by Len Hart The American right wing nurtures and promotes a 'mythology' of the 'Old West' just as Adolph Hitler and his Nazi minions nurtured and promoted a Nazi 'Weltanschauung' i.e, a sweeping Nazi interpretation of German folk lore and history. The version of American history that is given the 'right wing stamp of approval' is the political 'big lie' designed to support a contemporary right-wing extremist political agenda. The strategy seeks to cloak extremism with 'folklore', to hide lies amid fables of pioneer struggles and exploits'. It is claimed, with a straight face or a smirk, that the pioneers were right wingers too!In Hitler's Nationalist Socialist Party, the indoctrination program incorporated the use of the German folktale and was employed "as an ideological weapon" meant to serve the building of the Thousand Year Reich. Thus, Party official Alref Eyd announced in 1935, "The German folktale shall become a most valuable means for us in the racial and political education of the young" (1977:170). Unfortunately, as Kemenetsy perceptively points out, the German version of the folktalke used by the Third Reich "was no longer a true reflection of the common peasant folk, but only a medium for the Nazi ideology, and a mouthpiece of racial propaganda"(1977:178). --Cathy Lynn Preston, Folklore, Literature, and Cultrual TheoryThe following excerpt is one of many brilliant essays published by the late 'liberal' activist Steve Kangas.
Most Americans have accepted the myth that early Americans were rugged individualists, pioneers who blazed trails into the Western hills and overcame adversity on the strength of their own self-reliance.'Tain't necessarily so.Kangas [the quoted author] was found in the men's room of Richard Mellon Scaife's office building in Pittsburgh. According to reports, he died of shot[s] wounds to the head! It was ruled 'suicide'!Entire books could be written about how white Americans got rich off the labor of their slaves, all the while waxing rhapsodic over the virtues of self-reliance. Volumes could be written about the early American women who created extensive social networks and church groups to help each other's families, all the while their men were entertaining the conceit of rugged individualism. But this is an essay devoted to the government's contribution to early American survival, so it will address that topic only: (1)From the start, the West was not conquered by rifle-toting pioneers, but by the U.S. Army. (Hardly a government "success," to be sure, but the point here is that the stereotype of the lone pioneer conquering the West is a myth.) The government made massive land purchases, without which the conquest of these territories would have been even bloodier. It spent $15 million on the Louisiana Purchase, $25 million on the Texas/California purchase, and $7 million for the Alaska Purchase.The government then turned around and sold this land below cost, at considerable loss to itself. The Preemption Act of 1841, the Graduation Act of 1854 and the Homestead Act of 1862 all gave away land to pioneers for a song.The government also played a crucial role in developing these lands. When it came to connecting the Great Lakes to the Eastern seaboard with canals, the government funded or financially guaranteed three fourths of the $200 million project. It also gave each state 30,000 acres of land to build agricultural colleges. It would be difficult to overstate how important these colleges were in advancing agricultural education and techniques among the farmers. With their help, American farmers were quickly able to create a working agricultural economy. Meanwhile, the government provided mail services like the Pony Express that interconnected this economy.At the farthest edges of the frontier, the settlers were literally lawless; gun-fighting and dueling were rampant. It was only when the government moved in that law and order and a sense of community were established. Disease, attacks from Native Americans and economic chaos at the frontier often turned towns into ghost towns overnight. Not surprisingly, group survival proved more effective than true hermitism. Historian John Mack Farragher described life on the frontier as "a community experience… Sharing work with neighbors at cabin raisings, log rollings, hayings, husking, butchering, harvesting or threshing were all traditionally considered communal affairs… [A] 'borrowing system' allowed scarce tools, labor and products to circulate for the benefit of all." One pioneer told prospective settlers: "Your wheel-barrows, your shovels, your utensils of all sorts, belong not to yourself, but to the public who do not think it necessary even to ask a loan, but take it for granted."The government continued to develop the West in the early 20th century. It constructed dams and subsidized huge irrigation projects. During the Great Depression, rural electrification programs brought electricity to farmers, which enabled them to use power tools, refrigeration and household appliances to make their work and personal lives easier. The government also built highways into the West, and wired the countryside for telephone service. The government saved countless small farmers by giving them loans to stall foreclosures and tide them over the rough times. And it began paying huge farming subsidies that continue to this day.Even then, it was not the small pioneer, but the major corporation that settled the West, often with vast help from the government. By the turn of the century, the government had distributed a billion acres of land, but only 147 million became homesteads. Sociologists Scott and Sally McNall estimate that "probably only one acre in nine went to the small pioneers." Some 183 million acres were ultimately given to the railroad companies. (It was these federal giveaways that created the major logging companies, not family businesses.) Four out of five transcontinental railroads were built in this way, and Congress approved loans up to $48,000 per mile to build them.
The West has a rich tradition of dependency on government. As historian Stephanie Coontz says: "It would be hard to find a Western family today or at any time in the past whose land rights, transportation options, economic existence, and even access to water were not dependent on federal funds." Paradoxically, however, the West has also enjoyed a long tradition of anti-government sentiments. When John Wayne punched out "Mr. Government Bureaucrat" in a Hollywood Western, he was acting out the misplaced rage of many Western Americans.
In closing, the story of the Montana Freemen is especially revealing. This is the radical anti-government militia that kept the FBI at bay in an armed stand-off that lasted for months. It turns out that they had stalled foreclosure on their farms for ten years by accepting $676,082 in government farming subsidies and loans. [Pic: Robber Barons were in for the booty]
Apparently, government assistance makes one ungrateful.--Steve Kangas, Myth: Early Americans built this land on rugged individualism.
Why have the police not questioned Scaife, since his newspaper, the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, depicted Kangas as an obsessed lunatic who had come to that city with the intent of assassinating Scaife, but allegedly turned the gun on himself instead? And if Kangas was of no concern to Scaife, why did the reclusive billionaire dispatch his No. 1 private detective, Rex Armistead, to dig into Kangas' past.Suicide, it was conveniently ruled! But in Scaife's bathroom? Now --Scaife is reported to have 'threatened' Kangas! Scaife, it must be recalled, is the 'vast right wing conspiracy' so famous referred to by Hilary Clinton.Moreover, isn't strange that those who still insist presidential adviser Vince Foster was murdered, a theory promoted by Scaife, have no interest in how or why Kangas died?
The major media may be afraid of Scaife, who is known for going after his critics, but veteran journalist Mike Snow is continuing his quest for the answers to all these questions.
--The Kangas Chronicles
He posted his last essay to his Web site on February 3, just five days before his untimely death. In my opinion, it is not the writings of a man in throes of alcoholism, though people like Richard Scaife have suggested as much and he may well view Steve's work as pornography. See: ~kangaroo/L-PowerDistribution.htmlWho had Method, Motive and Opportunity to Murder Kangas?
There are more questions than answers. Richard Scaife hiring a detective to try and dig up dirt on Steve Kangas raises a red flag. He used the same detective, Rex Armistead, that was used to try and dig up dirt on President Clinton for the Arkansas Project. The Pittsburgh police should have been so thorough. I doubt the police even questioned Richard Scaife, though one report did say they were thinking about it. The systematic attempted trashing of Steve Kangas' raises questions. Discrepancies between the coroner's report, in which Steve was injured when first found, and the police report, with no mention of injuries when he was first found raises questions. The quick cremation and the erasure of Steve Kangas' hard drive raises questions.
If magically I could have three questions about the circumstances around this case answered, I suppose they would be -- (1) Is the checking of the circuit breakers in One Oxford Centre rest rooms sop, and is there a log to prove this? (2) Was the gun that killed Steve empty when found? The news articles infer this, stating 47 rounds were found in his backpack and in one pocket. This is important because if Steve Kangas were in custody of Scaife security, they may have initially taken his gun away and emptied the clip. There may even be prints on the bullets or the clip, if the gun is still in evidence. (3) One intriguing puzzle piece that doesn't fit with the theory of suicide -- the bullet found around the time that Steve Kangas was found. There was a bullet hole found in the window of a street level clothing store. The slug was found inside the store. The bullet got there somehow. The location of One Oxford Centre doesn't appear to be a part of Pittsburgh where random bullet holes would be found. I suspect this may be the first time ever that a bullet hole was found in a window of one of the shops. Maybe some time after all the stores had closed, Steve Kangas had attempted to leave, was stopped by Scaife security, shots or a shot were fired, with Steve Kangas was forced to go back up to the 39th floor. If that bullet is connected, suicide becomes implausible.
I don't know what happened to Steve Kangas on the evening of February 8. I can write several scripts from the facts, as reported in the various newspaper articles. Many of the facts of the case seem suspicious and do not fit well with the theory of suicide. When I started digging on my own, that is what I expected to find. But from the burglar alarm system, to the $300 gun, to the intensive work he'd been doing on his political web site, that does not seem to be where Steve Kangas was at.
And then there is that bullet hole in the window of the Kountz and Rider clothing store.
For Steve's sake, this case deserves to be investigated further by someone with the means and abilities far greater than I. Hopefully someone, or some agency, will investigate the death of of Steve Kangas in the manner it deserves.
--Democratic Underground, Who Killed Steve Kangas?
Armistead among other things is the famous private investigator used by Scaife to dig up dirt on President Clinton and Steve Kangas. He was paid $250,000 for one job. Rex Armistead was aided by Scaife's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review reporter Richard Gazarik and Steve's grieving parents eager for any information to fill the terrible vacuum. His mother now seems to regret being used that way. The Tribune-Review published some of the sleaziest dirt jobs you will find in any tabloid -- against Kangas. Below, you will see how one witness (Steve's mom) was mysteriously manipulated into telling lies about her son. Propaganda and mind bending. It's what they do. --Evidence of Kangas' murder, Who Killed Web Warrior Steve KangasOdds are this case is just another instance in which the right wing murders anyone who disagrees. We are reminded of Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable must be the truth!" If, by that standard, you rule out an unlikely suicide, that leaves only a murdered Kangas in Scaife's men's room. That is the probable cause to investigate Scaife and his hired gun thugs!
George W Bush also has intimate connections to the Saudi Royal family and actively trades weapons with Pakistani militant groups from the ISI. For more on this, watch Farenheit 911 from Michael Moore. The documentary has been smeared as a Republican bashing video, however, Michael does a very good job exposing Bush's connections to the Saudi's, his dodging of the draft for Vietnam, and his connections to the defense contractors who benefited from 9/11.Laura Bush, George's wife and the first lady, was involved in a fatal car crash in November of 1963. She was speeding and disregarded a stop sign. The victim in the other car was Michael Dutton, a 17 year old boy. The investigation concluded that the crash had "bizarre" aspects, such as the cars didn't seem to show physical evidence of normal drive behavior. With that said, the other "bizarre" coincidence is that the victim, Michael Dutton, was Laura Bush's ex-boyfriend and classmate. Again, in a "bizarre" coincidence, Laura Bush didn't get a ticket.Michael Dutton Douglas and Laura Welch (Laura Bush's name at the time) were students together at Robert E. Lee High School in
In May 2000 , a two-page police report detailing the fatal crash was made public. The report revealed that onMidland ,Texas . Douglas was described as an active athlete, physically attractive, and intelligent. He was nominated as the school's most popular male student while a junior, an honor typically awarded only to graduating high school seniors.November 6 ,1963 , Welch was driving herChevrolet Impala sedan with one passenger (Judy Dyke, also 17). It was a clear Wednesday night, shortly after 8 p.m., when Welch entered theintersection of State Highway 349 and Farm to Market Road 868 . Welch failed to observe the intersection's stop sign and collided into Douglas'Chevrolet Corvair sedan . Welch and Dyke sustained minor injuries; Douglas was pronounced dead on arrival at Midland Memorial Hospital. Welch was not charged with any offense.The future First Lady made a brief remark in March 2000 about the crash, "I know this as an adult, and even more as a parent, it was crushing ... for the family involved and for me as well."
Most Americans are aware of the countless violations of checks and balances and constitutional amendments this administration has committed. It is clear that George W Bush is a shadow figure with power only a few have ever had in history.
Marvin Bush, George's older brother, was the principal shareholder of Securicom until 2000. Securicom held the security systems contract for the World Trade Center and also held the security contracts for United Airlines, where 2 of the planes hijacked on 9/11 were from. Securicom bought CTC International under Marvin Bush as well. CTC International held the contracts of security at Dulles International Airport where the other 2 planes came from on 9/11.
Bertha ChampagneMarvin Bush's house maid, Bertha Champagne, was killed September 29, 2003 on Marvin's property. Like the usual Bush bizarre stories, Bertha was run over in Marvin's driveway by her own vehicle and pinned against the side of the garage. The investigation concluded that it was an "accident." Those who knew her remember her with fondness. Richard Davis, general manager for Belle Haven Country Club, said, "She made people feel welcome. A florist once told me, 'I could never forget Bertha; she made me feel like a member here.' She was friendly and outgoing; she always had a big smile, and a hello and a good-bye." Redding said, "Belle Haven was her stage; the people there loved her and she loved them." "Everybody knew Bertha," said Davis.
John McWethy Feb 2008, Former ABC News national security correspondent John McWethy was killed in a skiing accident in Colorado. McWethy was at the Pentagon on 9/11 and covered the attack live. McWethy had a number of good sources within the intelligence community. In a June 2005 WMR report: "WHY NSA IS THE FORT KNOX OF THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE ESTABLISHMENT" that covered the effect of outsourcing on the diminishing security of sensitive U.S. communications intelligence sources and methods, a major story first reported by McWethy.
Sid Adger Mr. Adger, a Houston oil supply company executive and Bush family friend, died in 1996 of unknown causes. Adger was the mysterious businessman who approached General James Rose and asked him to help George W. Bush avoid Vietnam by recommending him for a pilot position with the National Guard.General James Rose General Rose recommended George W. Bush for a pilot position with the Texas National Guard. He died of unknown causes in 1993. He was immediately buried and no autopsy was performed.
Lt. Colonel William Harris, Jr. Lt. Col. William Harris was one of two commanding officers who could not perform George W. Bush's annual evaluation covering the year from May 1, 1972 to April 30, 1973. They stated in their filing that "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of this report." Fortunately for George W. Bush, Lt. Col. Harris is not here to verify his 1973 statement. He's dead.
Amiram Nir: He was a former Israeli agent who was in Jerusalem with George Bush during Iran Contra. He went under the assumed name of Pat Weber. Nir was scheduled to testify to the Senate subcommittee and it was feared he would reveal the truth. He perished, following the shooting-down of his aircraft with missiles from the helicopter of a man called Gene Tatum, 25-year CIA deep cover agent.
Lt. Colonel Jerry B. Killian Lt. Col. Jerry B. Killian, another George W. Bush's commanding officer. He cannot testify, he's dead.
James Downing Aalund Mr. Aalund's name is the first on a long list of young Texans who died in Vietnam. No Texas Air National Guard connections.
Lewis B. Miskell WMRMurdered Canadian diplomat another possible victim of Valerie Plame Wilson/Brewster Jennings disclosure. On May 26, Italian police discovered the badly decomposed body of Canadian diplomat Lewis B. Miskell in a Naples sewer. Miskell, 49, had been stabbed in the abdomen. Intelligence sources report that Miskell, who assigned to the Canadian embassy in Vienna, Austria, was the attached responsible for liaison to UN specialized agencies in Vienna
Mark Lombardi He was an accomplished conceptual artist who, while chatting on the phone with a banker friend about the Bush savings and loan scandal, started doodling a diagram and was inspired to create a complex series of drawings and sketches that charted the details of the scandal. According to the New York Times, "He was soon charting the complex matrices of personal and professional relationships, conflict of interest, malfeasance and fraud uncovered by investigations into the major financial and political scandals of the day; to keep facts and sources straight, he created a handwritten database that now includes around 12,000 3-by-5-inch cards." On the evening of March 22, 2000, Mark Lombardi was found hanging in his loft, an apparent suicide.
Peter Hartmann Central Figure in cemetery probe found dead ... Peter Hartmann FEMA, La. Outsource Katrina body count to firm implicated in body-dumping scandals. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has hired Kenyon International to set up a mobile morgue for handling bodies in Baton Rouge, Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina, RAW STORY has learned. Kenyon is a subsidiary of Service Corporation International (SCI), a scandal-ridden Texas-based company operated by a friend of the Bush family. Recently, SCI subsidiaries have been implicated in illegally discarding and desecrating corpses.
Steve Kangas His web site, Liberalism Resurgent, was meticulously researched and presented such a problem to the "real boss" of George Bush, Richard Scaife, that he hired a private detective to look into Kangas' past. Steve Kangas was found in a 39th-floor bathroom outside of Scaife's offices at One Oxford Centre, in Pittsburgh, an apparent suicide.
Maria DiBiase WMR has learned from UN sources that the 19th Floor from which UN employee Maria DiBiase plunged to her death in the early morning of February 17, houses the Department of Peace-keeping Operations/Field Administration and Logistics Division (DPKO/FALD). The offices also house the code machines used for the encrypted fax machines used for DPKO activities in addition to a spare set of code machines used for DPKO rapid response teams. New York Daily News more search terms: Austrian national, IAEA, Conference Services, UNSCOM, Saadam Hussein wmd database, Iraq invasion, black market nuclear suppliers, A Q Kahn, Libya , Turkey, Pakistan, Marc Rich, Sibel Edmunds, 'black bag' operation.
Governor Mel Carnahan Missouri's former Democratic governor, Mel Carnahan, who lost his life in 2000, three weeks before Election Day, during his Senatorial race against John Ashcroft. Carnahan went on to become the first dead man to win a Senatorial race, humiliating and defeating the unpopular Ashcroft posthumously. Ashcroft, despite his unpopularity, went on to be appointed Attorney General by George W. Bush. Investigators determined that Carnahan's plane went down due to "poor visibility."
Gus W. Weiss, former White House policy adviser on technology, intelligence, and economic affairs, highly significant player in Reagan/Bush Sr. execution of Soviet downfall, "Weiss had declared himself to be against the war in Iraq a short while before his "suicide". It is interesting to note that 18 days before Weiss' death, another Bush government analyst also committed suicide -John J. Kokal (58 years old) on November 7, 2003. This man leapt to his death from an office in the State Department where he worked.
Other Bush Family:Jeb Bush, another one of George's brothers, conveniently and quietly declared martial law in Florida 4 days before the 9/11 attacks. This resulted in the public failing to find out the many hidden truths about what happened in Florida in the lead up to 9/11, which the public has yet to learn. In the upcoming film from Truth Alliance, this information that Jeb Bush doesn't want you to hear will be available. The working title for the 9/11 project is, "Corruption at the Core."
PNAC signatory and he signed Executive Order 01-261 September 7, 2001 which allowed martial law to be declared in Florida. His was the first state to declare a state of emergency on 9/11, however, this was 4 days before it had happened.. Of course it is Florida where Jeb Bush was Governor that the massive account of voter fraud occurred and George W Bush illegally stole the office of President of the United States to begin with. The film, Unprecedented: The 2000 Election, was one of the journalist stories that didn't make headlines in the U.S. Greg Palast from the BBC also had the film, Bush Family Fortunes, as well as a book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, all about Bush's history and voter fraud case in Florida. Hundreds of thousands of votes were literally not counted due to a "glitch" in the Florida system that was supposed to go through and eliminate felon votes. The majority, over 90% of names removed, turned up to be innocent of any crime. Some counties were reporting that the cards used to vote with were confusing and placed the names of candidates nest to boxes that didn't match that candidate, a slick and manipulative move by someone clearly attempting to steal votes. It worked, Bush won by a couple hundred votes in Florida. Had the votes been allowed to be recounted, he would have lost.
Neil Bush, the president's other brother, had intimate connections with John Hinckley, the man who shot and tried to assassinate Ronald Reagan. Neil Bush was scheduled to have dinner on March 31, 1981, with Scott Hinckley, brother of John Hinckley, the day after a bullet came within an inch of making Neil Bush's father the new president of the United States. Even though John Chancellor had let slip out this most remarkable assassination coincidence shortly after John Hinckley tried to kill President Reagan, it was censored by NBC News and the other organs of the national news media during the subsequent 10 years. And even in the several months of extensive coverage of Neil Bush's part in the massive savings and loan fraud, no mention was made of his role in the continuing cover-up of the most significant story in the 1980s. Scott Hinckley, John's brother, worked for Standard Oil under Neil Bush's management. Had Hinckley succeeded at killing Reagan, George HW Bush would have become President much faster.
What did Neil Bush do in 1985 after he became a director of the Silverado Banking, Savings & Loan Association that went bust three years later at a cost to taxpayers of at least $1.6 billion? Among other improprieties involving "some of the worst kinds of conflicts of interest" according to federal regulators, he admits that he failed to list his business relationship on a conflict-of-interest form when he got a $100,000 loan from a developer who was a partner in his oil company. That was after he helped approve more than $100 million worth of loans to that business partner. When he wrote "None" on that form, he actually was dependent on one of the thrift's biggest borrowers for the entire $75,000 annual salary that was his main source of income. "I know it sounds a littlefishy," he admitted when he testified that the loan was not to be repaid unless JNB Exploration was successful, which it wasn't. What it was, he said in one of the classic understatements of our time,"was an incredibly sweet deal." One bemused expert observed that it "may have been the first completed loan in financial history in which the creditor defaulted."
While five of Silverado's board members were banned for life from any federally insured institution, Neil Bush was ordered only to "desist from any acts,omissions or practices involving any conflicts of interest, unsafe or unsound practices or breaches of fiduciary duty." In other words, to do nothing more than obey the law. And no order to pay restitution.
Shortly before the 1988 election, when the regulators wanted to close Silverado, a call came from Washington to delay that action for 45 days—until after election day. After George Bush was elected, an order was issued to close the bank. A Treasury Department request to the FBI a year ago for an investigation of White House pressure on federal regulators to delay closing Silverado until after the election received no attention from the president's good friend, Attorney General Dick Thornburgh (whom the voters of Pennsylvania last month temporarily removed from public office once they could get their votes on him). Neil's mother is praised in puff pieces from Parade to People to the New York Times as a devoted wife of 45 years and mother of "four happy children" who nonetheless seem to be endlessly enmeshed in unhappy and unethical scandals. She is repeatedly quoted as saying that Neil was being "persecuted" and "has done nothing wrong." Her third son is known to suffer from a reading disability believed to be dyslexia, but she let an unexpected cat out of the bag when she told a Parade interviewer: "You know, people who have reading disabilities learn to fake. And Neil really had learned to fake."Finally, there is Neil's father. "We will not rest until the cheats and the chiselers and the charlatans spend a large chunk of their lives behind the bars of a federal prison," President Bush said on June 22, 1990, in regard to the savings and loan fraud. Read his lips. Then stare at the fact that when FBI field offices requested 425 new agents to help investigate the 21,000 thrift fraud referrals sitting "unaddressed" in their files, the Bush administration approved only half those requests and reduced the funds Congress authorized to spend on prosecutions. You and I may not always agree with Bill Moyers, but he was on target when he said that "George Bush is the most deeply unprincipled man in American politics today. He strikes me as possessing no essential core. There is no fundamental line from which he will not retreat....I have watched him for almost 30 years and have never known him to take a stand except for political expediency." Don't forget, of course, George W Bush had substantial prior knowledge of the 9/11 attacks as proven by the enormous amount of whistle-blowers and memos the public has now seen exists. Aside from Bush's clear involvement from covering up the attacks being a potential complicit attack from the Intelligence community itself, he has been accused by many to have been possibly involved in its planning.
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyRailroad 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.Elsewhere, the term is attributed to Herbert Spencer who clearly inspired a generation of radicalized, latter-day robber barons and, bluntly, few of them evince the "...quality of mercy" so immortalized with but a few words by Shakespeare:
—Hofstadter, Richard; 1959; Social Darwinism in American Thought, Braziller; New York.
[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.An equally 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!” 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? More importantly: who gets to make those life and death decisions? It is difficult not to conclude that New Orleans after Katrina is but the disastrous consequence of this kind of "blame the victim" thinking.
—Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism
...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 word "theory" is either misunderstood by the right wing or the term is perverted for the propaganda value. There is nothing wrong with "theory" per se, though the word is consistently used by the right wing in a pejorative sense 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 smacks of propaganda by a mentality for whom 'truth' is nothing more than whatever it is they can 'con' you into espousing.
...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
"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."
—Scrooge
Following is H.L. Mencken's report of the infamous "Scope's 'Monkey Trial'" in Dayton, Tennessee in which were pitted the infamous 'Attorney for the Damned', Clarence Darrow and William Jennings Bryan, whose advocacy of the 'free coinage of silver' is all but forgotten, overshadowed by his disastrous advocacy of 'religious myth' bordering on bigotry. The Scopes Trial: A Reporter's Account, July 9
On the eve of the great contest Dayton is full of sickening surges and tremors of doubt. Five or six weeks ago, when the infidel Scopes was first laid by the heels, there was no uncertainty in all this smiling valley. The town boomers leaped to the assault as one man. Here was an unexampled, almost a miraculous chance to get Dayton upon the front pages, to make it talked about, to put it upon the map. But how now?
Today, with the curtain barely rung up and the worst buffooneries to come, it is obvious to even town boomers that getting upon the map, like patriotism, is not enough. The getting there must be managed discreetly, adroitly, with careful regard to psychological niceties. The boomers of Dayton, alas, had no skill at such things, and the experts they called in were all quacks. The result now turns the communal liver to water. Two months ago the town was obscure and happy. Today it is a universal joke.
I have been attending the permanent town meeting that goes on in Robinson's drug store, trying to find out what the town optimists have saved from the wreck. All I can find is a sort of mystical confidence that God will somehow come to the rescue to reward His old and faithful partisans as they deserve--that good will flow eventually out of what now seems to be heavily evil. More specifically, it is believed that settlers will be attracted to the town as to some refuge from the atheism of the great urban Sodoms and Gomorrah.
But will these refugees bring any money with them? Will they buy lots and build houses? Will they light the fires of the cold and silent blast furnace down the railroad tracks? On these points, I regret to report, optimism has to call in theology to aid it. Prayer can accomplish a lot.
It can cure diabetes, find lost pocketbooks and retain husbands from beating their wives. But is prayer made any more officious by giving a circus first? Coming to this thought, Dayton begins to sweat.
The town, I confess, greatly surprised me. I expected to find a squalid Southern village, with darkies snoozing on the horse blocks, pigs rooting under the houses and the inhabitants full of hookworm and malaria. What I found was a country town of charm and even beauty....
July 10 the first day
The town boomers have banqueted Darrow as well as Bryan, but there is no mistaking which of the two has the crowd, which means the venire of tried and true men. Bryan has been oozing around the country since his first day here, addressing this organization and that, presenting the indubitable Word of God in his caressing, ingratiating way, and so making unanimity doubly unanimous. From the defense yesterday came hints that he was making hay before the sun had legally begun to shine--even that it was a sort of contempt of court. But no Daytonian believes anything of the sort. What Bryan says doesn't seem to these congenial Baptists and Methodists to be argument; it seems to be a mere graceful statement to the obvious....
July 11
The selection of a jury to try Scopes, which went on all yesterday afternoon in the atmosphere of a blast furnace, showed to what extreme lengths the salvation of the local primates has been pushed. It was obvious after a few rounds that the jury would be unanimously hot for Genesis. The most that Mr. Darrow could hope for was to sneak in a few bold enough to declare publicly that they would have to hear the evidence against Scopes before condemning him. The slightest sign of anything further brought forth a peremptory challenge from the State. Once a man was challenged without examination for simply admitting that he did not belong formally to any church. Another time a panel man who confessed that he was prejudiced
against evolution got a hearty round of applause from the crowd....In brief this is a strictly Christian community, and such is its notion of fairness, justice and due process of law. Try to picture a town made up wholly of Dr. Crabbes and Dr. Kellys, and you will have a reasonably accurate image of it. Its people are simply unable to imagine a man who rejects the literal authority of the Bible. The most they can conjure up, straining until they are red in the face, is a man who is in error about the meaning of this or that text. Thus one accused of heresy among them is like one accused of boiling his grandmother to make soap in Maryland...
July 13 the second day
It would be hard to imagine a more moral town than Dayton. If it has any bootleggers, no visitor has heard of them. Ten minutes after I arrived a leading citizen offered me a drink made up half of white mule and half of coca cola, but he seems to have been simply indulging himself in a naughty gesture. No fancy woman has been seen in the town since the end of the McKinley administration. There is no gambling. There is no place to dance. The relatively wicked, when they would indulge themselves, go to Robinson's drug store and debate theology....
July 14 the third day
The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seems to be preciously the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan. That is, locally, upon the process against the infidel Scopes, upon the so-called minds of these fundamentalists of upland Tennessee. You have but a dim notice of it who have only read it. It was not designed for reading, but for hearing. The clangtint of it was as important as the logic. It rose like a wind and ended like a flourish of bugles. The very judge on the bench, toward the end of it, began to look uneasy. But the morons in the audience, when it was over, simply hissed it.
During the whole time of its delivery the old mountebank, Bryan, sat tight-lipped and unmoved. There is, of course, no reason why it should have shaken him. He has these hillbillies locked up in his pen and he knows it. His brand is on them. He is at home among them. Since his earliest days, indeed, his chief strength has been among the folk of remote hills and forlorn and lonely farms. Now with his political aspirations all gone to pot, he turns to them for religious consolations. They understand his peculiar imbecilities. His nonsense is their ideal of sense. When he deluges them with his theologic bilge they rejoice like pilgrims disporting in the river Jordan....
July 15 the fourth day
A preacher of any sect that admit the literal authenticity of Genesis is free to gather a crowd at any time and talk all he wants. More, he may engage in a disputation with any expert. I have heard at least a hundred such discussions, and some of them have been very acrimonious. But the instant a speaker utters a word against divine revelation he begin to disturb the peace and is liable to immediate arrest and confinement in the calaboose beside the railroad tracks...
July 16 the fifth day
In view of the fact that everyone here looks for the jury to bring in a verdict of guilty, it might be expected that the prosecution would show a considerable amiability and allow the defense a rather free play. Instead, it is contesting every point very vigorously and taking every advantage of its greatly superior familiarity with local procedure. There is, in fact, a considerable heat in the trial. Bryan and the local lawyers for the State sit glaring at the defense all day and even the Attorney-General, A. T. Stewart, who is supposed to have secret doubts about fundamentalism, has shown such pugnacity that it has already brought him to forced apologies.
The high point of yesterday's proceedings was reached with the appearance of Dr. Maynard M. Metcalf of the John Hopkins. The doctor is a somewhat chubby man of bland mien, and during the first part of his testimony, with the jury present, the prosecution apparently viewed his with great equanimity. But the instant he was asked a question bearing directly upon the case at bar there was a flurry in the Bryan pen and Stewart was on his feet with protests. Another question followed, with more and hotter protests. The judge then excluded the jury and the show began.
What ensued was, on the surface, a harmless enough dialogue between Dr. Metcalf and Darrow, but underneath there was tense drama. At the first question Bryan came out from behind the State's table and planted himself directly in front of Dr. Metcalf, and not ten feet away. The two McKenzies followed, with young Sue Hicks at their heels.
Then began one of the clearest, most succinct and withal most eloquent presentations of the case for the evolutionists that I have ever heard. The doctor was never at a loss for a word, and his ideas flowed freely and smoothly. Darrow steered him magnificently. A word or two and he was howling down the wind. Another and he hauled up to discharge a broadside. There was no cocksureness in him. Instead he was rather cautious and deprecatory and sometimes he halted and confessed his ignorance. But what he got over before he finished was a superb counterblast to the fundamentalist buncombe.
The jury, at least, in theory heard nothing of it, but it went whooping into the radio and it went banging into the face of Bryan....
This old buzzard, having failed to raise the mob against its rulers, now prepares to raise it against its teachers. He can never be the peasants' President, but there is still a chance to be the peasants' Pope. He leads a new crusade, his bald head glistening, his face streaming with sweat, his chest heaving beneath his rumpled alpaca coat. One somehow pities him, despite his so palpable imbecilities. It is a tragedy, indeed, to begin life as a hero and to end it as a buffoon. But let no one, laughing at him, underestimate the magic that lies in his black, malignant eye, his frayed but still eloquent voice. He can shake and inflame these poor ignoramuses as no other man among us can shake and inflame them, and he is desperately eager to order the charge.
In Tennessee he is drilling his army. The big battles, he believes, will be fought elsewhere.
July 17 the sixth day
Malone was in good voice. It was a great day for Ireland. And for the defense. For Malone not only out-yelled Bryan, he also plainly out-generaled and out-argued him. His speech, indeed, was one of the best presentations of the case against the fundamentalist rubbish that I have ever heard.
It was simple in structure, it was clear in reasoning, and at its high points it was overwhelmingly eloquent. It was not long, but it covered the whole ground and it let off many a gaudy skyrocket, and so it conquered even the fundamentalist. At its end they gave it a tremendous cheer--a cheer at least four times as hearty as that given to Bryan. For these rustics delight in speechifying, and know when it is good. The devil's logic cannot fetch them, but they are not above taking a voluptuous pleasure in his lascivious phrases.
July 18
All that remains of the great cause of the State of Tennessee against the infidel Scopes is the formal business of bumping off the defendant. There may be some legal jousting on Monday and some gaudy oratory on Tuesday, but the main battle is over, with Genesis completely triumphant. Judge Raulston finished the benign business yesterday morning by leaping with soft judicial hosannas into the arms of the prosecution. The sole commentary of the sardonic Darrow consisted of bringing down a metaphorical custard pie upon the occiput of the learned jurist.
"I hope," said the latter nervously, "that counsel intends no reflection upon this court."
Darrow hunched his shoulders and looked out of the window dreamily.
"Your honor," he said, "is, of course, entitled to hope."...
The Scopes trial, from the start, has been carried on in a manner exactly fitted to the anti- evolution law and the simian imbecility under it. TThere hasn't been the slightest pretense to decorum. The rustic judge, a candidate for re-election, has postured the yokels like a clown in a ten-cent side show, and almost every word he has uttered has been an undisguised appeal to their prejudices and superstitions. The chief prosecuting attorney, beginning like a competent lawyer and a man of self-respect, ended like a convert at a Billy Sunday revival. It fell to him, finally, to make a clear and astounding statement of theory of justice prevailing under fundamentalism. What he said, in brief, was that a man accused of infidelity had no rights whatever under Tennessee law...
Darrow has lost this case. It was lost long before he came to Dayton. But it seems to me that he has nevertheless performed a great public service by fighting it to a finish and in a perfectly serious way. Let no one mistake it for comedy, farcical though it may be in all its details. It serves notice on the country that Neanderthal man is organizing in these forlorn backwaters of the land, led by a fanatic, rid of sense and devoid of conscience.
Tennessee, challenging him too timorously and too late, now sees its courts converted into camp meetings and its Bill of Rights made a mock of by its sworn officers of the law. There are other States that had better look to their arsenals before the Hun is at their gates.--H. L. Mencken, "THE MONKEY TRIAL": A Reporter's Account
