The evil that men do: trial by jury

Trial by jury ... or the threat of trial by jury has too often become the denial of justice to the accused ... for reasons worth exploring in our nation.

From Hillel the Elder, a famous Jewish religious leader:

If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, then when?

That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is the explanation; go and learn.

If the last quotation seems familiar, this is how it is attributed to Jesus in KJV of the New Testament:

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

- Matthew 7:12

Please read the following:

Juror in Long Island Killing Says He Was Pressured Into a Guilty Verdict
Article By
By COREY KILGANNON and NATE SCHWEBER
Published: December 25, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/25/nyregion/25jury.html

Colorado Hearings Re-examine ’87 Murder Case
By KIRK JOHNSON and DAN FROSCH
Published: December 27, 2007
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/27/us/27fortcollins.html

Their are many -- too many -- stories being accumulated in the annals of injustice. Some of the most egregious cases are chronicled in the:

Innoncence Project

http://www.innocenceproject.org/

If ever there was a stench of evil in a land ... have we become so used to it that we do not smell it? Or are our slogans for our type of justice such tribal marks that we dare not question them individually for fear of being turned upon ourselves? When will we question the evil we do to others?

"If not now, then when?"

Putting Ayn Rand to rest ... finally!

Please read Paul Krugman's column in today's (Friday, Dec 21) NY Times:

Blindly Into the Bubble
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/21/opinion/21krugman.html

Alan Greenspan was/(is) a brilliant idiot who wrapped old fashioned greed in the false Ayn Rand ideology of free market Capitalism ... destroying the safeguards that are needed to protect ANY market from thieves and charlatans. Even the ancients knew you had to have things like uniform weights, that some things cannot be left to the goodwill of the transient carnival vendors with no stake in the village.

I am tired of the "us vs. them" around here ...

Whites vs. blacks, GBLT's vs. straights, one religion against another, and on and on and on .... while it's really rich vs. poor.

America, the rich folks have got us laboring folks fighting among ourselves ... jumping up and down. Are we trying to get the attention of the rich folks so they will invite us to join them?

Here we are squabbling over a Democrat US Senator from New York running for President, Hillary Clinton, who shouldn't even be running on a Democratic ticket anywhere in Yankee territory -- and I ain't talking baseball.

Hell, they are making the street-hole covers for New York City in India under sweatshop/slave labor conditions, for chrissakes! We all know what has happened to fair labor practices under the Clintons ... they kiss up to the global corporationists to advance their personal political careers and leave the working families groveling for crumbs from the rich folks feast.

The United States of America is sliding down a Democrat greased slope to banana republic status ... with nothing left to break its slide ... while we the people are totally distracted by fighting over the dwindling scraps falling from the platters we deliver to the table.

And there are so many of us who believe this is a "God thing" based on our devotion to religious belief ... and who are so far removed from practicing what they preach, using their doctrines as tribal identifiers rather than guides to life ... that it's pretty damn obvious that we are going to need the kind of upheaval brought about by the depression of the 30's to actually get this nation back on track ... if it can get back on track and not descend into fascism.

Hope? What's hope got to do with it? We need practical solutions. We need jobs that pay a living wage ... that also don't destroy our health as we work.

That's not socialism or communism ... that is "fair is fair"-ism in a nation as wealthy as ours.

Note (January 5, 2008): Barack Obama has won a transforming political victory in the Iowa caucuses. "Hope" may have a lot to do with it! -NCS

Concerning organized labor and Hillary ...

From posts to HuffingtonPost.com ... where I post as hglindquist ...

Hoo boy ... did you see the picture on the front page of the NY Times recently of the New York City street-hole covers being cast in India under slave-like wages and conditions? Where was labor when THAT was printed? American organized labor has been contemplating its navel for so long that there are no jobs left to worry about fair treatment over.

Been to Pittsburgh lately? I guess working retail on the river is supposed to compensate for steel-mill jobs?

Unions got suckered into hanging onto their turf as it got smaller and smaller ... when they should have been looking out for all workers. There is no freedom to do anything if you are a worker and you don't have a job that pays enough to meet your needs let alone your wants.

When we gave up on requiring everything sold in this country to be produced under fair labor practices, we gave up on the America our labor had built ... and decided we should become a banana republic.

The horse is already out of the barn on what our old unions should have/could have done. We need a new revitalized labor movement for all workers.

And that is NOT socialism or communism. It is "fair is fair" ism.

And that sure ain't gonna come with Hillary!!!

New York Manhole Covers, Forged Barefoot in India

NY Times
By HEATHER TIMMONS and J. ADAM HUGGINS
Published: November 26, 2007

Photo caption: "Workers in Haora, India, have few protections while making manhole covers for Con Edison and some cities" utilities."

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/26/nyregion/26manhole.html

Now tell me again about Hillary's support for fair treatment for workers!!! I know she lived in Arkansas for awhile, but isn't she the U.S. Senator from New York? And isn't New York City in New York?

Concerning vouchers ...

Concerning vouchers ... and being a member of the working class ... with bono fides extending from my parents and their parents to my children and their children ...

Most of us from the small towns and communities that spawned the public education system were part of mostly homogeneous communities ... at least I was in most of my years in public education. My family's values were the values taught in public school ... yes, religious, ethical, and social values were pretty much common ones ... at least publicly ... including prejudices (all one has to do is read the text books).

And I think the majority of folks still believe their particular public school is teaching the values they want taught. (Which is why they are against vouchers. They think vouchers will be net resource losers for their schools.)

But it is appears to be equally obvious that a (growing?) number of families -- particularly the working poor in large urban centers -- are discovering that their children come back from public school in worse condition than when first enrolled ... with the strong arm of the state forcing them to keep sending their children to these schools even though the parents know it is harming their children's value system. They would like vouchers ... but they are a minority.

Gunfight at the DC Corral

The Baker Boys are shooting it out at the DC Corral with the Cheney Gang ...

A fictionalized scenario ...

Poppy Bush was keeping his hands off the Shrub presidency ... as Poppy watched his son once again slide into ignominy ...

Decision time for the senior Bush evolved through the outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003 followed by the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, on December 14, 2004 to L. Paul Bremer III, Tommy R. Franks, and George J. Tenet.

Privately grousing about the situation with his wife, Barbara Bush, Poppy Bush realized "It's like déjà vu all over again". Shrub was screwing up again.

Moma Bush (Barbara) cried, "You have to do something, Poppy! Look what that Cheney Gang is DOING to our boy."

"I know, I know," Poppy replied. "And I will. Those Baker Boys -- our boys -- can shoot straighter than the Cheney Gang." (To be proved later when Dickie -- leader of the Cheney Gang -- shot his hunting companion on Feb 13, 2006.)

The Baker Boys first attempt to extricate Shrub from the clutches of the Cheney Gang failed. Shrub disregards the Baker-Hamilton Report and the cowardly Democrats inexplicably fail to act on it -- even though they had just won majorities in both the House of Representatives and the Senate of the U.S. Congress and could hold Shrub's feet to the fire by withholding funding unless he went along with the bipartisan report. The cowardly Democrats were so focused on winning the 2008 election that they stumbled over what was placed in front of them on an oil-slick platter.

Whew, who would have thought THAT was going to happen?!

But the Baker Boys were undeterred. They knew the intelligence had been cooked on Iraq and was being cooked on Iran. With Shrub refusing to be extricated from the manure piling up in the DC Corral because the cowardly Democrats weren't hauling it away -- even though they now had the manure hauling contract for the place -- the Baker Boys realized THEY would have to pump it out -- like NOW -- meaning they would have to shoot it out with the Cheney Gang.

The Baker Boys fire a shot that hits the target. In August, 2007 the new NIE report was issued.

Shrub still doesn't surrender or fall.

Blam-blam, in quick succession the Baker Boys "commence firing at will" ... the NIE report is released and the CIA Director is forced to acknowledge the destruction of the interogation tapes ...

Shrub staggers ... but will he fall? Will the DC Corral be saved? The manure drained or carried away?

Stay tuned, folks ... this is getting interesting.

Fear and fairness in determining the collective good

Author's note: My post from September, 2005, Katrina and the collective good is my "most read" post. This post expands on the concept of the collective good by examining the essence or essential nature of fear and being fair in an industrial/technological society. Also, two recent books make this an appropriate time to revisit these issues:

The Squandering of America,
by Robert Kuttner

and

The Soul of Capitalism: Opening Paths to a Moral Economy,
by William Greider

Plus, this article in the December, 2007 issue of Vanity Fair:

The Economic Consequences of Mr. Bush,
by Nobel laureate, Joseph E. Stiglitz

To live in fear is the essence of slavery, or the essential characteristic of liberty is to live without fear. Freedom is having no fear.

As FDR -- President Franklin Delano Roosevelt -- said in his first inaugural address, "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

I am certain that my fellow Americans expect that on my induction into the Presidency I will address them with a candor and a decision which the present situation of our people impel. This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that theAnd only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt
First inaugural address

And fairness? What is fairness in our individual lives interacting with each other? What is fairness in the commons, the public arena? How does what we do privately affect others publicly, and what is fair about it? How does what is done publicly affect us privately, and what is fair about it?

In political history we have specific interpretations attached to fairness such as President Harry S. Truman and his Fair Deal, and the Fairness Doctrine as an FCC regulation.

Here I want to strip away this historical baggage and get to the core meanings of fear and fair as we live our daily lives ... starting as children on the playground where we learn to handle bullies, and we go by the rule, "fair is fair".

Here I will explore the premise that my country, the United states of America, is faltering because our leaders are bullies who have abandoned fairness.

Economic smoke and mirrors ... or the love of money is the root of all evil

Fact: The cost of oil and food are not counted when measuring "core inflation".

Fact: The unemployment rate does not include workers who have given up looking for a job.

And our vaunted leaders have kept telling us the US economy was doing great ... right up until now when the plummeting value of the dollar has pulled back the curtain ... a la Wizard of Oz.

And we no longer have the industrial base to take advantage of a weaker dollar. We don't have anything to sell except Manhattan real estate. (That's metaphorical, folks ... just in case you didn't catch the sarcasm.)

And we the people have our brilliant idiots — our leading economists — conspiring with our greedy elite ruling class of global corporationists to thank for the mess we are in, and the coming catastrophe ... which they will sell to us via the religion of True Believers as the moral decline of the people ... when they should be reminding us of the age-old wisdom of "the love of money is root of all evil."

For the love of money is the root of all evil: which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

- 1 Timothy 6:10 KJV

"The flimflammery of official statistics ... "

The country has been in denial for years about the economic reality facing American families. That grim reality has been masked by the flimflammery of official statistics (job growth good, inflation low) and the muscular magic of the American way of debt: mortgages on top of mortgages, pyramiding student loans and an opiatelike addiction to credit cards at rates that used to get people locked up for loan-sharking.

The big story out of Mr. Bernanke’s appearance before the Joint Economic Committee was his prediction that the economy was likely to worsen. Only the people still trapped in denial could have believed otherwise.

This is what Representative Maurice Hinchey of upstate New York told the chairman:

“This economy is not doing well. And the example of the mortgage closures on 2 million people — and maybe a lot more than that as time goes on — is really not the cause of the economic problem we’re facing, but it’s just a factor of it. It’s a factor of the weakness of this economy.”

In an interview after the hearing, Representative Hinchey discussed the disconnect between official government reports and the reality facing working families. He noted that the unemployment rate does not include workers who have become so discouraged that they’ve given up looking for a job.

And the most popular measure of inflation, the Consumer Price Index, does not include the cost of energy or food, “the two most significant aspects of the increased cost of living for the American people.”

The elite honchos in Washington and their courtiers in the news media are all but completely out of touch with the daily struggle of working families. Thirty-seven million Americans live in poverty and close to 60 million others are just a notch above the official poverty line.

- Bob Herbert
Recession? What Recession?
OpEd - NYTimes
Saturday, November 10, 2007

When the labor movement in the United States failed to fight for the right of every person willing and able to work to be able to work at a job that at least paid a living wage for a worker's family, the labor movement failed the worker and his/her family.

The principle of having a job that pays a living wage for a worker's family for everyone willing and able to work is NOT socialism, communism or even unionism. It is the cornerstone of a free society.

Variations on the human theme ...

We all know that people have different eye colors ... and that there are major differences like brown and blue ... and that there are tint and pattern variations of the main differences.

Most of us know that traits like response to certain stimuli also vary, like sexual arousal to specific visual images ... and that individuals are aroused differently, to different levels of arousal, by different images.

What we may not have thought about is how that translates to different levels of group identification. I would suggest a spectrum of emotional commitment to one's "identity groups" -- family, and other forms of "tribe" such as religion, alma mater, company, etc. --from intense embedding to casual acceptance like, "Oh yes, I belong to the local bowling league."

I would speculate further that the ability of the symbols of any one of our identity groups to trigger an emotional response is a key indicator of "embeddedness" within that group. In examining the relationships of symbols to their emotional responses, the variations of individual emotional response need to be factored into the analysis.

"Symbols" in this context mean any "identifying" signs, sounds, rituals, etc. For instance our national anthem, The Star-Spangled Banner" is a symbol of our national identity.

Taking a leap ahead, we can envision a political party that unites the "religious identity" with "national identity" as creating a strong pull on its members. And those individuals with the strongest positive emotional response to religious symbols are -- hypothetically at least -- the ones who would develop the strongest positive emotional connection to the political party and its symbols.

We should keep in mind that slogans and phrases can become symbolic elements of group identity as opposed to rational elements of public discourse.

And if the political leaders merge the religious and national identities of the people by using symbols of the religious identity to interweave the emotional connection rather than overt statements which would be rationally rejected out of hand ... and if they do this consciously ... don't we have what is actually going on today in the United States? And what went on in Hitler's Third Reich within the lifetime of some of our citizens?

And isn't this the whole thrust of the neocon a la Leo Strauss political movement?

References:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neocon

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Strauss

"They" are trying to hold back worldwide panic over the dollar ...

Just before Christmas in 2005 I advised my friends that they should either sell their home in the coming year or plan on staying in it for awhile.

Their children were going to college and it was obvious from all the key indicators that the housing bubble was getting ready to pop. Mostly I had been reading Paul Krugman's column on the OpEd page of the NY Times and putting two and two together.

Currently it is obvious that the economy of the United States is tanking. And if the US Dollar becomes funny money, the Chinese are going to be pissed. Like 1.5 trillion dollars is a lot of swag anywhere ... and there is only so much Manhattan real estate ... and as the dollar plummets ... the amount you can get for any given million or so is less and less.

What will our brilliant financial idiots do then? Like, when the dollar tanks? Right now they are trying desperately to hold back the panic that a real run on the dollar would cause.

And you see, folks ... there isn't any vast industrial base to pick up the slack ... in like churning out something the world wants at the lower prices the falling dollar would bring ... so we are caught in the economic vise of our own making ... not the making of we the people, but of the making of our great greedy leaders ...

The only question left is who are "they" going to blame.

Oh ... and my friends didn't sell their home. They enjoy living in it, their neighborhood, and their community. And they will not retire for another ten years or so. They love what they do and how they live.

Well, we're in for it now ...

How I see things as an American citizen ... now that General Musharraf of Pakistan has declared a state of emergency and suspended that country's constitution.

Our military's ground forces are almost totally decimated by the protracted military occupation of Iraq since our victory there in the Second Iraq War ended by mid-2003 with the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. (But we still have our nukes.)

Russia, Venezuela, and Iran are earning gajillions off the "risk tax" added to the price of oil by our participation in destabilizing the Middle East.

China is buying up the world's resources with our U.S. dollars as fast as it can, ahead of the falling value of the U.S. dollar.

What else? There is so much more going on ... like the resurgence of Hezbollah in Lebonon and the Taliban in Afghanistan ... and we haven't even begun to decipher the deterioration of our moral authority with the all but concrete revelation that we tortured human beings in our custody.

The Cheney/neocon/Bush 43 administration's foreign policy has been a disaster in so many ways that it is hard to keep track of them all ... and the large number of problems cannot be hid by the relatively small fig leaf of General Petraeus's tactical surge with its principle outcome being the balkanization of Iraq ... which, by the way, benefits Iran to a great degree.

My God, it is a mess, isn't it?

What is more ... our enemies know all this.

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ...

Wages for labor is the primal discussion ... how do we divide the rewards of the hunt ...

If we view "labor" as a cost like any other material than we actually/literally make those who labor into commodities, something other than primary participants. But we all know this ... and we console ourselves by becoming consumers.

The narratives we pass onto our children and our children's children is "be good and we will buy you something" ... the emotional expectation of becoming an adult gets wrapped in the opportunity to buy ... not in the ability to do ... for too many of us.

We who labor have all to often accepted the role of gun-bearer and guide to the Great White Hunter as if he were some kind of god-man when it is our labor and skills that allow him to hunt.

The problem from the labor side is that too often labor has been organized to exclude, and organized labor becomes viewed as an obstacle to many -- if not most -- who want to work ... an obstacle to those who want to, but are not allowed to join the hunt.

As long as organized labor colludes with the man to limit access to work, labor in general will lose.

That is not to say that specific skill sets/individual parameters cannot be defined or selected for specific jobs/assignments, or that pay rates can't vary. It is to say that labor solidarity must be for the principle that everyone willing and able to work must be given work at a living wage (in the context of a working family's needs).

I don't really give a rat's butt how many rich folks there are, as long as all who want to work can earn a living wage.

My labels ...

Politically, I consider myself a conservative progressive ... for example, I believe in states rights but not to block minimum standards from some, rather to provide a necessary flexibility on how we apply those standards in our communities for all.

I know, I know ... issues like that can get rather nuanced ... and that is why our founders created a republic with a balance of powers (not a one-man, one-vote herd-like democracy) based on levels of representation ... so we could sort it all out as we moved forward ... carefully. (The "moving forward" is the "progressive" part.)

Now, I gotta admit, our Declaration of Independence is a pretty radical document ...

Philosophically, I consider myself a Christian Existentialist ... for example, I believe the values of individual dignity and worth coming out of our Judaic-Christian heritage are supreme ... and without a sense of purpose and destiny expressed in the concept of "God", we descend into brutish chaos as Nietzsche predicted with his "God is dead."

As an Existentialist I believe with Sartre that it is immaterial whether God exists or not. What is material to MY awareness of MY existence (existence preceding awareness) is whether I BELIEVE in God ... or not.

I choose to believe that human existence IS in itself (life is, actually) an expression of purpose and destiny ... therefore God exists.

There's something going on in the economy ...

There's something going on in the economy that is being covered up ...

Inflation.

The price of oil is going through the roof ... medical and education costs have been mounting (among other things) ... the value of the dollar is falling precipitously ... AND "undocumented" workers aren't sending as much money home to Mexico ...

But the financial wizards tell us that inflation is not growing ...

Are they covering up the numbers until we have a Democrat in the White House to blame everything on?

Am I a Christian Existentialist? - Revisited

On July 26, 2005 I posted Am I a Christian Existentialist?.

I want to come back to it and pose the concept that we are ethical life-forms because we can choose our immediate action based on what we have learned from past experience what we now believe to be the best course of action for what we have also come to believe is the best future for us.

I would further suggest that this is the "God in us", that we can learn from our past and consciously attempt to teach ourselves how to have a better future by what we do in the present.

We can choose based on what we know. Expanding to its limit, the wisest choice is when we know everything ... thus being the oracle of the omnipotent and omniscient—or God—is the highest position for a human being.

It isn't too hard to figure out that there are those who come along and pretend or even think they are oracles of God in order to advance their own selfish ends, leaders who use religion or science to rule for their personal benefit or the benefit of their particular group. They are wolves in sheep clothing. Some do it purposely, like Hitler. Some actually believe what they are doing is ordained by God, like George W. Bush.

Nor is it difficult to realize that the siren song of relative ethics can degenerate into short-sighted selfish behavior. "If I do what is best for my future, then I am doing what is best for the collective future" is the dictum of the coward.

But as a wise man taught, "By their fruit, ye shall know them." For what is the value of one person's wealth if all others are paupers?

That is why in my culture I choose to be labeled a Christian Existentialist ... and because Jesus taught "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

Archetypes as interpretive images ...

The way I look at it ... Part III

We have sets of evolved integrated responses on which the awareness of self as an individual being is superimposed.

These sets of integrated responses are "automatically" triggered by our internal/external environment ... and then given culturally appropriate (and accepted) descriptions or interpretive images ... as Joseph Campbell wrote about the masks of God ... each becoming (the description or interpretive image becomes) an archetype.

We become aware of these integrated responses as they occur, such as fear in response to danger, or lust in response to sexual stimuli when we are mature enough to be sexually aroused. (More about the process of fear becoming motivation for fight or flight ... and the forms that our personal fighting or fleeing will take.)

We start off as newborns with these sets of integrated responses—hardwired within a range of variations in all of us—and a fairly blank mental "slate" or awareness of who we are. We are taught a sense of self, a narrative our personal existence, by others ... out of their own narratives of existence ... with the "stories" of the culture's archetypes to explain the emergence of the integrated responses as we mature in body and mind.

We are a boy or a girl. We are of specific ethnic and cultural heritages ... with friends and enemies. We are expected to behave in certain ways ... keep our clothes on and NOT urinate or defecate in public (here in western civilization). We have "invisible fences" put in place around our psyches.

This sense of self (inside the fence), we have labeled our "soul".

Archetypes provide us with mind gates for integrating our sense of self with our internal and external environments. These mind gates allow us to mentally—both consiously as in rituals and storytelling of all kinds, and subconsciously as in dreams—interact and integrate with these "prewired" sets of response—the archetypes evokes the set of responses in us—in preparation for the real thing. The more realistic the evoking of the set of responses, the more realistic we consider the archetype.

When I speak of "we"at this point, I am really speaking of a the limited group of individuals who share similar narratives of existence with me. And maybe I need a new word such as "we-as-me" ... weasme? ... as opposed to the broader sense of "we" as the whole human race ... so I would rewrite ...

This sense of self (inside the fence), weasme have labeled our "soul" ...

I will exploring all these issues in my new play, "On His Steps" ... the story of a fallen warrior trying to find and then reintegrate into a weasme community.

Life is a biochemical process ...

The way I look at it ... Part II

See ... life is a biochemical process that dynamically replicates itself by interactively integrating with its environment.

If it didn't dynamically replicate itself by interactively integrating with its environment, it wouldn't "evolve".

The proof that it does (replicate itself by interactively integrating with its environment) is that it has (evolved).

One can say, the "purpose" of life, therefore, is to evolve. That is what it does.

This, then, is the basis of ethical value ... the pursuit of the evolution of life ... which is NOT now best served by conflict, but by cooperative collaboration ... not by guardians on the boundary (though necessary) but by the community they protect ... though we need our guardians—our warriors—to preserve and protect the community.

See, the way I look at it is ...

See, the way I look at it is that we—as a life-form—are a set of interactively integrated biochemical processes dynamically responding to the environment within which we are interactive.

Over the course of our emergence as a life-form, awareness—our conscious sense of our existence—has also emerged. And as it has emerged, we have created—as best we can—a narrative to explain the emergence of our existence and the type of awareness that has developed out of the biochemical encoding of current states of existence as memory for future reference.

We not only interact in the present with the environment "out there" but also with the memory environment from past experiencing of existence, and with the sets of "automatic" responses "hardwired" into us ... such as that of fear or lust or awe.

It is important to note that others as well as ourselves can erect a "mental monument" or archetype such as a concept of God that becomes a reference in our lives for the rest of our lives.

Death takes on resonance in reflection ...

We don't like to think about death and dying much—individually, about our own, that is—in my community. We certainly don't talk about it much.

Death is closing in on me.

I'm coming face to face with it ... again. This time it's not as close as last time. Theoretically there's some space, some distance ... some time.

Last time in July, 2002, it was in my face and touch and go whether I survived the next few hours as my medical team brought me through acute renal failure. I had lethal levels of potassium and creatinine in my blood from my kidneys shutting down.

This time I have significant blockage in my left carotid artery. I smoked heavily for a lot of years and I have had high cholesterol for as long as I can remember. The chickens are coming home to roost.

I'll have an MRI in the next few weeks and then my medical team and I will assess the risks. My biggest fear is a stroke. And the biggest problem in addressing that fear is my ongoing chronic kidney failure that has left me with less than 30% kidney function. Surgery will be risky.

I will be thinking about dying and I will share my thoughts here. Mostly—I think—because I can. And I am curious about how I will write about it ... knowing anyone can read this.

My death could be years away. It could be tonight. That hasn't changed. The change is that because of the blockage in my artery, I am reflecting on my death ... creating the resonance in my mind.

Alan Greenspan claims Iraq war was really for oil

Dah!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article2461214.ece

Powerful interests play "we the people" like a drum. In the United States it's an oil drum. (Cheez looueez, aren't I clever?! *wink*)

Global monopolists cloak themselves in the trappings of petite market capitalists and decry government regulation ... so the global bullies can control (aka regulate) the markets. And we blissfully let them.

Think sports ... where would we be without foul lines, umpires, field judges, rules and regulations? Without 'em the Yankees would move the homerun fence closer every time they were up to bat at home, and refuse to play anywhere the other team did the same. 'Cuz they have the juice.

And now that our elected officials have sold out to corporate power and wealth ... and we've let them ... the checks and balances of our republic have been lost. We are consumers, not citizens.

We had better figure out a way to get our nation back ... we should be choosing between leaders more like Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, than like Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton.

Pogo was right all along, "We have met the enemy and they is us."

We won the war and failed the occupation

It's always been about the oil. It's the neocon ideologues who tried to frost the cake with the Zionist agenda (which is NOT synonymous with "Jewish" agenda or even "Israeli" agenda).

Basically it was the Gunfight at the OK Corral between the Cheney gang and the Baker (Street?) Boys. Cheney had the upper hand for a time as he played Junior (aka Bush 43) as the clown puppet he is. Now the Baker(-Gates) front line of the Big Oil Bushies A-team is on the ascendant arc ...

We won the war and failed the occupation ... and now we are federalizing (balkanizing?) Iraq to secure our nation's strategic objective (since when? WWII?) of access to Middle East oil.

And the Democrats' leaders (my party) know full well that it isn't just getting "Vietnam" draped around their necks and jerked, its having odd-even days at the gas pumps coming back. And they damn well remember what happened to Jimmy Carter.

The freedom the majority of Americans will vote to support FIRST, is the freedom to come and go in their cars, pickups, and SUVs.

Pogo said it best, "We have met the enemy and they is us."

Living with hope as a horizon, rather than fear as a fence, Part I

Whew, I can hardly say it ... "Christian transcendentalist existentialist". Actually the transcendentalism is at least implied in the existentialism. But that is what I am, a Christian trancendentalist existentialist.

I wish by the time Sartre and Camus got into full swing they could have come up with a more easily pronounced label besides "existentialism" ... but be that as it may ... it is not as deep as you might think, though it can be kind of scary on the first go-round of thinking about it ... because we do wind up kind of floating out here in the cosmos as individual centers of awareness for god knows why ... and when you are right smack dab in the middle of the Nazi ascendency with swatikas flying over Paris--as Sartre and Camus were ... well ... that must have been a wee bit stressful, don't you think?

Anyhow, existentialism--to my way of thinking about it--is simply understanding that awareness--our consciousness, the fact that we think about ourselves as unitary beings for one thing--is produced or comes out of our existence. Awareness does NOT exist BEFORE existence. In other words, awareness does (did) not produce existence, existence produces (produced) awareness.

So if there is a "God", he, she, or it does not necessarily "think" like we do. And it matters not to the existentialist whether there really is a God or not ... we still must deal with our own personal awareness of our existence. If I choose to believe in God, fine. If I choose not too, fine ... maybe a wee bit more scary, but still fine. It really is up to me to choose ... even if the narrative of existence with a God is so ingrained in me that I never think about the actual choice.

"Transcendentalism" means that "what is" came out of (was produced by) "what was". And whether I am a point of consciousness running on a predetermined track or a fractal event in chaos, I experience my awareness of my existence as coming out of the past and going into the future. The future comes through the present. And I have no reason to think this has not always been the case which puts no limits on how in fact that happens to be the case.

OK, now the "Christian" part. Life--my individual being--is an enigma wrapped in the mystery of existence, to tweak Winston Churchill's phrase. My quest for resolution stems from the sense of awe I feel when looking up at the stars on a moonless night in the dead of winter from the frozen banks of the Yukon River, or hold my child as a newborn in my arms. What is this all about?

I choose the life of Jesus as an "iconic image" for resolving the mystery in my consciousness: What is it all about ... for me? I ask, and I must answer ... because I stand alone as a center of awareness in the cosmos ... or, rather, I experience myself (am aware of myself) as a unitary being in the environment in which I find myself. How do I live in that environment? How do I harmonize with the mystery?

I want to live with hope as a horizon rather than fear as a fence. Moving forward, horizons recede before me. Fences come closer.

Personally, I don't consider it necessary to believe that Jesus was a real person, nor that he was "the only begotten Son of God". And I find it strange that many who do believe, do not follow his message by trying to live their lives according to the values attributed to him.

For me, the message attributed to Jesus teaches us how to live without fear and full of hope ... and that is what I want focus on next.

You have to hand it to Baker and Gates, the Big Oil Bushies' A-Team front line ...

They--Baker and Gates--know what the hell they are doing.

And they ARE protecting the clearly defined strategic interests of our nation even if it means losing the 2008 election to the Democrats ... which is me, because I'm registered as a Democrat to vote.

And this is the huge difference between the talking heads type of leadership of my Democratic party and the serious professionals in the global arena. The top professionals like Baker and Gates are focused on achieving results.

Do you notice how Cheney is moving farther and farther into the background? God, what a deranged ideologue that guy was ... is, rather. Talk about the man behind the curtain in Wizard of Oz! Of course, Cheney knew how to make Junior--aka President Bush 43--think he (Junior) was President in more than title. What a mess!

And guess what? The Bush family pros are cleaning Junior's mess up once again. And I say, THANK GOD!

I mean, for chrissake, Baker handed the Democrats political leaders a bipartisan solution to Iraq in the policy recommendations of the report of the Iraq Study Group ... and they couldn't handle it! See, the Democratic pols are too worried about the 2008 election to focus on what is best for our nation. They simply think getting Democrats elected is ipso facto best. (Tell THAT to us folks in New Jersey, and you will have us rolling in the aisles ... laughing.)

Think about it, Bush threatened to veto anything he didn't like. So? Then he's left with nothing! The Democrats couldn't handle that. How the hell does anyone think they can handle a culture with young men and women willing to commit suicide for their beliefs?

And then we have all those Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon clowns ... all of 'em hiding behind Cheney's juicing the imperial presidency concept of unitary executive powers with Junior as President? Baker must have seen the trainwreck coming over the horizon. (Personally, I think it was Barbara Bush who intervened. "You have to do SOMEthing, Papa. They're creaming our boy.")

Geez loueez ... if it weren't for people like Mitch McConnell I might even register as a Republican so I could vote for Ron Paul in the primaries.

Baker and Gates are good at what they do ...

The big Oil Bushies' A-Team--headed by James Baker (the Third)--organized the best possible strategy to clean up (once again in G.W.'s life) the mess Junior (aka President Bush 43) had made in Iraq. This strategy was spelled out in the policy recommendations of the report of the Iraq Study Group last year. Remember?

When the Democrats--having been given the majorities in both Houses of Congress by we the people--could not muster the political backbone to simply tell President Bush that nothing was going to happen until AFTER he adopted and started to implement the Iraq Study Group's report ... like, for instance, if Bush vetoes something he is left with nothing. Or am I missing something? What's this big threat of a veto? Congress passes the legislation. The Democrats didn't have the guts of leadership to stand up to Bush and his disaster ... even when handed the gift of the Iraq Study Group report by Big Oil Bushies A-Team!!! That was the easy out.

So the A-Team's front line (Baker-Gates -- that's Secretary of Defense Gates) is going to protect the strategic interests of the United States the hard way ... because they can't depend on the Democrats to do anything but talk. We are going to align ourselves with the Sunnis (think Saudis) to control access to the oil in the Middle East.

And the Democrats, again, aren't going to do a damn thing about it -- except talk -- BECAUSE they KNOW that if they force the pullout of troops, it isn't the bloodbath for Iraqis that the American public is worried about ... it's the odd-even days for pumping gas! aka the Jimmy Carter effect ... and the Democrats will be blamed for it.

You have to hand it Baker and Gates. These guys are good at what they do ... protecting the strategic interests of Big Oil ... oops! I mean the United States. Oh well, they seem to be the same for now.

The only people dumber than Bush 43 are the Democratic politicians ...

The reality is that the invasion of Iraq PLUS no serious plan for the occupation to follow BECAUSE THE CHENEY-RUMSFELD-NEOCON CABAL DIDN'T THINK WE NEEDED ONE was the pinnacle of foreign policy folly.

And the only people dumber are the politicians in the party under which I am registered to vote (Democrats) who are now letting the Big Oil Bushies' A-Team of Baker-Gates once again clean up Junior's mess. Instead of a regional arrangement involving all relevant parties (which Baker offered to us on a silver (gold? platinum? oil-slicked?) platter, we are aligning ourselves with the Saudis (aka Sunnis) to put the power politics squeeze on the Shiites and Iran. (We already have the Kurds.)

We are setting ourselves up for years of mischief by China and Russia in the Middle East instead of resolving this issue when we have the strength to do so, simply because our Christian Right supports a unilateral policy of support for Israel against all foes AND the Democrats didn't cement the Iraq Study Group policy into place when they had the chance.

The Democrats today do not have the operative wisdom necessary for strategic leadership. That wisdom is bought and paid for by the Big Oil folks on one side and the "Rockefeller" Globalists on the other. (I don't consider Hilary a Democrat. She's what I remember as a "Rockefeller Republican": internationally, a globalist; nationally, a moderate corporationist; locally, a pot-hole politician.)

We are kicking the can down the road, and the Democrats are playing right into it because they (we?) are afraid of two things (primarily): 1. The Jimmy Carter affect of losing strategic control over the petroleum we need to fuel our cars, pickups, and SUVs; and 2. The Zionist agenda (which is NOT synonymous with "Jewish" or even "Israeli" agenda) and their attack style of politics (Where did Rove learn his tactics? I wonder.)

While posturing to the left-wing base, the Democrats are doing nothing to effectively alter course, complaining that even with a majority, they don't have the votes. Dah! If Bush 43 wants to veto something, he winds up with nothing. That's pretty effective ... unless you're worried that it will backfire when gas is pumped on odd-even days matching your license plate. They could have simply said, adopt the Iraq Study Group policy suggestions or you aren't going to get anything passed.

When we Americans talk about our freedom, it is about a freedom to get up and go in OUR personal vehicle. Take THAT away and there is hell to pay. (Again, do you remember Jimmy Carter, folks?)

We WANT our government to protect our strategic interests ... wisely.

Gawd, how I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when the Saudi ruler had that sit-down "Let's get things straight" talk with Cheney.

From another perspective: All a person has to do is go to where the people are doing whatever it is they really want to do ... like living in the Alaska bush ... farming in the Northern Midwest ... or fishing for stripers on the shore when the bennies are gone *wink* ... and you get a sense that the dynamism of our culture is not in global monopolism but in petite market capitalism ... where people can effectively do their own thing. Protect the right of the people to do their thing within fairly applied (for all) foul lines, and that political party would trounce all comers.

The Democratic politicians got snookered ... again!

When will the politicians in my party (the one I am registered to vote under) get AHEAD of the curve?

The Big Oil Bushies' A-Team is taking charge ... just like they always do to clean up the messes Junior aka George W. makes.

When the Saudis called Cheney over for that sit-down talking to, they told him to stop screwing up and let the Baker-Gates team do their thing to preserve the Big Oil cartel. We're talking real money here, folks. Mama Bush has been totally upset by what the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon gang that couldn't shoot straight did to (with?) her boy. "Do SOMEthing, papa!"

So now we have movement to protect our vital interests as a nation ... which should be accompanied by riding George W. out of town on a rail, tarred and feathered. But, no, them darn Democratic politicians are going to hand this one to the Republicans by getting all in an uproar over General Petraeus ... when the huge majority of Americans trust the General to protect our interests more than the politicians of either party.

See, we the people know we gotta have that petroleum to fuel our vehicles ... and if we don't! Well, Jimmy Carter can tell you what happens if we don't.

And the Saudis (read "Sunnis") want us to have it, too. Translation: This ain't no Vietnam, folks.

Geez loueez, George W. screws up—just like he always does—and now the Democratic politicians are being made to look worse than him! No one could make this stuff up.

Let's face it. Until we are ready to give up our cars, pickups and SUVs ... we're joined at the hip with the Middle East ... and the political party that screws that up is going to have hell to pay down the road.

It's autos and oil, folks

The Democratic politicians should know by now that we love our cars, pickups, and SUVs. We are still an oil dependent economy, folks ... just in case you haven't noticed.

This means securing access to Iraq's oil is STILL (continues to be) a strategic objective of the United States.

What is so difficult for y'all to understand? There is no way a responsible national leader can advocate pulling out of Iraq ... ending the war, yes ... because it isn't a "war" for us, it's an occupation. The "war" is the non-traditional civil war between the different factions--tribes and sheiks--of various ethnic and religious stripes ... and we are smack-dab in the middle of "it".

The thing is, we are now behaving somewhat rationally in this situation. We're aligning ourselves with the interests of our historical allies in the region ... who are (dah!) the Saudis (hence the Sunnis in Iraq.) We already have the Kurds with us, of course ... just in case anyone hasn't noticed.

What does all this mean? Well, until we stop being dependent on petroleum as a primary energy source for the masses who love their vehicles ... no Democratic politician is going to risk destabilizing the supply ... the masses really do have a short memory and are not entirely rational in the short-term ... pull our troops out and they will quickly stop worrying about war casualties and start worrying about odd and even days to buy gas. (Remember when we all blamed Jimmy Carter for THAT?)

The Energy Crisis
That week, the energy crisis that Carter had been trying to avoid since taking office had finally erupted. The OPEC oil producers' cartel had recently announced another in a series of oil price increases that sent gasoline prices skyrocketing and led to severe shortages. Long gas-pump lines and short tempers started in California and spread eastward, focusing Americans' outrage over a seemingly endless economic decline. Much of that anger was directed at the White House: Carter's approval rating had dropped to 25%, lower than Richard Nixon's during the Watergate scandal.

The president did come home, canceling his vacation and retreating to Camp David, where he started working on what would be his fifth major speech on energy. But Carter soon realized that Americans had stopped listening to him. "Jimmy had made several speeches on energy... and it just seemed to be going nowhere with the public," recalls Rosalynn Carter. "So he just said, 'I'm not going to make the speech,' and instead went to Camp David and brought in lots of people to talk about what could be done."

- from PBS, The American Experience

We're choosing sides in Iraq's civil war ...

It's obvious, isn't it? We—the U.S.—are allying with the Sunnis to counter the Shiite-Iranian connection. We've already partnered with the Kurds.

This is the part of the surge that is working ... well, in the sense of protecting our strategic objective of securing access to the oil.

And the Democratic politicians know better than to pin their hopes on the rational nature of the American citizen en masse. If the Middle East dissolves into chaos and the Republicans can in any way hang a following economic upheaval amongst the gas-guzzling masses on the Democrats ... well, Katie bar the door, folks ...

You can see the leadership of Defense Secretary Gates in tandem with James Baker behind the scenes in the current strategy. We are pursuing stability in our interest by aligning with those groups that need us to gain or hang onto power and territory: the Kurds and the Sunnis. We are establishing ourselves in the periphery of the Shiite area to keep the outcome under control.

We can say to the Shiah leaders, "We gave you a chance to govern democratically, and you blew it. We will now use the realpolitick of power politics to keep a lid on the area."

What we are not admitting (or at least President Bush isn't) is that we so bungled the post-war period that the Iraqis never had a real chance to make their country work. We did not occupy the country with sufficient forces to counter the inevitable anti-occupation insurgency ... quickly attracting Al Qaida to the conflict. This was a result of the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon cabal's echo chamber policy making.

And President Bush is again screwing up the policy by cheerleading with a ridiculous kick-butt posture ... He really doesn't have a clue about what's happening ... just like he didn't when Cheney-Rumsfeld were in charge ... the BIG difference is in who is driving policy now.

It's a Gates-Baker process. And it is in accord with the strategic objectives of the U.S.

The Democrats had better get on board.

As yes, the surge is working in Iraq ...

The surge is working in Iraq to divide the country into sectarian enclaves, separating the population into Kurds, Shiites, and Sunnis ... also resulting in an enormous number of refugees fleeing both to other countries and to other areas within Iraq from their homes.

And the surge is working in Iraq to create allies for our military forces from Sunni insurgents.

And this is supposed to be success?

It is seen as success in achieving the strategic objective of the United States in securing access to Iraqi oil ... which for me has always been the basic goal since day one. If we can't do it because we bungled the post-war period thereby seeding the civil war now raging, then we will do it by choosing up sides with those (Kurds and Sunnis) most likely to align with us.

We can forget democracy because the majority are Shiites and their affinity tends towards Iran, not us or our ally, Saudi Arabia. (Please note that the same logic holds for the Palestinian areas between Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea ... not that they affiliate with Iran, but against us and our ally, Israel.)

Is this wrong ... or right, for that matter? Neither. It's reality ... the realpolitik of power politics reality ... really.

Let's shift our thinking about the minimum wage

The global economy is having a race to the bottom in wages paid for human effort. Any rational person immediately recognizes the conditions under which many third world workers perform for pay are tantamount to slavery. For that matter, the bind that illegal immigrants find themselves in here in the United States—because of their inability to report unfair labor practices without identifying their own illegal status—is also a form of indentured servitude.

Why can't we start by saying a person should be able to earn at least enough to live on by working 4 hours a day, six days a week for 24 hours per week ... wherever that person works? This would be three 8-hour days ... or two 12-hour days. This would define the local minimum wage. The important thing is to leave time for personal development. The requirement that all minimum wage labor jobs be limited to 24 hours per week unless the WORKER specifically agrees to longer hours at overtime wages would be written into law.

It isn't just the low pay but the low pay AND long hours that leave the individual worker unable to alter his or her labor value in the labor market.

By working fewer hours the individual could then choose from whatever variety of opportunities present themselves in his or her area ... such as education, additional or self employment (which can lead to ownership, for one thing), thinking (which can lead to invention among many, many outcomes), leisure activities or entertainment, whatever.

The next thing I would start in the industrialized countries—where forms of energy other than human effort predominate—is mandatory work for everyone past the age of 16 and not in school full time except the elderly and disabled. We have enough work to do here in the United States to keep everyone eligible working 24 hours a week. And we have enough income from the technologically developed use of energy to pay for full employment of this kind. Government agencies would be "employers of last resort".

My reasoning stems from the rational requirement to give each individual a reasonable opportunity to improve his or her life according to the individual's own needs and desires, and thereby be a real participant in the labor market.

Furthermore, considering an individual's needs and desires in a general sense, we know that a staple need and desire of maturing adults is to have children and raise them successfully to maturity. In other words, to have a stable family over an extended period of time. Stable families are also a goal of mature societies ... or should be. A mature country like the United States should be seeking ways and means to create a solid economic foundation for its families.

I also believe that sorting out economic solutions in a rational market ("rational" in that the rules have been imposed fairly out of experience by the participants—those at risk—themselves) where the participants have relatively equal equity in the transaction creates the most positive economic dynamism ... and that freeing the worker from the social encumbrances imposed by mandatory long hours at low pay would do more to energize the economy and or families and communities than any other single act.

Note: Let me clear about what I mean by "relatively equal equity in a transaction". It only exists when both the seller and the buyer do NOT have to sell and buy, or both the seller and the buyer HAVE to sell and buy to get what each needs. If the seller does not have to sell but the buyer has to buy, or the seller has to sell and the buyer does not have to buy then there is NOT relatively equal equity in the transaction.

The problem with unregulated capitalism—among other things, and not meaning rational market capitalism which creates the positive economic dynamism of the industrialized world—is not that it devolves into a "free" market, but that the stronger participants use monopolistic practices and become the sellers who do not have to sell when the buyers (as in consumers who need gasoline to get to work and there are a limited number of gasoline suppliers) have to buy, or become the buyers who do not have to buy when sellers (as in sellers of their personal labor) have to sell.

The so-called "free" market (which because of externalities does not exist) let's the bullies regulate the market substituting monopolism in the guise of capitalism. We need to reinvigorate our marketplaces by establishing relatively equal equity in all transactions ... starting with the most basic transaction of all: wages for labor.

The execution-style killings in Newark

The execution-style killings in Newark have interrupted my "vacation" in Alaska. This was an act so depraved by any civilized standards that it creates "value vertigo" ... an unstable swirl of right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable behavior ... and attitude ...

What is going on?

I would like to focus on the simple fact that the working-poor nuclear families can no longer bring enough income/resources into the household to provide for the needs of the children AND allow an adult to nurture the children.

The simple fact behind this is that the globalization of wages for labor--the work where human beings supply the effort rather than animals or machines--has destroyed the concept of the head of household earning enough to support a family. Wages for human labor are being reduced to the amount that will keep one person alive and strong enough to provide the effort.

First, let me emphatically state that this result is not the "fault" of market capitalism. It is the result of "free" market monopolism, where the powerful are allowed to set the rules because they have convinced enough of us that the "Invisible Hand" (of a God?) is best, not the rational development of rules and regulations such as governs any other area of human endeavor from baseball to driving on highways.

"Free" market monopolism in baseball would allow the Yankees to move the homerun fences in whenever they are up to bat in Yankee Stadium ... because the other teams want the revenue of the New York City audience.

"Free" market monopolism on the highways would allow trucks to be oversize and overweight ... and speed ... all based on the capability of the truck and its driver.

We must come up with a rational economic system that supports the nurturing of children within the family unit. (C'mon, folks, Milton Friedman is dead AND buried!) It may mean allowing for an extended family to receive community based resources. For example, what is so damn abhorent about paying capable grandparents to be the pre-school guardians of their grandchildren? We have to start thinking about solutions ... using our creative imaginations ... but then, isn't that what we--our society--are losing by not being able to play when we are children?

USA: The faster it goes, the wobblier it gets

The United States is like an unbalanced flywheel ... the faster it goes, the wobblier it gets.

It's not too hard to figure out why. We do not have anything close to a singular cultural narrative of existence. Political compromise does not put us back in balance, it simply allows us to go faster.

That is the plain, simple fact after listening to the former Governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee, commenting on Michael Moore and his new documentary on the healthcare crisis here in the USA, Sicko—and then going to watch Sicko. Huckabee is quoted as saying: “Michael Moore is an example of why the health care system costs more in this country.” —Ref: The Caucus, Political Blogging from the NY Times, July 11, 2007, 6:09 PM.

We have so many conflicting narratives of existence that significant groups of people believe in as the gospel truth ... from to Catholics, to Charismatic & Rapture Christians, to Jews, to Mormons, to Southern Baptists ... to fundamentalists, to neocons, to one-worlders, to racists, to Zionists ... (to list a smattering of examples) ... compromise does NOT foster cohesion, it simply builds the power of another group, the Politicians in service of the Corporatists.

The problem with an unbalanced flywheel going faster and faster, it self-destructs.

We are watching ourselves fall apart. Mostly because the driver, George W., doesn't want to take his foot off the accelerator lest he be labeled a wimp. And the power elite is so intent on preserving their hold on wealth and power that they are willing to drive off the cliff.

This is the ultimate game of chicken.

To mix metaphors.

In Iraq we are playing evolution's fool

By not recognizing that our involvement in Iraq is an occupation and not a war of good versus evil, we are in an unwinnable struggle ... to echo—once again—Robert Ardrey's prescient comments regarding the Vietnam War. I wrote the following post in December, 2004.

(See December, 2004 archive)

Thursday, December 23, 2004
Letter to the New York Times Editor

Dear Editor:

Decades ago in the midst of the Vietnam War, Robert Ardrey wrote this in his bestseller, THE SOCIAL CONTRACT (my Fontana Library paperback edition was first issued in 1972):

"I was writing early in 1966, when escalation of American power in Vietnam was less than a year old and American optimism was still a native resource. Applying the territorial principle, I published my conclusion that the war was unwinnable. A powerful intruder, uninhibited by world censure, may with a single blow annihilate a territorial defender. But an effort to escape moral obloquy through gradual escalation of force gives the weakest defender opportunity to escalate his own quite incalculable biological resources. Incapable of playing the Hitler, we played instead evolution's fool."

We haven't learned a thing, have we? Once again we are fighting human nature with the fervor kindled by a religious belief. We are attacking our own mirror image!

Think for a moment of how we would rally to the barricades if we were attacked! Is it so strange that the Sunni's are doing the same thing?

Ten, twenty years from now even children will wonder how supposedly smart leaders could have been so dumb.

Regards,

N.C. Swede

Other books of interest on the subject of the biological basis of human society are:

African Genesis

The Territorial Imperative

The Social Contract

The Battle of Iraq ...

President Bush (the 43rd)referred to the Battle of Iraq in his speech today ...

Made me wonder if he has ever seen the film The Battle of Algiers, "a 1966 black-and-white film by Gillo Pontecorvo based on events during the 1954-1962 Algerian War of Independence against French rule." -wikipedia.

First off, George W. has yet to understand that it is not a "war", it is an occupation. And where you might win a "war", you can not "win" an occupation. You start, continue, and end occupations.

Bush really is incompetent, you know. I mean ... like ... REALLY incompetent.

That's not so bad for a rich kid rancher cutting brush in Texas ... but ... president of the USA?

It's absurd, isn't it? I mean ... think about it.

Executions not excessive, but prison is ...

Juxtaposition George W. as President commuting Scooter Libby's prison term as excessive in relation to George W. as Governor (of Texas) failing to commute egregious execution sentences. Quoting from a letter from a reader to the Editor in today's (Wednesday, July 4, 2007) NY Times regarding the Texas cases:

Some of these inmates had been represented by lawyers who slept during trials. Some were mentally retarded. Some were juveniles at the time they committed the crime for which they were sentenced to death.

In all these cases, Governor Bush refused to commute their sentences, saying that the inmates had had full access to the judicial system.

Or has Arianna Huffington wrote in her blog post for July 3:

You know, someone like George Bush, who, as Governor of Texas, said: "I don't believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair." And none of those exceptions applied in this case.

It has become obvious that George W. has no core principles operating in support of equal justice under the law.

On this day, the 4th of July, it would be good for us to reacquaint ourselves with the works of John Adams—one of our nation's founders (our 1st Vice-President under George Washington and 2nd President with Thomas Jefferson as Vice-President)—on the responsibilities of leaders in a republic to protect the inalienable rights of its people ... equally.

Ah yes, Cheney and Bush ... Bush and Cheney

Am I having fun or what?

According to StatCounter (my web statistics service), someone accessed my "We should be ashamed of Cheney" post from a General Services Administration computer on June 27, 2007. I immediately emailed my two U.S. Senators --- Lautenberg and Menendez --- asking if I should be concerned.

Here's the www.statcounter.com data:

---------------------------------------------
host.159-142-201-43.gsa.gov (General Services Administration) [Label IP Address]

Maryland, Clinton, United States, 0 returning visits

Date Time WebPage

27th June 2007 16:22:55 www.google.com/search?q=jon stewart daily show transcript june 25 2007&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
www.ncswede.blogspot.com/

27th June 2007 16:23:13 www.ncswede.blogspot.com/
ncswede.blogspot.com/2007/06/we-should-be-ashamed-of-cheney.html

27th June 2007 16:23:45 www.google.com/search?q=jon stewart daily show transcript june 25 2007&hl=en&start=10&sa=N
www.ncswede.blogspot.com/
---------------------------------------------

Continuing with the fun --- this time from foresight --- Maureen Dowd wrote in her column today --- Sunday, July 1 --- "Tears on My Pillow" on the OpEd pages of the NY Times:

“Why doesn’t anybody like me anymore, Daddy?” he [George W.] keens. “Man, I miss Tony. My Iraq poodle left me with a porcupine. And I can’t believe my own Republicans crossed me on the immigration bill. Now my Mexican buddies from Midland are saying, ‘Adiós, Jorge.’ Vice doesn’t even want to be in the same branch of government as me. Where is Dick, by the way?”

His mother steps briskly up to the door. “Now listen, Georgie,” Barbara says. “We didn’t invite Dick. He’s not our kind. He has utterly ruined your presidency. There’s a Washington Post series I want you to read. I’ve put it in the kitchen by your bowl of Cookie Crisps. It explains all about how Dick played you for a fool on everything from Iraq to capital gains. He set up the West Wing paper flow in a way that undermined your goals and advanced his. He let you act like you were the Decider, dear, when you were really just the Dupe.”

W. howls, “Dick promised me I would never be a wimp and now I’m a wimp!”

Here is what I wrote to Paul Mulshine (my favorite columnist with the NJ Star-Ledger) on October 27, 2005:

I think the Bush #41 Globalists (CIA'ers, Military, etc.) were so upset with the Cheney Neocons and their idiotic (insane!) strategy in the Middle East--and their manipulation of Bush #43 to implement it--that the Globalists have been plotting how to bury the Neocons ever since Colin was fooled into giving that UN speech.

Behind the brouhaha are the contending egos of powerful men ... testosterone in play on Mount Olympus. And to the Globalists, the outing of a secret agent was (is) high treason. Cheney didn't realize what he set in play by directing/encouraging the exposure of Valerie Plame in retaliation for Joe Wilson's arrogant opposition to the Neocons Middle East strategy. Cheney exposed his Achilles Heel to the Globalists. Guess what? The Globalists hit the mark.

I think Mama Bush (Babs) is going to have to convince the kid (Bush #43) to clean house in order to preserve Jeb's chances at the Presidency. And the Globalists will have to pile it on the Neocons to corner the kid into listening to his mother.

Like someone posted somewhere, this is Shakespearean in its melodrama!

I love it!

If God is love, what is "love"?

Some background on what I believe ... I would say I am an atheist, but Jonathan Miller (see Note below) remarked that there is no special word for people who don't believe in ghosts, so why use one for people who don't believe in God? Basically I see no evidence of omniscience. In fact, it was my early disavowal of the omnipotent God that allowed the evil of the world—whom I did believe in—that let to my disbelief.

Note: For additional background please watch Bill Moyers' interview of Jonathan Miller from Bill Moyers Journal available as video on the internet and as a podcast from iTunes for 5/4/07.

How do I then account for "love"? What is love, for that matter?

Looking it up in dictionary. com, I found 18 entries defining the use of the word, "love". The one that I believe is fundamental to all the others relating to another being, is;

"9. affectionate concern for the well-being of others: the love of one's neighbor."

Without this aspect, love is not love ... it is some form of desire for my own gratification.

Then, when I say God is love, I am saying that love is the highest ideal, the highest form of oughtness ... to that which I ought to conform in living my life.

This understanding of love as the central conforming principle of existence comes from my having been raised a Christian. Therefore, religiously, I am a Christian. I generally conform to the evolving moral and ethical values based on the Judaic-Christian heritage of Western civilization.

There is one more facet to my belief structure. That is that I experience my existence as preceding my awareness of my existence. My awareness or consciousness comes out of my existence as a function of my existence. My existence has produced my awareness as a function of my existence. Therefore, philosophically, I am an existentialist.

Putting all this together, I would "label" myself a Christian existentialist atheist.

Back to love.

One doesn't have to be a genius to see the benefit to the primary group—family, tribe—of an "affectionate concern for the well-being of others." Pregnant women and small children require protection, as well as those temporarily incapacitated due to illness or injury. It is obvious that the group—extended family or tribe—that has the strongest support network has the advantage.

And it is equally obvious that the group has to be protected against its opponents and other dangers in the surrounding world.

And it is the codification of an explanation of the obvious that becomes that group's "religion". and successful to the extent the religion allows the group to remain strong in the face of its enemies and adversities.

Human beings noted the benefits of mutual support which evolved through recorded history to the pronouncement ascribed to Jesus:

"This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

John 15:12-13
www.blueletterbible.org

Behind or underlying my "label" is an attitude of rational skepticism that can be best described by the Jain version of the "Blind Men and the Elephant":

Six blind men were asked to determine what an elephant looked like by feeling different parts of the elephant's body.

The blind man who feels a leg says the elephant is like a pillar; the one who feels the tail says the elephant is like a rope; the one who feels the trunk says the elephant is like a tree branch; the one who feels the ear says the elephant is like a hand fan; the one who feels the belly says the elephant is like a wall; and the one who feels the tusk says the elephant is like a solid pipe.

A wise man explains to them

All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently is because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all the features you mentioned.

This resolves the conflict, and is used to illustrate the principle of living in harmony with people who have different belief systems, and that truth can be stated in different ways.

The Blind Men and the Elephant

Wikipedia

Rational skepticism requires that we discuss our beliefs honestly with each other in order to discover and learn as much as we can about our reality ... our elephant ... at any given point in our existence. This in turn requires that we allow everyone to have their say.

Our shame: Prosecutorial Misconduct

First and foremost, this is not in any way meant to dilute criticism or condemnation directed at the Durham County, North Carolina District Attorney Mike Nifong of the infamous "2006 Duke University lacrosse case."

I would simply ask in witnessing the outrage over the prosecutorial misconduct in that case, where is the outrage over the now more than 200 cases of wrongful prosecution overturned by post-conviction DNA testing that the Innocence Project has uncovered? And why are there so many faces of men of color found in these cases?

Please listen to the Bill Moyers Journal interview with Jerry Miller, the 200th person exonerated by post-conviction DNA testing, "Jerry Miller and the Innocence Project."

Shouldn't we be ashamed of our lack of outrage in Jerry Miller's case?

George W., you are no Harry Truman

Few things have been as disturbing as the president's now implacable belief - which he has been decreeing with increased frequency -- that he is the modern-day Harry Truman, fighting a necessary war even in the face of widespread opposition from weak and blind people in his own country and around the world, but that he is destined to be vindicated by history. And, as he sees it, the more he fights against anti-war headwinds and the bolder he is in the risks he takes, the greater his vindication will be.

- Glenn Greenwald
Excerpted from A Tragic Legacy: How a Good vs. Evil Mentality Destroyed the Bush Presidency
in Greenwald's post, Iran:The Next War?
on The Huffington Post

To get perspective on why George W. is no Harry Truman, listen to the BBC World Service's "Winning the Peace", a series of four programs in which Former High Representative of Bosnia, Lord Ashdown, "looks at the role of the international community in ending conflicts and rebuilding countries." Paddy Ashdown "looks at cases where occupation has succeeded and where it has failed, and what lessons there are for the future."

The first of the four is of particular interest:

Part One: Germany after the War

We should be ashamed of Cheney

Vice President Cheney is a perfect example of the type of despotic leader our constitution was SUPPOSED to guard against. The fact that he still retains a powerful position in our government is something we the people should be ashamed of.

Are we so fearful and weak that we can be led around like a herd of frightened sheep by an insanely secretive tryant?

The executive branch of our government is supposed to manage and lead according to the laws passed by the legislative branch. These laws are written through a deliberative process representative of the will of the people. These deliberations are slowed by the process itself to dampen the swings of popular opinion. The judicial branch is there to insure that we follow the law.

This whole structure was put in place because our founders knew from experience that power unfettered by law and residing in an unbridled executive was (and is) the source of practically all of the evil that governments bring to our world. And much of that evil comes from self-righteous leaders who tell us they know best what is good for us or some variation of "If you knew what I know, you wouldn't question what I have done for you/am doing for you/am about to do for you. But I can't tell you what I know, because then I wouldn't be able to do it."

What is now coming to light are things done in our name that are so horrific that we should be ashamed. These things continue to this day, and they are evil.

The problem is that there is such a long trail of horrific things done in our name that the current set of bastards can literally ask, "What are you complaining about? This is nothing new. What do you think was done at Wounded Knee?"

We should not cower from responding. From our Christian heritage, we know the answer. It is redemption. This is combining repentance with conversion ... renouncing the past and then doing what love commands ... for God is love.

But we have no one calling us to "oughtness" born of love ... what we ought to be ... out of our "isness" ... what we are.

It's a shame.

Reference:
Pushing the Envelope on Presidential Power
By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, June 25, 2007

Agent Orange, dioxin, and Vietnam

Friday's—June 22, 2007— program on Democracy Now was about the lawsuit working its way through the U.S. courts for which "earlier this week, a delegation of Vietnamese victims of Agent Orange traveled to New York. Some testified in federal court. They’re suing over three dozen chemical companies for manufacturing the toxin. The list of companies being sued includes Dow Chemical and Monsanto." -From the transcript of the program, Vietnamese Delegation in U.S. to Sue Chemical Companies for Ongoing Effects of Agent Orange.

It is hard to imagine anyone—any person, group, organization, nation— doing anything this horrific ... knowing the damage the poison—dioxin—would cause. Having to acknowledge that my country DID do this ... on purpose ... and now the bastards responsible for making the choices that allowed it to happen, paid for it to happen, received payment for it to happen, performed its happening ... these bastards are trying to shirk responsibility?

When does the stink of our elite ruling class finally cause we the people to gag?

A thought ...

I went to Marc's Place last night, billed as "a monthly coffeehouse of music, poetry, and discussion inspired by the memory of Coalition Member Marc Shapiro." (Note: The "Coalition" is the Central Jersey Coalition Against Endless War whose website is www.againstendlesswar.org.) It was a program of music, poetry, and discussion. Ordinary people spent the evening together openly, publicly ... freely ... sharing our concerns about where our leaders have taken us as a country. This is the real strength of our nation.

And it isn't just people on the left of the political spectrum ... it's people all over the place, doing all sorts of stuff ... from a country music bar in Austin, Texas, to a mid-week social at the Baptist Church in Lincoln, Nebraska, to a union picnic in Seattle, to an annual stock holders meeting in Chicago, to a jazz club in Greenwich Village ... people in these United States are doing their thing.

Another thought ...

The greed of our ruling class is ruining us ... because they have no idea of what makes our nation great. They think it is the wealth and power that has been created ... when it is the motivation, energy and labor of the people that creates ... the true source of wealth and power.

Bloomberg? Unity08?

The "normal" political two party system here in the United States is unraveling.

It is time for we the people to take our country back and put an end to the fearmongering vs. pork barrel politics that only benefits politicians and the special interests they serve. We have enough wealth and power as a nation to be secure from foreign coercion AND have a solid foundation of heathcare, education, and affordable housing for our people from full employment.

We need competent managers in our executive branches, rational skeptics in our legislative branches, and principled judges in our judicial branches. In other words, we need another revolution ... at the ballot box.

This is the context within which the potential "Bloomberg For President" campaign plays out.

It isn't just whether or not Bloomberg can win the presidency, it is the setting in motion of real change. Remember Goldwater in 1964? That campaign led straight to Reagan ... the problem with the Republicans being that with the Peter Principle in full bloom (yes, I get the pun) the Republicans produced George W. Bush, the 43rd president of these United States.

Personally—as an aside—if Hillary dillary gets the Democrats' nomination, I would vote for Bloomberg in a heartbeat.

And with that in mind, I will be checking out the Unity08 political action campaign.

Iraq: It's a fool's errand

Retired Army Gen. Barry R. McCaffrey, who in 2003 was among the first to call public attention to the relatively small size of the U.S. invasion force, said that the new operation shows how outnumbered U.S. troops remain. "Why would we think that a temporary presence of 30,000 additional combat troops in a giant city would change the dynamics of a bitter civil war?" he said in an interview yesterday. "It's a fool's errand." (Emphasis added.)

Iraq Push Revives Criticism of Force Size
by Thomas E. Ricks
Saturday, June 23, 2007
The Washington Post

Back on April 27 Bill Moyers interviewed Jon Stewart from The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on Comedy Central on the Bill Moyers Journal on PBS. Access the archived Bill Moyers program here: Jon Stewart, April 27, 2007, and here's an excerpt it with a clip from the Daily Show with jon Stewart:

CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

JON STEWART: Bush had come mainly to discuss the war spending bill, recently passed by the Democratic Congress which gives the president all the funding he desires for the troop surge, but ties the funding to a definite date for withdrawal of the troops. And you won't believe what the president thinks of that idea.

GEORGE W. BUSH: �pushing legislation that would undercut our troops just as we're beginning to make progress in Baghdad.

JON STEWART: Oooh. We're just beginning to make it ohh they just pulled the rug to d'oh, it's just happening now! You know, I seem to remember, we've been making progress for quite some time now.

GEORGE W. BUSH: That's progress. And it's important progress, and it's an important part of our strategy to win in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Iraq has made incredible political progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: The Iraqis are making inspiring progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: Iraq is making incredible political progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: I believe we're making really good progress in Iraq.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making steady progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: We're making progress. It's slowly but surely making progress.

GEORGE W. BUSH: In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.

JON STEWART: Wait a minute! Wait a minute! I figured this out. I know what's wrong with what we've done in Iraq. We've been following time as it goes forward. What a classic mistake. Linear time is so pre-9-11.

END CLIP: THE DAILY SHOW WITH JON STEWART

Another excerpt:

JON STEWART: But war that hasn't affected us here, in the way that you would imagine a five-year war would affect a country. I think that's why they're so really — here's the disconnect. It's sort of this odd and I've always had this problem with the rationality of it. That the President says, "We are in the fight for a way of life. This is the greatest battle of our generation, and of the generations to come. "And, so what I'm going to do is you know, Iraq has to be won, or our way of life ends, and our children and our children's children all suffer. So, what I'm gonna do is send 10,000 more troops to Baghdad."

So, there's a disconnect there between — you're telling me this is fight of our generation, and you're going to increase troops by 10 percent. And that's gonna do it. I'm sure what he would like to do is send 400,000 more troops there, but he can't, because he doesn't have them. And the way to get that would be to institute a draft. And the minute you do that, suddenly the country's not so damn busy anymore. And then they really fight back, and then the whole thing falls apart. So, they have a really delicate balance to walk between keeping us relatively fearful, but not so fearful that we stop what we're doing and really examine how it is that they've been waging this.

Iraq ... it's a fool's errand.