The Cheney/Rumsfeld Doctrine

A core doctrine of Strausian Neoconservatism is that if you are unwilling to use the power you have then you do not deserve to have that power. Use it or lose it.

Neocons have used this concept along with loyalty to the power-base (and the rewarding therof) to extend their political power--and now in its extension--their miltary power.

Those who would openly subvert the electoral process of our nation behind a facade of legality erected by stonewalling the truth, will not relinquish power voluntarily ... particularly when they would face prison if the truth comes out under our structure of the separation of governmental powers.

The leaders now in power will have to do something outside the electoral process to retain their power ... and they have proven themselves willing to do exactly that more than once.

Students of history understand this as the progressive process of an elitist cabal that decided--after Hitler came to power through a democratic process in Germany--that the masses could never again be fully trusted with the future of a powerful nation.

In this light, the military report on controlling the telecom spectrum commissioned by Rumsfeld is more than sobering. It should be a wake-up call to we the people.


Originally written as comment #6399 on 4/04 at 10:03 am on truthdig.com.

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20060404_us_military_telecom/

Caught between Hell and global warming

Well, it seems like more than half of us believe that God (the Judaic-Christian God) is in charge of things around here ... so if a disaster strikes then God is either testing us a la Job or punishing us a la Sodom and Gomorrah ... so do we stay the course or repent?

The Fundamentalist Christians are inclined to stay the course and have the rest of us repent.

You see, if you are a Fundamentalist Christian (I can speak with some authority on the subject, having been raised as one) then doing anything that looks like you don't believe in the eminent Return of the Lord Jesus Christ makes it appear that you don't have the faith required for salvation. Now THAT is being caught between a rock and hard place. Or should we say between the warmth of Hell and global warming?

It does get a wee bit dicey when they start pushing the run-up to the Battle of Armageddon over the oil in Mesopotamia.

But then we have the evangelicals talking about being good stewards of Earth ... you know, this God-thing can get confusing.

Maybe it's like the existentialists say, it really doesn't matter if there is a God or not ... we are still stuck with being aware of our existence and—because we are aware—having to choose. That makes a lot of sense to me these days.


Originally written as comment #6392 on 4/04 at 7:53 am on truthdig.com.

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060403_molly_ivins_global_warming/

Thoughts on what William F. Buckley, Jr., and the NY Times are now saying about reality ...

Did you ever have a rich kid in your class back in Junior High whom you would talk into leading skip day or something because if he or she did it then you could get everyone to do it because everyone knew we would all be forgiven if something went wrong and the rich kid was involved?

Can’t you just see Wolfowitz(sic?), Rummy, Cheney, et al coming up to Bush #43 with their Neocon strategy way back when and saying, “You can do it. You’re the man!”

Trouble is, Bush now believes it (that he has been authorized by God to lead us in these troubling times) and there isn’t anyone to tell him different without having to also tell him how they used him in the first place.

If people weren’t dying in Afghanistan and Iraq including some of our best and brightest youth, this would be laughable ... deep, long belly guffaws ... the plot of a incredibly funny farce.

And watching all our powerful leaders wringing their hands because their puppet president thinks he is the real thing and no one yet dares tell him the truth ... because they still are more interested in their careers then they are in the welfare of our nation or the world. Buckley? He’s what? 80? He’s part of what got us here, but he can’t DO anything about it except try to preserve the current power elite’s path to the future.

The NY Times still has its caveat, “Well, we WANTED it to turn out right, like a democracy.” Everyone knows Kevin Phillips nailed the motivations in his new book AMERICAN THEOCRACY: oil and the manifest destiny of God’s chosen peoples.

We sent our young men and women to bleed and die in the sands of Mesopotamia for oil and a religious pipe dream ...

Behind it all (behind the curtain?) is Cheney’s madness in believing the core idea of Strausian Neoconservatism, “If you are not willing to exercise the power you have, then you don’t deserve to have the power.” And Cheney’s power is based on the control of oil.

And Buckley is doing his best to give Cheney a free pass into the future lest we the people catch on to the real source of the madness.

These men are the axis of evil. And they do have the bomb.

Originally written as comment #6332 on 4/02 at 7:04 pm on truthdig.com at:

http://www.truthdig.com/eartotheground/item/20060402_desperation_in_iraq/

Illegal immigraiton is a labor issue!

The insanity here has reached Alice in Wonderland proportions ...

People who appear to be for the workers are saying we should allow a certain "class" of person (the illegal immigrant) to come and work for lower than prevailing wages under other than prevailing labor standards so businesses can reap higher profits? Or so we can have cheaper goods and services? (And because citizen workers won’t accept these conditions, it "proves" we have to have this new type of exploitation?)

Am I missing something? Oh yes, and one solution is to criminalize this class of workers ... making them even more reluctant to come forward to report illegal treatment by their employers!

Have we gone stark raving mad?

You’re right, there is ANOTHER solution ... forget about what has happened, put the counter back to zero ... reward the illegals who are here and believe it won’t happen again. That IS the definition of insanity!!!

So if a person is willing to risk their life and freedom to come to this country and give us the benefit of what amounts to cheap labor, and they do this for long enough (avoiding all the pitfalls and gotcha traps like on-the-job injury and layoffs and not getting paid ...) ... then we should reward them with full rights and status ... because, I guess, that will mean more will come to take their place in the cheap labor pool ... so we can reap the benefits of their cheap labor?

Doesn't anyone get it? That this is exploitation of people?

What is happening to our country ... that people who say they are for workers would say this is what we should be doing?

Check out Time magazine's photo essay, The Immigrant Plight

Initial draft appeared as comment #6261 on 4/01 at 4:04 am on truthdig.com at:

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/20060328_robert_scheer_immigrants/

Can you hear me now?!

People working without the protection of fair labor standards and a say in the adoption of those standards is a form of slavery.

From Yahoo® News:
CONGRESS TACKLES LONG-RUN PROBLEM WITH SHORT-RUN SOLUTIONS
By Georgie Anne Geyer
Tuesday, March 28

"One of the best analysts of economics, Robert J. Samuelson, wrote this week in The Washington Post that the big corporations are having America 'import poverty' and lower wages so much that, of course, American workers 'won't take those jobs.' 'What we have now,' he wrote, 'and would with guest workers, is a conscious policy of creating poverty in the United States while relieving it in Mexico. ... To be sure, some Americans get cheap housecleaning ... But if more mowed their own lawns or did their own laundry, it wouldn't be a tragedy.' "

A new form of slavery

The creation of a guest worker program is tantamount to creating a form of temporary slavery. Ditto the failure to enforce labor laws relative to employing illegal immigrants.

And to threaten the workers with arrest and not the employers is so absurd it would be unimaginable in another context. (Isn't this the legal swamp of slavery in the south where the slave could be punished for fleeing the brutality of a plantation owner, but the plantation owner wasn't punished for his brutality? What in heaven's name are we becoming? How did we get here?)

And having this discussion going forward in a nation founded on slogans like "No taxation without representation!" is tantamount to societal amnesia. Let's be clear about what we have learned in our trek forward in becoming the United States of America:

Democratic government is how we ameliorate the otherwise harmful or limiting effects of all the other social, economic, and political structural forms under which we live. It is our forum or court of last resort to make those adjustments that become obviously necessary.

A democracy requires everyone's participation ... and in the definition of "everyone" relative to this participation, we define ourselves. If there is a "class" or "group" of people who are contributing to the betterment of a society, but have no say in determining the distribution of that "betterment" other than take what is offered or reject it ... and rejecting what is offered is—again—tantamount to their having no chance of pursuing their life dreams for themselves or their families ... then have we not established a form of slavery?

As Paul Krugman points out in today's column in the NY Times—titled The Road to Dubai,

"Imagine, for a moment, a future in which America becomes like Kuwait or Dubai, a country where a large fraction of the work force consists of illegal immigrants or foreigners on temporary visas — and neither group has the right to vote. Surely this would be a betrayal of our democratic ideals, of government of the people, by the people. Moreover, a political system in which many workers don't count is likely to ignore workers' interests: it's likely to have a weak social safety net and to spend too little on services like health care and education."

Why can't we ...

Why can't we simply use our democracy (republic-based) to sort out the issues that an open market (there is no such thing as a free market) leaves unresolved because the price of goods and services does not pay for all the costs accrued in producing and using those goods and services ... like if we are going to have computers then somehow we have to pay for the education of the people who design and build them. And like how we divide the wealth produced by the mix of our labor, our creativity, and our assets combined with the forward pull of our dreams--selfish and humanitarian ... this incredible, diverse, creative mix of dreamers we call ourselves: The United States of America.

Without secure borders we will piss it all away and become another banana republic.

Immigration amnesty and the value of labor

Granting amnesty (aka guest worker status) to the millions of illegal immigrants without first protecting our borders serves the financial interests of business owners, not the workers. Without secure borders businesses will continue to pay less for labor than they would if illegal immigration were halted.

One big reason weighting the labor cost issue in favor of the business owner—when the owner is able to employ an illegal immigrant—is the obvious reluctance of the illegal immigrant to demand fair labor practices lest he or she be deported.

With the worker unwilling to speak up, the ameliorating effects of a democratic government on the adverse (monopolistic) tendencies of capitalism are negated. Demonstrating in support of illegal immigration is not the same as demonstrating for workers' rights. It is absurdly irrational to argue to allow the standard of living for our workers to be lowered because workers from Mexico will accept a lower standard in our country. How low are we supposed to go? Without secure borders or sanctions on employers of illegal immigrants, workers living standards and fair labor practices will head south ... pun intended.

That is the core issue.

The fact that some workers side with the illegal immigrants who are willing to take jobs for less than what would otherwise be the prevailing wage—or fair labor standards—is not a rational position for labor to take.

Keeping the cost of goods low is the big benefit of slavery. Do we want to drive wages and labor standards down to the point where the quality of life for workers is so degrading that it correlates with slavery?

Once the borders are secure, we can then regulate employment with minimum wages, payment of payroll taxes, and fair labor standards ... protecting the workers and our way of life. Do we really want the globalization of sweat shops and child labor?

No amnesty (aka guest worker program) without secure borders—period!

One other thing, if there is going to be a felony attached to illegal immigration, it should be for the hiring of an illegal immigrant by the business owner. Those who argue that convicting business owners would be too difficult are throwing up a smoke screen to block the cases that would test the efficacy of this solution ... a solution that works quite well in other white color crime areas to put the fear of the long arm of the law in those who might otherwise conspire to circumvent the law.

Q & A with Bush No. 43

During the Q & A following Bush's speech on Iraq last Monday, a woman asked:

"[Author Kevin Phillips] makes the point that members of your administration have reached out to prophetic Christians who see the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism as signs of the apocalypse. Do you believe this, that the war in Iraq and the rise of terrorism are signs of the apocalypse? And if not, why not?"

(Note: We extracted the quote from huffingtonpost.com.)

Apparently Bush didn't really answer the question and secular commentators are trying to make it a gotcha event, or damned if he does and damned if he doesn't believe in the apocalypse and what it portends regarding the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Well, folks, secular commentators—by and large—are not particularly up-to-date on Fundamentalist Christian nuances for situations like this.

The King James Version of the Bible reads:

"Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you."

Matthew 7:6

(Ref: Blue Letter Bible. "Dictionary and Word Search for 'pearls before swine ' " . Blue Letter Bible. 1996-2002. 25 Mar 2006.)

What this means is that the Born Again Christian does not have to—in fact, SHOULD NOT—reveal the wisdom of God to the unbeliever lest it then be used against the Christian. Lead the unbeliever to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior, then all the other stuff can be dumped on 'em ... but certainly don't be giving it out to the general public in a Q & A. The Bible has Bush covered on that.

You see, it takes having been raised "in the faith" to understand this stuff. And anybody who has, knows right off the bat that George W. is a True Believer. He gets his brand of wisdom from the pulpit not from any rational thought processes born in the Enlightenment. He is a Child of God, for crissake.

Combine that with the fact that he isn't too swift at connecting the dots ... and here we are.

So far in my reading of American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips ... Phillips has the Bushies nailed.

Now for the rest of you ... you gotta keep up. This is getting interesting. I don't mean with this blog necessarily, but with this "good vs. evil" crap. We have a self-fulfilling prophecy barrelling down upon us ... the end-times Battle of Armageddon ... Wake up! Get a grip! Act like a free citizen. Don't just sit there on the couch munching goodies. Do something. You would be surprised how much power we can generate as free men and women who are not afraid to speak up.

Cheers for the people!

Kevin Phillips: American Theocracy

If you haven't read or are not reading Kevin Phillips new book, American Theocracy (New York: Viking/the Penguin Group, 2006), get it and read it.

It is a book "from America's premier political analyst, an explosive examination of the coalition of forces that threatens the nation in the twenty-first century."

Here, I'll make it easy for you:

American Theocracy by Kevin Phillips from amazon.com


From the Preface:

          "... U.S. preoccupation with the Middle East has two dimensions. In addition to its concerns with oil and terrorism, the White House is courting end-times theologians and electorates for whom the holy lands are already a battleground of Christian destiny. Both pursuits, oil and biblical expectations, require a dissimulation in Washington that undercuts the U.S. tradition of commitment to the role of an informed electorate.
          "The political corollary—fascinating but appalling—is the recent transformation of the Republican presidential coalition. Since the elections of 2000 and especially of 2004, three pillars have become increasingly central: (1) the oil-national security complex, with its pervasive interests; (2) the religious right, with its doctrinal imperatives and massive electorate; and (3) the debt-dealing financial sector, which extends far beyond the old symbolism of Wall Street. In December 2004 The New York Times took up the term "borrower-industrial complex" to identify one profitable engine of exploding consumer debt.
          "That name does not quite work, but we can hardly use a term like the credit-card / mortgage / auto-loan / corporate-debt / federal-borrowing industrial complex. This is a problem still searching for its Election Day Halloween mask. In any event, the rapid ballooning of government, corporate, financial, and personal debt over the last four decades goes a long way to explain why the finance sector, debt's toll collector, has swollen to outweigh the manufacture of real goods. We are in the midst of one of America's most perverse transformations.
          "George W. Bush has promoted these alignments, interest groups, and their underpinning values. His family, over multiple generations, has been tied to a politics that conjoined finance, national security, and oil. In recent decades, operating from the federal executive branch, the Bushes have added close ties to evangelical and fundamentalist power brokers of many persuasions. These origins, biases, and practices were detailed in my last book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune, and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush (2004). The present volume, therefore, revisits mostly the family's influence in helping these trends and guiding these constituencies.
          "Over three decades of Bush presidencies, vice presidencies, and CIA directorships, the Republican party has slowly become the vehicle of all three interests—a fusion of petroleum-defined national security; a crusading, simplistic Christianity; and a reckless credit-feeding financial complex. The three are increasingly allied in commitment to Republican politics, if not in full agreement with one another. On the most important front, I am beginning to think that the southern-dominated, biblically driven Washington GOP represents a rogue coalition, like the southern, proslavery politics that controlled Washington until Lincoln's election in 1860."

- Kevin Phillips
American Theocracy

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

"How about socialism?" Anonymous asks.

Communism on the left is out. Monopolism on the right is out. What remains?

Before we answer, we have to think about ourselves as human beings.

For me the essential characteristics of my "humanness" is my capacity to, first, imagine what ought to be and then strive to make it what is. It is in my personal choosing of "oughtness" that I find the core of myself as a moral being. It is in both my willingness to take action and the action I take—or lack thereof—to make that "oughtness" the "isness" of my world, that I reveal my character.

The underlying biological basis of my self, my being—as in the biological basis of human society ... and I do believe in the evolving nature of the universe—leads me to also believe that existence precedes awareness. There is no overarching awareness that calls my existence into being. My existence—my biological existence—creates my awareness. This is a fact made most real to me by my taking female hormones to counter the effect of my male testosterone because of prostate cancer. My becoming a chemical eunuch has been revealing.

With these factors in mind, in what kind of community do I wish to participate?

I want to be in a community where there is reciprocal nurturing of the capacity to both choose and to carry out those choices. This, to me, is "the good life".

Explicit in the nature of such a community are both individual freedom and mutual respect for each other's freedom, as well as the understanding that we share in the struggle to enhance our capacity for engaging in the good life.

We must note that the community striving to achieve the good life requires security. This is true because such a community will produce wealth for its participants at an accelerated rate. We know this to be a fact from our own history. Other communities not yet at our stage of "enlightenment" will contend with us for a variety of reasons, but certainly the age-old drive for power and wealth (positional status on the mating fields) by testosterone driven men is enough to cause conflict from beyond our borders.

It is at this point in the discussion that we can come back to the issues of Capitalism vs. Socialism ... if there really are any ... other than jockeying for power from various vantage points.

But there is a nuts and bolts issue: Are choices made and accrued through the open market where people can choose what to buy or not buy, better than choices made through the ballot box where people can choose how to vote or not vote—or the other way around?

I believe we need a rational, realistic combination of both.

More to follow.

A manifesto ... in the face of irreversible economic disaster

Time to get serious about this economic stuff ... now that our leaders have put us (the good ol' USA) on an irreversible path to disaster.

I mean, does anyone really believe that we will get out of this national financial mess of losing our manufacturing base and becoming a debtor nation without suffering a gigantic upheaval? While our leaders assure us there will be some structures left standing after the earthquake ... like in standing on their sides, standing while leaning precipitously, standing on the second floor as opposed to the foundation ... they have put the pedal to the metal in their drive for imperial status, still pursuing their Manifest Destiny.

How can anyone say globalization is working—or even God's plan like in the Invisible Hand—when babies are starving in the villages on the frontier of the adjusting regional and national and local economies? If the market is so efficient then why does it not account for those costs?

And no, the solution is not communism ... let's get that canard out of the way up front.

The solution is rational realism and public honesty in the face of our problem of pending financial ruin.

First, there is no such thing as a "free" market. On the other hand, the "open" market in a democratic society as a means for sorting out "isness" from our diverse imaginings of "oughtness" has produced a heretofore unimaginable good life for the "lumpenites" of that society.

I intend to explore these concepts in the days ahead ... "open market", "democratic society", "rational realism", "public honesty" ... as the most powerful person-type the world has ever known: the free citizen who exercises his or her inalienable rights.

Port deal was "the straw that broke the camel's back"

There is a lot of huffing and puffing by the globalization intellectuals that the Dubai port management deal didn't affect the security of our nation that much ... because of all the things we should worry about, this was the LAST thing we should worry about ... security wise.

Trouble is, being the last item in a long list has a way of drawing attention to the list ... and that's why saying it was "the straw that broke the camel's back" fits for us normal folk.

Sometimes I shake my head at some of these folks who call themselves our leaders. They just don't seem to get it sometimes. They keep acting like the rest of us are fools, to the point that they are fools. They get so twisted around in trying to convince us that their mistakes make sense without having to admit they made a mistake ... that they finally lose all credibility ... and are tied up in their own knot.

I mean, the ONLY people who still haven't admitted their mistakes in this whole Iraq War (Against Terrorism)/National Security fiasco are the ones who made the mistakes ... and they are still in power ...

Oh yes, they offer caveats on how things get screwed up ... but they never examine the reality of their own incompetence. And that is not a mystery even though it is scarey. If they are incompetent to begin with ... and do not recognize it, how can we expect them to be competent enough to recognize it afterward?

Like I said, now that is scarey.

Blair told 3 years ago, It's "an unbelevable mess!"

Quoting Ewen MacAskill, diplomatic editor, in the Tuesday March 14, 2006, edition of The Guardian:

"Senior British diplomatic and military staff gave Tony Blair explicit warnings three years ago that the US was disastrously mishandling the occupation of Iraq, according to leaked memos.

"John Sawers, Mr Blair's envoy in Baghdad in the aftermath of the invasion, sent a series of confidential memos to Downing Street in May and June 2003 cataloguing US failures. With unusual frankness, he described the US postwar administration, led by the retired general Jay Garner, as 'an unbelievable mess' and said 'Garner and his top team of 60-year-old retired generals' were 'well-meaning but out of their depth'."

Read the whole article: US postwar Iraq strategy a mess, Blair was told

Not in my name

Suspension of habeas corbus ...

Listen to "Habeas Schmaebeas", Episode 310, 3/10/06, on This American Life from WBEZ Radio in Chicago ... (You'll have to look it up on their website.)

http://www.thislife.org/

Abu Gharib ...
http://cagle.msnbc.com/news/2004Parker/images/AbuGharib.gif

Guantanamo ...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/16_02_06_un_guantanamo.pdf

Not in my name, sir!

Bush, like Job of old, is waiting on God to act

I know what Bush(#43) is thinking.

When I was twelve, I thought the same way. I didn't know any better. Neither does Bush now.

As a child, I firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in my mind, believed that if I stayed the course, did what God wanted me to do—as taught to me from the Protestent Bible by the born-again adults in my life—God would sort everything out for me in the end. Like He did for Job.

I heard the story of Job so many times—in Sunday School, from the pulpit on Sunday mornings, in Wednesday night Bible Study, from evangelists spreading the Word of God and calling on men and women, boys and girls to repent—that it is indelibly engrained in my neurons ... though I no longer believe it.

Bush's logic fits the myth. He believes it—firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in his mind. It is there in the tone of voice, the cut of his jib, the swagger in his walk ... he is God's Chosen.

There are other great myths of the fundamentalist evangelical Christian mindset. One of them is even more troubling than the story of Job when we talk about a leader of the most powerful nation on earth in terms of nuclear weaponry. It is the myth of the coming end times with Jesus returning and the world getting sorted out in the Battle of Armageddon ... which takes place in the Middle East.

Have no doubt, Bush believes this—firmly, wholeheartedly, without a doubt in his mind. It is indelibly engrained in his neurons.

Are you kidding me? A chicken farmer?!

The NY Times in it's lead editorial today (Wednesday, March 8, 2006) titled,

They Came for the Chicken Farmer tells us of the Pakistani chicken farmer rounded up and imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay because his name is almost the same as someone they wanted ... and he's been in our custody since January, 2002, with no recourse to justice. His name is Abdur Sayed Rahman. The person they wanted was a Taliban official named Abdur Zahid Rahman.

What have we been doing? ... the citizens of the United States of America wherein our Declaration of Independence holds sway ... which reads in part:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —"

—IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America

We've been watching the Super Bowl, the Academy awards and ... (quoting SI.com)

In an exclusive excerpt from Game of Shadows -- appearing in this week's SI -- authors Mark Fainaru-Wada and Lance Williams detail the extent to which Barry Bonds used steroids.

our gladiators fall. The circuses are diverting our attention ... and our leaders think only of engorging themselves with wealth and power. Where has this happened before?

And the call to righteousness is once again being heard ... growing louder and louder from the throats of the oppressed.

Esau sells his birthright for porridge in each epoch until the human race repeats the myth of Samson and brings the temple crashing down upon our heads, once and for all.

It need not be thus.

But, alas, as another taught us, "It is easier for the ladden camel to get through the narrow gate, than it is for the wealthy to get into heaven."

Once again, unless "we, the people" act, our civilization—spawned in Christianity and enriched by the Enlightenment—will end.

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)

16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

—Samuel Adams

"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it."

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

All I need to know I learned growing up on a farm ...

In all due respect to Robert Fulghum and his book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten ... (Note: Robert Fulgham's website: http://www.robertfulghum.com/) ... growing up on a small dairy farm north of Duluth, Minnesota, I learned some things about the myths of (1.) the "free" market, (2.) the "positive" effects of globalization, and (3.) "maximizing the benefit" to the collective good by pursuing self-interest.

All of these myths are quite easily debunked with a little reality therapy from living on a small farm with a small number of animals in a community of similar homesteads and families. It helps that we were also the beneficiaries of the Enlightenment and stable government institutions, living in a micro-world where our needs were met out of the rhythm of the cycles of our daily lives.

I will continue to pursue the debunking of these myths here in my blog.

For example, every farmer knows that if you dump manure on someone else's property, the other person had better have asked you to do it ... or they are going to make you clean it up. What's so hard to understand about corporations cleaning up the PCP's they dumped in the Hudson River?

Does "free" and "unfettered" markets mean that the prices of goods and services are free and unfettered from any costs that cannot be "legally" connected to their development, production, and sale? So who pays the costs of New Jersy's air pollution from Ohio and Pennsylvania? Who pays the costs of secondhand cigarette smoke? Who pays the cost of the disruption in lives of tribal villagers who have met their needs out of the rhythm of the cycles of their daily lives for millenia? Who pays these costs?

I will raise other questions regarding these myths as we go along, and have done so in the past. But with Bush(#43) going to India and tossing the nuclear non-proliferation treaty over the side ... my early wisdom included, "Remember now, don't toss the baby out with the bathwater!" ... the whole insane framework of the current globaliztion economic philosophy/mythology must be aggressively called into question ... and so many so-called intellectuals seem loathe to do so ... so it is left to farmboys from Minnesota, like me, to point out the absurdity of the current conventional wisdom in so much of the economic pronouncements eminating from "credentialed" authorities on the subject.

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

2006: The Year of the People

As a free citizen—a member of the people—of the United States of America, I hereby declare all years ending in six and having repeating digits in the hundreths and tenths positions to be henceforth designated The Year of the People in honor of our Declaration of Independence in 1776.

Thus, this year—2006—and 2116, 2226, 2336, and so forth are The Year of the People.

The Year of the People will always be a year when we elect a full House of Representatives in Congress, the House of the people.

The Year of the People will be a time when we rededicate ourselves to the committment so eloquently stated by Abraham Lincoln in The Gettysburg Address:

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln
The Gettysburg Address

You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.

Abraham Lincoln, (attributed)
16th president of US (1809 - 1865)

Why are they lying to us?!

Why are our leaders lying to us? Is it the "You can't handle the truth!" syndrone of Jack Nicholson's character—Col. Nathan R. Jessep—in A Few Good Men?

What IS it?

There is something fundamentally going wrong in a democracy when the leaders don't trust the people with the truth!

I mean, the list is getting pretty long of the outright fabrications and obfuscations by Bushes, Cheneys, Rices, Rumsfelds, Colin Powells, Chertoffs, ... Tom Friedmans ...(and those are only MY pet peevers!)

And what about this deal where the Pentagon is opening a criminal investigation into Pat Tillman's death? See http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060305/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/army_tillman_investigation

How bad can it get before we, the people, take our government back by electing new leaders?

Throw the bums out!

Is Tom Friedman a liar?

I received this as an e-mail from David Sirota:


{http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-sirota/tom-friedman-becomes-amer_b_16762.html}

Tom Friedman Becomes America's Chief Revisionist Historian

By David Sirota

Last week, I noted how so-called "liberal" pundits like Tom Friedman are desperately trying to distort the Dubai ports scandal so as to perpetuate the free trade orthodoxy they have spent so many years pushing. This week, we see the same dishonest behavior from Friedman when it comes to Iraq.

In a column this week about the war, Friedman concludes by saying:

"A majority of Americans, in a gut way, always understood the value of trying to produce a democratizing government in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world. That is why there has been no big antiwar movement. Americans should, and will, stick with Iraq if they sense that Iraqis are on a pathway to building a decent, stable government. But Americans will not, and should not, baby-sit an Iraqi civil war. The minute they sense that's what's happening, you will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war." There are so many lies and deliberate distortions in this paragraph it makes one's head spin.

First, Friedman's claim that the public has always supported the war because we "always understood the value" of pushing democracy in the Mideast. This is revisionist history at its worst, whereby Friedman, who loudly pushed the war

{http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewPrint&articleId=10113}

and is now clearly embarrassed about that advocacy, is trying to paint a wholly fabricated picture of what happened in the lead up to the invasion. The war was sold by the Bush administration and pundits like Friedman as necessary to defuse an "imminent threat"

{http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24970}

of attack by Iraq. To this day, the public knows the "democracy" rationale is a lie. A Zogby poll released last week found that just 24% of Americans believe that "establishing a democracy that can be a model for the Arab World" was the main or a major reason for the war. That's not a majority, even by Friedman's dishonest standards.

Second, Friedman's claim that there is "no big antiwar movement" is just straight up lying. There's no way to couch it in any other term. Millions of people protested the invasion

{http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june03/protests.html}

in towns throughout America and the world, and millions continue to vehemently oppose the neoconservative foreign policy that the Bush administration and Friedman espouse. Friedman doesn't want to acknowledge this reality because he is desperate to portray himself and his extremism as somehow mainstream when it is anything but.

Finally, and perhaps most dishonest of all, is Friedman's claim that if a civil war erupts in Iraq we "will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war" (emphasis added). What the hell is this guy talking about? What planet is he living on? Has he even bothered to actually look at the facts? I mean, really - we will see the bottom fall out of U.S. public support for this war? Last I checked, nearly every major poll from 2004
{http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/06/24/poll.iraq/}
until the present
{http://www.pollingreport.com/iraq.htm}
has shown that public support for the Iraq War has evaporated. It seems the majority of people who continue to cheer on the war are ideologues like Friedman, who are scrambling to protect their own reputations and credibility after shamelessly pressing the country into Iraq in the first place. The fact that Friedman is still claiming that the public supports the war shows that he is either very comfortable lying in the pages of the New York Times, wholly divorced from reality - or both.

Now, you might say, so what? So what if a pundit like Tom Friedman is lying? He's just a columnist, right? Wrong. Friedman is not any old pundit - he is an agenda-setter. He is someone the insulated political class in Washington - especially Democrats - bows down to, regardless of how self-serving, inane or dishonest his pronouncements are. You can bet that the political chattering class in Washington read this column of his, and nodded its head in agreement - regardless of the fact that it has no relations to actual facts. When you understand this, you understand how dangerous Friedman and the pundit class really is - and you suddenly realize why the opposition party still has no real position on Iraq, and why our government's policies are so totally misguided and out of step with mainstream public opinion.

---

Some useful links:

Sirotablog

"David Sirota's online magazine of news & commentary."

http://davidsirota.com/

---

WorkingForChange

"WorkingForChange is an online journal of progressive news and opinion published by Working Assets. Visit WorkingForChange.com on a daily basis to read the latest dispatches from nationally syndicated reporters and columnists including Molly Ivins, Robert Scheer, and Greg Palast."

http://www.workingforchange.com/

Milton Friedman 'fesses up: No "free" markets!

Milton Friedman, the guru of profoundly influential monetarist and laissez-faire ideas of the past few decades has pulled the plug on free markets ... maybe without realizing it.

From NPQ, the New Perspectives Quarterly:

Free Markets and the End of History

Friedman | ... “Free markets” is a very general term. There are all sorts of problems that will emerge. Free markets work best when the transaction between two individuals affects only those individuals. But that isn’t the fact. The fact is that, most often, a transaction between you and me affects a third party. That is the source of all problems for government. That is the source of all pollution problems, of the inequality problem. There are some good economists like Gary Becker and Bob Lucas who are working on these issues. This reality ensures that the end of history will never come.

Intrepretation: Because transactions using the medium of money ALWAYS affect a third party, there is no such thing as a "free" or "unfettered" market in terms of the customary definition of the economic term. The reason for this is the clear fact that all costs incurred in the production and distribution of goods and services are not paid for out of the monetary selling price of the goods and services ... only the reimbursement of "ownership" costs ... so what is "free" about free markets is their being free of the costs they incur to others than the legally defined owners of the goods and services for sale—sellers and buyers.

Read the whole interview.

Is Dr. Condoleezza Rice a liar?

Is Dr. Condoleezza Rice a liar? You decide.

Hamas strength seen in State Department poll
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers

Posted on Fri, Mar. 03, 2006

"WASHINGTON - A State Department-commissioned poll taken days before January's Palestinian elections warned U.S. policymakers that the militant Islamic group Hamas was in a position to win.

"Nevertheless, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said after the election that they had no advance indication of a major Hamas triumph."

Read the full article

It's that time, folks!

Stand with Congressman Conyers

Demand Censure for Bush-Cheney Misconduct
Investigate Impeachable Offenses

http://www.johnconyers.com

"I have just completed a thorough review of this administration’s misconduct and have produced a 250-page report that provides evidence suggesting further steps to be taken. [A copy of the report may be found at RawStory.com and also at CensureBush.org where additional action items may be found.]"

- John Conyers

"Void of a major backlash on the part of the American people in response to the deliberate falsification and deceit that has transpired regarding Iraq and the now-debunked case for war, the Libby indictment may prove to be little more than an exercise in damage control. Already senior Republican officials, such as Texas Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson, are calling the Libby indictment a mere “technicality.” Right-wing pundits refer to the indictment as the “criminalization of politics,” as if lying one’s way into an illegal war of aggression is somehow akin to politics as usual.

If the American people go along with such blatant attempts at obscuring the reality of the criminal conspiracy that has been committed, then it is perhaps time we finally lay to rest this experiment we call American democracy. At the very minimum, Congress should be compelled into action."

- Scott Ritter
www.digitalnpq.org

It's time to get it done. Let's do it.

We are the people in:

"It is rather for us, the living, we here be dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that, from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here, gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve these dead shall not have died in vain; that the nation, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people by the people for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

- Abraham Lincoln

The Gettysburg Address

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. —"

—IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration
of the thirteen united States of America

Our Constitution gives Congress the power of impeachment. We do not need another Revolution or Civil War to cure what ails our government. We just need to elect a new Congress!

Read my post:

The most radical action I can take

Note: March 4th update.

From Christine Smith's website:

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." —Samuel Adams


"Whatever you can do or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Ah yes, Katrina ...

What did the President know and when did he know it?

Again the question of the moment ... and answered already.

If our boy president was forewarned of the possible (probable?) catastrophic damage from "the hurricane bearing down on New Orleans" before the storm hit, why did he go off on those "political" jaunts instead of taking care of buiness? (Do the timeline, folks!)

Because, dear friends and readers, he really is as dumb as we are beginning to realize.

And he has never had to earn a leadership role so he does not have a clue on the responsibility of leadership.

The leader sets the response level. The bottom-level grunts can't kick the mid-level people—those above them and below the President—into gear. That isn't how it works. The tone and attitude comes from the top.

If the President isn't taking something seriously, why should anyone else stick their neck out and become a General Shinseki? Best be a Colin Powell. (If they are looking for a metaphor for their career in government.)

Maybe even a Condi Rice.

Nobody wants to be a Rumsfeld even if it works for you.

Note: March 4th update.

Caught on Tape

Saturday, March 4, 2006

"This Washington Post editorial cuts through the smokescreen of Bush’s Katrina apologists." - truthdig.com

Read Gore Vidal on Bush at truthdig!

Please read

Gore Vidal's

President Jonah (redux)

on truthdig.com.

"War is not a good metaphor for what is happening" - Francis Fukuyama

Read the full interview of Francis Fukuyama, neoconservative intellectual, by Nathan Gardels, editor-in-chief of NPQ (New Perspectives Quarterly), the journal of social and political thought, on HuffingtonPost.com at:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nathan-gardels/fukuyama-iraq-shows-ther_b_16532.html

Excerpted:

Fukuyama: War is not a good metaphor for what is happening. It confuses what is a long political struggle with what is conventionally understood as war - a conflict of high intensity declared, fought and won, or lost, in a defined time frame. This struggle is going to percolate along at a relatively low level of activity with spikes of intensity, but its not going to have a clear ending.

By using the war metaphor we get into all kinds of trouble from the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo to wiretapping of our own citizens. People say "we have to suspend civil rights because we are at war." War overstates the intensity of the struggle and the kinds of sacrifices that requires.

Gardels: What policies are effective in this long political struggle against jihadist terrorism?

Fukuyama: In dealing with Islamism and the Middle East we need more of a political strategy and less of a military one. America needs to try to shape the world not by the overt use of military power but by establishing a set of multilateral institutions that then shape long-term incentives for stability, growth and cooperation like, for example, the Bretton Woods institutions created after World War II, or NATO, or the U.S.-Japan security treaty. For 50 years these created an institutional framework for the U.S. and others to shape the world without recourse to military might.

www.truthdig.com

The best news website is www.truthdig.com ... check it out!

This is grrrrrrrrrrrrrreat stuff.

And Molly Ivins' column appears here. I've been following her since I was knee-high to a grasshopper ... or so it seems. Somewhere back in the last century I met her at one of her "lectures" when she visited the University of Washington (U-Dub ... in Seattle) on a book tour.

Here are the Ivins' columns I found on truthdig:

Reports: The GOP Shell Game	With the Bush administration, it’s important to have in mind the old carnival con game: Keep your eye on the shell with the pea under it.	Molly Ivins	02/27/06
Reports: It's the Corporation, Stupid	Regarding the UAE port deal: The people running this country are perfectly willing to outsource American jobs, wages, and health and safety standards for the sake of free trade. Why would it surprise us that national security is ditto?	Molly Ivins	02/22/06
Reports: Abramoff Got Indicted, and All We Got Was This Lousy $20 Gift Ban?	Reform follows scandal as night the day, except in these sorry times, when it appears we may not get a nickel’s worth of reform out of the entire Jack Abramoff saga.	Molly Ivins	02/20/06
Reports: Cheney Shoots a Texas Liberal	Welcome back to the paradoxical Bush/Cheney “responsibility society,” where no one (starting with the administration) takes responsibility.	Molly Ivins	02/13/06
Reports: The Cure for Executive Excess	Can impeachment heal the malady of executive privilege and wiretapping? It has before.	Molly Ivins	02/09/06
Reports: Kicking the Oil Addiction: Bush Lied, Again	Cut imports? Medicare savings? Just kidding! As one White House official confessed, they just fib for your benefit.	Molly Ivins	02/06/06
Reports: Iraq the Disaster, Officially Speaking	I do hope this is responsible criticism that aims for cures, not defeatism that refuses to acknowledge anything but failure.	Molly Ivins	02/03/06
Reports: Lying About the State of the Union	As our government renames a civil liberties-trampling spying program and suppresses the results of its own studies, Americans are being left in an information vacuum regarding the true state of our union.	Molly Ivins	01/31/06
Reports: Not Backing Hillary	I’d like to make it clear to the people who run the Democratic Party that I will not support Sen. Clinton for president.	Molly Ivins	01/21/06

Letter to selected US Senators and Governor Corzine of New Jersey

Re: Dubya's dubious Dubai deal (Paul Mulshine, The Star-Ledger)

Dear (selected US Senators and Governor Corzine of New Jersey):

I was born a farm boy up around Duluth, Minnesota, ... and I certainly didn't go to an ivy league university ... but I know the difference between a NATO ally like Great Britain and a country like UAE that doesn't even recognize Israel ... and in the post-9/11 world I would think that is a HUGE distinction in terms of vetting our partners in operations critical to our national security. If it isn't then why do we form alliances like NATO?

And I don't think Chinese-based (or owned) companies should be handling port operations either.

The ONLY possible reason for rubber stamping "Dubya's dubious Dubai deal" (courtesy of Paul Mulshine and the Star-Ledger) is the Bush clique's oil money ties with the dictatorships of the Middle East. The Bushies have sold OUR birthright for porridge for THEM. The only way any of this makes sense is when we realize it is all about the Bushies gaining wealth and power within their loyal group. (It isn't a royal group, yet.)

And what all the well-paid pundits for the wealthy and powerful are trying to counter in the public arena (what do we know about the history of "house slaves?") is that this port deal on top of the illegal immigration crises will give traction to the anti-globalization crowd before the globally connected "oil is money" clique has drained the last ounce of value out of our country for the wealthy of the world. The United States, too, can be a banana republic (did somebody say, "reservation?", or was it "plantation?") in which the people who labor and produce the wealth, no longer gain an equitable share of the wealth they produce.

Times, they are a'changing.

Hilding "Gus" Lindquist

From:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/02/28/dpworld-boycotts-israel/

BREAKING: Dubai Ports World Boycotts Israel

From this morning’s Jerusalem Post:

The parent company of a Dubai-based firm at the center of a political storm in the US over the purchase of American ports participates in the Arab boycott against Israel, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

The Jerusalem Post notes that “US law bars firms from complying with such requests or cooperating with attempts by Arab governments to boycott Israel.” Once upon a time, opposing such boycotts was important to the Bush Administration. From the BBC, 5/11/02:

“The US government is strongly opposed to restrictive trade practices or boycotts targeted at Israel,” said Undersecretary of Commerce for Industry and Security Kenneth Juster.

“The Commerce Department is closely monitoring efforts that appear to be made to reinvigorate the Arab boycott of Israel and will use all of its resources to vigorously enforce US anti-boycott regulations.”

…The Department of Commerce has issued more than $26m in fines and turned down export licenses to those found violating the law.

The boycott against Israel is an important distinction between P&O, the British company that currently operates 21 U.S. ports, and Dubai Ports World.

Letter to Paul Mulshine, Star-Ledger columnist

Note: Written in response to Paul Mulshine's column in The Star-Ledger, Newark, New Jersey, titled: "Dubya's dubious Dubai deal," Thursday, February 23, 2006.


Whoever is writing headlines for you ... buy 'em a beer!

I read Farmer's and Moran's columns this morning (Friday)--and others in other newspapers ... mostly you are the only one who is getting it!

There is a chain of security that starts when the cargo (the actual "stuff") is assembled for shipping and continues to when it is received for "use" at its final destination. The port operator has an overarching operational understanding of that path ... with the concurrent understanding of the weak AND strong points. AND it actually is in charge of the security of the cargo at least while it is on the receiving dock from the time the longshoreman unload it from the ship to the time when it is hauled off the dock on a truck or train.

Even a little ol' farm boy from Minnesota like me knows that whoever controls access to the cargo AFTER it has cleared custom and the Coast Guard and BEFORE it is delivered to its final destination has a significant role to play in securing the cargo ... how many drug smuggling movies do I have to watch to "get it?"

So the argument that it doesn't matter who is the port management company is bogus on the face of it. This is not the same as saying that the UAE company is a bad company.

It does point up the fact that after almost 4-1/2 years of a us vs. them, good vs. evil, black and white depiction of the war against terrorism, it is a wee bit of a stretch to rubber stamp this deal without something more than a perfunctory review. If Bush (#43) doesn't understand the inherent difference between Great Britain as an ally vs. UAE as an ally vs. South Korea as an Ally vs. China as an ally ... to say nothing of the different nuances in our hemisphere between Chile, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, etc. ... then Bush ... well, he is as dumb as I think he is. This is not racism or ethnocentrism. It is realism.

And if the Bush Administration doesn't get it ... then their whole anti-terrorism campaign has been rhetorical rather than principled ... and that is what Carolee Adams and other thinking conservatives recognized immediately: this was such a HUGE tear in the weave of the logic that it exposed the falsity of its fabrication.

By the way, does the UAE recognize Israel?

Letter to Thomas L Friedman, NY Times OpEd columnist

Note: Written in response to Friedman's OpEd column, "War of the Worlds", in today's—February 24, 2006—NY Times.

Why do you lie to us? Are you such a house slave of wealth and power that you hold us, the common citizen, in contempt?

The port operator (talk with people who run American Stevedoring Inc—http://www.asiterminals.com/) is in charge of securing the cargo while it is on the dock from the time U.S. longshoremen unload the cargo from the ship onto the dock until it leaves the dock on a truck.

With not more than 5% of the cargo we receive being inspected, the entire chain of control—from point of origin of the cargo itself (before it is even readied for shipping) to the point of delivery—needs to be as tightly controlled as possible. It is a bogus argument to say that things will not change when "things" are so bad in terms of security that they should change, and change—like in "improve"—radically.

Placing ownership of the management contract at the bottom of a list of security problems does not make it "not a problem". It points a powerful light at the list of problems!

By the way, there is no such thing as "free" trade in markets where money is the medium of exchange. There is, however, the simple truth: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time."

I would think that you would want to be remembered for trying to get at the truth in some objective fashion, rather than the "truth" as the designated conventional wisdom churned out by the holders of wealth and power to quiet the common folk.

Who are the fools?

In a letter to the Editor published in today's NY Times, Professor Christopher Woodruff, Associate Professor of Economics, Director of Center for U.S.-Mexican Studies , at University of California, San Diego wrote:

"Why do drug companies feel so strongly about unfettered markets on the revenue side, when they rely on subsidies on the cost side? Don't we taxpayers, too, deserve some return on our investment?"

Why indeed are corporations with power over markets so loath to pay the costs of earning their revenue? And it isn't just indirect costs they try to avoid. They seek to avoid direct costs as well ... unless we define direct costs as those costs that are paid out of revenues ... and if the corporations can get away with not paying for something, then it becomes an indirect cost ... that is, someone else pays.

If someone dumped sludge in our yard, we would expect them to clean it up. Then why are power plants east of New Jersey allowed to pollute New Jersey's air? ... for example. Who should pay for the damage done in New Jersey by the pollution produced in Pennslyvania or Ohio? Is this a God thing?

There are so many examples of the absurdities inherent in the concept "unfettered markets" that I am left with the observation that either fools are in charge or those who are in charge think the rest of us are fools.

Markets work ... within limits

Don't get me wrong (see Debunking Myth #2: The free market), markets work. It's just that there is no such thing as a "free market" except in some tightly controlled economic arenas. Inside the boundaries of these competitive markets the supply and demand curves work well to set prices as if an Invisible Hand was at play ... like sand passing through a funnel falls into a cone-shaped mound under a fairly wide range of conditions.

But consider for a moment Vice President Cheney calling for allowing free market forces to set the price of oil and determine the vehicles we drive ... while the Republicans pass specific tax breaks for the oil industry ... and the supply and price of oil are set by the oil cartel.

And is there anything MORE regimented than access to the floor of the New York Stock Exchange?

It is the realization that in establishing markets based on money as the medium of exchange, we effectively alter the fundamental nature of the economic landscape with profound immediate effects for those who have to undergo change from whatever ways and means of exchange were in effect previously. When we who would impose the change are not willing to pay the cost of our choice (exercised through power), we create a fundamental distortion in the economic landscape.

And we can begin to see the limitations of money-based markets in which goods and services are exchanged for cash ... all the costs of bringing those goods and services to market are not paid for at the time of purchase ... including the cost of establishing the market.

Money-based markets may be the best we can do, but they are instituted, controlled, and run by human beings. They are not given to us by God. I mean, get a grip, please.

More to follow.

Debunking Myth #2: The free market

There is no such thing as a free market. Get over it. It doesn't exist in the real world.

Think of it like this: The free market of Economists is like using a funnel in a laboratory to pour sand into cones on the top of a lab table ... free of wind and waves and freezing temperatures ... as everyone stands around and oohs and aahs over the Invisible Hand shaping the grains of sand into a perfect cone as they come out of the spout of the funnel.

Try doing it on an Oregon beach in March.

Examples of free market supply and demand curves deal with sales of programs at Super Bowls. The real world has to contend with mothers and fathers sharing porridge with their children.

Going from an local agrarian village culture to a global free market culture has killed a lot of children.

All this so entrepreneurs can predict the optimum amount of grain to deliver to village markets so that the demand allows a profit sufficient to attract farmers to grow the grain, shippers to transport the grain, and retailers to sell the grain, i.e. provide the optimum supply ... to replace the village economy in which the villagers did this for themselves.

Isn't anyone else scratching their head in puzzlement?

Seems like we could have tried to figure out how to do this without killing so many children.

But when someone can get others to pour their sand through a funnel, and charge them a fee ... well, it's easier to control the funnels than it is to control the sand ... and you show people that funnels work ... on still a day, on a quiet beach ... and make it against the law to pour sand without funnels ... "Stay in line there. Don't go wandering around the beach. Get your sand from Funnel A and take it to Funnel B and pour it in. Others will take it from there. Yes, yes, you'll all have an opportunity to get and pour sand if you just follow the rules. No, no, you can't go build sand castles with the Scandinavians. Damn it, now the Bolivians are going over there." .... god, how did we ever get to this point.

I can't help but wonder what's going to happen when the next storm hits the beach ...

It isn't that markets don't work. They do, within limitations. It is just that when those who control and manipulate the limitations for their own benefit and then try to say their are no such limitations that can be controlled or manipulated ... or that such an ideal exists and we need to come as close to the ideal as possible ... when limits—and the need for them—are inherent in the very structure of a money based economy ...

But if you are going to print programs for sale at the Super Bowl and want to maximize your profits ... well, Economists have some useful calculations for you to use. They just don't work very good for feeding a family in Nairobi.

The most radical action I can take ...

The most radical action I can take ... if we define "radical" as meaning "advocating extreme measures to retain or restore a political state of affairs" ... is to act as a citizen representing my interests as a person with inalienable rights, freely embedded and engaged in a community of my own choosing (in other words, a community I could leave if I so chose) ...

This is, in itself, the noblest political action. This is the highest form of public service ... the role of the free citizen. It's downhill from there to the Presidency with fetters, the chains of the expectations of others, steadily restricting a person's sphere of personal freedom. (Note: And freedom is NOT having choices about which pair of jeans to buy or wear.)

My gawd, how far we have strayed from our philosophical roots in ancient Greece as well as in the founding of our own nation.

Debunking Myth #1: The 2-party system

We—here in these United States of America—no more have a 2-party political system than the Tooth Fairy buys infant teeth or the Easter Bunny hides eggs.

We have two major sets (teams) of politicians in contests for political offices and all the spoils that go with these offices—not to serve the public (as in real "servants of the public" for the collective good) but to advance their personal political careers. As soon as a candidate starts believing that the first step in serving the public is to get her/himself elected, the public is no longer served.

What would a real 2-party system look like from my point of view? It would be divided along the lines of the dynamic dialectic inherent in capitalism, between the interests of entrepreneurial ownership on one side and labor on the other. ( Note: I personally believe it is this dynamic dialectic that has produced the great advances in freedom, knowledge, and the standard of living for the average person in societies where the dialectic has been kept in rational equilibrium by an active participatory democracy for all.)

By the way, "dialectic" as used here is simply the the tension or struggle resulting from the opposition between two sides to an issue. The "dynamic dialectic inherent in capitalism" is the tension over how the wealth produced by labor is to be divided between entrepreneurial ownership and labor.

The problem for capitalism is how to keep the dialectic in rational equilibrium. As I wrote in my note, I believe the best means is an active participatory democracy for all.

Some assertions:

1. Simply having the right to vote does NOT define a democracy.

2. Being able to listen to and read "news" is not freedom of speech.

3. If citizens (we, the people) abrogate our active participation in the governance of our community or, in other words, do not interact actively with our neighbors in the political affairs of our community at all levels, then we are not doing our part in preserving democracy by effectively representing our interests. This will in turn upset the rational equilibrium which capitalism needs to avoid falling into monopolism (entrepreneurial owners dictating governing policy) on one hand or communism (workers dictating governing policy) on the other. (Note: I purposely avoid the use of "socialism" because there can be rational public ownership of shared resources agreed to by both interests ... highways, ports, and airports are some resources that I think we can agree are most often best developed under public ownership.)


Addendum: More to follow on this and other myths.

A butterfly flapping my wings ...

Some ground rules:

(1.) I am not interested in starting a movement. I am interested in being a butterfly flapping my wings in China ... whether or not the motion contributes to a hurricane in California.

(2.) I am interested in living a fully engaged creative life, which I believe is the highest good of human existence. The very essence of creativity is the maximizing of choice, having the option to choose to create something that satisfies my sense of awe, my wonderment. The fully engaged creative life is one of choosing what ought to be and then working to make it what is.

(3.) Maximizing of choice in the fully engaged creative life REQUIRES engaging/involving others in the activity. It is IMPOSSIBLE to do it in isolation.

(4.) In order for this engagement of others to "work" MOST effectively, I believe I must allow the others (and actively participate in fostering for the others) to have the same opportunity to live this life as I do ... thereby doing exactly what life does, extend opportunity throughout the gene-pool allowing survival of the fittest.

I do not think we need another "movement". I think we need to apply these ground rules to all movements. The joyful awareness of creatively engaging the cosmos will attract others ... or it won't and which case the potential of humanity as I see it will be lost ... for this epoch.

But to try to organize/impose a system from some type of leadership (Nietzsche's "Will to System") destroys the social environment for maximizing of choice in the fully engaged creative life. The trouble with most patriarchal testosterone driven "king-of-the-hill" paradigms is that they totally destroy Camelot's merry, merry month of May.

Maybe we citizens should simply concentrate on what we do best--like the butterfly flapping its wings--without trying to control the hurricane that results in the chaos of our world. Maybe it is when we don't do our part, that things get out of whack.

Let's all pile on Tim Russert

Seems like it's pile on Tim Russert season. (And get off Oprah.)

Strange anyone should think Tim should be anything but what he is, a talking-head ... as in bobble-head. I've tuned into Meet the Press on NBC Sunday mornings for years ... to see what the latest propaganda coming from the political powerful would be. I'm just a farm boy from up around Duluth, Minnesota, and I knew that Tim treated his guests with soft gloves in order to get them on the show. It's taken others this long to figure THAT out?!

And now everyone is applauding Oprah for beating up on Frey! Well, she waited for the public's smell meter to jump over into the red zone and set off the alarm before she did it. She sure didn't take Frey to task when it was up to her to make the decision all by herself, out there and exposed. No sirree, bob!

From my point of view ... I've shoveled a lot of cow manure in my time ... Tim is being Tim and Oprah's being Oprah. Nothing to get excited about ... unless you actually thought they were thinking heads. In that case we're back to fooling most of the people most of the time. And there is nothing new there either.