TheInternational Cultic Studies Association lists the defining characteristics of a 'cult'. I fully agree with the 'list' and also the assertion that the GOP meets most of several atttributes, perhaps all characteristics that define the word 'cult'.
Here is the list as 'published':
The group displays excessively zealous and unquestioning commitment to its leader and (whether he is alive or dead) regards his belief system, ideology, and practices as the Truth, as law.
The leadership dictates, sometimes in great detail, how members should think, act, and feel (for example, members must get permission to date, change jobs, marry—or leaders prescribe what types of clothes to wear, where to live, whether or not to have children, how to discipline children, and so forth).
The group is elitist, claiming a special, exalted status for itself, its leader(s) and members (for example, the leader is considered the Messiah, a special being, an avatar—or the group and/or the leader is on a special mission to save humanity).
The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
The group teaches or implies that its supposedly exalted ends justify whatever means it deems necessary. This may result in members’ participating in behaviors or activities they would have considered reprehensible or unethical before joining the group (for example, [torture,] lying to family or friends, or collecting money for bogus charities).
The most loyal members (the “true believers”) feel there can be no life outside the context of the group. They believe there is no other way to be, and often fear reprisals to themselves or others if they leave (or even consider leaving) the group.
It has always been my belief --stated often on this blog, FB, 'The Opinion', NPR, and various other forums on the internet --that the GOP is not a political party. Rather, it has characteristics of kooky cults and an organized crime syndicates.
Someone posted recently that the two parties (Dems and Gops) are indistinguisable from one another. That's just not true and, if the media had done its job, that pernicious meme might not have taken root as it most certainly has! Clearly --it was the GOP which planted it and only the GOP has benefited from it.
The occupation movement has targeted the 'ruling elite' of just one percent! That they are a 'ruling elite' and that they amount to no more than one percent of the total population is the obvious result of GOP policies favoring their base and their base is, in fact, the increasingly tiny but powerful ruling elite.
I have many issues with the Democratic party but being GOP-lite is not one of them. For all their faults, 'being as bad as the GOP' is NOT among them. I can cite three essential and defining characteristics that distinguish Democrats from the cult of GOPism:
EVERY Dem has presided over greater GDP and JOB GROWTH than has ANY Republican Prez since 1900;
EVERY GOP 'tax cut' has been followed by a recession/depression.
EVERY GOP TAX CUT has resulted in the transfer of wealth UPWARD to a 'ruling elite' which is now just ONE PERCENT of the total population.
Those fact are at the core of the Occupation Movement! A corollary is this: EVERY recession/depression since 1900 has occurred during a GOP administration and as a result of GOP policy. Subscribe
Texas Gov. Rick Perry unveiled his "tax and spend" plan, officially called his “cut, balance and grow” plan. It is more properly the CUT TAXES for the ruling elite; balance if you can walk a tight rope between poverty on one side and rabid republican reptilians on the other; grow tough and smart or die!"
Rick Perry's 'plan' is just another GOP give-away to the ruling elite which has already CREATED the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population --a situtation not unlike that of the U.S. just prior to the crash of '29 and the resulting Great Depression!
The GOP has gotten away with this fraud only because the American educational system has failed to educate people. A flat tax may sound fair but is not! Anyone NOT a member of the ruling elite spends a a much, much larger proportion of their incomes just maintaining a roof over a family and the food to feed them. The poorer they are the larger that percentage.
The ruling elites, by contrast, spend less and less as a percentage of either total wealth or total income on the basic necessities --food, shelter, commuting, et al. In many cases, elites may choose to make of a necessity a luxury.
The best example of this is education where, in Texas, the rich have chosen to marginalize public education. Last time I checked, Texas --under Bush-Perry --had fallen to dead last in high school graduations, beating out the likes of Mississippi or evolution-deniers like Kansas et al.
The elites, for example, need not spend substantially more on mere subsistence which is but a very, very tiny percentage of their total income and wealth! It's a curve! Therefore, any flat tax is unfair to anyone who is not very, very, very rich! A flat tax for the poor means that he/she pays much, much more as a percentage of his after tax income for essentials (housing, food) as do the very, very, very rich who pay the same 'flat percentage' but exponentially decreasing percentages of income for many of the same items purchased by everyone else.
A Flat Tax, therefore, is not really flat because it represents a huge increase in the burden placed upon anyone not a member of the ruling elite!
Rick Perry is either a crook or a moron or both! But he differs very little from every other GOP to have ever hatched from a pod!
Perry is making it all up as he goes. It was not so long ago that Perry attacked Social Security. Now --he claims to have a 'plan' (unfortunately, he has announced no imminent plan to just STFU) Now, Perry not only promises to repeal Obama’s health care plan, he says his plan will stop the “raiding” of the Social Security Trust Fund and allow younger generations to set up personal retirement accounts. He has flip-flopped on Social Security.
In a word, Perry reads the polls and makes the 'necessary' adjustments. He is completely unprincipled and utterly clueless.
CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Criminal Revolving Door: CIA Officer "Albert" Involved in False Intelligence Linking Al-Qaeda to Iran, Iraq
Reprimanded for Torture, Retired, then Back to CIA as a Contractor. A recent book by former FBI agent Ali Soufan shows that the same CIA officer was involved in generating intelligence that falsely linked al-Qaeda to first Iran and then Iraq. The officer was also involved in a notorious torture episode and was reprimanded by the Agency's inspector general.
The officer, who Soufan refers to as "Fred," but whose real first name is "Albert" according to a February 2011 Associated Press article, served at the CIA station in Jordan in 1999. During that time, al-Qaeda, aided by a collection of freelance terrorists headed by Abu Zubaidah, attempted to commit a series of attacks in the country, known as the Millennium Plot. However, the attacks were foiled by the local Jordanian intelligence service, working with the CIA and FBI.
During the investigations of the plotters, Albert drafted a series of official cables that were later withdrawn. Although the withdrawing of the cables was first mentioned in a July 2006 article by Lawrence Wright for the New Yorker, Wright did not mention what was in the cables or by whom they were drafted. The content of one of them and the drafter were first revealed upon the publication of Soufan's book in mid-September 2011.
And in fact, there are a handful of banking families, including the Rothschilds and the Rockefellers, who have come to dominate economic and political affairs in the Western world. Unlike aristocrats, capitalists are not tied to a place, or to the maintenance of a place. Capital is disloyal and mobile -- it flows to where the most growth can be found, as it flowed from Holland to Britain, then from Britain to the USA, and most recently from everywhere to China.
-- Richard K. Moore/New Dawn Magazine/Global Research
Dominant Social Theme: The elites are a bunch of corporations and greedy capitalists. What banking families? They're never mentioned in the mainstream media, are they? So how can they exist?
Free-Market Analysis: This is an excellent article in our view, perhaps because we agree with most of it -- though at the end of this analysis we will present some important ways in which we DISAGREE.
Nonetheless, it's "our" paradigm in some ways, presented eloquently by Richard K Moore, "an expatriate from Silicon Valley, [who] retired and moved to Ireland in 1994 to begin his 'real work' -- trying to understand how the world works, and how we can make it better."Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009
Despite right wing lies and distortions, it was Adam Smith --a 'conservative' --who espoused a LABOR THEORY of VALUE not unlike that of KARL MARX who is a favorite target of wingnuts and morons. We should not be surprised that a 'class' that supported Ronald Reagan et al would revere Smith while demonizing Marx. Not surprisingly, the GOP have completely misunderstood Smith. Smith and Marx both subscribed to a 'Labor Theory of Value'.Here's what the conserative's 'darling' (Smith) had to say asbout the Labor Theory of Value:
"The real price of every thing, what every thing really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it. What every thing is really worth to the man who has acquired it, and who wants to dispose of it or exchange it for something else, is the toil and trouble which it can save to himself, and which it can impose upon other people.
--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations Book 1, chapter V
In other words, what would it cost a person who wished to have a ditch if he were required to dig it himself? What would it cost a person who wished to furnish his home with chairs, a sofa, et al if he were required to make them himself? What is the value of any commodity but the cost that would be incurred should it be necessary to hire the labor to do it?
Being Forced to Work for Someone for Free is Called 'Slavery'
But having to work for a 'ruling elite' which conspires to suppress the value of labor is, at the very least, a form of slavery itself. When an elite controls the means of production and distribution and --at the same time and in various ways --depresses wages and worker rights, the effect is indistinguishable from slavery.
Adam Smith clearly states that the value of a 'thing' produced is equal to the 'toil and trouble' that, say, a capitalist might have expended himself had he not hired someone to do it for him. Or --had he not enslaved someone to do it! Or --had he not depressed wages to do it! Ergo: those who enrich themselves, claiming for themselves all profits as well as special and/or unfair taxation or --worse--NO taxation whatsoever for themselves are, in effect, demanding that others work for them for free.
Plantation owners were expert at this scam. Cotton was, what we would call today, 'labor intensive'. It most certainly would never have been profitable had plantation owners been required to pay laborers their true worth. Were it not for slavery, the antebellum south could not have made a living. Cotton was a source of great riches but only if it could be picked, ginned, and sent to market. It was slave labor that made possible a class called: Southern Aristocracy.
In a modern, industrial society the only way to address the PRIVILEGES that 'capital' now claims for itself is by TAXING them fairly. After all, there is NO production without labor of any sort. A society in which just 1 percent alone has benefited form the labors of millions is a one-legged man and will fall! We are witnessing that fall right now.Subscribe
The occupation of Wall Street is driven and inspired by a single over-arching fact: just ONE percent of the nation owns more than the rest of us combined and, secondly, that outcome is the result of GOP tax cuts, most prominently those of R. Reagan's cut of 1982 benefiting only the upper classes, specifically, the 'ruling elite' of just 1 percent!
The GOP owns this outcome and should accept responsibility for it. Instead, the GOP can be depended upon to press for more tax cuts, more preferential treatment and bogus economic 'theories' like supply-side economics better know by the derisive description: trickle-down theory.
Now --the above is the context in which every other outcome must be considered: every Democratic regime since 1900 has presided over greater JOB and GDP growth than has ANY GOP regime. This is especially apparent in the post-Reagan era where it is easy to find the official stats that rank post-WWII Presidents in terms of job creation and GDP growth.
Progressives Should 'infiltrate' the Democratic Party!
The GOP are economically incompetent. Now --if they should wish to change their stripes and eschew, repudiate the crime syndicate of which they have been a part --FINE! Let them confess their sins against a vast majority of Americans, that segment of the population which labors and by doing so produces wealth, wealth that has in fact 'trickled up' during the GOP regimes of R. Reagan, Bush Sr and Bush Jr.
If you don't like the Democratic party --infiltrate it and urge everyone you know to infiltrate it. That's called 'grassroots' organizing. We don't have a lot of time and the Democrats already have an infrastructure in place. There is no time to create a viable separate party. Eventually, when it is successful, the 'occupation movement' will be absorbed and, hopefully, it's ideals will be affirmed by an established mainstream party and, eventually, made official policy. At that point, we will have won!
ORGANIZE!
Read SAUL ALINSKY, a 'left leaning, liberal' and organizer who scared the pants off the GOP! They were so frightened of him that they adopted his policies and used them against us! Now --who is to blame for that but the 'sunshine liberal' who decides to just sit on his ass and gripe because the world does not measure up to his unrealistic expectations?
Alinsky urged that REAL activists organize block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state!
FIRST -- take back the Democratic party by taking back the neighborhoods
SECONDLY --organize the neighborhoods to take back the party machines for progressives and/or liberals
THIRD --having taken back the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, you organize at the state level to get out the fucking vote.
Now --if liberals/progressives are not willing to read Alinsky (the GOP has) or if liberals/progressives are not willing to work to reform the only party that has a realistic chance given the odds against them, given the unfair 'statistical weighting' that results from endless, boring primaries and other roadblocks, hurdles and obstructions, then there is really nothing more that I can say!
The GOP are either CROOKED or INCOMPETENT!
The GOP is a top down party of psychopathic authoritarians dividing themselves into 'fuhrers' and followers of 'der fuhrer'! The rank and file believe what they believe because it assuages their feelings of fear and guilt. Stanford University conducted and published clinical studies of the fact that the GOP inclined have more nightmares, night-terrors than do normal people.
The transfer of wealth upward is deliberate. It’s how the ‘pay-offs’ are laundered. Clinton reversed the trend but briefly. That he dared get a blow job was much more important than saving a nation from a disastrous fate. In fact, it was all the GOP could pin on him, though he was under a sweeping investigation seemingly from the get go. An investigation in search of real crimes and, finding none, invented the ‘felony blow job’.
Someone said that Satan’s biggest ‘trick’ was convincing the world that he did not exist. The GOP’s biggest trick is convincing the American people that they are not a kooky cult of crooks, liars and elitists but a real 'political party'. The GOP has had such success with this ploy, I am surprised the MOB didn't try it! But the GOP is not a real political party; it has characteristics of kooky cults and other traits more closely identified with crime syndicates and/or gangs.
It is entirely understandable that the GOP rank and file would have nightmares and night-terrors! It's because the GOP rank and file are insecure, frightened, terrified. They want you to be as well. Nightmares are but dream manifestations of fears and anxieties. Normal people deal with their fears and anxieties. But --the GOP has outdone them all. They have built-up an entire party around fears, anxieties, phobias, prejudices, hate of various kinds, prejudice, bigotry and ordinary garden-variety crookedness and dishonesty.
The WALL ST occupation is a big tent but should NEVER be big enough to tolerate the watering-down of its message: A SOCIETY that has created, tolerated or --worse --ENCOURAGED a ruling 1 percent is a sick society. Now --we would call a doctor a QUACK should he tell you to just keep on doing whatever it is that's making you sick.
Cops Resort to Form on Wall St; They Represent 'da man!'!
The Obama admin should re-read Keynes! The GOP has practiced a policy that is 180 degrees out of phase with Keynes and, as a result, an increasingly tiny elite of just 1 percent owns it all! Millionaires, BILLIONAIRES who invest their 'tax cut windfalls' have never, ever stimulated the economy; NO GOP tax cut has ever created a single job let alone stimulated an economy.
The fact is: in every instance, every GOP tax cut has been followed by a recession/depression and higher unemployment accompanied, most often, by negative job growth and negative GDP growth. In numerous previous articles, I have posted the official stats, the government's own stats that prove that! The Keynesian solution is NOT the GOP solution. And the GOP 'solution' is NOT a solution but may be a calculated lie!
The Keynesian solution would put monies into the hands of those will will use it, spend in ways that stimulate the economy. That this outcome has never followed a GOP tax cut tells me that the ruling 1 percent --which alone benefit from GOP tax cuts --are not investing in the U.S. Rather, they are squirreling away their riches in offshore bank accounts, tax dodges, i.e, 'instruments' which do not and have never created jobs in the U.S. In fact, the opposite has occurred.
An individual who repeats a failed strategy is correctly called a moron! What is to be said of an entire nation which is repeatedly duped by the GOP again and again and again? The GOP record is both a fraud and a tragedy and the American people have paid dearly for it.
The Occupy Wall Street protests are shining a national spotlight on the most powerful, dangerous, and secretive economic and political force in America.
If this country is to break out of the horrendous recession and create the millions of jobs we desperately need, if we are going to create a modicum of financial stability for the future, there is no question but that the American people are going to have to take a very hard look at Wall Street and demand fundamental reforms. I hope these protests are the beginning of that process.
Let us never forget that as a result of the greed, recklessness, and illegal behavior on Wall Street, this country was plunged into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression. Millions of Americans lost their jobs, homes, and life savings as the middle class underwent an unprecedented collapse. Sadly, despite all the suffering caused by Wall Street, there is no reason to believe that the major financial institutions have changed their ways, or that future financial disasters and bailouts will not happen again.--Senator Bernie Sanders: Six Proposals for Helping the 99%, Buzzflash
I tire of the line that reads: 'there are no differences' between the parties'! That's simply not true. The GOP would love for you to fall for it! There are many differences but the economic differences are most easily identified and graphed. Whatever your differences with the Democratic party, not voting is simply not an option given the rapacious and destructive policies of the GOP. Not voting concedes the nation to right wing ideologues, i.,e the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the total population.
NOT VOTING --is what 'they' want you to do!
NOT VOTING ensures that the ever powerful and well-heeled GOP machine will finish the job of making the United States a Fascist nation.
NOT VOTING is surrendering!
NOT VOTING is 'giving up' or bending over!
NOT VOTING is the GOP's best friend! If they ever gain absolute power, they may decide to do away with VOTING entirely thus you will have been robbed of one of the few options you have left. Welcome to the Brave New World! Now --what can one do?
GET INVOLVED IN PARTY POLITICS!
If you don't like the Democratic party --INFILTRATE IT and urge everyone you know to infiltrate it. We don't have a lot of time and the Democrats already have an infrastructure in place. Eventually, when it is successful, the 'occupation movement' will be absorbed and, hopefully, it's ideals will be affirmed by an established mainstream party and, eventually, made the policy of the nation. At that point, we will have won!
ORGANIZE!
Read SAUL ALINSKY, a 'left leaning, liberal' and organizer who scared the pants off the GOP! They were so frightened of him that they adopted his policies and used them against us! Now --who is to blame for that but the 'sunshine liberal' who decides to just sit on his ass and gripe because the world does not measure up to his unrealistic expectations?
Alinsky urged that REAL activists organize block by block, precinct by precinct, county by county, state by state!
FIRST --you take back the Democratic party by taking back the neighborhoods
SECONDLY --you organize the neighborhoods to take back the party machines for progressives and/or liberals
THIRD --having taken back the DEMOCRATIC PARTY, you organize at the state level to get out the fucking vote.
Now --if liberals/progressives are not willing to read Alinsky (the GOP has) or if liberals/progressives are not willing to work to reform the ONLY FUCKING PARTY you're gonna get given the corrupt system we have inherited, then there is really nothing else I can tell them; there is really little else as I can advise save: LEARN TO LOVE getting it up the ass because from here on out the GOP is going to stick it to you but prefers you bend over first! Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009Subscribe
The GOP gets away with a big lie! The GOP has convinced millions that the GOP is the party of smaller government coupled with smaller debts and deficits. The fact is: EVERY Democratic regime at least since World War II has presided over smaller debts and deficits than any GOP regime and --at the same time --has created more jobs and greater growth in GDP.
These are facts that can be confirmed at the U.S. Commerce Department B.E.A. and the Bureau of Labor Statistics to name just two. There is a table [Wikipedia] that lists the gross U.S. federal debt as a percentage of GDP by Presidential term since World War II. As the detailed version of the graphic above, it PROVES my point with detailed and verified numbers.
Now if you happen to believe that creating fewer jobs and --worse --exporting them to China is a good thing, then, by all means, vote GOP! Like clockwork, jobs will migrate and GDP will, naturally as a result, take a dive. And, by voting GOP, you will have helped bring about that outcome. Live with yourself! The GOP, in the meantime, will routinely lie to you about this issue if they cannot avoid it. I often wonder why it seems never to come up in debates. At present, the gross federal debt as a percentage of GDP (83.4% at the end of 2009) is higher than it has ever been since the late 1940s. This is the Bush Jr legacy. By way of background, the debt briefly reached over 100% of GDP in the aftermath of World War II.
Debt of any type increases when money is borrowed. The Federal debt, likewise, increases whenever the government borrows money, whenever the Treasury or other agencies issue 'securities', very literally a 'promissory note'.
The public debt increases or decreases as a result of annual unified budget deficit or surplus. The federal government budget deficit or surplus is defined as the the cash difference between government receipts and government spending; it ignores intra-governmental transfers.
Some recent history
That outcome is clearly by design and by definition it is not Marxism. Nor ---as the 'brown suit' says --is wealth created by so-called 'free market capitalism'. Rather --it is unrestrained, free market capitalism that has, in fact, created every depression since the Great Depression which began with the stock market crash of 1929.
At the same time, the GDP, i.e, the annual gross domestic product, to the end of June 2011 was $15.003 trillion. That means that the 'gross debt' is about 98% of GDP; debt held by the public is about 67% of GDP.Elsewhere, one can expect the 'libertarian' CATO institute to shill for the upper, upper classes, i.e, the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the population.
The disaster Bush left Obama
The facts are clear enough and available to anyone who will bother to access the U.S. Commerce Department-B.E.A., the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and non-partisan think tanks. That rules out Brookings! In the video below, the CATO spokesman ignores the lessons of history and the stats I've posted above. The right wing would rather not mention these numbers. The right wing would rather you had never read or accessed them; the right wing would rather you remain uninformed, in the dark, ignorant! The right wing cannot sell its bullshit to informed and intelligent people.
With respect to the following video specifically, the 'battle ground' is imprecisely chosen. Progressives must take the higher ground while forcing the enemy into a boxed canyon. Liberals err by giving liars the benefit of doubt and letting spin doctors and their liar clients 'off the hook'. The GOP, rather, should be reminded of how wrong they are every day if not every hour. Perhaps --eventually --in the face of mountains of verifiable data, they will surrender or be buried.
With respect to the video, someone should include among their talking points that the transfer of wealth upward to just 1 percent is just as destructive to the economy as would be the utter destruction of all that wealth in a nuke, just as destructive as loading up dollars and assets on a ocean liner and shipping it abroad. It matters not where. That's true because the very, very wealthy invest their moneys offshore. The do not put the money back into a local economy as the Building and Loan had done in the classic film with Jimmy Stewart: "It's a Wonderful Life".
Wealth transferred to the elite --by way of unfair GOP tax cuts benefiting only the upper 1 percent --is, in effect, a transfer of wealth outside the economy. In other words, it is, by definition, a contraction of the economy.
The transfer of wealth occurs in numerous ways. Offshore bank accounts are typical and most often exploited by the elites. It is unfortunate that is is CAPITAL ---not labor --which controls U.S. wealth though it is labor that creates it. Every economist knows the truth of that. It's called the 'labor theory of value'.
That capital has acquired a de facto ownership of the 'state' does not support any defense of 'capital', NOR does it disprove Marx whose views with regard to the 'labor theory of value' are mainstream despite the radical reputation that right wing morons have ascribed to Marx. The empirical evidence, meanwhile, proves that Marx was absolutely correct and is repeatedly confirmed --ironically --by GOP regimes.
So what difference does it make if Republicans –as a class –espouse a pack of malicious lies? So what?
The sane and insane alike act upon what they believe to be true and those actions invariably affect us all. What good can come of actions premised upon lies? Arguably, this is history's greatest lesson: that mankind's greatest atrocities, crimes, and inhumanities invariably followed from ignorance, bigotry, and superstition i.e., the irrational belief in lies.
Some people are merely ignorant and act upon beliefs that can easily be shown to be misinformed, misunderstood, or just plain wrong. More disturbing, however, are those people who simply refuse to confront evidence contrary to their beliefs and prejudices and even worse-- continue to act upon them though they know them to be false. What, for example, is to be said of Southern bigots who gleefully hanged, burned, and "barbecued" innocent black people throughout the South?
Charitably, there are, perhaps, some poor ignorant folk just don't know any better, But this cannot be said of all them. Many know better and many more are in a position to educate themselves. There are few increasingly fewer excuses for ignorance. It is important to keep in mind that this did not happen deep in the Teutoborg Forest of the Sixth Century A.D. –but in the American South in the 20th.
Crimes of similar magnitude and effect have taken place even more recently. What is to be said of Jaspar, Texas bigots who dragged a black man at high speeds over back country roads until very nearly nothing was left of his body? What is to be said of Saudi terrorists who think that Allah will reward them with virgins for killing Americans?
Polonius, in Shakespeare's Hamlet, said: "Though this be madness, yet there is method in it." There is an inexorable logic in madness, murder, and malice; would-be killers justify their crimes transparently after the fact: black people, it will be said, are inferior; homosexuals, it will be maintained, are an 'abomination to God'. Perhaps every crime is similarly justified after the fact. This is the "brave new world" of our own absurd making.
Though she is a somewhat more sympathetic figure than ignorant, malicious bigots, fanatics, and fundamentalists –both Islamic and Christian –Andrea Yates' delusion came to no good. Five innocent children are dead because Andrea believed a lie! Perhaps Andrea is not responsible or perhaps she is –but what is to be said of the jury, which found her guilty, based upon a belief that insanity means not knowing right from wrong. That, of course, is the "legal" standard in Texas. Like Dickens' Mr. McCawber of David Copperfield, I submit to you that if that is the law, then, "...the law is a [sic] ass!" The standard should be whether the offender is responsible not whether the offender knows right from wrong. If history is any guide, then NO one knows right from wrong. Certainly not the churches of any religion who have committed innumerable crimes against humanity in the name of God, Allah, and ÆÖwëmathúooh! Certainly not nations, states, or governments that have kept apace of the various churches and religions in the number and magnitude of their crimes and sins. Are entire nations and entire religions to be judged "insane" by the Texas legal standard?
I make a distinction between a purposeful Hitler and those who merely make mistakes. Unless he was incredibly stupid, Adolph Hitler must have known that the racial myth upon which he justified the genocide of some six or seven million Jews in Europe was a lie –a black-hearted lie. Yet, he acted upon it. Ronald Reagan, a dimwit by any reckoning, may not have known that "supply side economics" was a bogus rationalization that would throw millions of people out of work, but his clever scheming cabinet and Machiavellian manipulators certainly did. If I should hear another disingenuous Republican swoon about how "Reagan made us feel good about ourselves," I may puke. Some people ought not to feel good about themselves. Some people ought to lose sleep at night. Some people ought to have bad dreams and night terrors –a phenomenon that recent studies have shown is commonplace among Republicans.
In medieval times, the European Continent was an unlikely birth place for an enlightenment that would not come for another 1,000 years. A trial, for example, was based less upon evidence or witnesses than upon the outcome of an ordeal in which it was believed God would assert his powers. Disputes were resolved by combat; it was believed that God would favor whoever was in the right. Suspected witches were often subject to trial by water in which those found innocent were no better off than those judged guilty. Those who survived did so because the "pure" water had rejected them. Found guilty, they were later burned; those who sank and drown were, thus, found innocent but eventually just as dead.
The purpose of the trial may have served but one purpose: that of assuaging an inquisitors' guilt and that of a delusional community. It doubtless made them feel better about themselves! Shared guilt seems to be better tolerated. The insane logic behind this may be forgiven a primitive culture, but can the same perverted logic be forgiven modern demagogues who smear innocents with the incredibly insane and medieval assertions that no evidence is, in fact, evidence of guilt? Perhaps Republican malice and ill-will might have been satisfied if Gary Condit and Bill Clinton had been subjected to trial by fire, water, or joust where only by death is innocence proved!
The standard defense will be: but Democrats do it, too! By that logic I should kill a Jew! Nazis did so! I should drag a black man to his death because Jaspar rednecks did; I should hijack an airliner and use it as a weapon because a fundamentalist Saudi did so; I should disrupt elections because Bush minions did so in Florida. I could justify a panoply of crimes and horrors.
Perhaps, if I believed that tax cuts for wealthy people would not aggravate the growing disparity between rich and poor which, in fact, began under Reagan and has continued, might sell out, compromise the last vestige of integrity and then get in line for my share. Perhaps, if I believed that people could depend on Enron-like retirement plans and the stock market, I would support raiding the Social Security trust fund to pay for a Star Wars defense shield rendered moot by the events of 9/11.
The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials were significant for several reasons. They affirmed a standard of personal responsibility –not knowledge of right and wrong; the trials discredited the defense: but we were only following orders. Shared guilt is still guilt.
Secondly, it was a study of the very face of evil. Dr. Gustav Gilbert, the psychologist assigned the thankless job of counseling the rogues' gallery of Nazi criminals, thugs, and perverts, said that as a result of his interviews, he arrived at what he thought was the very source of evil: a complete and utter lack of empathy. I can only add that it is only empathy that prevents us acting upon our worst motives and impulses, and upon the lies we cite to make us feel better about ourselves when we have done so.
It was Conan Doyle who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" We might have thus arrived at the truth about 11 but --alas --the problem is the mainstream media still lying about 911 and never investigating it.
The fact is this: the official theory is utterly impossible. Doyle would have eliminated it long ago! What remains is simply this: the Bush administration --alone --had 1) method 2) motive, and 3) opportunity! 911 was an inside job.
We might have have been spared this divisive ordeal had the Mainstream Media done its job! Or had it been professional, intelligent or diligent. Alas --investigative journalism in America is DEAD! America media is sick and, dying and not even on life-support.
There is not a shred of admissible evidence to support Bushco's 'official' conspiracy theory of 911.
My friend Dr. David Ray Griffin's peer-reviewed paper proves beyond any reasonable doubt whatsoever that Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; there is not a shred of admissible or verifiable evidence of any sort to support ANY aspect of it.
There is, rather, an enormous body of established, proven physics that proves that the official conspiracy theory of 911 is utterly impossible; ergo: it did not happen, in fact, could not have happened as we were told. Yet --we are expected to believe and obey. Believe and obey! Believe and obey! The 911 Truth Movement is called 'Truthers'. That's fine with me. By labeling 'us', the opposition has positioned themselves: LIARS!
Here is the truth about 911:
None of the alleged flights would have penetrated the dense steel outer cladding of any tower in NY;
WTC 7 was not even struck by an airliner of any type yet fell at FASTER than free-fall. That is not possible even if the fires had resulted in collapse. Freefall or faster is the fingerprint that gives the game away. Only controlled demolitions evince this mathematically verifiable characteristic!
No wreckage traceable to a 757 of any type, let alone Ft 77, was found at the Pentagon;
The OFFICIAL, certified autopsy report of Pentagon victims was released via an FOIA request to Dr. Olmstead. There were NO Arabs on the list; ergo --no Arabs were on the flight. Had there been Arabs, they would have have showed up on the official autopsy report.
Earlier the Washington Post had reported that Hani Hanjour was not on the flight because he did not have a ticket. Are we to believe he crashed the gate? If so, how? And why is there no record of that event? In any case, the assertion assumes facts '...not in evidence'; it violates Occam's Razor.
False reports to the contrary, NO airliner wreckage of any sort was ever recovered at the PA site. The ditch where the airliner --we are told --managed to bury itself underground, had most certainly been dug using the large BACKHOE that is seen in every published photograph of the PA site. Not 93, but the backhoe dug the ditch. This is called 'common sense'. Another clue: not even large meteorites striking the ground from greater altitudes (outer space) and at much, much greater speeds have ever managed to 'bury' themselves under ground upon impact with Earth! Nor did a mere soft-bodied, aluminum, essentially hollow aircraft that was never designed to be a bunker buster nor a gopher!
No bodies were ever said to have been recovered from PA and, indeed, there were none.
As a veteran reporter/network correspondent/television-radio anchor, I have covered numerous crashes of airliners and fighter jets in varying conditions. In every case, the 'conservation of matter and energy' has applied and was evident. There is always identifiable wreckage and in every case the wreckage identified the type of aircraft and most often the flight itself.
I daresay that no crash in history has been without wreckage! Every crash of fighter jets, airliners and private craft that I have covered personally ---there was wreckage traceable to the flight in question! It takes an inside job like 911 to motivate the destruction of evidence on an industrial scale! It takes an inside job like 911 to inspire a public official to order a cover-up to include the destruction of physical evidence.
In every case but 911, bodies were recovered and identified. The Pentagon is unusual: not only were there no Arabs on the official autopsy report, there were no passengers on it. The only victims of the Pentagon to have been autopsied were employees of the Pentagon. They are now laid to rest at Arlington. The official autopsy report, by the way, is the only admissible scrap of evidence to have survived the Bush cover up and destruction of evidence. The official autopsy report shoots down Bush's official conspiracy theory.
What was Bush trying to hide by ordering this obstruction of justice? In the case of the Pentagon, a single compressor rotor (about 1/3 the size of two such rotors in a 757) would have proven conclusively that it was NOT an airliner but a missile --possibly the U.S. Global Hawk --that crashed into the Pentagon.
What was Bush trying to hide by ordering the immediate destruction of steel and other wreckage from New York? That's obvious: Bush had hoped to hide the physical evidence that thermite/thermate had been used to help melt the steel to the point of collapse. Kerosene fires will not melt steel; otherwise, titanium-steel could not be used inside the engines of jet aircraft of any type.
In every case in which there were fatalities, there were bodies. Would you like to know what the charred bodies left behind by crashed jet fighters look like? It's not pretty and I will spare you. I will say this: no one has ever been raptured while in flight just prior to a crash or at any other time. There are hundreds of other fatal flaws in the official theory, any one of which sink, shoot down, destroy the official conspiracy theory.
Several facts demolish the Bush theory with respect to the Pentagon:
The Washington Post that reported that Flight 77 was not in the air, had not been scheduled to fly on 911.
None of the wreckage recovered at the Pentagon was ever traced to Flight 77. And contrary to lies, the total weight of recovered wreckage could not possible have equalled that of a 757. Certainly, there is no damage to the Pentagon where 757 wings would have struck. It would have been in those areas that TWO large, TITANIUM/STEEL alloy compressor rotors would have been found. No --they were not vaporized as naive persons have suggested. Titanium/Steel allow is chosen precisely because it will survive the intense, kerosene fire heat inside the airliner jet engines themselves. Bottom line: if a 757 had crashed the Pentagon TWO large engine rotors the diameters of which are about 12 feet (or more) in diameter. Those rotors would have been found.
Only ONE engine rotor was, in fact, recovered. It is about 1/3 the size of each of two much, much larger rotors that would have been recovered had a 757 struck the Pentagon. They were not recoverd because they were never there!
Other anomolies suggest to intelligent people that Bush's official cover story be re-assessed, re-investigated by real investigators and charges brought against those who had:
METHOD (that would be the Bush admin to include Bush, Cheney et al)
It was Arthur Conan Doyle who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" It's time to cut to the chase: the official theory is utterly impossible and, for that reason, did not happen unless the laws of physics were conveniently repealed that day. They were not! Bush lied! Americans died in NY, DC, Afghanistan and Iraq et al. By Doyle's reckoning --'what remains' is this: Bush pulled off an inside job! It's the only 'theory' which explains the verifiable facts on the ground at the Pentagon and in rubble left behind by 'free-falling' skyscrapers in New York.
The victims, those now deceased Americans, I am convinced, were victims of the very worst, the most evil regime in U.S. history. It is time to bring this rogue regime to justice even if it should mean the noose for the lot of them! As they might have said out west: HANG 'EM HIGH!
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyWhenever any court of any type restricts, bans or opposes religious intrusions into governmental affairs, an army of fundies --like cockroaches -- are sure to crawl out of the woodwork. Just as predictably, an army of politcians will ooze out --like sweet stuff --upon a public stage to court them.Predictably, this circle of jerks --consisting as it does of the deluded on the one hand and the gaggle of oportunists/politcians on the other hand --will denounce the decision(s) and declare that it is against the 'wishes and intents' of the nation's "founding fathers".The most obvious examples have to do with separation of church and state which should be a settled issue on the side of 'separation'. Propagandists throughout the right wing would have it otherwise. They try to re-write history everyday. If we are not vigilant, one day, they will succeed in creating and imposing upon us a theocracy when, in fact, the founders had decried 'theocracy' and deliberately created a secular state. An alarming, perhaps a growing, number throughout the right wing will tell you with a straight face that the United States was founded upon the 'Christian' religion and that the founders were themselves 'Christians'. Neither statement is true. The U.S. is not a Christian nation nor was it intended to be. The founders themselves were not Christian, some where 'deists', others espoused no religion whatsoever. To sum up: our founders were not Christians and certainly did not believe in a literal interpretation of the bible.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, nor prohibiting the free execise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of people peacably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances. First Amendment, U.S. Constitution [emphasis above is mine, EC] One wonders what it is about 'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion' that is not understood by the American 'right wing'.
Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.
The organized, concerted right wing effort to tear down the 'wall of separation' between church and state is a repugnant revision of our history that must not be tolerated.Thomas Jefferson is not, by definition, a 'founder'; nevertheless, he drafted the Declaration of Independence and shared with those who later made up the Constitutional Convention, the view that the United States was --in no way --'founded upon the Christian religion'.
The United States is NOT a 'Christian' nation.
I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State.
--Thomas Jefferson, Danbury Letter
We will never be free to relax with respect to this issue. The American right wing, extremists and religious fanatics have a subversive agenda. Unless they are constantly opposed or stopped, they will stop at nothing to effect their agenda. They have already proven that they are willing to change the meaning and legal significance of 'precedent' upon which is based the legal and philsophical underpinnings of Western Civilization.
Clarence Thomas is articulating the view that precedent doesn't count... I think that if Bush were to appoint people who believe that precedent doesn't count, you would really see a carnage of the laws passed by the New Deal courts.... I think that this...new Court is perfectly capable of reaching back and substantially reversing and eroding the decisions of the Supreme Court in the late 1930s. And that, to me, is a great danger.
--Martin Garbus
It is not claimed in the preamble to the Constitution that God ordained our Constitution! No external lawgiver is cited! Nor is the Constitution based --as Gary Bauer had said --on the Ten Commandments. The Constitution never mentions the Ten Commandments. The Constitution is not based on the Talmud, nor the Upanishads, nor the Bhagavad-Gita, nor the Koran!
Fundamentalists of any religious persuasion should read the Constitution from the first letter to the last period. They should be required to count the number of times the word "God" is used!
NOT ONCE!
Count the number of times the word "Christian" is used!
NOT ONCE!
Count the number of times that the name of any religion is named or even referenced!
NOT ONCE!
That is the case because the Constitution is a secular document creating a secular, humanist nation --A FREE REPUBLIC --and until it is overthrown by GOP/wing nuts/Religious fanatics in a coup d'etat, it will remain so!
Five ideologues have proven themselves contemptuous of both the rule of law and a basic principle underlying our founding: the separation of church and state! The constitutional subversives are Chief Justice John Roberts, Clarence Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Samuel A. Alito and Sandra Day O'Connor. None of them can be trusted to be faithful stewards of our heritage, our Constitution, indeed, our very freedoms as they are guaranteed to us in that document. Some examples:
In 1993, William Osburne was convicted of kidnapping, assaulting and raping a woman in Anchorage, Alaska. He spent the next 14 years of his life behind bars. Osburne insists that he is innocent, the State of Alaska has in its possession DNA evidence which will once and for all prove his guilt or innocence, and Osburne has offered to pay for DNA testing out of his own pocket. Allowing Osburne to prove—or disprove–his claim of innocence will cost Alaska literally nothing.--Ian Millhiser, Think Progress, In 5-4 Decision, Conservative Supreme Court Denies DNA Evidence To Potentially Innocent Man
Yet another example among scores:
Today, a Supreme Court majority ruled against women by siding with the country's largest employment discriminator, saying Wal-Mart, essentially, is too big to sue. The brave women, led by Betty Dukes, who stood up to Wal-Mart at great personal sacrifice, are told simply they're on their own.
"With this decision, the Supreme Court has assisted Wal-Mart in its efforts to systematically dole out promotions and pay raises on the basis of sex. The law calls that illegal discrimination, but this Court has turned its back on the more than million women who only sought simple justice," said NOW President Terry O'Neill. "The women of Wal-Mart deserve respect and fair treatment, and we will continue to stand up for their rights."
In 2002, NOW declared Wal-Mart a "Merchant of Shame" as part of its Women-Friendly Workplace Campaign. NOW chapters have led countless community demonstrations at Wal-Mart stores around the country to educate shoppers about Wal-Mart's exploitation of its women employees.
Today, NOW demands an immediate legislative response to help the women of Wal-Mart. We call on Congress to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would provide more effective remedies to victims of sex-based wage discrimination. This bill passed in the House in January 2009, but ultimately was defeated in the Senate.
"The gap between women's and men's pay is still sizeable, which is why it's so important to get this legislation passed," stated O'Neill. "We will continue supporting the efforts of Senators Mikulski, Cantwell, Gillibrand, Klobuchar, Stabenow and others to pass the Paycheck Fairness Act and hold accountable those who stand in the way of this sensible remedial bill."
A legislative remedy is only part of the solution, however. NOW also calls on Wal-Mart to end its unconscionable resistance to employees' efforts to form unions and bargain collectively over pay, benefits and other conditions of employment. Research demonstrates that unionized women workers earn better wages and have better benefits than their non-union counterparts. In fact, women in unions earn 11.2 percent more or $2.00 more per hour than non-union women workers. And the gender wage gap is smaller in unionized workplaces.--Political Affairs, In 5-4 decision, conservative Supreme Court justices dismiss Wal-Mart lawsuit
These 'justices' and the American right wing which supports them wish to undo the work of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, George Mason and every founder whose signature is to be found at the bottom of what has been called the most magnificant document to have issued from the mind of humankind: the U.S. Constitution.
By Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyMitt Romney has claimed that corporations are people, real people! He even got upset with his audience for daring to challenge his absurd assertions. Now --when corporations are held responsible for their crimes in the same way that individuals, that real people, are held responsible for their crimes, then and only then can I even begin to take seriously the utter BS re: 'corporate personhood' that has been put forward by the GOP, by the extremists on the right wing SCOTUS or by the legion of powerful, wealthy lobbies on K-Street!The fact is corporations are mere 'legal abstractions'; they are NOT people. The definition of 'people' may be found in biology textbooks; I deny that old men or liars in robes can redefine with a mere decree some several million years of evolution over which they have had no control or input. Robed judges are not 'God' nor can they --with a decree --change the laws of evolution and/or physics.I deny that SCOTUS may decree that gravity will not work, that Earth will not orbit the sun or the moon, the earth! Say what it will, SCOTUS may not redefine a person; nor may it decree that words on paper may live, breate and procreate biologically as do real people. SCOTUS has no jurisdiction on this point. Rather, some several million years of biological precedent should humble the likes of Scalia.Nor can I imagine how 'fundamentalists' reconcile their fundamentalist religious beliefs with the ludicrous idea that by squeezing a 'corporate seal' one may CREATE a person, and a REAL person at that! That SCOTUS may be taken seriously could be understandable in a state like Texas, victimized by the GOP assault on education. Texas ranks dead last in high school graduations, thanks to the GOP incompetence of Bush/Perry. However, it is not only Texas under Bush/Perry that has fallen off the radar with respect to education. Education, logic, intellect are always targeted by a party that has made of itself an enemy of erudition, science, logic and, most importantly, good will.Real people are interchangeable in a corporation --an abstraction. Moreover, anyone can form a corporation for very little money and they can do it by mail order. The corporation is nothing more than 'data' recorded with a Secretary of State (somewhere, probably Delaware), a corporate seal, and a Certificate of Incorporation:From Cornell University Law School:
"A corporation is a legal entity [emphasis, EC] created through the laws of its state of incorporation. Individual states have the power to promulgate laws relating to the creation, organization and dissolution of corporations. Many states follow the Model Business Corporation Act. (See Minnesota's adoption.) State corporation laws require articles of incorporation to document the corporation's creation and to provide provisions regarding the management of internal affairs. Most state corporation statutes also operate under the assumption that each corporation will adopt bylaws to define the rights and obligations of officers, persons and groups within its structure."
--Cornell University Law School
ERGO: people are INTER-CHANGEABLE in a corporation. A real person doing business as a 'sole proprietorship' does not have that luxury. To create this Orwellian interchangeability, SCOTUS seeks to bestow upon corporations 'privileges', privileges that real people are denied in the same decision.The law treats a corporation as a legal "person" only in so far as it can sue and be sued. That is not to be confused with either legal or biological personhood. And the reason that it MAY NOT be so confused is that 'suing and being sued' DOES NOT DEFINE a person. If corporations were people, then DuPONT et al should have been put to death for the deaths it caused at Bhopal.When has ANY corporation --at any time in history --been held to account for the many crimes to include mass murder and other atrocities in the same way that REAL PEOPLE are held to account? NEVER!Moreover, the legal independence of a corporation prevents shareholder liability for corporate debts; ERGO, corporations are NOT people. Real people have NO such exemptions, no such luxuries. Corporations are NOT people; SCOTUS, MITT and the GOP are dead wrong. I will be happy to set them straight.
by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyUntil police 'hot dogs' and taser fetishists are brought to heel, I propose some survival hints that might help keep you alive in the face of rising police thuggery, goonery, idiocy, and hot-doggery:
Never go out at night alone; always bring a witness!
Never go out in the daytime alone; always bring a witness!
Never go to the toilet alone; always bring a witness!
Never go anywhere unless you have back-up following you at 20 paces or so with a camcorder so that when you are assaulted or murdered, there will be a record of it!
If you are cross-eyed and drool, do NOT look at a cop! He will think you're making fun of him!
When COPS are near, try your best to look like a Republican i.e, look stupid!
Don't look 'black' even if you are white; don't ever say 'bro' or 'get down wit yo' bad self' unless you want to get the shit beat out of you and/or dumped off a bridge.
Carry a copy of the Wall St Journal or the Washington Times but don't use it to wrap a cod. It could be mistaken for a .357 with gills.
Perfect a 'neutral', expressionless face. Emotion of any kind is a threat!
Never mention that you have read Thoreau or Sartre! Do you want to die?
SEATTLE -- Seattle police are investigating what they call an assault of an officer in South Seattle. However, a police officer is seen punching a 17-year-old girl in the face during the incident captured by a video camera on Monday.According to Seattle police, the incident began when an officer spotted a man jaywalking in the 3100 block of Martin Luther King, Jr. Way S. at approximately 3:10 p.m. The man was some 15 feet away from a pedestrian overpass, police said.The officer was talking to the man when he saw four young women jaywalk across the same street at the same spot. The officer asked the women to step over to his patrol car, but the women were being "verbally antagonistic toward the officer," according to officials.One of the women, later identified as a 19 year old, began to walk away from the scene despite the officer's instructions, prompting the officer to walk over to her and escort her back to his patrol car.
...
My two cents: there is absolutely no justification for so much as touching someone for having jay-walked! Police have a right to defend themselves --but against what? Death or severe injury resulting from someone jaywalking a block or more distant? Had the woman jaywalked or committed some 'ticketable offense', cops need only write her out a ticket, give her a chance to challenge in court should she choose to do so!If cops don't wish to be videotaped being belligerent, utterly unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional, then they should STOP being unprofessional, stupid, felonious, anti-Constitutional.These low-rent assholes, brownshirt wannabes work for us! Perhaps we should start firing their sorry asses without retirement! Let them find a real job!Now --any cop reading this, here's your assignment: write me 1,000 words on the following topic: PROBABLE CAUSE! Post it here! Don't even think about stealing it --that's crooked! And I can check it out online. Don't even think about trying to snow me. You will be graded!
by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
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