The Existentialist Cowboy

How U.S. Elections May Violate the 14th Amendment

2012-01-27T08:36:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The ideal of 'one man, one vote' has never been achieved. If your vote does not carry the same weight as does the vote of someone else, then your rights under the 14th have been violated! For example, it is possible that a Presidential candidate could get a greater number of popular votes but, by losing a few large states, get fewer 'electoral college votes and, thus, lose the White House.

That's only one example and a more obvious one. On any given election, votes are not equal. Someone else's vote may be 'worth' more than yours or yours may be worth more than another person's. Votes are not equal. And, in some cases, some votes --perhaps your vote --may not even count.

In a democratic election between two candidates, the winner is the person with the majority of the votes. But when three or more candidates run, things are seldom so simple. The winner often amasses only a plurality, not a majority, of the votes. (Bill Clinton, for example, won the presidency with 43 percent of the vote; Jesse Ventura won the Minnesota governorship with 37 percent.) The plurality winner could be everybody else's least favorite candidate and could even lose to each of the other candidates in a head-to-head battle. As Saari puts it: "The plurality vote is the only procedure that will elect someone who's despised by almost two thirds of the voters."

--Discover Magazine, May the Best Man Lose, November 1, 2000

The 14th says that "...no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

--U.S. Constitution, 14th Amendment

The Equal Protection Clause can be seen as an attempt to secure the promise that "all men are created equal". But not only minorites but every person has a stake in his/her vote being counted but --even more imporantly --counting for as much as every other vote cast by every other person in the nation.

The most promising proposals include the 'System of Single Transferable Vote' (STV) proposed by Thomas Hare in England and Carl George Andrae in Denmark in the l850s. Adopted throughout the world, STV has been adopted to elect public officials, prominently in Australia, Malta, the Republic of Ireland, and Northern Ireland as well as in local school board elections in New York City.

But other systems, likewise, have their advocates. They include 'preference voting', the Borda Count, range voting et al. All have in common that they are far superior to any method now used in the United States in terms of how accurately any given election reflects the will of the people. My own 'preference', however, is the Borda count in which...

...each voter ranks all of the candidates from top to bottom. If there are, say, five candidates, then a voter's top-ranked candidate gets 5 points, his second-ranked candidate gets 4, and so on. Finally, the points from all the voters are added up to determine the winner.

--Discover Magazine, May the Best Man Lose, November 1, 2000

It is hard to see how anything could be simpler and just as hard to see how a nation which tolerates the unequal nature of elections can --with a straight-faced --claim to be democratic or fair. It is hard to see how any government formed as a result of unfair or inaccurate voting systems can claim to be legitimate.

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AA Exposes Bush's 'Big Lie': Flight 11 DID NOT FLY on 911!

2012-01-25T03:17:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

American Airlines is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. If neither flew on 911, the Bush 'theory' is a lie. If the Bush 'theory' is a lie, there remains only one explanation and that is: 911 was an inside job given a green-light by Bush himself.

These flights are critical to the the government's crumbling cover up! Conan Doyle, the brilliant creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is not only impossible, it's absurd and insulting to intelligent people!

The Bush Conspiracy Theory is a Lie

There is, then, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the crimes of mass murder and high treason. See: U. S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. That includes every statement made by Bush.

WikiScanner discovered that it was American Airlines itself which changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11. The original entry was as follows:

Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

New entry [as of the date of this article] is as follows and includes the bolded text below:

Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.

--Wikipedia

To make the point: the source for these change is American Airlines by making changes to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not Wiki. The story is not about Wiki. The story is about how AA 'corrected' a wiki entry. The story is about the fact that the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 were not flying on 911 comes from American Airlines itself.

According to a Freedom of Information Act reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks, while no pre-9/11 final flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA).

However, a discovered searchable online BTS database produces the following search results for three of the four 9/11 aircraft on September 10, 2001:

AA 11 departs San Francisco (SFO): AA 09/10/2001 0198 (flight number) N334AA (tail number) BOS (destination) 22:04 (wheels-off time)

UA 175 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0170 (flight number) N612UA (tail number) BOS (destination) 13:44 (wheels-off time)

UA 93 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0078 (flight number) N591UA (tail number) EWR (destination) 23:15 (wheels-off time)
--911 Blogger, UPDATE: U.S. BTS FOIA Records For 9/11 Planes Differ From BTS Online Database [The records were obtained by Adrian Monaghan]

The question is raised: how do we know who made the changes to Wiki? Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP is that of American Airlines. It's traceable.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as my Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that it was --indeed --American Airlines that made the change. It is, therefore, American Airlines that has said that neither Flight 11 nor Flight 77 were in the air on 911.

Therefore, the Bush theory of 911 is a deliberate lie.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS - 144.9.8.21

Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas]

OrgName:    American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID:      AMERIC-112
Address:    P.O.Box 619616
Address:    MD 5308
City:       DFW Airport
StateProv:  TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country:    US

NetRange:   144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR:       144.9.0.0/16
NetName:    AANET
NetHandle:  NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:
RegDate:    1990-10-31
Updated:    2002-06-27

RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName:   Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone:  +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName:   WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone:  +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

One of Many Fatal Holes in the Bush Official Conspiracy Theory

The many lies (many referenced in previous EC articles; see links below) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!

911 did not happen as we have been told.

Bushco's 'official conspiracies theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are essential ingredients in the 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. That AA claims that neither 11 nor 77 were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. Clearly --the official theory is a lie, an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? The official 'lie' goes like this:

At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport.
..Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6
Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.
According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble. 8
--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research

Simply: if AA Flight 11 was not in the air, it could not have struck the towers; ergo: the Bush theory is false!

The house of cards collapses.

Assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower that are utterly baseless, if not a deliberate and criminal lie! If neither Flight 11 mor 77 was in the air that day, the Bush administration's version of events must be utterly discarded.

If flights 11 or 77 did not fly on 911, officialdom must come up with another explanation to explain the the events of 911.

No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon.

One would not expect to find wreckage of a flight never flown. What is significant with respect to the changes to Wiki with respect to BTS/NTSB records is that the burden of proof is now placed upon Bushco to prove its theory --or face charges resulting from the probable cause that Bush himself and high ranking members of his administration participated in the crimes of mass murder and high treason!

Photos of an engine rotor appear to depict an engine used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, according to Britain's International Television News, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. "A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean."

Britain's ITN continued:

"The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state... It flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images."

ITN quoted Australian Global Hawk manager Rod Smith: "The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway."

'The Missile that Struck this Building'

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.

Only minutes after the strike, [see pic above] there is no sign of an airliner at all!!
No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.
Only ONE engine rotor (seen in photos) was recovered! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor, i.e about the size of a U.S. Global Hawk rotor.
A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon. Again --only one rotor was found in Pentagon debris.
Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines and would have been found had they been there.
Flight 77 could not and did not crash into the Pentagon. That may be because Flt 77 had been mothballed and had not flown for some 6 months and that's according to airline records.

No Arabs Were on Board 77

If no Arabs were on board Flight 77, Bush's theory must be trashed! There is not only no evidence to support the theory that Arab terrorists hijacked 77, there is every reason to believe that none of ever got on board. There are no Arabs on the only Pentagon 'evidence' that is admissible in court: the 'Official Autopsy Report' of Pentagon victims. The autopsy report was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. In a 'neat' cover-up, a 911 memorial lists all victims of whatever it was that crashed into the Pentagon. At the same time, 77 victims were said to have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. Where, then, are the passengers buried? I would be very surprised to learn that there were passengers on a flight that cannot be proven to have existed.

Whatever crashed into the Pentagon was described by a witnesses as looking like a 'hump-backed whale'. Rumsfeld himself called it a missile: Below: a US Global Hawk painted to look like an AA airliner. It is both a 'missile' and it also has a hump back!

The photo below does not purport to be the craft that would ultimately crash into the Pentagon. It merely demonstrates how easily such a 'paint job' could dupe those who are 1) not experts on aircraft 2) saw it only for a second or less as it scooted across the Pentagon lawn as NO 757 could possible have done 3) were, in any case, caught off guard.

Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! America, it is time to grow up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies! It is time to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation of 911.

It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the U.S. by the Bush administration, his collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein who ordered WTC 7 be 'pulled', General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time, the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.

By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).
Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard. The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City.
It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense." Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?
There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"

The video asks: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" That is not the question. Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy --a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. It's a stupid theory; without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it.

The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators? It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said that when you have eliminated the impossible what remains however improbable MUST be the truth!

ADDENDUM:

There has been a spate of fallacious comments of the form: "...uh...what happened the passengers, dude?". A few points:

the 'question' is, in fact, an implied statement and ASSUMES there were flights! It assumes there were passengers! If there were --in fact --passengers one would have expected to have found their names on the official autopsy report. But --alas --there are NO passenger names whatsoever! There is simply no evidence of any passengers, no evidence that any flight alleged by Bush to have crashed in either NY or the Pentagon flew at all on that fateful day! In a court, it would be said that any statement with respect to 'passengers' that 'it assumes facts NOT in evidence'!
absence of evidence is not evidence in support of anything, let alone Bush's idiotic, fallacious and pernicious lie! ! The 'absence of bodies' is not evidence of a crash of any sort; only the presence of bodies traceable to the alleged flights are evidence supporting Bush's unsupportable thoery.

The only available evidence, moreover, disproves the Bushco conspiracy theory of 911. There is no evidence whatsoever that there were --at any time --any Arabs of any sort (terrorist or otherwise) on board Flight 77, a flight for which there is no evidence whatsoever.

The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were "passengers" on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies. In fact, from the beginning NO explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
Now, being the trusting sort, I figured that the government would want to quickly dispel any rumors so we could get on with the chore of kicking Osama/Sadaam's butt (weren't these originally two different people?). It seemed simple to me. . .produce the names of all the bodies identified by the AFIP and compare it with the publicized list of passengers. So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response, because we were getting ready to send our boys to war on the pretext that Osama/Saddam had done the deed. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list. Believe me that they weren't a bit happy to give it up, and I really have no idea why they choose now to release it.
foia-10003.jpg
No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airlines sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. I did American the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together.
--Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77

Worth repeating and in summary:

the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks.

I don't wish to belabor the point but it must be made clear that unaccounted for passengers is among the biggest holes in Bush's cover story, Bush's big, treasonous lie.

If Bush cannot explain the absence of airliner wreckage or the alleged 'missing passengers', then his official theory must be discounted as a pack of malicious, treasonous lies. It was Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!" But, of course, finding, learning, revealing the truth was never on the Bushco agenda. Seizing unjustifiable war powers was!

The burden of proof is upon anyone believing and/or asserting that the alleged flights existed. A mass movement of Americans to include members of Congress should have insisted insisted that a Federal Prosecutor put Bush on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury where the following question would be put to him: 'what was the fate of the passengers on flights 77 and 11?'

It would be very interesting to learn how he might escape the experience without being indicted for:

PERJURY
OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
MASS MURDER

Concerning possible charges of 'high treason' against Bush: was it not Bush who declared that we were at war? Was it not Bush and his shills who insisted that the US attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was in response to an 'attack' upon the US? Have not Bush partisans insisted, from the 'gitgo' that the U.S. attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was part and parcel of the US 'war on terrorism'? That being the case, Bush's complicity in the events of 911 are most certainly acts of betrayal against a sovereign in a time of war and, therefore, high treason.

Among a growing number of links back to this article is this excellent expose of the Flight 77 fraud:

According to the official story, AA Flight 77, a Boeing 757, took off from Dulles Airport in northern Virginia at 8:10 a.m. bound for Los Angeles, with between 50 and 58 passengers. It flew west for about 45 minutes, making a curious detour to the north, west and south, before turning around and flying for another 45 minutes back to Washington. Why hijackers would allow a jet which they planned to crash into a target in Washington to fly for 45 minutes away from its target is not explained. Why did they not commandeer the plane ten minutes after takeoff when the plane was only ten minutes flying time from its intended target? The official story ignores this question, as it does all other questions.

As reported by the New York Times (International Herald Tribune, 2001-10-17, p.8), as AA 77 approached the Pentagon it executed a 270-degree 7,000-foot descent over Washington while flying at 500 mph. It approached the Pentagon on a horizontal trajectory so low that it clipped the power lines across the street then (so the story goes) it smashed into an outer wall of the Pentagon.

We were told (and, of course, expected to believe without question) that this maneuver was executed by an Arab pilot, Hani Hanjour, who in August 2001 was judged by the chief flight instructor at Bowie's Maryland Freeway Airport as not having the piloting skills required to fly a Cessna 172 solo. (Is there something fishy here?)

In contrast to the attention given to the collapse of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon received little attention until in February 2002 a French website (by Thierry Meyssan) appeared which reproduced images obtained from U.S. Army websites: Hunt the Boeing! These images cast doubt upon the official story that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 jetliner. For example, here is a picture of the Pentagon crash site taken about two hours after the impact, with the fire still burning. Can you see any remains of the approximately 100 tons of metal (including engines, wings, and tail section) which makes up a Boeing 757? ...

--Pentagon Official Story Hoax

Following is a reader's playlist. I recommend it.

September Clues
Or --How to Fake a Terrorist Attack with an off-the-shelf video editing suite, a sound effects library, some audio samples and an utter lack of conscience or humanity!

911: Inside Job!

Additional resources:

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Deceptive, Dubious and Dishonest Origins of Corporate Personhood

2012-01-21T07:16:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origins of 'corporate personhood' are dubious, suspicious! 'Corporate personhood' derived from an informal note from a CLERK:

"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

There are many things wrong with this statement and as many things are wrong with basing a SCOTUS decision upon such a flimsy rationale! One senses 'desperation' at work. Failing an authoritative sources --say --the U.S. Constitution or previous decisions of the high court, the five desperadoes, otherwise disguised as 'justices' seize upon anything that sounds good. Scalia is expert at this.

If this is the basis for SCOTUS's 'corporate personhood' decree then we must conclude that the valid opinions of real jurists, past courts, several hundred years of jurisprudential traditions dating back to MAGNA CARTA mean nothing to Scalia! In better times, Scalia would have been called out, challenged, tarred, perhaps feathered, made to squawk while flapping arms.

Five republicans on SCOTUS have nothing but contempt for the concept of 'equal protection under the law' guaranteed to all citizens via the 14th Amendment'. They are contemptuous of the Bill of Rights in general.

‎"Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during its first fifty years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations"

---Justice Hugo Black 1938*

The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee black rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in June 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868. The Radical Republicans had been battling with Andrew Johnson for control of Reconstruction. Johnson was in favor of leaving the future of black people in the hands of white Southerners.

The Radical Republicans disagreed, and they won. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States and prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S., depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ("No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.

Since Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment -- especially the equal protection clause -- has been applied to a number of cases. It emerged in the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when the United States Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment as one of its rationales for declaring school segregation unconstitutional.

--Why the progress made by blacks during Reconstruction was seen as a threat by whites, Richard Wormser

In 1971, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed had sued when Idaho law presumed that her estranged husband should be automatically selected as executor of the estate of their son, who had died without naming an executor. The Idaho law stated that "males must be preferred to females" in choosing estate administrators.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did prohibit such unequal treatment on the basis of sex -- the first US Supreme Court decision to apply the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to gender or sexual distinctions. Later cases have refined the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to sex discrimination, but it was more than 100 years after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment before it was applied to women's rights.
--Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment - Finally Applied, Reed v. Reed and Roe v. Wade, Findlaw

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Support the Proposed Amendment that Would ABOLISH 'Corporate Personhood'

2012-01-14T03:33:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I fully support a movement to enact a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that rejects and will undo the recent SCOTUS decision 'creating people' of mere 'legal abstractions'. The idea that corporations ---mere legal abstractions --are people is insidious and endangers American Democracy. While 'real people' are held to the letter of the law and often imprisoned for wrong doing, the very purpose of 'corporate personhood' has had the effect, in practice, of placing 'corporations' above-the-law.

A proposed amendment would reverse the decision of the high court with respect to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 vote, SCOTUS 'created' real people of mere corporations declaring that corporations have, among every Constitutional right, a right of 'free speech' under the First Amendment. It was declared that the government may not 'impose restrictions' on the political speech that corporations may indulge. As a result, corporations and other special interest groups are now given license to spend "unlimited amounts of money on elections." It was a green light to corporations: buy and/or support any candidate with as much money as you want to spend! The decision could not have been a bigger afront to Democracy, i.e, government of the people. Free speech is a right of people as affirmed by our founders. That corporations may now claim that right is simply fascism. Pure and simple!

The ORIGIN of 'corporate personhood' is found in an informal note from a CLERK: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Prior to this mere clerk's mere note, NO ONE had believed that the 14th amendment applied to anyone but real people. Nor does it now! Scalia's court blew it again! If Scalia had a last remaining vestige of conscience, he would confess that he 1) blew it; 2) admit that he is a bought and paid for tool; 3) RESIGN!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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The New Age of 'Elites', 'Robber Barons' and 'Social Darwinists'

2012-01-04T02:33:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Darwinism is correct. Social Darwinism is utter bunkum. Not surprisingly, the American right-wing despises Darwinism but, inexplicably, embraces Social Darwinism with messianic ferver.

Social Darwinism is at the very root of an impending economic collapse but it won't be the best or brightest who emerge unscathed on the other side! Social Darwinism is the survival of the most ruthless. Real Darwinism is reviled because it disproves the lies the rich tell themselves to help them sleep at night.

The right wing benefits when issues are obscured and when enough dust is kicked up by "intelligent design" to obscure the real issues and various strawmen to boot.

Simply, Social Darwinism does not follow from "Darwinism" and, worse, it attributes to Darwin positions he never took. The term "survival of the fittest" was never used by Darwin. It has been variously attributed, but Hofstadter traces the phrase to 19th Century American robber barons, rail road men making fortunes connecting one coast with another.

Railroad executive Chauncy Depew asserted that the guests of the great dinners and public banquets of New York City represented the survival of the fittest of all who came in search of fortune. They were the ones with superior abilities. Likewise railroad magnate James J. Hill defended the railroad companies by saying their fortunes were determined according to the law of survival of the fittest.
—Hofstadter, Richard; 1959; Social Darwinism in American Thought, Braziller; New York.

These were most certainly the 'robber barons' who wished to be photographed wearing laurel wreaths, pretending to be emperors.

Elsewhere, the term is attributed to Herbert Spencer who inspired a generation of radicalized, latter-day robber barons. Few of them evinced the "...quality of mercy" so immortalized with but a few words by Shakespeare --'The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven". By contrast ...

[Herbert] Spencer said that diseases "are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with." He even faulted private organizations like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged legislation.
—Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism

A fallacious corollary to "Social Darwinism" is often phrased this way: the rich are rich because they are better, work harder and are more intelligent. George W. Bush put it more crudely: “The poor are poor because they are lazy!” So --why was Bush Jr not poor?

In the same vein, the conservative economist Joseph A. Schumpeter likened recessions to a "cold douche". One wonders: who is "douched" and how? More importantly: who decides who gets 'douched'? Who decided that New Orleans would be left to its fate and the goons of Blackwater?

Currently, the nation faces economic calamity. However fallaciously, you can be sure that the right wing will not only benefit from the misfortunes of millions, they will try to figure out a way to blame them. It's the right wing way. But it's wrong!

Spencer believed that because society was evolving, government intervention ought to be minimal in social and political life. It didn't matter to Spencer that government is but a function, indeed, a creation of society and responsible to it. Seen in that light, efforts by privilege to blame the poor for their own rapacious and often dishonest or incompetent behaviors are absurd. Nevertheless, American capitalism remains greatly influenced by Spencer. The 'model' is still found in textbooks for Economics 101. It describes an ideal of American capitalism --“rational man” making rational decisions in a free and --presumably --rational market. But, in practice, economic decisions may or may not be rational and the free market exists only hypothetically. The market has been anything but rational.

Because the 'theories' of Spencer and, earlier, Adam Smith, often stress the 'practical', it is forgotten that Spencer and Smith were, themselves, 'theorists'. Every model we make of the world of sense experience is 'theoretical' by definition. The word "theory" is either misunderstood by the right wing or deliberately perverted for the propaganda value.

The word 'theory' is wrongly used as a pejorative. The right wing is inconsistent. 'Theories' from Spencer and, more recently, Milton Friedman or Arthur Laffer are are conveniently ignored or praised while 'theories' from everyone else are 'mere theory'. Last time I checked, 'right wing theories' were still 'theories' though most often and in reality they are simply frauds, lies, scams and 'white collar heists'.

Having waged war on the word "theory", the right wing likes to couple it with another word similarly victimized by right wing propaganda. That word is "conspiracy" --a perfectly good word, in fact, a legal term about which there is a venerable body of case law, thousands of SCOTUS decisions and some 400 years of common law. See: Findlaw or Cornell University Law Library online. Given techniques perfected by Herr Goebbels for Adolph Hitler, the combination of "conspiracy" and "theory" is lethal. The loss of these words to an adult vocabulary cripples the thought process itself, indeed, intellectual endeavor of any sort.

It must be noted that every great scientist was or is a theorist. Einstein was a "theorist" and so was Newton, so too Darwin. So, too, Watson and Crick. Too much is made of 'right' and 'wrong'. It is a mistake to conclude, for example, that Einstein 'replaced' Newton. In fact, Einstein rests upon Newton's shoulders. Einstein is Newton from another angle. Einstein may be thought of as the hypothesis that Newton himself refused to make. [See: The Man Who Changed the Universe] Einstein does not refute Newton, he enlarges upon both Newton and Galileo. Galileo's equations describing the acceleration of falling bodies describes the very curvature of space-time.

Einstein has been confirmed no more times than Darwin; Newton is close enough for mundane applications or "government work" and Einstein will one day help us navigate the galaxy. Significantly, neither "theory" has been challenged in court —though both theories may very well be replaced one day by a "theory of everything", a TOE.

Only theories not liked by the right wing wind up in court, an absurd place to settle questions of science in any case. Law courts are inadequate to decide questions better resolved by observation and experiment, not rhetoric or case law. See: Darrow, Darwin & Dayton, the video at the end of this article.

There is a political agenda and a constituency behind the campaign of attacks on Darwinism. This constituency supports Intelligent Design for the same reasons the great rail road robber barons found support in the work of Herbert Spencer. The continued economic superiority of an entire class depends upon the widespread public acceptance of religious and/or ideological views which justify the existence of 'superior status'. Hitler, likewise, found in pseudo-science and mythology much justification for his anti-semitic crusades, his campaign of genocides, his wars of naked aggression.

Theories are often never of a final form —nor should they be! Unlike ideology, real science is self-correcting as new facts emerge from research. Darwin's theories were not only confirmed by Mendel, they accommodated Mendel which, in turn, strengthened Darwin. The science of genetics and the discovery of "mutations" confirm Darwin beyond any reasonable doubt. Every cowboy knows the truth of Darwin if he's never heard of him: "Never kill a slow roach; you just improve the breed!" As succinct a description of natural selection as I've ever heard. Likewise, every farmer who has bred for specific traits knows the truth of Darwin.

Future discoveries, like those of Mendel, may modify our views of Darwin, but will not discount them. Our view of Einstein is already modified but he is confirmed in many ways, notably at Alamogordo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Light, indeed, bends around stars and other 'gravity lenses', time slows at near light speeds, space-time is a four dimensional continuum. More to the point, no one has ever sued because Einstein's theories were odds with a particular dogma or a political agenda. The right wing's disingenuous position is analogous to that of the Pope who forced Galileo to recant. I was critical of Ron Paul because his economic thinking was stuck in the 19th Century. The right wing generally, however, is stuck in the 17th.

It is certain that no future discovery will confirm "intelligent design", meaningless word play beyond any confirmation of any kind! Theories explain "facts" but facts can often confirm good theories as "fact”, just as facts have tended to confirm both Darwin and Einstein. By definition, doggerel is beyond confirmation of any kind. A.J. Ayer defined 'meaning' itself as that property of a 'sentence' that makes it subject to empirical confirmation. The theoretical core of ID is not meaningful and most certainly not of a type that would have been recognized by the philosophers upon whom Western Civilization is based.

Intelligent design is of a religious nature and people have a right to believe it. Treating Intelligent design as science is dishonest. As science, ID raises more questions than it explains. Most obviously: who designed the designer? ID assumes a designer to 'explain' creation but cites 'creation' to prove the existence of a designer. This is the classic circulus en probando fallacy.

People are free to believe fallacies, but they must not be free to impose them upon other people —especially at tax payer expense! A fact, for example, is the equation describing the acceleration of falling objects; examples of theory are both the Newtonian and the Einsteinian view of "gravitation" —seen differently by both. The entire science of genetics confirms Darwin who, interestingly, did not have the benefit of Mendel's research when he wrote Origin of the Species and the The Descent of Man. It was Mendel's research that described the very mechanism by which Darwin’s “traits” are passed on to succeeding generations. Accurate predictions are, in themselves, evidence in support of theories. [See: Evolution in Action, Julian Huxley]

Critics of Darwin have said that no one has yet produced an entirely new specie by selection. But they have indeed done just that! Consider wheat! Wheat does not grow in the wild. Related to ancient grasses, wheat is clearly the result of an ancient application of "artificial selection." Had wheat evolved naturally, it would be found growing wild like prairie grass. But it didn't and isn't.

Social Darwinism has harmed mankind. It rationalizes and justifies the perpetual and deliberate impoverishment of large segments of our society. The GOP will support this as a matter of policy so long as someone like Ronald Reagan can, nevertheless, make them "feel good about themselves". It is bad enough that this callous disregard for human life is fallaciously and insidiously associated with Darwin. That it is also a bald-face lie, a misstatement of Darwin, is unconscionable. We have thus reduced the philosophical basis for the American right wing to a single line from one of the world's great writers, Charles Dickens, whose character, Scrooge, epitomizes the American right wing

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."
—Scrooge, A Christmas Carol

Darwin, Darrow and Dayton

Frankenstein

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Why the U.S. is No Longer a Productive Nation

2011-12-20T05:32:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The decline of the U.S. as a net exporting nation is the inevitable result of the growing, yawning gulf between rich and poor. A nation cannot be productive if it has failed to invest its wealth in the creation of jobs.

It is, at last, 'labor' which creates wealth to begin with. Since Adam Smith wrote 'The Wealth of Nations', every major economist --right or left --has espoused a 'labor theory of value', i.e, 'value' (wealth) is created by labor and is the result of labor. A nation in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite of just 1 percent cannot be productive or efficient. Today --the U.S. is literally owned by China which occupies the No 1 position on the CIA's World Fact Book with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Acct Balance. The U.S. is on the very bottom of that list with the World's largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance, formerly called the Balance of Trade Deficit.

To make this clear --China makes its living by manufacturing and selling that product to the United States. The U.S., by contrast, is on bottom because U.S. manufacturing of cars, appliances, electronics et al no longer competes. Entire industries have ceased to exist in America. Detroit is a specimen to be studied.

An aside: the right wing recently tried to blame 'Muslims' for the fall of Detroit. Total BS! Muslims had no more to do with the fall of Detroit than did Christians the fall of Rome. The fall of Detroit is the result of stupid/incompetent policies put into effect by Ronald Reagan and his idiot disciple ---George H.W. Bush. It was under Reagan, that the long and depressing decline of America began.

The vast gulf between rich and poor in America is a fairly recent development, a product of the 'robber baron' era. Even so --FDR reversed those trends and the official stats prove it. The Great Depression had been both the result and the symptom of absurd inequities associated with and caused by the era of Robber Barons. It was preceded by three very conservative, very Republican administrations --Coolidge, Harding and Hoover.

An expanding economy, that is, an economy that creates wealth and jobs requires a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. Otherwise --to whom will manufacturers sell? A prosperous middle class is absolutely essential to 1) GDP growth 2) retail sales. An impoverished population will buy increasingly fewer luxury items; an impoverished population will struggle to maintain the very basics --food and shelter.

A nation in which just 1 percent owns more than the remaining 99 percent is an economy on the very brink of collapse. It has happened many times in the past. The best example is Rome. Like the U.S. today, Rome was a teeming city of the very, very poor. Many were refugees from nations that had been conquered by Rome. Like the U.S. today, the currency of Rome --the sesterces --was essentially worthless, a mere 'token' that would admit you to the Gladiator 'games' in the Coliseum.

By impoverishing the U.S. middle class, the GOP capitulated to China which found --in GOP America --a market for its cheap crap. The PRICE of that 'crap' is not found on the label or the check out counter. It is found in the GOP destruction of the American labor movement, American productivity, the American 'standard of living', and, of course, our very futures.

The GOP is NOT a political party. It is a coven of kooky cultists who sold us ALL out to China and the Military-Industrial Complex which orchestrates our LAST REMAINING EXPORTS ---death and destruction.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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U.S. to Prosecute a Man for Daring to Advocate the Defense of His Own Country!

2011-12-14T04:00:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The United States presumes to prosecute an Iraqi citizen for 'terrorism' when, in fact, all the young man had said pertained to the defense of his country by a foreign power --US!

I maintain that everyone has a right to defend their country against any and every invasion of that soverign nation by a foreign invader. That applies to invasions that are themselves violations of international law, invasions that are themselves more correctly described as:

INTERNATIONAL STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM!

This is the law that the U.S. --George W. Bush primarily --violated when it invaded Iraq though Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 911.

§ 2441. WAR CRIMES

Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.

That a nation may not invade another unless attacked is an established principle of international law. If principle is not recognized in the United States it ought to be. In fact, to the extent that the U.S. flouts its own committments, its own laws and, indeed, every International commitment or principle that the United States has --historically --insisted upon, it is a hypocrite.

This is what the young man said and this is why the U.S. is lying about him and calling him a 'terrorist':

"...if an enemy comes inside your country...everyone has to stand up and fight, there should not be anyone left out.."

There is NOTHING seditious in that! The U.S. has NO RIGHT to prosecute this man as a 'terrorist' for advocating the DEFENSE of his country. William Pitt said the same thing much, much earlier in the Houses of Parliament:

"You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America...As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country; your efforts are for ever vain and impotent—doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies—to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!"

--William Pitt, Speech in the House of Lords

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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A Revolutionary Agenda

2011-11-29T04:38:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Why has the right wing apparently succeeded in stacking SCOTUS with 5 justices who have in common their disdain for the work of our founders? They succeeded for several reasons:

the media, concentrated in very few corporate hands, demands 'free speech' but only for themselves;
the corporate community is interested in their privileges but disdain YOUR rights;
education is neglected and most notably in those states 'occupied' by the GOP.

Texas is a case in point. Prior to the arrival of the Bush crime family, one could get a good education in Texas. I would like to think that I am but one of millions who are the living proof of it. Bush/Perry, however, were more interested in the profits that 'private education' might make if declining test scores in the public systems were ignored. The 'private schools' are profitable but serve the ruling elite. Everyone else is expected to resort to crime and thus fill the gulag of corporate-owned prisons.

Recently, Karl Rove 'demanded' to know who gave us the right to occupy our country! Rove has apparently never heard of the Bill of Rights. I will be happy to educate Rove. In fact the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution does not 'give' or 'grant' those rights; it merely affirms the rights that all of us enjoy by common law.

I suggest Karl Rove read John Locke for a start. By 'common law' we have the right to speak, dissent, protest, criticize and, in every other non-violent manner, hold every politician --from elected dog catcher to President --accountable to US!!

Though he was not a 'founder' in that he was not among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the right of people to abolish tyrannies, the right to abolish those governments failing to uphold their end of a 'social contract', a 'convenent' between government and people. Governments failing those responsibilities are in 'breach of contract', the 'social contract' which is, in fact, its only source of legitimacy.

Every philosopher who is connected in any way with what is called the 'englightenment' has held that when the 'government' i.e, the 'hired hands' who run it from day-to-day violate the terms of this 'social contract', it is the right of the people to 'abolish it. To wit:

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.

--The Declaration of Independence [authored by Thomas Jefferson; bolding mine, LH]

The nimrods in Washington D.C. to include all of K-street, the gang of lobbyists as well as paid liars like Karl Rove and numerous 'elected' representatives should go back to school. I suggest that their first course be entitled: HUMILITY with various lessons to include:

public service
the sovereignty of the people
the enumerated responsibilities of government to its sovereign

The people are the final jurors. We, the people, are tasked with deciding whether a particular government shall remain or be replaced. Jefferson and the founders as well believed that that was our right! I have, at this point, given up on a corrupt establishment, controlled as it is by the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the population. I have given up on the 'community' of 'legal abstractions' called 'corporations'! Enough! It is time that the people be heard! A new broom sweeps clean. All things must pass!

The time is near, perhaps arrived, when the people must re-establish as matters of law that:

the people are sovereign;
that whenever any 'government' has failed its duties and responsibilities to the people it is the RIGHT of the people to abolish it;
that any new government inherits, therefore, a legal and ironclad responsibility not to tolerate the rights of the people but to preserve, protect and defend them actively against all subversive attempts at home or abroad.

Our so-called 'government' --at least since Ronald Reagan --has failed the people. The Constitution is paid lip service. The Bill of Rights is reviled. The needs of the people are ignored. The environment is considered the preserve of corporations. Corporations are given 'rights' though they are not and never will be people. The coming revolution has a long list of wrongs to be undone and crimes to be punished.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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The GOP is Not a Political Party; It's a Crime Syndicate and Kooky Cult

2011-11-16T03:49:00.000-08:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The International Cultic Studies Association lists the defining characteristics of a 'cult'. I fully agree with the 'list' and also the assertion that the GOP meets most of several atttributes, perhaps all characteristics that define the word 'cult'.

Here is the list as 'published':

The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.

The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, [torture,] lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.

It has always been my belief --stated often on this blog, FB, 'The Opinion', NPR, and various other forums on the internet --that the GOP is not a political party. Rather, it has characteristics of kooky cults and an organized crime syndicates.

Someone posted recently that the two parties (Dems and Gops) are indistinguisable from one another. That's just not true and, if the media had done its job, that pernicious meme might not have taken root as it most certainly has! Clearly --it was the GOP which planted it and only the GOP has benefited from it.

The occupation movement has targeted the 'ruling elite' of just one percent! That they are a 'ruling elite' and that they amount to no more than one percent of the total population is the obvious result of GOP policies favoring their base and their base is, in fact, the increasingly tiny but powerful ruling elite.

I have many issues with the Democratic party but being GOP-lite is not one of them. For all their faults, 'being as bad as the GOP' is NOT among them. I can cite three essential and defining characteristics that distinguish Democrats from the cult of GOPism:

EVERY Dem has presided over greater GDP and JOB GROWTH than has ANY Republican Prez since 1900;
EVERY GOP 'tax cut' has been followed by a recession/depression.
EVERY GOP TAX CUT has resulted in the transfer of wealth UPWARD to a 'ruling elite' which is now just ONE PERCENT of the total population.

Those fact are at the core of the Occupation Movement! A corollary is this: EVERY recession/depression since 1900 has occurred during a GOP administration and as a result of GOP policy.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Rick Perry's Latest 'Enrich the rich' Plan!

2011-11-02T10:46:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled his 'tax and spend' plan, officially called his “cut, balance and grow” plan. It is more properly the CUT TAXES for the ruling elite; balance if you can walk a tight rope between poverty on one side and rabid republican reptillians on the other; grow tough and smart or die!"

Rich Perry's 'plan' is just another GOP give-away to the ruling elite which has already CREATED the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population --a situtation not unlike that of the U.S. just prior to the crash of '29 and the resulting Great Depression!

The GOP has gotten away with this fraud only because the American educational system has failed to educate people. A flat tax may sound fair but is not! Anyone NOT a member of the ruling elite spends a a much, much larger proportion of their incomes just maintaining a roof over a family and the food to feed them. The poorer they are the larger that percentage.

The ruling elites, by contrast, spend less and less as a percentage of either total wealth or total income on the basic necessities --food, shelter, commuting, et al. In many cases, elites may choose to make of a necessity a luxury.

The best example of this is education where, in Texas, the rich have chosen to marginalize public education. Last time I checked, Texas --under Bush-Perry --had fallen to dead last in high school graduations, beating out the likes of Mississippi or evolution-deniers like Kansas et al.

The elites, for example, need not spend substantially more on mere subsistence which is but a very, very tiny percentage of their total income and wealth! It's a curve! Therefore, any flat tax is unfair to anyone who is not very, very, very rich! A flat tax for the poor means that he/she pays much, much more as a percentage of his after tax income for essentials (housing, food) as do the very, very, very rich who pay the same 'flat percentage' but exponentially decreasing percentages of income for many of the same items purchased by everyone else.

A Flat Tax, therefore, is not really flat because it represents a huge increase in the burden placed upon anyone not a member of the ruling elite!

Rick Perry is either a crook or a moron or both! But he differs very little from every other GOP to have ever hatched from a pod!

Perry is making it all up as he goes. It was not so long ago that Perry attacked Social Security. Now --he claims to have a 'plan' (unfortunately, he has announced no imminent plan to just STFU) Now, Perry not only promises to repeal Obama’s health care plan, he says his plan will stop the “raiding” of the Social Security Trust Fund and allow younger generations to set up personal retirement accounts. He has flip-flopped on Social Security.

In a word, Perry reads the polls and makes the 'necessary' adjustments. He is completely unprincipled and utterly clueless.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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CIA Criminal Revolving Door

2011-11-01T13:41:00.000-07:00

by Kevin Fenton

CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Officer "Albert" Involved in False Intelligence Linking Al-Qaeda to Iran, Iraq

Reprimanded for Torture, Retired, then Back to CIA as a Contractor. A recent book by former FBI agent Ali Soufan shows that the same CIA officer was involved in generating intelligence that falsely linked al-Qaeda to first Iran and then Iraq. The officer was also involved in a notorious torture episode and was reprimanded by the Agency's inspector general.

The officer, who Soufan refers to as "Fred," but whose real first name is "Albert" according to a February 2011 Associated Press article, served at the CIA station in Jordan in 1999. During that time, al-Qaeda, aided by a collection of freelance terrorists headed by Abu Zubaidah, attempted to commit a series of attacks in the country, known as the Millennium Plot. However, the attacks were foiled by the local Jordanian intelligence service, working with the CIA and FBI.

During the investigations of the plotters, Albert drafted a series of official cables that were later withdrawn. Although the withdrawing of the cables was first mentioned in a July 2006 article by Lawrence Wright for the New Yorker, Wright did not mention what was in the cables or by whom they were drafted. The content of one of them and the drafter were first revealed upon the publication of Soufan's book in mid-September 2011.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Is an Elite Feudal Society Preordained?

2011-11-01T13:33:00.000-07:00

Is an Elite Feudal Society Preordained?: Monday, October 31, 2011by Staff Report, TheDailyBell.com

From source article:

And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world. Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile -- it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China.

-- Richard K. Moore/New Dawn Magazine/Global Research

Dominant Social Theme: The elites are a bunch of corporations and greedy capitalists. What banking families? They're never mentioned in the mainstream media, are they? So how can they exist?

Free-Market Analysis: This is an excellent article in our view, perhaps because we agree with most of it -- though at the end of this analysis we will present some important ways in which we DISAGREE.

Nonetheless, it's "our" paradigm in some ways, presented eloquently by Richard K Moore, "an expatriate from Silicon Valley, [who] retired and moved to Ireland in 1994 to begin his 'real work' -- trying to understand how the world works, and how we can make it better."

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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How the Ruling Elite of ONE Percent Enslaved Americans

2011-10-29T09:23:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Despite right wing lies and distortions, it was Adam Smith --a 'conservative' --who espoused a LABOR THEORY of VALUE not unlike that of KARL MARX who is a favorite target of wingnuts and morons. We should not be surprised that a 'class' that supported Ronald Reagan et al would revere Smith while demonizing Marx. Not surprisingly, the GOP have completely misunderstood Smith. Smith and Marx both subscribed to a 'Labor Theory of Value'.

Here's what the conserative's 'darling' (Smith) had to say asbout the Labor Theory of Value:

"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.

--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V

In other words, what would it cost a person who wished to have a ditch if he were required to dig it himself? What would it cost a person who wished to furnish his home with chairs, a sofa, et al if he were required to make them himself? What is the value of any commodity but the cost that would be incurred should it be necessary to hire the labor to do it?

Being Forced to Work for Someone for Free is Called 'Slavery'

But having to work for a 'ruling elite' which conspires to suppress the value of labor is, at the very least, a form of slavery itself. When an elite controls the means of production and distribution and --at the same time and in various ways --depresses wages and worker rights, the effect is indistinguishable from slavery.

Adam Smith clearly states that the value of a 'thing' produced is equal to the 'toil and trouble' that, say, a capitalist might have expended himself had he not hired someone to do it for him. Or --had he not enslaved someone to do it! Or --had he not depressed wages to do it! Ergo: those who enrich themselves, claiming for themselves all profits as well as special and/or unfair taxation or --worse--NO taxation whatsoever for themselves are, in effect, demanding that others work for them for free.

Plantation owners were expert at this scam. Cotton was, what we would call today, 'labor intensive'. It most certainly would never have been profitable had plantation owners been required to pay laborers their true worth. Were it not for slavery, the antebellum south could not have made a living. Cotton was a source of great riches but only if it could be picked, ginned, and sent to market. It was slave labor that made possible a class called: Southern Aristocracy.

In a modern, industrial society the only way to address the PRIVILEGES that 'capital' now claims for itself is by TAXING them fairly. After all, there is NO production without labor of any sort. A society in which just 1 percent alone has benefited form the labors of millions is a one-legged man and will fall! We are witnessing that fall right now.

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Why the GOP is a Problem, NOT a Solution!

2011-10-16T05:41:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The occupation of Wall Street is driven and inspired by a single over-arching fact: just ONE percent of the nation owns more than the rest of us combined and, secondly, that outcome is the result of GOP tax cuts, most prominently those of R. Reagan's cut of 1982 benefiting only the upper classes, specifically, the 'ruling elite' of just 1 percent!

The GOP owns this outcome and should accept responsibility for it. Instead, the GOP can be depended upon to press for more tax cuts, more preferential treatment and bogus economic 'theories' like supply-side economics better know by the derisive description: trickle-down theory.

Now --the above is the context in which every other outcome must be considered: every Democratic regime since 1900 has presided over greater JOB and GDP growth than has ANY GOP regime. This is especially apparent in the post-Reagan era where it is easy to find the official stats that rank post-WWII Presidents in terms of job creation and GDP growth.

Progressives Should 'infiltrate' the Democratic Party!

The GOP are economically incompetent. Now --if they should wish to change their stripes and eschew, repudiate the crime syndicate of which they have been a part --FINE! Let them confess their sins against a vast majority of Americans, that segment of the population which labors and by doing so produces wealth, wealth that has in fact 'trickled up' during the GOP regimes of R. Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr.

If you don't like the Democratic party --infiltrate it and urge everyone you know to infiltrate it. That's called 'grassroots' organizing. We don't have a lot of time and the Democrats already have an infrastructure in place. There is no time to create a viable separate party. Eventually, when it is successful, the 'occupation movement' will be absorbed and, hopefully, it's ideals will be affirmed by an established mainstream party and, eventually, made official policy. At that point, we will have won!

ORGANIZE!

Read SAUL ALINSKY, a 'left leaning, liberal' and organizer who scared the pants off the GOP! They were so frightened of him that they adopted his policies and used them against us! Now --who is to blame for that but the 'sunshine liberal' who decides to just sit on his ass and gripe because the world does not measure up to his unrealistic expectations?

Alinsky urged that REAL activists organize block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state!

FIRST -- take back the Democratic party by taking back the neighborhoods

SECONDLY --organize the neighborhoods to take back the party machines for progressives and/or liberals

THIRD --having taken back the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, you organize at the state level to get out the fucking vote.

Now --if liberals/progressives are not willing to read Alinsky (the GOP has) or if liberals/progressives are not willing to work to reform the only party that has a realistic chance given the odds against them, given the unfair 'statistical weighting' that results from endless, boring primaries and other roadblocks, hurdles and obstructions, then there is really nothing more that I can say!

The GOP are either CROOKED or INCOMPETENT!

The GOP is a top down party of psychopathic authoritarians dividing themselves into 'fuhrers' and followers of 'der fuhrer'! The rank and file believe what they believe because it assuages their feelings of fear and guilt. Stanford University conducted and published clinical studies of the fact that the GOP inclined have more nightmares, night-terrors than do normal people.

The transfer of wealth upward is deliberate. It’s how the ‘pay-offs’ are laundered. Clinton reversed the trend but briefly. That he dared get a blow job was much more important than saving a nation from a disastrous fate. In fact, it was all the GOP could pin on him, though he was under a sweeping investigation seemingly from the get go. An investigation in search of real crimes and, finding none, invented the ‘felony blow job’.

Someone said that Satan’s biggest ‘trick’ was convincing the world that he did not exist. The GOP’s biggest trick is convincing the American people that they are not a kooky cult of crooks, liars and elitists but a real 'political party'. The GOP has had such success with this ploy, I am surprised the MOB didn't try it! But the GOP is not a real political party; it has characteristics of kooky cults and other traits more closely identified with crime syndicates and/or gangs.

It is entirely understandable that the GOP rank and file would have nightmares and night-terrors! It's because the GOP rank and file are insecure, frightened, terrified. They want you to be as well. Nightmares are but dream manifestations of fears and anxieties. Normal people deal with their fears and anxieties. But --the GOP has outdone them all. They have built-up an entire party around fears, anxieties, phobias, prejudices, hate of various kinds, prejudice, bigotry and ordinary garden-variety crookedness and dishonesty.

The WALL ST occupation is a big tent but should NEVER be big enough to tolerate the watering-down of its message: A SOCIETY that has created, tolerated or --worse --ENCOURAGED a ruling 1 percent is a sick society. Now --we would call a doctor a QUACK should he tell you to just keep on doing whatever it is that's making you sick.

Cops Resort to Form on Wall St; They Represent 'da man!'!

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How the Ruling Elite of 1 percent Became the 'Ruling' Elite and What to do About it!

2011-10-13T05:39:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The Obama admin should re-read Keynes! The GOP has practiced a policy that is 180 degrees out of phase with Keynes and, as a result, an increasingly tiny elite of just 1 percent owns it all! Millionaires, BILLIONAIRES who invest their 'tax cut windfalls' have never, ever stimulated the economy; NO GOP tax cut has ever created a single job let alone stimulated an economy.

The fact is: in every instance, every GOP tax cut has been followed by a recession/depression and higher unemployment accompanied, most often, by negative job growth and negative GDP growth. In numerous previous articles, I have posted the official stats, the government's own stats that prove that! The Keynesian solution is NOT the GOP solution. And the GOP 'solution' is NOT a solution but may be a calculated lie!

The Keynesian solution would put monies into the hands of those will will use it, spend in ways that stimulate the economy. That this outcome has never followed a GOP tax cut tells me that the ruling 1 percent --which alone benefit from GOP tax cuts --are not investing in the U.S. Rather, they are squirreling away their riches in offshore bank accounts, tax dodges, i.e, 'instruments' which do not and have never created jobs in the U.S. In fact, the opposite has occurred.

An individual who repeats a failed strategy is correctly called a moron! What is to be said of an entire nation which is repeatedly duped by the GOP again and again and again? The GOP record is both a fraud and a tragedy and the American people have paid dearly for it.

The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous, and secretive economic and political force in America.

If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms. I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.

Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse. Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.
--Senator Bernie Sanders: Six Proposals for Helping the 99%, Buzzflash

I tire of the line that reads: 'there are no differences' between the parties'! That's simply not true. The GOP would love for you to fall for it! There are many differences but the economic differences are most easily identified and graphed. Whatever your differences with the Democratic party, not voting is simply not an option given the rapacious and destructive policies of the GOP. Not voting concedes the nation to right wing ideologues, i.,e the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population.

NOT VOTING --is what 'they' want you to do!

NOT VOTING ensures that the ever powerful and well-heeled GOP machine will finish the job of making the United States a Fascist nation.

NOT VOTING is surrendering!

NOT VOTING is 'giving up' or bending over!

NOT VOTING is the GOP's best friend! If they ever gain absolute power, they may decide to do away with VOTING entirely thus you will have been robbed of one of the few options you have left. Welcome to the Brave New World! Now --what can one do?

GET INVOLVED IN PARTY POLITICS!

If you don't like the Democratic party --INFILTRATE IT and urge everyone you know to infiltrate it. We don't have a lot of time and the Democrats already have an infrastructure in place. Eventually, when it is successful, the 'occupation movement' will be absorbed and, hopefully, it's ideals will be affirmed by an established mainstream party and, eventually, made the policy of the nation. At that point, we will have won!

ORGANIZE!

Read SAUL ALINSKY, a 'left leaning, liberal' and organizer who scared the pants off the GOP! They were so frightened of him that they adopted his policies and used them against us! Now --who is to blame for that but the 'sunshine liberal' who decides to just sit on his ass and gripe because the world does not measure up to his unrealistic expectations?

Alinsky urged that REAL activists organize block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state!

FIRST --you take back the Democratic party by taking back the neighborhoods

SECONDLY --you organize the neighborhoods to take back the party machines for progressives and/or liberals

THIRD --having taken back the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, you organize at the state level to get out the fucking vote.

Now --if liberals/progressives are not willing to read Alinsky (the GOP has) or if liberals/progressives are not willing to work to reform the ONLY FUCKING PARTY you're gonna get given the corrupt system we have inherited, then there is really nothing else I can tell them; there is really little else as I can advise save: LEARN TO LOVE getting it up the ass because from here on out the GOP is going to stick it to you but prefers you bend over first!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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How the GOP Will Bring About the End of Capitalism

2011-09-27T07:07:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP gets away with a big lie! The GOP has convinced millions that the GOP is the party of smaller government coupled with smaller debts and deficits. The fact is: EVERY Democratic regime at least since World War II has presided over smaller debts and deficits than any GOP regime and --at the same time --has created more jobs and greater growth in GDP.

These are facts that can be confirmed at the U.S. Commerce Department B.E.A. and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to name just two. There is a table [Wikipedia] that lists the gross U.S. federal debt as a percentage of GDP by Presidential term since World War II. As the detailed version of the graphic above, it PROVES my point with detailed and verified numbers.

Now if you happen to believe that creating fewer jobs and --worse --exporting them to China is a good thing, then, by all means, vote GOP! Like clockwork, jobs will migrate and GDP will, naturally as a result, take a dive. And, by voting GOP, you will have helped bring about that outcome. Live with yourself! The GOP, in the meantime, will routinely lie to you about this issue if they cannot avoid it. I often wonder why it seems never to come up in debates.

At present, the gross federal debt as a percentage of GDP (83.4% at the end of 2009) is higher than it has ever been since the late 1940s. This is the Bush Jr legacy. By way of background, the debt briefly reached over 100% of GDP in the aftermath of World War II.

Debt of any type increases when money is borrowed. The Federal debt, likewise, increases whenever the government borrows money, whenever the Treasury or other agencies issue 'securities', very literally a 'promissory note'.

The public debt increases or decreases as a result of annual unified budget deficit or surplus. The federal government budget deficit or surplus is defined as the the cash difference between government receipts and government spending; it ignores intra-governmental transfers.

Some recent history

That outcome is clearly by design and by definition it is not Marxism. Nor ---as the 'brown suit' says --is wealth created by so-called 'free market capitalism'. Rather --it is unrestrained, free market capitalism that has, in fact, created every depression since the Great Depression which began with the stock market crash of 1929.

At the same time, the GDP, i.e, the annual gross domestic product, to the end of June 2011 was $15.003 trillion. That means that the 'gross debt' is about 98% of GDP; debt held by the public is about 67% of GDP.Elsewhere, one can expect the 'libertarian' CATO institute to shill for the upper, upper classes, i.e, the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the population.

The disaster Bush left Obama

The facts are clear enough and available to anyone who will bother to access the U.S. Commerce Department-B.E.A., the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and non-partisan think tanks. That rules out Brookings! In the video below, the CATO spokesman ignores the lessons of history and the stats I've posted above. The right wing would rather not mention these numbers. The right wing would rather you had never read or accessed them; the right wing would rather you remain uninformed, in the dark, ignorant! The right wing cannot sell its bullshit to informed and intelligent people.

With respect to the following video specifically, the 'battle ground' is imprecisely chosen. Progressives must take the higher ground while forcing the enemy into a boxed canyon. Liberals err by giving liars the benefit of doubt and letting spin doctors and their liar clients 'off the hook'. The GOP, rather, should be reminded of how wrong they are every day if not every hour. Perhaps --eventually --in the face of mountains of verifiable data, they will surrender or be buried.

With respect to the video, someone should include among their talking points that the transfer of wealth upward to just 1 percent is just as destructive to the economy as would be the utter destruction of all that wealth in a nuke, just as destructive as loading up dollars and assets on a ocean liner and shipping it abroad. It matters not where. That's true because the very, very wealthy invest their moneys offshore. The do not put the money back into a local economy as the Building and Loan had done in the classic film with Jimmy Stewart: "It's a Wonderful Life".

Wealth transferred to the elite --by way of unfair GOP tax cuts benefiting only the upper 1 percent --is, in effect, a transfer of wealth outside the economy. In other words, it is, by definition, a contraction of the economy.

The transfer of wealth occurs in numerous ways. Offshore bank accounts are typical and most often exploited by the elites. It is unfortunate that is is CAPITAL ---not labor --which controls U.S. wealth though it is labor that creates it. Every economist knows the truth of that. It's called the 'labor theory of value'.

That capital has acquired a de facto ownership of the 'state' does not support any defense of 'capital', NOR does it disprove Marx whose views with regard to the 'labor theory of value' are mainstream despite the radical reputation that right wing morons have ascribed to Marx. The empirical evidence, meanwhile, proves that Marx was absolutely correct and is repeatedly confirmed --ironically --by GOP regimes.

The End of Capitalism? [video h/t Vera Narishkin]

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Of Method and Madness

2011-09-18T05:51:00.001-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

So what difference does it make if Republicans –as a class –espouse a pack of malicious lies? So what?

The sane and insane alike act upon what they believe to be true and those actions invariably affect us all. What good can come of actions premised upon lies? Arguably, this is history's greatest lesson: that mankind's greatest atrocities, crimes, and inhumanities invariably followed from ignorance, bigotry, and superstition i.e., the irrational belief in lies.

Some people are merely ignorant and act upon beliefs that can easily be shown to be misinformed, misunderstood, or just plain wrong. More disturbing, however, are those people who simply refuse to confront evidence contrary to their beliefs and prejudices and even worse-- continue to act upon them though they know them to be false. What, for example, is to be said of Southern bigots who gleefully hanged, burned, and "barbecued" innocent black people throughout the South?

Charitably, there are, perhaps, some poor ignorant folk just don't know any better, But this cannot be said of all them. Many know better and many more are in a position to educate themselves. There are few increasingly fewer excuses for ignorance. It is important to keep in mind that this did not happen deep in the Teutoborg Forest of the Sixth Century A.D. –but in the American South in the 20th.

Crimes of similar magnitude and effect have taken place even more recently. What is to be said of Jaspar, Texas bigots who dragged a black man at high speeds over back country roads until very nearly nothing was left of his body? What is to be said of Saudi terrorists who think that Allah will reward them with virgins for killing Americans?

Polonius, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, said: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." There is an inexorable logic in madness, murder, and malice; would-be killers justify their crimes transparently after the fact: black people, it will be said, are inferior; homosexuals, it will be maintained, are an 'abomination to God'. Perhaps every crime is similarly justified after the fact. This is the "brave new world" of our own absurd making.

Though she is a somewhat more sympathetic figure than ignorant, malicious bigots, fanatics, and fundamentalists –both Islamic and Christian –Andrea Yates' delusion came to no good. Five innocent children are dead because Andrea believed a lie! Perhaps Andrea is not responsible or perhaps she is –but what is to be said of the jury, which found her guilty, based upon a belief that insanity means not knowing right from wrong. That, of course, is the "legal" standard in Texas. Like Dickens' Mr. McCawber of David Copperfield, I submit to you that if that is the law, then, "...the law is a [sic] ass!" The standard should be whether the offender is responsible not whether the offender knows right from wrong. If history is any guide, then NO one knows right from wrong. Certainly not the churches of any religion who have committed innumerable crimes against humanity in the name of God, Allah, and ÆÖwëmathúooh! Certainly not nations, states, or governments that have kept apace of the various churches and religions in the number and magnitude of their crimes and sins. Are entire nations and entire religions to be judged "insane" by the Texas legal standard?

I make a distinction between a purposeful Hitler and those who merely make mistakes. Unless he was incredibly stupid, Adolph Hitler must have known that the racial myth upon which he justified the genocide of some six or seven million Jews in Europe was a lie –a black-hearted lie. Yet, he acted upon it. Ronald Reagan, a dimwit by any reckoning, may not have known that "supply side economics" was a bogus rationalization that would throw millions of people out of work, but his clever scheming cabinet and Machiavellian manipulators certainly did. If I should hear another disingenuous Republican swoon about how "Reagan made us feel good about ourselves," I may puke. Some people ought not to feel good about themselves. Some people ought to lose sleep at night. Some people ought to have bad dreams and night terrors –a phenomenon that recent studies have shown is commonplace among Republicans.

In medieval times, the European Continent was an unlikely birth place for an enlightenment that would not come for another 1,000 years. A trial, for example, was based less upon evidence or witnesses than upon the outcome of an ordeal in which it was believed God would assert his powers. Disputes were resolved by combat; it was believed that God would favor whoever was in the right. Suspected witches were often subject to trial by water in which those found innocent were no better off than those judged guilty. Those who survived did so because the "pure" water had rejected them. Found guilty, they were later burned; those who sank and drown were, thus, found innocent but eventually just as dead.

The purpose of the trial may have served but one purpose: that of assuaging an inquisitors' guilt and that of a delusional community. It doubtless made them feel better about themselves! Shared guilt seems to be better tolerated. The insane logic behind this may be forgiven a primitive culture, but can the same perverted logic be forgiven modern demagogues who smear innocents with the incredibly insane and medieval assertions that no evidence is, in fact, evidence of guilt? Perhaps Republican malice and ill-will might have been satisfied if Gary Condit and Bill Clinton had been subjected to trial by fire, water, or joust where only by death is innocence proved!

The standard defense will be: but Democrats do it, too! By that logic I should kill a Jew! Nazis did so! I should drag a black man to his death because Jaspar rednecks did; I should hijack an airliner and use it as a weapon because a fundamentalist Saudi did so; I should disrupt elections because Bush minions did so in Florida. I could justify a panoply of crimes and horrors.

Perhaps, if I believed that tax cuts for wealthy people would not aggravate the growing disparity between rich and poor which, in fact, began under Reagan and has continued, might sell out, compromise the last vestige of integrity and then get in line for my share. Perhaps, if I believed that people could depend on Enron-like retirement plans and the stock market, I would support raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for a Star Wars defense shield rendered moot by the events of 9/11.

The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials were significant for several reasons. They affirmed a standard of personal responsibility –not knowledge of right and wrong; the trials discredited the defense: but we were only following orders. Shared guilt is still guilt.

Secondly, it was a study of the very face of evil. Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the psychologist assigned the thankless job of counseling the rogues' gallery of Nazi criminals, thugs, and perverts, said that as a result of his interviews, he arrived at what he thought was the very source of evil: a complete and utter lack of empathy. I can only add that it is only empathy that prevents us acting upon our worst motives and impulses, and upon the lies we cite to make us feel better about ourselves when we have done so.

War Crimes Debate

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Bushco's Official Conspiracy Theory of 911 is a Lie!

2011-09-11T10:25:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It was Conan Doyle who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" We might have thus arrived at the truth about 11 but --alas --the problem is the mainstream media still lying about 911 and never investigating it.

The fact is this: the official theory is utterly impossible. Doyle would have eliminated it long ago! What remains is simply this: the Bush administration --alone --had 1) method 2) motive, and 3) opportunity! 911 was an inside job.

We might have have been spared this divisive ordeal had the Mainstream Media done its job! Or had it been professional, intelligent or diligent. Alas --investigative journalism in America is DEAD! America media is sick and, dying and not even on life-support.

There is not a shred of admissible evidence to support Bushco's 'official' conspiracy theory of 911.

My friend Dr. David Ray Griffin's peer-reviewed paper proves beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever that Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; there is not a shred of admissible or verifiable evidence of any sort to support ANY aspect of it.

There is, rather, an enormous body of established, proven physics that proves that the official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; ergo: it did not happen, in fact, could not have happened as we were told. Yet --we are expected to believe and obey. Believe and obey! Believe and obey! The 911 Truth Movement is called 'Truthers'. That's fine with me. By labeling 'us', the opposition has positioned themselves: LIARS!

Here is the truth about 911:

None of the alleged flights would have penetrated the dense steel outer cladding of any tower in NY;
WTC 7 was not even struck by an airliner of any type yet fell at FASTER than free-fall. That is not possible even if the fires had resulted in collapse. Freefall or faster is the fingerprint that gives the game away. Only controlled demolitions evince this mathematically verifiable characteristic!
No wreckage traceable to a 757 of any type, let alone Ft 77, was found at the Pentagon;
The OFFICIAL, certified autopsy report of Pentagon victims was released via an FOIA request to Dr. Olmstead. There were NO Arabs on the list; ergo --no Arabs were on the flight. Had there been Arabs, they would have have showed up on the official autopsy report.
Earlier the Washington Post had reported that Hani Hanjour was not on the flight because he did not have a ticket. Are we to believe he crashed the gate? If so, how? And why is there no record of that event? In any case, the assertion assumes facts '...not in evidence'; it violates Occam's Razor.
False reports to the contrary, NO airliner wreckage of any sort was ever recovered at the PA site. The ditch where the airliner --we are told --managed to bury itself underground, had most certainly been dug using the large BACKHOE that is seen in every published photograph of the PA site. Not 93, but the backhoe dug the ditch. This is called 'common sense'. Another clue: not even large meteorites striking the ground from greater altitudes (outer space) and at much, much greater speeds have ever managed to 'bury' themselves under ground upon impact with Earth! Nor did a mere soft-bodied, aluminum, essentially hollow aircraft that was never designed to be a bunker buster nor a gopher!
No bodies were ever said to have been recovered from PA and, indeed, there were none.

As a veteran reporter/network correspondent/television-radio anchor, I have covered numerous crashes of airliners and fighter jets in varying conditions. In every case, the 'conservation of matter and energy' has applied and was evident. There is always identifiable wreckage and in every case the wreckage identified the type of aircraft and most often the flight itself.

I daresay that no crash in history has been without wreckage! Every crash of fighter jets, airliners and private craft that I have covered personally ---there was wreckage traceable to the flight in question! It takes an inside job like 911 to motivate the destruction of evidence on an industrial scale! It takes an inside job like 911 to inspire a public official to order a cover-up to include the destruction of physical evidence.

In every case but 911, bodies were recovered and identified. The Pentagon is unusual: not only were there no Arabs on the official autopsy report, there were no passengers on it. The only victims of the Pentagon to have been autopsied were employees of the Pentagon. They are now laid to rest at Arlington. The official autopsy report, by the way, is the only admissible scrap of evidence to have survived the Bush cover up and destruction of evidence. The official autopsy report shoots down Bush's official conspiracy theory.

What was Bush trying to hide by ordering this obstruction of justice? In the case of the Pentagon, a single compressor rotor (about 1/3 the size of two such rotors in a 757) would have proven conclusively that it was NOT an airliner but a missile --possibly the U.S. Global Hawk --that crashed into the Pentagon.

What was Bush trying to hide by ordering the immediate destruction of steel and other wreckage from New York? That's obvious: Bush had hoped to hide the physical evidence that thermite/thermate had been used to help melt the steel to the point of collapse. Kerosene fires will not melt steel; otherwise, titanium-steel could not be used inside the engines of jet aircraft of any type.

In every case in which there were fatalities, there were bodies. Would you like to know what the charred bodies left behind by crashed jet fighters look like? It's not pretty and I will spare you. I will say this: no one has ever been raptured while in flight just prior to a crash or at any other time.

There are hundreds of other fatal flaws in the official theory, any one of which sink, shoot down, destroy the official conspiracy theory.

Several facts demolish the Bush theory with respect to the Pentagon:

The Washington Post that reported that Flight 77 was not in the air, had not been scheduled to fly on 911.
None of the wreckage recovered at the Pentagon was ever traced to Flight 77. And contrary to lies, the total weight of recovered wreckage could not possible have equalled that of a 757. Certainly, there is no damage to the Pentagon where 757 wings would have struck. It would have been in those areas that TWO large, TITANIUM/STEEL alloy compressor rotors would have been found. No --they were not vaporized as naive persons have suggested. Titanium/Steel allow is chosen precisely because it will survive the intense, kerosene fire heat inside the airliner jet engines themselves. Bottom line: if a 757 had crashed the Pentagon TWO large engine rotors the diameters of which are about 12 feet (or more) in diameter. Those rotors would have been found.
Only ONE engine rotor was, in fact, recovered. It is about 1/3 the size of each of two much, much larger rotors that would have been recovered had a 757 struck the Pentagon. They were not recoverd because they were never there!

Other anomolies suggest to intelligent people that Bush's official cover story be re-assessed, re-investigated by real investigators and charges brought against those who had:

METHOD (that would be the Bush admin to include Bush, Cheney et al)
MOTIVE (that would be the Bush admin who seized upon 911 to wage a war that had ALREADY been planned. See the MAP of Iraq on which Dick Cheney's Energy Task Force had already carved up Iraq; Also see: Bush's Energy Plan Bares Industry Clout
OPPORTUNITY Clearly --with the assumption of the office of Pres by one GWB, the NEOCON authors of the so-called PNAC document [Rebuilding America's Defenses: A Report of The Project for the New American Century [PDF]] would find the 'catalyzing event' that they had openly pined for.

It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" It's time to cut to the chase: the official theory is utterly impossible and, for that reason, did not happen unless the laws of physics were conveniently repealed that day. They were not! Bush lied! Americans died in NY, DC, Afghanistan and Iraq et al. By Doyle's reckoning --'what remains' is this: Bush pulled off an inside job! It's the only 'theory' which explains the verifiable facts on the ground at the Pentagon and in rubble left behind by 'free-falling' skyscrapers in New York.

The victims, those now deceased Americans, I am convinced, were victims of the very worst, the most evil regime in U.S. history. It is time to bring this rogue regime to justice even if it should mean the noose for the lot of them! As they might have said out west: HANG 'EM HIGH!

Architects and Engineers Expose Bushco's FRAUD!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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The United States is NOT a Christian Nation!

2011-08-29T09:01:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Whenever any court of any type restricts, bans or opposes religious intrusions into governmental affairs, an army of fundies --like cockroaches -- are sure to crawl out of the woodwork. Just as predictably, an army of politcians will ooze out --like sweet stuff --upon a public stage to court them.

Predictably, this circle of jerks --consisting as it does of the deluded on the one hand and the gaggle of oportunists/politcians on the other hand --will denounce the decision(s) and declare that it is against the 'wishes and intents' of the nation's "founding fathers".

The most obvious examples have to do with separation of church and state which should be a settled issue on the side of 'separation'. Propagandists throughout the right wing would have it otherwise. They try to re-write history everyday. If we are not vigilant, one day, they will succeed in creating and imposing upon us a theocracy when, in fact, the founders had decried 'theocracy' and deliberately created a secular state.

An alarming, perhaps a growing, number throughout the right wing will tell you with a straight face that the United States was founded upon the 'Christian' religion and that the founders were themselves 'Christians'. Neither statement is true. The U.S. is not a Christian nation nor was it intended to be. The founders themselves were not Christian, some where 'deists', others espoused no religion whatsoever. To sum up: our founders were not Christians and certainly did not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible.

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free execise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peacably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

First Amendment, U.S. Constitution [emphasis above is mine, EC]

One wonders what it is about 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion' that is not understood by the American 'right wing'.

Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.

--John Adams, Treaty of Tripoli

The organized, concerted right wing effort to tear down the 'wall of separation' between church and state is a repugnant revision of our history that must not be tolerated.

Thomas Jefferson is not, by definition, a 'founder'; nevertheless, he drafted the Declaration of Independence and shared with those who later made up the Constitutional Convention, the view that the United States was --in no way --'founded upon the Christian religion'.

The United States is NOT a 'Christian' nation.

I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. [bolding is mine, LH]

--Thomas Jefferson, Danbury Letter

We will never be free to relax with respect to this issue. The American right wing, extremists and religious fanatics have a subversive agenda. Unless they are constantly opposed or stopped, they will stop at nothing to effect their agenda. They have already proven that they are willing to change the meaning and legal significance of 'precedent' upon which is based the legal and philsophical underpinnings of Western Civilization.

Clarence Thomas is articulating the view that precedent doesn't count... I think that if Bush were to appoint people who believe that precedent doesn't count, you would really see a carnage of the laws passed by the New Deal courts.... I think that this...new Court is perfectly capable of reaching back and substantially reversing and eroding the decisions of the Supreme Court in the late 1930s. And that, to me, is a great danger.

--Martin Garbus

It is not claimed in the preamble to the Constitution that God ordained our Constitution! No external lawgiver is cited! Nor is the Constitution based --as Gary Bauer had said --on the Ten Commandments. The Constitution never mentions the Ten Commandments. The Constitution is not based on the Talmud, nor the Upanishads, nor the Bhagavad-Gita, nor the Koran!

Fundamentalists of any religious persuasion should read the Constitution from the first letter to the last period. They should be required to count the number of times the word "God" is used!

NOT ONCE!

Count the number of times the word "Christian" is used!

NOT ONCE!

Count the number of times that the name of any religion is named or even referenced!

NOT ONCE!

That is the case because the Constitution is a secular document creating a secular, humanist nation --A FREE REPUBLIC --and until it is overthrown by GOP/wing nuts/Religious fanatics in a coup d'etat, it will remain so!

Five ideologues have proven themselves contemptuous of both the rule of law and a basic principle underlying our founding: the separation of church and state! The constitutional subversives are Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito and Sandra Day O'Connor. None of them can be trusted to be faithful stewards of our heritage, our Constitution, indeed, our very freedoms as they are guaranteed to us in that document. Some examples:

In 1993, William Osburne was convicted of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent the next 14 years of his life behind bars. Osburne insists that he is innocent, the State of Alaska has in its possession DNA evidence which will once and for all prove his guilt or innocence, and Osburne has offered to pay for DNA testing out of his own pocket. Allowing Osburne to prove—or disprove–his claim of innocence will cost Alaska literally nothing.
--Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, In 5-4 Decision, Conservative Supreme Court Denies DNA Evidence To Potentially Innocent Man

Yet another example among scores:

Today, a Supreme Court majority ruled against women by siding with the country's largest employment discriminator, saying Wal-Mart, essentially, is too big to sue. The brave women, led by Betty Dukes, who stood up to Wal-Mart at great personal sacrifice, are told simply they're on their own.

"With this decision, the Supreme Court has assisted Wal-Mart in its efforts to systematically dole out promotions and pay raises on the basis of sex. The law calls that illegal discrimination, but this Court has turned its back on the more than million women who only sought simple justice," said NOW President Terry O'Neill. "The women of Wal-Mart deserve respect and fair treatment, and we will continue to stand up for their rights."

In 2002, NOW declared Wal-Mart a "Merchant of Shame" as part of its Women-Friendly Workplace Campaign. NOW chapters have led countless community demonstrations at Wal-Mart stores around the country to educate shoppers about Wal-Mart's exploitation of its women employees.

Today, NOW demands an immediate legislative response to help the women of Wal-Mart. We call on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would provide more effective remedies to victims of sex-based wage discrimination. This bill passed in the House in January 2009, but ultimately was defeated in the Senate.

"The gap between women's and men's pay is still sizeable, which is why it's so important to get this legislation passed," stated O'Neill. "We will continue supporting the efforts of Senators Mikulski, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Stabenow and others to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and hold accountable those who stand in the way of this sensible remedial bill."

A legislative remedy is only part of the solution, however. NOW also calls on Wal-Mart to end its unconscionable resistance to employees' efforts to form unions and bargain collectively over pay, benefits and other conditions of employment. Research demonstrates that unionized women workers earn better wages and have better benefits than their non-union counterparts. In fact, women in unions earn 11.2 percent more or $2.00 more per hour than non-union women workers. And the gender wage gap is smaller in unionized workplaces.
--Political Affairs, In 5-4 decision, conservative Supreme Court justices dismiss Wal-Mart lawsuit

These 'justices' and the American right wing which supports them wish to undo the work of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and every founder whose signature is to be found at the bottom of what has been called the most magnificant document to have issued from the mind of humankind: the U.S. Constitution.

George Carlin: '(God)...loves you and he NEEDS MONEY!'

Carlin describes Rush Limbaugh

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Romney is Wrong! Corporations are NOT People

2011-08-24T09:23:00.000-07:00

By Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Mitt Romney has claimed that corporations are people, real people! He even got upset with his audience for daring to challenge his absurd assertions. Now --when corporations are held responsible for their crimes in the same way that individuals, that real people, are held responsible for their crimes, then and only then can I even begin to take seriously the utter BS re: 'corporate personhood' that has been put forward by the GOP, by the extremists on the right wing SCOTUS or by the legion of powerful, wealthy lobbies on K-Street!

The fact is corporations are mere 'legal abstractions'; they are NOT people. The definition of 'people' may be found in biology textbooks; I deny that old men or liars in robes can redefine with a mere decree some several million years of evolution over which they have had no control or input. Robed judges are not 'God' nor can they --with a decree --change the laws of evolution and/or physics.

I deny that SCOTUS may decree that gravity will not work, that Earth will not orbit the sun or the moon, the earth! Say what it will, SCOTUS may not redefine a person; nor may it decree that words on paper may live, breate and procreate biologically as do real people. SCOTUS has no jurisdiction on this point. Rather, some several million years of biological precedent should humble the likes of Scalia.

Nor can I imagine how 'fundamentalists' reconcile their fundamentalist religious beliefs with the ludicrous idea that by squeezing a 'corporate seal' one may CREATE a person, and a REAL person at that! That SCOTUS may be taken seriously could be understandable in a state like Texas, victimized by the GOP assault on education. Texas ranks dead last in high school graduations, thanks to the GOP incompetence of Bush/Perry. However, it is not only Texas under Bush/Perry that has fallen off the radar with respect to education. Education, logic, intellect are always targeted by a party that has made of itself an enemy of erudition, science, logic and, most importantly, good will.

Real people are interchangeable in a corporation --an abstraction. Moreover, anyone can form a corporation for very little money and they can do it by mail order. The corporation is nothing more than 'data' recorded with a Secretary of State (somewhere, probably Delaware), a corporate seal, and a Certificate of Incorporation:

From Cornell University Law School:

"A corporation is a legal entity [emphasis, EC] created through the laws of its state of incorporation. Individual states have the power to promulgate laws relating to the creation, organization and dissolution of corporations. Many states follow the Model Business Corporation Act. (See Minnesota's adoption.) State corporation laws require articles of incorporation to document the corporation's creation and to provide provisions regarding the management of internal affairs. Most state corporation statutes also operate under the assumption that each corporation will adopt bylaws to define the rights and obligations of officers, persons and groups within its structure."

--Cornell University Law School

ERGO: people are INTER-CHANGEABLE in a corporation. A real person doing business as a 'sole proprietorship' does not have that luxury. To create this Orwellian interchangeability, SCOTUS seeks to bestow upon corporations 'privileges', privileges that real people are denied in the same decision.

The law treats a corporation as a legal "person" only in so far as it can sue and be sued. That is not to be confused with either legal or biological personhood. And the reason that it MAY NOT be so confused is that 'suing and being sued' DOES NOT DEFINE a person. If corporations were people, then DuPONT et al should have been put to death for the deaths it caused at Bhopal.

When has ANY corporation --at any time in history --been held to account for the many crimes to include mass murder and other atrocities in the same way that REAL PEOPLE are held to account?

NEVER!

Moreover, the legal independence of a corporation prevents shareholder liability for corporate debts; ERGO, corporations are NOT people. Real people have NO such exemptions, no such luxuries. Corporations are NOT people; SCOTUS, MITT and the GOP are dead wrong. I will be happy to set them straight.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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How to Survive U.S. Cops

2011-08-22T03:33:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Until police 'hot dogs' and taser fetishists are brought to heel, I propose some survival hints that might help keep you alive in the face of rising police thuggery, goonery, idiocy, and hot-doggery:

Never go out at night alone; always bring a witness!
Never go out in the daytime alone; always bring a witness!
Never go to the toilet alone; always bring a witness!
Never go anywhere unless you have back-up following you at 20 paces or so with a camcorder so that when you are assaulted or murdered, there will be a record of it!
If you are cross-eyed and drool, do NOT look at a cop! He will think you're making fun of him!
When COPS are near, try your best to look like a Republican i.e, look stupid!
Don't look 'black' even if you are white; don't ever say 'bro' or 'get down wit yo' bad self' unless you want to get the shit beat out of you and/or dumped off a bridge.
Carry a copy of the Wall St Journal or the Washington Times but don't use it to wrap a cod. It could be mistaken for a .357 with gills.
Perfect a 'neutral', expressionless face. Emotion of any kind is a threat!
Never mention that you have read Thoreau or Sartre! Do you want to die?

'Let the police handle it!' i.e, let the cops fuck you over and learn to like it!

Here's the story behind the video:

SEATTLE -- Seattle police are investigating what they call an assault of an officer in South Seattle. However, a police officer is seen punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during the incident captured by a video camera on Monday.

According to Seattle police, the incident began when an officer spotted a man jaywalking in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way S. at approximately 3:10 p.m. The man was some 15 feet away from a pedestrian overpass, police said.

The officer was talking to the man when he saw four young women jaywalk across the same street at the same spot. The officer asked the women to step over to his patrol car, but the women were being "verbally antagonistic toward the officer," according to officials.

One of the women, later identified as a 19 year old, began to walk away from the scene despite the officer's instructions, prompting the officer to walk over to her and escort her back to his patrol car.

...

My two cents: there is absolutely no justification for so much as touching someone for having jay-walked! Police have a right to defend themselves --but against what? Death or severe injury resulting from someone jaywalking a block or more distant? Had the woman jaywalked or committed some 'ticketable offense', cops need only write her out a ticket, give her a chance to challenge in court should she choose to do so!

If cops don't wish to be videotaped being belligerent, utterly unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional, then they should STOP being unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional.

These low-rent assholes, brownshirt wannabes work for us! Perhaps we should start firing their sorry asses without retirement! Let them find a real job!

Now --any cop reading this, here's your assignment: write me 1,000 words on the following topic: PROBABLE CAUSE! Post it here! Don't even think about stealing it --that's crooked! And I can check it out online. Don't even think about trying to snow me. You will be graded!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009
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How the GOP Destroyed Detroit

2011-08-19T08:16:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Muslims did not destroy Detroit! Nor did black people though bigots are posting pictures of the 'ruins' amid claims that Detroit is the 'victim' of a multi-racial society! I wonder who the bigots will blame next week? Hispanics? The Irish?

I have news for the bigots and the right wing: we live in a multi-racial world and multi-racialism has absolutely nothing to do with an economic decline that is the result of the economic policies of the very worst administrations to have ever exercised political power in the U.S. --Reagan, Bush and Bush Jr! Blaming 'Muslims' for this outcome is uninformed if not stupid; it is most certainly bigoted!

The destruction of Detroit required help from phony economists inside the GOP. The destruction of Detroit began with the deals GHWB cut with China as the U.S. tried to find an 'honorable' way out of Viet Nam. I have talked about this with GHWB personally. My questions were to the point: what deals were cut? What price was paid to get our asses out of Viet Nam with honor? GHWB was either incoherent or taciturn but never forthcoming. He preferred to tell stories about how he ate 'dog lip' (presumably with sweet and sour sauce) at a formal dinner in the Forbidden City.

In footage and stills, much of Detroit looks like the aftermath of World War III. It was not Muslims nor black people who destroyed Detroit nor are Muslims to blame for the gutting of American industry, the destruction of jobs, the export of jobs, the screwing over of the 'working man'. The fact is the U.S. --under GOP regimes --became a vassal state of China. [See: CIA's World Fact Book, Current Account Balance] The gutting of American industry, the destruction of jobs, the export of jobs, the screwing over of the 'working man' --that's the work of the GOP, party that is utterly dependent upon bigots which make up a significant GOP constituency.

It was an economic 'scorched earth policy'. Reagan (the GOP in general) wanted to destroy unions and they did it! They did it by destroying the job, and in some cases, the entire industry! Works every time.

Muslims are still demonized by an uninformed segment of the U.S. population. For them, I have a clue: Muslims have nothing to do with the decline of Detroit. Nor do immigrants of any type and only bigots --gullible bigots at that --believe that to be the case. But like the GOP constituency in general, bigots are always eager to embrace BS if it should 1) pin the blame on someone else; 2) make them feel good about themselves though they have no good reason for doing so.

So ---Muslims are in America!! So what! We have been uninvited guests of Muslims ever since the U. S., running out of its own oil, discovered oil in abundance throughout the Middle East. Subsequently, the U.S. would, upon any pretext whatsoever, con and/or steal it.

If theft did not work, the U.S. (as it did with Persian Gulf I) would resort to duping the leadership of a foreign [Muslim] country to get it. Prior to the Senior Bush's decision to begin Persian Gulf War I, U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie had met with Saddam Hussein. According to the transcript of the meeting, she told Hussein that the U.S. had no position on 'Arab-Arab' disputes.

The official State Department discussion between Saddam and April Catherine Glaspie from July 25, 1990:

US Ambassador Glaspie:

“I have direct instructions from President Bush to improve our relations with Iraq. We have considerable sympathy for your quest for higher oil prices, the immediate cause of your confrontation with Kuwait. (pause) As you know, I have lived here for years and admire your extraordinary efforts to rebuild your country (after the Iran-Iraq war). We know you need funds. We understand that, and our opinion is that you should have the opportunity to rebuild your country. (pause) We can see that you have deployed massive numbers of troops in the south. Normally that would be none of our business, but when this happens in the context of your other threats against Kuwait, then it would be reasonable for us to be concerned. For this reason, I have received an instruction to ask you, in the spirit of friendship – not confrontation – regarding your intentions. Why are your troops massed so very close to Kuwait’s borders?”

President Saddam Hussein:

“As you know, for years now I have made every effort to reach a settlement on our dispute with Kuwait. There is to be a meeting in two days; I am prepared to give negotiations only one more brief chance. (pause) When we (the Iraqis) meet (with the Kuwaitis) and we see there is hope, then nothing will happen. But if we are unable to find a solution, then it will be natural that Iraq will not accept death.”

US Ambassador Glaspie:

“What solution would be acceptable?”

President Saddam Hussein:

“If we could keep the whole of the Shatt al Arab – our strategic goal in our war with Iran – we will make concessions (to the Kuwaitis). But if we are forced to choose between keeping half of the Shatt and the whole of Iraq (which, in Iraq’s view, includes Kuwait), then we will give up all of the Shatt to defend our claims on Kuwait to keep the whole of Iraq in the shape we wish it to be. (pause) What is the United States’ opinion on this?”

US Ambassador Glaspie:

“We have no opinion on your Arab-Arab conflicts, such as your dispute with Kuwait. Secretary (of State James) Baker has directed me to emphasize the instruction, first given to Iraq in the 1960s, that the Kuwait issue is not associated with America.“

--Transcript of the Glaspie-Saddam meeting that started the Gulf War

Hussein was given a green light to lower the price of oil, though this outcome was most certainly at odds with Bush's real policy --higher prices for oil! In short --we have no one to blame for this shitty outcome but ourselves.

Earlier, Ronald Reagan and Bush Sr may have committed 'high treason' with respect to Iran/Contra about which both men lied. In effect, both were the architects of a scheme that --in fact --armed enemies of the United States. In simpler times --'high treason'. And it would be today if a Democrat had done it! The GOP is apparently above the law. I refer you to the final report of Lawrence Walsh, Prosecutor for 'Iran-Contra' matters. Walsh left no doubt! He believed that Reagan, Bush et al had committed treason!

There was a time shortly after FDR had shepherded the nation out of the Great Depression that the U.S. manufactured products, employed people to make things and export the results to other nations. In other words, the U.S. created jobs.

We no longer do that. I can prove that that is the case with numbers from the CIA itself. As mentioned, China at the top of the list with the World's largest positive Current Account Balance. That's because China makes things, employs its population and exports its product to the world --primarily US via Wal-Mart. Go to Wal-Mart! Find just one thing that is made in the U.S. Since Reagan, the U.S. has made very little of anything and less has actually been exported. The CIAs list proves my point.

When did this trend begin? It began shortly after George H.W. Bush went to China, set up Nixon's famous but largely ceremonial trip to the Forbidden City. The deals that were cut turned out to have been the price we paid to get our sorry asses out of Viet Nam --a dank swamp we had no business being in in the first place. One pays for one's sins.

But when ignorant asses raise strawmen, red herrings, propaganda to justify their hate and bigotry, I part company with them. That's what's really wrong with the U.S. No one has been safe since it was discovered that big bucks could be made by killing Indians [Native Americans, my ancestors], driving Mexicans (who were there first) out of Texas, stealing land, waging wars in general. It was Randolph Hearst who said just prior to the U.S. attack on Cuba --"you give me the pictures and I'll give you the war!"

Like Rome before us --we are busted and are not creating jobs. A trip to Wal-Mart proves that. Who is to blame? Not immigrants --though I cannot fathom why anyone in his/her right mind would want to come here. I cannot imagine why anyone would want to swim or wade across the Rio Grande.

It is a dirty bird, indeed, that shits in his own nest! The alleged 'Governor' of Texas --Rick Perry is lying about the 'Texas Miracle'! There was NO Texas miracle. There was no net increase of jobs over the time period he cites. Rather, there was a huge net decline of jobs! That is to be expected. It is the GOP modus operandi! It is best described as a Texas Two Step: 1) subvert education 2) by doing so, ensure a growing prison population which benefits only the corporate-owned prison system!

A question --what will Houston look like when the oil companies decide that, as the U.S. has all but run out of oil, what's the point of maintaining spiffy, shiny 80 story office buildings in down town Houston? Last time, I checked there was lots of high rise office space in Dubai.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Tell Rick Perry that there was NO 'Texas Miracle'

2011-08-15T03:54:00.001-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As a fourth generation Texan, a descendent of Texas pioneers, I deny a favorite myth among the GOP inclined. There was no 'Texas Miracle' --a term cooked up in a GOP focus group, fly-by-night political consultants (perhaps from Chicago). Fact is --not only has education dropped off the radar, Texas has run out of oil that can be pumped profitably; real jobs are as scarce as hen's teeth.

Frankly, I am surprised to learn that --as economist Paul Krugman points out -- in June 2011 the Texas unemployment rate was ONLY 8.2 percent. I had expected that it would have been higher. About that, economist Paul Krugman asks: "...what does population growth have to do with job growth?" Krugman is right to ask and the point is made as only Krugman can make it! Indeed, if the 'Texas Miracle' had been real, Texas should not be boasting of unemployment rates as high as 8.2 percent.

But I am disappointed that Krugman has not mentioned the BUSH-PERRY scam about which I have screamed bloody murder! I believe that unemployment figures for TX would be much, much higher if those millions left behind by the Bush-Perry neglect/subversion of public education were showing up in the stats. But --they are not! And they are not showing up because those 'left behind' are finding the only long-term employment that is available to them in the corporate-owned prisons, what I call the Bush-Perry Gulag!

This is not the result of GOP incompetence. It is the result of deliberate GOP crookery at the party-leadership level. This is the result of the GOP's deliberate neglect of education. This is why the GOP is not a poltiical party; it is a crime syndicate, a kooky cult!

The only pockets lined by GOP largesse (pork) are the pockets of an increasingly tiny ruling elite now just 1 percent of the total US population. Official stats prove my assertions; those numbers can be found at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Dept-B.E.A. Be prepared to see proof that the GOP, Mitt Romney, Rick Perry et al are lying, distorting the effects of every GOP tax cut in U.S. history.

In each case, the cuts --enriching only the upper, upper classes and the corporate owners of prisons --are followed by recessions, depressions. ERGO: GOP tax cuts do not and have never stimulated the economy, have never created a single job! In fact, job growth has either declined or gone negative (net job loss) after every GOP tax cut. In fact, every recession/depression since 1900 has been the result of either GOP incompetence or crookedness or both.

It is for this reason primarily that BUSH-PERRY neglected education. A state that will not educate new generations deserves to pay for the privilege of neglect with much higher crime rates. But even that is not the point ---the point is that the GOP and the CORPORATE OWNED PRISONS benefit from the whole package: 1) LOWER HIGH SCHOOL GRADUATIONS 2) HIGHER CRIME RATES 3) HIGHER PROFITS FOR CORPORATE-OWNED PRISONS. It's the GOP formula.

Given what we know about the GOP record in Texas, we should not be surprised to learn that a failed governor from a 'gulag' state, a failed governor with more hair than brains, an inarticulate governor challenged to spell 'ed-joo-ka-shun' should wish to occupy the White House, a 'perch' from which he might prey upon the future of an entire nation and the futures of all the people who live in it.

So when Mr. Perry presents himself as the candidate who knows how to create jobs, don’t believe him. His prescriptions for job creation would work about as well in practice as his prayer-based attempt to end Texas’s crippling drought.
--Paul Krugman, The Texas Unmiracle

There was NO 'Texas Miracle'!

Unless you consider the rise of the prison system to be a 'miracle'! I don't! Nor am I impressed with pimples on the much larger curve. I grew up with the boom and bust 'oil industry' and consider it an utterly failed strategy akin to playing Blackjack or Roulette in the expection of, one day, hitting a jackpot! I cannot count the number of 'busts' that I witnessed growing up. And from each 'bust' only the very, very rich benefited. In any case, when it is deemed more profitable to attack and invade another Middle Eastern country, temporary 'bubbles' will always burst. But crime --as a result of the GOP/right wing sabotage of education --will ensure that the corporate run prisons are full. What a racket!!

GOP policy is anti-education! It was the evil axis of Bush-Perry that made of Texas the GULAG STATE!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Deluded Mitt Romney says: 'Corporations are people' too!

2011-08-14T04:36:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Here's what Mitt recently puked up:

"Corporations are people, my friend... of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend."

--Mitt Romney, aka 'The Compleat Cockroach'

Like every other GOPPER, Mitt claims privileges for corporations because, '...they are people''! The 'privileges' he claims for corporation are denied to 'real people' simply because they are real people and corporations are not! Neither Mitt nor the GOP can have it both ways.

In fact, corporations are not taxed as much or even in the same way as are real people. That is by design --GOP design! I say TAX the corporations! But, of course, the corporations themselves will oppose effort to tax them fairly or in the same ways as real persons are taxed. Nevertheless, corporations must be compelled to pay their fair share to support the legitimate functions of government with respect to the 'real' real people who are, by law, the source of all governmental 'sovereignty'.

Funny thing is, Romney's questioner wasn't asking him about corporate personhood. He was asking why Romney wants to cut Social Security but while preserving corporate tax breaks. It seemed as if Romney had already memorized this little speech and was looking for a chance to trot it out. He probably had.
--Truthout, Shiny Happy Corporate People

Corporations and the ruling elite which runs them can, in many cases, can avoid paying taxes entirely. In practice, however, the 'ruling elite' (now just 1 percent of the total population) pay less and less as a portion of their total income than do middle and lower class individuals. For us, the government's cut is a much, much larger percentage of our income than are the nominal taxes levied the ruling elite.

Why are not corporations locked up when committing crimes that would land real people in a Texas gulag hell-hole? As Truth Out put it: Romney and the GOP at large would ask: "Are you crazy? We're talking about corporations here, not people."

Corporations are often left off the hook entirely when sued for negligence or 'criminal manslaughter'. How many real people are housed in Texas prisons for those crimes? How many corporations are housed in TX gulags for precisely the same crimes? I will tell you: NONE!!!! In practice, perhaps in law, corporations are placed above the law, treated differently, given privileges and exemptions that real people have never had and will never have.

Why is the GOP so eager to bestow upon corporations --a collective abstraction --the status of 'personhood'? The answer is simple: the GOP are 'collectivists'; the GOP is anti-individual! The GOP seeks to establish a 'collectivist' dictatorship in which wealth --created by labor --is shared but only among the ruling elite which did not create it and have not earned a penny of it. Every one else in the GOP vision of AmeriKa is reduced to slavery if we have not been already.

REPUBLICANS: ARE THEY ABOVE THE LAW OR JUST OUTLAWS?

Republicans may say what they want of corporations as people, but, in fact, corporations have none of characterisics of real people, none of the responsibilities. They do not vote as people; they don't have to. They OWN the government! They benefit from its largesse as real people have never benefited and never will!

The only pockets lined by GOP largesse (pork) are the pockets of an increasingly tiny ruling elite now just 1 percent of the total population. The official stats prove my assertions; those numbers can be found by anyone with an internet connection at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Commerce Dept-B.E.A. Look 'em up! Be prepared to see proof that the GOP and Mitt are lying, distorting the effects of every GOP tax cut in U.S. history.

In each case, the cut --having enriched only the upper 1 percent --has been followed by a recession/depression. ERGO: GOP tax cuts do not have have never stimulated the economy, have never created a single fucking job! NOT ONE!

In fact, job creation has declined after every GOP tax cut; and every recession/depression since 1900 has been the result of either GOP incompetence or crookedness or both.

The Reagan depression of some two years is a specimen typical of the recurring problem. Under Reagan, jobs declined, investment declined, millions were thrown out of work, lost their homes and were forced to live in tent cities, under bridges! Ironically, this was the case in 'boomtown' Houston which had been called the 'Golden Buckle of the Sunbelt'. Every such depression/recession has been the result of similar incompetence by previous GOP regimes at least since 1900.

Here's the story that puts all this in perspective: Romney wants to cut Social Security while preserving corporate tax breaks. In other words, MITT ROMNEY --a typical GOP seed pod --wants to enrich those who are already rich upon the backs of those who were never rich, those who can least afford it. Romney wants to rob retirees and literally GIVE that wealth to mere 'legal abstractions' --corporations!

Romney's ideas will most certainly result in a contraction of wealth as 'money' (in varrious forms) will follow the well-rehearsed GOP SCRIPT! In other words, this 'wealth' will wind up in various offshore bank accounts where it creates no jobs and --significantly --does not 'trickle down'! As was the case wtih the Reagan tax cut, a depression, a massive loss of jobs, a contraction of the economy will result. It always has!

THE GOP MODUS OPERANDI

Check the official stats at Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Commerce Deptartment-B.E.A., the U.S. Census Bureau. Following EVERY GOP tax cut at least since Reagan has been a recession/depression [negative growth] defined by the millions of Americans that were suddenly jobless, homeless and living in tent cities, under bridges, as was the case in fact in 'boomtown' Houston.

The REAGAN YEARS SUCKED! [see Cheney's nose at right]

And they sucked because GOP economics have never, ever worked as advertised! GOP economic 'theory' is a fraud, a scam, a conjob. It does precisely what the GOP wants it to do: it enriches the GOP base! It's a laundered payoff for their continued support. As a result of GOP policies, just 1 percent of the total population owns more than the rest of us combined.

Instead of listening to Mitt, we should be restoring the nation's prosperity by taxing the rich and the even richer corporations FAIRLY! In other words, they should be taxed as was the case until Ronald Reagan wrecked the economy and impoverished everyone but the very, very, very rich who have had the 'bad manners' of investing their ill-gotten booty in offshore bank accounts.

The EXODUS of wealth following every GOP tax cuts is commonly called 'recession' or 'depression'. Look them up at the U.S. Commerce Dept B.E.A. the Census Bureau or the Bureau of Labor Stats. The GOP record of tax cuts followed by recession is there in black and white for anyone curious enough to learn the truth!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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A Case for Ending the Current Method by Which Presidents are 'Selected'

2011-07-31T06:47:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The office of President is connected to the electorate 'metaphorically' but not in fact. The very method by which the President is elected is complicated by party machines, primaries, state election procedures and most notably an antiquated and completely useless 'Electoral College'.

As long as there is an 'electoral college', 'third parties' are reduced to playing 'spoiler'; 'states' are given powers they should not have. The 'President' is supposed to represent ALL the people but he/she is, in fact, elected by states and/or state party machines. And those, in turn, are but pawns of big contributors, organized lobbies and special interests.

The only viable alternative is to end the primaries; replace them with a single national popular election defined and decided by an 'instant runoff'. A benefit of this is that free of 'party' machinations, candidates must run on issues. The 'President' of the United States (in theory, at least) must represent all of the people of the United States. A 'direct election' can make a truth of this fiction.

Then --why is the 'President' elected by 'states'?

The following criteria are listed in [an] LWV study:
Ensure majority rule. Most major political races currently can be won with only a plurality.
Encourage minority representation, where minority is defined by either party or cultural
affiliation.
Encourage fair gender representation.
Produce fair and accurate representation of diverse political views in legislatures.
Increase voter participation.
Encourage geographical representation.
Encourage “sincere” voting, as opposed to “strategic” voting.
Maximize effective votes/minimize “wasted” votes.
Provide a reasonable range of voter choice.
Prevent fraud and political manipulation.
Encourage competitive elections
--League of Women Voters in Oregon, Criteria for Evaluating Election Systems, Election Methods: Review of Alternatives and Oregon, Proposals, Executive Summary

There are many ways to arrive at the 'people's choice following a national popular election. The Borda count, for example, is a single-winner election method. Voters are given a list of candidates representing every party fielding a candidate. The voter simply RANKS the candidates in the order of their preference. Their favorite, for example, is 'number one', etc.

Thus the Borda count determines a winner by giving each candidate the number of points which correspond to his/her rank as 'marked' by each voter. Nothing could be simpler: the winning candidate is the one with the most points.

The Borda count is but one system. There are competing 'range' and/or preference systems. All of them, however, must meet certain criteria if we are to achieve the goals of any new proposal.

Everyone's vote must 'equal' everyone's else's vote, i.,e no system should result in any vote or sub-set of votes having more 'weight' statistically than any other vote. One man (person), one vote must become more than mere slogan. It is possible that it be made a fact!

What does this mean to voters? Simplistically, a vote in rural Arizona must --and can -- carry as much 'weight' as a vote in Houston's very, very posh and elite 'River Oaks'; a vote in Harlem must --and can -- carry the same weight as a vote in Minnesota or a vote in any other place, city, neighborhood or enclave in these United States. The President is --after all --said to be elected by popular vote. But that has not been the case in fact and practice. The biggest offender is the 'Electoral College'. Thanks to the electoral college, the value of individual votes in small states are not worth much.

Another benefit is that party machinations may be, can be minimized. Any party can 'elect' within its rank any candidate it desires. Let the parties do what they want within their ranks --as long as its legal. But --as more parties are sure to spring up --more points of view will be represented. The obvious benefit is that voters are no longer reduced to voting between two shades of gray, between frick or frack, between GOP or GOP-LITE. The people will at last been given a choice. Democracy will have at last come to the United States.

The greatest benefit of all may be that the cost of elections will decline. Candidates must address issues over postures and strategies. Voters will themselves sense that --at last --their vote is actually counting for something, that it is not merely lost amid the electoral college and/or the machinations of increasingly complicated and completely out-of-touch parties, primaries and machines.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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A Citizen's First Defense Against Tyranny

2011-07-18T03:33:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Over the years, I have had the good fortune to have met some interesting people, many of whom I considered to be mentors. Many of them probably never knew how much I had learned from them. Some were famous but many, many more were not but the lessons learned were just as important and, in many cases, more so.

Dick DeGuerin, a near legendary Houston-based defense attorney whom I knew briefly in Houston, TX, credited many people for having been his mentors. Those include, of course, lengendary trial lawyers --among them Percy Foreman with whom he worked for years. When 'Texas Monthly' interviewed DeGuerin, the famous lawyer underlined how important it is that all our citizens acquire an essential knowledge of those few documents that guarantee ---by law --our rights as people and citizens.

Times, took a kind of informal poll of people. He stood out on a corner and read various lines to people and asked them where it came from and if it was a valuable right, etc. A lot of people said “Well it must be the Communist Manifesto” or some radical writing or we don’t need that. What he was doing was just reading the Bill of Rights.

--Dick DeGuerin, Famous Defense Attorney as quoted in 'Texas Monthly'

Our 'rights' are guaranteed us in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights! They are not 'common law'; they were written down on paper, put before the people and ratified! They are the law! We must be vigilent in their defense as the laws themselves have protected us from those who would deny them. Until A. Scalia can undo them, the mountainous body of case law that affirms them and protects us from tyranny.

We must be vigilent. It is clear of late that the government must not be expected to think for us! Nor will the powerful lobbies on K-street restrain themselves. They are not paid to protect us. They are paid handsomely by wealthy special interests NOT to protect the rights guaranteed you in the Constitution; rather --they are paid to protect --not rights but privileges that are claimed by the increasingly rich and powerful ruling elite. This elite of just 1 percent of the total population owns more, controls more 'wealth' than the rest of us combined.

If you would be free, you must defend freedom for every citizen.

Your Honor, years ago I recognized my kinship with all living beings, and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. I said then, and I say now, that while there is a lower class, I am in it, and while there is a criminal element I am of it, and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.

--Eugene Debs, upon sentencing on November 18, 1918 to ten years in prison

Eugue Debs opposed U.S. entry into World War I but was arrested, jailed and sentenced for having opposed it in a speech. Free speech did not exist for Debs. But as he himself made clear, if anyone is denied free speech, if anyone is denied his/her freedom, WE are not free!

His sentence was appealed but upheld by the Supreme Court in a decision famous for a blatant fallacy, an obvious false analogy that would not be equaled until A. Scalia would join the court and reverse the laws of cause and effect! Justice Oliver Wendall Holmes likened Debs' opposition to the U. S. entry into WWI to '...yelling fire in a crowded theater' when there is no fire.

But ---there was a fire!

There was a clear and present danger then just as there is now --the 'clear and present danger' that is posed to every 'right' that is listed in the First Ten Amendements to the U.S. Constitution. Then as now, war --whether declared or undeclared, legitimate or no --seems always to be the convenient rationalization by which our very freedoms are or will be denied to us.

Tens of thousands of Americans are being held in super-maximum-security prisons where they are deprived of contact and psychologically destroyed. Undocumented workers are rounded up and vanish from their families for weeks or months. Militarized police units break down the doors of some 40,000 Americans a year and haul them away in the dead of night as if they were enemy combatants. Habeas corpus no longer exists.

American citizens can “legally” be assassinated. Illegal abductions, known euphemistically as “extraordinary rendition,” are a staple of the war on terror.

Secret evidence makes it impossible for the accused and their lawyers to see the charges against them. All this was experienced by the Argentines. Domestic violence, whether in the form of social unrest, riots or another catastrophic terrorist attack on American soil, would, I fear, see the brutal tools of empire cemented into place in the homeland. At that point we would embark on our own version of the Dirty War.
--Chris Hedges, America's Dissappeared

In Orwell's '1984' the institutional denial of all rights and, indeed, humanity itself is 'justified', rationalized and made 'the law' because of 'war', a perpetual state of war. In 1984, the war may have been a fiction maintained by government for the very purpose of enslaving the population. Likewise, a 'War on Terrorism' need never end! Thus --the government need only cite it to deny you every ratified right listed in the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution.

But --a citizen cannot defend those things about which he/she is ignorant. At the very least, a good citizen should be expected to have read the Bill of Rights --the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution. Every citizen should know what his/her rights are and should be prepared to quote them to your arresting officers and/or any 'judge' who would deny you those protections.

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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A Cult of 'Uncommonly Angry Minds'

2011-07-08T08:23:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Not since the McCarthy era has the GOP been more delusional. It was always a characteristic of a group that is less a political party than it is a cult. Historian Richard Hofstadter called it the 'The Paranoid Style in American Politics'! But who let the dogs out?

Not even McCarthy witch-hunts outdo various instances of flagrant hypocrisy which define the GOP. An example is instructive: the so-called McCarthy 'era' in which the GOP indulged, perhaps created, the very template upon which 'outrageous conspiracy theories' may be designed and/or derived. The 'boogeyman' du jour was the 'World-Wide Communist Conspiracy' during which the right wing found 'commies' in the media, under sofas, in the movies, and among the masses who were, in fact, merely longing to be free, most certainly free of harassment and bullying. This aspect of the right wing mentality, the tendency to find conspiracies were none exist, is referred to by historian Richard Hofstadter. Hofstadter called it: '...the paranoid style' and, as such, it is still very much a defining characteristic of the American right wing.

Although American politcial life has rarely been touched by the most acute varieties of class confict, it has served again and again as an arena for uncommonly angry minds. Today this fact is most evident on the extreme right wing, which has shown, particularly in the Goldwater movement, how much politcial leverage can be got out of animosities and passions of a small minority. Behind such movements there is a style of mind, not always right-wing in its affiliations, that has a long and varied history. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the qualities of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind.
--Richard Hofstadter, The Paranoid Style in American Politics and other essays

The GOP prefers to have it both ways. Whatever you believe is a 'conspiracy ' and conspiracies we are told no not exist. At the time same, the GOP clings to it's favorite 'conspiracy' --the world-wide communist conspiracy' which it promoted with fervor and propaganda until just recently. When a Republican tells you that 'conspiracies' do not exist, he means that your conspiracy does not exist; he means: you stupid; GOP smart! But, it was the GOP, the right wing in general, who either cooked-up or spread the most outrageous conspiracy theories imaginable back in the 1950s and beyond. Who recalls the drinking water scares? They were all the rage. Today, if you believe the GOP, conspiracies do not exist; except their conspiracies, of course.

Cults are defined by so-called 'leaders' that are, in practice, unaccountable. Hitler was typical. Unaccountable leaders are often charismatic figures upon whom are projected the many fears, phobias and insecurities associated with periods of great economic or political change. The exploitation of this 'demographic' often requires an assist in the form of an attack by either a foreign power (Peal Harbor) or a 'terrorist attack' (the Reichstag Fire, 911).

Demagogues invariably seek to be automomous, excercising authority free of supervision or restraint. This applies as well to Bush Jr as to Herr Hitler. If war does not often cause the rise of 'paranoid style' leaders, they are, in the end the result of those leaders and their fear-driven style. Thus war is but the real world manifestation of paranoid fears and delusions. The Reichstag Fire and 911 are the most obvious examples. As models by which fascist regimes may be easily installed upon waves of fear, they are to be studied. It is hoped that the tragic experiences will have been instructive. If nothing is learned then those who died will have been sacrificed for the vainglorious ambitions of just two men: Hitler and Bush.

More recently in America, having learned the lessons of corporatism from Adolph Hitler whose military adventures were financed by legal abstrations, specifically I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp et al, the GOP leadership will conspire with their corporate sponsors to invade sovereign nations for the purpose of enriching the corporate sponsors. The GOP/corporate partnership wasted no time. In his second week in office, George W. Bush created the 'energy task-force' and placed Vice-President Dick Cheney in charge. As if it had been scripted, Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' convened to carve up the oil fields of Iraq! And, as conveniently for Bush as was the Reichstag fire for Hitler, 911 provided the Jr Bush the pre-text he needed to commit this nation to a war of naked aggression against the peole of Iraq. It was a war crime for which the architects must stand trial as did Nazis at Nuremberg.

From a file called: the Utter Absurdity of the Right Wing:

Right Wingnut: All Terrorists are Muslim

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Road Trip to Ground Zero: Get on Board

2011-07-04T04:05:00.001-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Conan Doyle, the creator of Sherlock Holmes, perhaps the most famous fictional detective of all time, himself expert in the science of criminology, wrote: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" With respect to the crime of 911, it is past time to eliminate the impossible, i.,e the Bush 'theory' of 911, often called the 'official conspiracy theory of 911'.

Following is my short list --not of mere improbabilities --but fatal impossibilities any one of which utterly destroys the Bush 'official conspiracy theory of 911'! All the impossibilities listed may be verified against the laws of physics, logic and empirical observation. If the official conspiracy theory of 911 is impossible, then it is a lie --a deliberate one!

Some are obvious but somehow were ignored by the media. For example, Hani Hanjour is said to have boarded and high jacked Flight 77. But the Washington Post reported that Hani Hanjour could not have gotten on baord because he did not have a ticket. Nor is his name on the only admissible, official shred of evidence to have survived the Bush orders to destroy evidence --the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. More recently, NTSB records revealed that the cockpit door on Flight 77 was never opened during the fight. Ergo: the Bush official conspiracy theory of 911 cannot even explain how it was possible to have hijacked a flight of which there is no record, no evidence, no autopsy report to prove that any alleged hijacker ever got on board to begin with.

Bushco cannot place the 'suspects' at the scene of the crime.

Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; there is not a shred evidence of any sort to support it.

1. There are no arabs on the only admissible scrap of evidence related to the crash at the Pentagon, that is, the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. No arabs. A mere list of passengers which anyone can type up is NOT evidence admissible in court. And there is no evidence that anyone but Pentagon employees are buried at Arlington National Cemetary.

2) Official NTSB data indicates that on Flight 77, the cockpit door was never opened during the flight! So --not ony is there no evidence that Hani Hanjour was ever on board, he could not have hijacked the airliner had he been on board. Unless --of course --he could walk through a closed door. Perhaps he was inspired by David Copperfield who 'walked' through the Great Wall of China!

3) No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered from the Pentagon. A single engine rotor that was photographed on the Pentagon lawn is about 1/3 the size of each of two much, much larger rotors (of Titanium/Steel alloy) that would have been found had a 757 crashed into the Pentagon. No --the wreckage did not vaporize. And, unless the laws of physics are repealed, the total weight of wreckage will equal the weight of the un-crashed aircraft.

There is a photo (and video, as I recall) of some four to six white-shirtered, presumably Pentagon employees, hauling off 'debris' on a cart that they carried on their shoulder. This was NOT 757 debris. Unless The Bush administration repealed the laws of physics, specifcially the laws of the conservation of matter and energy, the total weight of the debris would have been equal to the weight of the uncrashed 757 minus the weight of spent fuel.

4) None of the crashes in New York were the flights that were alleged to have struck the towers. AA records indicate the the alleged flights had been mothballed for several months. In fact, the 757 has often found itself in service to the U.S. government. The United States Air Force fitted four 757-200s for VIP transport duties (C-32A). The USAF also operates two 757-200 aircraft (C-32B) for use by the U.S. State Department Foreign Emergency Support Team. These aircraft are painted solid white with only a small American flag and the USAF serial number on the fuselage. 911 is a crime like any other!

Anyone who would solve 911 must place the suspect at the scene of the crime. Candidates not having method, motive, and opportunity must be eliminated. That applies to Bushco's scapegoats --some 14 Arab hijackers who cannot be placed the scene of the crime, specifically NONE of them can be placed on any hijacked flight at any time! Until the BBC tracked down some of the alleged hijackers and interviewed them AFTER they were said to have died on 911, I might have been inclined to believe that they had not even existed. But --in any case --a living hijacker in a post-911 world disproves the Bush theory.

5) 127,520 --that's the weight in pounds of a typically outfitted 757. The wreckage on the Pentagon lawn was carried off atop a crate carried aloft by four or five skinny office dudes in white shirts and ties. There is NO WAY that over 50 TONS of wreckage was carried off on the shoulders of wimps! There is NO WAY that some 50 tons of airliner wreckage was ever recovered at any time at the Pentagon. The laws of the conservation of matter and energy were NOT repealed though Bushco might have wanted to.

Bottom line: the Bush administration --primarily Bush Jr himself, Dick Cheney who supervised, Don Rumsfeld (who almost gave the game away when he referred to the 'MISSILE that struck this building (the Pentagon), Condo Rice et al are the most obvious suspects. They had 1) method 2) motive, and 3) a golden opportunity, much like the opportunity A. Hitler had as a result of the Reichstag Fire. [See: William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich]

Conan Doyle was right. 911 is simple when you begin to eliminate the impossible. That includes all the irrelevant BS, the flack that was thrown up, the distractions, the rabbit trails, the diversions, the misdirection.

At its heart:

the Bush Administration committed acts of mass murder and high treason'
the Bush administration lied about it, ordered the destruction of evidence that might have PROVEN them guilty beyond any reasonable doubt'
dared to question the patriotism of good and loyal Americans;
tried to black male and, in other ways, intimidate good, loyal, patriotic Americans who have a DUTY to question elected leaders, public servants and anyone taking an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

It is significant that Bush lied about 911, in fact, never told anything resembling the truth with respect to 911. All were lies except the fact that 'something' terrible', something everlastingly evil happened that day. I covered numerous high profile murder trials in both Odessa, TX and Houston, TX, trials that featured legendary attorneys like Percy Foreman, Dick DeGuerin and Warren Burnett, whom the media called the 'heir apparent' to Clarence Darrow. As a result of my observations inside high profile murder trials, I concluded that 1) those who are innnocent of a crime DO NOT lie about them and, in fact, it is against their interests, counter-productive to do so; 2) only the GUILTY lie about crimes and only the guilty are motivated to do so! It is therefore relevant and highly revealing that Bush and Bushco lied consistently and repeatedly about 911! It was an elaborate and well-coordinated 'full-court press' to commit the crime and cover it up! It was --in fact and by law --a conspiracy! As a result, nothing that Bush or 'Bushco' ever said about 911 is verifiable in any way --scientifically, causually, legally! And that is so because they are guilty!

Bush lied, thousands of Americans died! The act of mass murder called 911 was and remains an act of murderous high treason!

John Niems: The Road to 911: Get On Board

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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An American Gulag

2011-06-29T01:53:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

A famous Texas scandal spawned a legend and a movie: "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas", starring Burt Reynolds and Dolly Parton. Many, not familiar with Texas scandals, probably thought it referred to the state legislature where various 'favors' and 'special considerations' are sold to special interests and other crooks. But --it's not a whorehouse; it's just a circle jerk.

Of late, Texas has taken political prostitution to levels not seen since A. Hitler pimped his 'Third Reich' to corporate 'johns' --I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp! All would get big, juicy, sexy government contracts if they but joined his crazy, evil scheme to enslave the world and exterminate jews, gypsies and anyone else not liked by Hitler, his cult of Nazis, his hand-picked perverts, whack-jobs, and a panoply of marginal and otherwise ineffective types, in fact, utter failures in a normal world. And those are the Nazis. The GOP may be worse.

The scam is often repeated in various ways by the American GOP but the Texas model, cooked up by Herrs Bush and Perry, may have outdone Hitler's blunt approach but, in the end, it's all Nazism. Hitler met 'industrialists' Thyssen, Krupp and several representatives of I.G. Farben --the makers of Zyklon 'B'. The meeting is described in some detail by William Shirer in 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'.

Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)
The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.
Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality . . . All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament). "Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."
All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)
----William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34

There are other, corroborating sources for this meeting.

Hitler did not intend to share his power with coalition partners. After the dissolution of the Reichstag, he hoped to win an absolute majority for the NSDAP with a massive election campaign. To finance the electoral battle, he sought support from Germany’s leading industrialists. In a meeting held on February 20, 1933, Hitler and Hermann Göring (1893-1946) explained the benefits that industry leaders would derive from an NSDAP victory: political stability, the complete elimination of the Communist threat and, not least, a lucrative rearmament policy.

Among those present at the meeting was George von Schnitzler, a board member of I.G. Farben, then the world’s largest chemical conglomerate. (I.G. Farben would eventually go on to produce the Zyklon B gas used in Nazi death camps). In the following affidavit, given in English on November 10, 1945, Schnitzler describes the purpose of the meeting and provides the names of others in attendance that day.

The TX gulag system differs very little from concentration camps. To be expected, they look modern from the outside. But, like Hitler's string of concentration and death camps, they are the work of 'private enterprise' contracted by 'government'; it is private enterprise which benefits from the Faustian deals that created them. Reduced to its essence, Hitler's 'Nazi' scheme systematically murdered millions and just as systematically reduced as many to slavery amid unimaginably horrible conditions.

--German History in Documents and Images, Volume 7. Nazi Germany, 1933-1945, Georg von Schnitzler on Hitler’s Appeal to Leading German Industrialists on February 20, 1933 (Affidavit, November 10, 1945)

A 'party' is what it does! If the basics of this 'privatization scheme' are repeated by Texas Republicans with similar/same results, then in what way does it differ from 'fascism' or 'corportism' or "Nazism'? In Texas, politicians have been known to say: "if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, it's a duck!" Indeed! One is what what does! A political party is what it does! The GOP has repeated the Hitler model in Texas with respect to its gulag of prisons! Am I to call the Texas GOP 'boy scouts' because they are not in Germany? Of course not! I will call them what they are and what they are, in fact and deed, are fascists!

The Texas GOP Learned From Hitler's Mistakes

It was the Bush family that has deliberately worked to establish a very similar if not 'same' model in Texas. The fruition is seen in the Texas gulag of corporate-owned prisons. The roots of this horrific outcome may be traced to Nixon-Bush overtures to China. Bush Sr's efforts to set it all up are too often forgotten by writers focused upon Nixon's largely ceremonial trip to the Forbidden City. Recall that Bush SR was ambassador to China under Nixon, that it was Nixon that took the U.S. off the gold standard; but it was most certainly Bush Sr who cut the deals in advance of Nixon's largely ceremonial trip.

It was, therefore, Bush Sr who sold us out to China. Like a bad penny, a Bush always seems to turn up when one researches China, oil, the U.S. imbalance of trade with China, oil wars, and other 'rotten' things.

'There is something rotten in Houston'

That Texas would eventually play a role in the grand scheme of things was inevitable. It was an oil producing state; later, an oil refining state. And Texas has a history of often rampant lawlessness. Now --my great uncle, Lawson 'Loss' Hart, was on the right side of the law. As a federal marshal, he tracked down, outdrew, shot and killed the infamous outlaw --Bill Dalton of the notorious Dalton gang. We could use a few more 'Harts' who might, likewise, track down the lawless Bushes, the crooked gang called GOP!

Bush SR's choice of Houston as his permanent residence was unfortunate for Houston. I recall speaking with Houston Mayor Fred Hofheinz (middle 70s)! The occasion of that specific conversation was a 'smear job' that was making the rounds, a 'smear job' that might as well have had 'G O P' stamped on it with a copyright date. Hofheinz said to me: "There is something rotten in Houston!" It was as much his tone as the sentence itself that sent chills down one's spine.

The mayor's comments came during an organized but shadowy campaign of rumor and villification against him. The rumor surfaced immediately following an infamous 'reception' for the Sr Bush at the venerable old Rice Hotel in downtown Houston. I believe that it was already envisioned, decided, that the Senior Bush would --one day --become President, and that Jr (Shrub) would, likewise, occupy the White House one day. Thus --in two generations the GOP would effect what Sr himself referred to as a 'new world order'.

The resulting fascist prison model that is now in place and operating in Texas is proof that they have not yet failed in their mission. As Hitler made promises to Thyssen, Krupp, Farben et al, one wonders: did Bush and Perry promise to subvert Texas education, in fact, reducing the state to dead last in high school graduations? Is this the crux of the deal? Essentially --we trash education and thus ensure the prisons a full house!

Texas became a different state after the election of Ronald Reagan

I often thought it ironic that the man most responsible for the GOP infestations in Texas --Tom DeLay --was, himself, a roach exterminator by trade. GOP strong-holds with which I am most familiar are GOP infestations in Brazoria county and Fort Bend County. It was in Fort Bend County that Tom DeLay built up a 'base' that would eventually allow him to gerrymander the state, making Texas safe for fascism.

Brazoria County got a new Republican High Sheriff who set out on a course of absolutely zero tolerance. So many were arrested he had to build his own little mini prison in the county. I am surprised that he was not awarded a title: 'Duke'.

The GOP/right wing inclined would rather build a prison than prevent the crimes that fill it. Why? That's easy! There is less easy money to be made locking folk up when crime rates are in decline! For the same reason, the right wing would rather not 'waste tax payer money' to educate a child. Better to let him take to the streets, rob a convenience store, perhaps shoot someone, get arrested, sentenced and locked up in a corporate prison where the GOP's 'corporate support' can make an easy buck by warehousing him.

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? If they would rather die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus." population."

--Scrooge

But the Texas GOP has done Scrooge one better: they are making a profit off both their deaths and their incarceration.

But --alas --I wonder why I bother to post. I am, not surprisingly, reviled by the right wing for daring to tell the truth about them but admonished --presumably by the center --for 'ignoring' left wing short comings! WHAT left wing? There is no left wing in America! I have no one to admonish! The same is said of Democrats! But there is no opposition to the GOP just a lame and insipid over-eagerness to reach a counter-productive compromise.

WHERE is the will to win?

Alas --When the right wing has succeeded in destroying civilized society if not the world, the left will have failed to save it!

Following is an interview with GOP Political Consultant Paul Caprio of Chicago. Caprio consulted several Houston-area Republicans including State Sen. Mike Richards. To my knowledge, Caprio did not consult Tom DeLay, but was, in fact, 'plugged in' to the Ft Bend County GOP Machine! I knew Paul Caprio and am grateful that he so successfully disillusioned me with regard to the GOP --its intentions, tactics and regrettable if not tragic outcomes.

GOP Political Consultant: Paul Caprio

"...then let them die and decrease the surplus population!

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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The Rise of Fascism in Bush-Perry Texas

2011-06-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Recently --Texas Gov Rick Perry's boisterous audience of schizoid GOP idiots were caught waving US flags: SECEDE! Perhaps, because of what the GOP has made of it, Texas should secede. By presiding over the deterioration of public education in Texas, the Bush/Perry GOP has created a fascist model in which the profits of huge, right-wing inclined corporations rise as TX educational standards decline; a model in which illiteracy rises concurrently with corporate profits; a model in which the living conditions of millions deteriorate as the lifestyles of a dwindling few grow opulent beyond the ability of even oil barons to imagine.

Texas is about 50 years behind the US. As Bush-Perry neglected education, crime rates rose, most noticeably --murder! Drop-outs account for most, if not all, increases in violent crimes. Minorities --primarily black and Hispanic --are meanwhile disproportionately represented in the Texas gulag system but under represented in the State legislature, the various city councils, and the state judicial system. This is what the GOP has made of Texas.

Texas is about 50 years behind the US, much more so if compared to Europe. Minorities --primarily black and Hispanic --are disproportionately represented in the Texas gulag system but under represented in the State legislature, the various city councils, and the state judicial system.

Texas was once a Great State and, as a native Texan, I mourn its passing!

Declines in education and jobs are of no concern to the current Governor --Rick Perry, called Governor Good Hair by Molly Ivins, a real Texan, a patriot and brilliant writer. During the Bushy - Hair era, Texas became a gulag state by beating out Mississippi for dead last in high school graduations. A matter of considerable concern among intelligent, thoughtful people but for the axis of Bush-Perry it means more fodder for the corporate owned and run state prison system. The word for this is fascism! There is, in Texas, a corporate gulag of GOP making. It's happening in America as we write. One fears that the Texas model will be replicated across America:

subvert public education
exploit the resulting rise in crime to elect more GOP candidates
'lock up the victims in corporate-owned prison hell-holes.

Thus --Texas has become the lab study, the 'fascist model' upon which a fascist state will be, is being built. There is nothing new in this model. Hitler tried it with concentration camps. These basic fascist principles have inspired movies --good, bad, and ugly. The 'bad' summons up memories of a horrible movie: Judge Dredd, a fascist 'wet dream' in which so-called 'judges', having murdered 'due process of law' could pass sentences on the spot! Fascists, red necks, Bush, Perry were most surely inspired by a single line summing up so many GOP aspirations: “The justice system works swiftly in the future now that they've abolished all lawyers.”

The rise of Fascist-Goppism in Texas was signaled by the constant anti-trial lawyer drumbeat. Soon --trial lawyers will be out of a job and no one will be allowed to present a defense. No problem --Judge Dredd and Gov Perry will just fill up those corporate hell-holes with fresh meat! Slavery is back! Perhaps it never left! Every fascist dictatorship is preceded with cries of : kill all the lawyers! Depriving them of a profession, a livlihood may be slower but just as effective.

Crimes rates --rising, falling, stagnate --never justify the death penalty. In fact, crimes of all sorts invariably increase in death penalty states. States without the death penalty have consistently lower murder rates. The GOP in Texas might prefer you think they are stupid. Otherwise, you might conclude that because these facts may be easily obtained and verified that their heinous policies were chosen --not out of GOP incompetence --but deliberately for the purpose of filling up the prisons, thus enriching the corporations who own the prisons.

The death penalty is medieval, barbaric and ineffective and failed to deter crimes of any sort. There is, therefore, no rationale for the state murder of anyone accused of any crime, even less when very few cases are 'proven' beyond a 'shadow of a doubt'. Many are arrested for the crimes of being black and/or poor. There are no moral justifications for the continued state murder of people --even the guilty. It is psychopathic to keep on doing it.

States Without the Death Penalty Have Better Records on Homicide Rates

- A new survey by the New York Times found that states without the death penalty have lower homicide rates than states with the death penalty. The Times reports that ten of the twelve states without the death penalty have homicide rates below the national average, whereas half of the states with the death penalty have homicide rates above. During the last 20 years, the homicide rate in states with the death penalty has been 48% - 101% higher than in states without the death penalty. "I think Michigan made a wise decision 150 years ago," said the state's governor, John Engler, a Republican, referring to the state's abolition of the death penalty in 1846. "We're pretty proud of the fact that we don't have the death penalty."

--New York Times, 9/22/00, Death Penalty Information Center

Texas, notably, has not occupied a position of prominence with regard to petroleum production since it was discovered that bombing Iraq and killing civilians there was much, much cheaper than is the secondary recovery of oil. Why spend millions exploring for oil when you can just steal fields that are already productive? And --there are no risks that you will rupture the earth's crust and perhaps bring about the slow, agonizing end of Planet Earth. The cost of bombing the crap out of the oil's rightful owners?? Hell --the taxpayer is stuck with that tab!

Because of rapacious oil development, the neglect of education and the hubristic disregard for human rights and environment, so-called 'free enterprise' has robbed millions of children of a decent education and as many poor of justice in a state ruled by goddamned liars, elites and their ass kissers: the GOP!

Texas --Bush style --provides the residents of Texas with some of the nation's very worst crime and incarceration rates;
Texas subjects the residents of Texas to deteriorating air quality and wanton ecosystem destruction;
Texas can boast of the nation's very worst murder, crime and incarceration rates!
Texas --a state that now leads the nation in pollution, crime, and illiteracy --should be studied by any other state wishing to avoid a similar disastrous fate.

Fascism --now dominating the political and cultural life of Texas --spawns crime and creates the conditions in which it is nurtured and thrives and, worse, benefits the GOP and its corporate sponsors.

Still, most people are now ashamed to admit that punishment is based on vengeance and, for that reason, various excuses and apologies have been offered for the cruelty that goes with it. Some of the more humane, or “squeamish,” who still believe in punishment, contend that the object of this infliction is the reformation of the victim. This, of course, cannot be urged of the death penalty or even punishment for life, or for very long-term sentences. In these cases there is neither inducement to reform nor any object in the reformation. No matter how thorough the reform, the prisoner never goes back to society, or he returns after there is no longer a chance for him to be of use to the world or to enjoy life.
--Clarence Darrow, Crime: It's Cause and Treatment

Tea Baggers are Scumbaggers!

If there is a real and widespread desire among Texans to secede, then, by all means, secede. But in fact, I believe secession talk is just another right wing smokescreen with which it exploits its base and deceives otherwise good citizens of Texas!

Power may corrupt, and absolute power may corrupt absolutely, but in the comics Judge Dredd is basically Dirty Harry on Overdrive, an incorruptible lawman obsessed with The Law and Justice. The official plot synopsis of the 1995 movie swallows the official line too: “In the Third Millennium a powerful and efficient hybrid of the police and judicial system has given birth to group of new guardians of the law with the power to dispense instant justice and punishment. These judges are law enforcer, jury and executioner. One of these judges, Judge Joseph Dredd is a living legend - six feet of armored justice with no outside interests besides his devotion to enforcing the law.”
Why anyone would however want to make a sequel or (bullshit Hollywood jargon coming up) “re-imagining” of Judge Dredd is a bit of a mystery. The original film disappointed at the box office and made a mere $113 million world-wide. Audiences who didn’t know the character beforehand were baffled. “Considering that the movie was adapted from comic books, the least we should expect is a juicy battle between good and evil,” Anthony Lane wrote in The New Yorker, “but the conflict is, in fact, a matter of fine distinctions between shades of Fascism.”
--FROM PAGE TO SCREEN: JUDGE DREDD (2012)

Fascist Bullshit: "I AM the law!"

Trailer: Robocop

Supreme Court: Death Penalty Is 'Totally Badass'

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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A Free People?

2011-06-24T06:24:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Democrats are unhappy. I daresay most criticism of President Obama these days is from the left wing --not the GOP! Much of this criticism of both party and the President is misplaced. As old West Texans might have said: "They would complain if they were being a hanged with a new rope!"

I daresay neither the party nor the President are responsible for conditions creating most of this 'unhappiness'. Primarily, I am reminded that just 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined. That outcome is not the result of Democratic policy but of GOP tax cuts going back to Ronald Reagan whose legacy it is. I am reminded that the Military-Industrial Complex has apparently set up shop on K-Street! But --I wonder --was this not noticed when it happened under Herrs Reagan, Bush and Bush?

As it was said in W. Shakespeare's 'Julius Caesar': "The fault dear Brutus lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings!" That is not said to absolve the Republican party of its many sins. It does mean that we should think clearly about a President who may not have 'undone' Bush as quickly as we might have preferred. It means that we should be loath to make the wrong reforms of the right party.

From Wiki:

"The United States has had a two-party system for over a century. Following Duverger's law, the winner take all system for presidential elections and the single-seat plurality voting system for Congressional elections have over time created the two-party system."

Until these 'conditions' are changed and until MONEY is taken out of the equation, there is NO point in talking about '3rd Parties' which have the effect of splitting what little is left of the left when the GOP has sucked up all the campaign monies from elites for whom DEMS are but a hedged bet!

I have been writing about the transfer of wealth upward since the Reagan years. I witnessed the effects of much of that in Houston where, even in 'boom town', tent cities sprang up in parks, open spaces, under overpasses. The Reagan 'Recession' was clearly the worst recession/depression since the GOP-HOOVER Depression of the 1930s. There has been a 'recession' under every GOP regime since. Even Eisenhower (whom I called the last 'honest' Republican) presided over a recession/depression. By the way, the words 'depression' and 'recession' are synonyms, though folk think 'Depressions' worse. Bottom line: every Democratic President at least since WWII has presided over greater job and GDP growth than any Republican President.

From time to time you hear names of parties ---progressives, libertarian et al. Third parties have a disastrous history in the United States. That is because only the very rich have enough money to help finance campaigns of either party. Most money is concentrated at the top --the so-called 'ruling elite' of just 1 percent of the total population. This 'elite', as a result of Reagnomics specifically, owns more than the rest of us combined. To be expected, this 'elite' will vote the party that made them richer than almost everyone else in the United States. They will vote GOP.

The responses to this outcome have been irrational. Some propose that the opposition to this state of affairs be diluted even more than it already is with third, fourth, fifth parties. That's not smart! Others propose that Democrats might get more votes following a name-change. The usual suspects make the rounds: "progressive" being used from time to time to identify various shades of liberal and/or democrat. None of these 'movements' are viable because none of them have access to money!

There is no need to change the name of the 'Democratic' party. The name comes from the Greek --'demos' --for 'people'. Now --the word 'liberal' is from the Latin 'liber' for 'free'. Therefore, I am a LIBERAL DEMOCRAT. What fascist is going to convince me that there is something wrong with being FREE PEOPLE?

Ike Warns of the M.I.C.

The Military-Congressional Complex

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009
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The Man Who Changed the Universe

2011-06-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The year 1564 is noteworthy for several reasons. John Calvin and Michelangelo died. Shakespeare and Galileo Galilei were born.

It was Galileo, upon the shoulders of great Renaissance artists and Neo-Platonists who preceded him, who may have ignited the beginnings of the Scientific Revolution early in the 17th century. He did so by demonstrating the extraordinary effectiveness of the experimental observation of nature and coupling that observation with the analytical power of mathematics.

The revolution is still underway, still challenging entrenched orthodoxies, fallacies, and medieval mindsets.

Galileo believed that nature was inherently mathematical, that mathematics was the language of nature, and that mathematics was the key to understanding the reality behind the appearance of natural phenomena--for example, accelerated and parabolic motions.
--Prof. Joseph W. Dauben, The Art of Renaissance Science: Galileo and Perspective

A Revolution in Thought

Galileo revolutionized physics before Newton. He showed how observation and careful measurement may lead to "hidden causes". For Galileo, those "hidden causes" represented the pervasive mathematical unity underlying nature and, indeed, the Universe itself.

It is Einstein who is most often associated with the concept of the curvature of space-time. But, in fact, Einstein might not have thought about it so clearly had not Galileo laid down a framework, a 'scientific method', within which both Newton and Einstein would later flourish.

Consider, for example, Galileo's contribution to our understanding of the curvature of space-time. To do so, we must understand the "parabola:"

Parabola, plane curve consisting of all points equidistant from a given fixed point (focus) and a given fixed line (directrix). It is the conic section cut by a plane parallel to one of the elements of the cone. The axis of a parabola is the line through the focus perpendicular to the directrix. The vertex is the point at which the axis intersects the curve. The latus rectum is the chord through the focus perpendicular to the axis. Examples of this curve are the path of a projectile and the shape of the cross section of a parallel beam reflector.

Before Galileo, a cannon ball was thought to either fall abruptly upon "losing its impetus" or that it described "some sort" of curve but no one knew what kind of curve or even if it was a curve. It was Galileo who understood that a projectile fired from a cannon is a falling body. Significantly, all falling bodies --even those apparently falling straight down from a fixed point --describe a 'curve'. That is so because the 'fixed point' is merely theoretical. The entire universe and everything in it is in motion.

A Glimpse of Space-Time

Galileo's work --his measurements of the rate of acceleration of all falling bodies --that made it possible to imagine orbiting bodies literally "falling" about a larger one in predictable orbits --the moon around the earth, the earth around the sun, the sun about the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way. All orbits can be described and the results are consistent with Galileo's findings.

Fast forward to the 20th Century. Einstein equates gravity with the curvature of space-time, an insight that reprised in another context, another paradigm, Galileo's discovery that the paths of missiles and projectiles are parabolas.

Einstein went cosmological, envisioning a falling elevator with a hole in the side admitting a beam of light. The graphed path of the traversing light beam --over the time it takes to traverse the falling elevator --is Galileo's parabola. Thus —in two monumentally important paradigm shifts —Galileo and Einstein —-we glimpse the very curvature of space-time itself.

Newton may have posited a "force" to explain "falling" but the equation describing the rate of falling bodies —a curve if graphed horizontally over time —is Galileo's. It was Einstein who understood that the same curvature may describe space-time and render moot Newton's "force", a force that literally reached out into space and acted upon another body instantaneously. For Einstein, gravity was not a force that 'reached out an grabbed ya'; it was, rather, the very shape of space-time. In a sense, Einstein, like Galileo before him, had 'changed' the universe.

Of Space, Time & Einstein

With this insight, the Universe is changed —seen in a completely different way. This is important in at least two ways:

it changes our understanding of the Universe hitherto thought of as a clockwork in absolute space;
it illustrates the very nature of creativity.

Both Galileo and Einstein were able to perceive previously unknown relationships in seemingly unrelated phenomena.

The Big TOE of Science

The current search for TOE (Theory of Everything) is a culmination of this turn of thought. And the verdict is still out on whether the Universe is "closed" and will ultimately implode, or whether it will simply go on expanding forever, perhaps swallowed up by infinite and empty space. But these areas of inquiry would have been forever closed had not Galileo and others opened the door.

Renaissance artists, Leonardo da Vinci in Italy and Albrecht Durer in the North, had evinced an interest in the realistic depiction of nature from the early 15th century on. Leonardo's notebooks, for example, are a revelatory fusion of intuitive and cognitive thinking. Da Vinci was especially skilled at analytical and verbal descriptions of natural events while depicting them "artistically" in detailed sketches, paintings, and analytical diagrams.

It is the path from Leonardo to Galileo that unites the burgeoning interests in science and art under an umbrella of shared values: humanism. It is here that free thought flourished in the very shadow of ignorance, superstition, and the Inquisition. Were it not for that, even now, we could not walk in the sunshine.

The Nature of Time

Brian Greene on 'TOE', a Theory of Everything

Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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How Sarah Palin Could Prove Darwin Wrong by Becoming the Stupidest President in History

2011-05-30T08:34:00.000-07:00

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The most recent scuttle-butt, the smart-money, the self-appointed pundits, those in-the-know as well as those who don't have two clues are making the safest bet on the planet: Sarah Palin wants to run for President.

What if she succeeds?

Her 'election' (or 'selection') to that high office would be cited as proof that Darwinian 'natural selection', often mistakenly called 'survivial of the fittest', is absolutely wrong. She will have proven that merit is not rewarded or, at least she will have raised the question: why frickin' bother?

She will become an inspiration to drop-outs and fuck ups all over the world. She will have legitimized incompetence. She will have inspired several generations of goof-offs, lay-abouts, dumb-asses and run-o-the-mill jerks and YouTubers! I have not yet mentioned thousands, perhaps millions of inmates of various kinds of 'institutions' who must be turned loose upon an unsuspecting world should S. Palin continue to roam free! Think about it --is it fair or even legal to keep petty screw-ups locked up when Sarah Palin has her finger on a button that could destroy the world? The wrong folk are behind bars or asylum walls!

Sarah is on a mission but not from God. She is out to prove that stupidity is its own reward, that morons can ruin if not run a country, that huge amounts of money may be saved by following the example of Texas with respect to education. Again --why bother educating people when morons acquire all the rewards of productive work done by other folk?! In Texas, for example, the victims of the Bush/Perry war on education are literally warehoused in corporate owned/operated prisons. It's a payoff to the corporate prison for their support of the Texas GOP. It's the GOP/moron way but there's money in it! The big corporations will love her.

An Inspiration to Idiots and Drooling Morons All Over the World

Palin is in a position, then, to prove conclusively that 'survival of the fittest' is dead wrong. Both sour cream and idiots will rise to the top in her wake! Ground will have been broken! Idiots everywhere will be similarly inspired to '...try and take over the world!" [apologies to Pinky and the Brain].

In times like these, I am inclined to believe that the right wing would stoop ...uh...stop at nothing to discredit Darwin while getting a certifiable kook in the White House to prove him wrong. Instead, they will have proven the 'Peter Principle' that in a heirarchy of any sort, each employee rises to his/her level of incompetence. I would suspect exactly that had not Palin already risen to her level of incompetence. I feel sorry for those who no longer have a goal to pursue. (not really!)

Of Darwinism and Social Darwinism

by Robert B. Reich

The Conservative Movement, as its progenitors like to call it, is now mounting a full-throttled attack on Darwinism even as it has thoroughly embraced Darwin’s bastard child, social Darwinism. On the face of it, these positions may appear inconsistent. What unites them is a profound disdain for science, logic, and fact.
...
The modern Conservative Movement has embraced social Darwinism with no less fervor than it has condemned Darwinism. Social Darwinism gives a moral justification for rejecting social insurance and supporting tax cuts for the rich. "In America," says Robert Bork, "‘the rich’ are overwhelmingly people – entrepreneurs, small businessmen, corporate executives, doctors, lawyers, etc. – who have gained their higher incomes through intelligence, imagination, and hard work."
...
The only consistency between the right’s attack on Darwinism and embrace of social Darwinism is the utter fatuousness of both. Darwinism is correct. Scientists who are legitimized by peer review and published research are unanimous in their view that evolution is a fact, not a theory. Social Darwinism, meanwhile, is hogwash.

"Bastard Child" at the very least! Social Darwinism does not follow from "Darwinism" and, worse, it attributes to Darwin positions he never took. Interestingly, the term "survival of the fittest" was never used by Darwin. Though it has been variously attributed, Hofstadter traced the phrase to rail road men and other early 'robber barons':

Railroad executive Chauncy Depew asserted that the guests of the great dinners and public banquets of New York City represented the survival of the fittest of all who came in search of fortune. They were the ones with superior abilities. Likewise railroad magnate James J. Hill defended the railroad companies by saying their fortunes were determined according to the law of survival of the fittest.

—Hofstadter, Richard; 1959; Social Darwinism in American Thought, Braziller; New York.

Elsewhere, the term is attributed to Herbert Spencer who clearly inspired a generation of radicalized, latter-day 'industrialists' all of them lacking the "...quality of mercy" so immortalized with but a few words by Shakespeare.

[Herbert] Spencer said that diseases "are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with." He even faulted private organizations like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged legislation.

—Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism

An equally fallacious corollary to "Social Darwinism" is often phrased: the rich are rich because they are better, work harder and are more intelligent." To be expected, George W. Bush put it more crudely: “The poor are poor because they are lazy!” In the same vein, the conservative economist Joseph A. Schumpeter likened recessions to a "douche" leaving us to wonder just who is "douched" and how? Indeed, millions were douched by R. Reagan. Many never returned to 'steady employment'! Reagan 'douched' their jobs and their unions permanently!

Only sociopaths believe that a tiny and shrinking elite should be empowered to the exclusion of everyone else to decide matters of life and death. It unconscionable that by its pursuit of obscene riches, just 1 percent of the nation may with its purely fiduciary interests decide matters of life or death for millions, indeed billions all over the world. It is difficult not to conclude that New Orleans after Katrina is but the disastrous consequence of this kind of "blame the victim" thinking. It is insane and unconscionable to believe that because short-sellers, Wall Street insiders, quick buck artists and robber barons have gotten in front of a wave that they are justified in asserting a right, by virtue of wealth, to make decisions that threaten human life, indeed, a global future.

It is not surprising that Spencer's influence continues, not in the field of biology, but in economics, specifically those theories associated with the right wing: the American apologists, William Graham Sumner and Simon Nelson Patten.

No doubt, Spencer’s ideas received a major boost after Darwin's theories were published, but the issues were muddied at the outset and have remained so ever since. It is unfortunate that the application of the terms "adaptation" and "survival of the fittest" to social thought became known as "Social Darwinism". They are neither 'Darwin' nor 'Social'.

More recently, the work of John Nash, recently the subject of the motion picture, A Beautiful Mind, argued persuasively that not only games but societies and economies benefit more from cooperation and community than from competition. Spencer, and Social Darwinists after him, took another view. And that is unfortunate.

Spencer believed that because society was evolving, government intervention ought to be minimal in social and political life --nevermind that government is but a function of society and responsible to it. Influenced by Spencer, many describe American capitalism in terms of the “rational man” making rational decisions in a free and 'rational' market. In practice, however, economic decisions may or may not be rational and free markets are hypothetical. It is a mistake to believe that "rational self-interest", said to work collectively behind Adam Smith's "invisible hand", has had anything but an irrational effect in most cases.

'Social Darwinism' and other defenses of robber baron practices may sound good 'in theory' but are, in fact, 'bad theory despite those conservatives who worked mightily to force reality into a mold. That’s bad science; models must describe reality —not the other way round. The right wing are incurable 'theorists' proposing unworkable theories like 'supply-side' economics [trickle-down theory] and other equally failed schemes which have succeeded only in making an incompetent right wing feel good about being utter failures, uncaring psychopaths or inarticulate boobs.

Nash proved that cooperation is often more successful than competition, leading to the inevitable conclusion that societies which rationalize discrimination, income disparity, and social injustice on a fallacious basis like Social Darwinism, are apt not be so successful themselves. In fact, they never are. The utterly failed administration of Ronald Reagan is the specimen that proves it: only the administration of George H.W. Bush had worse figures for both job creation and GDP growth. In fact, every Democratic President since WWII has a better record. Two losers --both of the GOP --compete for the bottom. The nation cannot afford another Bush, nor another Reagan. It is a mistake to 'reward' these losers with another failed administration, another chance to cheat the people, another opportunity to wage aggressive war for the purpose of stealing oil and other resources.

In the motion picture, A Beautiful Mind, Nash, portrayed by Russell Crowe, is in a favorite watering hole with two colleagues, later termed "negotiants" in his theories. The three young males were distracted by three unattended and comely females. Among the three, a blonde, was seen to be the most desirable. Nash immediately saw a mathematical certainty of failure should all three males "hit on" the most attractive female. Equally certain, mathematically, was rejection by the remaining unattended females who would then be insulted, becoming "second and third choices." Some fifty years later, Nash still polishes and refines the mathematics behind the only chance that three "geeks" might have with three attractive young women--cooperation rather than competition:

...it is more desirable to be accepted than to accept (!), so with there being reduced pressure to avoid the penalty of the {0,0,0} payoff when there is failure at the first step then the players naturally adapt at equilibrium by becoming "less accepting" and "more demanding." (The demand parameters...rise as the acceptance rate quantities decrease, but this turns out to be at a logarithmic rate).

...the players can be viewed as in a sort of "continuous auction" process where...the players are able to "bid"...and get into the process of cooperation. And this continuous version of the voting process seems probably to be good for generalization to any number of players.

--John Nash from a published email [emphases mine, LH]

The word "theory" is either misunderstood by the right wing or the term is perverted for it's propaganda value. There is nothing wrong with "theory" per se, though the word is consistently used by the right wing as a pejorative except, significantly, when it is applied to Spencer and, more recently, Milton Friedman or Arthur Laffer. Accurately, the negative connotations implied are simply not to be found among those who use the word "theory" academically or in science. This linguistic abuse is propaganda.

It must be noted that Einstein was, likewise, a "theorist"; so too, Newton. Einstein has been confirmed no more times than Darwin; Newton is close enough for mundane applications or "government work". Significantly, neither "theory" has been challenged in court —though both theories may one day be replaced or reconciled with a "theory of everything" [TOE]. But there is a political agenda behind the campaign of attacks on Darwinism even as the same constituency supports Intelligent Design --a monicker designed to 'sound Darwinian' though it clearly is not!

Theories are never of a final form. Unlike ideology, real science is self-correcting as new facts emerge from research. Darwin's theories were confirmed by Mendel, accommodated Mendel which, in turn, tended to confirm Darwin. The science of genetics and the discovery of "mutations" confirm Darwin beyond any reasonable doubt. And, along the way, no one, no real scientist ever hired a consulting firm, a focus group, a PR agent or a K-street lobbyist. The anti-science right wing is more interested in how best to 'spin' a lie, how best to 'couch' a crock-o-crap, how best to gull the gullible, how best to dump a load!

Future discoveries will modify our view of Darwin, but that does not discount Darwin nor our views. Theories of evolution themselves evolve. Our view of Einstein, for example, is already modified but in no way discounted. In the main, he is confirmed. And when a unified field theory is achieved it will be the result of many scientists each of whom will owe much to Einstein.

No one has ever sued because Einstein is at odds with a particular dogma. And no one had dared picket a school for daring to teach 'Relativity'. It is certain, however, that no future discovery will confirm "intelligent design" —a logical fallacy on its face and quite beyond any confirmation of any kind!

"Facts" tend to be narrowly phrased; theories, by contrast, embrace a wide but finite set of related facts. Darwin and the sciences that followed him are entirely consistent with new discoveries in the field of genetics. [See: Science and Human Values, Jacob Bronowski]

Intelligent design is of a religious nature; people have a right to believe it, a right guaranteed them in the U.S. First Amendment. But 'intelligent design' explains nothing! Worse than a circular argument, it is beyond proof, in fact, meaningless. It raises other issues, themselves either unexplained or unexplainable. For example: who designed the designer? The question itself assumes a designer --a circulus in probando fallacy. People are free to believe fallacies, but they must not be free to impose lies or fallacies upon other people at tax payer expense! And who is this 'designer' if not 'God'? 'Intelligent Design' is 'stealth religion', a Trojan Horse, that tries to pass itself off as 'science'. It was hoped that an unsuspecting school system would sneak it into the science curriculum. The problem is: 'intelligent design' is NOT science!

A fact, for example, is the equation that describes the acceleration of falling objects; examples of theory are both the Newtonian and the Einsteinian view of "gravitation" —though 'gravitation' is conceived of differently by both. The entire science of genetics confirms Darwin who, interestingly, did not have the benefit of Mendel's research when he wrote Origin of the Species and the The Descent of Man. It was Mendel's research that described the very mechanism by which Darwin’s “traits” are --indeed --passed on to succeeding generations. Darwin --despite the lies about this theory --has been confirmed! Evolution is an observable fact! Accurate predictions are, in themselves, evidence in support of theories. [See: Evolution in Action, Julian Huxley]

Evolution is a verifiable fact!

Any organism which survives long enough to procreate passes on its genes to another generation. Random changes in genetic code are variously attributed [mutations] but are statistically significant, dictating the very speed with which evolution occurs. Every farmer who has deliberately bred for specific characteristics knows the truth of evolution. Every cowboy who has ever said --never kill a slow roach; you just improve the breed --is a Darwinian.

It could be said, however, that no one has yet produced a new specie by selection. But they have indeed done just that! Consider wheat! Wheat does not grow in the wild. Related to ancient grasses, wheat is clearly the result of an ancient application of "artificial selection." Had wheat evolved naturally, it would be found growing wild like prairie grass. But it isn't and it didn't.

If God effected a 'special creation' for every biological entity in his cosmos, how are we to account for wheat? The original ancestor became extinct --also an ancient and undocumented event. As human beings had not yet evolved, no one was around to document the extinction of a the progenitor of 'wheat'.

Evolution is often considered to be so true as to be trivial: what survives survives. Critics of Darwin will often cite the tautology though it does not support them; it supports Darwin. Organisms which survive pass on their genes as well as mutations. Getting to pass on your genes is nature's reward for having survived long enough to do it. This is quite beyond debate.

Adaptation! Natural Selection! Evolution!

Some of the more subtle critics of "Darwin" say that "survival of the fittest" is a circular argument: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest. There are a couple of problems with that:

Darwin never used the term "survival of the fittest"! That dubious honor belongs to Herbert Spencer, a "Social Darwinist" who never understood Darwin, nor was he "social"!

Even if the term "natural selection" is more properly substituted for the bogus term "survival of the fittest", the argument is circular only if the invalid conclusion that "only the fittest survive" is added! The invalid value judgment –survival of the fittest –is falsely attributed to Darwin.

There is nothing circular about the observable fact that in any given generation, some organisms survive and procreate, others do not. Defining traits are thus passed from one generation to another. Over time great changes often occur over numerous, multiplying 'threads'. Over longer periods of time, greater changes are evinced. This has been computer modeled with real world numbers.

One of the greatest examples of 'evolution in action' was Carl Sagan's memorable episode in which he cited and demonstrated the example of the Heikegani Crab. The Heikegani Crab, native to Japan, is famous for a shell resembling that of a human face, specifically, a Samurai warrior. As Sagan told the story, the crab are found near the scene of a significant battle involving Japan's storied Samurai warriors. The Samurai were defeated, their bodies succumbed to the waters as Sagan relates. Many years later, humble fisher folk, recalling the historic battle, threw back into the waters those catches in which the carapace most resembled a human face, especially the fierce face of a Samurai. In Darwinian terms, the resemblance had acquired 'survival value'. Like Nash's equilibrium, 'survival value' can be quantified. If you are a crab and your carapace looks remotely 'human' to those who might otherwise stir-fry and eat you, you have much better chance of surviving. Those crab most resembling Samurai today are the descendants of those 'thrown back'. There are no descendants of those more ancient crabs that were boiled and/or basted before they could begat 'little crabs'.

The proponents of "intelligent design" have erected several huge straw men. Evolution, for example, has nothing to do with "coming down from the trees". [See: Richard Leakey's "The Origin of Humankind" ; also: Answers to Creationist Nonsense!]

Social Darwinism, clearly, is one of many ideas that have harmed mankind. It has provided a rationalization for the perpetual, deliberate impoverishment of large segments of our society and, insidiously, it has done so with a baseless theory that is fallaciously associated with Darwin. Darwin would have had nothing to do with it.

In simpler terms, the philosophical basis for the American right wing is this:

"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons? Then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

—Scrooge

Human DNA

A Beautiful Mind - John Nash Nobel Prize Speech (From Trailer) from Tom Krieglstein on Vimeo. A Beautiful Mind

'Pinky and the Brain

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