Carl Jung, George Bush, and 'White Heat' ---the Psychopathic 'Will to Power' and World War

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

No one has yet made a psychopathic killer criminal movie quite like 'White Heat', a 1949 classic starring James Cagney. The unlikely parallel was George W. Bush whom many feared would reprise Cagney's searing, most memorable performance. For as long as Bush occupied the Oval Office, anyone could imagine George Bush as Cody Jarrett, figuratively climbing on board a nuke, declaring himself to be on top of the world before blowing it all up!

Monsters from the ID

As Bush occupied the Oval Office, monsters from his id made themselves at home. Typically thin-skinned, Bush became unhinged amid the chance that he might plunge the world into a world war the external projection of his internal struggle against demons of his own creation, the spawn of his twisted id.
In the movies, this dynamic was embodied in Cagney's portrayal of Cody Jarrett, whom reviewers called an 'incendiary, disturbed gang leader '. Jarrett, like Bush, became an archetype, a Wotan, literally, the 'monster from the id', Bush's id, the collective worst impulses of mankind made flesh.

As in the movie, 'White Heat', primitive forces threatened to drive Bush in a Hegelian dialectic to an inexorable and iconic apocalypse. In 'White Heat' the process resulted in one of moviedom's most memorable and most disturbing scenes. It has been described as apocalyptic, a word that describes Bush's 'adventure', his war of naked aggression against Iraq, a war in which some 1.6 million people have died by his hand.

White Heat is, of course, the movie that gave us "Top of the world, Ma!", as iconic a Hollywood misquote as "Play it again, Sam" and "We don't need no steenking badges." That cry caps the climactic gunfight showdown between Cody and an army of T-men atop a natural-gas refinery, and the famous fireball explosion that follows may be Cody himself finally spontaneously combusting, not just the timely immolation of all those volatile fluids beneath him. By that point in the story, Cody is pure uncorked id. Whether doing away with witnesses at his gang's train robbery in the opening scenes, or taking cool pride in the casual comeuppance he gives his ambitious lieutenant Big Ed (Steve Cochran) — who has been helping himself to something on the side with Cody's sexy, vulgar wife and mob moll, Verna (Virginia Mayo) — Cody is a force of nature, as efficient and cold-blooded as a forest fire. Not even the government men, who track Cody with sophisticated postwar technology, can stop him. Instead, it's the human element that brings about Cody's Greek tragedy downfall. He risks a trusting friendship with Vic Pardo, a worshipful crook he meets in prison. Pardo, though, is actually Hank Fallon (Edmond O'Brien), a "copper" who infiltrates gangs by posing as a criminal. When Cody catches on to "Pardo's" betrayal, he almost weeps, a staggering moment of pathos that inflates Cagney's character to three dimensions, guaranteeing that we'll remember him long after the movie has ended.

But it's Ma herself who really makes Cody Jarrett more than just another homicidal thug. Played with chilling mother-love by Margaret Wycherly, Cody's devoted mom is as amoral as any killer on the screen. When middle-aged Cody sits on Ma's lap for love and comfort before one of his crippling headaches, we witness a dynamic that's just steps away from Hitchcock's Psycho eleven years later. In a prison chow hall, Cody snaps when he hears that Ma has died, and Cagney draws out Cody's berserk grief into an animal wail that doesn't stop as he barrels crazed through prison guards who drop before him like straw men. When the big moment comes, Cody's exclamation to the heavens before his apocalyptic finale is as inevitable as Oedipus's own fate, but with a kablooey that 1949 audiences may have felt was not just dramatic, but outright atomic. The gangster genre would never be the same old same old again.

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When the big moment comes, Cody's exclamation to the heavens before his apocalyptic finale is as inevitable as Oedipus's own fate, but with a kablooey that 1949 audiences may have felt was not just dramatic, but outright atomic. The gangster genre would never be the same old same old again.

--Mark Bourne, White Heat

Wotan Awakened

In 1936, Jung tried to describe what was happening in Germany —as many now try to understand what is happening in America. In his essay, "Wotan", Jung described developments in terms of the mythology of the god Odin, a.k.a. the Germanic god Wotan. Jung wrote: "We have seen him come to life in the German Youth Movement."

We were even beginning to regard war between civilized nations as a fable, thinking that such an absurdity would become less and less possible in our rational, internationally organized world. And what came after the war was a veritable witches’ Sabbath. Everywhere fantastic revolutions, violent alterations of the map, reversions in politics to medieval or even antique prototypes, totalitarian states that engulf their neighbours and outdo all previous theocracies in their absolutist claims, persecutions of Christians and Jews, wholesale political murder, and finally we have witnessed a light-hearted piratical raid on a peaceful, half-civilized people.

--Carl Gustav Jung, Wotan

It is not 'Gods' who came to life in America but, rather, demons loosed upon an unsuspecting world. Gods or demons, they are but manifestations of the human personality.
Bush shares his 'demons' with a demographic represented in Germany by the Nazi party, in America by the Ku Klux Klan, the radical right, the GOP.

The banks are not to blame. There is a generalized contraction of credit in the non-bank financial system where structured finance has blown up and taken half of Wall Street with it. It's the end of an era. Here's how economist Henry C. K. Liu sums it up in his "Open Letter to World Leaders attending the November 15 White House Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy":

"Neoliberal economists in the last three decades have denied the possibility of a replay of the worldwide destructiveness of the Great Depression that followed the collapse of the speculative bubble created by unfettered US financial markets of the 'Roaring Twenties'. They fooled themselves into thinking that false prosperity built on debt could be sustainable with monetary indulgence. Now history is repeating itself, this time with a new, more lethal virus that has infested deregulated global financial markets with 'innovative' debt securitization, structured finance and maverick banking operations flooded with excess liquidity released by accommodative central banks. A massive structure of phantom wealth was built on the quicksand of debt manipulation. This debt bubble finally imploded in July 2007 and is now threatening to bring down the entire global financial system to cause an economic meltdown unless enlightened political leadership adopts coordinated corrective measures on a global scale."

Rome is burning. It's time to stop tinkering with a failed system and move on to "Plan B" before it's too late. 

--Mike Whitney, This Is Not A Normal Recession: Moving on to Plan B

The GOP threatens to uncork the evil genie, to summon up the Norse 'god' Wotan, to lift the restraints upon every person's very worst motives, impulses and desires. There are good reasons for the restraints imposed by the 'superego'. Without them, people like Cody Jarrett, George W. Bush, Adolph Hitler, Pol Pot, and Augusto Pinochet would kill us all in a global conflagration. It is easy enough to imagine Bush, still seeking his father's approval, perhaps competing with him for Bar's attention, climbing upon the pinnacle of his industry's icon --the oil refinery. It is easy enough to imagine Bush screaming from atop a refinery tower: "Top of the world, Ma! Top of the world".

Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the American psychologist at the war crimes trial of Nazis at Nuremberg concluded that 'evil' was the 'utter lack of empathy'. I might add: empathy with another is possible only if one has come to terms with one's own "shadow", one's own "source of creativity", one's own humanity. One who cannot see humanity in either self or others is a Nazi in spirit, a person lacking 'empathy', a person lacking the ability to see him/herself in another place, time, or body. Those who may be described as Gilbert described 'Nazis' are what Jung would call 'inauthentic'; they live lives hidden behind masks.

Whoever battles with monsters had better see that it does not turn him into a monster. And if you gaze into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you.

--Friedrich Nietzsche

Bush Rejected by Peers

A rejection by peers is mythical. Many so-called primitive tribes make a ritual of ostracizing a member who has breached the most sacred shibboleths.  Jung and Joseph Campbell would have had much to say about the fact that some world leaders simply refused to shake Bush's hand. Some even looked away. Bush himself ducked and overtly dodged Angela Merkel.

Bush was shunned by peers. In some Eastern cultures, the loss of their respect might have required a ritual suicide. More recently, Japanese and British commanders were expected to shoot themselves.

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'Corporate Prisons': the GOP's Formula for More Crime, Declining Education, and Slave Labor

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Like many crooked GOP schemes, the fascist corporatization of state prisons makes a slick end run around the Bill of Rights, sets up crony corporations with a guaranteed gravy train at tax payer expense, and ---to sweeten the deal --it provides them with slave labor.

It is no accident that under Gov George W. Bush, Texas beat out Mississippi for 'dead last' in education. As education declines, crime increases. Increasing crime fuels the corporate prison gravy train. Justice has nothing to do with it. It's about warehousing and enslaving people for profit. There is nothing in the middle ages half so slick, so cunning, so evil!

Unless the nation wakes up to what happened in Texas, the nation will enter not just an economic depression but a new dark age, perhaps an end to civilization as we know it. In many ways we already share with the middle ages, a careless disregard for every life. In Texas, the crime rate increased as the prison systems --under Bush Jr --went corporate! As a result, one in 100 Texas residents are in prison, many of them 'corporate' lock ups in which prisoners have no rights. As Texas took the GOP/fascist prison route, education tanked --a recipe for future unemployment, poverty and increased crime.

I see a pattern. Declining education is a recipe for guaranteed unemployment, poverty, and crime. It also represents a guaranteed, risk free income to the evil corporations who run the state's corporate gulag often with no-bid contracts! As long as the quality of public education declines, two groups will benefit: the corporate owned prisons and expensive private schools affordable only to the very, very rich and/or privileged. The GOP runs states like Bush ran the war of aggression against Iraq. State prisons are just another money making opportunity, as Iraq was for the likes of Dick Cheney's Halliburton and professional thugs like Blackwater.

My assertions are backed up by a recent Pew study of trends [PDF] that had been embraced by Bush's Texas, primarily the rapid outsourcing of prison construction and management throughout the US. As in Texas, crime rates over the period under study increased. Guilt or innocence is of no concern to corporate robber barons. It is an Orwellian nightmare of waste, graft, and fascism in which no one is held to account.

As the GOP "Enronized" the great state of Texas, an assembly line criminal justice system, in cahoots with a medieval, privatized prison system, proved to be an oxymoron. It was "criminal" but hardly "justice". Despite the GOPs "worst" efforts, crime in Texas, always a topic of much discussion and study, has gotten worse. Texas is big on capital punishment, but even the industrialized application of the death penalty cannot kill off the criminals as fast as they procreate and multiply. The GOP may be seeking a "final solution".

...by year's end 1999, there were 706,600 Texans in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day. In a state with 14 million adults, this meant that 5% of adult Texans, or 1 out of every 20, are under some form of criminal justice supervision. The scale of what is happening in Texas is so huge, it is difficult to contrast the size of its criminal justice systems to the other states' systems it dwarfs:

• There are more Texans under criminal justice control than the entire populations of some states, including Vermont, Wyoming and Alaska.
• According to Bureau of Justice Statistics estimates, one quarter of the nation's parole and probationers are in Texas. California and Texas, together, comprise half the nation's parolees and probationers.
• The number of people incarcerated in Texas (in prison or jail) reached 207,526 in mid-year 1999. Only California, with 10 million more citizens, has more people in both prison and jail.
• Texas has a rate of 1,035 people behind bars for every 100,000 in the population, the second highest incarceration rate in the nation (second only to Louisiana). If Texas was a nation separate from the United States, it would have the world's highest incarceration rate--significantly higher than the United States (682), and Russia (685) which has 1 million prisoners, the world's third biggest prison system. Texas' incarceration rate is also higher than China (115), which has the world's second largest prison population (1.4 million prisoners).
• If the US shared the incarceration rate of Texas, there would be nearly three million Americans behind bars (2,822,300)--instead of our current 2 million prisoners.
• The Texas prison population tripled since 1990, and rose 61.5% in the last five years of this decade alone. In 1994, there were 92, 669 prisoners in Texas. This number had increased to 149,684 by mid-year 1999.
• The Texas correctional system has grown so large that in July 2000, corrections officials ran out of six digit numbers to assign inmates, and officially created prisoner number 1,000,000.
  --An Analysis of Incarceration and Crime Trends in The Lone Star State

Texas is called the gulag state for good reasons. Certainly, justice in Texas is applied inequitably. Minorities --primarily black and Hispanic --are disproportionately represented in the Texas gulag system but under represented in the State legislature, the various city councils, and the state judicial system.

Black people represent only 12% of the Texas population but comprise 44% of the total incarcerated population. Whites make up about 58% of Texas' total population, but only 30% of the prison and jail population.

• While one out of every 20 Texas adults is under some form of criminal justice control, one out of 3 young black men (29% of the black male population between 21 and 29) are in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day.
• One out of every four adult black men in Texas is under some form of criminal justice supervision.
• Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at a rate seven times greater than whites. While there are 555 whites behind bars for every 100,000 in the Texas population, there are an astonishing 3862 African Americans behind bars for every 100,000 in the state. This is nearly 63% higher than the national incarceration rate for blacks of 2366 per 100,000.
• If Texas' black incarceration rate was applied to the United States, the number of blacks behind bars on a national level would increase by half a million. There are currently an estimated 824,900 African Americans in prison and jail in the US The new figure, 1,346,370, would increase the number of African Americans incarcerated in the US by 63%.

Do you see the pattern? I allege that Bush deliberately SABOTAGED education IN Texas with budget cuts and other GOP idiocy SO THAT his corporate buddies could make a killing in the prison business!

The corporatization of the nation's prisons is called 'the Prison Industrial Complex. As we have seen, crime increases as education declines. Corporate prisons are, therefore, among the fastest growing industries in America. One should not be surprised to find among the corporate prison owners GOP robber barons in search of big bucks, a gravy train pay back for their loyal support of the GOP.

The Prison-Industrial complex consists of prison construction, staffing, operation. There is something in it for everyone lacking a conscience. Because profitability is directly related to the number of inmates, there is, then, no motive to improve education. Education costs money and corporations haven't yet found a away to exploit it. There are no good reasons for the explosive growth of a new industry --that of warehousing folk.

Prison companies are preparing for a wave of new business as the economic downturn makes it increasingly difficult for federal and state government officials to build and operate their own jails.

The Federal Bureau of Prisons and several state governments have sent thousands of inmates in recent months to prisons and detention centers run by Corrections Corp. of America, Geo Group Inc. and other private operators, as a crackdown on illegal immigration, a lengthening of mandatory sentences for certain crimes and other factors have overcrowded many government facilities.

Prison-policy experts expect inmate populations in 10 states to have increased by 25% or more between 2006 and 2011, according to a report by the nonprofit Pew Charitable Trusts.

Private prisons housed 7.4% of the country's 1.59 million incarcerated adults in federal and state prisons as of the middle of 2007, up from 1.57 million in 2006, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, a crime-data-gathering arm of the U.S. Department of Justice.

Corrections Corp., the largest private-prison operator in the U.S., with 64 facilities, has built two prisons this year and expanded nine facilities, and it plans to finish two more in 2009. The Nashville, Tenn., company put 1,680 new prison beds into service in its third quarter, helping boost net income 14% to $37.9 million. "There is going to be a larger opportunity for us in the future," said Damon Hininger, Corrections Corp.'s president and chief operations officer, in a recent interview.

California has shipped more than 5,100 inmates to private prisons run by Corrections Corp. in Arizona, Mississippi and other states since late 2006, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered emergency measures to control a ballooning state-prison population. Prisons were so overcrowded that hundreds of inmates were sleeping in gyms, according to one report. An additional 2,900 prisoners are scheduled to be transferred to private prisons outside the state by the end of next year, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.

--Larger Inmate Population Is Boon to Private Prisons

Sticking folk in a dank cell makes lot of people a good living at the expense of a much better, literate, productive, egalitarian society. There is also the danger that an educated population would see through the various GOP scams and pull the plug on the cons, the outright subversions of law, decency, and all those intangibles that make life worth living. We are basically dealing with venal robber barons who don't give a fuck!

After months alone in his cell, Scot Noble Payne finished 20 pages of letters, describing to loved ones the decrepit conditions of the prison where he was serving time for molesting a child. Then Payne used a razor blade to slice two 3-inch gashes in his throat. Guards found his body in the cell's shower, with the water still running.

"Try to comfort my mum too and try to get her to see that I am truly happy again," he wrote his uncle. "I tell you, it sure beats having water on the floor 24/7, a smelly pillow case, sheets with blood stains on them and a stinky towel that hasn't been changed since they caught me."

Payne's suicide on March 4 came seven months after he was sent to the squalid privately run Texas prison by Idaho authorities trying to ease inmate overcrowding in their own state. His death exposed what had been Idaho's standard practice for dealing with inmates sent to out-of-state prisons: Out of sight, out of mind.

It also raised questions about a company hired to operate prisons in 15 states, despite reports of abusive guards and terrible sanitation.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Associated Press through an open-records request show Idaho did little monitoring of out-of-state inmates, despite repeated complaints from prisoners, their families and a prison inspector.

...

--JOHN MILLER, Suicide Exposes Squalid Conditions in Privately-Run Texas Prison; Company Operates in 15 States

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Another Act of Treason: George W. Bush 'Outed' Valerie Plame

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Former Press Secretary Scott McClellan has revealed that it was George W. Bush himself who authorized Dick Cheney to 'out' Valerie Plame. When he is no longer President, Bush will not be able to 'pardon' himself for the many 'counts' of high treason that will be charged him. Bush must therefore move to pardon himself while he is still in the White House but doing so will prove his guilt! Innocent folk don't 'pardon' themselves of serious crimes.

Nixon left the White House aboard a helicopter. To make a fast getaway, Bush will need a jet. When he is no longer President, Bush will not be able to 'pardon' himself for the many 'counts' of high treason that will be charged him. I accuse Bush of war crimes, high treason, graft, and various capital crimes as stated succinctly in US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. Amid the lies he told about 911, the lies he told to wage aggressive war, it is now learned that it was Bush --personally --who 'outed' CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The 'Plame Affair' was also called 'Treasongate'. The 'outing' of an undercover 'operative' exposes that operative to reprisals by an 'enemy'. That's why Bush's act is an act of treason against the people of the United States.

Section 3. Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court.

--Article III, US Constitution

The word treason covers the more egregious acts of betrayal or disloyalty to a sovereign or nation. That describes perfectly Bush's actions with regard to Plame. Under the US Constitution and, in Britain by common law, sovereignty resides with the people themselves. Bush flouted that principle with stolen elections in 2000 and, again, in 2004. His administration systematically subverted and attempted to dismantle the US Constitution, called, by Bush, a 'goddamned piece of paper'.

Accomplices who must stand trial with Bush and Cheney will include Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleeza Rice, Pentagon brass, and numerous co-conspirators in the 'big business' community, in other words, the big contractors who stood to get big contracts when Bush began his wars of naked aggression. Just as Krupp, Thyssen, and I.G. Farben conspired with Hitler and agreed to finance him, some of America's notable 'corporate sponsors' lined up behind Bush for the booty.
Treason, as referenced above, consists in waging war upon the people of the United States. Bushco wages war upon the people of the US in many ways. The 'outing' of Plame is one of them. Bush's campaign of deliberate lies to 'justify' his attack and invasion of Iraq is another. The war itself violates almost every convention to which the US is bound by treaty or agreement.

Bush, an idiot, was at least smart enough to 'unnerstan' that unless Saddam had WMD, a war against him violated US criminal codes, international treaties, the principles of Nuremberg, and the Geneva Convention! Bush was at least smart enough to know that without the 'threat' posed by WMD, a war of naked aggression would earn him the death penalty. He charged his 'legal team' with coming up with ways to make legal --after the fact --the crimes he had already committed. He tried to re-write the laws.

Bush told other lies and none more egregious or harmful than those he told about 911. To protect those lies, Bush quashed every effort to investigate fully the events of 911. He opposed the creation of the 911 Commission and when it was formed, he obstructed it! The result is a whitewash discounted by the Republican and Democratic co-chairs. They don't believe it! Why should you?

Bush, his co-conspirators and accomplices, floated an absurd coincidence theory that on the very day, the very moment that Dick Cheney was supervising an exercise [pdf] in which terrorists would attack the Pentagon and WTC, a rag tag gang of 'terrorists' would do precisely that! The odds alone indict our 'fearless Fuhrer'.

Our 'government', a government unlawfully seized by George W. Bush, thus declared war upon the people of the United States! As Che would have put it: the peace is already considered to be broken. Thomas Jefferson would have already declared 'our' independence of a cabal that had already destroyed the 'legitimate' government of the United States. Jefferson, in fact, declared our 'independence' of a similarly tyrannical 'George'.

The so-called 911 'Truth Movement' began with David Ray Griffin's still un-refuted paper entitled: The Destruction of the World Trade Center: Why the Official Account Cannot Be True. Popular Mechanics and MSM propagandists tried to marginalize this paper but they could not refute it! PM presumes to defend an 'official theory' but there is no such 'theory' left to defend. The 911 Commission report is, in fact, the official story and even the co-chairs repudiate their own report.

Griffin is un-assailed. Last time I checked, steel still will not melt or weaken at temperatures less than 2795ºF. Bush could not rewrite the laws of physics. The 'raging infernos' inside the buildings of the WTC were no where near hot enough to have brought down the towers.

The science upon which Griffin based his paper is simply beyond the meager intellectual capacity of idiots like Bill 0'Reilly to comprehend, let alone refute. If steel will not melt at kerosene fire temperatures, then the official theory of 911 is a monumental fraud! Photos of people walking around, waving distress flags, in the hole in the North Tower where some 10,000 gallons of jet fuel was said to have been burning is absolute and irrefutable proof that the fires were never hot enough nor did they last long enough to have brought down the towers. Bushies might wish we would forget WTC 7 about which Larry Silverstein himself said "it was pulled". No airliner struck WTC7. Small, unimpressive fires were much less inflammatory than the rhetoric describing them. It's fall was described in advance by the BBC. What did the BBC know and when did they know it? The only explanation consistent with known facts it that it had been prepared in advance and was pulled just as owner Larry Silverstein said it was. This bears repeating: if WTC7 was pulled, then the official conspiracy theory is nonsense. It was pulled and the official conspiracy theory is nonsense!
Meanwhile, Flight 77 flight data, released upon an FOIA request by the NTSB, indicates that Flight 77 was at altitude of 273 feet at the time of 'impact' at the Pentagon. Therefore, Flight 77 could not possibly have crashed into the Pentagon. Flight 77 --an essential foundation of the 'official conspiracy theory' --could not possibly be true.

In either case, Bush can cite no evidence in support of his absurd lie, his absurd and ludicrous 'official' conspiracy theory in which four flights were hijacked by 19 incompetent pilots. Besides, many of the 'said' hijackers are still alive. The 'official conspiracy theory' cannot account for this fact. The FBI, meanwhile, is on record as having said that there is no evidence linking Bin Laden with the events of 911. Yet --the myths and lies persist among some segments of the population! There is always a high price to be paid for indulging psychotic delusions.

If anything said by Bush at any time about anything has ever been true, then why did Bush oppose the creation of the 911 commission? What was he afraid of?

Why did the Bush administration oppose the creation of a 911 Commission? Why did Bush interfere consistently with the 911 commission when it was, at last, created despite his objections?

Why was 911 forensic evidence destroyed?

Why did Bush sell off WTC steel?

Why did Bush lie about his own activities on 911?

Why did Bush claim to have seen the first plane strike the first tower when there was no live coverage of the event? If he saw it, how could he have seen it? How was that possible? The 'official conspiracy theory' cannot explain it. It was a miracle. Perhaps Bush was psychic!

Why was Dick Cheney supervising a 'scenario' that gamed precisely what, in fact, really happened? How could he have done that?

What are the odds that this incredible and absolutely amazing event would occur for real and on the very day that it was "gamed"? Perhaps Cheney was likewise psychic or had supernatural powers!

Dick Cheney was in a perfect position to have supervised the act of high treason and mass murder that we now call 911. Put Dick Cheney under oath. Demand that he explain his famous "stand down" order given to Norman Mineta! Indict Dick Cheney upon the probable cause that, on Bush's behalf, he supervised the crime of 911.
How coincidental was it that the British Government, like Dick Cheney earlier, gamed the subway bombings on the very day that they happened in fact? The British government was obviously psychic. There is no other explanation. If there is an innocent explanation for that, I would like to hear it from the horse's mouth --Tony Blair himself. If Tony cannot offer up an innocent explanation, then he should join George W. Bush in the dock, charged with mass murder and terrorism. Initially, Bush successfully suppressed dissent at home but failed miserably his self-assigned task of fighting real 'terrorists' abroad. Armed with the Orwellian 'Patriot Act', Bush needed only 'deem' you a 'terrorist' to incarcerate you in a hell-hole in violation of every principle put forward by real statesmen like Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. What Thomas Jefferson said of King George III, he would have said of Bush without a re-write. He would have supported efforts to remove Bush. He would have supported efforts to detain Bush, to charge him, try him, and carry out the requisite executions. In Jefferson's day, traitors were hanged, possible shot.

"That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"

--Thomas Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

Che Guevara said essentially the same thing in his classic treatise on guerrilla warfare.

"When the forces of oppression come to maintain themselves in power against established law, peace is considered already broken."

--Che Guevara, Chapter I: General Principles of Guerrilla Warfare

Che may have been prescient. Certainly --the "forces of oppression" had maintained themselves in power "against established law". Bush had personally ordered the illegal and treasonous dismantling of established Constitutional law, which he dismissed with a smirk: "The Constitution is just a goddamned piece of paper"! Bush broke the law, subverted the law, ordered the law changed to suit him, and had re-written the law --on the fly --with signing statements, nothing more nor less than decrees. He has ordered his attorneys to render opinions telling him what he wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was an 'opinion' propping up his delusion that the crimes he had already committed could be made legal after the fact.

His most egregious offense were those in which he flouted the supreme law of the land --the Constitution. Bush's attack on the Constitution had been foreseen by the founders and by the man who occupied Monticello. David Hume wrote:

"When we inquire by what means this wonder is effected, we shall find that, as force is always on the side of the governed, the governors have nothing to support them but opinion. It is, therefore, on opinion only that government is founded, and this maxim extends to the most despotic and most military governments as well as to the most free and most popular."

--David Hume, Of the First Principles of Government

Bush resorted to unprecedented measures to shut up his opposition. He was aided by the 'mass media' which had become little more than a right wing echo chamber. The Progressive Movement must demand of the new administration that the laws regulating the huge media monopolies be reviewed. It is time for a new "Communications Act", perhaps one as good as the one Ronald Reagan scrapped because the media was a threat to the liars who backed his own crooked, right wing regime. 

The biggest threats to 'our way of life' are the governments that are presumably elected to preserve them. Bush is the best example of this. Bush's very first official lie was the one he told as he took the oath of office! He placed his hand on a black book and, with a smirk, he swore to protect, defend and uphold the Constitution. It is the voice of the people that are put down in the Constitution and so proclaimed in the preamble:

We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

Enemies of the Constitution are, therefore, enemies of the people. Bush's occupancy of the White House was an 'occupation' as odious as that of any foreign invader or hostile power. His legacy is that he worked to subvert the principles of our founding, our heritage, what it means to be 'American'. He betrayed our nation with the crimes of subversion, mass murder, aggressive war, and high treason. He waged war upon the sovereign people of the United States! It is now up to us to make certain that the historical record will show that though Bush waged war upon us, he lost!

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The GOP: Architects of Another 'Great Depression'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP has dominated American economic policy since 1980 and with the exception of a brief period in Clinton's second term, the rich have gotten exceedingly richer and the poor, much, much poorer.

This gaping, growing inequality married to Bush's 'bailout', a failed example of corporate welfare and outright theft, has proven Karl Marx to have been absolutely correct. The nation now faces another Great Depression because it had not learned the lessons of Coolidge, Hoover, Reagan and Bush.

Any US history of events leading up to the stock market crash of 1929 and the 'great depression' following reads like a modern US history from 1980. The causes of the 'Great Depression' include a vastly unequal distribution of wealth and, of course, the stock market crash and financial panic of 1929.

This speculation and the resulting stock market crashes acted as a trigger to the already unstable US economy. Due to the maldistribution of wealth, the economy of the 1920's was one very much dependent upon confidence. The market crashes undermined this confidence.

The rich stopped spending on luxury items, and slowed investments. The middle-class and poor stopped buying things with installment credit for fear of loosing their jobs, and not being able to pay the interest. As a result industrial production fell by more than 9% between the market crashes in October and December 1929. As a result jobs were lost, and soon people starting defaulting on their interest payment.

Radios and cars bought with installment credit had to be returned. All of the sudden warehouses were piling up with inventory. The thriving industries that had been connected with the automobile and radio industries started falling apart. Without a car people did not need fuel or tires; without a radio people had less need for electricity.
On the international scene, the rich had practically stopped lending money to foreign countries. With such tremendous profits to be made in the stock market nobody wanted to make low interest loans. To protect the nation's businesses the US imposed higher trade barriers (Hawley-Smoot Tariff of 1930). Foreigners stopped buying American products. More jobs were lost, more stores were closed, more banks went under, and more factories closed. Unemployment grew to five million in 1930, and up to thirteen million in 193249. The country spiraled quickly into catastrophe. The Great Depression had begun.

--Main Causes of the Great Depression, Main Causes of the Great Depression

The era leading up to the crash is remembered for the celebration and practice of unbridled 'laissez faire' or worse --what is now called 'supply side economics'. Laissez-faire is simplistically defined as 'economic freedom' but in practice it amounts to 'license' for the upper classes. It is another set of rules for the rich.

Supply-side economics is not a 'hands off' policy at all. It is, in fact, an active, deliberate distribution of wealth upward to an increasingly tiny elite. It is pseudo-economics touted to justify big tax breaks for the upper ten percent of the nation's income recipients and wealth-holders. Reagan's own budget director, David Stockman, called 'supply-side economics', a trojan horse. It is claimed that the wealth will 'trickle down' by stimulating investment. It never has and never will.

• Among the causes of the great depression, the great 'Stock Market Crash of 1929' tops the list.
  
  Many believe erroneously that the stock market crash that occurred on Black Tuesday, October 29, 1929 is one and the same with the Great Depression. In fact, it was one of the major causes that led to the Great Depression. Two months after the original crash in October, stockholders had lost more than $40 billion dollars. Even though the stock market began to regain some of its losses, by the end of 1930, it just was not enough and America truly entered what is called the Great Depression.
• Bank Failures
Throughout the 1930s over 9,000 banks failed. Bank deposits were uninsured and thus as banks failed people simply lost their savings. Surviving banks, unsure of the economic situation and concerned for their own survival, stopped being as willing to create new loans. This exacerbated the situation leading to less and less expenditures.

• Reduction in Purchasing Across the Board
With the stock market crash and the fears of further economic woes, individuals from all classes stopped purchasing items. This then led to a reduction in the number of items produced and thus a reduction in the workforce. As people lost their jobs, they were unable to keep up with paying for items they had bought through installment plans and their items were repossessed. More and more inventory began to accumulate. The unemployment rate rose above 25% which meant, of course, even less spending to help alleviate the economic situation.
• American Economic Policy with Europe
As businesses began failing, the government created the Hawley-Smoot Tariff in 1930 to help protect American companies. This charged a high tax for imports thereby leading to less trade between America and foreign countries along with some economic retaliation.
• Drought Conditions.
While not a direct cause of the Great Depression, the drought that occurred in the Mississippi Valley in 1930 was of such proportions that many could not even pay their taxes or other debts and had to sell their farms for no profit to themselves. This was the topic of John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath--Top Five Causes of the Great Depression

The US experienced an overproduction in industry and agriculture just prior to the crash of 1929. Today, American production is 'out-sourced' to other nations and Americans are left with lower paying jobs or no jobs at all. I will not be surprised if the crash of '29 pales when compared to the impending crash for that very reason. Outsourcing, most which may be traced to deals struck by Bush Sr and Richard Nixon with what was then called 'communist' China will certainly leave the US reduced to third world status at the end of another 'great depression'.

The Great Depression is remembered for widespread hunger, poverty, and unemployment, the tragic result of agricultural overproduction and the inevitable decline in prices. We have seen these trends sporadically since 1980 though often papered over and ignored as an increasingly tiny elite continued to benefit from GOP 'supply side' tax cuts.

o the sorrow of small farmers, the Great Depression witnessed a drastic decline in prices for agricultural products. Between 1925 to 1928 there were good harvests all over the world but it didn't seem to matter. Millions were hungry and the food lines were long --starvation amid plenty. Amid this plenty, farmers refused to harvest. But few could blame them. They could not have earned enough to have justified the expenditure to harvest. Indeed, many farmers were foreclosed upon. Others, starving from lack of work, were reduced to soup lines and emergency 'kitchens'. It could not have come at a worse time for small farmers who had assumed great debts in order to expand production.

By 1933, unemployment had reached 26.6%.

As jobs declined, workers were either fired, laid off, or forced to work for declining wages. The effects were not confined to unskilled workers who had no properties. Landowners and farmers could not earn enough to keep up payments. Foreclosures rose exponentially. A form of economic slavery ensued. Workers had no choice but to work much longer hours for much, much less. Today --their jobs are exported to China.

As the US faces the consequences of yet another right wing experiment gone horribly wrong, certain facts must not be lost amid the din. Several factors have made the US extremely vulnerable to another 'Great Depression' and the symptoms were created by the policies of three men: Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, and George W. Bush.

It was Ronald Reagan who inherited from Jimmy Carter a healthy economy and wrecked it. Though he is unfairly reviled and lied about, Jimmy Carter is number two among post World War II presidents in 'job creation'. perhaps the single most important economic index. He also beats out every other GOP president in every other category including GDP. In summary, every Democratic president has beat every GOP president in every economic category since World War II. Ronald Reagan must be singled out. It was his tax cut of 1982 which benefited only the upper quintile, the very, very wealthy, which triggered the long, slow decline that has taken this nation to the brink of yet another Great Depression.

The 'L-curve' helps one imagine the degree to which wealth in the United States is inequitably distributed by policy and by design. The US population is represented 'stretched across a football field in order of income, from poorest, on the left, to richest. Imagine a stack of $100 bills 'representing each person's income.' For example: a stack one inch high represents a stack of one hundred dollars bills, i.e, $25,000. The red line on the graph represents the height of that stack compared to an American football field.

"The red line in the first picture is the beginning of the US income distribution. On the scale of the football field the line slopes gradually from zero on the left to less than 2-inches high at the 50-yard line ($39,000), to about 4-inches high at the 95-yard line ($132,000). On this scale the entire graph is less than one pixel high, up to this point. It is not until you are well past the 99-yard line that you hit the $1 million mark: a stack of $100 bills 40-inches high. There were over 144,000 people who turned in IRS returns in 1997 with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more." [See: Houston Independent Media Center, Wealth Distribution in the US

http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2003/07/14100.php ]

One is tempted to posit a general rule: periods of wide and increasing income and wealth inequalities always precede long and deep recessions/depressions. The other rule is that GOP tax cuts have always preceded periods of sustained and increasing transfers of wealth to the upper classes.

In America, the theft has been overt. Bush called his beneficiaries his 'base'. Indeed, they were his sponsors.

Reagan's tax cut of 1980 benefited only the upper quintile. When all the data is in, Bush's tax cuts will prove to have benefited only about one percent of the nation, a fraction of those who benefited from Reagan. In both cases, only those who were already very, very, very wealthy benefited. Everyone else got poorer both in real terms and comparatively.

The effect of this on the economy is not only that the wealthy will get to live in better houses, get adequate health care, 'better neighborhoods', better educations, or drive more reliable cars. It means that many amenities that you might have previously enjoyed on your present income will become off limits to you even if you retain your job and your current income. That's because the very, very wealthy will have 'bid up' the prices on homes, educations, health care, cars, and other items.

There are yet other results that follow from GOP 'economics'.

The GOP has supported and effected outright transfers of wealth from all Americans to an increasingly tiny percentage of the US population. There is but one word for this: THEFT! [See: 'Greed is Good': The Death of an Economic Religion]

Although the US economy produces tremendous wealth, it is always accompanied in GOP regimes by tremendous poverty. The US, for example, was most egalitarian in the years immediately following World War II. During GOP regimes, income inequality increased and is, in fact, measured with the GINI index. Higher Ginis indicate greater levels of income inequality. These indices have been significantly greater in every GOP regime since World War II.

Certainly --there is enough wealth to go around. Instead, wealth flows upward ---not down, as the propagandists of 'supply side' i.e. 'trickle down theory' would have you believe. The problem is systemic --the result of identifiable, right wing policies.

The primary culprits are GOP tax cuts by Mssrs Ronald Reagan and Bush; the effect of those cuts have been the deliberate transfer of wealth first to the upper quintile and, most recently, to an increasingly tiny elite of about one percent of the total population [See: Dr. Daniel Weinberger, US Census Bureau Briefings; Also see: The Quarterly Journal of Economics: Income Inequality in the United States at the following. It's a PDF and cites academic and official, original sources of data.

The financial collapse of the US is tragic enough but complicated by the fact that Bush lied to you and stole your money in order to commit capital crimes in Iraq --crimes for which he could be executed when found guilty as charged. [see: US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441] There is a place in the dock for Bush.

The GOP hopes to deflect attention from its traditional marching orders. The GOP raison d'etre is simply this: pass tax cuts and other measures designed to enrich only the ruling elites. IF you are NOT among the top one percent of the nation, the GOP has robbed you under the rubric of "cutting taxes". It's an easy issue to demagogue. If it were difficult, the GOP would never pull it off.

Thanks to GOP policies which concentrate wealth at the top, there are increasingly FEWER 'small business' people. Small business can no longer compete with HUGE corporations favored by the GOP. The GOP has a vested interest in keeping an important truth from the American people. The truth is: wealth does not originate with rich people.

Every economist --even right wing economists like Milton Friedman --subscribe to an established principle --the labor theory of value. The labor theory of value has been the basis for almost every major economic theory since Aristotle.

The GOP believes the opposite. The GOP would have you believe that capital creates wealth. Think about it --if wealth had been created by the rich and, indeed, trickled down, the GOP would never feel 'compelled' to pursue its unfair tax policies. The government's own statistics prove beyond any reasonable doubt that GOP tax policies have enriched an increasingly tiny percentage of the total US population. It only makes sense to support 'trickle down' economics if, in fact, wealth does not trickle down. If wealth really trickled down, elites would not be motivated to support it. They are motivated to support only policies which they know will enrich them further. 'Trickle down' is the lie they use to sell it. They don't believe it themselves. Why should you? The nation's elites support 'trickle down' policies because they know wealth DOES NOT trickle down.

Wealth is created by the act of doing work. Wealth or 'utility' is the product of acts of labor itself. Government has put an unfair 'tax' upon this 'labor' and has transferred the wealth that it represents to an elite who has done nothing to create it and does not deserve it.

The lower and working classes pay more than their fair share of taxes. The government has it backward. The government taxes labor and gives capital a free ride with numerous dodges. This is the recipe for the impending economic collapse, a collapse that appears to be well underway and beyond anyone's power or ability to stop. But that has not stopped the government from playing it's well-rehearsed role as the shakedown arm of the nation's tiny and shrinking elite.

If because of GOP transfers of unearned wealth to this increasingly tiny elite of about one percent of the population, labor becomes unproductive or impoverished and the productivity of the nation declines. It will ultimately collapse like the house of cards that it is. That is what we see happening as I write this. If the poor can no longer afford decent housing or food because elites have bid up prices on commodities, the house of cards will not stand. If you can no longer afford decent housing, health care or food, you have then, perhaps recently under Bush, fallen off the ladder. It's the GOP way.

Bush's bailout proves Marx correct but, like everything else the GOP tries, they've mucked it up. It's not even 'good' Marxism. Not surprisingly, it benefits only the GOP base of elites and, because of that fact, it will have absolutely no effect whatsoever except that of hastening the impending collapse. Marx said that Capitalism would collapse of its own inconsistencies, 'internal tensions which will lead to its destruction.' The GOP has hastened that result. Bush drove a wedge between capital and labor. Karl Marx must be indulging schadenfreude from the grave.

Some history may illustrate the point: the Wall Street crash of 1929 was followed by a severe world wide depression acutely felt in the US, Germany, France, and to a lesser degree --Great Britain and Sweden. Nevertheless, unemployment was high in Sweden when that nation returned a Labor government committed to a program of public investment to address the high unemployment problem. It worked. By 1935 real output in Sweden was 7 percent above its 1929 level. Unemployment was reduced and the finance minister was said to have been happy to suffer another budget deficit to stimulate the economy.

Ronald Reagan's budget deficit did not have as happy a result. His tax cut of 1982 was quickly followed by the nation's worst recession since the Great Depression, a recession of some 18 months characterized by record levels of unemployment, home losses, the newly poor sleeping under bridges and overpasses.

Reagan's best critics were found in his regime. Primarily, budget director David Stockman who blamed a "noisy faction of Republicans" for Reagan's infamous tax cut. Reagan might have achieved the prosperity that Keynes had predicted had his policies not been designed to reward only the filthy rich --his base!

One wonders why Reagan didn't just cut out the middle man. A more equitable tax policy might have put more spendable income directly into the hands of consumers. Business would have benefited from additional sales to richer consumers. Spent money circulates and drives an economy. That consumers spend money seems to be a fact lost on the likes of Reagan, Bush, and the nation's rich and callous elites. Tax cut monies never stimulate growth and most certainly squirreled away --perhaps offshore--in ways that never create new jobs. It is jobs and the work done by way of jobs that is the wealth of a nation.

Surely, there were knowledgeable advisers in Reagan's regime who knew better. The tax cut, therefore, was entirely political, a pay off to the rich for their support. Nothing has changed in the GOP. The Bush administration has made several such "payoffs" during his catastrophic and criminal regime.

When the dollar collapses, you must know that its origins are found in the Nixon and Bush trips to China and Reagan's give away to his elite and greedy base. The policies have eaten away at our economic health like wood worms.
Additional resources:

• Obama: Beware the Lessons of '93

The "L-Curve"

---

GOP History: 100 Years of Crooks, Liars and Failures

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In a bit over 100 yeas, the GOP loosed upon an unsuspecting nation the likes of Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. Coolidge said little and did less. Harding died in the middle of a scandal --the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.

The exact cause of Harding's death was never learned because Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy. She also declined the casting of a death mask. And the body was embalmed immediately, before it ever left the hotel. All this led to rumors that Mrs. Harding had poisoned the President while they were alone together shortly before his death, perhaps with the help or knowledge of Dr. Sawyer.

In 1924 eyebrows once again were raised. Dr. Charles Sawyer died suddenly--and his death was strikingly similar to that of President Harding--while Mrs. Harding was visiting the Sawyer home. Had she slipped something into Sawyer's drink, too, perhaps to ensure his silence? Mrs. Harding herself died in November, 1924, before the ugly rumors of her role in the President's death ever reached print. In 1930 Gaston Means, an unscrupulous detective and convicted swindler, published The Strange Death of President Harding, in which he claimed he had been hired by Mrs. Harding to serve as her personal investigator. One of his most important tasks was to follow Harding's longtime mistress Nan Britton, who had borne the President's only child, out of wedlock.The widely read book broadly hinted that Mrs. Harding, seeking revenge for this affair and for Harding's many other infidelities during their marriage, had poisoned her husband.

Means also suggested that Mrs. Harding had another motive, a more compassionate one: to spare the President the disgrace of the political scandals about to be disclosed. "My love for Warren has turned to hate," she supposedly told Means. "The President deserves to die. He is not fit to live . . . and he knows it." Means claimed that after the President's death Mrs. Harding confided to him, "Warren Harding died in honor. . . . Had he lived 24 hours longer he might have been impeached. . . . I have not betrayed my country or the party. . . . They are saved . . . I have no regrets. I have fulfilled my destiny."

--Was President Warren G. Harding Murdered Also see: [Tea Pot Dome Scandal]

Since 1900, the GOP has given us failure, idiocy, crookery, wars and industrial scale graft. Only death would distance Warren Harding from the Tea Pot Dome Scandal and, as he called them, his 'God damn friends'. And he was probably as right out his 'God damn friends' as they surely were of him.

But nothing has 'distanced' the name Herbert from the word 'depression' --the economic kind. Hoover was the McCain of his era. Defending the very policies that caused the crash of '29, Hoover said of the victims: "let the poor sell oranges from a pushcart'.

The Republican Great Depression began in 1929, not 1932, and it was the direct result of 9 years of unrelenting trickle-down economics delivered under three Republican Presidents (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) and their treasury Secretary, the anti-tax, anti-regulation corporate titan, Andrew Mellon.

As I write in the introduction of my new book, Yeah, Right: "This Economy Is Strong and Other Tall Tales:

Hoover came to the presidency in March 1929 after a campaign in which he insisted that a "continuation of the policies of the Republican party is fundamentally necessary to the future advancement of this progress and to the further building up of this prosperity."

When the market crashed in October 1929, the true cost of the Republicans' get-rich-today-and-don't-worry-about-tomorrow policies became all too apparent. Years of corporate deregulation, Wall Street manipulation, rampant speculation, cuts in taxation for the wealthy, and easy-credit expansion for consumers had fueled an unsustainable bubble of artificial wealth that popped with devastating effect.

But Hoover refused to acknowledge the collapse. The "fundamental business of the country," he insisted, was "on a sound and prosperous basis."

Compare those pre- and post- crash Hoover statements to these pre- and post-crash McCain statements:

He should be judged very, very well as far as the economy is concerned. We're in a long sustained period of economic growth.

- John McCain on George W. Bush, March 5, 2007

I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

- August 2008

Based on that record, there are few people in America who could more rightly claim to be the heir of Herbert Hoover than John McCain (if you're thinking Bush, you're close, but he's actually Calvin Coolidge's heir).

--Jim Oleske, Memo to McCain: Hoover was a REPUBLICAN, Daily Kos

Americans may be forgiven their often overt nostalgia for World War II. It was the only time in the twentieth century that American society was, in any way, egalitarian. By the time Ronald Reagan assumed the White House, the GOP had unfairly demonized Jimmy Carter¹ and had begun to roll back all the gains. Ronald Reagan seemed determine to return the US to a pre-1929 state.

The trail thus blazed, Reagan --by way of 'Reaganomics' --would effect a great roll back to earlier Twentieth Century economics in which only the very, very rich benefited. Reagan succeeded. Since 1980, the gulf between rich and poor has created two Americas --those who have very, very little and those who have almost everything. The GOP 'base' of just one percent of the total population idolize Reagan for having brought this about. The rest of the GOP idolize Reagan because they have no clue! Ergo: the GOP consists of two types: the rich and the stupid!

Those who have very little amount to some 95 percent of the entire population. Those who almost have it all amount to about one percent of the nation, yet own more than the other 95 percent combined. Hoover, Harding, Nixon, Coolidge must be beaming up from hell.

Clinton was reviled because he was not a part of the GOP plan to exploit America's riches for the very, very few. Every GOP charge against Clinton was disingenuous. The GOP didn't really care about the President's sex life. Not even the GOP could be stupid enough to equate oral sex with arming an avowed enemy of the United States, a crime that Reagan, in fact, perpetrated and lied about. The GOP, rather, could not forgive Clinton his success which, in turn, reduced the GOP to framing Clinton for trivial offenses. It's all the GOP had.

Clinton dared to protest his innocence of an act that was not even a crime. In pursuit of a dubious case, Kenneth Starr exceeded his charge, attempting to 'pin' a crime on Clinton that Clinton could not have committed for another three days. Starr was either 'psychic' or 'crooked'. Until this kind of 'psychic' phenomena are proven to exist, I will continue to believe that Starr was just crooked, that the subpoena was a set-up! Starr's investigation turned up nothing and nothing was left Starr but a crass entrapment for which he should have been disbarred.

Clinton was accused of lying to Starr's legalized 'witch hunt', the federal grand jury convened for the purpose of finding something that could be 'pinned on the President'. This panel, under Starr's direction, began its investigation of 'perjury' fully three days before it could have occurred.

Over the course of four years, Kenneth Starr's investigation of 'Whitewater' cost American taxpayers about $40 million dollars. The taxpayers got absolutely nothing for the utter waste of their monies. By Starr's own admission, his investigation had already found absolutely nothing in Whitewater that he could pin on Clinton.

"Trooper-gate" was a hoax! David Brock's story in Richard Mellon Scaife's 'American Spectator' consisted of allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry. To keep the heat on, Scaife tried and failed to buy witnesses against Clinton using laundered money. Original stories referred to 'Paula' whom we later learned was Paula Jones who found the eager market for lies about Democrats.

David Brock branded the exposé a case of "bad journalism" and called the troopers 'greedy'. He said they had 'slimy motives.' The words 'slimy' and 'GOP' in the same sentence are redundant.

The amount of conspiracist material attacking Clinton before and during the impeachment hearings was staggering. There are few reasons to think the attacks will cease now that the impeachment crisis is over. The small but vocal minority that originally supported the Starr investigation was nurtured by the conspiracist stories circulating about Clinton.

Much of the media coverage of Clinton from 1997 until 1999 focused on scandal and impeachment rather than ideological political issues or electoral politics. This was true not only in alternative right-wing media, but also in mainstream corporate media. Reporter Gene Lyons is especially critical of The New York Times (and to a lesser degree the Washington Post) for devoting so much coverage to the alleged “Whitewater Scandal” over a collapsed land deal, for which no evidence implicating the Clintons in criminal acts has ever been substantiated.

Lyons argues that much of the scandal coverage in the mainstream media “rests on ‘facts’ that are somewhere between highly dubious and demonstrably false,” and he calls it “journalistic malpractice” resulting from a coordinated right-wing “dirty tricks” campaign. In addition to corporate newspaper and magazine coverage attacking Clinton, there were books, newsletters, fax reports, videotapes, audiotapes, direct mail pieces, Internet sites, and more that spewed out from tiny—sometimes one-person—operations to international media conglomerates.

The most alarmist attacks on Clinton originated in right-wing alternative media, then spread throughout right-wing information networks, finally appearing in mainstream outlets. This troubling dynamic was described in a 1995 White House memo “Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.” The memo was widely
derided in the corporate media, but it is essentially accurate.

--Chip Berlet, Clinton, Conspiracism, and the Continuing Culture War

Scaife's office building was back in the news but a bit later when the body of liberal activist, Steve Kangas, was found dead in a bathroom stall. Kangas' death was ruled a 'suicide' --the first case in history in which the deceased managed to shoot himself --reportedly --twice in the head.

Starr became a pornographer when he was left with nothing to send up to Congress but the pornographic "Starr Report" shot through with prurient minutiae having less to do with substantive charges than with the appearance of Lewinsky's breasts and the shape of ejaculate on her dress.

Normal folk think it absurd to charge a man for perjury or obstruction of justice for merely protesting his innocence --a basic and guaranteed right. Bush tried to get around the principle by merely 'deeming' one a 'terrorist', a neat little trick that Kenneth Starr was unfortunate enough not to have thought of earlier. During the Clinton administration, the GOP had not yet discovered how easily one is deprived of every right guaranteed in the Constitution. Only one word was necessary: 'terrorist'. The GOP might have labeled Clinton but were, instead, obsessed with sex, primarily the sex that was begrudged Clinton. Certainly, in Clinton's case, absurdity was compounded. Clinton was accused of a 'cover up'. But of what?! Getting a blow job is not a crime and the 'acts' for which Clinton would be charged would not occur until at least three days later. Starr was psychic!

In the middle ages, accused witches were subjected to a trial by water. Those lucky enough to 'float' were condemned as witches and grimly executed. Those drowning were considered to be innocent but --unfortunately --dead! The US practice of 'water boarding' throughout its CIA run gulag is the modern equivalent.

The GOP embraced the 'trial by water' and would base American jurisprudence upon the model. GOP justice is Medieval justice. Under Bush, the rule of law would lose all meaning. Bush would call the Constitution a 'goddamned piece of paper'. He would subject 'suspected terrorists' to the modern equivalent of the 'water trial'. The innocent and guilty alike are dead. And so --too --the rule of law.

The 'Watergate' case against Richard Nixon differed substantially from the spurious, purple rhetorical charges leveled against Clinton. Nixon was charged with real crimes -- 'obstruction of justice and perjury' with respect to actual crimes --not set ups or 'sexual' gotachas'! Nixon was accused of using the IRS as a means by which he might retaliate against political enemies. His gang of 'plumbers', tasked with plugging up leaks in the government, were paid by way of elaborate money laundering schemes --all illegal.

Nixons's crimes were real crimes. The Articles of Impeachment against Nixon should be read and compared with the Articles of Impeachment against Clinton. The charges against Clinton are rhetorical fluff, insubstantial claptrap, pornographic and purple prose. The charges against Nixon are, rather, descriptions of real crimes, possibly treason.

The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:

1. making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;

4. interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;

5. approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;

6. endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
7. disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;

8. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or

9. endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

--Articles of Impeachment against Richard M. Nixon, Republican

Two of most troubling aspects of recent Republican history are the crooked nature of the Reagan Administration and the "election" of George W. Bush. Among hundreds of 'black marks' against Reagan, the words of Iran/Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh are the most damning.

The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The tone in Iran/contra was set by President Reagan. He directed that the contras be supported, despite a ban on contra aid imposed on him by Congress. And he was willing to trade arms to Iran for the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East, even if doing so was contrary to the nation's stated policy and possibly in violation of the law.

The lesson of Iran/contra is that if our system of government is to function properly, the branches of government must deal with one another honestly and cooperatively. When disputes arise between the Executive and Legislative branches, as they surely will, the laws that emerge from such disputes must be obeyed. When a President, even with good motive and intent, chooses to skirt the laws or to circumvent them, it is incumbent upon his subordinates to resist, not join in. Their oath and fealty are to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to the man temporarily occupying the Oval Office. Congress has the duty and the power under our system of checks and balances to ensure that the President and his Cabinet officers are faithful to their oaths.

--Concluding Observations, FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS

Reagan armed Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States. Lest it be protested that we were not engaged in a declared war with Iran, I must point out that, likewise, our wars with the Taliban and against the people of Iraq were not and remain undeclared. Nevertheless, members of the Bush administration were quick to tar critics with the word 'treason' when, in fact, it is the very worst 'president' in American history whose loyalties must be questioned within the context of a full century of GOP incompetence and outright betrayal of the nation, its people and its Constitution.

The following video supports my contention that Bill 0'Reilly is a crook, a liar, a miserable worm, a waste of human DNA. But because the GOP has apparently made it party policy to be everything that defines Bill 0'Reilly, the 'right' will watch this video and cheer the lying idiot. Good folk, whom I define as being those people who still believe that some things can be proven true and that it is important to do so, will watch this video and be confirmed in their own beliefs.

Why is all that important? I give you the words of Jacob Bronouski and Bertolt Brecht.

Behave in such a way that what is true may be verified to be so.

--Jacob Bronouski, Science and Human Values

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, A Climate of Fear is Maintained
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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Bush Could be Executed For War Crimes

Members of the Bush administration and George W. Bush personally conspired to violate the Geneva Convention, US obligations to it as well as US criminal codes! When it became apparent to Bush that he and high ranking members of his administration were culpable and could be put to death upon conviction, Bush tried to make his crimes legal --but only after he had committed them.

Clearly --the Bush administration itself is aware that it is in deep, deep trouble.

...there is one group of people that has always taken the war crimes charges seriously--the members of the Bush administration themselves. They have good reason for doing so, because they have exposed hundreds of Americans to possible prosecution for violating US law.

As long as George Bush is president and controls the Department of Justice, there will no prosecutions for war crimes, but after Bush is gone, anything could happen and hundreds of Americans could be charged with war crimes.

--David Wallechinsky, Is George Bush Guilty of War Crimes...and Who Cares?

Unless Bush plans to make his escape to Paraguay while still 'President', his exit from the Oval Office will make him vulnerable to process for violations of the War Crimes Act of 1996 passed by both houses of Congress without dissent. The act covers every crime that may be charged to Bush as of this moment and as of the time Bush will exit the 'cover' of the Oval Office. The act deals specifically with his deliberate "killing, torture or inhumane treatment" of 'detainees' at Abu Ghraib, GITMO and the gulag archipelago of 'detention centers' throughout Eastern Europe. Violations of the War Crimes Act that result in the death of a detainee carry the death penalty and there is no statute of limitations.

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

--TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441 § 2441. War crimes

Bush had been planning to commit capital crimes long before 911 and, in fact, tried to make 'legal' the crimes that he had intended to commit.

Wishing to rebuke the unpunished war crimes of dictators like Saddam Hussein, in 1996 a Republican-dominated Congress passed the War Crimes Act without a dissenting vote. It defined a "war crime" as any "grave breach" of the Geneva Conventions. It thereby advanced a global trend of mutual reinforcement between national and international law.

The War Crimes Act was little noticed until the disclosure of Alberto Gonzales's infamous 2002 "torture memo." Gonzales, then serving as presidential counsel, advised President Bush to declare that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to people the United States captured in Afghanistan. That, Gonzales wrote, "substantially reduced the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act."

--The Nation, Bush Aims to Kill War Crimes Act

Bush did not succeed in putting himself above the laws that prescribed the death penalty for the very violations of laws that he had planned. Title 18 of the US Code as currently published by the US Government [as quoted above] reflects the laws passed by Congress as of Jan. 3, 2007, and it is this version that is published here.

It was because Bush knew he was guilty that he tried to ram through Congress amendments to the War Crimes Act that would exonerate him EX POST FACTO. Ex post facto laws are unconstitutional. Bush defenders will waste their time trying to convince me that ex post facto prohibition applies only to those laws making one prosecutable for acts that were legal at the time of commission. In other words, if it was legal to spit on the sidewalk at the time you did so, you are immune to prosecution under any law passed after you had so spit! Clearly --Bush can not commit murder now and expect to escape prosecution by making it legal after his crime of murder. Don't confuse this with amnesty, which, to my knowledge, Bush has not sought nor does he deserve. Rather, Bush has tried to rewrite both laws and history. He tried to make legal those capital crimes that he had already committed.

Several yeas ago, I wrote an article that pointed out that any federal grand jury could indict Bush for capital crimes and, in fact, could begin an investigation of Bush upon its own volition. Any federal judge can, upon his/her own motion, convene a federal grand jury to consider any case deemed worthy of investigation. I would suggest that any Federal Judge reading this, get off your bench and convene a jury! It is your patriotic duty to this nation and its laws!

Former LA Prosecutor Vince Bugliosi makes another case, that because Bush deliberately lied in order to send US soldiers to their deaths in an illegal war, Bush is prosecutable for murder.

In the first sentence, we're told:

The book you are about to read deals with what I believe to be the most serious crime ever committed in American history - - the president of the nation, George W. Bush, knowingly and deliberately taking this country to war in Iraq under false presences, a war that condemned over 100,000 human beings, including 4,000 American soldiers, to horrific, violent deaths." (V. Bugliosi, p. 3)

The president "knowingly and deliberately" caused the deaths of US soldiers and Iraqi civilians and that's called murder, plain and simple. This is not a hypothetical case that could happen under special legal interpretations. When the president leaves office, he is subject to the same law as the rest of us. Bugliosi explains the ability to prosecute the case against George W. Bush by a district attorney or states attorney in any local jurisdiction where a life was lost in the Iraq war. Federal prosecutors also have that option. Bugliosi's detailed analysis of this phenomenon offers some of the best analysis in the book and the detailed end notes.

--E. Pluribus Media, Bugliosi's The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder

Because he has notoriety, Bugliosi has succeeded in attracting some attention to this issue. My fear is that in the post-election atmosphere of relief that Obama turned back the GOP wave the pressure to bring George W. Bush to justice will subside. That would be a grave mistake, a catastrophic precedent. If Bush is allowed to make good a get away, the signal will have been sent that US presidents are above the law and may perpetrate mass murder and war crimes at will.

Violations of US Codes, Title 18, Section 2441 are NOT to be confused with violations of international treaties which may have the effect of putting Bush in the dock at the Hague. Certainly, Bush had planned to commit acts that were known to be violations of US laws and our treaty commitments. Even before 911 provided Bush the pretext to attack and invade both Afghanistan and Iraq, Tom DeLay sponsored legislation that provided for a US military invasion of The Hague in those instances should Bush find himself in the dock for war crimes. The timing of the bill is material to the case against Bush and speaks to the fact that Bush had been planning to wage war and wished to immunize himself against prosecution for the acts that were known at the time to be violations of international laws to which the US was bound by treaty.

I know of no reason why Bush should be impeached before he is indicted. Impeachment is a political remedy, the purview of Congress. What is discussed here are specific acts that are against the law. Bush should fear the very real possibility of being hauled before a federal judge charged with capital crimes.

There are yet other legal ghosts that will haunt Bush. He may be charged with perpetrating the crime of genocide.

U.S. Code; Chapter 50A; Section § 1091. Genocide

(a) Basic Offense. - Whoever, whether in time of peace or in time of war, in a circumstance described in subsection (d) and with the specific
intent to destroy, in whole or in substantial part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group as such.

(1) kills members of that group;

(2) causes serious bodily injury to members of that group;

(3) causes the permanent impairment of the mental faculties of members of the group through drugs, torture, or similar techniques;

(4) subjects the group to conditions of life that are intended to cause the physical destruction of the group in whole or in part;

(5) imposes measures intended to prevent births within the group; or

(6) transfers by force children of the group to another group; or attempts to do so, shall be punished as provided in subsection (b0.

--US Codes; Chapter 50A, Section § 1091. Genocide

Hat tip to: Above Top Secret

The Congress did not have the stomach for impeachment and shirked it's duty --that of impeaching a 'President' that should have been impeached for his crimes against the Constitution. Impeachment might have saved this nation the nightmare that it has not yet survived.

I would hope that a hard nosed federal judge will take a different view. I would urge that a federal grand jury be convened immediately to consider upon the probable cause and the evidence whether or not George W. Bush is guilty of capital crimes and whether or not he should be put to death!

Bugliosi: Bush Should be Prosecuted for Murder

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The 'Conspiracy of Rich Men' Who Pulled Off 911 and Other GOP Atrocities

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

That the Bush administration would conspire with 'rich men' in order to perpetrate the capital crime of aggressive war and mass murder is nothing new. Rome attacked and invaded Dacia for its gold. The 'empire' itself was sold by the Praetorian Guard to the Patrician Didius Julianus for Greek Drachmas --not worthless Roman sesterces. Is it so unusual that a bankrupt American empire would attack and invade Iraq for its oil? Simply --that is what happened!
'Rich men' have always conspired to acquire and maintain their estates by all means legal and 'ill'. Iraq was attacked because it had oil and Bush's co-conspirators wanted it. In the second week of Bush's illegal occupancy of the White House, Dick Cheney's 'Energy Task Force' met to carve up the oil fields of Iraq. The stated objective was to "develop a national energy policy designed to help the private sector, state and local governments, promote dependable, affordable, and environmentally sound production and distribution of energy for the future." Fancy words for 'oil theft' on a scale not imagined since Rome and, later, the Third Reich.

Judicial Watch, a conservative legal group, obtained a batch of task force-related Commerce Department papers that included a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, terminals and pipelines as well as a list entitled "Foreign Suitors of Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."
The papers also included a detailed map of oil fields and pipelines in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emirates and a list of oil and gas development projects in those two countries.

The papers were dated early March 2001, about two months before the Cheney energy task force completed and announced its report on the administration's energy needs and future energy agenda.

Judicial Watch obtained the papers as part of a lawsuit by it and the Sierra Club to open to the public information used by the task force in developing President Bush's energy plan.

Tom Fitton, the group's president, said he had no way to guess what interest the task force had in the information, but "it shows why it is important that we learn what was going on in the task force."

Opponents of the war are going to point to the documents as evidence that oil was on the minds of the Bush administration in the run-up to the war in Iraq," said Fitton. "Supporters will say they were only evaluating oil reserves in the Mideast, and the likelihood of future oil production."

The task force report was released in May 2001. In it, a chapter titled "Strengthening Global Alliances" calls the Middle East "central to world oil security" and urges support for initiatives by the region's oil producers to open their energy sectors to foreign investment. The chapter does not mention Iraq, which has the world's second largest oil reserves after Saudi Arabia.

-- H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press, Cheney Task Force Eyed on Iraq Oil

The 'oil fields' of Iraq were 'carved up' long before Bush would have the 'pretext' needed to attack, invade, and divide the spoils of war. I propose that Bush be allowed to refute that charge at a trial in which he is charged with numerous crimes including mass murder, high treason, aggressive war and common theft! The 'official conspiracy theory of 911' does not help his case. Nothing Bush has said about 911 is true and he has actively sought to block every effort to learn the truth. None of the so-called 19 'Arabs' could pilot aircraft of any type. None of them could have pulled off the crime of 911. 911 was an inside job, Bush's 'Reichstag Fire'.

The Nazis had gone back to the well.

The FBI has stated that there is no hard evidence to connect Bin Laden with 911. The 'official' conspiracy theory of 911 is an absurd and ridiculous fabrication believed only by idiots. It is a bullshit cover story designed to shock, awe and confuse with its sheer audacity and vainglorious hubris. Why are we surprised? Every criminal lies about his crime. Every criminal thinks he will get away with it. Every criminal hides the truth.

Every criminal has a cover story. 911 is Bush's. There is historical precedent for Dick Cheney's meeting with Bush's financial support. A good description of that precedent is found in the work of St. Thomas More who wrote of what he called a 'conspiracy of rich men'. More's description of a 'conspiracy of rich men' presages Hitler's infamous meeting in which he 'closed' a deal with I.G. Farben, Thyssen, Krupp et al. Hitler would wage wars from which his sponsors would benefit if they would 'pony up', if they would finance and support his rise to dictatorship.

For the first time—in the last relatively free election Germany was to have—the Nazi Party now could employ all the vast resources of the government to win votes. Goebbels was jubilant. "Now it will be easy," he wrote in his diary on February 3, "to carry on the fight, for we can call on all the resources of the State.

Radio and press are at our disposal.

We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda.

[note: this is clearly a reference to a 'planned' Reichstag Fire, Hitlers' 911!]
And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money."(2)

The big businessmen, pleased with the new government that was going to put the organized workers in their place and leave management to run its business as it wished, were asked to cough up. This they agreed to do at a meeting on February 20 at Goering's Reichstag President's Palace, at which Dr. Schacht acted as host and Goering and Hitler laid down the line to a couple of dozen of Germany's leading magnates, including Krupp von Bohlen, who had become an enthusiastic Nazi overnight, Bosch and Schnitzler of I. G. Farben, and Voegler, head of the United Steel Works. The record of this secret meeting has been preserved.

Hitler began a long speech with a sop to the industrialists. "Private enterprise," he said, "cannot be maintained in the age of democracy; it is conceivable only if the people have a sound idea of authority and personality ... All the worldly goods we possess we owe to the struggle of the chosen . . . We must not forget that all the benefits of culture must be introduced more or less with an iron fist." He promised the businessmen that he would "eliminate" the Marxists and restore the Wehrmacht (the latter was of special interest to such industries as Krupp, United Steel and I. G. Farben, which stood to gain the most from rearmament).

"Now we stand before the last election," Hitler concluded, and he promised his listeners that "regardless of the outcome, there will be no retreat." If he did not win, he would stay in power "by other means . . . with other weapons." Goering, talking more to the immediate point, stressed the necessity of "financial sacrifices" which "surely would be much easier for industry to bear if it realized that the election of March fifth will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years."

All this was made clear enough to the assembled industrialists and they responded with enthusiasm to the promise of the end of the infernal elections, of democracy and disarmament. Krupp, the munitions king, who, according to Thyssen, had urged Hindenburg on January 29 not to appoint Hitler, jumped up and expressed to the Chancellor the "gratitude" of the businessmen "for having given us such a clear picture." Dr. Schacht then passed the hat. "I collected three million marks," he recalled at Nuremberg.(3)

--William Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, The Nazification of Germany: 1933–34

Hitler may have begun his war on the cheap. Nazis are said to have paid 'subsistence wages' for big projects --the autobahn, new public buildings, the grand visions of Albert Speer, most which were never realized. Much is made of the money borrowed from Swiss banking houses. It is said that the Wehrmacht was but a shell despite its reputation. Panzer divisions were mechanized, the infantry walked. But, if we are to believe the memoirs of Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's money problems had been solved by his industrial and American financiers.

It was Krupp who told the meeting: "Pony up!", pledging himself a million marks to prime the pump. American industrialists --led by Henry Ford --did their part for the Nazi cause. [See: Henry Ford and the Nazis; Wall Street and the Rise of Hitler; Hitler and the rise of the Nazis] By July 1942 'incriminating information' had filtered back to Washington from Ford of France; it was all about Ford's active and financial support for Herr Hitler's war of aggression against the nations of Europe.

Not surprisingly, the information was buried, as Fox et al bury anti-Bush information today.
It is only those who benefit most from 'conspiracies' who have an inherent bias against them. Those who benefit from 'conspiracy' have vested interests in discounting them. 'Conspiracies' are how important crimes are committed. No one acting alone is capable of achieving much --certainly one person cannot wage 'aggressive war' or even significant acts of terrorism.

Certainly --the crimes of 911 were the work of a conspiracy whether the conspiracy was conceived and directed by Bushco or other terrorists. Acts which enrich a group are called 'free enterprise' if legal, 'conspiracies' if illegal. If 'conspiracies' did not exist, then why has the US Supreme Court handed down so many cases defining them and applying to them the laws of these United States? And why are there so many US laws having to do with 'conspiracies' if 'conspiracies' did not exist?

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.
They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.

But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

--Sir Thomas More (1478–1535), Utopia, Of the Religions in Utopia

The fascist domination of American life and debate is possible because people have 'bought into' the pernicious notion of 'corporate personhood'. This notion facilitates More's 'conspiracy of rich men'. Mere legal abstractions are absurdly accorded rights that, by right, belong only to real, living, flesh and blood people. Corporations are given license to lie about misdeeds, incompetence and corporate criminality, literally, a 'conspiracy of rich men!

I submit that with the full knowledge and consent of George W. Bush, Dick Cheney met and conspired with GOP financial backers in the oil industry just as Hitler conspired with Krupp, Thyssen and I.G. Farben. It was at that meeting that the oil fields of Iraq were carved up like 'booty'. Just as Hitler made promises to Thyssen, Krupp and I.G. Farben, the Bush/Cheney cabal of traitors and mass murderers made promises to Exxon-Mobil et al.

There is sufficient probable cause to convene a federal grand jury to investigate charges that Bush and Cheney conspired with their corporate backers to commit the crimes of mass murder, aggressive war, torture and the grand theft of the natural resources of a sovereign nation.
Many of these crimes are punishable by death under US law.

(a) Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 118 > § 2441
§ 2441. War crimes

George W. Bush and Condoleeza Rice wore out the phrase: "No one could have foreseen (fill in your favorite atrocity here!)! For Bush and Condo it was the cop out, a cover up of crimes about which the pair of them not only foresaw but planned and hoped to get away with.

As a result of their conspiracies of and for 'rich men', the US is plunged into a new dark age which few foresaw just eight years ago when Bill Clinton left to his GOP successors and criminals the longest-ever period of sustained growth of the

American economy, one of the highest employment rates in the 20th century, a balanced budget, a federal surplus and improving educational opportunities.

Bush would be well-advised to leave the White House quietly at midnight unannounced. If God did not damn America, Bush worked mightily to destroy it. It must be hoped that Barack Obama can salvage what little is left of civility and hope.
Addendum: Following is a comment that was posted on my preceding article:

See where the Halliburton connection comes into play as payola to the Bush overlords for Cheney taking one for the team...namely acquiring Dresser Industries and its asbestos liabilities - the biggest of which were the Twin Towers. Halliburton received the no-bid Iraq contracts as quid-pro-quo for taking the asbestos liability hit.

Read all about it here:

Karl Rove is the single most destructive force in the US Government...the enabler of the entire evil scheme...

THE ARCHITECT.

The scheme includes 9/11 as the essential pretext. "9/11" ... how clever, Karl! Only someone with American sensibilities would select the number we have all memorized to call in the event of life threatening emergency as the date for this evil....

KARL ROVE.

The war plan to invade Iraq was written BEFORE 9/11. The Secret Energy Task Force meetings that Cheney had with Ken Lay and the other OIL HOGS during which they all decided how to divide up the oil fields of the Middle East...all of that was BEFORE 9/11.

Now you see why Cheney insisted the substance of those talks remain SECRET.

All of their schemes and conspiracies REQUIRED 9/11 as the essential trigger.

Cheney outsourced the implementation of the FALSE FLAG OPERATION to Mossad...the FALSE FLAG experts. This explains why over 200 Mossad agents were operating in the United States prior to 9/11. This explains why five of them were arrested, having been observed filming the planes hitting the towers and their subsequent collapse - celebrating our worst nightmare.

9/11 was not a bad day for those involved in the Conspiracy. It was their shining moment...their PRETEXT.

One of them washed out...couldn't cope with the guilt. Ari Fleisher had to be replaced, and disappeared. Not dead, but out of sight.

The outing of Plame was designed to destroy the best WMD intelligence the US had at its disposal regarding Iraq. Plame knew for a FACT that Iraq had no WMD. It was HER JOB to know. Therefore Rove perceived Plame (the truth) as his WORST ENEMY, and conceived of a plan to silence her. Rove is the individual who insisted that Wilson be sent to Niger.

Karl Rove is not even a good little Nazi. A GOOD Nazi would have already done the honorable thing! A 'good' Nazi would have already shot himself!

Additional resources

• Financial Links between US Industrialists and Adolph Hitler
• Who Financed Adolph Hitler
• Highly-Credible People Question 9/11
• How the GOP Enriched the Rich and Made Everyone Else Poor!
• United States Entering its Darkest Period In History

Published Articles

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, A Climate of Fear is Maintained
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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