21 Reasons Bush's Version of 911 is a Lie

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The Conservation of Matter and Energy is summed up simply:

During an ordinary chemical change, there is no detectable increase or decrease in the quantity of matter.

The result summed up in the quoted section describes what was --in fact --observed at the site of the collapse of the Twin Towers on 911.

The fact that towers of steel were reduced to "dust" supports my criticism of the BUSH CONSPIRACY THEORY (19 hijackers is, by law, a conspiracy); it does not support the conclusion of Bushco's 911 commission. The commission had concluded that the steel towers collapsed as a result of HEAT the source of which was said to have been burning jet fuel.

Impossible

JET FUEL is just kerosene. Kerosene does not burn hot enough to weaken steel, let alone melt it. Every paper I have managed to scrounge from M.I.T. as well as PEER REVIEWED papers by experts, confirm my contention that airliners could not have brought down the towers. The melting point of steel is some 1,370°C (2500°F).  A jet fuel fire is not even close. Even if the fires had reached that temperature, an evenly distributed heat pattern is required to get the "controlled demolition" look --straight down at free fall rates of acceleration!

Random areas of greater and or lower heat cannot be expected to produce results that DEMOLITION EXPERTS routinely produce as a result of careful placement and timing. At last --there is the question of whether or not an ALUMINUM BODIED aircraft will or can penetrate the outer walls slicing steel beams with mere aluminum wings. Had that happened, I suspect the aluminum wings and aluminum bodies would have folded up like an squeeze box just prior to its fall to the sidewalk at street level.

The laws of physics were not repealed on 911. That means means that aluminum --among the lightest of metals --did not and will never penetrate industrial steel, i.e, the steel that was was used to construct the outer "cladding" and as well the even DENSER CORE. Both core and outer walls collapsed like a stack of playing cards.

This is not the only FATAL HOLE in Bush's theory. The worst and most obvious hole is that there is simply NO ADMISSIBLE EVIDENCE that the "said" flights were even in the air that day. The BBC interviewed some of the alleged hijackers after they were said to have died in the attacks. Had they been raptured? By Jehovah or by Allah?

1. Official Flight Data (Source: NTSB) proves conclusively that Flight 77 could not possibly have crashed into the Pentagon. Flight 77 was at an altitude of 273 feet within less than two seconds of impact. Source: NTSB, Pilots for 911 Truth, FOIA request, official computer data from NTSB.
2. I personally challenged Purdue University where under-graduates claimed to have "modeled" a soft-bodied, aluminum airliner slicing through steel girders at WTC's Twin Towers. Nonsense! All they did was get an off-the-shelf 3-D animation program. If aluminum could slice through steel, Switzerland would make Swiss Army knives out of aluminum. They don't! They make the blades of Swiss Army knives out of HARD STEEL. Bottom line: at ANY SPEED, Aluminum will not penetrate steel. Nevertheless, Bushco would have you believe that aluminum sliced through dense steel. It did not happen.
3. NOR will Kerosene fires melt, vaporize, or reduce steel to dust. The 'real killers', of course, knew this. That the kerosene fires were assisted with thermite and thermate was proven with wreckage gathered at 911. The pedigrees confirm that thermite, thermate samples originated from ground zero. The effect of thermite/thermate has been written up in several scholarly, scientific, peer-reviewed papers. Bottom line: steel has never melted at Kerosene fire temperatures. Unless and until the laws of physics are repealed, it never will. You can put this to the test for your self. Build a kerosene fire; throw a steel bar on it. When it melts or even weakens, get back with me!
4. There were no Arab names on the official list of those autopsied from the Pentagon. The source for this is Dr. Olmsted, who filed an FOIA request. Olmsted had made the point that "passenger lists" are just names that someone has typed up on a piece of paper. It is not evidence that would be admitted in a court. A coroner's report, however, is evidence admissible in court. In this case, the coroner's report disproves Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911. There are NO hijacker names nor, for that matter, any Arab names on the list. Secondly, only Pentagon victims are known to have been interred; they were were interred at Arlington. Again --where are the hijackers? Where are the Arabs? Where are the passengers?
5. On that question, a clue may have been found in an early story from the BBC. They interviewed some of the alleged hijackers AFTER they had been pronounced DEAD by the U.S. media.
6. NTSB data (National Transportation Safety Board), an independent Federal agency charged by Congress with investigating every civil aviation accident in the United, indicates that the door to the cockpit in Flt 77 (Pentagon) was NEVER opened after take-off. So --how did Hani Hanjour manage to gain access to the cockpit? He was skinny (only some 95 pounds as I recall) but not nearly skinny enough to slide under the cockpit door. Sliding under a closed door requires the talents of a professional cartoonist! 
7. How did Hani Hanjour get on board? Several early media accounts reported that Hani did not have a ticket! Anyone who thinks that getting on board an airliner without a ticket is easy should try it. I will be waiting for the results.
8. The famous "phone calls" were pronounced impossible by numerous media outlets early on, within days of 911 as I recall. I never took them seriously.
9. I won't dwell on this because it seems that even the mainstream media has covered it and that is: Hani Hanjour was said to have learned how to be a pilot by playing arcade simulators. Uh huh. Right!
10. BBC interviewed some of the alleged hijackers --AFTER 911. They were undoubtedly alive! Another miracle?
11. WTC 7 was reported fallen by a BBC reporter though it was visible behind her as she filed her story. She said it had collapsed. But it would not collapse for another quarter of an hour after she had filed her report.
12. Larry Silverstein --a crook --had been and was bankrupt. 911 bailed him out. He had METHOD, MOTIVE and OPPORTUNITY. There is, therefore, sufficient probable cause to charge and indict him. He should stand trial for the crimes of high treason and mass murder. Capital offenses!
13. WTC steel was ordered destroyed, hauled away and sold! The deliberate destruction of evidence is a crime. In this case, the charges include complicity and obstruction of justice. [See: Achitects and Engineers for 911 Truth]
14. Marvin Bush handled security for the WTC before and during 911. It would appear that he succeeded in doing the job for which he was planted. You can rest assured that he was rewarded when, in fact, he should have been arrested, charged and prosecuted for his complicity in the crimes of mass murder, high treason and domestic terrorism. Marvin Bush represents "opportunity" among abundant method and motive.
15. Though al Qaeda was blamed for 911, it is a matter of record that al Qaeda, the creation of the CIA, was founded at a Mujahideen camp in Afghanistan in 1988, during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.
16. Photos show people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where 10,000 gallons of jet fuel was supposedly burning.
17. When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower's flames had vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and control. It should not have fallen. 
18. The fire did not grow over time; it quickly ran out of fuel and was suffocating, indicating that without added explosive devices the fires might have been easily controlled.
19. FDNY fire fighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw --explosions that are typical of controlled demolitions. FAA personnel are under a similar gag order, i.e, "threat". Even the flawed 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges that "none of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible." Who knows more about fires than fire chiefs?
20. Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse. Nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9/11. WTC-7 was unharmed by aircraft. Only minor fires were observed on the seventh and twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building. Nevertheless, WTC-7 collapsed in less than 10 seconds. WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.
21. Let's visit Shanksville, PA. Show me a single scrap that may be traced to an airliner! Show me the wreckage!

As Conan Doyle said: "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!" The official conspiracy theory is utterly impossible and may be eliminated! What is left is the truth: 911 was an inside job. No one should expect me to believe or "buy into" Bush's bullshit theory, an outrageous theory that posited 19 non-existent Arabs who cannot even be placed at the scene of the crime! Anyone expecting me to believe must PROVE IT TO ME! To Republicans, wing nuts or anyone who bought it, I say: get a working brain cell for a start! In the meantime, shut the fuck up!

Lucky Larry Silverstein got bailed out and received a whopping insurance settlement. George W. Bush (and gang) got the war that they wanted. Americans must wake up and ask: was it worth it?
This is the most tragic, sorriest chapter in U.S. history. Future historians will refer to it as the beginning of the fall of the American Empire.

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Why GOP Regimes Create Recessions/Depressions

by Len Hart, The Existentialist cowboy

Every major economist has espoused the 'LABOR THEORY of VALUE'. That includes the conservative Adam Smith and the left-leaning Karl Marx. ERGO: a declining "real' wage that should be going to labor TRICKLES (in fact, FLOWS) upward to the ruling elites.

The Axis of Reagan/GOP are wrong. Wealth does not and has never "trickled down"."Suppy Side Economics" was and remains a scam, a con sketched out, it is said, on a napkin by Arthur Laffer. Laffer is remembered for his "Laffer curve" said to illustrate the theory that by reducing taxes for the very wealthy would result in increased production.

The GOP embraced it immediately! They claimed that by cutting taxes for their 'base' of wealthy folk, wealth would trickle down and create jobs. The very opposite occurred. Reagan's tax cuts were followed by a depression of some two years, the deepest, longest depression since Hoover's big one!

Not addressed with Laffers' curve is the fact that elites have the purchasing power to bid prices UP! That's not inflation! It's THEFT! At least since Ronald Reagan occuped the White House, the GOP has tried to peddle tax cuts benefiting only the eilte classes with various forms of trickle down theory. It has never worked! By now, the wealthy (if not everyone else) knows that 'trickle down" or "supply side theory" is bunkum. The elite classes, however, will always resurrect it if it is believed that they can milk it for another tax cut or "stimulus" as they often like to call it.

The elites know what the general public does not: wealth does not 'trickle down'. Rather --it is labor which creates value and 'value' is the very soruce of a nation'swealth. Windfalls and tax cuts are not re-invested in ways that create jobs. They are squirreled away offshore or, in other ways, removed from circulation. The results are obvious: a recession/depression or --at best --a slow down follows every GOP tax cut. Every GOP administration since 1900 has presided over a recession/depression. Just a fluke? Not a chance!

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The Mask of Wotan

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Jung's influence has been keenly felt among screenwriters, novelists, and 'literati' who often speak of a "character's shadow", one of several "archetypes", a mirror image of what writers call the "higher self".

Related to Jung is the work of Russian folk tale expert, Vladimir Propp, who thought of "archetypes" as "masks" deliberately worn by "characters". Masks are worn in both stories and in life for one of two purposes or both: to reveal and/or to hide.

In most cases a benign public mask is worn to hide facets of the personality with which the character has not yet made peace. It is a mistake, however, to equate "the shadow self" with evil. It is merely the hidden self —the object of one's search for oneself. All "quest" stories are symbolic of this process.

In both Propp and Jung, the idea is to peel away this "social facade", this "mask". The metaphor "peel away”, however; suggests that the process is an easy one but that is rarely the case. Masks are the gestalt of one's various defense mechanisms and unconscious anxieties. "Peeling them away" reveals an "authentic self" that is often difficult to reach and more difficult to confront or deal with. Throughout the 50's existentialists and other "beatniks" talked about getting down to one's "real self". Jung believed that this “real self” was the source of vitality and creativity lurking behind a "neurotic shield" —a mask!

Jung was influenced by numerous mystical religions and Taoism where terms like "inner room", "the great void," the "realm of essence," the source of things", the "Id", the "Creative Unconscious" are common.

The biggest obstacle to objective truth is one's own self image or "mask". We are inclined to believe whatever is consistent with whatever belief system makes us feel good about ourselves. In America, an entire political party espouses what was once called “supply side” economics but now more often referred to as “trickle down” theory.

The theory is discounted by almost every reputable economist upon abundant objective and verifiable data. That this theory continues to be popular suggests that it's appeal does not lie in objective truth. “Trickle down” economics is most surely a convenient rationalization of an increasingly self-absorbed life style catered to by the mass media. Has modern America become a culture premised upon mass denial?

In 1936, Jung was trying to figure out what was happening in Germany —just as many are trying to understand what is happening in America today. Jung wrote an essay called "Wotan" and in it, he tried to understand developments under Hitler, 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." I am not sure what "gods" have come to life in America —but I am more inclined to characterize them as fallen demigods, if not demons. Gods or Demons, they are but manifestations of the human personality. There may be a "Wotan" in all of us.

A “mask” is but the smiley face we show the world; it's origin is the lie that we tell ourselves. I recently watched a PBS documentary about a Japanese sergeant who "supervised" British and Australian POW's in Southeast Asia during WWII. Though he had been convicted of war crimes in connection with the treatment of the POW's, the man —some 55 years after the fact —still denied that thousands of POWs had been literally worked and starved to death under his supervision. He denied that he had beaten many of them himself with wire whips.

There is an old saying that the truth will set you free. But here was a man who by his denial had made himself prisoner to the lie —his own lie. In Jungian terms, his life --premised as it was upon the falsehood that he told himself --was "inauthentic".

Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the American psychologist at Nuremberg, came to some conclusions based on his experiences keeping Nazi war criminals alive until final sentencing could be carried out. He said that he had come to understand the nature of "evil". Evil, he said, was an utter lack of empathy. I might add: that empathy with another is only possible 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 him/herself or in another is a Nazi in spirit; and “Nazism” typifies what Jung would have called the "inauthentic" life, a life lived upon lies and denial. A life lived behind a false mask.

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The Lessons of Recent History

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In his essay on Shakespeare's “Julius Caesar”, W.H. Auden observed that theatrical directors throughout the 30's found it quite natural to make of Caesar a great fascist dictator, more like Mussolini than Hitler. The conspirators, he claimed, were “liberals”. Up to date analogies are irresistible. For a brief period not long before Iraq fell into utter chaos, it could be said that George W. Bush had “...crossed the Rubicon”. There are better analogies to be made.

In 1947, Auden would say of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar that it had “great relevance to our time”. That is still true, though Auden believed that Julius Caesar was about the society of ancient Rome on the very edge of doom. Auden did not believe that to be true of Western Civilization in 1947. But is it true of the US, Britain, and Western Civilization today? Are we perched on the edge of doom?

Historically, Octavian would “ride the storm” eventually prevailing at Actium, and, assuming the title “Augustus”. He would give to Rome another 400 years. One suspects that Octavian's prospects were not nearly as gloomy as those we face today.

Auden would write of the post Roman-Hellenic world that it collapsed of a spiritual failure, a lack of nerve, an inability to make sense of what was going on. This is the analogy that is to be made with the present. It is not surprising that a far flung war begun upon a pack of malicious and deliberate lies would drag on for four years. It did so because few in power understood the “story” behind the day-to-day news. The BBC stated flatly: the Iraq war has sent shock waves throughout the Middle East that will be felt for a generation. That is, in fact, an optimistic assessment.

There was yet another layer of complication. It had to do with the sense of community found lacking in America and, perhaps, to a lesser degree elsewhere. Auden makes much of the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays. “First things in Shakespeare are always important”, he writes. It is, therefore, significant that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene. It is just as significant that Bush Jr seized the White House following a “stolen election” and the very worst Supreme Court decision (Bush v Gore) since Dred-Scott.

A “crowd” is always one of three important types: societies, communities, and crowds. One belongs to a society in which the individual has a function or to which one contributes in one way or another. Communities are composed of people who share a common love, goal or culture. Crowds, by contrast, are composed of members who neither belong nor join. Members of crowds are mere numerical additions to the crowd. The crowd, Auden writes, has no function. That cannot be said of the “criminal gang” that attacked vote re-counters in Florida.

Crowds arise when communities break down, when individuals for various reasons cannot share a common culture, love or enthusiasm with others. Education, says Auden, has little to do with it. Knowledgeable, highly educated people often become members of crowds for various reasons and thus help drive the enigma of fascism.

An over-simplification is tempting. Crowds are fertile ground, nurturing fascism and other forms of authoritarian governments and regimes. This was witnessed in Germany as A. Hitler rose to power. If the manner in which Shakespeare begins his plays is important, then it must be pointed out that Julius Caesar begins with a crowd scene and ends with the loss of Republic.

A crowd is most often ugly, fickle, angry yet manipulable. Kierkegaard would write of the public as merely a large crowd, “...a Roman emperor, a large well-fed figure, suffering from boredom, looking only for the sensual intoxication of laughter.” He would call the “press” the “public's dog” that is often set upon the truly great. Thus, the crowd, manipulated by demagogues and charlatans, becomes a mob.

I submit that the increasingly isolated, suburban nature of American society, in the midst of plenty, devolved into islands of isolation. The word community merely attached to a soulless suburb does not make a real community. It's only a sub-division at best. At worst –a dormitory. An affluent America became a nation of crowds, a public only loosely held together, isolated by the science of demographics whose very purpose is separation and analysis.

Given those conditions, the events of 911 were exploitable. America became an angry mob. The conditions were ripe for a would-be dictator to seize “the crown”, vowing as he did to “...export death and destruction to the four corners of the earth.” This would-be Caesar was hardly swept into office with a genuine popular mandate. Many say the election was stolen. I am among those who believe that. Certainly, Gore received more popular votes in Florida. But for 911, Bush might have been retired.

By the time Bush had survived a full term, there was little hope that a new Congress would force a positive change. I was always hesitant to believe that Congress truly knew what was going on. Until America finds its soul, its sense of real community, it will remain like a latter-day Roman-Hellenic world on the edge of doom. There is no Octavian in the wings. There is little hope that our nation will survive another 400 years or so.

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The Day the Earth Stood Still

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I just watched –again –the Keanu Reeves version of 'The Day the Earth Stood Still', a high tech re-write/re-make of the original with Michael Rennie as Klaato. Both versions are allegorical, high-tech “scripture” in which a “being” from “the heavens” comes to earth where he is presumed to have “died” for our sins. Does this sound familiar?

Klaatu arrives on earth with a message: people of Earth, get a clue, resolve your differences, shut up, get your shit together! In the original, Klaatu (Michael Rennie) assumes the name “Carpenter”. Again –does that sound familiar? What biblical character do you know who was a “carpenter”?

Both film and Bible versions are parables in which are found expressions of our desire to be “saved”, specifically, we seek to be saved from ourselves.

Unlike the King James version, Klaatu does not go around preaching or healing the sick. In the original version, there is a “resurrection” in which Klaatu, is restored to life. Like Jesus, Klaatu appears once again before the “assembled peoples” (disciples?) with a final warning which translated into contemporary American “English” is “this is your last chance to get your shit together!” Then, returning to his spaceship, he leaves the Earth. In Hollywood-speak, it's “the new testament meets Roswell”.

In the first film version, the black and white version, Klaatu leaves us with a warning that ultimately there is no savior but ourselves! But –would he not have been a savior had people listened? Would not the Biblical “Jesus” have been a savior if things had just worked about a bit differently? It seems to me that a “savior” is a cultural-literary icon or archetype. Klaatu, for example, just “laid it on the line”. In so many words, he told “us” to take responsibility for what we have done with our selves and our planet --the only planet on which it is known that we can live! Mere belief or faith is no salvation nor are they a substitute for responsibility and positive action.

Klaatu's message is like that of a stern parent: grow up! Clean up your own room! Don't make life miserable for other people! Respect the environment! Live with it! It is because of this that Klaatu will never be confused with the modern protestant conception of Jesus. Klaatu did not "put on" a phony “sincere face” just before passing the plate. You won't find a Klaatu-Jesus discussed in the huge mega-churches (Lakewood, Houston) which, because of their obsession with amassing vast, very worldly fortunes seems at odds with either Klaatu or that “Jesus” of scripture who performed miracles in order to feed a multitude.

Today, those who support the mega-churches are probably inclined to chalk up your poverty to your wicked ways, your refusal to kiss up to icons and self-appointed prophets (profits?). Did "Jesus" blame the victim as the new "churches" clearly do?

Both films and the New Testament are artifacts of a culture which after some 2,000 years has yet to grow up, has yet to accept responsibility for its own fate, has yet to accept responsibility for taking the world to the brink of nuclear destruction to say nothing of the human war on the natural environment. If we should destroy ourselves in a nuclear holocaust who is to blame but ourselves?
Jean-Paul Sartre said: "A man is nothing else but what he makes of himself!" It is as true to say of the human race that we have nothing to blame but ourselves if we should “choose” to become extinct at the end of a world-wide conflagration of our own making.

"Liberal" means "Free"

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

I grew up among people obsessed with “demons”; the scariest “demon” of all was the “Red Menace”. We were kept in a state of fear –fear of commies (found under beds or outhouses apparently), fear of “labor” (strikers were called unpatriotic) and the most lethal smear of all: LIBERAL.

I looked it up. “Liberal” means “free”. I dared to asked teachers: “What's wrong with being free?” I never got an intelligent or satisfying response, at least one that could be heard among the gasps. If I ever got a direct response, I was told that a nation's government should not be involved in the "re-distribution of wealth". The "re-distribution of wealth", I was told, was "communism" and Karl Marx its biggest and scariest advocate.

If Karl Marx had been a communist, so what? So-called "capitalists" are experts at "wealth distribution". They have succeeded in looting the nation for the benefit of just one percent of the total population. What is that if not a re-distribution of wealth, the charge most often used by "conservatives" to tar "liberals"?

At the same time productivity declined precipitously under GOP regimes. As a result, the US is on bottom with the world's largest negative Current Account Balance. The Current Account Balance was previously referred to as the balance of trade deficit, a term apparently abandoned amid hopes that the "deficit" might be corrected. To my knowledge, it never was. I suppose “Current Account Balance” just looks better. “Deficit” was made a “bad” word by "conservatives" who had hoped to "position" the left, to label them and hence prevent a productive debate or --better for the conservatives --end all debate whatsoever before it could begin.

America's “financial relationship” with respect to the rest of the world must be taken into account if U.S. imperialism is to be explained. There is evidence to support the thesis that Rome's long-lived experiment with conquest and imperialism was due to its economics. The most obvious clue is the literal auction of the empire by the Praetorian Guard to one Didius Julianus, a nobleman. Julianus would not live long enough to regret his purchase. He was murdered by the Guard and the empire re-seized! Today, that is called "armed robbery".

In our time "capitalism" has often been rammed down our throats. That is especially true in the U.S. Little better, it is sold to us by capitalist blowhards with slogans, claptrap, lies and propaganda. They have done so with “moneys” that might otherwise have “trickled down”. But for GOP tax cuts it did not! Wink and nod! Even worse, we –the people –have financed our own indoctrination.

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How the GOP Hijacked Texas

By Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Millions of good people in Texas are just as appalled by the rise of the GOP in that once great state as are Democrats/progressives/liberals in any other part of the country. Epithets targeting Texas are misplaced.

Texas is NOT your enemy.

 We have seen the 'enemy' and it's the GOP! The GOP knows full-well what happened in Texas and the role played by George H.W. Bush in bringing it all about.

The demonization of Texas plays into GOP hands. It's bunkum.

For some 100 years --from Gov Richard Coke, January 15, 1874 to Dolph Briscoe, January 16, 1973 --Texas was a Democratic/Progressive state.

The conversion to 'red' began with the arrival of the Bush crime and kooky cult clan of crooked, lying Republicans. The way was paved by Tom DeLay who gerrymandered the state creating for the GOP a party machine, a dependable, solid 'base' from which it could spread its crack pot, evil lies and bile.

Republicans say the plan did not dilute minority votes. But a 73-page memo, dated Dec. 12, 2003, was provided to The Washington Post by a person who claims otherwise.

Justice Department lawyers concluded that the landmark Texas congressional redistricting plan spearheaded by Rep. Tom DeLay (R) violated the Voting Rights Act, according to a previously undisclosed memo obtained by The Washington Post. But senior officials overruled them and approved the plan.

--Justice Staff Saw Texas Districting As Illegal. Dan Eggen, Washington Post Staff Writer"

Under the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Texas and other states with a history of discriminatory elections are required to submit changes in their voting systems or election maps for approval by the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

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The "Malibu Effect" and Why Greed is Not Good for You

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Inflation is crudely defined as too many dollars chasing too few products. A good example of inflation: in 1960 $30,000 would buy you a mansion. 30,000 today will buy you an outhouse. That's most probably inflation. Not inflation, however, is the effect that income disparities have on markets. When a smaller percentage of the population takes in a greater percentage of the nation's wealth, people who may seem to be earning the same amount of money are actually LOSING ground because of what I call the Malibu effect. As the rich get even richer, they bid up the prices of desirable items. Malibu, for example, is just another stretch of beach. But neither you nor I can afford to live there. This is not inflation; this is money controlling the market for the benefit of the very rich. As was said in the motion picture Wall Street: "Greed is Good"!

More accurately: greed is good but only for the privileged elite, the GOP base. This is seen to have happened during the Reagan Administration as Reagan took credit for bringing inflation under control. It was high unemployment over a period of some 16 months that brought inflation under control --not Reagan! But --that's beside the point. The point is that even as inflation was "brought under control", the GINI Index began a trend of exponential increases --the direct result of Reagan's tax cut of 1982.

Economists use the GINI index to measure inequality, disparities in income. Therefore, the loss of ground that middle and lower income families and workers experienced during the Reagan regime had nothing to do with inflation and everything to do with the fact that they had been "bid" out of a lifestyle that they might very well have afforded just five, ten, twenty years prior.

Someone posting on the now-defunct NPR "How's Bush Doing? Board" wrote:

I've been working for nigh onto 36 years; maybe I've finally made it.

How much credit did Clinton's prosperity get for that? The GOP was more interested in his sex life. When the nation finally began to emerge from the effects of Reagan's tax cut for the rich [namely, the 16 month long recession, the longest since the Great Depression, it was the result of "liberal" economics policies --not "conservative" ones.

That there was a recovery at all in Reagan's regime is a triumph of Keynesian economics --not the policies of that GOP "darling" --Milton Friedman. Keynes --not surprisingly --is reviled by "conservatives". Despite GOP lies to the contrary, Keynes defended the capitalist system. What the GOP really despises about Keynes is that he did not pretend to defend the "mythical" market economy model. Keynes proposed that prudent and well-planned government spending could prevent recessions. Just as Einstein's General Theory of Relativity was "proven" by putting it to the test, Keynes theories have been --by and large --proven in England, at least by those governments having the good sense to implement them.

In the U.S., unfortunately, the right wing associates Keynes with FDR --whom they still revile however  irrationally. In fact, FDR "stumbled" upon Keynesian economics by accident. In the first 100 days of his administration, he tried everything hoping SOMETHING would work. Those programs that worked turned out to have been KEYNESIAN! "Conservatives" still have not forgiven either FDR or Keynes. It has been said: a conservative is never so miserable as when times are good.

Sadly, however, FDR was not yet spending enough to stimulate an economy that had all but died. WWII changed all that. Expenditures jumped from some 15 billion to some 105 billion almost instantly. I have not taken the time to check those figures but I am sure that my recall is within the range and can be checked out. To the extent that the increased government spending made its way into wealth creation i.e. manufacturing etc, WWII ended the depression. But the effect tended to confirm Keynes.

What is worrisome is this: the United States became addicted to war. If we are not waging a Cold War, a War on Terrorism, a Korean War, a Viet Nam War, would we slip back into depression? Most certainly --if "conservatives" get their way. Conservatives will oppose government spending on what they consider to be "social programs", but, hypocritically, have no objection to even larger amounts of spending on the military or on corporate welfare.

Reagan ranks near the bottom of the list of American Presidents since WWII in terms of job creation. But Reagan is near the top if not the top in the manner in which he helped create the "ruling elite", in other words, the top one percent of the population.

Sir/St Thomas More describes modern day Republicans:

...so God help me, 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.

--Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

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Brave New World

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origin of the title of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World is found in Shakespeare's "The Tempest", specifically Miranda's speech, Act V, Scene I:

O wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in't.

—William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act V, Scene I, ll. 203–206

Shakespeare's Miranda (The Tempest) had grown up on an isolated island. She had known only her father, servants, spirits and an "enslaved savage". There was one notable exception: Ariel, "...a spirit of the air", who had refused to serve the witch, Sycorax. As a result, Ariel was imprisoned in a tree until rescued by Prospero.

Early on, Ariel reveals a plot to murder Prospero. Ariel's obedience is an important symbol of Prospero's humanity, ameliorating Prospero and humanizing actions taken by Prospero against his enemies.

Upon seeing other people at last, Miranda is understandably overcome. She utters the famous line: "O brave new world, That has such people in't." It is irony if not sarcasm. What she has witnessed is not civil behavior but that of drunken louts. Huxley employs the same device when the "savage" John witnesses a a "brave new world". Huxley's work --Brave New World --dates to 1931 when he was living in Italy. Already established as a writer and social satirist, Huxley was by this time a regular contributor to Vanity Fair and Vogue. "Brave New World" was Huxley's fifth novel and his first "dystopian work". Huxley was always eager to credit utopian works by various authors to include H.G. Wells, notably his A Modern Utopia (1905) and Men Like Gods of 1923. It was Wells' "hopeful vision of the future" that inspired Huxley to write a parody.

This "parody" became Brave New World. Huxley's vision of the future, however, was quite unlike his original inspirations. Huxley served up what some critics have called a "frightening vision of the future". Huxley himself called it a "negative utopia", a "dystopia". He was clearly inspired by by Wells' own The Sleeper Awakes -ahead of its time with respect to corporate imposed tyranny and "behavioral conditioning".

In 1999, the Modern Library ranked Brave New World fifth on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century.[1] In 2003, Robert McCrum writing for The Observer listed Brave New World number 53 in "the top 100 greatest novels of all time",[2] and the novel was listed at number 87 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.[3]

Brave New World

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GOP Hero, Saint Thomas More, was a Communist

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Thomas More --now 'Saint Thomas More' --was surely the most prominent “secular humanist” in England during the reign of Henry VIII. What makes More a “humanist”, like his friend Erasmus, is his belief in the perfectibility of humankind. What makes More a “secularist” was his insistence, unto his own death, in the separation of “God’s law” and “man’s law”, a principle that we refer to as the separation of Church and State.  Lest we forget, More died at the hands of an all powerful "state". Though it was not Henry VIII who said l'etat, c'est moi he might as well have done.

When the GOP embarked upon its unholy crusade to impeach Bill Clinton, it's many flacks tried to lend an imprimatur of legitimacy to their schemes by invoking the name of St/Sir Thomas More.

Typically, the GOP and prosecutor Kenneth Star specifically, mangled More and, in the process, proved themselves to be a party of mediocre intellects, opportunists, shallow sophists, perhaps, liars to a person! The following excerpt from Starr's interview with Diane Sawyer...

Kenneth Starr: Well, I love the letter and the spirit of the law, but it`s the letter of the law that protects us all. And, you know, St. Thomas Moore, Sir Thomas Moore put it so elegantly, you know, in A Man For All Seasons. He took the law very seriously and said, `That`s what protects us. It`s not the will of a human being. It`s not Henry VIII`s will. Henry VIII is under the law. We are all equal under the law.

In fact --no where in the play A Man For All Seasons did the character of Sir Thomas More say anything resembling that. More defended the obedience to "...man`s law, not God`s" [that makes More a secular humanist --a bad word among many throughout the right wing] and never made reference to either Henry VIII's law by name or description. The actual exchange that both David Schippers and Starr are both so fond of misquoting is as follows:

Roper: So now you`d give the Devil benefit of law!
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get at the Devil?
Roper: I`d cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh! (advances on Roper) And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you --where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? (He leaves him) This country’s planted thick with laws --man's laws, not God's [emphasis mine]--and if you cut them down --and you’re just the man to do it --d`you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? (Quietly) Yes, I`d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety`s sake.

In yet another memorable exchange:

Margaret More: Father, that man's bad.
Sir Thomas More: There's no law against that.
William Roper: There is: God's law.
Sir Thomas More: Then God can arrest him.

The dialogue above was written by Robert Bolt for the play and movie: A Man for All Seasons. But should you want to read the original More you will find comments equally biting, equally witty, comments that will most certainly curl the hair of modern right wing reactionaries and intellectual gnomes! More, they will charge, is a socialist for his comments having to do with the business class:

...so God help me, 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.

--Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

Clearly, none of the Republicans attacking Bill Clinton had understood the movie. None of them had bothered to learn anything about their “hero” other than what they had seen in a movie. Indeed, this film is among the best movies ever made. Sadly, the real meaning of the film was lost on Kenneth Starr. He came away from it having learned all the wrong lessons and that may be worse than having learned nothing at all.

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How the NRA Helped Create a Culture of Guns, Death and Violence

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

A culture of guns and violence may be traced to the many myths and lies told about the Second Amendment by one lobby organization specifically: the NRA. The NRA has worked assiduously to create a culture of guns, lies and violence in the United States. Sadly for our country, they have largely succeeded. Their efforts have borne fruit. Almost anyone can get a gun; lies about the Second Amendment are unquestioned by intimidated politicians who should know better; fatal shooting rampages will eventually cease to shock an inured public.

The BBC was on the right track but, themselves, went wrong. Consider the following from their recent broadcast in the wake of the latest campus shooting:

The United States has the largest number of guns in private hands of any country in the world with 60 million people owning a combined arsenal of over 200 million firearms.The US constitution, which was written in 1787, enshrines the people's right to keep and bear arms in its Second Amendment.

--BBC World Service

The BBC is most probably correct about the number of firearms inside the US. That the United States has nurtured and thus become a culture of both guns and violence is true on its face. The BBC is correct as far it goes. Indeed, fatal shootings in recent years, many involving teenagers, are troubling.

But is it accurate to say that those shootings, as horrible as they are, have made the issue of gun control a key debate in US politics? No. There is no real debate about that in America. The NRA has been extraordinarily successful in perpetrating a gestalt of myths about the Second Amendment and, in doing so, it has re-framed the issue. It is no longer a debate about needless death, carnage and violence but about mythical rights under the Constitution, rights never intended by the framers, rights never intended by James Madison, the man who wrote the Second Amendment. The NRA has hoodwinked a gullible nation.

Sadly, the NRA has no opposition. The Democrats are split down the middle on the gun violence issue. The GOP sold out long ago. This 'impasse' is due to many cultural factors that may be impossible to address. The best hope for rational debate is a concerted effort to disseminate the many truths about the Second Amendment in opposition to the NRA's many lies about it.

The NRA, for example, lies about 'U.S. v Miller'! The NRA lies about U.S. v Miller because that decision is in opposition to NRA lies about the Second Amendment. The NRA leaves out an entire phrase --the part about a 'well-regulated militia'. In U.S. v Miller, the Supremes recognized the obvious: the 'right' to keep and bear arms occurs only within the context of a well-regulated militia.

'Miller' outlines the "collective" duties and responsibilities of militias, the historical context in which the word is defined. It considers, in turn, the role of states in regulating militias. The NRA is therefore wrong, and the decision of the Supreme Court in US v Miller is the law, whether the NRA likes it or not. Incidentally, one of the best "histories" of the role of the militias during the so-called "revolution" is to be found in the body of U.S. v Miller itself. Because this history is not written by the NRA it is a breath of fresh air.

Another absurd theory often favored by NRA types would have you believe that what the founders meant by "militia" were un-regulated bands of well armed citizenry beyond the control and the regulation of states or national government. The proponents of this theory will tell you that the term "regulated" in the Second Amendment does not mean regulated "...by the government". Regulated, we are expected to believe, means self-regulated and equipped. In other words, armed to the teeth and unaccountable to anyone. That's absurd, of course.

Believing the militias had been neglected, Madison, if he were alive today, would denounce the NRA position. It was the opinion of both Alexander Hamilton and James Madison that the states had neglected the regulation of their militias. Madison wrote the second amendment concurrent with his oft-stated criticism of the states. He sought to redress his grievance in that famous single sentence:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Second Amendment, Bill of Rights, U.S. Constitution

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The Paradigm Paradox

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

'It is difficult to understand why so-called "progressive", "liberals", and "leftists," who so vehemently opposed the Vietnam War, now belong to the Council on Foreign Relations.
If you have read this blog before, you must know then that I have serious problems with 'so-called' liberals/progressives not the least of which is that too many lack the courage of their convictions; too many have tried to bargain with Satan. Too many are uncommitted, to be sure. But, more importantly, to what --precisely --should we be committed?

Clinton's 'triangulation' of the center merely encouraged the 'rabid right'. Teddy got it right: speak softly and carry a BIG stick. Too often the 'left wing' (for lack of an accurate term), carries a limp stick if any stick at all.

If the American left were given a 'GOP BUDGET' (like the monies gopps get from elites) the American left would be nuts if did did run rough shod over the 'right', kick 'em in their sorry asses, reduce to rubble and ruins the financial edifices put up by the Axes of K-street and Wall Street.

As for roots, modern 'progressives' should study Teddy: 'speak softly and carry a big stick!'

Now --the rank and file progressive/left leaning liberal is NUTS if he/she sits out an election because a leftist Messiah is not on the ballot!

Progressives should begin renewed organizational efforts from within the Democratic ranks and file. There is no viable 'Progressive party' as such. Read Saul Alinsky, a "leftist" activist, strategist, and tireless champion of progressive causes. Alinsky --sadly --has been adopted by the GOP and cited often in their 'campaign manuals'. I know that because I had procured some even as Tom DeLay was consolidating his base of power in S.E. Texas. In other words, he was gerrymandering the state. The GOP cannot win without cheating!

They are both crooked and stupid --a bad combination!

Apparently, the state has yet to recover from his meddling. Texas had been Democratic, often progressive/liberal. In those days, it was called the GREAT STATE OF TEXAS! With the rise of the GOP crime syndicate it is no longer referred to as 'great': education has declined; pollution has gotten worse; the prisons are full as crime rates always rise under GOP regimes. Declines of all sorts define the crooked, cult-like crime syndicate that is otherwise known as "GOP"!

My point: the GOP has practiced tactics urged by Alinsky. Why the hell have the Democratic party allowed right-wing nuts to have 'adopted' Alinsky's tactics and --worse --using them to subvert the progressive cause in general?

'The fault, Dear Brutus, lies not in our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings!

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Recalling America's Lost "Progressive Era"

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy


Neither Edith Wharton nor E. M. Forster admired it, but Louis Auchincloss calls "The Wings of the Dove" the greatest of Henry James' novels. Published in 1902, the novel represented something of a “comeback for James”, whose only bestseller, Daisy Miller, had appeared more than two decades earlier. Set amid fashionable London drawing rooms and gilded Venetian palazzos, the story concerns a pair of lovers who conspire to obtain the fortune of a doomed American heiress. This version is said to be “the definitive New York Edition” appearing in 1907 with the author's Preface.

As Hollywood screenwriters might “pitch it”:

... a naïve young woman becomes both victim and redeemer in James's meticulous “map” (ordeal?) of drama, treachery and self-betrayal. “It seems to me that I know the characters even more intimately than I know the characters in the earlier novels of his Balzac period. The Wings of the Dove represents the pinnacle of James's prose.” said Louis Auchincloss.

Many British Novels depict the deterioration and ultimate collapse of the British "class system", most prominently the work of Vera Brittain. However, James captures it perfectly in this intimate portrait of three people trapped in a system that Bush would create in America, a system of primogeniture and privilege, a system of those who have and those who do not. As Billie Holiday would sing later in America: “God Bless the Child that's Got His Own!”

Money, you've got lots of friends
Crowding round the door
When you're gone, spending ends
They don't come no more Rich relations give
Crust of bread and such
You can help yourself
But don't take too much
Mama may have,Papa may have
But God bless the child that's got his own, That's got his own

There are undoubtedly many other models that do have a chance of working, that can be devised and improvised so that short falls of the various systems might be addressed.
For many, "economics" has become ideological and their view of it is "religious" in nature. Supply-side economics, for example, is accepted and espoused as a matter of "faith". Like various cultists, "supply siders" will not tolerate other world views.

I have often thought that it was the long cold war that radicalized economic thinking in this country but it's not so simple as that. Much of it has to do with the nature of the "very rich". There is a line in Henry James' “The Wings of the Dove” in which a young newspaper reporter warns his idealistic, "revolutionary" friends that the aristocrats would not reform themselves and, therefore, must not be entrusted to rule the British Empire. That story is set in London, circa 1900.

Arguably – the most radical period in world history was roughly 1840-1920. Karl Marx and colleague Friedrich Engels had issued the Manifest der kommunistischen Partei (Communist Manifesto) (1848) which they had hoped would precipitate a world wide social revolution. They very nearly succeeded. Socialism was advanced –even in America. Eugene Debs was the Socialist candidate for President. It was Debs who famously said in his defense: “While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free”. Almost concurrently, Lincoln Steffens was exposing abuses throughout an increasingly unfair capitalist system. Anarchists found a voice in Emma Goldman.

When a viable labor movement began to frighten a growing class of “robber barons”, the “evil empire” of "robber barons" would strike back. By 1914, the “working man's” great champion, Clarence Darrow, was severely chastened but eventually acquitted of bribery charges in Los Angeles. His most egregious sin? He had dared defend two brothers –the McNamaras –on charges that they had bombed the Los Angeles Times building which ultimately caught fire and burned down. Though he brokered a successful “plea bargain”, he would never defend another labor case.

World War I –instead of energizing the U.S. movement as it had done in Russia –rallied "patriots" to the flag and had the effect –as do all wars –of limiting dissent, free speech and free thought! America marched off to war singing a George M. Cohan tune: “Over There!” Later –the Hoover Administration would deny World War I veterans their bonuses and ordered a military attack upon the veterans who dared demand their due!

The U.S. Army attack upon “their own” was a nation's ultimate betrayal of those who put their lives on the line for its defense. One is always at a loss for words to describe a betrayal so venal.
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My Letter to My Congressman

by Len Hart, the Existentialist Cowboy

Bush's criminal and murderous adventures in Iraq should never be forgotten. It was this combination of crookedness and incompetence that very nearly destroyed our nation. And we are not yet out of the woods! One wonders, where is Bush Jr these days? Where does he hide?

At the height of the Iraq debacle, I wrote a letter to my congressman. He replied --such as it was! I replied to his letter and refuted him point-by-point:

          John Culberson
          Member of Congress
          7th District

          Honorable Member of Congress:
         Thank you for your reply to my concerns about the Bush administration's case for War in Iraq. I           have considered your points –in blockquotes –followed by my reply:

I believe that the Bush administration made the correct decision to remove Saddam Hussein from power and liberate Iraq after Saddam continue to disobey numerous United Nations resolutions and refuse diplomatic offers.

No one disagrees that Saddam was a "bad man". With all due respect, that is not the issue. The world is full of "bad men" and, in most cases, the United States does not invade and occupy their countries. One wonders: what is the compelling difference in Iraq? That it has oil?

Secondly, it is unclear and most certainly not proven by anything available in the public record that Saddam was not in compliance with United Nations resolutions when he was attacked and invaded. U.N. inspectors had, in fact, asked for a reasonable amount of time in which to complete their tasks.
Only if they had been allowed to complete their responsibilities could it have been known conclusively whether or not Saddam was or was not in compliance with specific U.N. Resolutions. Moreover, U.N. resolution 1441 orders Iraq to comply with said resolutions but does not sanction the use of force by the United States –specifically invasion of a sovereign nation and occupation of same by U.S. Forces.

Lacking the "cover" of International law or sanction, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq is a violation of the Nuremberg Principles. [Principles of the Nuremberg Tribunal,]

Saddam used chemical weapons on his own people many times, and since the end of hostilities dozens of mass graves and torture rooms have been discovered.

Saddam's use of chemical weapons "...on his own people" is a reference to a well-publicized gassing of Kurds in 1988 –some 15 years ago. Persian Gulf I was fought since that time and the U.N.'s Hans Blix has raised the credible possibility that Hussein's weapons were destroyed either by the Persian Gulf War itself or voluntarily by Saddam in its wake –or both! In any case, no weapons have been found since U.S. troops have occupied Iraq.

Moreover, former CIA analyst Stephen Pelletiere has argued persuasively that Saddam's alleged gassing of Kurds in the waning months of the Iran-Iraq war may have been perpetrated by Iran, not Iraq! If that is the case, then none of the argument with regard to Saddam's alleged gassing of the Kurds is relevant.

Let us assume for the sake of argument that Saddam indeed used gas some 15 years ago! At that time, the Saddam regime was nothing more than a U.S. puppet regime. What was the source of his weapons if not the United States? That question has not been answered by either our elected officials or the mass media.

References to the "gassing" incident in the Bush case for war is really this subtle argument: because Saddam used gas on his own people, if he should obtain nuclear weapons, he will use them. However, Saddam had many opportunities to use poison gas and biological agents on the Coalition forces and Israel during the Persian Gulf I” but not even Bush partisans have alleged that he did so.
UN arms inspectors later found warheads capable of delivering these weapons that could have been used by Iraq but were not!

More recently, it was widely reported and speculated in the Bush administration's run up to war that in the event, Saddam Hussein was most likely to use biochemical weapons if he felt under mortal threat. He was most certainly under mortal threat –yet there is no evidence that he used such weapons –either on his own people who were expected to rise in up revolt against Saddam and in support of the invading U.S. army or against U.S. troops. Most speculation about why he did not involves complex violations of Occam's Razor and other logical legerdemain. The simplest explanation for Hussein's failure to use such weapons is that he, in fact, did not have any.

He never offered any evidence that he had ceased his chemical, biological, and nuclear programs.

But Bush never offered proof or evidence that Saddam every had chemical, biological or nuclear programs. By that time, the burden of proof was on Bush to prove his assertions. Those who assert must prove. This is true in any legitimate courtroom; it is true in 'debate'; it should be true of propaganda but that it is not is a defining characteristic of propaganda! Negatives cannot be proven. It's an old but dirty trick.

Nevertheless U.N. inspectors had been and were doing their jobs in Iraq, even as Colin Powell made his presentation to the United Nations. The mechanism by which Saddam's claims could have been proven or disproved was in place. Clearly – the Bush administration had nothing to gain by allowing the truth to be discovered and heard!

But the search for WMD continues as it had before the invasion but now the American people are picking up a huge tab. The cost of the war and the occupation must be added to the cost of a weapons search. The U.N. inspectors could have been allowed to complete their jobs at much less cost. It is increasingly difficult to see what has been gained.

We have learnt from September 11 that we cannot afford to ignore those who hate us and are willing to use weapons of mass destruction.

Our current policies –if continued –are guaranteed to multiply the number of people who hate us.

The search team led by Dr. David Kay has already discovered troubling evidence about Saddam's intentions.

Here is the thesis sentence from Dr. David Kay's report which I have read in its entirety: “We have discovered dozens of WMD-related programme activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations.” David Kay also cautioned: “It is far too early to reach any definitive conclusions and, in some areas, we may never reach that goal.”
Nevertheless, George Bush and Colin Powell most certainly reached definite and firm conclusions however baseless. Nevertheless, these “conclusions” made up their case for war and Colin Powell's presentation to the United Nations of ten year old, black and white satellite photos.

Again –with all due respect: the American people were not "sold" war with Iraq on the basis of Saddam's intentions; we were told repeatedly that Saddam –in fact –HAD weapons of mass destruction not that he was merely intending to develop them or that he had merely a "programme". This focus on "intent" is new to administration rhetoric and nothing less than an ex post facto case for war! But it was not the case that Bush and Colin Powell made in the run up to war or the case that Colin Powell had made to the United Nations.

It has uncovered papers showing Saddam recently attempted to purchase missile parts from North Korea.

That's hardly surprising but it does point up the hypocritical differences in the way Bush treats North Korea –a nation which openly pursues the development of Nuclear Weaponry –and Iraq. It also raises the question of whether or not U.S. rhetoric has impelled other nations to seek not only missile parts but also "yellow cake". Besides –Iraq was cheated. According to the Washington Post, North Korea never made good on the deal and refused to refund some $10 million to Iraq.

Investigators have also discovered new research on biological agents and unmanned aerial vehicles that could disperse chemical or biological weapons. The team has repeatedly found evidence of deception, from burned computers to recently scrubbed missile trailers.

Intentions! If Bush and Powell had made only this case, how deep would have been the support for war?

Two Iraqi weapons scientists cooperating with Dr. Kay were shot to prevent them from telling what they know.

Every media report that I have read concerning this incident has attributed it to solely to Dr. Kay. There is, so far, no independent corroboration of motive. Secondly, the fact that two scientists who were most probably involved in a weapons program of some sort does not prove that Saddam had stockpiled weapons of mass destruction at the time of the U.S. invasion and occupation. Nor does it change the fact that there is no authorization under International Law for the U.S. attack. There is always the real possibility that the two scientists were, rather, shot to prevent their revealing the lack of WMD in Iraq.

Iraq is roughly the size of California, and Dr. Kay noted that the yet unaccounted for weapons of mass destruction could be stored in a space the size of a two car garage.

We are paying a high price in lives and dollars if the U.S. case for war has been reduced to a search for a two-car garage –a search that might have been conducted less expensively and more efficiently under the cover of International Law by U.N. inspectors.

Additionally, it is ludicrous to assert that because WMD were “unaccounted” for that they, in fact, existed. The term “unaccounted for” implies that there is a mysterious inventory somewhere against which existing reports are measured. Where is that inventory, who compiled it and how?

Until those questions are answered, any statement about “unaccounted” weapons is meaningless. Furthermore –Kay's report made no claim that Hussein had actual weapons of mass destruction although, selectively, Bush read a passage from the report that indicated that Saddam was determined to get them. That was to be expected but it hardly justifies a war of aggression. Significantly, a different tact is taken in the case of North Korea, and perhaps in the cases of other nations that have escaped the glare of administration assisted publicity. I am not sure what this proves other than an uneven, inconsistent, and impractical policy of pre-emption, a program that cannot possibly form the cornerstone of a viable foreign policy in a civilized and rational nation.

At last, there is no compelling reason to believe that Dr. Kay, however professional he may be, will find weapons when in fact there is dubious probable cause that they ever existed.
There is nothing in the Kay report that supports Bush's original case for war. The Kay report, however, was expertly used to divert attention from Bush's original case best summed up by Sen. Robert Byrd: "We were told that we were threatened by weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but they have not been seen."

We were told that the throngs of Iraqi's would welcome our troops with flowers, but no throngs or flowers appeared.

We were led to believe that Saddam Hussein was connected to the attack on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon, but no evidence has ever been produced.

We were told in 16 words that Saddam Hussein tried to buy "yellow cake" from Africa for production of nuclear weapons, but the story has turned into empty air.

We were frightened with visions of mushroom clouds, but they turned out to be only vapors of the mind.

We were told that major combat was over but 101 [as of October 17] Americans have died in combat since that proclamation from the deck of an aircraft carrier by our very own Emperor in his new clothes.Most notably, Bush himself had stated that Saddam had tried to buy “yellow cake” in Niger. That this statement may have lead to “leaks” which imperiled the CIA's search for WMD world wide is reason enough in and of itself for Congress to investigate the entire case for war, how the case was presented, how intelligence and evidence contrary to the Bush case were handled.

Still, in your letter to me, Congressman Culberson, you repeat the same discredited lies and line:

America is safer now that Saddam does not have weapons of mass destruction, and I support building a stable and prosperous Iraqi democracy that can lead by example in the Middle East.

 Congressman Culberson, letter to me

Everyone supports a stable and prosperous Iraq. The question is this: is invading and occupying a sovereign nation in violation of the Nuremberg principles a prudent way to accomplish that aim? I don't think it is and, I daresay, intelligent people agree with me. It is easy enough to assert that America is safer –but unless and until WMD are found in Iraq, it is simply fallacious to credit the Bush administration with having created or nurturing that “safety”. My neighbor may sprinkle salt on his lawn to keep elephants out of his front yard; but the fact that there are no elephants within 5,000 miles of his house hardly proves that it works. A more compelling case can be made that the world is much less safe because of the Bush doctrine of preemptive strikes.

Clearly, Bush has made no "aggressive" attempts to disarm nuclear powers Pakistan and India. North Korea, meanwhile, clearly seems to have accelerated its nuclear program as a direct result of the perceived "Bush" threat.

Furthermore, there is documentary evidence from the FBI (published by the Brookings Institution) that as Ronald Reagan waged a similar “war on terrorism” with similar rhetoric (“...you can run but you can't hide”) terrorist attacks on the United States increased. There were, in fact, three times as many attacks during the Reagan years as during the Clinton years. I doubt seriously that America, indeed, the world, is safer under the Bush regime.
I sincerely hope that you would give my views serious consideration. At a time when most Americans have become convinced that politicians of both parties are merely pawns of big money, big lobbies, and/or the Military/Industrial complex, it would signal a triumph for Democracy itself if a political issues might be won – just once – upon the verifiable facts and the merits of the argument itself as opposed to the various transparent and/or stupid labels and slogans that are attached to it.

Sincerely
Len Hart

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Social Security Should not be CUT by so Much as a Dime!

By Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

SS should not be CUT --it should be strengthened! If there is a shortfall, send the bill to the 'ruling elite' which has gotten filthy rich with all sorts of 'tax' avoidance schemes that the middle and poorer classes could only dream about! Elite money winds up offshore; but SS is a boon to the economy.

What's up? Has no one bothered to read John Maynard Keynes?

Cutting SS would plunge the nation into depression as a result of the LOST PURCHASING POWER of seniors who will be reduced to penury! Many have already been reduced to shopping at Wal-Mart, that retail 'agent' of China! What's next? A caning by J.P. Morgan?

Sorry --Obama this whole thing sounds like an EVIL GOP plot to me.

"Social Security a moral institution, Democratic strategist James Carville said.
The program has brought the rate of poverty amongst the elderly down from 30% in 1965 to 9.5%, despite a recession.

          “That is the act of a just and moral nation,” Carville said on Tuesday's The Rachel Maddow                  Show. “That about two-thirds the number of old people in this country who go to bed cold or              hungry has been reduced.”

Rebuilding the middle class by strengthening social programs and cutting health care and education costs is crucial to the upcoming election, Carville said, and many in the Beltway just don't get it.

The middle class won't vote for candidates who want to cut their Social Security to fund wars and bank bailouts, he argued.

          --James Carville: Social Security 'is the act of a just and moral nation'

Social Security is a BOON to the economy. Has no one bothered to read John Maynard Keynes? Cutting SS would plunge the nation into depression as a result of the LOST PURCHASING POWER of seniors who will be reduced to penury!

Does anyone believe that the milllions, billions, trillions that the elites have squirreled away offshore is --in any way whatsoever --driving or stimulating this economy? Sad but true --the RULING ELITES have simply exploited the failure of this nation to provide everyone graduating high school with anything more than a smattering of 'Economics' background!

Sorry --Obama this whole thing STINKS! If the budget needs to be 'balanced' take it out of the TRILLIONS that have been warehoused offshore where it does NO ONE any good! I smell a GOP RAT!

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Why and When the Use of Drones is Unconstitutional

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Why 'instant justice' via drones is an evil, pernicious, insidious, undemocratic outrage to the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights, specifically the Fourth Amendment:

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

--U.S. Constitution, Fourth Amendment

On its a face, the use of a drone means that the people are NOT '...secure in their persons, houses, papers and effects' should some asshole in government merely DEEM you to be a threat in any way whatsoever! If the use of domestic drones should result in but one civilian death, the people are then justified to OVERTHROW, by any means, the government in D.C.. and replace it!

Death by anything other than the judgement of a jury having heard a case brought upon probable cause is MURDER --pure and simple. The people must NOT stand for it!

A final observation: under U.S. leadership and prosecution, the Nuremberg Trial of NAZIS resulted in the hanging death of several Nazis. Some died for less egregious crimes than that of ORDERING an anonymous drone hit on citizens!

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The 2nd Amendment Does Not Mean What the NRA Says it Means

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The best case for birth control is the alarming rate at which morons proliferate! An alarming number of them grow up to join the NRA! An example is Wayne LaPierre the NRA's Liar and Chief about whom it is said on the internet:

"Wayne Lapierre of the NRA says that President Obama may have planned the events in Newtown to dismantle our 2nd Amendment."

This is absurd on every level. Obama does not have to dismantle the 2nd --as some have proposed! The 2nd has never meant what the NRA has said it meant anyway. Secondly, the NRA never quotes the whole article. The NRA quotes only the part they like. They are CROOKS!

Following is the 2nd as passed by the Congress:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Here is the 2nd as it was ratified by the states and authenticated by Thomas Jefferson who was at the time Secretary of State:

A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

In every draft the 'right' of gun ownership is recognized but only within the context of a 'well-regulated' militia. That fact was affirmed in very nearly those words by the only SCOTUS decision that directly addresses the 'interpretation' of the 2nd Amendment. That case is U.S. v Miller:

In the absence of any evidence tending to show that possession or use of a "shotgun having a barrel of less than eighteen inches in length" at this time has some reasonable relationship to the preservation or efficiency of a well regulated militia, we cannot say that the Second Amendment guarantees the right to keep and bear such an instrument.

--307 U.S. 174, United States v. Miller, APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF ARKANSAS, No. 696 Argued: March 30, 1939 --- Decided: May 15, 1939

A final observation: we know that the NRA, perhaps to a person, are liars as well as gun obsessed psychopaths; the many ad hominem attacks that various NRA psychopaths have leveled at me only proves what I have said about them. Those inarticulate, odious and inflammatory attacks prove that the NRA cannot be TRUSTED with a gun of any type. Furthermore, those fallacious and inflammatory attacks, often threatening, are not protected free speech and will be deleted! Comprende?

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Why the GOP Occupied Texas II

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Though Texas is now thought of as a 'red' state, it was not always so. From January 15, 1874 to January 16, 1979 every Texas governor was Democratic. Moreover, most of them could be described as 'progressive Democrats'.

This topic has come up as Texas is now thought of as GOP occupied territory, i.e, a 'red' state. If this is, indeed, the case, the GOP had best be kind to Texas. A cursory survey of the red-blue map of the U.S. indicates that Texas is the only state among GOP/red states to have electoral votes in two digits. As a result, Texas may be essential to the GOP which seems hell-bent on self-destruction, courting irrelevance, skirting eventual oblivion.

Under the Constitution, the office of President is supposed to represent the 'people'. If that is the case, then WHY are Presidents elected by states and appointed 'electors'? The final 'vote count' is watered down to the extent it may be irrelevant.
There are several remedies but one is most urgent: the abolition of a relic called the Electoral College! What IS it good for? Absolutely NOTHING! (apologies to Edwin Starr)

There are, in fact, various methods by which a popular vote could and would allow the people to elect their representatives directly, thus cutting out the middle man. The office of President is, under the Constitution, responsible directly to the people --not the states. It is, therefore, absurd that the holder of that office be elected by any method other than a direct election of the people to whom the President is ultimately responsible.

That, of course, is why the GOP will oppose this proposal!

The question is: how responsive is the government to the will of the people? It is self-evident that public officials should achieve public office by way of elections that most accurately reflect the will of the people. Otherwise --why have elections? The most egregious outrages against this principle include election thefts as, in fact, happened in Florida. That is, in itself, an outrage. It might have been predicted that the only beneficiary of this outrage --George W. Bush --turned out to have been among the very worst Presidents in U.S. history. That alone is outrageous and even more so as it followed Bush v Gore, the very worst SCOTUS decision in U.S. history.

Questions remain; solutions are scarce. Nevertheless, there must be a better way. The good news is: there is a better way: the President could be elected directly by the people. Party machines capable of 'stealing' elections may be bypassed, made irrelevant. An election can be made scientific, the tabulation of votes made accurate and the casting of votes themselves made more representative of the 'will of the people'.

I have in mind a direct election of the office of President by all of the people. This has the advantage of getting powerful 'state machines' out of the 'national election' business save for the primaries. The office of President --responsible directly to the people --should, therefore, be elected by the people, not the States. The 'electoral college; should, therefore, be abolished and good riddance!

Why was Texas targeted for occupation by the GOP?

That's easy, covered in 'Election Grabbing 101', first semester! With 38 electoral votes, Texas is, by far the plum in the GOP bag o' dirty tricks. If Texas should turn blue, the GOP is FINISHED. Look at the other 'red' states with electoral votes ranging from 3 to 16. I will put it this way --the GOP needs Texas a hell of a lot more than Texas needs the fucking carpetbaggers of the GOP.

Under the current system, some votes are worth more than others. For example, a single vote in a state having very few electoral votes (Rhode Island with 3 electoral votes) is not worth nor should be worth as much as a single vote in a large state like Texas with some 38 electoral votes or California with 55. At last, 'Southern Strategy' EXPLOITS the present system and is in fact, a huge argument in favor of the kind of reforms I propose.

ALL the people!

Currently, typically minorities are inadequately represented. That's the point behind direct elections. Cut out the middle man; stop 'watering down' the vote. Prior to re-districting by one Tom DeLay, Texas had not been the solid 'red state' that millions now believe it to be. For a period of some 100 years, for example, EVERY TX governor had been Democratic. Some --like the Furgusons --were VERY PROGRESSIVE. It was a better state for it.

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Paul Krugman: Conscience of a Liberal

by Paul Krugman

Some readers may have noticed a recent op-ed by King and Soneji alleging that Social Security projections understate life expectancy and are therefore far too optimistic. This claim will, I’m sure, become part of what all the serious people think they know.

But the Social Security actuaries have replied (pdf), offering among other things one of the best examples I’ve ever seen of a brutally polite intellectual takedown:

King and Soneji developed their own projection methodology for mortality and made a series of assertions in their op-ed about the methods used by the Office of the Chief Actuary. As with all new entrants into this field of analysis, their work may ultimately provide value in the continuing evolution of our methods. However, the assertions in their op-ed require some response and clarification.

Oh, snap. (Or since we’re talking about social insurance, SNAP).

So yes, the Social Security Administration knows about obesity and smoking, and incorporates this into its projections. More broadly, SSA has not failed to anticipate rising life expectancy; on the contrary, it has if anything been slightly over-optimistic.

An almost unrelated note: since I am, as you can see, a devotee of adding relevant YouTube videos to blog posts, I was glad to see Jonathan Cohn bring the killer rabbit into the debt ceiling denouement — and especially gratified that I decided not to use the same thing, and went for a poker-playing cat instead. But this then raises the question: what if the Republicans bring out the holy hand grenade?

Paul Krugman, NYT

Bill Moyers Interviews Paul Krugman

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