More and Murrow: 'Conspiracies of Rich Men'; 'Wires and Lights in a Box'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Conspirators would love to convince you that conspiracies don't exist. It's the perfect cover. I suggest that anyone susceptible to the meme that 'conspiracies do not exist' begin a study of conspiracy case law starting with FINDLAW and the Cornell University Law library online. There must be hundreds if not thousands of cases involving conspiracies.

Every case most surely involves a team of lawyers on both sides, and, perhaps, numerous judges on its way up to the Supreme Court. That's a lot of ink and lawyers about something that we are expected to believe does not exist.

Conspiracies are how things get done. If its 'legal', it's a company! If it is illegal and performed by two or more people working for the 'common bad' it's called a conspiracy. Conspiracies exist as a matter of law and practice. Conspiracy debunkers are as dead wrong and wrong-headed about this as are 911 deniers about Bushco, as the right wing is dead wrong and wrong-headed about almost everything of consequence.

It is to be expected that anyone conspiring with or 'throwing in' with Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr or Bush Jr would want to convince you that their consistently sorry, incompetent, often tragic performances and results are just coincidence, that the same thing might have happened under Democratic regimes! It 'might' have but did not and never has! The GOP owns every recession/depression it ever presided over. The GOP owns the transfer of American jobs and industry to China. The GOP owns a consistent pattern of anemic growth --if any! The GOP owns its denial of reality and the lies it tells about almost everything!

These people who peddle this crap are coincidence theorists. I believe in cause and effect! I believe in the scientific method. I believe in stats! I believe in math, specifically, Calculus and its ability to model reality, pinpoint rates of change, in this case, how fast wealth flows upward, just how fast the middle class is disappearing, how long it takes for a middle class family to drop off the bottom rung of the ladder and whether or not it is too late to reverse the curve! Reality and history repeatedly disprove the coincidence theorists. Reality and history repeatedly deny them any cover. The GOP record is consistently and improbably incompetent and/or criminal. The GOP record defies the odds! The GOP record is hard evidence against them. The GOP record is an American tragedy.

If you were involved in a heinous conspiracy with 'big oil' --Halliburton, BP, Exxon-Mobil et al --and wish to loot the oil fields of Iraq, you might convene your fellow conspirators, call it an 'Energy Task Force'. The raison d'etre is nothing more nor less than carving up the oil fields of Iraq. All that would be needed is a pretext! The conspirators of Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' would get one. 911! What are the odds? For those conspiracies so well-connected, things have a statistically high way of working out for the conspirators. Coincidences? If that is what you believe, then I advise you to steer clear of Las Vegas or Tahoe, two towns built upon the power of odds!

This 'conspiracy of rich men' would dare to rewrite a tale from '1001 Arabian Nights'. They would rewrite the story of Ala Baba and his 40 thieves. It was a Hollywood re-write: 40 thieves became 19 hijackers; Ali Baba's cave was relocated to Tora Bora from which everything was coordinated with cells phones. But from deep within a cave?? In the mountains? Well, that's Hollywood for you!

How would you then convince the American people that the Ala Baba conspiracy is real and that your own conspiracy with Halliburton and other oil barons is just an 'outrageous conspiracy theory'? That's easy! You elicit the help of American media moguls who have been to the right of Attila the Hun since Ronald Reagan trashed the Fairness Doctrine and literally stole the people's airwaves. Those airwaves had belonged to you! But not since Ronald Reagan.

Conspiracies are how things get done. Some are legal; some are not. A 'corporation', for example, is a conspiracy made legal by 'charter'. Corporations were described by St. Thomas More in his 'Utopia':

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia

If you are still drinking the Kool-aid, go to Findlaw, where the search term 'conspiracy' of itself will get you 690 cases.

Go to the Cornell University Law Library. Type in the single search term 'conspiracy'! Among the hundreds (possibly thousands of cases) you will find No. 03-3156,UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,APPELLEE v.ANTONIO N. TABRON, A/K/A FAT CAT,APPELLANT. An excerpt:

TATEL, Circuit Judge: Although appellant pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute marijuana, cocaine, and crack, he objected to a two-level sentencing enhancement based on the weapons possession of alleged co-conspirators. The district court nonetheless imposed the two-level “gun bump” because it found that appellant must have known that other individuals with whom he had been indicted regularly used guns. In doing so, however, the district court made no explicit finding as to the scope of appellant’s conspiratorial agreement. Because our case law requires such findings before defendants are held accountable for the conduct of alleged co-conspirators, we vacate the gun bump and remand for reconsideration.

I. In November 2001, a grand jury indicted sixteen individuals, including appellant Antonio Tabron—also known as Fat Cat—charging them with various drug-related crimes. A little more than a year later, Tabron pled guilty to conspiracy to sell illegal drugs and, in his proffer, accepted responsibility for the conspiracy’s distribution of 1.5 kilograms of crack.

It is amazing how cavalierly the word 'conspiracy' is kicked around in this legal document filed with the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit! Did the lawyers not get the GOP memo --the one that decreed 'conspiracies do not exist'? Here is a bigger case, a bigger conspiracy in which the conspirators are named:

United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2006-1471
PHILIP E. BOYNTON, CLARENCE W. BOYNTON, RICHARD M. BOYNTON,
NORMA ANN LOGAN, RENELDA J. WESTFALL, SHANNON NONN,
AARON SCOTT BERNARD, ALAN F. BERNARD, LINDA R. BERNARD,
and DAVID ALAN BERNARD,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,
v.
HEADWATERS, INC.
(formerly known as Covol Technologies, Inc.),
Defendant-Appellee. Jeffrey A. Greene, of Nashville, Tennessee, argued for plaintiffs-appellants. Brent P. Lorimer, Workman Nydegger, of Salt Lake City, Utah, argued for defendant-appellee. With him on the brief were David R. Todd, R. Parrish Freeman, and Joseph G. Pia.
Appealed from: United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee
Judge Jon Phipps McCalla
NOTE: This disposition is nonprecedential.
United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit
2006-1471
PHILIP E. BOYNTON, CLARENCE W. BOYNTON, RICHARD M. BOYNTON,
NORMA ANN LOGAN, RENELDA J. WESTFALL, SHANNON NONN,
AARON SCOTT BERNARD, ALAN F. BERNARD, LINDA R. BERNARD,
and DAVID ALAN BERNARD,
Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

HEADWATERS, INC.
(formerly known as Covol Technologies, Inc.),
Defendant-Appellee.
DECIDED: July 27, 2007
Before SCHALL and BRYSON, Circuit Judges, and HOLDERMAN, District Judge.*
SCHALL, Circuit Judge.
Plaintiffs-appellants Philip E. Boynton and nine other individuals (collectively “plaintiffs”) brought suit against Headwaters, Inc. (formerly known as Covol Technologies, Inc.) (“Headwaters”) in the United States District Court for the Western District of Tennessee. Plaintiffs now appeal the judgment of the district court that dismissed their patent infringement claim on the pleadings and their civil conspiracy,
* Honorable James F. Holderman, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.

Today, even some of the largest corporations need merely send a couple of hundreds bucks (or less) to the Secretary of State in Delaware. Voila! The 'conspiracy' has just become a 'corporation' complete with by-laws, a ledger and a genuine Delaware Secretary of State Corporate Seal. So impressed was the U.S. Supreme Court that they have 'created' corporations 'people'. Their decree has made it so! The big difference is this: while 'real persons' have real responsibilities to obey and/or conduct their lives and businesses within the letter of the law, a 'corporate person' is never sentenced to death for murder, never made to do hard prison time in a Texas corporate-owned gulag, never held to a standard approaching those applied to real, living breathing persons.

One person working alone is extremely limited. Even a convenience store robbery requires a conspiracy if it is to be done right: one conspirator to hold a gun on the clerk, another to drive the get-away car. Putting the screws to an entire state (California), however, requires the evil genius of Ken Lay and Enron, the epitome of More's 'conspiracy of rich men'.

Enron, as far as I can tell, produced nothing but chaos and hardship in California. Enron stooges laughed and hooted! Call it Karma --they were all soon out of a job! Nevertheless, Enron was, at the time, positioned to trade, perhaps control, 'energy futures'. It is very, very difficult for the 'lone gunman' to pull off a conspiracy so complex. I wonder how well Ken Lay is doing these days! You know, he has not been seen since his 'death'!

BP is a more current example. Had BP never been granted a 'charter' and thus, like Pinocchio, become a 'real person' it could not possibly have positioned itself to spring a leak and thus endanger the ecosystem of the Gulf of Mexico, the varied marine life, the 'livings' of thousands, eventually, millions of people along the U.S. Gulf Coast most notably. BP is a real world conspiracy of 'rich men procuring their commodities in the name and title of the commonwealth'. Would Queen Elizabeth I have been proud? Or would she have ordered: "off with their heads!"? How proud is QEII?

The fascist domination of American life and debate is possible because people have 'bought into' the pernicious notion of 'corporate person-hood'. I believe this reflects the sorry state of education in America, perhaps the world. I believe this represents the fact that U.S. media has failed to become more than mere 'wires and lights in a box'!

I began by saying that our history will be what we make it. If we go on as we are, then history will take its revenge, and retribution will not limp in catching up with us.

We are to a large extent an imitative society. If one or two or three corporations would undertake to devote just a small fraction of their advertising appropriation along the lines that I have suggested, the procedure would grow by contagion; the economic burden would be bearable, and there might ensue a most exciting adventure--exposure to ideas and the bringing of reality into the homes of the nation.

To those who say people wouldn't look; they wouldn't be interested; they're too complacent, indifferent and insulated, I can only reply: There is, in one reporter's opinion, considerable evidence against that contention. But even if they are right, what have they got to lose? Because if they are right, and this instrument is good for nothing but to entertain, amuse and insulate, then the tube is flickering now and we will soon see that the whole struggle is lost.

This instrument can teach, it can illuminate; yes, and it can even inspire. But it can do so only to the extent that humans are determined to use it to those ends. Otherwise it is merely wires and lights in a box.

-EDWARD R. MURROW, RTNDA Convention, Chicago, October 15, 1958

Much of the fuzzy thinking about 'corporations'--legalized conspiracies --is, not surprisingly, traced to and found among the GOP leadership and rank and file. The GOP has a record of supporting laws and policies that effect the transfer of wealth in various ways that enrich the increasingly tiny ruling elite, in fact, just one percent of the total population. They alone benefit from GOP 'tax cuts', most notably the Reagan tax cut of 1982 which began the trend.

Initially, it was the top 20 percent who benefited as charts dating to the beginning of the Clinton administration indicate and prove. Clinton succeeded in reversing the trend. It would have been a lasting legacy, Clinton's finest hour, had not the regime of George W. Bush reversed the reverse and resumed the trend upward. The good work had been undone. The dead Reagan smiled in his grave. As a result, just one percent of all Americans were enriched; this elite owns more than about 95 percent of the rest of us combined. The official stats are available from the Census Bureau, the Bureau of Economic Analysis, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The story is there for anyone desiring to get at the truth about the criminality of the GOP.

First lesson I learned as a debater was that one cannot debate a matter of fact that is verifiable. The transfer of wealth upward is a fact; ergo --not a matter of debate. The rate at which wealth is transferred upward is pure math; a number can be put on it. It occurs concurrently with what are called 'recessions or depressions', more accurately, 'contractions' in that the economy literally shrinks as companies close, jobs are lost, consumer spending declines! It is not the GOPs 'higher pie' but is, in fact, a shrinking pie in which the increasingly tiny elite get ever bigger slices. The rates by which these changes occur can be plotted. It is a noble task for a bright Calculus student to plot, graph, and formulate the equations which may precisely describe and quantify this observable characteristic of American economic politics.

If less than ten percent of the billions spent on ways to mass murder people were diverted to investigations, we could investigate not only BP but Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force', BP and every other traitor who plots to despoil our environment, subvert our constitution, wage wars of naked aggression upon a pack of lies [See U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441], subvert the education system in Texas or engage in the pimping of America on K-Street. Also see: An Analysis of Incarceration and Crime Trends in The Lone Star State

There may be a monk atop a tower somewhere who has never engaged in a conspiracy of any sort but I doubt it. Someone has to bring him food --either purchased or stolen. Chances are good that that the monk has conspired with someone for food, water, sex or marijuana.

‎Conspirators have an interest in convincing folk that conspiracies don't exist. But that these idiots themselves promote absurd theories is Kafkaesque. Here is the difference: someone occupying high office, we are expected to believe, is allowed to indulge all kinds of idiotic theories and expect you to believe them. Two incredibly stupid theories come to mind: 'supply-side economics, better known and described as 'trickle-down theory'' and the Bush 'official conspiracy theory of 911' which I compared to the story of Ali Baba and his 40 thieves. Bush is lucky he did not try to sell the screenplay though I suspect that it might have been produced and directed by the CIA with Associate Producer credit going to Mossad. A notable production number was the gay and hilarious 'Dancing Israelis' otherwise known as the 'Not Ready for Broadway Players'.

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