George Bush Sr, JFK and the Men Who Stole America

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

As Texas Sen Lloyd Bentsen famously told GOP V.P. candidate Dan Quayle in the Vice Presidential debate of October 5, 1988:

"I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy".

That exchange from the Vice-Presidential debates (1988) was a bitter reminder that the cold-blooded murder of JFK destroyed the 'America' that we had known and loved. Not only JFK died that day but our hopes and dreams for a better America, a world at peace.

I was not as fortunate as the late Senator Bentsen and did not know JFK. I was still in high school. But I knew George Bush Sr --sort of, if any one ever 'really' knew him or 'knows' him! We never hung out or shared a beer! George Bush Sr was no friend of mine! And never will be! If my suspicions are true, Bush is no friend of anyone --rather an enemy of the American people, the Constitution, possibly the world!

I did know Bush Sr well enough to recognize him up close or from a distance. I could pick him out in a crowd from across the huge Grand Ballroom of the Houston Hyatt-Regency. I am convinced that it is Bush Sr who was photographed 'hanging around' just outside the Texas School Book Depository just moments before JFK was murdered.

Jim Marrs : During that time, during the time of the Bay of Pigs, while you were training and moving around in the Caribbean, No Name Key and all that, did you ever hear the name George Herbert Walker Bush?

James Files: Oh Yeah!

Jim Marrs: What was his role?

James Files: George Herbert Walker Bush. I don't know if, I think a lot of people are not going to believe this, but he worked for the CIA back as early as 1961 that I know of.

Jim Marrs : How did he work? What did he do?

James Files : I don't know all he did, but he did a lot of recruiting work. I know he was there at the beginning for what we called Group 40, a special operations group, Group 40. If you wonder what Group 40 was, an assassination group.

Operation 40 was a top secret CIA project to train selected cuban exiles in guerrilla warfare and assassinations, aimed against the Castro regime. Apart from Felix Rodriguez, other members were now infamous CIA agents and Anti Castro terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Guillermo and Ignacio Novo Sampoll and later Watergate plumbers Frank Sturgis, Eugenio Martinez, Virgilio Gonzalez and E. Howard Hunt. Most of the operation 40 members were recruited from JM/Wave, a much larger clandestine operation to train a cuban exile army for the Bay of Pigs invasion. JM/Wave is headed by CIA official Theodore Shackley. James Files, the confessed gunman on the grassy knoll, was recruited for the CIA by David Atlee Phillips on a recommendation of Ted Shackley. Shackley becomes George Bush's deputy director for Covert Operations in 1976. The CIA controller of JFK's assassin is provably close to Shackley, Shackley is provably close to Bush. Not significant?

--Behind the Bushes

The Warren Commission's official 'magic bullet' theory was cooked up to cover up the undeniable fact that the shot that killed JFK came from the front, the infamous grassy knoll where witnesses were photographed rushing up the knoll toward a leafy cover just behind the picket fence.

A cover-up of the murder began the day he died or even sooner. Gerald Ford admitted to tampering with evidence while he was on the Warren Commission. In other words, Ford committed a federal crime the effect of which has kept the truth from the American people since 1963.

The initial draft of the report stated:

"A bullet had entered his back at a point slightly above the shoulder to the right of the spine."

Ford wanted it to read:

"A bullet had entered the back of his neck slightly to the right of the spine."

--Gerald Ford's Terrible Fiction

Anyone lying about the JFK assassination is, as far as I am concerned, suspected of covering up the crimes of murder and high treason that were committed on November 22, 1963. Who lies about a crime but those who are guilty or profiting, in any way, from the cover up? Lying about and covering up a crime is probable cause to suspect the liar of having participated in whatever crime is lied about. Guilt is the most powerful motive to lie about a crime. Conversely, innocent people are powerfully motivated to tell and/or get at the truth.

Like 911, we were and remain targeted to receive a fusillade of lies, the purposes of which are to distract and confuse. Those guilty of the crime are always those who benefit from the lies. Similarly, those who lie about the crime are almost always guilty of it.

Nothing silences a potential witness more effectively than death. The murder of Lee Harvey Oswald by known mobster Jack Ruby was entirely too timely, too convenient. It effectively shut Oswald up. Accused of murdering JFK, Oswald protested that he had been set up, that he had been 'a patsy'. Indeed, Oswald had to die.

It was necessary to create a 'credible sounding' phony investigation before a real investigation could learn the truth. Thus was born the Warren Cover-Up Commission facilitating and promoting the government's official cover story.

"According to the Warren Report the missile hit JFK in the posterior neck, then without striking any hard object passed through the neck to exit at the front of his throat. It then entered Texas Governor John B. Connally's back at the right arm pit, sliding along his fifth rib, demolishing four inches of the rib before it exited his chest below the right nipple. The bullet then allegedly struck and shattered the radius of the right wrist on the dorsal side, then exited at the base of his palm and hit his left thigh just about the knee.

The Report then asserts that CE 399 traveled about three inches beneath the surface of the skin, hit the femur and deposited a lead fragment on the bone. Then, sometime later, with a spasm of reverse kinetic energy it spontaneously exited the hole in Connally's thigh and neatly tucked itself under the mattress of a stretcher parked in a hallway of the Parkland Memorial Hospital that the Report asserted was linked to the wounded governor. There it rested calmly under the mattress waiting for its rendezvous with history."

--Gerald McKnight, Researcher

The "chain of evidence" on Commission Exhibit 399 --known as the 'Magic Bullet' --had been broken. The government could not have convicted Oswald with a 'magic bullet'. Because the 'chain of evidence' had been broken, the 'magic bullet' would not have been admitted as evidence. Oswald would have walked.

A trial of Oswald would have exposed the fraudulent nature of both the Warren Commission and the government's position. That's motive enough to order the murder of Lee Harvey Oswald who had maintained from the get go that he was a 'patsy'. Oswald, I am sure, would have had much more to say in his own defense had his case gone to trial. Oswald knew too much.

Among the many flaws in the composition and mandate of the Warren Commission, the most glaring is that the committee lacked investigative powers. It was at the mercy of the CIA and the FBI to conduct its investigation, and both organizations had a lot to hide. The CIA, for example, refused to reveal the extent to which it had collaborated with organized crime to try to assassinate Castro. Nor did it reveal the files it had on contacts with Lee Oswald, dating to his time in the Soviet Union. Likewise, the FBI had similar interests and files on Oswald’s bizarre movements and affiliations.

Talbot writes: “In the days following the assassination, [CIA Director John] McCone would conclude that there had been two shooters in Dallas, in striking contrast to the official version of the crime of a lone gunman, which was being ardently promoted by Hoover and the FBI.” In their own ways, for their own institutional reasons, both agencies preferred cover-up over truth in answering the question that National Book Award novelist, Don DeLillo, raises in Libra: “Who arranged the life of Lee Harvey Oswald?”

Despite being “one of the first—and among the staunchest—believers in a conspiracy,” Robert Kennedy did little to encourage those challenging the lone-gunman orthodoxy. He had little time for New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who was, according to Talbot, “shining light on a crucial corner of the conspiracy—a world of zealous CIA plotters, Cuban expatriates, far-right militants, and mercenaries, where President Kennedy was considered a traitor.” Bobby’s gumshoe, Walt Sheridan, did not trust or like Garrison, who placed Oswald, during the summer of 1963, in the company of such Camp Street lowlifes as Guy Banister and David Ferrie. Bobby may also have resented Garrison for disrupting Kennedy’s grand plan, to go public with his conspiracy conclusions only after he had become president. In turn, Garrison could never understand Bobby’s reluctance to join forces and track down the assassins. “If they killed my brother,” Garrison said, “I’d be in the alley waiting for them with a steak knife, not sitting at the Kennedy Center watching a ballet with them.”

--"Bobby Kennedy died believing his brother's killers had not been found", A review of Chasing Assassins by Guest Columnist to The Existentialist Cowboy, Matthew Stevenson

Like Dan Quayle, Bush Sr was expert at saying nothing while moving his lips. In his presence, one was always in danger of death by boredom! Nevertheless, he was a Bonesman, the son of a traitor, a CIA 'operative'. He was and probably still is a very dangerous man! As Caesar said of Cassius, he had 'a lean and hungry look'!

A body of leads has been assembled which suggests that George Bush may have been associated with the CIA at some time before the autumn of 1963. According to Joseph McBride of The Nation, “a source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities.” 1

By the time of the Kennedy assassination, we have an official FBI document which refers to “Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency,” and despite official disclaimers there is every reason to think that this is indeed the man in the White House today. The mystery of George Bush as a possible covert operator hinges on four points, each one of which represents one of the great political and espionage scandals of postwar American history. These four cardinal points are:

• The abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, launched on April 16-17, 1961, prepared with the assistance of the CIA’s “Miami Station” (also known under the code name JM/WAVE). After the failure of the amphibious landings of Brigade 2506, Miami station, under the leadership of Theodore Shackley, became the focus for Operation Mongoose, a series of covert operations directed against Castro, Cuba, and possibly other targets.

• The assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on November 22, 1963, and the cover-up of those responsible for this crime.

• The Watergate scandal, beginning with an April, 1971 visit to Miami, Florida by E. Howard Hunt on the tenth anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion to recruit operatives for the White House Special Investigations Unit (the “Plumbers” and later Watergate burglars) from among Cuban-American Bay of Pigs veterans.

• The Iran-contra affair, which became a public scandal during October-November 1986, several of whose central figures, such as Felix Rodriguez, were also veterans of the Bay of Pigs.

George Bush’s role in both Watergate and the October surprise/Iran-contra complex will be treated in detail at later points in this book. Right now it is important to see that thirty years of covert operations, in many respects, form a single continuous whole. This is especially true in regard to the dramatis personae. Georgie Anne Geyer points to the obvious in a recent book: “…an entire new Cuban cadre now emerged from the Bay of Pigs.

The names Howard Hunt, Bernard Barker, Rolando Martinez, Felix Rodriguez and Eugenio Martinez would, in the next quarter century, pop up, often decisively, over and over again in the most dangerous American foreign policy crises. There were Cubans flying missions for the CIA in the Congo and even for the Portuguese in Africa; Cubans were the burglars of Watergate; Cubans played key roles in Nicaragua, in Irangate, in the American move into the Persian Gulf.” 2 Felix Rodriguez tells us that he was infiltrated into Cuba with the other members of the “Grey Team” in conjunction with the Bay of Pigs landings; this is the same man we will find directing the contra supply effort in central American during the 1980’s, working under the direct supervision of Don Gregg and George Bush. 3 Theodore Shackley, the JM/WAVE station chief, will later show up in Bush’s 1979-80 presidential campaign.

--Webster Tarpley, , George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography, Chapter 8b – The Bay of Pigs and The Kennedy Assassination

Was the assassination of JFK a textbook example of the The Modus Operandi of the CIA? In this source insider Ralph McGehee, chronicles the work he performed for the CIA from 1952 through 1977. Another book --Deadly Deceits --is sub-titled: My 25 years in the CIA (New York: Sheridan Square Press, 1983). In this source is compiled a computer data base of CIA activities. Persons interested may write to him at: 422 Arkansas Ave., Herndon, VA 22070. (See http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA/CIA_SOP.html .)

“...it is essential to provide background on the scope and nature of its worldwide operations. Between 1961 and 1975 the Agency conducted 900 major or sensitive operations, and thousands of lesser covert actions. The majority of its operations were propaganda, election or paramilitary. Countries of major concern, such as Indonesia in the early 1960s, were usually subjected to the CIA's most concerted attention. Critics of the CIA have aptly described the mainstays of such attention: "discrediting political groups... by forged documents that may be attributed to them. . . ." faking "communist weapon shipments,'' capturing communist documents and then inserting forgeries prepared by the Agency's Technical Services Division.

--Ralph McGehee

Americans may be less informed about the CIA than residents of almost every other country. Americans are routinely, deliberately kept in the dark and lied to by a 'mainstream' media that often seems complicit. The MSM dare not tell the truth about the CIA. It is the rare media outlet that will risk alienating its advertising base. See: The Origins of the Overclass, Steve Kangas

Like the fatal flaws in the official conspiracy theory of 911, the holes in the government's JFK story are fatal.

• No competent or sane sniper/hit man would choose to shoot anyone from the TSBD. The 'view to a kill' was and remains at least partially obscured by branches and leaves as photos taken that day prove! It was and remains the worst of several possible locations! CBS News tried to simulate a shot from the TSBD window. Every attempt failed. None of have succeeded since then. Conclusion: the chances that JFK was shot an killed by a sniper in the TSBD are slim and none!
• Zapruder frame 313 proves conclusively that the fatal shot came from the front, the so-called Grassy Knoll. My conclusion is based upon large, high-rez digital files of each framein the Zapruder film.
• No sniper in his right mind would choose a kill spot providing no possibility of egress or escape! Were Oswald the shooter, he would have had to ditch his rifle and run down some six flights into the waiting arms of the cops and/or secret service! No 'hit man' would have tried it! Nor did Oswald!
• Based on my own visits to Dealy Plaza, I concluded that the picket fence afforded cover, egress and a clear unobstructed shot of the 'target' from a distance about one third that of a 'sniper's nest' anywhere in TSBD. The area between the picket fence and the railroad tracks were most certainly secured by the 'company' that murdered JFK. I have found no official mention that the area had been secured by the secret service in advance of the Kennedy visit.
• From TSBD, the motorcade is moving laterally and then away; from the picket fence, the target's lateral motion relative to the 'shooter' is minimal. A non-expert could have made the shot but, in fact, it was an expert who did!

I interviewed a witness to the JFK murder many years after the fact. Rosemary Willis was but a child on that fateful day and her story has been ignored by the mainstream media. When we met, she produced several boxes of color slides that had been taken by her father that fateful day in Dealy Plaza.

Referred to in the literature of the assassination as the "little girl in the red dress", she is seen in the Zapruder film running along the south side of Elm Street. Her father, Phillip Willis, taking 35mm color slides, can also be seen in the Zapruder film, looking forward at his daughter, perhaps calling to her. She stops suddenly just as the Presidential limousine is partially blocked by a sign between the motorcade and Abraham Zapruder's camera.

The FBI seized the Phillips photos but returned them years later. I looked at them on a light table with a loupe, immediately recognizing Dealy Plaza, the limousine, the motorcade, the Texas School Book Depository, the Pergola, the Grassy Knoll, the Triple Underpass, place names now burned into the consciousness of a scarred nation.

One Phillip Willis took a series of 12 photos of Dealy Plaza, where Kennedy was shot, in the minutes before and after the assassination. Mr. Willis' photos and testimony before the Commission appear in the report.

He was not questioned about the eighth photo, a shot of the Book Depository entrance shortly after the shooting. As Willis later pointed out, one of the men in the photo "looks so much like (Jack Ruby), it's pitiful". FBI agents questioning Willis agreed with him that the man bore a powerful resemblance to Ruby. When Willis mentioned this to the Commission, no interest was shown. When the photo was published in the Warren Report, a considerable part of the face of the Ruby look-alike had been cropped away.

- JFK Conspiracy Theories

At last, Rosemary Willis pointed out some especially interesting slides. One of them was a shot of the Pergola, above the grassy knoll, taken from her father's position on the south side of Elm Street. Through the columns, all was clear. Then Rosemary produced an old copy of Look Magazine and turned to a double page spread of the same photo published before the FBI had seized the original slide. Reproduced over facing pages, her father's photograph clearly depicted the limousine and the Pergola beyond.

"Do you notice anything unusual?" she asked.

I had noticed something. In the magazine spread, a train locomotive on the tracks was clearly visible between the columns. It was in that rail yard that three "tramps" had been arrested prior to the Kennedy assassination. [See: JFK Conspirator Wanted Every Kennedy Dead ]

But why was there a locomotive in the published picture but no locomotive in the "slide"? Rosemary explained that following Look's publication of her father's photos, FBI agents came calling, taking all her father's slides. The FBI kept the slides for years. When they were returned at last, every slide depicting the train had been doctored. The train was gone. Only the FBI could have 'removed' the depicted train --but why?

The answer to that question might well have solved the JFK murder case! Had the train not been a threat, the FBI would not have removed every trace of it. Cover-ups, of course, are intended to protect the guilty. Something about the train --where earlier well-dressed tramps had been arrested --is germane to the plot to murder JFK. Tampering with evidence is always intended to protect the guilty. By removing the evidence, the FBI was not merely obstructing justice, it was protecting the identity/identities of murderers and traitors! Why would the FBI protect an assassin's get-away? It is reasonable to conclude that the FBI was and remains a part of the plot. See more at: Exposing Lies About the FED, the CIA, the Murder of JFK

The death of Lee Harvey Oswald relieved the government of having to get a conviction. Had Oswald gone to trial, he would have walked. The government 'case' against him would never have convinced a jury. The Warren Commission was, I believe, hijacked, intimidated and/or bought.

The most obvious failure among many remains Arlen Specter's convenient and physics-defying 'Magic Bullet'. The 'Magic Bullet', found on a gurney at Parkland, perhaps the wrong gurney, cannot be placed at the scene of the crime. It would be dismissed by any competent judge for lacking bona fides.

Nevertheless, we are expected to believe that a single bullet fired from the Mannlicher-Carcano was responsible for numerous wounds --a fatal one to JFK and serious wounds to Texas Governor John Connally. None of this would have gotten by a competent defense. The plotters concluded that it was better to destroy the evidence and kill all the witnesses.

The murder of JFK may not have been the classic coup d'etat announced amid great chest beating and displays of arms and/or militia. This was, rather, a cowardly covert coup d'etat designed to hide-away the beneficiaries throughout the CIA and the Military/Industrial complex.

JFK could have, might have made the Faustian bargain with the Bush crime family that even then, via the Sr Bush, directed the CIA effort against Cuba. Instead, JFK refused to provide air cover for the abortive 'Bay of Pigs', a CIA operation. He promised to 'smash the CIA into a thousand pieces'. He denounced secret societies (Skull and Bones), threatened to break up the FED and rescind the oil depletion allowance. In reaction, powerful, ruthless 'interests' aligned against him. It was a matter of their life --his death!

Those benefiting most from the murder of JFK are surely guilty of it. Those benefiting are the CIA, the oil industry (primarily Texas), the FED. A pivotal character, Bush Sr was involved with both the CIA and the Texas Oil Industry. With some effort and the rejection of obvious cover stories, JFKs killers would most certainly have been brought to justice. The guilty are always most motivated to lie about a crime and the most pernicious lie about the JFK assassination is the magic bullet theory.

RFK threatened the same axis. Just recently, a BBC documentary established that RFKs 'killers' were most certainly CIA. Martin Luther King, of course, represented the 'black' revolution that would have rocked the establishment. He too was a threat to the CIA. Many years later, a little known self-professed 'liberal', Steve Kangas, would publish to his website, 'Liberal Resurgent' an article exposing a sordid history of of CIA crimes and interventions from Guatamala to Cuba, from Iran-Contra to Watergate. The article is entitled: The Origin of the Overclass. Kangas would be found dead in a men's room in the Pittsburgh office building owned and occupied by Richard Mellon Scaife, the spider behind the effort to impeach Bill Clinton. Kangas, it is said, committed suicide by shooting himself twice in the mouth! It is a story that one must accept upon bad faith.

All of this 'odd' history is explained too easily: coincidence. The word 'conspiracy' is denied though the body of 'conspiracy case law' would fill a library. But in a world of newspeak, 'conspiracies' are 'kooky' though they are confirmed by almost every criminal law on the books, a huge body of case law, and the words of a saint --Thomas More --who said: "I can perceive of noting but a conspiracy of rich men to procure their commodities in the name and title of the commonwealth."

Saints are silent on the subject of 'coincidence'; neither is there any case law on the subject. Reasonable people will deny such improbabilities as 'happy coincidences', especially those 'coincidences' from which only a tiny few will benefit.

It is only coincidence, we are told, that the dead Kennedys had been a threat to the CIA. It is only coincidence that activist Steve Kangas had zeroed in on conservative crimes and BS just as Scaife was bankrolling a jihad against Clinton. It was only coincidence that Bush Sr was photographed hanging around the front entrance to the Texas School Book depository just minutes prior to the murder of JFK. It was only coincidence that tramps looking like E. Howard Hunt and Frank Sturgis et al were arrested for just hanging around the rail road tracks that run north and south just behind the grassy knoll. It was just coincidence that Martin Luther King Jr seemed to have prophesied his own death with his 'I Have a Dream' speech.

"The thing I am concerned about, and so is [Deputy Attorney General Nicholas] Katzenbach, is having something issued so we can convince the public that Oswald is the real assassin." --FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, speaking on the telephone to Johnson aide Walter Jenkins two hours after Oswald was murdered by Jack Ruby, HSCA Report, vol. III, pp. 471-73. (The Warren Commission -charged with determining the truth in the JFK assassination --relied upon Hoover's FBI as its primary investigative arm.)

"We have not been told the truth about Oswald." ----Senator Richard Russell, former Warren Commission member, conversation with researcher Harold Weisberg in 1970, Whitewash IV

We have not been told the truth about the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. But we know who the liars are and we know what it is they are lying about. We also know a great deal about why they lied as well as who is protected by the lies and why. It has also been my experience that only the guilty are sufficiently motivated to lie about a crime. Those who cover up a crime do so because they are guilty. By contrast, the innocent are motivated to tell the truth or to get at the truth. The innocent must insist that truth be told if they are to remain free. It was Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said:

"When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth!"

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Targets of Revolution

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

America is ruled and held hostage by what Sir Thomas More would have called a 'conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth'. Today, that conspiracy is the 'Military-Industrial Complex', the name given it by the last honest Republican--Dwight David Eisenhower. 'Ike' was a real hero --not a phony like Billo Reilly, not a phony like Rush 'lard ass' Limbaugh! Not a phony like almost every right wingnut on TV, radio, CNN or FOX.

This fascist domination of American life and debate is made possible only because people have bought into a lie, the pernicious notion called 'corporate personhood'. That SCOTUS, called SCROTUS by critics, would presume to rationalize and legalize what St. Thomas More called a 'conspiracy of rich men' is but the symptom of the increasingly sick American society, the increasingly perverse ruling elite of just one percent of the population.

Keep this in mind: this ruling one percent owns more than all of the rest of us combined. This ruling one percent presumes a moral superiority because they are filthy rich and you are not. They are not superior to us in any way whatsoever. Wealth is not evidence of character nor is character responsible for its creation. The wealthy kid themselves. They are not morally superior and, in many instances, quite the opposite is true.

This ruling one percent rules, not because they are right but because they can exercise raw power over the government, the media, the courts!

This ruling one percent rules not because they are right but because they can get away with it!

What if you just said NO?

What if you just told them to FUCK OFF!?

What if you embarked upon and practiced the philosophy of Ghandi --Civil Disobedience?

What if the U.S. Government of fascists, usurpers, lobbyists, K-Street kiss-ups, and, most importantly the M.I.C. were held to account for their capital war crimes?

What if these war criminals were sentenced to hang as Nazi war criminals were hanged at Nuremberg for the same crimes?

Try the War Criminals for War Crimes

If you have not heard or read: GWB and almost every decision maker in his administration is guilty of capital war crimes, international laws to which the U.S. is signatory and Federal Laws to which every American is subject. See: U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. These are federal laws ignored and violated by George W. Bush, laws which specify the death penalty for violations. George W. Bush could be hanged when found guilty. Bush may never stand trial because, in America, only the poor are executed. The very rich get away with it. Texas is the specimen that proves that what I have said is accurate. Texas is called the 'gulag state' for good reason. Texas, as remade in the image of Bush/Perry and other fascists have created a hell-hole in which the victims of their neglect of education turn to crime. Texas is called the 'gulag state' and may well lead the nation in murders. Conveniently for the GOP, the prisons are owned and operated by corporations which most certainly contributed heavily to the Texas GOP.

St. Thomas More: "A Conspiracy of Rich Men"

Because mere legal abstractions are accorded rights that should belong only to real, living, flesh and blood people, corporations are given license to lie about misdeeds, incompetence and corporate criminality. A saint --St. Thomas More --described just such a ruling cabal during the reign of King Henry VIII. More called it a 'a conspiracy of rich men!'

St. Thomas More was absolutely correct! Everything said in his 'Utopia' is as relevant today as it was in the 16th Century. There are very good reasons for canonization. Who among us had that kind of courage? Who among us would face death courageously rather than compromise his soul with a lie?

I believe that for More at any rate it was harder to kill than to die, and this may help explain his otherwise incredible good humor upon the scaffold. But he did not shrink from either killing or dying. He did not hold that the state must be ideologically neutral, must be indifferent to what is ultimately true and false, right and wrong, must be content to practice the art of the possible in a less than perfect universe. It never occurred to More or his contemporaries that the state should trouble itself with problems of sanitation or urban development, any more than it occurs to us that the state should support the Christian religion because the Christian religion is true. For, we ask ourselves with a flutter of the mind, what if it is not true? More would have understood us no more easily than we understand him. For we are all humanitarians now, nineteenth century positivists or twentieth century libertarians or technocrats or hedonists. And conscience is a voice deep within ourselves which no one else can hear.

So there is for us something particularly beguiling about Mr. Bolt's brilliantly argued thesis in the play, that More was a martyr to the lonely existential self, "a hero of self-hood," as Mr. Bolt puts it.

A man takes an oath only when he wants to commit himself quite exceptionally . . . . Of course it's much less effective now that for most of us the actual words of the oath are not much more than impressive mumbo jumbo ...But though few of us have anything in ourselves like an immortal soul which we regard as absolutely inviolate, yet most of us still feel something which we should prefer, on the whole, not to violate. It may be that a clear sense of the self can only crystallize around something transcendental, in which case our prospects look poor, for we are rightly committed to the rational. I think the paramount gift of our thinkers, artists and . . . men of science should labor to get for us is a sense of selfhood without resort to magic.¹¹

The historian, dry and finicky, can only reply that this "hero of selfhood" and therefore this "man for all seasons" is radically different from the person so painfully, so incompletely reconstructed from the evidence that has come down to us. It is not that Mr. Bolt's presentation of More is vulgar or superficial — so often the fate of historical personages at the hands of less skilled artists. On the contrary, Mr. Bolt's sympathy for his subject is so deep that one senses it in every lilting line he has written. If anything, the playgoer or moviegoer will find in A Man for All Seasonsconfirmation of Swift's observation that More was "the person of the greatest virtue this kingdom ever produced," and of the more recent judgment of Hugh Trevor-Roper

— a contemporary historian not much given to compliments even to the dead — that More was "the first great Englishman whom we feel that we know, the most saintly of humanists, the most human of saints, the universal man of our cool northern renaissance."¹²

--MARVIN O'CONNELL, A Man for all Seasons: an Historian's Demur

The theft of America's wealth was accomplished by corporate influence upon a civilian structure that left alone is relatively benign. The problem is not so much government itself but 'K Street', a major thoroughfare in Washington where the numerous think tanks, lobbyists and advocacy groups maintain offices! 'People' themselves cannot be heard through the din they throw up. Until 'K-street' and the 'legal personhood' of corporations is smashed, the actual offices of government are beyond the reach of the people they were intended to serve. K-street will be served ---but not you! If Mr. Smith could see Washington today!!

The public ownership of the airwaves had been a well-established legal principle, upheld by law and court decisions until it was all overturned during the administration of Ronald Reagan. It was in the Reagan years that the laws were re-written to make possible the big media monopolies, the concentration of ownership by Clear Channel et al. It was under Ronald Reagan that the Fairness Doctrine made possible the likes of Bill O'Reilly and Rush Limbaugh. It was under Ronald Reagan than a pernicious 'right wing revolution' --what St. Thomas More would have called a 'conspiracy of rich men' --stole the people's airwaves and made possible Bush's dictatorship.

It's time to wage the revolution.

A line in Shakespeare's Henry VI reads: "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers!" In this case, we spare those lawyers who may help us take back the media! My revision of Shakespeare is:

The first thing we do is take back the media.

It was the Communications Act of 1934 that made law the principle that the airwaves belonged to the people. It was left to Ronald Reagan to dismantle that principle and thus pave the way for the consolidation of the U.S. media into very few hands. Just five to seven major, huge corporations own the major media outlets in the United States. As a result, your access to media is limited or non-existent. Next --they will try to control the internet. My critics will rejoice. But you, dear reader, will be likewise be silenced. There are no winners when the major corporations presume to shut us all up! For good!

A good second step involves smashing the 'media' lobby on K street. We need to get over the idea that corporations have a right to lobby the government! Corporations are not people and, as far as I am concerned, have no rights whatsoever. Someone, show me a principle of science or law which credibly equates living tissue with legal abstractions and cubicles!

Thanks to Ronald Reagan and the GOP, one is hard pressed to find in any US market, a locally owned radio station or TV outlet. Before Reagan, it was not unusual to find locally owned radio and TV stations in small to major markets across the nation. Now ---it seems --all are owned by some five to seven major conglomerates.

If we, the people, should declare it so, corporations themselves might just be written out of existence. And good riddance! Real people have 'rights'. Legal abstractions do not. The idea that an artificial, legal construct --a 'conspiracy of rich men' --has inherent or inalienable rights is pure bullshit. It's absurd on its face. How did this idiotic idea become so ingrained?

CORPORATIONS ARE NOT PEOPLE!

We --a revolution of the people --shall make the laws under the common law and ancient principles that declare people not only have rights but are, in fact, sovereign! Should we the people so decree, Fox and the handful of huge corporations that presume to tell us what to do and what to believe, have neither right nor privileges, then Fox and the handful of huge corporations will be either shut down or taken over!

Begin by organizing and insisting upon an FCC with teeth! Insist upon restoring the Fairness Doctrine! Insist upon limitations to corporate ownership of media or prohibiting corporation ownership outright! Remember --'legal abstractions' have NO rights and certainly not those of 'real people'. Insist upon ownership rules that break up the media monopolies. Measures like this existed before Ronald Reagan began an assault upon the rights for the benefit of abstractions, before the GOP conspired with More's 'conspiracy of rich men'.

More generally, the people have paid for Reagan/GOP fascism with the truth itself. Therefore, wage revolution against corporate 'person-hood'. In the absence of corporate influence, government will simply have no choice but to respond to real people or just disband. Certainly, as the fall of Rome proves, ineffective, top-heavy bureaucracies whose only purpose is the waging of wars of self-perpetuation and aggression, are simply not needed.

Not surprisingly, the corporations have it the wrong way around again. Green energy is NOT the problem; it is rather the solution. It's corporations that resist or block the development of 'green energy' that are the problem. As I learned in broadcasting --if you are not a part of the solution, you are a part of the problem. In America, the corporations ARE the problem. The very concept of 'corporation' is institutionalized mental constipation, a block against reason and inquiry.

...when I consider and weigh in my mind all these commonwealths, which nowadays anywhere do flourish, 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. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth’s sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws.

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

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

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Oil Industry Lobbied Against Blow-Out Preventer

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Five hundred grand is chicken feed for the likes of BP/HALLIBURTON. That's how much a blow-out preventer would have cost BP. But the U.S. oil industry 'lobbied' against laws mandating their use.

In psychotic denial, BP asserts its innocence; oil giants remain united against regulations of any type requiring that they be responsible, regulations that would in fact require them to pay damages as a result of incompetence, greed or indifference! This record is unconscionable and follows from a lie called "corporate personhood' --an evil, pernicious doctrine recently espoused and 'made law' by the U.S. Supreme Court.

If 'corporations' were 'persons' as the 'Supreme' court has said they are, then BP and Halliburton would have already been arrested, charged, jailed and awaiting trial on numerous charges. Perhaps it is not too late to lock them all up --board chairman, members of the board, voting stockholders! Lock them all up!

Five ideologues who presume to judge us are, I believe, bought and paid for by a handful of corporations who presume to own the world. I can think of no other explanation for the worst decision since Bush v Gore and Dred-Scott.

If the rule of law is to be restored, the current SCOTUS must be expunged, reformed, by revolution if need be! Lock up the corporate criminals on the U.S. 'high' court!

In the meantime, relatives of workers presumed dead claim that BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations" issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard. According to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

...Sen. Lisa Murkowski [has] blocked a bill that would have raised the maximum liability for oil companies after a spill from a paltry $75 million to $10 billion. The Republican lawmaker said the bill, introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ), would have unfairly hurt smaller oil companies by raising the costs of oil production. The legislation is "not where we need to be right now" she said. Murkowski's move came just hours after Washington's top oil lobby, the American Petroleum Institute (API) expressed vociferous opposition to raising the cap. It argued that doing so would "threaten the viability of deep-water operations, significantly reduce U.S. domestic oil production and harm U.S. energy security." API's membership includes large oil companies like ExxonMobil and BP America, as well as smaller ones.

In an article for The Washington Post of June 24 2010, ‘Beyond the BP Oil Spill, A Case of Chronic Pollution,’ author Steve Tracton, states,

‘According to government estimates, as of yesterday anywhere from 39 million to 111 million gallons of crude oil has gushed into the Gulf of Mexico (that excludes captured oil)...2.5 million gallons more continue to spill each day -- that's an Exxon Valdez spill (nearly 11 million gallons total)... every four days.’

Read more at Suite101: BP Oil Spill, BP Shares Plummet as the Environment Is Massacred 'Lobby' is a euphemism for the corporate ownership of the U.S government, indeed, corporate ownership of any government, be it Hitler's Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain. Corporations --recently created 'persons' by SCOTUS --are not above the law despite the worst efforts of Scalia, Roberts and the other extremists on the U.S. high court. International law, in fact, obligates states to 'regulate' offshore drilling.

Considered to be a “Constitution for the ocean”,10 and adopted by over three-uarters of the 192 member-States of the United Nations,11 the LOSC is the primary, overarching, legally binding, global instrument on the law of the sea. According to the preamble, its Parties intended “to settle all issues relating to law of the sea” and to establish “a legal order for the seas and oceans,” bearing in mind “that the problems of ocean space are closely interrelated and need to be considered as a whole”. The LOSC is not a “framework treaty”; it does not depend for its implementation on the development of annexes and protocols, and “its provisions form an integral whole.”12 It governs all activities, including geoengineering projects, which involve or affect the marine environment.
--Geo-engineering, the Law of the Sea, and Climate Change,The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, [PDF]

States have a responsibility, perhaps a 'duty' to “adopt laws and regulations" to prevent, reduce and control pollution of the marine environment. States are required to utilize all means '...at their disposal' to address every issue relating to the marine environment. As stated in the above cited material: "Doing nothing about marine pollution is not an option..!"

But as the gulf catastrophe continues to unfold it would appear that little is done but PR and posturing.

Yet relatives of workers who are presumed dead claim that the oil behemoth BP and rig owner TransOcean violated "numerous statutes and regulations" issued by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration and the U.S. Coast Guard, according to a lawsuit filed by Natalie Roshto, whose husband Shane, a deck floor hand, was thrown overboard by the force of the explosion and whose body has not yet been located.

Both companies failed to provide a competent crew, failed to properly supervise its employees and failed to provide Rushto with a safe place to work, according to the complaint filed in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana. The lawsuit also names oil-services giant Halliburton as a defendant, claiming that the company "prior to the explosion, was engaged in cementing operations of the well and well cap and, upon information and belief, improperly and negligently performed these duties, which was a cause of the explosion."

BP and TransOcean have also aggressively opposed new safety regulations proposed last year by a federal agency that oversees offshore drilling -- which were prompted by a study that found many accidents in the industry.
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Big Oil Fought Off New Safety Rules Before Rig Explosion

Right Wing Scams: 'Why Don't You Start Calling Me Gordon?'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

All but forgotten now, Enron --it's rise and calamitous fall --dominated front pages and sucked up airtime until knocked out of contention by 911. As I was reminded, it was the ghost of Gordon Gekko, brilliantly portrayed by Michael Douglas in 'Wall Street', who both presaged and haunted the fail of Enron and all those who served it or were temporarily enriched by its corporate shams and schemes.

As was the case in the 'Roaring Twenties', fortunes were lost in a heart beat, economic empires collapsed in the blink of an eye. Enron was one of them. Conveniently for the new Bush administration, indeed, the GOP itself a crime syndicate, corporate 'person-hood' benefited from a timely stay of execution -- 911.

Wall Street was one of Hollywood's more pertinent parables even if the name "Gekko" was a bit obvious. Real Gekkos (spelled Gecko) make fairly good pets --or so I am told! They eat roaches. And of late there are no shortage of roaches. The largest roach colonies are found in Washington D.C., Austin, TX, K-street or Wall Street --all sites of irradicable infestations. As we have seen, the GOP eats it own.

Opportunities for metaphor and analogy are endless and every comic needs a foil. Had there been no crooks or idiots, the careers of Voltaire and Mark Twain would have been much less brilliant. We owe a great debt to totalitarians, snobs, goppers, corporate crooks, Bush's surrogate torturers and would-be dictators. Where would Stephen Colbert be without them? Alas, the blog-o-sphere would be scrambling for material.

Enron was run by a gang that most certainly thought that, being "captains" of "industry", they could just pull out and disappear. I suppose every crook thinks that they will get away with it.

Enron will prove to be one of the most important episodes in the history of American business, and its story, from beginning to end, is inseparable from Ken Lay, its founder and long-time chairman. Thus, what people make of Enron—and what lessons they draw from it—will depend to a considerable degree on how they understand Lay.

As I’m sure you know, Enron has to date been blamed largely on free-market politicians, heartless corporate managers, and an egoistic chairman. In fact, as my book will show, Enron relied heavily on government favors, was run by postmodernist managers, and had as its chairman the kind of person Ayn Rand would have called “a second-hander.”
--On the Fall of Enron and Ken Lay: 'Philosophical Fraud' at an Errant Energy Company (and cap-and-trade, renewables forerunner), Robert Bradley Jr.

The US is, likewise, a financial shell. When GM, at last, is swallowed up by a foreign auto maker, what incentive will the new entity have to employ American workers when they can do just as well in Japan or Malaysia or China?

We have become a nation of consumers lent money by China so that we can buy goods manufactured in China. We are cattle, cows to be milked. When the teat runs dry we will be abandoned to third world status if we are not already.

In the meantime, the Bushies and other GOP Geckos will have run off with the last scraps of US wealth if they have not done so already. See the CIA's World Fact Book which lists the U.S. at the very bottom of the list with the world's largest negative Current Account Balance, formerly called the 'balance of trade deficit'. China tops the list with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Account Balance. Every banker can equate that with his own balance sheet and conclude that China, because of the policies of the GOP, now owns America if not the entire world.

The house of cards appears to have fallen --but not just yet! Like Ken Lay, Bush and his gang are most surely clinging to the belief that, unlike Lay, they will get away with it. Chances are good that Bush will live out the rest of his wasted life too stupid to regret a damn thing! It is this luxury, available only to the stupid, that I resent most!

Iraq was a big screw up. The invasion and theft of Iraqi oil was supposed to bail them out. Things have not quite worked out as planned. Then again, perhaps they have exceeded Bushco expectations. They are not yet jailed nor executed for capital war crimes (see: U.S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441).

Just as Hitler thought he had learned from Napoleon's mistakes, Bush most certainly thought he had learned from Hitler's.

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'Cops' Run Amok, Suppress Video Tapes of Police Abuse

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

‘Police States’ are what they do! One of the things police states do is deny citizens a voice even as they seek to control information themselves. Lately and not surprisingly, police seek to suppress video tapes of police officers in the act of abusing people, beating them up, depriving victims of Miranda and other rights. There are efforts to make illegal the use of video cameras to expose police brutality and mis-conduct. How convenient!

I am of the opinion that police --presumably 'public servants' as we have been taught --ought to be video-taped, documented in any and every way possible. There is simply no reasonable compromise on this point. Either we are a free people or we are not! You are either for a free state or you are for a dictatorship that the right wing, the GOP in particular, is intent upon imposing upon us. It really matters little who occupies the White House; the U.S. government is owned!

I cannot recall anyone in government asking for our input on this issue. I believe that many, perhaps most, American politicians are drunk with power and/or pay-offs and just don't care what you think! We should make it clear to them that we are fed up and we are not 'gonna take this anymore'! It won't be easy. The government of the United States is 'jointly' owned by the 'Axis of K-street/wall street', otherwise called the Military/Industrial complex. When Bush said 'who cares what you think?' he was not kidding.

John Stossel reports that "some states' are using state wiretapping laws to prosecute citizens who videotape encounters with the police".

Anthony Graber was pulled over on his motorcycle by Maryland State Trooper Joseph David Ulher. Uhler drew his gun during the stop. Graber was wearing a camera on his helmet. Graber thought Uhler's actions were excessive, so he posted the video to the Internet. Days later, police raided the home of Graber's parents. Graber was arrested, booked, and jailed. He was charged with violating Maryland's wiretapping statute.

...

Graber is due in court next week. He faces up to five years in prison. State's Attorney Joseph Cassilly has also charged Graber with "Possession of an Interception Device." That "device" would be Graber's otherwise-perfectly-legal video camera.

... [Jack] McKenna, a student at the University of Maryland, was given an unprovoked beating by police during student celebrations after a basketball game last February. McKenna would probably still be facing criminal charges and the cops who beat him would likely still be on the beat were it not for several cell phone videos that captured his beating. According to Cassily's interpretation of the law, if any of those cell phones were close enough to record audio of the beating, the people who shot the videos are felons. --In Spite of State Law, Maryland Law Enforcement Officials Still Arresting, Charging People for Recording Cops

This is wrong, and a formula for corruption. Is it coincidence that corrupt political machines thrive in states that ban public taping? Illinois, which has a tough anti-taping law, is famous for corruption. Former governor Rod Blagojevich was exposed only after the Feds secretly recorded his conversations. Spiro Agnew became Vice President because his corruption was not detected when he was governor of Maryland. Maryland is also home to the Prince George’s County Police Department and its hyperactive SWAT team. Balko points out that it spent 5 years under federal oversight for excessive force

--John Stossel, Abuse of Power

We might have hoped that torture and atrocities would be confined to Abu Ghraib! But what does that say about us as a people? Do we really want to buy the lie that it is OK to torture people in other nations, people of other colors, people of other religions or, perhaps, no religion at all? It is time that as a people, we grew up and faced facts! And the facts are that in and out of the nation's 'out-sourced' penal institutions, perverts with badges terrorize the nation, threatening innocent children, women and the handicapped. You are a target. Everyone is a target.

Innocent bystanders are no longer safe from cops gone rogue, tin-horn sheriffs, or other so-called law enforcement personnel. Who let these dogs out --and why? What Nazi mentality makes a lethal enemy of those who had been sworn to "protect and serve"? What fascist power has loosed the 'state' upon an innocent, perhaps naive, citizenry?

We were notably made war upon by Bush who unleashed an evil genie. A culture war of fear, hate, prejudice, perversion and violence is unleashed by the privileged few and arrogant. They have seemingly, purchased our local, state, and federal governments. No one is safe --not in your home, your car, your property! This is what it means to live in a police state, a state in which just one percent of the population consider the 'police' to be little more than their private security firm.

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system that we uncovered during a four-month investigation for Channel 4 . It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

Torture Inc. Americas Brutal Prisons

Either we are free people with defined rights under the law –or we are not! Which is it? Clearly – police and right wing governments believe we have no rights. For them --the law means nothing more than the authority that they may assume at the moment! Clearly –people have lost much if not all respect for cops else they would not believe it necessary to document police abuse by whatever means!! A democracy is doomed when the role of the 'police' is that of enforcing the superior status of a 'ruling elite', which in America is just one percent of the entire population.

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Where Corporations Learn How to 'Manipulate' the Media

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The word 'manipulate' was used by Edward Bernays to describe how big corporations, like BP and Exxon, should harness the 'organized habits and opinions of the masses'. Bernays considered such 'manipulation' to be essential in a democratic society. BP's recent oil spill --now threatening the U.S. Gulf Coast, indeed, the entire Gulf of Mexico --is an occasion in which corporations will apply the principle of 'manipulation' referred to by Bernays.

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation [emphasis mine, LH] of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society.

--Edward Bernays

Over a period of some thirty years or more, the 'manipulation' of the media has become a growth industry. As one might expect, a pioneer 'consulting firm' is located in the Houston suburb of Sugar Land, TX. Ammerman Enterprises 'trains' executives from huge firms like Exxon, Shell, DuPont, HCA, Humana et al. The 'executives' and other corporate kiss-ups are taught what we would call 'spin' and 'propaganda' techniques most of which are especially applicable in 'crisis' situations of which the BP 'spill' is a corporatist's [fascist's] worst nightmare come true.

It was Ammerman Enterprises which 'trained' Exxon executives with respect to the Exxon Valdez. What we call 'spin' and PR, consultants call 'bridging' --a fancy, 'corporate' word for 'let's talk about something else' or 'I don't wanna talk about that; let's talk about this!' Another technique goes beyond mere bridging; it is a complete 'paradigm shift'! Done well, a hapless or cub reporter may not even notice.

Thousands of business and other professionals have chosen The Ammerman Experience's Effective Media Communications workshop in order to learn the skills needed to deal successfully with the media. In this small-group session you will learn:

• How to be interviewed.
• What is required before, during and after an interview.
• How to get your points into an interview.
• The most common (and damaging) media traps.
• What reporters want to know and why.
• How important perceptions are to your reputation.
• How to handle the communications aspects of a crisis situation.

Who Should Attend

This workshop is appropriate for anyone who may have to deal with the media.

Practical Learning

This is a skills-development workshop, not a lecture on concepts. As our firm's name suggests, the training we provide is experiential. We use simulated environments, including tough, experienced journalists. Some features of this workshop are:

• Instructors and role players with extensive media experience.
• Three television interviews.
• Two crisis news conferences with multiple reporters.
• Each exercise is videotaped and critiqued in an open forum by the instructor.

--The Ammerman Experience

The First Amendment, I believe, granted the right of free speech to real people --not mere legal abstractions, non-persons, artificial entities! The U.S. Supreme Court, dominated by five corporate-biased ideologues, think otherwise though it is anyone's guess how idiots like Scalia or Roberts managed to conclude so fallaciously, with such overt bias toward what St. Thomas More in fact called a 'conspiracy of rich men'. More's description remains the best description of the modern corporation.

It is 'real' people --not 'legal abstractions', mere words on paper --that are most harmed by 'corporate personhood' and the crimes against both nature and humanity that have resulted! In the Elizabethan era, 'companies' operated via a 'charter' granted by the sovereign. Doing business was not a 'right' but 'privilege' and a displeased Queen could revoke the privilege at will. I wonder if Elizabeth would have, by this time, revoked the right of BP to do business.

I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be. These devices, when the rich men have decreed to be kept and observed for the commonwealth's sake, that is to say for the wealth also of the poor people, then they be made laws. But these most wicked and vicious men, when they have by their insatiable covetousness divided among themselves all those things, which would have sufficed all men, yet how far be they from the wealth and felicity of the Utopian commonwealth? Out of the which, in that all the desire of money with the use of thereof is utterly secluded and banished, how great a heap of cares is cut away! How great an occasion of wickedness and mischief is plucked up by the roots!

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

I am among those who believe that it is time to restore the 'corporate death penalty' by seizing the assets of BP and prosecuting whatever management is guilty of criminal negligence and/or malfeasance of any type. Seizing BP effectively ends that company's existence as a corporation. Any assets remaining after damages are paid must be controllable by the public and in the public interest. The current management is put out of a job and where crimes are found --prosecuted.

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Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership

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Seize BP While it Still Has an Asset!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

BP is busted. Penalties already assessed BP exceed 60 $billion. The cost of the cleanup will run about $760m but that figure was 'operative' before the last failed attempt to plug up the hole. Damages increase daily, hourly as the hole remains unplugged, as the oil continues to spew!

Associated Press reports that damages have already wiped out some $75 billion in market value. By every definition, BP is bankrupt, finished! Kaput!

Firm's stock sale nearly twice as large as any other institution; Represented 44 percent of total BP investment
The brokerage firm that's faced the most scrutiny from regulators in the past year over the shorting of mortgage related securities seems to have had good timing when it came to something else: the stock of British oil giant BP.
According to regulatory filings, RawStory.com has found that Goldman Sachs sold 4,680,822 shares of BP in the first quarter of 2010. Goldman's sales were the largest of any firm during that time. Goldman would have pocketed slightly more than $266 million if their holdings were sold at the average price of BP's stock during the quarter.
--Goldman Sachs sold $250 million of BP stock before spill

And then --yet to be tallied --the costs of clean up and environmental damages to coast lines, damage that has yet to occur!.

...under US law, BP is liable for $1,100 in civil penalties for each spilt barrel of oil and gas, to be paid to the US federal and affected state governments. If BP is found to have acted with gross negligence – and there is no evidence so far that it has – this fine would rise to $4,300 for each barrel.
The issue of legal liability for the accident is complex, involving US federal and state laws. City analysts’ calculations of the bill faced by BP have ignored the potentially ruinous cost of civil penalties.
--BP Faces Extra $60 Billion Legal Costs As US Loses Patience

I propose that the governments of the United States and Britain act quickly to seize the assets of BP, plan a fair distribution of all assets and put into place a mechanism by which damages to homes and other coastal properties are addressed without additional layers of PR flack, corporate bureaucracy and 'spin'.

On Tuesday alone, the first trading day since BP’s latest attempt at a fix failed, and the day the government announced it had opened a criminal probe into the disaster, its stock took a hit of 15 percent.
The British oil giant is worth $75 billion less on the open market than it was when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded six weeks ago. Other companies involved in the spill — Transocean, Halliburton and Cameron — have all lost at least 30 percent in value.
And as oil seeps unchecked into the Gulf, nearby states, businesses, environmental regulators and injured workers and cleanup crews are eyeing damages that could total billions more.
--As Gulf Oil Spill Grows, Do Does BP's Liability; $75 Billion in Market Value Already Wiped Out

The Gulf disaster has now eclipsed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, which, after two decades of lawsuits, cost Exxon Mobil $4.5 billion. According to analyst Blake Fernandez with the Howard Weil investment firm, that comes to about $654 per gallon today.

ON JUNE 2nd the White House announced that BP, an oil firm, would be subject to a criminal investigation over the oil spilling out of the Deepwater Horizon rig. The company's share price, along with that of Halliburton, an oil-services company that is also implicated in the Gulf of Mexico spill, fell sharply on the news. This contrasts with the price of ExxonMobil's stock in the weeks following the Exxon Valdez spill in 1989 (when the company was plain Exxon). Cleaning up after Exxon Valdez ultimately cost Exxon about $4 billion, much less than had seemed likely at first, because a Supreme Court decision in 2008 allowed punitive damages to be slashed from $2.5 billion to $507.5m.
--The Economist, How the share prices of BP and Exxon have fared after big oil spills

Many are of the opinion that it is time to restore the 'corporate death penalty: seize BP, freeze, confiscate assets, prosecute whatever management is guilty of criminal negligence and/or or malfeasance of any type or terminology. Seizing BP effectively ends that company's existence as a corporation. Any assets remaining after damages are paid are then controllable by the public; the current management is put put out of a job if not prosecuted. Secondly --seizing BP puts an end to its control of information, better termed 'dis-information'. Corporate spin-meisters are literally trained by companies like Ammerman Enterprises of Sugar Land, TX, the Houston suburb whose other disgrace is that it was home to Tom DeLay. Ammerman Enterprises trains executives for huge firms like Exxon, Shell, DuPont et al. It was Ammerman Enterprise which 'trained' EXXON executives with respect to the Exxon Valdez. What we call 'spin' and PR, they call 'bridging' --a fancy, 'corporate' word for 'let's talk about something else' or 'I don't wanna talk about that; let's talk about this!'

This disaster will prove to have been much worse --a catastrophe by any standard, an irrefutable repudiation of the very notion of 'corporate personhood', in fact, 'corporate privilege'. It is time to repudiate the SCOTUS decision, the effect of which is to put corporations above the law even as 'real persons' are held to a higher and often unfair standard. This disaster must be watched carefully! Will corporations get away with destroying the habitats of all living things --including ourselves? Or --will the corporations be held responsible for the irreparable damages that they have inflicted and continue to inflict upon our only habitat: planet Earth?

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Stop U.S. Support of Israeli Terrorism

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

'Aid' to Israel --better described as a 'rogue' or 'terrorist' nation than a 'state' --must end! Most recent among a series of 'false flag' attacks or so-called "incidents" of Israeli origin is a recent atrocity: Ten dead as Israel storms aid ships, an act of terrorism by 'Israeli commandos, an attack of a convoy of Gaza-bound aid ships'. The time has come to cut off all 'aid' to Israel.

The ships were in international waters. Palestine has --rightly --called the attack a massacre. I call it an act of terrorism by a terrorist state.

The bloodshed sparked street protests and government ire in Turkey, long Israel's lone Muslim ally in the region, which had supported the convoy. Ankara recalled its ambassador from Israel and Turkish President Abdullah Gul demanded that the culprits be punished.
The European Union demanded an inquiry and France and Germany said they were "shocked." The United Nations condemned violence against civilians in international waters.
Israeli officials said the marines were met with gunfire and knives when they boarded the ships, which included a large ferry flying the Turkish flag. Activists seized at least two pistols from the boarding party, the officials said.<
Israel's attempts to maintain its three-year-old blockade on the Hamas Islamist-ruled enclave while avoiding bloodshed that would spark an international incident collapsed in spectacular fashion: "It's going to be a big scandal, no doubt about it," Israel's Trade Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer told Reuters.
-Ten dead as Israel storms aid ships, sparks outcry

This act of terrorism by the 'state' of Israel, a U.S. 'client state', is but the most recent in a long list of Israeli outrages to include the murder of innocent men, women, and children.
By supporting Israel, the U.S. violates the 'Symington Amendment' in which aid of any type is forbidden to 'Nuclear states' not signatory to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty'.
Moreover, 'Dual-citizen' Israelis now serve in U.S. government positions, obvious instances of conflict of interest but worse --allegiance! This practice subverts U.S. security and might have been considered 'treasonous' had the U.S. 'war on terrorism' been real! A more convincing case is that Israel itself is a terrorist nation in partnership with the United States. I find it hard to believe that any other nation has ever allowed another nation the access allowed Israel by the United States.
K-Street, where paid lobbies 'nest' and purchase favors and preferential treatment, has replaced Congress. Lobbies, in fact, draft the laws and solicit support for them among members of Congress. The most powerful lobby is the so-called 'Jewish Lobby', most certainly bankrolled by the state of Israel. It is not unusual that the U.S. is routinely sold to the highest bidder, but, in the case of Israel, the U.S. taxpayer is stuck with the bill.

At the beginning of every fiscal year, the U.S. makes a lump sum payment of cold hard cash to Israel, a procedure not duplicated for any other nation receiving U.S. 'aid'. It looks like a payoff in response to a shakedown because that is precisely what it is! What leverage, we wonder, is used by Israel on the U.S? The Carvellian quick response: terrorism! Terrorism is a racket! Israel exploits 'terrorism' to shake down the U.S. tax payer. Now we know why Israelis danced on 911.
Israel is among the world's richest nations. Nevertheless, Israel receives more U.S. tax payer money than any other 'single recipient' of what is euphemistically called 'U.S. aid', more, in fact, than all of Latin America, the Caribbean, and Africa combined. Though Israel is barely larger in population than metropolitan Los Angeles, Chicago or Houston, it receives more aid than two continents. Those areas include some of the poorest regions which receive much less U.S. aid than does wealthy Israel who clearly does not need it.
Then what does U.S. aid to Israel consist of? At the top of the list is, of course, the aforementioned cold, hard cash. Other 'aid' includes the weapons of war themselves.

The U.S. administration has notified Congress of the following proposed government-negotiated Foreign Military Sales (FMS) agreements, export licenses for industry-negotiated Direct Commercial Sales (DCS), or leases of military equipment to Israel. The Arms Export Control Act requires only that the administration notify Congress of FMS and DCS valued at $14 million or more. Sales below that threshold are not recorded here.
--Arms Transfers to Israel: 1993 to Present

Former Secretary of State Shultz 'credited' Netanyahu for 'effecting a change in American policies on terrorism'. That's 'political speak' for 'Israel extorted billions of dollars in aid by raising the specter of 'terrorism'. Fear of 'terrorism' is responsible for the transfer of billions of dollars to Israel because the U.S. tax payer is brainwashed, literally trained to fear anyone with a tan wearing a turban. Terrorism is how the moneys 'given' to Israel are officially justified. What is 'terrorism' but the practice by the U.S. and its client state, Israel, to extort billions from U.S. taxpayers?

The set of deliberately misleading and discredited assumptions followed by the proponents of the War on Terror must be repudiated. The government is wasting 10s of billions of dollars, propping up this sham, in the wake of the enforced fear-mongering that has crept in since 9/11. In return for the tax dollars that pay for blooding our hands, we had habeas corpus struck down, arbitrary “no-fly lists” are implemented, our government is perpetrating terror hoaxes on the people, and over 100 Canadian soldiers have died fighting what Stephen Harper admits is an un-winnable war.

Despite the obvious ill effects on society, the tenets of the GWOT are still off-limits for inquiry, or you are a ‘troofer’ and subject to derision and ridicule. It doesn’t matter that you are speaking truth. Ask Lesley Hughes.

Canada seems to be under the ideological and political grip of a foreign power, that is leveraging control over Canadian parties and politicians. Many powerful Isr-el lobby groups operate in Canada bending the government’s ear to the Isr-elis.

They need the pretense of the “existential threat” to Western Civilization represented by Arab terrorism to justify what was a long-standing plan to invade the middle east. Thus, we are following a set of deliberately misleading erroneous assumptions that have manipulated us into war.

--Origins of the War of Terror: Bush, Netanyahu and the CIA

It was in 1979 that Netanyahu organized an international conference against terrorism, under the auspices of the Jonathan Institute — a private foundation dedicated to the study of terrorism. It is hard to believe that it was not the very purpose of that 'foundation' to frighten the U.S. into coughing up the billions for Israel which habitually milks the U.S. tax payer. Yet recently, Netanyahu is reported to have defied the U.S. over Israeli settlement policies that have clearly destabilized the Middle East. See: Netanyahu defies U.S. over Jerusalem settlement

Leo Strauss, the so-called 'intellectual' godfather of neo-conservativism, believed that neocons ought to 'lie' to the unwashed masses because, it is said, they 'can't handle the truth'. Well --the truth is Benjamin Netanyahu believes he owns the NEOCONS. Tails wag dogs. I say: a pox on both their houses. Israel should be 'cut off' now. No gradualism, no time for therapy sessions! Cut them off now and balance the budget with the savings. (BTW, the last balanced budget was in a Democratic Regime)

The prime minister's speech last night returned the Middle East to the days of George W. Bush's "axis of evil." Benjamin Netanyahu delivered a patriarchal, colonialist address in the best neo-conservative tradition: The Arabs are the bad guys, or at best ungrateful terrorists; the Jews, of course, are the good guys, rational people who need to raise and care for their children. In the West Bank settlement of Itamar, they're even building a nursery school.

No empathy for the refugees from Jaffa who lost their entire world, not a word for the Muslim connection to Jerusalem - neither a fragment of a quote from the Koran, nor a line of Arabic poetry.

--Netanyahu and a Return to the Axis of Evil

If it has not been eclipsed by Mossad, the CIA is most certainly the world' biggest 'terrorist' organization. The late Benazir Bhutto revealed the truth before she was brutally gunned down in the streets of Karachi: US policy causes world terrorism. Conveniently for 'official terrorists, she died before she could tell the rest of the story.

When the United States aligns with dictatorships and totalitarian regimes, it compromises the basic democratic principles of its foundation -- namely, life, liberty and justice for all. Dictatorships such as Musharraf's suppress individual rights and freedoms and empower the most extreme elements of society. Oppressed citizens, unable to represent themselves through other means, often turn to extremism and religious fundamentalism.

--Benazir Bhutto, A False Choice for PakistanA favorite CIA tactic is the CIA "front".

The May 12 terrorist attacks on the al Hamra, Jadawal and Vinnell compounds in the Saudi Arabian capital, Riyadh, which killed more than 90 people, were not merely assaults on “symbols” of the imperialist West. The bombers were also intent on weakening the rule of Saudi royal family.

While the timing of the bombings in Saudi Arabia and in other countries — just hours before US Secretary of State Colin Powell arrived in Saudi Arabia — suggested a coordinated assault on US targets, the bombings in Riyadh were targeted at key props of the reactionary regime.

All three Saudi Arabian targets were associated with Saudi Arabia's role as a US client state: residential compounds housing mainly expatriates working in the country, the offices of the Vinnell Corporation and the residences of its employees.

Vinnell, founded in California in 1931, first gained a foothold in Saudi Arabia in 1975. An article by Matt Gaul in the June 1998 Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, revealed that it was the culmination of a close relationship between the corporation, the US military and Washington's intelligence agencies. This relationship stretched back to the end of World War II, when the US government used the company to ship supplies to the China's counter-revolutionary party, the Kuomintang.

During the 1950s and '60s, Vinnell constructed US military airfields in Japan, Okinawa, Taiwan, Thailand and southern Vietnam. According to Gaul, it was during this period that Albert Vinnell, the corporation's founder, “offered his staff's services to the [CIA], and several CIA agents used employment with Vinnell as cover for operations in Africa and the Middle East”.

-- Rohan Pearce, CIA front targeted in terrorist attacks, 28 May 2003

How does the CIA do it?

It uses every trick in the book: propaganda, stuffed ballot boxes, purchased elections, extortion, blackmail, sexual intrigue, false stories about opponents in the local media, infiltration and disruption of opposing political parties, kidnapping, beating, torture, intimidation, economic sabotage, death squads and even assassination. These efforts culminate in a military coup, which installs a right-wing dictator. The CIA trains the dictator’s security apparatus to crack down on the traditional enemies of big business, using interrogation, torture and murder. The victims are said to be "communists," but almost always they are just peasants, liberals, moderates, labor union leaders, political opponents and advocates of free speech and democracy. Widespread human rights abuses follow.
--Steve Kangas, A Timeline of CIA Atrocities

It is time that people themselves began to demand an end to the un-holy CIA/Israel partnership even if there is precious little that mere 'people' can do against that other 'terrorist' organization: Mossad. There is, however, tremendous political pressure that might be applied to members of Congress and the various 'consulate' offices that the client state of Israel maintains on U.S. soil.

ISRAELI EMBASSIES around the world – please share!

Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, Argentina... See More
Embassy of Israel in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Embassy Av.... See More
De Mayo 701
Piso 10 Buenos Aires
Phone: 54-11-43382500
Fax: 54-11-43382555

Israeli Embassy in Mendoza, Argentina
Honorary Consulate of Israel in Mendoza, Argentina
Olascoaga 838 -(5500)
Mendoza - Argentina
Phone: +54 - 61 - 380642
Fax: +54 - 61 - 235940

Israeli Embassy in Ottawa, Canada
Embassy of Israel in Ottawa, Canada
1005-50 O'Connor
Ottawa, Ontario K1P 6L2
Canada
Consular Reception Hours:
10:00 - 13:00
Phone: (613) 567-6450
Fax: (613) 237-8865
,
Web: www.embassyofisrael.ca

Israeli Embassy in Shanghai, China
Consulate General of Israel in Shanghai
7th Floor, New Town Mansion
55 Loushanguan Road
Shanghai 200336
Phone: 86-21-62098008

Israeli Embassy in Taipei, China
Israel Economic and Cultural Office in Taipei, China (Republic)
Bet Agron,
Hillel Street 37,
Jerusaelm
Phone: (02) 2757-9692
Fax: (02) 2757-7247

Israeli Embassy in Copenhagen, Denmark
Embassy of Israel in Copenhagen, Denmark
Lundevangsvej 4
2900 Hellerup
Phone: 45 -88185500

Israeli Embassy in Paris, France (Paris)
Embassy of Israel in Paris, France
3, rue Rabelais
75008 Paris - France
Phone: 01 40 76 55 00

Israeli Embassy in Berlin, Germany
Embassy of Israel in Berlin, Germany
Auguste-Victoria-Str. 74
14193 Berlin
Germany
Phone: 030/8904 5531

Israeli Embassy in Rome, Italy
Embassy of Israel in Rome, Italy
Phone: 06 36198500
Fax: 06 36198555

Israeli Embassy in The Hague, Netherlands
Embassy of Israel in The Hague, Netherlands
Ambassade van Israel
Buitenhof 47
2513 AH Den Haag
Phone: 070-3760500

Israeli Embassy in Wellington, New Zealand
Embassy of Israel in Wellington, New Zealand
111 The Terrace,
PO Box 2171,
Wellington
Phone: 04 472 2368
Fax: 04 499 0632

Israeli Embassy in, Poland
Embassy of Israel in Poland
ul. Krzywickiego 24
02 078 Warszawa
Phone: (48 22 ) 825 09 23 or ( 48 22 ) 825 00 28
Fax: ( 48 22 ) 825 16 07

Israeli Embassy in Singapore, Singapore
Embassy of Israel in Singapore
24 Stevens Close
257964
Singapore
Phone: 65-2350966

Israeli Embassy in Miami, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Miami, United States of America
100 North Biscayne (Yitzhak Rabin) Boulevard
Suite 1800
Miami, Florida 33132
Phone: 305-925-9400
Fax: 305-925-9455

Israeli Embassy in San Francisco, United States
Consulate General of Israel in San Francisco, United States of America
456 montgomery street,
suite 2100,
San Francisco, 94104
Phone: 415 - 844-7500
Fax: 415-844-7555

Israeli Embassy in Chicago, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Chicago, United States of America
111 E. Wacker Dr., Suite 1308
Chicago, IL 60601
Phone: 312-297-4800
Fax: 312-297-4855

Israeli Embassy in Houston, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Houston, United States of America
24 Greenway Plaza,
Suite 1500 Houston,
Texas 77046
Phone: (713) 627-3780
Fax: (713) 627-0149

Israeli Embassy in Los Angeles, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Los Angeles, United States of America
6380 Wilshire blvd.
Los Angeles CA, 90048
Phone: (323)852-5500
Fax: (323)852-5555

Israeli Embassy in Washington DC, United States
Embassy of Israel
3514 International Drive, NW,
Washington DC 20008
Phone: (202) 364-5500
Tel: (Visas and customs) (202) 364-5527 E-Mail: ask@israelemb.org

Israeli Embassy in Atlanta, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Atlanta, United States of America
1100 Spring St., N.W. Suite 440
Atlanta, GA 30309-2823
Phone: (404) 487-6500
Fax: (404) 487-6555

Israeli Embassy in Boston, United States
Consulate General of Israel in Boston, United States of America
20 Park Plaza, Suite 1020
Boston, MA 02116
Phone: (617) 535-0200
Fax: (617) 535-0255

Israeli Embassy in Madrid, Spain (Madrid)
Embassy of Israel in Madrid, Spain
Velázquez 150, 7º
28002 Madrid
Spain
Phone: (91) 411 13 57

Israeli Embassy in London, United Kingdom
Embassy of Israel in London, Great Britain
2 Palace Green
London
W8 4QB
Phone: 020 - 7957 9500

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