The Existentialist Cowboy

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

America's transformation into a fascist state is defined by obscene and growing inequalities of wealth and income, the rise of the Military/Industrial Complex, and the role of the CIA as 'enforcer' for the establishment. 'Terrorism' is but Bush's pretext to wage a series of oil wars that John McCain says may last '10,000 years'. A phony ' War on Terrorism' must be considered in context.

Ronald Reagan's infamous tax cut of 1982 is high upon a list of many milestones along the US path to fascism and dictatorship. It must be credited with having turned America into a banana republic, a nation of 'haves' and 'have nots'. This single act robbed millions of financial and class status but worse --the hope that they might rise above poverty, better their lot and finance the education of their children.

The plight of the very poor has only gotten worse since that time. What had been the 'lower middle' has slipped off into poverty. About one percent of the population owns more than the bottom 90 percent combined. As strange as it may seem, the CIA has aided and abetted this process. The CIA is, in fact, the 'enforcement' arm of the ruling elites; it enforces their interests abroad and subverts the rule of law at home with 'dirty tricks', subversion, crime, and murder. The CIA's unpublicized raison d'etre is high treason, a war that it wages upon the people of the US.

We had not yet 'survived' the worst effects of that cut when Bush, the Lesser made of three short words --'tax', 'cut' and 'elite' --his entire economic philosophy and program. Gore Vidal, in his Decline and Fall of the American Empire, denounced the emergence of an American empire which began a long decline in the middle 80's when the US became a net debtor nation.

The late Steve Kangas dates the onset of decline to the middle seventies. It was between 1975 and 1994, claimed Kangas, that income inequality grew most dramatically. WWII, coming as it did toward the end of the Great Depression, had ushered in what has been called the 'Great Compression', the most egalitarian period in American History. According to Kangas, the CIA has played a key role in the transfer of wealth from everyone else to the tiny elite up top.

The Origins of the Overclass By Steve Kangas
The wealthy have always used many methods to accumulate wealth, but it was not until the mid-1970s that these methods coalesced into a superbly organized, cohesive and efficient machine. After 1975, it became greater than the sum of its parts, a smooth flowing organization of advocacy groups, lobbyists, think tanks, conservative foundations, and PR firms that hurtled the richest 1 percent into the stratosphere.

The origins of this machine, interestingly enough, can be traced back to the CIA. This is not to say the machine is a formal CIA operation, complete with code name and signed documents. (Although such evidence may yet surface — and previously unthinkable domestic operations such as MK-ULTRA, CHAOS and MOCKINGBIRD show this to be a distinct possibility.) But what we do know already indicts the CIA strongly enough. Its principle creators were Irving Kristol, Paul Weyrich, William Simon, Richard Mellon Scaife, Frank Shakespeare, William F. Buckley, Jr., the Rockefeller family, and more. Almost all the machine's creators had CIA backgrounds.

During the 1970s, these men would take the propaganda and operational techniques they had learned in the Cold War and apply them to the Class War. Therefore it is no surprise that the American version of the machine bears an uncanny resemblance to the foreign versions designed to fight communism. The CIA's expert and comprehensive organization of the business class would succeed beyond their wildest dreams. In 1975, the richest 1 percent owned 22 percent of America’s wealth. By 1992, they would nearly double that, to 42 percent — the highest level of inequality in the 20th century.

How did this alliance start? The CIA has always recruited the nation’s elite: millionaire businessmen, Wall Street brokers, members of the national news media, and Ivy League scholars. During World War II, General "Wild Bill" Donovan became chief of the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA. Donovan recruited so exclusively from the nation’s rich and powerful that members eventually came to joke that "OSS" stood for "Oh, so social!"

Another early elite was Allen Dulles, who served as Director of the CIA from 1953 to 1961. Dulles was a senior partner at the Wall Street firm of Sullivan and Cromwell, which represented the Rockefeller empire and other mammoth trusts, corporations and cartels. He was also a board member of the J. Henry Schroeder Bank, with offices in Wall Street, London, Zurich and Hamburg. His financial interests across the world would become a conflict of interest when he became head of the CIA. Like Donavan, he would recruit exclusively from society’s elite.

By the 1950s, the CIA had riddled the nation’s businesses, media and universities with tens of thousands of part-time, on-call operatives. Their employment with the agency took a variety of forms, which included:

Leaving one's profession to work for the CIA in a formal, official capacity.
Staying in one's profession, using the job as cover for CIA activity. This undercover activity could be full-time, part-time, or on-call.
Staying in one's profession, occasionally passing along information useful to the CIA.
Passing through the revolving door that has always existed between the agency and the business world

Historically, the CIA and society’s elite have been one and the same people. This means that their interests and goals are one and the same as well. Perhaps the most frequent description of the intelligence community is the "old boy network," where members socialize, talk shop, conduct business and tap each other for favors well outside the formal halls of government.

Many common traits made it inevitable that the CIA and Corporate America would become allies. Both share an intense dislike of democracy, and feel they should be liberated from democratic regulations and oversight. Both share a culture of secrecy, either hiding their actions from the American public or lying about them to present the best public image. And both are in a perfect position to help each other.

How? International businesses give CIA agents cover, secret funding, top-quality resources and important contacts in foreign lands. In return, the CIA gives corporations billion-dollar federal contracts (for spy planes, satellites and other hi-tech spycraft). Businessmen also enjoy the romantic thrill of participating in spy operations.

The CIA also gives businesses a certain amount of protection and privacy from the media and government watchdogs, under the guise of "national security." Finally, the CIA helps American corporations remain dominant in foreign markets, by overthrowing governments hostile to unregulated capitalism and installing puppet regimes whose policies favor American corporations at the expense of their people.

The CIA’s alliance with the elite turned out to be an unholy one. Each enabled the other to rise above the law. Indeed, a review of the CIA’s history is one of such crime and atrocity that no one can reasonably defend it, even in the name of anticommunism. Before reviewing this alliance in detail, it is useful to know the CIA’s history of atrocity first.

The Crimes of the CIA

During World War II, the OSS actively engaged in propaganda, sabotage and countless other dirty tricks. After the war, and even after the CIA was created in 1947, the American intelligence community reverted to harmless information gathering and analysis, thinking that the danger to national security had passed. That changed in 1948 with the emergence of the Cold War. In that year, the CIA recreated its covert action wing, innocuously called the Office of Policy Coordination. Its first director was Wall Street lawyer Frank Wisner. According to its secret charter, its responsibilities included:

propaganda, economic warfare, preventive direct action, including sabotage, antisabotage, demolition and evacuation procedures; subversion against hostile states, including assistance to underground resistance groups, and support of indigenous anti-communist elements in threatened countries of the free world. By 1953, the dirty tricks department of the CIA had grown to 7,200 personnel and commanded 74 percent of the CIA’s total budget. The following quotes describe the culture of lawlessness that pervaded the CIA:

Stanley Lovell, a CIA recruiter for "Wild Bill" Donovan:

George Hunter White, writing of his CIA escapades:

A retired CIA agency caseworker with twenty years experience:

Blessed with secrecy and lack of congressional oversight, CIA operations became corrupt almost immediately. Using propaganda stations like Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the CIA felt justified in manipulating the public for its own good. The broadcasts were so patently false that for a time it was illegal to publish transcripts of them in the U.S. This was a classic case of a powerful organization deciding what was best for the people, and then abusing the powers it had helped itself to.

During the 40s and 50s, most of the public was unaware of what the CIA was doing. Those who knew thought they were fighting the good fight against communism, like James Bond. However, they could not keep their actions secret forever, and by the 60s and 70s, Americans began learning about the agency’s crimes and atrocities. (3) It turns out the CIA has:

Corrupted democratic elections in Greece, Italy and dozens of other nations;
Been involved to varying degrees in at least 35 assassination plots against foreign heads of state or prominent political leaders. Successful assassinations include democratically elected leaders like Salvador Allende (Chile) and Patrice Lumumba (Belgian Congo); also CIA-created dictators like Rafael Trujillo (Dominican Republic) and Ngo Dinh Diem (South Vietnam); and popular political leaders like Che Guevara. Unsuccessful attempts range from Fidel Castro to Charles De Gaulle.
Helped launch military coups that toppled democratic governments, replacing them with brutal dictatorships or juntas. The list of overthrown democratic leaders includes Mossadegh (Iran, 1953), Arbenz (Guatemala, 1954), Velasco and Arosemena (Ecuador, 1961, 1963), Bosch (Dominican Republic, 1963), Goulart (Brazil, 1964), Sukarno (Indonesia, 1965), Papandreou (Greece, 1965-67), Allende (Chile, 1973), and dozens of others.
Undermined the governments of Australia, Guyana, Cambodia, Jamaica and more;
Supported murderous dictators like General Pinochet (Chile), the Shah of Iran, Ferdinand Marcos (Phillipines), "Papa Doc" and "Baby Doc" Duvalier (Haiti), General Noriega (Panama), Mobutu Sese Seko (Ziare), the "reign of the colonels" (Greece), and more;
Created, trained and supported death squads and secret police forces that tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands of civilians, leftists and political opponents, in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Haiti, Bolivia, Cuba, Mexico, Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Iran, Turkey, Angola and others;
Helped run the "School of the Americas" at Fort Benning, Georgia, which trains Latin American military officers how to overthrow democratic governments. Subjects include the use of torture, interrogation and murder;
Used Michigan State "professors" to train Diem’s secret police in torture;
Conducted economic sabotage, including ruining crops, disrupting industry, sinking ships and creating food shortages;
Paved the way for the massacre of 200,000 in East Timor, 500,000 in Indonesia and one to two million in Cambodia;
Launched secret or illegal military actions or wars in Nicaragua, Angola, Cuba, Laos and Indochina;
Planted false stories in the local media;
Framed political opponents for crimes, atrocities, political statements and embarrassments that they did not commit;
Spied on thousands of American citizens, in defiance of Congressional law;
Smuggled Nazi war criminals and weapon scientists into the U.S., unpunished, for their use in the Cold War;
Created organizations like the World Anti-Communist League, which became filled with ex-Nazis, Nazi sympathizers, Italian terrorists, Japanese fascists, racist Afrikaaners, Latin American death squad leaders, CIA agents and other extreme right-wing militants;
Conducted Operation MK-ULTRA, a mind-control experiment that gave LSD and other drugs to Americans against their will or without their knowledge, causing some to commit suicide;
Penetrated and disrupted student antiwar organizations;
Kept friendly and extensive working relations with the Mafia;
Actively traded in drugs around the world since the 1950s to fund its operations. The Contra/crack scandal is only the tip of the iceberg –- other notorious examples include Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle and Noreiga’s Panama.
Had their fingerprints all over the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Malcom X. Even if the CIA is not responsible for these killings, the sheer amount of CIA involvement in these cases demands answers; [editor's note, see: Evidence That the CIA Murdered RFK]
And then routinely lied to Congress about all of the above.

The Association for Responsible Dissent estimates that by 1987, 6 million people had died as a result of CIA covert operations. (4) Former State Department official William Blum correctly calls this an "American Holocaust."

We should note that the CIA gets away with this because it is not accountable to democratic government. Former CIA officer Philip Agee put it best: "The CIA is the President's secret army." Prior to 1975, the agency answered only to the President (creating all the usual problems of authoritarianism). And because the CIA’s activities were secret, the President rarely had to worry about public criticism and pressure. After the 1975 Church hearings, Congress tried to create congressional oversight of the CIA, but this has failed miserably. One reason is that the congressional oversight committee is a sham, filled with Cold Warriors, conservatives, businessmen, and even ex-CIA personnel.

The Business Origins of CIA Crimes

Although many people think that the CIA’s primary mission during the Cold War was to "deter communism," Noam Chomksy correctly points out that its real mission was "deterring democracy." From corrupting elections to overthrowing democratic governments, from assassinating elected leaders to installing murderous dictators, the CIA has virtually always replaced democracy with dictatorship. It didn’t help that the CIA was run by businessmen, whose hostility towards democracy is legendary. The reason they overthrew so many democracies is because the people usually voted for policies that multi-national corporations didn't like: land reform, strong labor unions, nationalization of their industries, and greater regulation protecting workers, consumers and the environment.

So the CIA’s greatest "successes" were usually more pro-corporate than anti-communist. Citing a communist threat, the CIA helped overthrow the democratically elected Mohammed Mussadegh government in Iran in 1953. But there was no communist threat — the Soviets stood back and watched the coup from afar. What really happened was that Mussadegh threatened to nationalize British and American oil companies in Iran. Consequently, the CIA and MI6 toppled Mussadegh and replaced him with a puppet government, headed by the Shah of Iran and his murderous secret police, SAVAK. The reason why the Ayatollah Khomeini and his revolutionaries took 52 Americans hostage in Tehran in 1979 was because the CIA had helped SAVAK torture and murder their people.

Another "success" was the CIA’s overthrow of the democratically elected government of Jacabo Arbenz in Guatemala in 1954. Again, there was no communist threat. The real threat was to Guatemala’s United Fruit Company, a Rockefeller-owned firm whose stockholders included CIA Director Allen Dulles. Arbenz threatened to nationalize the company, albeit with generous compensation. In response, the CIA initiated a coup that overthrew Arbenz and installed the murderous dictator Castillo Armas. For four decades, CIA-backed dicatators would torture and murder hundreds of thousands of leftists, union members and others who would fight for a more equitable distribution of the country’s resources.

Another "success" story was Chile. In 1973, the country’s democratically elected leader, Salvadore Allende, nationalized foreign-owned interests, like Chile’s lucrative copper mines and telephone system. International Telephone & Telegraph (ITT) offered the CIA $1 million to overthrow Allende — which the CIA allegedly refused — but paid $350,000 to his political opponents. The CIA responded with a coup that murdered Allende and replaced him with a brutal tyrant, General Augusto Pinochet. Pinochet tortured and murdered thousands of leftists, union members and political opponents as economists trained at the University of Chicago under Milton Friedman installed a "free market" economy. Since then, income inequality has soared higher in Chile than anywhere else in Latin America.

Even when the communist threat was real, the CIA first and foremost took care of the elite. In testimony before Congress in the early 50s, it artificially inflated Soviet military capabilities. A notorious example was the "bomber gap" that later turned out to be grossly exaggerated. Another was "Team B," a group of hawkish CIA analysts who seriously distorted Soviet military data. These scare tactics worked. Congress awarded giant defense contracts to the U.S. military-industrial complex.
And not even the fall of the Soviet Union and the demise of American defense contracts have stopped the CIA from serving the elite. Journalist Robert Dreyfuss writes:

Since the end of the Cold War, Washington has been abuzz with talk about using the CIA for economic espionage. Stripped of euphemism, economic espionage simply means that American spies would target foreign companies, such as Toyota, Nissan and Honda, and then covertly pass stolen trade secrets and technology to U.S. corporate executives. (5) If this isn’t bad enough, a worse problem arises in that the CIA doesn’t hand over this technology to every American auto-related company, but only the Big Three: Ford, Chrysler and General Motors.
In a 1975 interview, Ex-CIA agent Philip Agee summed up his personal observations of the agency

To the people who work for it, the CIA is known as The Company. The Big Business mentality pervades everything. Agents, for instance, are called assets. The man in charge of the United Kingdom desk is said to have the "U.K. account"… Domestic Recruitment

The CIA had no trouble recruiting elites who sought a more exciting life. Between 1948 and 1959, more than 40,000 American individuals and companies acted as sources for the U.S. intelligence community. (7) Let’s look at each area of recruitment, and see how they enabled the CIA to conduct its crimes:

Big Business

The CIA co-opted big business right from the start, beginning with the most famous billionaire of the time: Howard Hughes. Hughes had inherited his father’s million-dollar tool and die company at age 19. Anxious to expand his fortune, he made a conscientious decision "to go where the money is" — namely, government. With a few well-placed bribes, Hughes secured defense contracts to build military planes.

The result was the Hughes Aircraft company. By 1940, he had also acquired a controlling interest in Trans World Airlines. His government connections and international airline soon caught the attention of the CIA, and the two began a lifelong relationship. Hughes, whom the CIA dubbed "The Stockbroker," became the agency’s largest contractor. Not only did he let the CIA use his business firms as fronts, but he also funded countless CIA operations. Perhaps the most notorious was Operation Jennifer, an allegedly failed attempt to recover nuclear codes from a sunken Soviet submarine. Hughes’ right-hand security man, Robert Maheu, was a CIA agent who at one time represented the CIA in negotiations with the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro.

The CIA’s contacts with big business quickly spread. The agency showed a preference for international companies, public relations firms, media companies, law offices, banks, financiers and stockbrokers. The CIA didn’t limit its activities to recruiting businessmen; sometimes the CIA bought or created entire companies outright. One benefit of co-opting big business was that the CIA was able to create a secret source of funds other than from government. With stock portfolios multiplying their profits, it’s impossible now to say how flush the CIA really is. If Congress ever cut off funds for a mission, the business fraternity could easily replace them, either by donations or even setting up profitable businesses in the target country. In fact, this is precisely what happened during the Iran/Contra scandal.

By allying itself with the business community, the CIA received the funds and ability it needed to remove itself from democratic control.

The Media

Journalism is a perfect cover for CIA agents. People talk freely to journalists, and few think suspiciously of a journalist aggressively searching for information. Journalists also have power, influence and clout. Not surprisingly, the CIA began a mission in the late 1940s to recruit American journalists on a wide scale, a mission it dubbed Operation MOCKINGBIRD. The agency wanted these journalists not only to relay any sensitive information they discovered, but also to write anti-communist, pro-capitalist propaganda when needed.

The instigators of MOCKINGBIRD were Frank Wisner, Allan Dulles, Richard Helms and Philip Graham. Graham was the husband of Katherine Graham, today’s publisher of the Washington Post. In fact, it was the Post’s ties to the CIA that allowed it to grow so quickly after the war, both in readership and influence. (8)

MOCKINGBIRD was extraordinarily successful. In no time, the agency had recruited at least 25 media organizations to disseminate CIA propaganda. At least 400 journalists would eventually join the CIA payroll, according to the CIA’s testimony before a stunned Church Committee in 1975. (The committee felt the true number was considerably higher.) The names of those recruited reads like a Who's Who of journalism:

Philip and Katharine Graham (Publishers, Washington Post)
William Paley (President, CBS)
Henry Luce (Publisher, Time and Life magazine)
Arthur Hays Sulzberger (Publisher, N.Y. Times)
Jerry O'Leary (Washington Star)
Hal Hendrix (Pulitzer Prize winner, Miami News)
Barry Bingham Sr., (Louisville Courier-Journal)
James Copley (Copley News Services)
Joseph Harrison (Editor, Christian Science Monitor)
C.D. Jackson (Fortune)
Walter Pincus (Reporter, Washington Post)
ABC
NBC
Associated Press
United Press International
Reuters
Hearst Newspapers
Scripps-Howard
Newsweek magazine
Mutual Broadcasting System
Miami Herald

Old Saturday Evening Post

New York Herald-Tribune

Perhaps no newspaper is more important to the CIA than the Washington Post, one of the nation’s most right-wing dailies. Its location in the nation’s capitol enables the paper to maintain valuable personal contacts with leading intelligence, political and business figures. Unlike other newspapers, the Post operates its own bureaus around the world, rather than relying on AP wire services. Owner Philip Graham was a military intelligence officer in World War II, and later became close friends with CIA figures like Frank Wisner, Allen Dulles, Desmond FitzGerald and Richard Helms. He inherited the Post by marrying Katherine Graham, whose father owned it.

After Philip’s suicide in 1963, Katharine Graham took over the Post. Seduced by her husband’s world of government and espionage, she expanded her newspaper’s relationship with the CIA. In a 1988 speech before CIA officials at Langley, Virginia, she stated:

We live in a dirty and dangerous world. There are some things that the general public does not need to know and shouldn’t. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows. This quote has since become a classic among CIA critics for its belittlement of democracy and its admission that there is a political agenda behind thePost’s headlines.
Ben Bradlee was the Post’s managing editor during most of the Cold War. He worked in the U.S. Paris embassy from 1951 to 1953, where he followed orders by the CIA station chief to place propaganda in the European press. (9) Most Americans incorrectly believe that Bradlee personifies the liberal slant of the Post, given his role in publishing the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate investigations. But neither of these two incidents are what they seem. The Post merely published the Pentagon Papers after The New York Times already had, because it wanted to appear competitive. As for Watergate, we’ll examine the CIA’s reasons for wanting to bring down Nixon in a moment. Someone once asked Bradlee: "Does it irk you when The Washington Post is made out to be a bastion of slanted liberal thinkers instead of champion journalists just because of Watergate?" Bradlee responded: "Damn right it does!" (10)

It would be impossible to elaborate in this short space even the most important examples of the CIA/media alliance. Sig Mickelson was a CIA asset the entire time he was president of CBS News from 1954 to 1961. Later he went on to become president of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty, two major outlets of CIA propaganda.

The CIA also secretly bought or created its own media companies. It owned 40 percent of the Rome Daily American at a time when communists were threatening to win the Italian elections. Worse, the CIA has bought many domestic media companies. A prime example is Capital Cities, created in 1954 by CIA businessman William Casey (who would later become Reagan’s CIA director). Another founder was Lowell Thomas, a close friend and business contact with CIA Director Allen Dulles. Another founder was CIA businessman Thomas Dewey. By 1985, Capital Cities had grown so powerful that it was able to buy an entire TV network: ABC.

For those who believe in "separation of press and state," the very idea that the CIA has secret propaganda outlets throughout the media is appalling. The reason why America was so oblivious to CIA crimes in the 40s and 50s was because the media willingly complied with the agency. Even today, when the immorality of the CIA should be an open-and-shut case, "debate" about the issue rages in the media. Here is but one example: In 1996, The San Jose Mercury News published an investigative report suggesting that the CIA had sold crack in Los Angeles to fund the Contra war in Central America. A month later, three of the CIA’s most important media allies — The Washington Post, The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times — immediately leveled their guns at the Mercury report and blasted away in an attempt to discredit it. Who wrote the Post article? Walter Pincus, longtime CIA journalist. The dangers here are obvious.

Academia

By the early 50s, CIA Director Allen Dulles had staffed the CIA almost exclusively with Ivy League graduates, especially from Yale. (A disproportionate number of CIA figures, like George Bush, come from Yale’s "Skull and Crossbones" Society.) CIA recruiters also approached thousands of other professors to work in place at their universities on a part-time, contract basis. Not stopping at recruiting scholars, the agency would go on to create several departments at elite universities, including Harvard's Russian Research Center and the Center for International Studies at MIT.

Although most academics were supportive of the CIA in the 50s, most were unaware of its abuses. In the 60s, academia would become outraged to learn that anti-communist organizations like the National Student Association were actually creations of the CIA. The most audacious CIA front was the Congress for Cultural Freedom, an organization that attracted liberal, freethinking artists and intellectuals who nonetheless deplored communism.

By the late 60s and 70s, growing reports of CIA crimes and atrocities had deeply alienated academia. Scholars were further troubled to learn that the CIA had penetrated and disrupted student antiwar groups. Unlike business and the media, academia overwhelmingly denounced the CIA after the Vietnam era. This eventually forced the CIA to turn to new places to find their analysts and scholars. The most important source was the conservative think-tank movement, which it helped to create. More on this later.

The Roman Catholic Church

Although the CIA began as a mostly Protestant organization, Roman Catholics quickly came to dominate the new covert-action wing in 1948. All were staunchly conservative, fiercely anti-communist and socially elite. Just a few of the many Catholic operatives included future CIA directors William Colby, William Casey, and John McCone. Another well-known personality from this period was William F. Buckley, Jr., editor of the National Review and gadfly host of TV’s Firing Line. Buckley, it turns out, served as a CIA agent in Mexico City, and his experiences there served as fodder for his Blackford Oakes spy novels.

There were several reasons for this influx of Catholic elites. First, Wisner (himself a Wall Street lawyer) had an extensive and glamorous circle of friends to recruit from. Second, Italy was in constant crisis in the 1940s, both during World War II and after. Throughout this troubled period, the American intelligence community’s greatest ally in Italy was the Roman Catholic Church.

The Roman Catholic Church, of course, is one of the most anti-communist organizations in the world. The Marxist doctrine of atheism threatens Catholic theology, and its equality threatens the Church’s strict tradition of hierarchy and authoritarianism. When Hitler invaded Communist Russia, the Vatican openly approved. Jesuit Michael Serafian wrote: "It cannot be denied that [Pope] Pius XII's closest advisors for some time regarded Hitler's armoured divisions as the right hand of God."

But Hitler persecuted Catholics as well, and ultimately drove the Church to the Americans. In 1943, the Vatican reached a secret agreement with OSS Chief Donovan — himself a devout Catholic — to let the Holy See become the center of Allied spy operations in Italy. Donovan considered the Church to be one of his prize intelligence assets, given its global power, membership and contacts. He cultivated this alliance by sending America’s most prestigious Catholics to the Vatican to establish rapport and forge an alliance.

After the war, half of Europe lay under Communist control, and the Italian communist party threatened to win the 1948 elections. The prospect of communism ruling over the heart of Catholicism terrified the Vatican. Once again, American intelligence gathered their most prestigious Catholics to strengthen ties with the Vatican. Because this was the first mission of the new covert action division, the American Catholic agents acquired positions of power early on, and would dominate covert operations for the rest of the Cold War.

At a public level, the U.S. government sunk $350 million in social and military aid into Italy to sway the vote. On a secret level, Wisner spent $10 million in black budget funds to steal the elections. This included disseminating propaganda, beating up left-wing politicians, intimidating voters and disrupting leftist parties. The dirty tricks worked — the Communists lost, and the Catholic Americans’ success permanently secured their power within the CIA.

The Knights of Malta (12)

The Roman Catholic Church did not forget the American agents who had saved them from both Nazism and Communism. It rewarded them by making them Knights of Malta, or members of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta (SMOM).

SMOM is one of the oldest and most elite religious orders in the Catholic Church. Until recently, it limited its membership to Italians and foreign heads of state. In 1927, however, an exception was made for the United States, given its emerging status as a world power. SMOM opened an American branch, awarding knighthood or damehood to several American Catholic business tycoons. This group was so conservative that one, John Raskob, the Chairman of General Motors, actually became involved in an aborted military plot to remove Franklin Roosevelt from the White House. SMOM has also been embarrassed by knighting or giving awards to countless people who later turned out to be Nazi war criminals. This is the sort of culture that thrives within the leadership of MOM.

Officially, the Knights of Malta are a global charity organization. But beginning in the 1940s, knighthood was granted to countless CIA agents, and the organization has become a front for intelligence operations. SMOM is ideal for this kind of activity, because it is recognized as the world’s only landless sovereignty, and members enjoy diplomatic immunity. This allows agents and supplies to pass through customs without interference from the host country. Such privileges enabled the Knights of Malta to become a major supplier of "humanitarian aid" to the Contras during their war in the 1980s.
A partial list of the Knights and Dames of Malta reads like a Who’s Who of American Catholicism:

William Casey – CIA Director.

John McCone – CIA Director.

William Colby – CIA Director.

William Donovan – OSS Director. Donovan was given an especially prestigious form of knighthood that has only been given to a hundred other men in history.
Frank Shakespeare – Director of such propaganda organizations as the U.S. Information Agency, Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty. Also executive vice-president of CBS-TV and vice-chairman of RKO General Inc. He is currently chairman of the board of trustees at the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank.

William Simon – Treasury Secretary under President Nixon. In the private sector, he has become one of America’s 400 richest individuals by working in international finance. Today he is the President of the John M. Olin Foundation, a major funder of right-wing think tanks.

William F. Buckley, Jr. – CIA agent, conservative pundit and mass media personality.
James Buckley – William’s brother, head of Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty.

Clare Boothe Luce - The grand dame of the Cold War was also a Dame of Malta. She was a popular playwright and the wife
of the publishing tycoon Henry Luce, who cofounded Time magazine.
Francis X Stankard - CEO of the international division of Chase Manhattan Bank, a Rockefeller institution. (Nelson Rockefeller was also a major CIA figure.)
John Farrell – President, U.S. Steel

Lee Iacocca – Chairman, General Motors
William S. Schreyer – Chairman, Merrill Lynch.
Richard R. Shinn – Chairman, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Joseph Kennedy – Founder of the Kennedy empire.
Baron Hilton – Owner, Hilton Hotel chain.

Patrick J. Frawley Jr. – Heir, Schick razor fortune. Frawley is a famous funder of right-wing Catholic causes, such as the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.
Ralph Abplanalp - Aerosol magnate.
Martin F. Shea - Executive vice president of Morgan Guaranty Trust.
Joseph Brennan - Chairman of the executive committee of the Emigrant Savings Bank of New York.
J. Peter Grace – President, W.R. Grace Company. He
was a key figure in Operation Paperclip, which brought Nazi scientists and spies to the U.S. Many were war criminals whose atrocities were excused in their service to the CIA.
Thomas Bolan – Of Saxe, Bacon and Bolan, the law firm of Senator McCarthy's deceased aide Roy Cohn.
Bowie Kuhn – Baseball Comissioner
Cardinal John O'Connor – Extreme right-wing leader among American Catholics, and fervent abortion opponent.
Cardinal Francis Spellman – The "American Pope" was at one time the most powerful Catholic in America, an arch-conservative and a rabid anti-communist.

Cardinal Bernard Law - One of the highest-ranking conservatives in the American church.
Alexander Haig – Secretary of State under President Reagan.
Admiral James D. Watkins – Hard-line chief of naval operations under President Reagan.Jeremy Denton – Senator (R–Al).
Pete Domenici – Senator (R-New Mexico).
Walter J. Hickel - Governor of Alaska and secretary of the interior.

When this group gets together, obviously, the topics are spying, business and politics.
The CIA has also used other religious and charity organizations as fronts. For example, John F. Kennedy -- another anticommunist Roman Catholic who greatly expanded covert operations -- created the U.S. Peace Corps to serve as cover for CIA operatives. The CIA has also made extensive use of missionaries, with the blessings of many right-wing, anticommunist Christian denominations.

But the World Grows Wise…

It was only a matter of time before other nations caught on to these fronts. They learned that when the CIA comes to their countries to commit their crimes and atrocities, they come disguised as American journalists, businessmen, missionaries and charity volunteers. Unfortunately, foreigners are now targeting these professions as hostile. In Lebanon, terrorists held U.S. journalist Terry Anderson hostage for nearly seven years, on the not unreasonable assumption that he was a spy. Whether or not this was true is beside the point. The CIA has put all Americans abroad at risk, whether they are CIA agents or not. In hearings before the Senate in 1996, many organizations urged Congress to stop using their professions as CIA cover. Don Argue of the National Association of Evangelicals testified: "Such use of missionary agents for covert activities by the CIA would be unethical and immoral." (13)

From the Cold War to the Class War

As noted above, academia was the first major institution to denounce the crimes of the CIA. Why? One reason is that scholars conduct their own extensive research into world affairs, so naturally they were the first to learn the truth. This is the main reason why protest against the Vietnam War and the CIA erupted first among students on the nation’s campuses. By the end of the Vietnam War, the CIA had suffered a "brain drain" as its academic allies became its most articulate, passionate and eloquent critics.

The social revolutions of the 60s terrified the CIA. James Jesus Angleton, chief of counter-intelligence and a truly paranoid man, was convinced the Soviets had masterminded the entire antiwar movement. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover shared his conviction. The CIA had always spied on student groups throughout the 60s, but in 1968 President Johnson dramatically stepped up the effort with Operation CHAOS. This initially called for 50 CIA agents to go undercover as student radicals, penetrate their antiwar organizations and root out the Russian spies who were causing the rebellion. Tellingly, they never found a single spy. The agents also began a campaign of wire-tapping, mail-opening, burglary, deception, intimidation and disruption against thousands of protesting American civilians.

By the time Operation CHAOS wound down in 1973, the CIA had spied on 7,000 Americans, 1,000 organizations and traded information on more than 300,000 persons with various law agencies. (14) When academia learned of this, its outrage grew.

The loss of academia was only the first blow for the CIA. Other disasters quickly followed; in the early 70s, the CIA was trying desperately to stave off a growing number of scandals. The first was Watergate.

The CIA’s fingerprints were all over Watergate. First, we should note the CIA had clear motives for helping oust Nixon. He was the ultimate "outsider," a poor California Quaker who grew up feeling bitter resentment towards the elite "Eastern establishment." Nixon, for all his arch-conservatism, was surprisingly liberal on economic issues, enfuriating businessmen with statements like "We are all Keynesians now." He created a whole host of new agencies to regulate business, like the FDA, EPA and OSHA. He signed the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts, which forced businesses to clean up their toxic emissions. He imposed price controls to fight inflation, and took the nation fully off the gold standard. Nixon also strengthened affirmative action. Even his staffers were famously anti-elitist, like Kevin Philips, who would eventually write the bible on inequality during the 1980s, The Politics of Rich and Poor. Add to this Nixon’s withdrawal from Vietnam and Détente with China and the Soviet Union. Nixon and his Secretary of State, Henry Kissinger, had not only tried to remove control of foreign policy from the CIA, but had also taken measures to bring the CIA itself under control. Not surprisingly, Nixon and his CIA Director, Richard Helms, couldn’t stand each other. (Nixon fired him for failing to cover up for Watergate.) Clearly, Nixon was fighting at cross-purposes with the CIA and the nation’s elite.

As it turns out, the CIA had inside knowledge of Nixon’s dirty work. Nixon had created his own covert action team, "The Committee to Reelect the President," more amusingly known by its acronym, CREEP. The team consisted of two CIA agents — E. Howard Hunt and James McCord — as well as former FBI agent G. Gordon Liddy. They also employed four Cubans with long CIA histories. In fact, a CIA front called the Mullen Company funded their activities, which ranged from disrupting Democratic campaigns to laundering Nixon’s illegal campaign contributions.

The CIA not only had intimate knowledge of Nixon’s crimes, but it also acted as though it wanted the world to know them. When the FBI began investigating Watergate, Nixon tried using the CIA to cover up for him. At first the CIA half-heartedly complied, telling the FBI that the investigation would endanger CIA operations in Mexico. But a few weeks later it gave the FBI a green light again to proceed again with their investigation.

Furthermore, Watergate was exposed by the CIA’s main newspaper in America, The Washington Post. One of the two journalists who investigated the scandal, Robert Woodward, had only recently become a journalist. Previously Woodward had worked as a Naval intelligence liaison to the White House, privy to some of the nation’s highest secrets. He would later write a sympathetic portrait of CIA Director Bill Casey in a book entitled Veil: The Secret Wars of the CIA. It was Woodward who personally knew and interviewed "Deep Throat," the unnamed source who revealed inside information on Nixon’s activities. Many Watergate researchers consider one of Woodward’s old intelligence contacts to be a prime candidate for Deep Throat. (15)

Despite all the facts of CIA involvement, Woodward and Bernstein made virtually no mention of the CIA in their Watergate reporting. Even during Senate hearings on Watergate, the CIA somehow managed to stay out of the spotlight. In 1974, the House would clear the CIA of any involvement in Watergate.

The CIA was not as lucky in 1974, when the Senate held hearings on James Jesus Angleton’s illegal surveillance of American citizens. These disclosures resulted in his firing. But that was nothing compared to the 1975 Church Committee. This Senate investigation looked into virtually every type of CIA crime, from assassination to secret war to manipulating the domestic media. The "reforms" that resulted from these hearings were mostly cosmetic, but the details that emerged shattered the CIA’s reputation forever. Interestingly enough, the two Senators who held these hearings — Frank Church and Otis Pike — were both defeated for reelection, despite a 98 percent reelection rate for incumbents.

The CIA was not the only conservative institution that found itself embattled in the early 70s. This was a bad time for conservatives everywhere. America had lost the war in Vietnam. U.S. corporations had to cope with the rise of OPEC. The anti-poverty programs of Roosevelt’s New Deal and Johnson’s Great Society were causing a major redistribution of wealth. And Nixon was making things worse with his own anti-poverty and regulatory programs. Between 1960 and 1973, these efforts cut poverty in half, from 22 to 11 percent. Meanwhile, between 1965 and 1976, the richest 1 percent had gone from owning 37 percent of America’s wealth to only 22 percent. (16

At a 1973 Conference Board meeting of top American business leaders, executives declared: "We are fighting for our lives," "We are fighting a delaying action," and "If we don’t take action now, we will see our own demise. We will evolve into another social democracy." (17)

The CIA to the rescue

In the mid-1970s, at this historic low point in American conservatism, the CIA began a major campaign to turn corporate fortunes around.

They did this in several ways. First, they helped create numerous foundations to finance their domestic operations. Even before 1973, the CIA had co-opted the most famous ones, like the Ford, Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations. But after 1973, they created more. One of their most notorious recruits was billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife. During World War II, Scaife's father served in the OSS, the forerunner of the CIA. By his mid-twenties, both of Scaife's parents had died, and he inherited a fortune under four foundations: the Carthage Foundation, the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the Scaife Family Foundations and the Allegheny Foundation.

In the early 1970s, Scaife was encouraged by CIA agent Frank Barnett to begin investing his fortune to fight the "Soviet menace." (18) From 1973 to 1975, Scaife ran Forum World Features, a foreign news service used as a front to disseminate CIA propaganda around the world. Shortly afterwards he began donating millions to fund the New Right. Scaife's CIA roots are typical of those who head the new conservative foundations. By 1994 the most active were:

Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation
Carthage Foundation
Earhart Foundation
Charles G. Koch
David H. Koch
Claude R. Lambe
Philip M. McKenna
J.M. Foundation
John M. Olin Foundation
Henry Salvatori Foundation
Sarah Scaife Foundation
Smith Richardson Foundation

Between 1992 and 1994, these foundations gave $210 million to conservative causes. Here is the breakdown of their donations:

$88.9 million for conservative scholarships;
$79.2 million to enhance a national infrastructure of think tanks and advocacy groups;
$16.3 million for alternative media outlets and watchdog groups;
$10.5 million for conservative pro-market law firms;
$9.3 million for regional and state think tanks and advocacy groups;
$5.4 million to "organizations working to transform the nations social views and giving practices of the nation's religious and philanthropic leaders." (19)

The political machine they built is broad and comprehensive, covering every aspect of the political fight. It includes right-wing departments and chairs in the nation’s top universities, think tanks, public relations firms, media companies, fake grassroots organizations that pressure Congress (irreverently known as "Astroturf" movements), "Roll-out-the-vote" machines, pollsters, fax networks, lobbyist organizations, economic seminars for the nation’s judges, and more. And because corporations are the richest sector of society, their greater financing overwhelms similar efforts by Democrats.

Besides creating foundations, the CIA helped organize the business community. There have always been special interest groups representing business, like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers, and the CIA has long been involved with them. However, after 1973, a spate of powerful new groups would come into existence, like the Business Roundtable and the Trilateral Commission. These organizations quickly became powerhouses in promoting the business agenda.

Their efforts clearly succeeded. With the 1975 SUN-PAC decision, corporations persuaded government to legalize corporate Political Action Committees (the lobbyist organizations that bribe our government). By 1992, corporations formed 67 percent of all PACs, and they donated 79 percent of all campaign contributions to political parties. (20) In two landmark elections — 1980 and 1994 — corporations gave heavily and one-sidedly to Republicans, turning one or both houses of Congress over to the GOP. Democratic incumbents were shocked by the threat of being rolled completely out of power, so they quietly shifted to the right on economic issues, even though they continued a public façade of liberalism.

Corporations went ahead and donated to Democratic incumbents in all other elections, but only as long as they abandoned the interests of workers, consumers, minorities and the poor. As expected, the new pro-corporate Congress passed laws favoring the rich: between 1975 and 1992, the amount of national household wealth owned by the richest 1 percent soared from 22 to 42 percent. (21)
The CIA also helped create the conservative think tank movement. Prior to the 70s, think tanks spanned the political spectrum, with moderate think tanks receiving three times as much funding as conservative ones.

At these early think tanks, scholars typically brainstormed for creative solutions to policy problems. This would all change after the rise of conservative foundations in the early 70s. The Heritage Foundation opened its doors in 1973, the recipient of $250,000 in seed money from the Coors Foundation. A flood of conservative think tanks followed shortly thereafter, and by 1980 they overwhelmed the scene. The new think tanks turned out to be little more than propaganda mills, rigging studies to "prove" that their corporate sponsors needed tax breaks, deregulation and other favors from government.

Of course, think-tank studies are useless without publicity, and here the CIA proved especially valuable. Using propaganda techniques it had perfected at the Voice of America and Radio Free Europe, the CIA and its allies turned American AM radio into a haven for conservative talk show hosts. Yes — Rush Limbaugh uses the same propaganda techniques that Muscovites once heard from Voice of America. The CIA has also developed countless other media outlets, like Capital Cities (which eventually bought ABC), major PR firms like Hill & Knowlton, and of course, all the Agency’s connections in the national news media. (22)

The following is a typical example of how the "New Media" operates. As most political observers know, the Republicans suffer from a "gender gap," in which women prefer Democrats by huge majorities. This is, in fact, why Clinton has twice won the presidency. But, curiously enough, as the 90s progressed, conservative female pundits began popping up everywhere in the media. Hard-right pundits like Ann Coulter, Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, Laura Ingraham, Barbara Olson, Melinda Sidak, Anita Blair and Whitney Adams conditioned us to the idea of the conservative woman. This phenomenon was no accident. It turns out that Richard Mellon Scaife donated $450,000 over three years to the Independent Women's Forum, a booking agency that heavily seeds such female conservative pundits into the media. (23)

Conclusion

The most obvious criticism of the New Overclass is that their political machine is undemocratic. Using subversive techniques once aimed at communists, and with all the money they ever need to succeed, the Overclass undemocratically controls our government, our media, and even a growing part of academia. These institutions in turn allow the Overclass to control the supposedly "free" market. It doesn't win all the time, of course — witness Bill Clinton's impeachment trial — but it does score an endless string of other victories elsewhere, all to the detriment of workers, consumers, women, minorities and the poor. We need to fight it with everything we've got.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Mr. Bush Goes to GITMO: How the Patriot Act Makes Bush a 'Terrorist'!

The Patriot Act makes it a felony to disseminate or provide false information about 'terrorism'. The Bush administration is built around the lies Bush tells about 'terrorism'. All are felonies under Bush's own Patriot Act!

As Bush never told the truth about 911, al Qaeda, or the phony 'war on terrorism', then any one of his many lies chosen at random should send his sorry ass to GITMO. As Bush has falsely characterized the 'war on terrorism', any lie supporting it violates the Patriot Act. Exquisite justice! Exquisite irony! William Shakespeare could not have done a better job! Bush is stuck on his own flypaper!

The Misprision of Felony strategy for impeachment using the prosecutorial provisions of the USA Patriot Act, using the powerful discovery articles associated and the unlimited prosecutorial tools included with the USA Patriot Act, (and FISA continuation of that body of law), can discover that the CIA tapes of high level terrorist suspect detainees were destroyed in an effort to conceal.
The CIA destroyed the tapes to conceal them from government offices, but most importantly you. [See: Destruction of CIA interrogation tapes may conceal government crimes] The law doesn't protect you from concealment, only your government. Brilliance and great care coupled with great knowledge of the USA Patriot Act body of law will make some prosecutor extremely famous, I wish Bugliosi would get a clue. Any person who is indicted under the felony provisions of the USA Patriot Act will be terrified. People get stupid when they are afraid, when they are terrified. Would you like to see bush and cheney terrified, trembling, scrambling, sweating, branded as un-American? The USA Patriot Act is your law and it is the only law that will terminate this un-American administration.
--Applying the USA Patriot Act to Articles of Impeachment for bush.

That the US is waging a war on terrorism is Bush's biggest lie about terrorism.

The global war on terror is about confronting terrorist groups and the nations that harbor them. The United States does not make deals with terrorists or nations where they find safe lodging.
Leave aside the blind eye that the U.S. has always cast toward Israel's actions in the territories. How are the Bushmen doing elsewhere vis-à-vis their announced principles?
--Bring 'em On!

Does Bush have a defense? Let him tell it to the judge. Bush, of course, denies you that right!

It is said by propagandists for Bush's illegitimate administration that 'terrorists understood the value of systematic gathering and analysis of information for their deadly acts'. That should apply to Bush as well.

A captured Al Qaeda training manual stressed "gathering information about the enemy, the land, the installations, and the neighbors;" disseminating false information ("spreading rumors and writing statements that instigate people against the enemy"); carrying false identity cards, passports, and other documents; and deliberate but cautious use of modern information systems ("duration of transmission [on facsimile and wireless] should not exceed five minutes in order to prevent the enemy from pinpointing the device location").3 They communicated over the Internet, exploited lax United States requirements to obtain key documents (such as visas and social security cards), carefully moved funds through special banks known as hawalas (that are not closely regulated and create few records), and coordinated so thoroughly that each of the four hijacking teams had its own ATM card with a single PIN.4
--Information and the War on Terrorism

If it should turn out that Bush faked this so-called 'manual', then Bush goes to GITMO! If it should turn out that Bush lied about 'terrorism', Bush goes to GITMO. If it should turn out that the 'war on terrorism' is itself a panoply of lies, then Bush gets to go on a long vacation at GITMO.

"Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases."
--Bush, October 2002.

Various 'official' versions of 'al Qaeda' are unsupported by hard evidence. If any one of them is false, Bush goes to gitmo!

Let's get down to some specific lies that Bush has told --lies that will send him to GITMO.

The invasion of Iraq was based on a reasonable belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the US, a belief supported by available intelligence evidence.

Saddam tried to buy uranium in Niger.
To help support global terrorism we were supposed to conclude. Again ---Bush's lies gets him free transportation to GITMO!

The aluminum tubes were proof of a nuclear program

The CIA was primarily responsible for any prewar intelligence errors or distortions regarding Iraq.

The US wants democracy in Iraq and the Middle East.

Andy Ostroy has prepared quite a nice list of Bush's numerous lies. You sort out which ones are most likely to get Bush to GITMO:

Let's review Bush's impact since 2000 at home and abroad, in no particular order:

1. Lied about WMD.
2. Unilaterally invaded a sovereign nation without provocation and justification.
3. Lied during State of the Union speech re: Niger Uranium.
4. Responsible for pre-9/11 intelligence failures in White House, CIA, FBI.
5. Allowed 9-11 murderers to remain free while diverting precious military and financial resources to his vanity war in Iraq.
6. Lied about Saddam/bin Laden connection.
7. Turned Iraq into a terrorist breeding ground.
8. Lied about nation-building.
9. Opposed creation of 9-11 Commission and Homeland Security Department.
10. Disrespected and alienated the US from French, German and other key allies.
11. Lied to Americans about the real cost of war.
12. Fostered an environment of torture at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo.
13. Lined Halliburton's pockets in Afghanistan and Iraq with fat no-bid contracts.
14. Under-manned and under-equipped our armed forces in Iraq, resulting in unnecessary death and injuries.
15. Ignored the nuclear build-up in both Iran and N.Korea; marginalized Kim Jong Il.
16. Shunned Kyoto Treaty.
17. Lied about effects of man-made pollutants on the environment to support corporate pals.
18. Lied about the insolvency of Social Security.
19. Gave huge cuts to the wealthiest taxpayers.
20. Lied about true cost of health care bill.
21. Lied about Free Trade stand.
22. Bitterly divided the nation along religious, party and sexual preference lines.
23. Guilty of numerous cronyism appointments (Homeland Security, Supreme Court, etc)
24. Rewarded failures of Condi Rice and other cronies with key promotions.
25. Dreadful energy policies lead to record gas and oil prices.
26. Responsible for the largest debt in US history.
27. Colossal failure of preparedness, rescue and relief during Hurricane Katrina.
28. Fostered a culture of corruption among GOP and top leadership (Tom Delay, etc).
29. Allowed Donald Rumsfeld to keep job despite utter failure in Iraq.
30. Presided over the US's lowest popularity throughout the world.
31. Saw No Child Left Behind fail.
32. Lied last week about Iraqi troop strength during Saturday radio address. Directly contradicted by testimony given earlier in the week by Gen. Abizaid.
--The Ostroy Report

Under the terms of the Patriot Act --any lie about terrorism will get Bush the long vacation that he richly deserves. I am told that Cuba is a lovely country. But Bush won't see much of it from his tiny cell. He will be fashionably attired! In an orange suit!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Un-American Lies of Antonin Scalia

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

It's time the American people fired the man who thinks himself 'too smart for the (Supreme) court'. Scalia has done it again. The architect of Bush v Gore, the disingenuous decision that stuck us with Bush, has stooped to yet another low. Scalia will tell bald faced lies to prop up his bullshit 'opinions'.

To bolster his argument that the Guantanamo detainees should be denied the right to prove their innocence in federal courts, Justice Antonin Scalia wrote in his dissent in Boumediene v. Bush: "At least 30 of those prisoners hitherto released from Guantanamo have returned to the battlefield." It turns out that statement is false.

According to a new report by Seton Hall Law Center for Policy and Research, "The statistic was endorsed by a Senate Minority Report issued June 26, 2007, which cites a media outlet, CNN. CNN, in turn, named the DoD as its source. The '30' number, however, was corrected in a DoD press release issued in July 2007, and a DoD document submitted to the House Foreign Relations Committee on May 20, 2008 abandons the claim entirely."
--Scalia Cites False Information in Habeas Corpus Dissent

Neither logic nor the 'rule of law' is among Scalia's strong suits. How did he manage to get a law degree? Until this latest outrage, Scalia had said that the high court's decision restoring Habeas Corpus would 'almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed’. Hey! Scalia! Debate me on that one. I need fresh meat.

Conservative Justice Antonin Scalia, however, is outraged. In his dissenting opinion, he devoted an entire section to “a description of the disastrous consequences of what the Court has done today,” a procedure “contrary to my usual practice,” he admitted. Scalia adopted extreme rhetoric about the impacts of the decision, calling it a “self-invited…incursion into military affairs” that would “almost certainly” kill Americans. Some lowlights:
– “America is at war with radical Islamists. … Our Armed Forces are now in the field against the enemy, in Afghanistan and Iraq.”
– “The game of bait-and-switch that today’s opinion plays upon the Nation’s Commander in Chief will make the war harder on us. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed.”

– “Today the Court warps our Constitution.”
– “The Nation will live to regret what the Court has done today.”
It is unlikely that the Supreme Court’s decision will have the impacts that Scalia claims. As Kennedy explained, “Liberty and security can be reconciled; and in our system they are reconciled within the framework of the law.” Discussing the restoration of habeas at Guantanamo last year, Colin Powell noted:
The concern was, well, then they’ll have access to lawyers, then they’ll have access to writs of habeas corpus. So what? Let them. Isn’t that what our system’s all about? And by the way, America, unfortunately, has too many people in jail, all of whom had lawyers and access to writs of habeas corpus. And so we can handle bad people in our system.
--Scalia: Court’s Decision Restoring Habeas ‘Will Almost Certainly Cause More Americans To Be Killed’»

I am still amazed that a court whose job is to measure the nation's statutory laws against the 'supreme law' of the land could have ruled in Bush's favor on any issue. One had hoped SCOTUS would redeem itself for a bone-headed decision styled Bush v Gore, a disastrous, politically motivated decision that replaced the rule of law with political expediency.

Later, by ruling that habeas corpus protections apply to detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, the high court held out the promise that it might yet rise above the muck left us in Bush v Gore and by Bush's war on the Constitution!

In the majority opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote: “We hold these petitioners do have the habeas corpus privilege”. For an administration that thought the fix was in, that it had sufficient ringers on the court, the decision must have come a shock.

Scalia's 'war on logic' is even older. In Bush v Gore, the 'decision that made no law', Scalia argued that 'continuing the recount' would be harmful to Bush. Well, I would hope so! That's the very purpose of elections. The candidate who gets the fewer number of votes is supposed to lose!

Being a disingenuous, snake oil salesmen is one thing. But telling a bald face lie in support of an argument in a decision of the high court is 'intellectual dishonesty' of the highest order.

It's time to impeach Scalia! Scalia doesn't like his job anyway. He thinks himself 'too smart' for it. Let's oblige him by firing his sorry ass.

According to news reports, Scalia, speaking to the ultra-conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute, read from the Lawrence opinion in mocking tones. Ironic, inasmuch as the 50-year-old institute has says its mission is to "enhance the rising generation's knowledge of our nation's founding principles - limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free enterprise and Judeo-Christian moral standards." The organization, like its famed speaker, draws the line at your individual liberty. They get theirs, you don't get yours if it is contrary to theirs. And there is only one Judeo-Christian moral standard--their own.
Scalia is not alone in his condemnation of his colleagues on the high court. Clarence Thomas has repeatedly talked about the cold and lonely place that is the Court. He shows his contempt for oral arguments by generally refusing to participate.
Why is it that the right, especially the religious right, represented by the likes of Scalia on the court, are so totally unaccepting of another's point of view? Do they truly believe that they have all of the answers to all legal, legislative, and social issues? This week I gave a legal seminar to attorneys in a part of Virginia where Rev. Pat Robertson seems to have a lock on "truth." A couple of religious zealots in the seminar derided other attorneys who tried to talk about life and death issues such abortion, end-of-life treatment, stem cell research, and health care for all Americans. We were supposed to be talking about legal conundrums and challenges.
--ELAINE CASSEL, Antonin Scalia's Contempus Mundi

Let's take the longer view. This government has become illegitimate by every definition of that term. Therefore, according to sound principles practiced by the Barons who forced King John to sign the Magna Carta and, more recently, the principle espoused by such disparate figures as Thomas Jefferson and Che Guevara, it is the right of the people to abolish the government.

It's time to start all over. And when we've done it, when we've plugged up the loopholes that even the disingenuous Scalia can't slither through, then a new government should give Scalia the notice that his 'services' are no longer required. He should have no complaints. After all, Scalia has said that he is 'too smart' for the court!

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Why were 'first responders' decontaminated at the Pentagon?

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Decontamination is done when one is exposed to radiation! Why, then, were 911 'first responders' to the Pentagon de-contaminated? That they were is compelling evidence that DU [Depleted Uranium] ammunition and armour-piercing technology were present; it is compelling evidence that Bush's 'official conspiracy theory' of 911 is utter bullshit! If DU had been used at the Pentagon, then the fire and damage was most certainly not caused by a hijacked 757.

There is not a shred of hard evidence to support any part of Bush's 'official theory' which fails to explain anything about the Pentagon crash. A more rational explanation is required consistent with observed and verifiable facts on the ground and in the photos. Bush's official theory merely ignores the difficult parts; its authors hoped that you would not notice.

Facts unexplained by the 'official' theory include:

a 16 x 20 penetration hole much too small accommodate a 757
a punch out hole in the inner ring (too small; a soft, aluminum bodied 757 would not have made it that far anyway)
the utter lack of even so much as a skid mark on a pristine, putting green lawn
no wings were ever recovered from the lawn, the building, or the inner ring. Where are they?
Donald Rumsfeld referred to a 'missile that struck this building'; a 757 is NOT a missile but a U.S. Global Hawk most certainly is --and it carries a payload.
the total debris gathered is but a small fraction of the total debris that would have been left by an airliner. [See: conservation of matter and energy] According to the 'conservation of energy and matter, neither energy nor matter is ever destroyed; it merely changes form. Whatever struck the Pentagon would leave behind its own weight in debris.

That the Bush 'official conspiracy theory' violates the long established principle of the 'conservation of matter and energy' is the smoking gun. The only other explanation is that 911 was an inside job and no airliner ever struck the Pentagon.

It is the job of 'theories' in law, science or forensics to explain. A 'theory' raising more questions than it explains is a bad theory --even if it is official. Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is worse than 'bad theory' --it's a treasonous lie.

Official FEMA photographs from the Pentagon depict what is obviously an engine rotor with a diameter estimated at about three feet, obviously from an aircraft which is credibly estimated (from the photos) to be about 1/3 the size of each of two much larger 757 rotors. Larger rotors, traceable to a 757 were NEVER found at the Pentagon. Had a 757 crashed, the rotors of titanium-steel alloy to withstand interior engine heat, would have survived to be found. That they were not proves that they were never there! Ergo: NO 757 ever crashed the Pentagon --hijacked or no!

The photographs of the 'rotor' were published in the American Free Press and, so far, no one has dared claim that it is the rotor of a 757 engine --an aircraft that we are told hit the Pentagon. The engine rotor from a 757 is about three times the size at about 9 feet in diameter. If an airliner had crashed the Pentagon, two such rotors --each some 9 feet in diameter would have been found. They were not found because they were never there.

The three-rotor turbine was found near insulation and part of a 'housing', evidence that it was the wreckage of a much smaller aircraft than a 757 --a U.S. Global Hawk, perhaps. In any case, its presence does not support Bushco's 'official conspiracy theory'; moreover, the 'official conspiracy theory' cannot explain the presence of small aircraft wreckage. The 'official conspiracy theory' utterly falls apart.

The Pentagon was and remains among the most 'surveilled' buildings in the world. Hundreds, perhaps, thousands of frames were taken of whatever it was that crashed the Pentagon. The point is clear: the debate about what actually struck the Pentagon could have been put to rest before it began had the government --the Bush administration --released all the photos that were taken that day. If Bush is annoyed because people demand the truth, he has only himself to blame. Bush could have given himself up, confessed, submitted to trial, been convicted and hanged! It would haved saved the nation a nightmare.

Now --if Bush is guilty, his refusal to release the photos is completely understandable! Guilty people are highly motivated to hide or destroy evidenceA photo of a Global Hawk, for example, is compelling evidence, perhaps a 'smoking gun', that the attack on the Pentagon was an inside job. If Bush were entirely innocent of all wrong doing in connection with 911, it would have been in his interest to release every photograph and to have ordered a complete and thorough investigation of 911. But --instead --Bush chose to cover it up and accuse those questioning him of high treason! Fact is --only if Bush is guilty is it in his interest to 'cover it up'. Bush covered up 911 and ordered physical evidence destroyed --NOT the behavior of an innocent man! 911 continues to be covered up to this day! Draw your own conclusions.

The nail in the coffin is the fact that 911 responders were de-contaminated at the Pentagon. The official theory doesn't even try to explain that fact! It was assumed that we would never find out about it. That 911 responders were de-contaminated does two things: 1) it completely demolishes the 'official conspiracy theory'; 2) it is material evidence that whomever ordered the 'responders' had reason to believe that dangerous radiation posed a threat to workers on the site. That the decontamination took place is evidence that they had been correct!

A 757 airliner is a civilian craft. It is not nuclear powered; it does not carry a nuclear war head or hardened nose cone. It carried no weaponry --conventional or nuclear! Had a 757 crashed the Pentagon there would have been no need to order decontamination procedures. No such procedures were carried out in New York. Clearly, 'officials' knew at the time that a civilian airliner had not crashed the Pentagon. Moreover, the only scenario that fully explains the necessity of decontamination procedures is that a military craft crashed into the Pentagon. It is my belief that that is what happened in fact.

As I have written time and again, Bush's official conspiracy theory is full of holes.

No part of it is defensible.
There is not a shred of hard evidence in support of it.
The 'story' itself is inconsistent.
It violates Occam's Razor, raising more questions than it explains.
It's a lousy theory. Even a bad theory should --at least --'sound' credible. Bush has only shock, trauma, grief and misplaced patriotism in his defense.

By contrast, every explanation is, in fact, a theory. Theories, despite what Bush and the media would have you believe, are how both law and science proceed. A set of related facts are explained by 'theories' which must, of necessity, explain all facts. Theories inconsistent with proven facts must be discarded as false. Bush's theory explains nothing and is inconsistent with established science. By contrast, a technology called 'Global Hawk may very well explain the seemingly inexplicable events of 911 and, at the same time, point an accusing finger.

The salient feature of Global Hawk technology is that it is operated by remote control. Google 'Global Hawk'. You will find several articles about how the US outfitted a plane with Global Hawk technology and flew it from California to Australia. No human pilot! No Arab hijackers! Remote control.

America's greatest crime against humanity is radioactive genocide particularly against the children of Iraq who are the innocent victims of our illegal war, occupation and economic rape of Iraq. We have the blood of countless innocent children on our hands and it will take generations to remove the stain of our illegal and inhumane transgressions. Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.
--America's greatest crime is radioactive genocide

The most obvious holes in Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 are connected with two buildings: WTC-7, ordered 'pulled' by Larry Silverstein; and the Pentagon where the 'debris' recovered doesn't add up to a 757 airliner which would have left behind several times the wreckage that was, in fact, recovered! [See: 911 ] The single engine 'rotor' that was found was only three feet in diameter. If a 757 had struck the Pentagon, two engines with rotors of about 9 feet in diameter would have been recovered. In fact, no other Pentagon wreckage was ever traced to an airliner of any sort.

911 Vérité sur le crash au Pentagone

Uploaded by arnoprepa

The main reason for using "dense" or "heavy metal" in new version hard target bombs and cruise missiles is the increased kinetic energy available for an existing delivery system. High density metal (DU is 2.4 x heavier than Iron) means that the same weight length penetrator can be smaller diameter. This is important because new upgrades have to fit the same size missile bodies or bomb dispensers. See the FAS site http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/hdbtdc.htm Research data on ground penetration weapons relates penetration effectiveness to length against cross section area - thinner ones go deeper for the weight, whatever they are made of.
The pyrophoric (burns in air) quality of DU that helps it burn its way through armor is not relevant for the first stage of hitting hard targets. Bombs and cruise missiles go slower than anti-tank shells so DU is less likely to ignite on initial impact at slower speeds. Kinetic energy and nose cone design are most important to go through earth and concrete. Tungsten may be best for the tip if is not too brittle. But it would be far more expensive than DU for the main ballast or liners.
--Depleted Uranium Shells Against Afghanistan Population

If a real investigation of 911 should conclude that the weapon of choice was a Global Hawk, then the only conclusions consistent with that are:

911 was an inside job;
the 'President' actively tried to cover up the crime of mass murder to protect members of his administration and to hide his own complicity;
that tax monies --paid by US citizens to 'their' government were misappropriated and applied to the mass murder of fellow citizens.

Traditionally, treason is the name given serious acts of disloyalty to one's sovereign or one's nation. It was not until 1990, that the Criminal Justice Act (1990) removed the death penalty for acts of treason. But 911, is not only an act of high treason --the supreme act against one's country. 911 is a series of 'mass murders'. Certainly, if Bush were an ordinary human being subject to the laws that every other person is subject to, this crime would have landed him on death row in Texas awaiting a needle and an IV cocktail.

No Windows on Flight 175

It is hard, offhand, to cite a single crime in world history that is the equal of 911 in terms of sheer evil and horror. The name Bush will surely live in infamy. If Bush cannot be held accountable to the rule of law --which he claims to be above -- then it is the patriotic duty of good, truth-loving Americans to keep alive his memory. The name 'Bush' should, by rights, live forever in infamy beside the names of history's great mass murderers --Nero, Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot!

Monday, June 23, 2008

How to remember George Carlin

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

There's no point is trying to write an article about George Carlin. In this case, the platitudes just don't work. There is no way to sum up what Carlin meant to a generation being pushed through a human sausage grinder called Viet Nam, a generation that witnessed the US government open fire and murder its own citizens. It's enough to view Carlin and laugh with him at every stupid thing that's been done to us. As Carlin might have put it: it must really piss those mother fuckin' cocksuckers off! Sorry, George, wherever you are. I just couldn't get all seven of them in. There was, after all, only one George Carlin.

Following is a 'video playlist' of several of Carlin's greatest routines as well as the obligatory 'obit'.

George Carlin R.I.P.

I forwarded an email with news about Carlin. The People's Voice were kind enough to quote me:

"--a 'funny man', to be sure, but much, much more. Carlin was a worldly wise man, a latter day Voltaire who 'cut through the crap' to expose the frauds behind many curtains."
- Len Hart

Carlin is already missed! But he will never be forgotten. Whenever anyone in authority does something stupid, mean, or just plain crooked, George had already skewered them. Whenever a prig presumes to authority, George had a list of seven words that still sums them up!

Don't mourn Carlin's passing. Go get a CD of one of his old 'albums'. Put it on and have a laugh at the expense of every stupid jerkoff that makes up the American establishment. Laugh it up! Carlin lives!

Bush's Capital Crimes in his own words

Bush accuses critics of Abu Ghraib of 'slandering America'. Bush, however, had eviscerated America, trashed its Constitution. How dare this dumbass accuse those who have exposed his capital crimes of 'slandering America?!

I have a message for Bush: you are NOT America!

Regulars to this blog know that since its inception, I have charged that George W. Bush has committed 'capital crimes'. He has done so knowing that they were capital crimes. So arrogant is this mediocre excuse for a human being that he simply never thought that the people of the US would catch on to his 'act', in fact, his bloody criminal fraud.

Having commented on this blog, 'WindHarps' has now put together in one You Tube 'post' a veritable treasure trove of videos in which Bush reveals to the world his venality, his stupidity and his arrogance. There is nothing more insufferable than an idiot so arrogant that he thinks his intellectual betters will never catch him in his lies, will never dare to expose to the world the millions of deaths for which he is responsible! And because Iraq is a war of naked aggression, those deaths --military and civilian --are each one count in a murder indictment that will include more than a million victims.

Bush's Supreme (Court) Hypocrisy: "Slander[ing] America"
Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Rendition? "Of course if you want to slander America, you can look at it one way." Abu Ghraib? "This is [just] the action of some soldiers."
From http://www.crooksandliars.com :
During an interview with Sky News, Bush accused British journalist Adam Boulton of "slander[ing] America."
Boulton: "And yet there are those who would say, look, let's take Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib and rendition and all those things, and to them that is the, you know, the complete opposite of freedom."
Bush: "Of course if you want to slander America, you can look at it one way. But you go down — what you need to do — I think I suggested you do this at a press conference — if you go down to Guantanamo and take a look at how these prisoners are treated — and they're working it through our court systems. We are a land of law."
Face The Nation's Bob Schieffer Sums Up Torture as Legal
General-Abu Ghraib-Bush Officials-War Crimes.
The Supreme Court Overruled Bush (a 3rd Time), Saving Habeas Corpus: "The justices, voting 5-4, said a 2006 law unconstitutionally stripped Guantanamo prisoners of the right to file so-called Habeas Corpus petitions. The majority rejected arguments that a system of limited judicial review...was adequate to protect inmate rights."
Bush's Response: Threatened (more) possible legislation (forgetting that their Majority was lost in Nov. 2006). The Military Commissions Act was an override of the Supreme Court, and a retroactive cover for War Crimes. Who has slandered America, and everything it once stood for?
Bush: "Bypassing the Constitution means that we did something outside the bounds of the Constitution."
Yes, that's exactly what it means.
Supreme Hypocrisy.
Supreme "Tortured" Logic.
Supreme Bullshit from a regime defined by "bullshit"!
A Different Supreme Court Awaits.
Boumediene v. Bush
Hamdan v. Rumsfeld
Rasul v. Bush
Geneva Conventions
Nuremberg Principles
Torture By Music: "According to US military authorities, it was God himself who first wrote the strategy of "Torture By Music" into the field manual.... Joshua's army used horns to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Jericho."
War Crimes Committed and Justice Denied

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

It's hard to stop buying oil when the world's economy is based on it. But --start! An economy based upon oil will have to fall before anything is done or changed. As long as the US economy is based upon a resource that it cannot produce economically, the US will continue to blackmail oil producing nations with nukes.

The US has become MUGGER NATION!.

Why is a different standard applied to gangs of crooks than apply to crooks individually?

The source of most US crookery abroad is the 'Military/Industrial Complex' --a high sounding name for a gang of ruthless, venal corporations who openly conspire to hijack the apparatus of state for business purposes. The enforcement arm of the MIC is 'Blackwater USA' a private firm best described as 'paid thugs', professional muggers! Individuals who do that are called either 'criminals' or 'terrorists'.

Any political party supporting this arrangement is a criminal conspiracy. Any individual providing material support is a crook! The GOP is a criminal conspiracy and its leadership should be prosecuted under RICO statutes. Sadly, Democrats will never change anything as long as they are content to lick up the leavings.

Though M*A*S*H informed us that 'Suicide Is Painless", it solves nothing. The cure for addiction is never painless but must begin if the US has any hope of surviving. Suffer a little pain for a better world. Stop feeding the beast! Stop addressing him as 'The Great and All Poweful Oz'! He's a hologram!

The machine cannot continue unless you continue. You are the power that turns the wheel. Step away from the wheel. As one more slithering entity calls out for the murder of a truthseeker you must now call out for justice. We are in dire need of a new Nuremberg. Those who have killed without conscience must be called into the dock. Justice must be done for the dead and dishonored. The evidence is vast and convincing; the perpetrators known and identified.
Can you hear the rushing of the waters? Can you see the events near and far that tell you the water, which is not water, is uncomfortably close? Can you feel the wind that drives the specters in the mist? Will you go or will you step away from the wheel?
--Les Visible, The Creeping Madness of the Collectively Unhinged Mind.

Michael Reagan is a product of the 'machine'. The radio stations that carry his venom sell advertising that shills the products of an economy that is utterly dependent upon the continued theft --by the US --of the resources of other nations and other individuals. Theft! In fact, a mugging. The US overtly threatens other nations with nukes! 'Give us your oil or a fat juicy cut or get nuked!' Millions deplore such tactics yet they remain in the play book. Too few have stepped away from the wheel.

The Wizard of Oz was written at the turn of the century, so how could the author have known America was going to be drugged? The Crown has been playing the drug cartel game for centuries. Just look up the history of Hong Kong and the Opium Wars. The Crown already had valuable experience conquering all of China with drugs, so why not the rest of the world? What was the Emerald City? The Federal Reserve System. [note: the author quoted cites the 'Fed'. I think the machine if much bigger even and includes the Fed, the MIC, the US 'corporotacracy', et al.]
Who finally exposed the Wizard for what he really was? Toto, the ugly (or cute, depending on your perspective) and somewhat annoying little dog.
Toto means "in total, all together; Latin in toto." What was it that the witch wanted after she alleged that the little dog had bitten her? TOTO. ... everything. Notice how Toto was not scared of the Great Wizard's theatrics, yet he was so small in size, compared to the Wizard, that no one seemed to notice him? The smoke, flames and holographic images of Oz were designed to frighten people into doing as the Great Wizard commanded. Toto simply padded over, looked behind the curtain (the COURT, etc.), saw it was a scam, started barking until others paid attention to him and came to see what all the barking was about.
Who was behind the curtain? Just an ORDINARY PERSON controlling the levers that created the illusion of the Great Wizard's power and authority. When Toto pulled back the curtain and completely exposed him, the charade was at an end. (The veil hiding the corporate legal fiction and its false courts was removed.) The Wizard's game was UP. What was he after all? ... a con-man. A FRAUD. We can see, in this tale, just how loud the bark from a little dog can be.

Start thinking about the various ways in which you have supported this "hologram", this phony wizard, this great beast and then stop doing it. Stop supporting the machine and stop supporting it's "mugger" government. When enough people have stoppedfeeding this beast, the beast will die!

Trailer: The Wizard of Oz

The Existentialist Cowboy

Sunday, June 29, 2008

Steve Kangas: The Origins of the Overclass

Thursday, June 26, 2008

Mr. Bush Goes to GITMO: How the Patriot Act Makes Bush a 'Terrorist'!

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

The Un-American Lies of Antonin Scalia

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Why were 'first responders' decontaminated at the Pentagon?

Monday, June 23, 2008

How to remember George Carlin

Bush's Capital Crimes in his own words

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain

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