Is the GOP a "Kooky Cult" or a "Crime Syndicate"?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As it is true of individuals, it is also true of groups: they are what they do! The GOP, like any other group or any individual is defined by what it has done over the years. I am of the opinion that most of what the GOP has "accomplished" has been harmful to American society over all and to individuals in specific cases. This includes the GOP's apparent disdain for the environment, its horrific record with respect to any "class" that is not fabulously wealthy. By its many acts and as many omissions, the GOP has created the ruling elite.

I have often called the GOP a "kooky cult, possibly a crime syndicate". Following are The defining characteristics of a cult according to Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

• 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.
• Questioning, doubt, and dissent are discouraged or even punished.
• Mind-altering practices (such as meditation, chanting, speaking in tongues, denunciation sessions, and debilitating work routines) are used in excess and serve to suppress doubts about the group and its leader(s).
• 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 leader is not accountable to any authorities (unlike, for example, teachers, military commanders or ministers, priests, monks, and rabbis of mainstream religious denominations).
• 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, lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
• The leadership induces feelings of shame and/or guilt iin order to influence and/or control members. Often, this is done through peer pressure and subtle forms of persuasion. Subservience to the leader or group requires members to cut ties with family and friends, and radically alter the personal goals and activities they had before joining the group.
• The group is preoccupied with bringing in new members.
• The group is preoccupied with making money. Members are expected to devote inordinate amounts of time to the group and group-related activities. Members are encouraged or required to live and/or socialize only with other group members.
• 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.
--Janja Lalich, Ph.D. & Michael D. Langone, Ph.D.

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Deceptive, Dubious and Dishonest Origins of Corporate Personhood

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origins of 'corporate personhood' are dubious, suspicious, crooked! '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. For a start, the 14th states clearly that its intention is to forbid a state "...to deny to any person ...equal protection of the law." To apply this to coporations assumes that corporations are people to begin with. Logicians call this a circulus en probando fallacy i.e, a circular argument! Lawyers would say that it 'assumes facts not in evidence'! Specifically , it 'assumes' that corporations are people under the 14th and does so in order to prove that 'corporations are people'. Thus an assumption becomes the premise that 'proves' the assumption; in this case an 'assumption' that 'corporations are people'! In fact, corporations are NOT entitled to the protections of the 14th because they are not, in fact, people!

A political agenda was at work! It is in the interests of the 'corporate party' [GOP] that corporations, their benefactors, be considered people. It is in the interests of this corporate party that corporations be granted privileges which, as mere legal abstractions, they would not, do not in any way deserve or warrant! In this way, I can prove almost anything,however fallacious, however stupid, however backward.

The GOP has learned to hide their 'assumptions' among the panoply of crap that is believed by the GOP rank and file in order to feel good about themselves. In fact, this fallacy would not survive a first semester logic course at university; this fallacy would not survive a sophomore high school debate coach.

Again --the right wing is severely, endemically confused about cause and effect, about premises and conclusions. A conclusion cannot be a rationale for a premise! A conclusion may not precede a premise. "One" precedes "two" and 'causes' --without fail --always precede their effects.

'Corporate personhood' was a desired result! One senses desperation at work. Failing authoritative sources --say --the U.S. Constitution or previous decisions of the high court, the five desperadoes, otherwise disguised as 'justices' seized upon whatever sounded good. Scalia is expert at this. His rationale for Bush v Gore, for example, was just as fallacious --a circulus en probando fallacy.

"...to count first and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."

--Antonin Scalia, CNN Transcripts, December 11, 2000, Supreme Court Bush v. Gore

The effect was simply this: the re-count was halted while Bush was still ahead! If this fallacy, which in fact works backward from a foregone conclusion, is the basis for SCOTUS's 'corporate personhood' decree then we must conclude that valid opinions of and by real jurists and 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 his flabby 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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Indict George W. Bush

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

American Airlines itself is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. These flights are critical to the government's crumbling cover up! Bush's 'official conspiracy theory' of 911 is, therefore, false! If either 'flight' had been mothballed on 9/11, then Bush's 'big lie' --the official conspiracy theory --is not merely false, it is a bald-faced lie!

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!" You can, therefore, eliminate Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911! It is not only impossible, it's absurd and insulting to intelligent people!

The Bush Conspiracy Theory is a Lie

If neither flight was in the air --as American Airlines itself has so stated --then numerous 'official versions' are but a pack of malicious, perhaps treasonous lies. There is, then, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the capital 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 American Airlines itself changed the 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 changes is American Airlines by making changes to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not Wiki nor about Wiki. The story is about how AA 'corrected' a wiki entry to conform to records in official government sources: BTS and NTSB. The story is about the fact that 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 address making the change is that of American Airlines. It's traceable. Secondly, the changes that, in fact, originated with AA are consistent with and/or confirm official data at Federal agencies: the BTS and the NTSB.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as a Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that it was --indeed --American Airlines that made the change. American Airlines, therefore, 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 returnedthe 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 (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!

Bush lies have covered up the truth, protected the guilty and obstructed justice. The lies insult the families of 911 victims, victims who are dishonored by the continuing cover-up! Bush/U.S. lies aggravate the crimes of mass murder, terrorism and high treason for which the penalty is death. Our Government lied to us about 911!

Bushco's 'official conspiracy theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are its essential ingredients. That AA claims that neither 11 nor 77 [information consistent with BTS records] were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. More importantly, however, it should have gotten Bush and much of his administration invitations to appear before a Federal Grand Jury to answers charges that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice et al betrayed the nation and waged a treasonous, murderous war upon the people.

Clearly --the official theory is an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? Innocent people have nothing to cover up! An innocent person is an idiot if he/she should destroy evidence that might prove innocence. Therefore, only the guilty are motivated to lie about a crime; only the guilty are motivated to destroy evidence germane to an investigation or, in any way, obstruct good-faith efforts to get at the truth.

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.

-Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research

The house of cards collapses.

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


Assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower are --therefore -- utterly baseless! If neither Flight 11 nor 77 was in the air that day, the Bush administration's version of events must be discarded.

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

If flights 11 or 77 did not crash into either the tower or the Pentagon, then the official theory must be trashed!

In fact, none of the said flights can be placed at the scene of the crime. That fact is consistent with the fact that no wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon. One would not expect to find wreckage of flights never flown.

The burden of proof is upon Bushco to prove its theory --or shut up and face charges resulting from the probable cause the Bush himself and high ranking members of his administration participated in the crimes of mass murder and high treason --capital crimes for which the guilty may be executed as prescribed by law.
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' --Donald Rumsfeld

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than is 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 (turbo fan) was recovered! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor.
• A 757 has two turbo fans, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE fan found at the Pentagon. Again --only one turbo fan 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 have crashed into the Pentagon and did not.

No Arabs Were on Board 77

There is not only no evidence to support the theory that Arab terrorists hijacked 77, there is every reason to believe that none 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. If no Arabs were on board Flight 77, Bush's theory must be trashed!

Not only Arabs are unaccounted for. There are no passengers listed on the only admissible evidence to have survived the Bush cover-up --the Official Autopsy Report. The Pentagon autopsy report was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. In a 'neat' cover-up, a 911 memorial lists all Pentagon victims of whatever it was that crashed into the Pentagon. At the same time, Pentagon victims were said to have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. But --where, then, are the passengers buried?  I will be incredibly surprised to learn that there were passengers on a flight that cannot be proven to have existed.

I am often asked (sometimes disingenuously): what about all the people that lost family members that day? That any question re: passengers remain is simply the nail in the coffin of the Bush 'official conspiracy theory of 911!" People who raise this issue must understand that it is the very purpose of any theory --scientific or forensic --to EXPLAIN every contingency. If there are doubts that passengers even existed, the Bush must convincingly revise his theory or give himself up and submit to a grand jury indictment upon the probable cause that he was complicit in the crimes of mass murder and high treason!

Whatever crashed into the Pentagon was described by a witness 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!

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 possibly 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 US 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"

It is often asked: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy, a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. That is NOT the question.  It is, frankly, an 'outrageous conspiracy theory', a stupid scenario, an uninspired ripoff of the story of 'Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves'! Without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it. The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators?

ADDENDUM:

Those who dare to 'pull off' crimes of this magnitude consistently, inevitable attempt to shift the burden of proof. If you allege a 'conspiracy', you are expected to prove it. If you point an accusing finger, you are challenged to back up your allegations. If you specifically 'target' Bush and company, you're patriotism is called into question.

Evidence about the September 11th attacks can be divided into three categories: destroyed, missing, and surviving. The missing category includes officially secret information, since the existence of secret evidence and what it indicates cannot be verified.

A great deal of the evidence about the crimes of September 11th has either been destroyed or is unaccounted for. Indeed the event was and continues to be used to justify a campaign of secrecy never before seen in the United States, virtually eliminating public accountability of the very agencies who were entrusted to handle the evidence.

A review of the evidence shows a strong pattern of destruction or suppression of evidence, and the blocking of effective investigations, by the authorities. This is evident whether one looks at the flights, the World Trade Center, or the Pentagon.

--911 Research

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

1. That is, in fact, an implied statement that assumes that there were flights! In a court, it would be said that the statement 'assumes facts NOT in evidence'!
2. 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 theory,
3. at last, it's Bush's theory; it's up to Bush to explain it! "Those who assert must prove!" 
4. 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 that it existed.

The AFIP suggests 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] give 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.

Unaccounted for passengers and missing 'Arabs' are among the biggest holes in Bush's cover story

I was asked:

Im confused, what about all the people that lost family members that day? Are you saying that everyone claiming to have a relative on those planes is complicit?

Anyone asking that question

1. is not paying attention;
2. has never heard of the 'burden of proof'

The fact of the matter is this: the question is irrelevant  unless and until someone puts forward the evidence that there --indeed --passengers on a Flight for which there is simply no evidence that it was ever flown. Those who put forward theories as did Bush did, then those advancing or advocating those theories must prove them, just as a prosecutor is expected to prove his case in court. If Bush and/or his 'theory' cannot explain the absence of airliner wreckage or 'missing passengers', then his official theory must be discounted, consider to be utter bunkum, a pack of malicious lies. Unlike wine, neither lies nor propaganda improves with age. Indeed --where are the passengers? Where were they on 911 when it is alleged that they were on flights that are totally and completely unaccounted for?! Where is the wreckage? Where are the turbofans traceable to a 757?

Anyone believing that there were such flights AND that there were passengers on board should insist that a Federal Prosecutor put Bush on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury where the question is put to him: "What was the fate of the passengers on flights 77 and 11?" But --first --Bush would have to prove that the flight existed; secondly, he would have to explain why there exists no evidence whatsoever that there were passengers. I daresay that it is impossible to put non-existent passengers on non-existent aircraft. Bottom line: there were no passengers listed on the ONLY official, admissible evidence to survive the cover-up and that is the official autopsy report released to Dr. Olmsted. If there is no evidence that there were passengers and --additionally --if there if no wreckage or other evidence that an airliner struck the Pentagon, the Bush was and remains a damned liar!  If he should tell the truth, put him in the slammer. If he should LIE, put him in the slammer!

It would be very interesting to learn how he might manage to escape his experience without indictments for perjury and obstruction of justice. Other charges might include:

MASS MURDER

HIGH TREASON

Concerning possible charges of 'high treason' against Bush: was it not Bush who declared that we were at war? Was it not Bush and 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 US 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! That is the very definition of 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

---

---

How the Iraq War Destroyed the US Economy

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Wars reduce the GDP, destroy jobs, reduce productivity, and increase the trade deficit! If wars are 'bad' for the economy, then how are they sold so easily? The quick response: they are sold with focus group tested bullshit!

There's a 'living' in killing, we are told! There is a more opulent living in the commission of mass murder which requires the construction of tanks, smart bombs, and fighter jets --the MIC, in other words. But that's all just snake oil for idiots and Republicans!

That wars are good for the economy is just a bald-faced lie cooked up by the defense lobby for whom killing IS a living but only for the shrinking one percent who benefit: the Military/Industrial complex, truly MURDER INC. Fact is war is most often disastrous for the economy.

In fact, most models show that military spending diverts resources from productive uses, such as consumption and investment, and ultimately slows economic growth and reduces employment. In this way, military spending is comparable in most models to any other form of government spending, such as spending on public goods or improving the environment.

This paper shows the projections of the impact of an increase in annual military spending equal to 1 percent of GDP (approximately the actual increase in spending compared with the pre-war budget) of the Global Insight macroeconomic model (see Appendix). The Global Insight model was selected for this analysis because it is a commonly used and widely respected model.1 Other models will show somewhat different projections, but it is unlikely that the direction of the long-term impact on any of the key variables will be different. In fact, because of the structure of the Global Insights model, it likely understates the negative impact of military spending relative to other models.

--The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending>

At the link (a PDF file) look for Table 1 which shows the key differences in projections, at five year intervals, between the baseline model and the simulation assuming higher levels of defense spending.

The decline in GDP projected for the twentieth year in the high military spending scenario is $42.1 billion. This corresponds to a projected loss of 668,100 jobs. Inflation is projected to be 0.7 percentage points higher in the high military spending scenario, with the interest rate on the 10-year Treasury note 1.1 percentage points higher than in the baseline scenario.

The higher interest rate is associated with a reduction in industrial production of 1.8 percent compared with the baseline scenario. Car and truck sales are projected to be 731,400 in the high military spending scenario compared to the baseline scenario. Residential investment is projected to be 3.5 percent lower, which corresponds to 38,500 fewer housing starts and a reduction of 286,500 in the number of existing homes sold.

--The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending>

Given those facts, should anyone be surprised that the US is at the very bottom of the CIA's World Fact Book with the world's largest NEGATIVE currnet account balance. China, which props up the declining dollar, is not surprisingly on top with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance.

One should not be surprised when millions of jobs are lost as GDP declines. Yet, as a result of right wing/militaristic/jingoistic propaganda and FOX, many people still believe that war and military spending creates jobs. That may be true in the short-term. But, in the long run, increases in military spending cause job loss.

the policy would likely lead to a rise in interest rates and inflation, as higher levels of demand begin to push against the economy’s capacity. The rise in interest rates will lead to less investment, and less demand for cars and houses.
Higher interest rates will also push up the value of the dollar. This will increase demand for imports, since foreign-made goods will be cheaper for consumers in the United States, and decrease demand for exports, since U.S.-made goods will be more expensive for people living in other countries. The result will be that the United States will run a larger current account deficit. Over time, this will lead to a larger foreign debt.

--The Economic Impact of the Iraq War and Higher Military Spending>

As I have maintained for years --military spending is a waste. Millions spent building a tank, for example, is money sucked down a black hole. The rank returns nothing on the investment and will, inevitably, be blown up! We could just throw our dollars upon a heap, set fire to them, and cut out the middle man!

Military spending slows economic growth, increases the budget deficit, increases the trade deficit as can be seen, in fact, in US's NEGATIVE Current Account Balance, formerly called the 'balance of trade deficit'.

Why I moderate comments

• SPAM: 'comments' that link to junk, 'get rich' schemes, scams, and nonsense! These are the worst offenders.
• Ad hominem attacks: 'name calling' and 'labeling'. That includes the ad hominem: 'truther' or variations!

Also see:

• A Spiritual Mind Movie
• How the US Became a Vassal State of China
  
• Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes
  
• The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World's Number One Sponsor of World Terrorism
• Dissecting the Scrambled Brains of the GOP
  
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization
  [w/LINKS]
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization [PDF]
• How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base' of Elites
  

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Tea Bagger Bigotry Exposed

The GOP has either allied themselves with the bigot-based 'tea bagger' movement or it is the instigator of it. Just when I had come to believe that the GOP could not possibly sink lower, it is now clear to me that this endemically bigoted party is positioned to exceed all previous lies, idiocy and hate talk spewed on that party's behalf by Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Bill O'Reilly and a legion of venom filled wannabes. Indeed, the GOP --apres Bush --is a deluge, a jack-booted army of right wing hate mongers.

Now --let's clear up another issue. A heavily-trafficked site [What Really Happened] which often links to my articles has referenced my article with the following lines:

Yeah, they are really desperate to sell this idea that anyone unhappy with the government must be a racist. [emphasis mine, LH]

Let me make this clear: NO ONE TELLS ME WHAT TO WRITE! There is no 'they' who dictated any content to me whatsoever! There is no 'they' and I resent the implication that my thoughts and my opinions were dictated to me in any way whatsoever by some mysterious and unidentified 'they' !!

Is that clear?

No one else is responsible for the content of this blog and no one tells me what I can post and what I cannot! I reserve the right to cite sources, quote other writers and/or politicians and analysts as well as numerous official, government sources.

More than three decades later we have Sherri Goforth, an aide to a Republican state senator in Tennessee sending out a mass e-mail of a cartoon showing dignified portraits of the first 43 presidents, and then representing the 44th — President Obama — as a spook, a cartoonish pair of white eyes against a black background.

When a gorilla escaped from a zoo in Columbia, S.C., a longtime Republican activist, Rusty DePass, described it on his Facebook page as one of Michelle Obama’s ancestors.

Among the posters at last weekend’s gathering of conservative protesters in Washington was one that said, “The zoo has an African lion and the White House has a lyin’ African.”

These are bits and pieces of an increasingly unrestrained manifestation of racism directed toward Mr. Obama that is being fed by hate-mongers on talk radio and is widely tolerated, if not encouraged, by Republican Party leaders. It’s disgusting, and it’s dangerous. But it’s the same old filthy racism that has been there all along and that has been exploited by the G.O.P. since the 1960s.

I have no patience with those who want to pretend that racism is not an out-and-out big deal in the United States, as it always has been. We may have made progress, and we may have a black president, but the scourge is still with us. And if you needed Jimmy Carter to remind you of that, then you’ve been wandering around with your eyes closed.

Glenn Beck, one of the moronic maestros of right-wing radio and TV, assures us that President Obama “has a deep-seated hatred for white people.” Some years ago, as the watchdog group Media Matters for America points out on its Web site, Beck said he’d like to beat Representative Charles Rangel “to death with a shovel.”

--The Scourge Persists, Bob Herbert, New York Times

The conclusions stated on this blog are mine and mine alone. And there is no denying --except by idiots and/or bigots --that bigotry underlies much of the criticism that is leveled by the right wing fanatics inside the 'tea bagger' movement.

Another racist photo [seen above right] showing Obama as a witch doctor is making the rounds with Tea Party activists.

Republicans accuse Speaker Pelosi of inciting racism with her health care comments.

Democrats are unhappy with proposed tax in the Baucus health care bill.

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Ed Schultz RIPS the Bigots

Rep. Pelosi said:

I have concerns about some of the language that is being used because I saw this myself in the late '70s in San Francisco.

This kind of rhetoric was very frightening" and created a climate in which violence took place.

I wish that we would all, again, curb our enthusiasm in some of the statements that are made.

She said some of the people hearing the message "are not as balanced as the person making the statement might assume.

Our country is great because people can say what they think and they believe.

But I also think that they have to take responsibility for any incitement that they may cause.

--Nancy Pelosi, Statement

Mob scenes are now the GOP modus operandi. Paul Krugman asks: "What's behind it?" The answer to that is as clear and present as is the danger to the American republic and every freedom loving American: the leadership of the GOP, the GOP in Congress, the GOP at large:

Some commentators have tried to play down the mob aspect of these scenes, likening the campaign against health reform to the campaign against Social Security privatization back in 2005. But there’s no comparison. I’ve gone through many news reports from 2005, and while anti-privatization activists were sometimes raucous and rude, I can’t find any examples of congressmen shouted down, congressmen hanged in effigy, congressmen surrounded and followed by taunting crowds.

And I can’t find any counterpart to the death threats at least one congressman has received.

So this is something new and ugly. What’s behind it?

Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, has compared the scenes at health care town halls to the “Brooks Brothers riot” in 2000 — the demonstration that disrupted the vote count in Miami and arguably helped send George W. Bush to the White House. Portrayed at the time as local protesters, many of the rioters were actually G.O.P. staffers flown in from Washington.

--Paul Krugman, The Town Hall Mob

Like pre-war Nazis, the American GOP exploited the mob mentality most prominently in the so-called 'White Riot' --in fact and by law a treasonous 'coup d'etat' which stole the election for George W. Bush. In fairness to mere rank and file extremists, however, it is clear that in the year 2000, it was the GOP leadership that bussed to Florida a white-shirted, button-down mob of right wing radical extremists whose purpose and assignment was to disrupt the election process, to stop the vote count while Bush was still ahead.

Typically, Antonin Scalia would issue the absurdity of the decade: "Count first and rule upon legality afterward is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires." Robert Novak was just as stupid but more succinct: "The democrats are trying to steal this election by counting votes!" 'Logic' of the same fallacious form was heard even earlier from Barbara Olson who said that Gary Condit was guilty of murder not because there was evidence against him but because there was none! That, she said, was proof he covered it up!

Just words from an idiot

The 'recipe' is how every election had worked since the invention of Democracy in Ancient Greece. Voting and then counting the votes is how elections, indeed, Democracy itself, is done. Scalia is a not an intellectual. Scalia is a dumb-ass who has learned a 'trick'. The American west was peopled with itinerant 'snake oil salesmen' who had learned a few big words and how to impress the yokels with them.

GOP mob mentality was again in vogue when Sarah 'Wolf Murderer' Palin purposefully appealed to a 'base' which revealed itself to be most responsive to messages of hate and prejudice.

Democrats have a right NOT to be intimidated!

Certainly, the GOP has resorted to form --exploiting ugly mobs, encouraging them to disrupt legal democratic town hall meetings. I urge that legal town hall meetings be defended by arms and armor. Enough is enough. The Democrats have a right to meet and they have a right to defend themselves against felony violence. They have a right to oppose and defend against a gang of would-be felons!

Why do Republicans make such good l'il Nazis?

The answer lies in research that shows how GOP-types are naturally inclined to conspiracies. That's why they would prefer you believe that conspiracies don't exist. Read Carl Jung and some of the more recent research surveyed in John Dean's book "Conservatives Without Consciences". Conservatives are 'authoritarian' types and tend to sort themselves into strong leaders (fuhrers) and eager, non-questioning followers (good l'il Nazis).

Liberals and progressives are often independent, creative, original. An 'ENTP' type is one of several types identified by the Jung Personality Test, similar to the Myers/Brigg test. ENTP, specifically, is described thus: "Inventor". Enthusiastic interest in everything and always sensitive to possibilities. Non-conformist and innovative."

This kind of personality does not make good, unquestioning follower-conspirators! This kind of person does NOT make a good LI'L NAZI. The GOP, by contrast, is over run by good li'l Nazis.

The 'tea bagger' movement is the 'enemy within', the anti-democratic, pro-fascist brownshirts who may have already destroyed the US ideal of a free and democratic republic --something that we have most certainly NOT seen since the rise of Ronald Reagan.

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann, however, came to Carter’s defense on Wednesday. “Jimmy Carter tells the truth about some, not all, but some of the rabid rage against President Obama,” Olbermann stated, “and is thus the recipient of the automatic blowback from those whose livelihoods depend on enabling the ragers to tell themselves it is not racism that they feel.”

In introducing the segment, Olbermann claimed that he could offer “at least 37″ cases that he believes “prove President Carter to be correct.” He also noted that Rush Limbaugh had attacked Carter’s statements by saying “Jimmy Carter is the nation‘s hemorrhoid” — and retorted, “”Well, I got to defer to him here, the nation‘s asshole would know about the nation‘s hemorrhoid.”

Some of Olbermann’s examples seem fairly indisputable, like a poster used at tea party demonstrations that depicts Obama as an Africa witch doctor, or Limbaugh’s claim that Obama has made it okay for black kids to beat up a white kid on a school bus.

--Olbermann: 37 racist incidents prove Carter is right

Download video via RawReplay.com

Already losers, a now desperate GOP has made a Faustian bargain with bigots. It is significant that the so-called GOP 'leadership' has yet to issue a tepid reproach, let alone a strongly worded condemnation of a movement that is 1) un-American 2) bigoted 3) made of liars to a person!

Until the GOP leadership steps forward and condemns the 'tea bagger movement', I remain confirmed that the 'tea bagger' movement is encouraged by the highest ranking members of the GOP embittered by the legion of failures chalked up by their party since the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

Also see:

• A Spiritual Mind Movie
• Edward R. Murruow: Why the Fairness Doctrine Must be Restored
• It's the Hypocrisy, the Financial Collapse, the War Crimes
  
• How the US Became a Vassal State of China
  
• Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes
  
• The US Army Document That Proves the US is the World's Number One Sponsor of World Terrorism
• Dissecting the Scrambled Brains of the GOP
  
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization
  [w/LINKS]
• Why the CIA is the World's Number One Terrorist Organization [PDF]
• How the GOP Pays Off its 'Base' of Elites
  

Published Articles on Buzzflash.net

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Screw the Big Banks! Bailout the Small Depositors!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It was last fall, as Americans dared hope that a new administration would take office just in time to save America, Bush announced a first big 'bailout' which would, we were told, prevent a financial collapse, a great depression, a panic! Not least among many reasons the bailout failed is the fact that the wrong people got the money. 

Although Richard Nixon had famously claimed "We are all Keynesians now", nothing could be further from the truth now.Thanks to the misplaced reverence for Augustus Reagan, we are all still Friedman monetarists --not Keynesians. That is why the bailout failed and it is the reason future bailouts will fail unless something is done to address the root cause of collapse: the wrong people got the money! 

It was only last fall that the FED and officials of the Treasury Department 'rode to the rescue' of all the wrong people, specifically, the very financial institutions that created this mess to begin with. In the wake of all this failure, incompetence and criminality, there was great hand wringing, wailing, gnashing of teeth because the 'n' word had been uttered. Nationalize the banks! At this point, it won't make any difference.As 'the Who' famously said, 'the new boss, same as the old boss'. What is needed is not a new boss following the same, tired, failed policies. What is needed is some intelligent thinking about what drives economies! Here are some clues: banks do not drive economies. Rich elites do not drive economies. Governments do not drive economies. Big corporations do not drive economies though many board chairs are deluded and believe themselves to be 'captains of industry'. Bullshit!

More than 83 corporations have offshore subsidiaries where their funds are protected in tax havens in the Caymen islands such as: The Bank of America, Citigroup, Morgan Stanley, AIG, JP Morgan Chase, Wells Fargo, and even Pepsi and General Motors who received 13.4 billion have hundreds of millions of dollars in tax havens offshore. All these corporations receive protection from paying the US government their taxes and the loss to the US is into the 100 billion dollars of lost tax revenue.< Senator Carl Levin a democrat from Michigan and Byron Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota requested the report to be released and are pushing for new laws prohibiting these bailout scam corporations from being tax dodgers while asking for bailouts from the taxpayer

The Government Accounting Office includes 63 of the 100 largest contractors who receive government contracts also have accounts in tax haven countries.
--Bailout Corporation Tax Havens in Caymen Islands

The bailouts failed because the wrong people got the money. The government would have done better had it just put billions of dollars in mason jars, buried them in a land fill and let the unemployed dig them up! That is as true now as when Keynes first proposed it back in the thirties. You can bet those folks would have spent the money and, by doing so, revived the collapsing, moribund GOP economy that Bush left us.  

Instead, Bush gave the money to fat cats who parked it in offshore tax havens --a fact that may be solely responsible for the worst contraction of the US economy in a quarter century, an annualised 3.8 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008! That's the worst result since 1982, the year of Ronald Reagan's big tax cut. It was also the year of the 'Reagan Recession', the worst since Herbert Hoover's GOP 'Great Depression'!

Of the 100 largest public companies, 83 do business in tax-haven hotspots like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda and the British Virgin Islands, where they can move their income into tax-free accounts. .In the list of 100 companies that GAO studied were 63 with major federal contracts, including Caterpillar, BearingPoint, Boeing, Merck & Co. and Kraft Foods. ...Legislators gave particular attention to the 14 companies on the list that received bailout money from the Treasury in the recent financial meltdown. 

--GAO Report: Off-Shore Tax Havens for Bailed-Out Companies and Government Contractors?

In the meantime, more banks are going bust. Let them fail! Fuck the banks.

With two of the nation’s largest banks buckling under yet another round of huge losses, the incoming administration of Barack Obama and the Federal Reserve are suddenly dealing with banks that are “too big to fail” and yet unable to function as the sinking economy erodes their capital.

Particularly in the case of Citigroup, the losses have become so large that they make it almost mathematically impossible for the government to inject enough capital without taking a majority stake or at least squeezing out existing shareholders.

And the new ground rules laid down by Mr. Obama’s top economic advisers for the second half of the $700 billion bailout fund, as explained in a letter submitted to

• Congress on Thursday, call for the government to play an increasing role in the major activities of the banks, from the dividends they pay to shareholders to the amount they can pay executives.

--New York Times, Rescue of Banks Hints at Nationalization

We should have been bailing out the depositors. By 'depositors', I am not talking about big corporations, who, like the banks, have taken monies out of the US economy. For example --General Motors which pocketed $13.4 billion and then promptly squirreled it away in 11 offshore subsidiaries. GM's 'financing arm, GMAC received $5 billion in bailout and quickly exported to two offshore units. 

GMACs majority owner is the private equity firm Cerberus Capital Management LP. Boycott them!If Obama were a part of the 'revolution', he would have already nationalized the crooks, seized their assets and put the monies back into the hands of original depositors whose expenditures would most certainly revive the ruined economy that the GOP thinks it has washed its guilty hands of. The trend in which an increasing tiny elite of about one percent of the total population would end up owning more than the rest of us combined is, at last, having the effect I warned about.

The Reagan years can be summed up briefly. He doubled the size of the Federal Bureaucracy and tripled the national deficit. The most pernicious effect of GOP economic policy is the effect of declining opportunity, a corollary of decline in wealth among all but the very rich.It is merely rhetorical to ask: why does the GOP seem to repeat ad nauseam utterly failed strategies that have never been shown to work? Reagan's Budget Director, David Stockman called Reaganomics a 'Trojan Horse'. He understood that tax cuts were not intended to trickle down. 

That's just how they are sold. Rather --the tax cuts always do precisely what the GOP insiders know they will do: they enrich the GOP base! They are 'laundered' pay offs. Thanks to enlightened tax policies during the administration of FDR, the US was at its most egalitarian throughout WWII and the post war era. Things did not change dramatically until the rise of 'Reagonomics', a polite word given the transfer of wealth upward to those already rich and will only invest it offshore where it cannot possibly help provide jobs at the local level. This is truly 'mainstreet' vs 'Wall Street'.

The rise of Ronald Reagan brought with it a spreading of wealth upward to the upper classes and Wall Street insiders, in fact, an increasingly tiny elite of just one percent of the nation which owns more than 90 percent of the nation's total wealth. That fact is graphically illustrated above. The result is factually documented by the government's own agencies --Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Commerce-BEA, et al. Income inequality is measured by what economists call the GINI index. The higher the GINI, the greater the inequality. These numbers, recognized and cited by economists from Friedman to Krugman, from Keynes to Galbraith, invariably increase during GOP regimes.Now --as the late Steve Kangas pointed out, 'conservatives' will claim that correlation is not 'causation'. I think conservatives are wrong on that point, but if, in fact, GINIS always go up under GOP regimes, what difference does it make?The pragmatic solution is simply this: fire the GOP! Permanently! 

We cannot afford to continue to support both the GOP and its elite, pampered, privileged sponsors in business, industry and government. See more about 'income inequalities' at: What do liberals believe about income inequality? Also: Myth: The rich get rich because of merit.

The 'contraction' of an economy is typically called a 'depression'. The US economy is contracting due to 1) the transfer of wealth to but about one percent of the population; 2) this 'elite' has transferred most of its wealth offshore where it has absolutely no good effect on the domestic US economy. The current collapse of the US is the end result of a trend that was begun with the passage of Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut for his rich, elite base. The year was 1982. Historians willl write of that date that it was the beginning of the end of the American empire.

________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why We Must Restore the 'Fairness Doctrine'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Restoring the 'Fairness Doctrine' is an important first step in taking back media from the likes of Fox, Bill O'Reilly and the legion of paid liars, pundits and press agents for the corporate 'media-ocracy'. Ronald Reagan stole the 'public airwaves' from you and, since that time about six or seven huge corporations have dominated the American media --possibly that of the world. When once you had a voice, now you have none but your favorite message board. Big corporate media dictates the topic of debate and the rules.

The Fairness Doctrine had required broadcasters to devote air time to the discussion of 'controversial matters of public interest'. To maintain a 'license' broadcasters were required to 'air' opposing and contrasting opinions and viewpoints. Given wide latitude, TV and radio outlets really had little to complain about.

The Fairness Doctrine was formally adopted in 1949 but repealed in 1987 by Ronald Reagan’s pro-big business FCC. The doctrine can be traced back to the early days of broadcast regulation and was the 'teeth' in the federal law that affirmed the public ownership of the 'airwaves'.

Your right to challenge the licenses of abusive outlets is now severely restrained or non-existent. Because there is no real competition, 'big media' can lie to you, slant the news, fill up air time with bullshit and Billo and jack up the rates on air time and other advertising. 'Fair and balanced' is bunkum and bullshit! What you really get are corporate talking points, Wolf Blitzer cliches and banalities passed off as 'analysis'. Because they have been brainwashed, millions don't even know that they've been brainwashed.

There is precedent for a 'people's revolution' that will take back our media.

A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a...frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount.

--U.S. Supreme Court, upholding the constitutionality of the Fairness Doctrine in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. v. FCC, 1969.

The American media has failed us. We expected no better from Fox. It is CBS, the network of Ed Murrow, that has been most disappointing. We want 'our' media back from the likes of Clear Channel, Fox, Sinclair and the other huge corporations.

It's bad enough that Fox tells deliberate lies; it is even worse that they make billions doing it.

The domination of media and thus debate itself might have been foreseen. Ronald Reagan and his partners in crime were allowed to get away with that amounts to the 'legalized' theft of your airwaves. Fox is lying on your airwaves. As the fraudulent nature of Bush's administration crumbled, it had been hoped that the American media would take a cue from one of its pioneers. The standard Murrow set is yet to be lived up to.

It is not surprising to learn that R. Murdoch adored Ronald Reagan. Reagan presided over the "de-regulation" of the media which made possible Murdoch's rise to media prominence in the US. There was a time when broadcast outlets operated from a legal premise that had been established by the Federal Communications Act of 1934 that the "public" owns the airwaves. Later, in 1949, the Fairness Doctrine limited the power of media corporations' control over communications systems. Media were required to serve "the public interest, convenience, or necessity." Congress mandated the new FCC - created in the act - set aside certain frequencies for educational use. It was this provision that made it possible for many to get real broadcast experience and a college education as well.

As Ronald Reagan reversed regulations and systematically demolished media restraints, media regulation all but stopped in the early 1980s. Later, In 1987, the first Bush administration went after the Fairness Doctrine. In the case of Meredith Corp. v. FCC, the courts ruled that the FCC need not enforce the so-called "fairness doctrine". It was a green light to demagogues like Rush Limbaugh.

When the Sinclair Broadcast Group retreated from pre-election plans to force its 62 television stations to preempt prime-time programming in favor of airing the blatantly anti–John Kerry documentary Stolen Honor: Wounds that Never Heal, the reversal wasn’t triggered by a concern for fairness: Sinclair back-pedaled because its stock was tanking. The staunchly conservative broadcaster’s plan had provoked calls for sponsor boycotts, and Wall Street saw a company that was putting politics ahead of profits. Sinclair’s stock declined by nearly 17 percent before the company announced it would air a somewhat more balanced news program in place of the documentary ( Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04).

But if fairness mattered little to Sinclair, the news that a corporation that controlled more TV licenses than any other could put the publicly owned airwaves to partisan use sparked discussion of fairness across the board, from media democracy activists to television industry executives.

Variety (10/25/04) underlined industry concerns in a report suggesting that Sinclair’s partisanship was making other broadcasters nervous by fueling “anti-consolidation forces” and efforts to bring back the FCC’s defunct Fairness Doctrine:

Sinclair could even put the Fairness Doctrine back in play, a rule established in 1949 to require that the networks—all three of them—air all sides of issues. The doctrine was abandoned in the 1980s with the proliferation of cable, leaving citizens with little recourse over broadcasters that misuse the public airwaves, except to oppose the renewal of licenses.

The Sinclair controversy brought discussion of the Fairness Doctrine back to news columns ( Baltimore Sun, 10/24/04; L.A. Times, 10/24/04) and opinion pages ( Portland Press Herald, 10/24/04; Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 10/22/04) across the country. Legal Times (11/15/04) weighed in with an in-depth essay headlined: “A Question of Fair Air Play: Can Current Remedies for Media Bias Handle Threats Like Sinclair’s Aborted Anti-Kerry Program?”

Sinclair’s history of one-sided editorializing and right-wing water-carrying, which long preceded its Stolen Honor ploy ( Extra!, 11–12/04), puts it in the company of political talk radio, where right-wing opinion is the rule, locally and nationally. Together, they are part of a growing trend that sees movement conservatives and Republican partisans using the publicly owned airwaves as a political megaphone—one that goes largely unanswered by any regular opposing perspective. It’s an imbalance that begs for a remedy.

--The Fairness Doctrine: How we lost it, and why we need it back

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was sold as a means of opening up competition in the communications market. The opposite turned out to have been the effect. What followed was a wave of mergers that decreased competition. The media is now dominated by a handful of souless conglomerates like Fox. The Telecommunications Act of 1996 is another case of political "bait and switch".

In 1934, our government had said that the "airwaves" belonged not to the big corporations or to the government but to the people themselves. We want it back!

We've always known that the Fox network "slanted" the news. But that's not all. They make it up!

I would like to know what's in it for Rupert Murdoch to preside over a news organization that manufactures - full cloth - phony news stories. What is Murdoch's specific connection to the Bush crime syndicate? What is the bigger story --the story about how the American media devolved from giants like Murrow, Cronkite and Severeid to the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity? How did we get here?

The use of the term 'de-regulation' to characterize the government theft and subsequent transfer of your airwaves is 'Orwellian', a tactic intended to hide the real intent. The government of the US literally stole your airwaves and transferred ownership of them to right wing liars and demagogues like the Fox Network, Sinclair et al --big corporations where the likes of Bill O'Reilly and other right-wing shills had merely to wag an accusing finger while shouting "LIBERAL, LIBERAL" to sink a candidacy or --earlier --impeach the most competent President since FDR.

Eye of newt, and toe of frog,
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,
Lizard's leg, and howlet's wing,
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

--Macbeth (IV, i, 14-15)

Reasonable, rational voices are simply drowned-out by the right wing noise machine consisting of the Religious Right and the K-Street advocates of big corporate financed fascism --a mind-numbing 'hell's broth' if ever there was one.

The right wing makes much of entrepreneurship, the right of a soulless corporation to 'make money', to earn a profit. Oh really! Are we to believe that liberal dollars are worth less than 'conservative' dollars?

Even if they were, are they worth so much less that the entire Fox organization can literally write off the 'liberal' market? If that is the FOX position, then my response is that 'liberals' should simply take up the challenge! Boycott every company that places its advertising dollar with Fox. Fox would shove their swill up your ass and inexplicably expect you to patronize their sponsors! Screw that! Boycott any business that advertises on a network that really does not care what you think!

Fox may willingly kiss off moneys that liberals might have spent with Fox advertisers. But how would the advertisers feel about that? Have their marketing departments concluded that only liberal dollars are losing value as a result of conservative mismanagement of the economy? If Fox has blown off the 'liberal market', then there is left only one conclusion: Murdoch and his minions are not in it for the money. The Fox raison d'etre, therefore, is not free enterprise, business or capitalism. They just want to brain wash you.

Republicans are incapable of differentiating between a "principle" and a "prejudice". The conservative mind-set is committed to free speech only if it applies only to them. The GOP has never favored 'free speech' for the opposition.

It's also time to debunk popular, conservative, GOP myths about the 'Fairness Doctrine'.

In the history of the Fairness Doctrine, only one broadcaster permanently lost a license to operate a television station due to bias in coverage. WLBT 3 Jackson, Mississippi attained significant notoriety for its open support of racial segregation in Mississippi in the 1950s and 1960s and its opposition to civil rights. The station also routinely removed portions of network news broadcasts covering civil rights issues, often under the pretext of technical difficulties, causing civil rights groups and the United Church of Christ to complain to the Federal Communications Commission. Several FCC warnings to Lamar, the station's owner, went unheeded and the issue was contested in the U.S. Court of Appeals. The court ordered the FCC to revoke the station's license in 1969.

Hah, it sure would be terrible to bring that rule back, right?

Anyways it was repealed by Reagan, then came the deluge: talk radio! And, on the whole, that was fine, because while it would be nice if the government could actually mandate that broadcasters be reasonable and serve the public interest, we know that is not actually possible. What would be nice would be more reasonable directives about media ownership and local interest, so that we don't get more stories of small towns that don't hear about tornadoes or something because all their radio stations are owned by Clear Channel (is that just a media studies urban legend??).

But it gets the crazies excited when dumb liberals respond to their inability to find a popular media figure as "charismatic" and talented as Rush Limbaugh by claiming it's time to bring back the fairness doctrine. Then they can send out emails saying "they're gonna ban Rush!" and that fat addict's victim-cult can all blame the uppity women and blacks for them losing their jobs.

So, Debbie Stabenow, Democrat of Michigan, you are not helping anyone's cause but Rush Limbaugh's when you off-handedly mention your desire to see some new Fairness Doctrine-ish rules be introduced. Even if what you are actually talking about here is hearings on media ownership, which won't happen anyway because the Dems are just as in the pocket of the telecoms and media conglomerates as anyone, all that will make it out to the angry AM Radio masses is "they're gonna take away Rush!"

Though maybe it is helping! The Republican party is bereft of ideas and leadership, and so that angry unpleasant talk show host is becoming their voice. Which is fantastic news for the incredibly small and shrinking demographic he represents, aging white males. Rush repulses every other demographic in America, of course, so good for the Republicans. They are letting Mr. Limbaugh have the closing speech at their annual convention, CPAC. Also on the guest list: Ms. Sarah Palin!

--Talking about a Fairness Doctrine Is the Easiest Way to Piss Off a Republican

Like rotting garbage, vapid talk about 'Republican principles' always makes me puke. Eventually, with enough corporate support, enough mindless distractions provided by the likes of its corporate media sponsors, the GOP has apparently succeeded in dumbing down a nation, reducing its 'body politic' to couch-loving morons, beer swilling bigots, and lobotomized 'Palins'.

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