clearly sarcastic in its praise of Stringer (but no doubt he can't see it for his vanity). She raises the plagiarism issue. He reckons he just took "one quote" from my work, knowing no-one of any influence will check it out. As you can see from the above, when he said one quote, by anyone's definition, let alone the Copyright Act and "fair use", he was caught out in the interview as a minister lying through his teeth. 
He also infringes the Moral Rights scheme for creators through the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act. "Under the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary Works, the main international convention on copyright, moral rights are the unassignable personal right of a creator of a work to: But his fanatical supporters can't see the law being broken. Especially if they have something to gain from Stringer sucking in more people. Here's the threatening email I gave Jane for her article. She shows it as from "Anonymous" (probably because it's incriminating). In fact it was clearly from one of Stringer's cronies (probably and ironically the Gribben that's credited with co-authoring his book "Kindness"). It emphasizes we aren't dealing with innocent, peace-loving churchy types here. From: "goldlance (S & L Gribben)" goldlance@optusnet.com.au Other Australians that agree Stringer is a crook If Stringer's henchman Gribben reckons there isn't a case in the above facts, you can't get much more objective than this email from another Reverend: Subject: Top Books And here's another one: Subject: Col Stringer This is what a credible authority thinks of one of Stringer's followup rip-off books: Dear Mr Hogan, And from another discerning Australian: Dear sir, And even more feedback: I am a Lutheran minister from South Australia who was just given Col Stringer's (and apparently partly your) book "800 horsemen" with a glowing recommendation from a fundamentalist Christian in my town. As a student of history and theology, i found it unconvincing from the start and illogical to draw the spiritual conclusions he did. Apart from that, the book was just badly written! Mr Stringer seems to be of the opinion that if you repeat something often enough, it makes it true. the endless repetitions of "he had three horses shot out from under him in one battle!" and "They did what no other force had been able to do..." wore me down eventually.Here's what some other newspaper articles think about Stringer's character: Reverend's books raise doubts over poll by Milanda Rout, Courier Mail, 7 December '04 Also, since the farcical ABC Favourite Books show and The Age article we greatly appreciate very interesting information that's starting to come in from people who have had the misfortune to come into contact with Stringer. And we expect to get many more coming forward - this guy's dirty paws are all over the place. If you feel you have been conned by him let me know. All your testimonies will be very useful when we finally get him in front of a jury. Stringer is yet another evangelical shyster that needs to be exposed. Some of the big fish frauds get outed in the mainstream media, like Ted Haggard, "Pastor Ted", the president of the American Association of Evangelicals (that's 30 million fundamentalist fanatics) who had to resign following allegations that he regularly visited a male prostitute (Ted uses the name 'Art' in their communications, his middle name is Arthur). All the while Haggard has been a Top 10 in the World Hypocrite - a gay basher who has the ear of President Georgie Bush. Then there are all these aspiring Ted Haggards like Col Stringer. They all want to break into the bigtime too - televangelists, their own show on the christian channel - these guys have hit the jackpot, Benny Hinn, Joyce Meyer, Hour of Power et al - go to some of their websites and you need an expensive computer to get it to load the homepage, no link to dailup / html for the plebeians, they're target market is upper middle income - I'd just love it if some fellow pleb would email me some mobile camera shots of the lifestyles of these guys - the expensive home (Stringer lives at Robina on the Gold Coast of sunny southern Queenland), tax free trips / holidays, cars... (Check out the roots of the christian channel and the 700 Club especially in Neil Chenoweth's Rupert Murdoch News Corp. exposé re Pat Robertson's CBN and expoitation of the poor for his Zaire diamond mining using Operation Blessing International as a front...). Warning. When we finally go ahead and sue Stringer, we will be taking a close look at any legally liable accomplices who bear guilt in aiding him in being able to extort more money from what is clearly criminal fraud, including book stores and any persons or organizations that assist him in putting on one of his 'shows' at a public venue. If you want to contribtue in some way to exposing Stringer, on behalf of the "Australians of Arabia Foundation" - a foundation still to be setup and to be run by trustees long after our demise - that will also be greatly appreciated. And after Stringer finally gets his comeuppance we will be in a much better position to go after more of these creeps who use religion to extort money from well-meaning folks with families to support. On a positive note, here's a wonderful letter of support from Dame Elisabeth Murdoch. It may take a while to gather all the evidence and complete the discovery stage of legal proceedings, then justice will finally be served and Mr Stringer will be found guilty of extortion, forced to repay the money to all those he swindled and given a lengthy prison sentence for masquerading as a reverend. Stringer is an impostor and conartist on a scale with Lawrence of Arabia, and that's saying something. 
"Conartist of Arabia" Is Coming To A Court Near You! |
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Links: Australians of Arabia ...& Lawrence (AOA) Home Page Appendix AOA v LOA/Defamers Peter Hogan Contact Feedback from other Australians that agree Stringer is a crook The Age newspaper article exposing Stringer: See their website here or a copy here Letter of support from Dame Elisabeth Murdoch here The text Stringer extensively quotes in 800 Horsemen pp103-6, he lifted from an introduction article Pete published about the AOA some 10 years ago, in the early days of the Internet at this Geocities free website here To see which chunks he copied and which anti-Establishment sentences he carefully edited out click here Original AOAL 10,000 word monograph with graphics at the Geocities site. 
The long extract from AOAL (with the anti-establishment bits carefully edited out) appears on pp 103 - 106 of 800 Horsemen "Revised Edition" '2000 Scans of relevant parts of the book are as follows: Front Cover (enlarged) Back Cover Author / Contents Foreword p11 pp 12-13 p 103 Excerpting pp 104-105 p 106 p 175 Acknowledgments... 800 Horsemen ISBN 0-646-37195-9 First Printing 1998 Second Printing 1999 Third Printing 2000 Col Stringer Ministries PO Box 3554 Robina Town Centre QLD 4230 www.colstringer.com (Interestingly, Robina, near the Gold Coast, is where another conartist, Alan Bond, located his university. Apparently Stringer was born in '1940 and middle initial is "M") 
Check one of the websites that sells his book Word.com.au and the following is what you get: 800 HORSEMEN WHO CHANGED THE WORLD Author: COL STRINGER Format: Video Cassette Publisher: Col Stringer Ministries Inc. WORD's Price: $29.95 Many are unaware that it was the Australian Light Horsemen who opened the doorway for the liberation of Jerusalem from centuries of Turkish rule - and for the founding of the modern nation of Israel. These "Aussies" achieved what no other nation, including the Crusaders, Napoleon, German and British Armies could do. Smith Wigglesworth [1859 - 1947] prophesied that Australia and New Zealand would see the last great move of the Holy Spirit. Why should that be? God judges nations on the basis of the way they treated Israel. When Jesus returns to Jerusalem, He will descend to the spot overlooked by the graves of "Aussie" Light Horsemen - our nation's legacy paid in blood. 
Jill, Duchess of Hamilton 
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Peter Hogan
Australians of Arabia
PO Box 1
Potts Point 1335
Australia