Wednesday, January 25, 2012

AA Exposes Bush's 'Big Lie': Flight 11 DID NOT FLY on 911!


by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy


American Airlines is the source for information that AA Flights 11 (North Tower) and 77 (Pentagon) did not fly on 911. If neither flew on 911, the Bush 'theory' is a lie.

If the Bush 'theory' is a lie, there remains only one explanation: 911 was an inside job given a green-light by Bush himself. Moreover --only Pentagon employees were autopsied as a result of Flight 77 crashing the Pentagon.

There are NO names of passengers on the list, which is, in fact, the only admissible evidence to survive Bush's cover up and his obvious and felonious destruction of evidence (wreckage) at the Pentagon.

These "holes" are fatal to the Bush government's crumbling cover up! Conan Doyle, the brilliant creator of the character Sherlock Holmes, said:
"When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however implausible must be the truth!" 
Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911 is not only impossible, it is absurd and insulting to intelligent people!

The Bush Conspiracy Theory is impossible; That's why we know it is a lie!  


There is, then, probable cause to indict Bush and his co-conspirators for the crimes of mass murder and high treason. See: U. S. Codes, Title 18, Section 2441. That includes every lying statement made by Bush.

WikiScanner discovered that it was American Airlines which changed their Wikipedia entry to state that Flights 11 and 77 did not fly on 9/11. If these flights did not fly or did not exist, then Bush's "official conspiracy theory" must be discarded. It is a lie! The original entry was as follows:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: American Airlines Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and American Airlines Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).
New entry [as of the date of this article] is as follows and includes the bolded text below:
Two American Airlines aircraft were hijacked and crashed during the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack: Flight 77 (a Boeing 757) and Flight 11 (a Boeing 767).

Although these flights were daily departures before and a month after September 11, 2001. Neither flight 11 nor 77 were scheduled on September 11, 2001. The records kept by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics (www.bts.gov/gis/) do not list either flight that day.
--Wikipedia
To make the point: Wikipedia is NOT the source for these changes. The original source is American Airlines by making changes to Wikipedia. The 'story' is not about Wiki. The story is about a fact that is consistent with the observed facts as follows:
  1. no wreckage traceable to any airliner was ever recovered at the Pentagon
  2. That the flight (77) was not scheduled
  3. no airliner wreckage of any type nor any wreckage traceable to any flight was ever found or revealed by Bushco.
Instead, Bushco ordered the felony destruction of evidence i.e, wreckage that most certainly would have been verified and traced --not to an airliner but to a U.S. Global Hawk!

The ONLY turbo fan that was found and documented is not traceable to any airliner. It is, in fact, about 1/3 the diameter of two much larger turbo-fans that would have been recovered had Flt 77 struckt the Pentagon. It seems to me that Bush's felony destruction of evidence is evidence in itself that it was not an airliner that struck the Pentagon.

What had Bush to fear from airliner wreckage? Surely --the verified presence of debris traceable to an airliner would have supported Bush's version of events. Instead --Bush behaved like the criminal that he is and remains, i.e, he ordered the destruction of the evidence. That's a felony! 

The story is about how corrections to the official story originated with and from inside AA. The story is about the fact that the evidence that Flights 11 and 77 were not flying on 911 comes from American Airlines itself. Clearly --airliner personnel were trying to set the record straight. 
Just as no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered from the Pentagon, there is, likewise, no indisputable or official record that the flight --mothballed for some six months --was ever put back into service. If it had been, the burden of proof is still on Bushco and his league of liars to prove their story. 

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE!! 
According to a Freedom of Information Act reply from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks, while no pre-9/11 final flight information was provided for American Airlines flight 77 (N644AA).

However, a discovered searchable online BTS database produces the following search results for three of the four 9/11 aircraft on September 10, 2001:

AA 11 departs San Francisco (SFO): AA 09/10/2001 0198 (flight number) N334AA (tail number) BOS (destination) 22:04 (wheels-off time)

UA 175 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0170 (flight number) N612UA (tail number) BOS (destination) 13:44 (wheels-off time)

UA 93 departs San Francisco (SFO): UA 09/10/2001 0078 (flight number) N591UA (tail number) EWR (destination) 23:15 (wheels-off time)
--911 Blogger, UPDATE: U.S. BTS FOIA Records For 9/11 Planes Differ From BTS Online Database [The records were obtained by Adrian Monaghan]
The question is raised: how do we know who made the changes to Wiki? Everyone logged on to the internet does so from an IP address. In this case, the IP is that of American Airlines. It's traceable.

My own WHOIS lookup as well as my Google search of the IP address proves conclusively that the change originated from American Airlines itself. That is consistent with the fact that no wreckage traceable to any 757 was ever recovered. If it had been, you can bet that the Bush administration would have put every scrap on parade. They didn't!

Therefore, the Bush theory of 911 is a deliberate lie.

My look up returned the following:

WHOIS - 144.9.8.21


Location: United States [City: Ft. Worth, Texas
OrgName:    American Airlines Incorporated
OrgID:      AMERIC-112
Address:    P.O.Box 619616
Address:    MD 5308
City:       DFW Airport
StateProv:  TX
PostalCode: 75261
Country:    US

NetRange:   144.9.0.0 - 144.9.255.255
CIDR:       144.9.0.0/16
NetName:    AANET
NetHandle:  NET-144-9-0-0-1
Parent:     NET-144-0-0-0-0
NetType:    Direct Assignment
NameServer: DNS-P1.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P2.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P3.SABRE.COM
NameServer: DNS-P4.SABRE.COM
Comment:
RegDate:    1990-10-31
Updated:    2002-06-27

RTechHandle: OG60-ARIN
RTechName:   Gelbrich, Orf
RTechPhone:  +1-817-931-3145
RTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

OrgTechHandle: ZW72-ARIN
OrgTechName:   WARIS, ZISHAN
OrgTechPhone:  +1-817-967-1242
OrgTechEmail:  ************@aa.com

# ARIN WHOIS database, last updated 2008-06-29 19:10
# Enter ? for additional hints on searching ARIN's WHOIS database.

In previous articles, I pointed out the fact that mere scraps that were found lying around on the Pentagon lawn were quickly gathered up by white shirted geeks. It was the only wreckage of any kind found on the Pentagon lawn. It included only one engine turbo-fan! But two would have been found had Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. The fan that was located and photographed on the lawn was one-third the diameter of two much larger compressor rotors that would have been left behind had a 757, indeed, ANY airliner crashed the Pentagon.

Last time I checked, the GOP had not managed to repeal the laws of physics, in this case, the law of the conservation of matter and energy. Simply, the wreckage found at the Pentagon when gathered would have weighed several tons; in other words, it would have weighed as much as a 757 minus passengers and fuel. Instead --the only wreckage gathered was carted off on the shoulders of four or five white-shirted, skinny geeks! Several tons? I don't think so.

Bottom line: NO WRECKAGE TRACEABLE TO A 757 was EVER found at the Pentagon. I do not believe that the laws of the conservation of matter and energy [See: conservation of matter and energy, M.I.T.] were repealed by Bush however much he might have wanted to do so.

SHOW ME THE WRECKAGE and TRACE IT TO A 757!!

We can expect a gang of crooks and liars to cover up their own misdeeds but to cover-up the work of an 'alleged' gang of terrorists only makes them look guilty. It makes them look guilty because the only remaining alternative is that Bushco is motivated to destroy evidence. Only those who are guilty of crimes are thus motivated. In this case, only Bushco is motivated to 1) lie about 911 2) order the destruction of evidence as he, in fact, did with respect to the Pentagon and the towers in New York; 3) try to intimidate those questioning the official lie by branding them traitors and/or subversives.

One of Many Fatal Holes in the Bush Official Conspiracy Theory

The many lies (many referenced in previous EC articles; see links below) are probable cause to begin a Federal Grand Jury investigation of George W. Bush's role in 911. Bush should be compelled by subpoena and Federal Marshals to testify under oath before an independent Federal Grand Jury. The AA revelations demand it!

911 as we have been told did not happen.

Bushco's 'official conspiracies theory' of 911 is full of holes. Flights 11 and 77 are essential ingredients in the "official conspiracy theory" of 911. That AA claims that neither 11 nor 77 were in the air that day sinks Bush's theory. Clearly --the official theory is a lie, an intentional cover-up. Cover-ups imply guilt! Otherwise --what is there to cover up? The official lie goes like this:
At 8:20, Flight 11 stopped transmitting its transponder signal, and veered northward and departed dramatically from the westward heading of its planned route. The controllers concluded that the plane had probably been hijacked. 4 5 At 8:24, the following transmission was reportedly received from Flight 11: We have some planes. Just stay quiet and you'll be okay .. we are returning to the airport
..Nobody move. Everything will be okay. If you try to make any moves, you'll endanger yourself and the airplane. Just stay quiet. Nobody move please we are going back to the airport .. don't try to make any stupid moves. 6
Neither of the pilots pressed the distress call button. At 8:28 controllers reportedly watched the plane make a 100-degree turn toward the south. 7 Presumably, Flight 11 continued south along the Hudson River until it reached the World Trade Center, though documentation of this is sparse given the lack of public information.
According to NORAD's September 18 timeline, the FAA did not notify NORAD of the signs that Flight 11 was hijacked until 8:40, 25 minutes after the first signs of trouble. 8 
--Flight 11, The First Jet Commandeered on September 11th, 911 Research
Simply: if AA Flight 11 was not in the air, it could not have struck the towers; ergo: the Bush theory is false!

The house of cards collapses.

Assertions that Flight 11 struck the North Tower that are utterly baseless! If neither Flight 11 mor 77 was in the air that day, the Bush administration's version of events must be utterly discarded.

If flights 11 or 77 did not fly on 911, officialdom must come up with another explanation to explain the the events of 911.

No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever found at the Pentagon.

One would not expect to find wreckage of a flight never flown. What is significant with respect to the changes to Wiki, with respect to BTS/NTSB records is that the burden of proof is now placed upon Bushco to prove its theory. Bush et al should be compelled to prove the official theory --or face charges resulting from the probable cause that Bush himself and high ranking members of his administration participated in the crimes of mass murder and high treason!
Photos of an engine rotor appear to depict an engine used in the Global Hawk, a payload carrying missile that was, according to Britain's International Television News, flown from the US to Australia completely by remote control. "A robot plane has made aviation history by becoming the first unmanned aircraft to fly across the Pacific Ocean." 

Britain's ITN continued:
"The Global Hawk, a jet-powered aircraft with a wingspan equivalent to a Boeing 737, flew from Edwards Air Force Base in California and landed late on Monday at the Royal Australian Air Force base at Edinburgh, in South Australia state... It flies along a pre-programmed flight path, but a pilot monitors the aircraft during its flight via a sensor suite which provides infra-red and visual images."
ITN quoted Australian Global Hawk manager Rod Smith: "The aircraft essentially flies itself, right from takeoff, right through to landing, and even taxiing off the runway."

"The Missile that Struck this Building" --Don Rumsfeld

The Global Hawk is a much better candidate for what Rumsfeld called '...the missile that struck this building' than a 757. Here's what you need to know about the Pentagon.
  • Only minutes after the strike, [see pic above] there is no sign of an airliner at all!!
  • No wreckage traceable to a 757 was ever recovered.
  • Only ONE engine rotor was recovered to be seen in photo! This rotor is about one third the diameter of a 757 rotor, i.e about the size of a U.S. Global Hawk rotor and can be traced to a U.S. Global Hawk.
  • A 757 has two rotors, each of which are nearly three times the size of the SINGLE rotor located at the Pentagon. Again --only one rotor was found in Pentagon debris.
  • Engine rotors are made of a Steel/Titanium alloy to withstand high temps inside jet engines and would have been found had they been there.
  • Flight 77 could not and did not crash into the Pentagon. That may be because Flt 77 did not fly on 911. According to airline records, Flight 77 had been mothballed and had not flown for some 6 months prior to 911.
No Arabs Were on Board 77

There are no Arabs on the only Pentagon 'evidence' that is admissible in court: the 'Official Autopsy Report' of Pentagon victims. If no Arabs were on board Flight 77, Bush's theory must be trashed! There is not only no evidence to support the conspiracy theory that Arab terrorists hijacked 77. There is every reason to believe that none ever got on board.

The autopsy report was released to Dr. Olmsted in response to his FOIA request. In a 'neat' cover-up, a 911 memorial lists all victims of whatever it was that crashed into the Pentagon. At the same time, 77 victims were said to have been buried at Arlington National Cemetery. All are Pentagon employees! Where, then, are the passengers buried? I would be very surprised to learn that there were passengers on a flight that cannot be proven to have existed.

Whatever crashed into the Pentagon was described by a witnesses as looking like a "hump-backed whale". Rumsfeld himself called it a missile: Below: a US Global Hawk painted to look like an AA airliner. It is both a 'missile' and it also has a hump back! It 'fills the bill'.

The photo below does not purport to be the craft that would ultimately crash into the Pentagon. It merely demonstrates how easily such a 'paint job' could dupe those who are 1) not experts on aircraft 2) saw it only for a second or less as it scooted across the Pentagon lawn as NO 757 could possibly have done 3) were, in any case, caught off guard.


Recognizing lies for what they are is a part of the process of growing up! America, it is time to grow up! It is time to confront this heinous pack of lies! It is time to insist that the Obama administration begin a REAL investigation of 911.

It is time to insist that a Federal Grand Jury investigate every count of high treason, mass murder and domestic terrorism that was perpetrated upon the people of the U.S. by the Bush administration, his collaborators in the Pentagon, K-Street, the Congress and the leadership of the Republican party, Marvin Bush's 'Securacom', Larry Silverstein who ordered WTC 7 be 'pulled', General Myers, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and, of course, George W. Bush who was, at the time, the 'Commander-in-Chief' and ultimately responsible for the orders given the US military to 'stand down'.
By Donald Rumsfeld's own admission, he was unaware of any threats to the Pentagon -- the building where he was located during the September 11th attacks -- until an aircraft crashed into the side of it, and he ran out "into the smoke" to see if it might be a "A bomb? I had no idea." (ABC News This Week, Interview 9/16/01).
Well, that's a pretty tall tale by any standard. The New York Times reported that by 8:13am, the FAA was aware of the first hijacking out of Boston. The Pentagon explosion, which Donald Rumsfeld claimed he had "no idea," did not occur until approximately 9:37am, nearly an hour and a half later, this after two of the tallest buildings in the world were devastated. Note that a plane hijacked out of Boston can reach Washington D.C. as easily as it can reach New York City.
It was widely reported that Pentagon personnel were indeed aware of the threats to their security, and they took security measures on that morning. But not the "Secretary of Defense." Why should the man charged with defending the United States of America concern himself with hijacked aircraft?
There is a set of procedures for responding to hijackings. In particular, these procedures were changed on June 1, 2001 while Rumsfeld was in power as our Secretary of Defense, in a document called: "CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF INSTRUCTION, J-3 CJCSI 3610.01A"
The video asks: "Was 911 a Conspiracy?" That is not the question. Even Bushco claims that it was a conspiracy --a conspiracy of 19 Arab Hijackers who could not possibly have pulled it off. It's a stupid theory; without the shock and awe campaign, no one would have believed it.

The questions, rather, are which conspiracy and who were the conspirators? It was Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character Sherlock Holmes who said that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains however improbable MUST be the truth!

There has been a spate of fallacious comments of the form: "...uh...what happened to the passengers, dude?". A few points:
  1. the 'question' is, in fact, an implied statement and assumes that there were flights! It assumes there were passengers! If there were --in fact --passengers one would have expected to have found their names on the official autopsy report. One would have expected to find in the public records the time and location of their burials.
  2. But --alas --there are NO Arab names whatsoever on the ONLY official/admissible scrap of evidence to have survived the Bush cover-up of 911! That would be the official autopsy report! There is simply no evidence of any passengers, no evidence that any flight alleged by Bush to have crashed in either NY or the Pentagon flew at all on that fateful day! In a court, it would be said that any statement with respect to 'passengers' that 'it assumes facts NOT in evidence'!
  3. Absence of evidence is not evidence! It is certainly not evidence in support of anything, let alone Bush's idiotic, fallacious and pernicious lie(s)! The 'absence of bodies' is not evidence of a crash of any sort. Only the presence of bodies traceable to the alleged flights would have been evidence in support of Bush. Alas --there were none! Ergo: Bush lied! The Bush 'theory' is bunk and bullshit!
The only available evidence, moreover, disproves the Bushco conspiracy theory of 911. There is no evidence whatsoever that there were --at any time --any Arabs of any sort (terrorist or otherwise) on board Flight 77, a flight for which there is no evidence whatsoever that it was even in the air.

Even the Washington Post is on record reporting that Hani Hanjour could not have been on board; he did NOT have a ticket. Skinny Hanjour is said to have been very slight, perhaps less than a hundred pounds. Are we to believe he over-powered people at the gate? In any case, there is simply no evidence of that, nor was it reported, nor is it credible.

Also --among the flight information released to an professional pilots association NTSB data that proves that the cockpit door was NEVER opened during the flight. Are we to believe that Hanjour managed to walk through a closed door into the cockpit? Was he sooo skinny he was able to slide under a closed cockpit door. Really! The Bush theory is not merely impossible, it's increasingly absurd, stupid and amateurish. Anyone duped by this bullshit should be ashamed of themselves.
The AFIP suggest these numbers; 189 killed, 125 worked at the Pentagon and 64 were "passengers" on the plane. The AA list only had 56 and the list just obtained has 58. They did not explain how they were able to tell "victims" bodies from "hijacker" bodies. In fact, from the beginning NO explanation has been given for the extra five suggested in news reports except that the FBI showed us the pictures to make up the difference, and that makes it so.
Now, being the trusting sort, I figured that the government would want to quickly dispel any rumors so we could get on with the chore of kicking Osama/Sadaam's butt (weren't these originally two different people?). It seemed simple to me. . .produce the names of all the bodies identified by the AFIP and compare it with the publicized list of passengers. So, I sent a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the AFIP and asked for an expedited response, because we were getting ready to send our boys to war on the pretext that Osama/Saddam had done the deed. Fourteen months later, a few US soldiers dead, many Iraqi civilians pushing up daisies, and I finally get the list. Believe me that they weren't a bit happy to give it up, and I really have no idea why they choose now to release it.
foia-10003.jpg
No Arabs wound up on the morgue slab; however, three ADDITIONAL people not listed by American Airlines sneaked in. I have seen no explanation for these extras. Indeed, American had the opportunity to "revise" their original list, but they have not responded. The new names are: Robert Ploger, Zandra Ploger, and Sandra Teague. The AFIP claims that the only "passenger" body that they were not able to identify is the toddler, Dana Falkenberg, whose parents and young sister are on the list of those identified. The satanic masterminds behind this caper may be feeling pretty smug about the perfect crime, but they have left a raft of clues tying these unfortunates together.
--Thomas R. Olmsted, M.D., Autopsy: No Arabs on Flight 77 
Worth repeating and in summary:
...the last known pre-9/11 flights for three of the four aircraft involved in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 took place in December, 2000, nine months before the attacks.
I don't wish to belabor the point but it must be made clear that unaccounted for passengers is among the biggest holes in Bush's cover story; it is Bush's big, treasonous lie.

If Bush cannot explain the absence of airliner wreckage or the missing passengers, then his official theory must be discounted. It was Conan Doyle's character, Sherlock Holmes, who said: "When you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, however implausible, must be the truth!" But, of course, finding, learning, revealing the truth has never been the Bushco agenda. Seizing unjustifiable war powers was, I am sure, always on his agenda which always included oil!

Those who assert must prove! 

The burden of proof is on anyone believing and/or asserting that the alleged flights existed. A mass movement of Americans to include members of Congress should have insisted insisted that a Federal Prosecutor put Bush on the witness stand in front of a federal grand jury where the following question would be put to him: 'what was the fate of the passengers on flights 77 and 11?'

It would be very interesting to learn how he might escape the experience without being indicted for:
  1. PERJURY
  2. OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE
  3. MASS MURDER
Concerning possible charges of 'high treason' against Bush: was it not Bush who declared that we were at war? Was it not Bush and his shills who insisted that the US attack, invade and occupy Iraq in response to an 'attack' upon the US? Have not Bush partisans insisted, from the 'gitgo' that the U.S. attack, invasion and occupation of Iraq was part and parcel of the US 'war on terrorism'? That being the case, Bush's complicity in the events of 911 are most certainly acts of betrayal against a sovereign in a time of war and, therefore, high treason! 

Among a growing number of links back to this article is this excellent expose of the Flight 77 fraud:
According to the official story, AA Flight 77, a Boeing 757, took off from Dulles Airport in northern Virginia at 8:10 a.m. bound for Los Angeles, with between 50 and 58 passengers. It flew west for about 45 minutes, making a curious detour to the north, west and south, before turning around and flying for another 45 minutes back to Washington. Why hijackers would allow a jet which they planned to crash into a target in Washington to fly for 45 minutes away from its target is not explained. Why did they not commandeer the plane ten minutes after takeoff when the plane was only ten minutes flying time from its intended target? The official story ignores this question, as it does all other questions.

As reported by the New York Times (International Herald Tribune, 2001-10-17, p.8), as AA 77 approached the Pentagon it executed a 270-degree 7,000-foot descent over Washington while flying at 500 mph. It approached the Pentagon on a horizontal trajectory so low that it clipped the power lines across the street then (so the story goes) it smashed into an outer wall of the Pentagon.

We were told (and, of course, expected to believe without question) that this maneuver was executed by an Arab pilot, Hani Hanjour, who in August 2001 was judged by the chief flight instructor at Bowie's Maryland Freeway Airport as not having the piloting skills required to fly a Cessna 172 solo. (Is there something fishy here?)

In contrast to the attention given to the collapse of the Twin Towers, the attack on the Pentagon received little attention until in February 2002 a French website (by Thierry Meyssan) appeared which reproduced images obtained from U.S. Army websites: Hunt the Boeing! These images cast doubt upon the official story that the Pentagon was hit by a Boeing 757 jetliner. For example, here is a picture of the Pentagon crash site taken about two hours after the impact, with the fire still burning. Can you see any remains of the approximately 100 tons of metal (including engines, wings, and tail section) which makes up a Boeing 757? .....
--Pentagon Official Story Hoax
The FBI doesn't believe the 'official conspiracy theory' of 911. Why should you?

The FBI has admitted, officially, that it cannot find any 'evidence' or documentation to support popular myths that some four airliners were hijacked by terrorists and used as weapons on 911. Moreover, the FBI itself admits that "... no records would have been generated responsive to plaintiffs request for documents."

In other words, even the FBI concedes that there is no admissible, no official evidence to support Bush's lies about 911. Their investigation, says the FBI, was based upon the never questioned assumption that the said flights had been hijacked. The key word in the FBI statement is: ASSUMPTION. The FBI is overly polite. 'Assumption' by Bushco is unacceptable! But a better description of Bush and company is 'bald-faced lie' purpose of which was two-fold: 1) obstruct justice 2) protect the guilty and prevent their prosecution for the crimes of high treason and mass murder!

The Co-chairs of the 911 Commission don't believe the official theory; why should you?



Saturday, January 21, 2012

Deceptive, Dubious and Dishonest Origins of Corporate Personhood

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The origins of 'corporate personhood' are dubious, suspicious, crooked! 'Corporate personhood' derived from an informal note from a CLERK:
"The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
There are many things wrong with this statement. For a start, the 14th states clearly that its intention is to forbid a state "...to deny to any person ...equal protection of the law." To apply this to coporations assumes that corporations are people to begin with. Logicians call this a circulus en probando fallacy i.e, a circular argument! Lawyers would say that it 'assumes facts not in evidence'! Specifically , it 'assumes' that corporations are people under the 14th and does so in order to prove that 'corporations are people'. Thus an assumption becomes the premise that 'proves' the assumption; in this case an 'assumption' that 'corporations are people'! In fact, corporations are NOT entitled to the protections of the 14th because they are not, in fact, people!

A political agenda was at work! It is in the interests of the 'corporate party' [GOP] that corporations, their benefactors, be considered people. It is in the interests of this corporate party that corporations be granted privileges which, as mere legal abstractions, they would not, do not in any way deserve or warrant! In this way, I can prove almost anything,however fallacious, however stupid, however backward.

The GOP has learned to hide their 'assumptions' among the panoply of crap that is believed by the GOP rank and file in order to feel good about themselves. In fact, this fallacy would not survive a first semester logic course at university; this fallacy would not survive a sophomore high school debate coach.

Again --the right wing is severely, endemically confused about cause and effect, about premises and conclusions. A conclusion cannot be a rationale for a premise! A conclusion may not precede a premise. "One" precedes "two" and 'causes' --without fail --always precede their effects.

'Corporate personhood' was a desired result! One senses desperation at work. Failing authoritative sources --say --the U.S. Constitution or previous decisions of the high court, the five desperadoes, otherwise disguised as 'justices' seized upon whatever sounded good. Scalia is expert at this. His rationale for Bush v Gore, for example, was just as fallacious --a circulus en probando fallacy.
"...to count first and rule upon legality afterwards is not a recipe for producing election results that have the public acceptance democratic stability requires."

--Antonin Scalia, CNN Transcripts, December 11, 2000, Supreme Court Bush v. Gore
The effect was simply this: the re-count was halted while Bush was still ahead! If this fallacy, which in fact works backward from a foregone conclusion, is the basis for SCOTUS's 'corporate personhood' decree then we must conclude that valid opinions of and by real jurists and past courts, several hundred years of jurisprudential traditions dating back to MAGNA CARTA mean nothing to Scalia! In better times, Scalia would have been called out, challenged, tarred, perhaps feathered, made to squawk while flapping his flabby arms.

Five republicans on SCOTUS have nothing but contempt for the concept of 'equal protection under the law' guaranteed to all citizens via the 14th Amendment'. They are contemptuous of the Bill of Rights in general.
"Of the cases in this court in which the 14th Amendment was applied during its first fifty years after its adoption, less than one half of one percent invoked it in protection of the Negro race, and more than fifty percent asked that its benefits be extended to corporations"

--Justice Hugo Black 1938*
The Fourteenth Amendment was one of three amendments to the Constitution adopted after the Civil War to guarantee black rights. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery, the Fourteenth granted citizenship to people once enslaved, and the Fifteenth guaranteed black men the right to vote. The Fourteenth Amendment was passed by Congress in June 1866 and ratified by the states in 1868. The Radical Republicans had been battling with Andrew Johnson for control of Reconstruction. Johnson was in favor of leaving the future of black people in the hands of white Southerners.
The Radical Republicans disagreed, and they won. The amendment was designed to grant citizenship to and protect the civil liberties of recently freed slaves. It did this by granting citizenship to anyone born in the United States and prohibiting states from denying or abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the U.S., depriving any person of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law, or denying to any person within their jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws. ("No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.") With the exception of Tennessee, the Southern states refused to ratify the Fourteenth Amendment. The Republicans then passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, which set the conditions the Southern states had to accept before they could be readmitted to the union, including ratification of the 14th Amendment.

Since Reconstruction, the Fourteenth Amendment -- especially the equal protection clause -- has been applied to a number of cases. It emerged in the famous Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka when the United States Supreme Court used the Fourteenth Amendment as one of its rationales for declaring school segregation unconstitutional.
--Why the progress made by blacks during Reconstruction was seen as a threat by whites, Richard Wormser
In 1971, the Supreme Court heard arguments in the case of Reed v. Reed. Sally Reed had sued when Idaho law presumed that her estranged husband should be automatically selected as executor of the estate of their son, who had died without naming an executor. The Idaho law stated that "males must be preferred to females" in choosing estate administrators.

The Supreme Court, in an opinion written by Chief Justice Warren E. Burger, decided that the Fourteenth Amendment did prohibit such unequal treatment on the basis of sex -- the first US Supreme Court decision to apply the Fourteenth Amendment's equal protection clause to gender or sexual distinctions. Later cases have refined the application of the Fourteenth Amendment to sex discrimination, but it was more than 100 years after passage of the Fourteenth Amendment before it was applied to women's rights.

-Jone Johnson Lewis, Women's Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment - Finally Applied, Reed v. Reed and Roe v. Wade, Findlaw


Saturday, January 14, 2012

Support the Proposed Amendment that Would ABOLISH 'Corporate Personhood'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

I fully support a movement to enact a 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution that rejects and will undo the recent SCOTUS decision 'creating people' of mere 'legal abstractions'. The idea that corporations ---mere legal abstractions --are people is insidious and endangers American Democracy. While 'real people' are held to the letter of the law and often imprisoned for wrong doing, the very purpose of 'corporate personhood' has had the effect, in practice, of placing 'corporations' above-the-law.

A proposed amendment would reverse the decision of the high court with respect to Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission. In a 5-to-4 vote, SCOTUS 'created' real people of mere corporations declaring that corporations have, among every Constitutional right, a right of 'free speech' under the First Amendment. It was declared that the government may not 'impose restrictions' on the political speech that corporations may indulge. As a result, corporations and other special interest groups are now given license to spend "unlimited amounts of money on elections." It was a green light to corporations: buy and/or support any candidate with as much money as you want to spend! The decision could not have been a bigger afront to Democracy, i.e, government of the people. Free speech is a right of people as affirmed by our founders. That corporations may now claim that right is simply fascism. Pure and simple!

The ORIGIN of 'corporate personhood' is found in an informal note from a CLERK: "The defendant Corporations are persons within the intent of the clause in section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

The Equal Protection Clause, part of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that "no state shall ... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws." Prior to this mere clerk's mere note, NO ONE had believed that the 14th amendment applied to anyone but real people. Nor does it now! Scalia's court blew it again! If Scalia had a last remaining vestige of conscience, he would confess that he 1) blew it; 2) admit that he is a bought and paid for tool; 3) RESIGN!

Wednesday, January 04, 2012

The New Age of 'Elites', 'Robber Barons' and 'Social Darwinists'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Darwinism is correct. Social Darwinism is utter bunkum. Not surprisingly, the American right-wing despises Darwinism but, inexplicably, embraces Social Darwinism with messianic ferver.

Social Darwinism is at the very root of an impending economic collapse but it won't be the best or brightest who emerge unscathed on the other side! Social Darwinism is the survival of the most ruthless. Real Darwinism is reviled because it disproves the lies the rich tell themselves to help them sleep at night.

The right wing benefits when issues are obscured and when enough dust is kicked up by "intelligent design" to obscure the real issues and various strawmen to boot.

Simply, Social Darwinism does not follow from "Darwinism" and, worse, it attributes to Darwin positions he never took. The term "survival of the fittest" was never used by Darwin. It has been variously attributed, but Hofstadter traces the phrase to 19th Century American robber barons, rail road men making fortunes connecting one coast with another.
Railroad executive Chauncy Depew asserted that the guests of the great dinners and public banquets of New York City represented the survival of the fittest of all who came in search of fortune. They were the ones with superior abilities. Likewise railroad magnate James J. Hill defended the railroad companies by saying their fortunes were determined according to the law of survival of the fittest.

—Hofstadter, Richard; 1959; Social Darwinism in American Thought, Braziller; New York.
These were most certainly the 'robber barons' who wished to be photographed wearing laurel wreaths, pretending to be emperors.

Elsewhere, the term is attributed to Herbert Spencer who inspired a generation of radicalized, latter-day robber barons. Few of them evinced the "...quality of mercy" so immortalized with but a few words by Shakespeare --'The quality of mercy is not strain'd, It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven". By contrast ...
[Herbert] Spencer said that diseases "are among the penalties Nature has attached to ignorance and imbecility, and should not, therefore, be tampered with." He even faulted private organizations like the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children because they encouraged legislation.

Social Darwinism and American Laissez-faire Capitalism
A fallacious corollary to "Social Darwinism" is often phrased this way: the rich are rich because they are better, work harder and are more intelligent. George W. Bush put it more crudely: “The poor are poor because they are lazy!” So --why was Bush Jr not poor?

In the same vein, the conservative economist Joseph A. Schumpeter likened recessions to a "cold douche". One wonders: who is "douched" and how? More importantly: who decides who gets 'douched'? Who decided that New Orleans would be left to its fate and the goons of Blackwater?

Currently, the nation faces economic calamity. However fallaciously, you can be sure that the right wing will not only benefit from the misfortunes of millions, they will try to figure out a way to blame them. It's the right wing way. But it's wrong!

Spencer believed that because society was evolving, government intervention ought to be minimal in social and political life. It didn't matter to Spencer that government is but a function, indeed, a creation of society and responsible to it. Seen in that light, efforts by privilege to blame the poor for their own rapacious and often dishonest or incompetent behaviors are absurd. Nevertheless, American capitalism remains greatly influenced by Spencer. The 'model' is still found in textbooks for Economics 101. It describes an ideal of American capitalism --“rational man” making rational decisions in a free and --presumably --rational market. But, in practice, economic decisions may or may not be rational and the free market exists only hypothetically. The market has been anything but rational.

Because the 'theories' of Spencer and, earlier, Adam Smith, often stress the 'practical', it is forgotten that Spencer and Smith were, themselves, 'theorists'. Every model we make of the world of sense experience is 'theoretical' by definition. The word "theory" is either misunderstood by the right wing or deliberately perverted for the propaganda value.

The word 'theory' is wrongly used as a pejorative. The right wing is inconsistent. 'Theories' from Spencer and, more recently, Milton Friedman or Arthur Laffer are are conveniently ignored or praised while 'theories' from everyone else are 'mere theory'. Last time I checked, 'right wing theories' were still 'theories' though most often and in reality they are simply frauds, lies, scams and 'white collar heists'.

Having waged war on the word "theory", the right wing likes to couple it with another word similarly victimized by right wing propaganda. That word is "conspiracy" --a perfectly good word, in fact, a legal term about which there is a venerable body of case law, thousands of SCOTUS decisions and some 400 years of common law. See: Findlaw or Cornell University Law Library online. Given techniques perfected by Herr Goebbels for Adolph Hitler, the combination of "conspiracy" and "theory" is lethal. The loss of these words to an adult vocabulary cripples the thought process itself, indeed, intellectual endeavor of any sort.

It must be noted that every great scientist was or is a theorist. Einstein was a "theorist". So was Newton, so too Darwin. So, too, Watson and Crick. Too much is made of 'right' and 'wrong'. It is a mistake to conclude, for example, that Einstein 'replaced' Newton. In fact, Einstein rests upon Newton's shoulders. Einstein is Newton from another angle. Einstein may be thought of as the hypothesis that Newton himself refused to make. [See: The Man Who Changed the Universe] Einstein does not refute Newton, he enlarges upon both Newton and Galileo. Galileo's equations describing the acceleration of falling bodies describes the very curvature of space-time.

Einstein has been confirmed no more times than Darwin; Newton is close enough for mundane applications or "government work" and Einstein will one day help us navigate the galaxy. Significantly, neither "theory" has been challenged in court —though both theories may very well be replaced one day by a "theory of everything", a TOE.

Only theories not liked by the right wing wind up in court, an absurd place to settle questions of science in any case. Law courts are inadequate to decide questions better resolved by observation and experiment, not rhetoric or case law. See: Darrow, Darwin & Dayton, the video at the end of this article.

There is a political agenda and a constituency behind the campaign of attacks on Darwinism. This constituency supports Intelligent Design for the same reasons the great rail road robber barons found support in the work of Herbert Spencer. The continued economic superiority of an entire class depends upon the widespread public acceptance of religious and/or ideological views which justify the existence of 'superior status'. Hitler, likewise, found in pseudo-science and mythology much justification for his anti-semitic crusades, his campaign of genocides, his wars of naked aggression.

Theories are often never of a final form —nor should they be! Unlike ideology, real science is self-correcting as new facts emerge from research. Darwin's theories were not only confirmed by Mendel, they accommodated Mendel which, in turn, strengthened Darwin. The science of genetics and the discovery of "mutations" confirm Darwin beyond any reasonable doubt. Every cowboy knows the truth of Darwin if he's never heard of him: "Never kill a slow roach; you just improve the breed!" As succinct a description of natural selection as I've ever heard. Likewise, every farmer who has bred for specific traits knows the truth of Darwin.

Future discoveries, like those of Mendel, may modify our views of Darwin, but will not discount them. Our view of Einstein is already modified but he is confirmed in many ways, notably at Alamogordo, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. Light, indeed, bends around stars and other 'gravity lenses', time slows at near light speeds, space-time is a four dimensional continuum. More to the point, no one has ever sued because Einstein's theories were odds with a particular dogma or a political agenda. The right wing's disingenuous position is analogous to that of the Pope who forced Galileo to recant. I was critical of Ron Paul because his economic thinking was stuck in the 19th Century. The right wing generally, however, is stuck in the 17th.

It is certain that no future discovery will confirm "intelligent design", meaningless word play beyond any confirmation of any kind! Theories explain "facts" but facts can often confirm good theories as "fact”, just as facts have tended to confirm both Darwin and Einstein. By definition, doggerel is beyond confirmation of any kind. A.J. Ayer defined 'meaning' itself as that property of a 'sentence' that makes it subject to empirical confirmation. The theoretical core of ID is not meaningful and most certainly not of a type that would have been recognized by the philosophers upon whom Western Civilization is based.

Intelligent design is of a religious nature and people have a right to believe it. Treating Intelligent design as science is dishonest. As science, ID raises more questions than it explains. Most obviously: who designed the designer? ID assumes a designer to 'explain' creation but cites 'creation' to prove the existence of a designer. This is the classic circulus en probando fallacy.

People are free to believe fallacies, but they must not be free to impose them upon other people —especially at tax payer expense! A fact, for example, is the equation describing the acceleration of falling objects; examples of theory are both the Newtonian and the Einsteinian view of "gravitation" —seen differently by both. The entire science of genetics confirms Darwin who, interestingly, did not have the benefit of Mendel's research when he wrote Origin of the Species and the The Descent of Man. It was Mendel's research that described the very mechanism by which Darwin’s “traits” are passed on to succeeding generations. Accurate predictions are, in themselves, evidence in support of theories. [See: Evolution in Action, Julian Huxley]

Critics of Darwin have said that no one has yet produced an entirely new specie by selection. But they have indeed done just that! Consider wheat! Wheat does not grow in the wild. Related to ancient grasses, wheat is clearly the result of an ancient application of "artificial selection." Had wheat evolved naturally, it would be found growing wild like prairie grass. But it didn't and isn't.

Social Darwinism has harmed mankind. It rationalizes and justifies the perpetual and deliberate impoverishment of large segments of our society. The GOP will support this as a matter of policy so long as someone like Ronald Reagan can, nevertheless, make them "feel good about themselves". It is bad enough that this callous disregard for human life is fallaciously and insidiously associated with Darwin. That it is also a bald-face lie, a misstatement of Darwin, is unconscionable. We have thus reduced the philosophical basis for the American right wing to a single line from one of the world's great writers, Charles Dickens, whose character, Scrooge, epitomizes the American right wing
"Are there no workhouses? Are there no prisons...then let them die and decrease the surplus population."

—Scrooge, A Christmas Carol


Tuesday, December 20, 2011

Why the U.S. is No Longer a Productive Nation

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The decline of the U.S. as a net exporting nation is the inevitable result of the growing, yawning gulf between rich and poor. A nation cannot be productive if it has failed to invest its wealth in the creation of jobs.

It is, at last, 'labor' which creates wealth to begin with. Since Adam Smith wrote 'The Wealth of Nations', every major economist --right or left --has espoused a 'labor theory of value', i.e, 'value' (wealth) is created by labor and is the result of labor. A nation in which wealth is concentrated in the hands of a ruling elite of just 1 percent cannot be productive or efficient. Today --the U.S. is literally owned by China which occupies the No 1 position on the CIA's World Fact Book with the world's largest POSITIVE Current Acct Balance. The U.S. is on the very bottom of that list with the World's largest NEGATIVE Current Account Balance, formerly called the Balance of Trade Deficit.

To make this clear --China makes its living by manufacturing and selling that product to the United States. The U.S., by contrast, is on bottom because U.S. manufacturing of cars, appliances, electronics et al no longer competes. Entire industries have ceased to exist in America. Detroit is a specimen to be studied.

An aside: the right wing recently tried to blame 'Muslims' for the fall of Detroit. Total BS! Muslims had no more to do with the fall of Detroit than did Christians the fall of Rome. The fall of Detroit is the result of stupid/incompetent policies put into effect by Ronald Reagan and his idiot disciple ---George H.W. Bush. It was under Reagan, that the long and depressing decline of America began.

The vast gulf between rich and poor in America is a fairly recent development, a product of the 'robber baron' era. Even so --FDR reversed those trends and the official stats prove it. The Great Depression had been both the result and the symptom of absurd inequities associated with and caused by the era of Robber Barons. It was preceded by three very conservative, very Republican administrations --Coolidge, Harding and Hoover.

An expanding economy, that is, an economy that creates wealth and jobs requires a more egalitarian distribution of wealth. Otherwise --to whom will manufacturers sell? A prosperous middle class is absolutely essential to 1) GDP growth 2) retail sales. An impoverished population will buy increasingly fewer luxury items; an impoverished population will struggle to maintain the very basics --food and shelter.

A nation in which just 1 percent owns more than the remaining 99 percent is an economy on the very brink of collapse. It has happened many times in the past. The best example is Rome. Like the U.S. today, Rome was a teeming city of the very, very poor. Many were refugees from nations that had been conquered by Rome. Like the U.S. today, the currency of Rome --the sesterces --was essentially worthless, a mere 'token' that would admit you to the Gladiator 'games' in the Coliseum.

By impoverishing the U.S. middle class, the GOP capitulated to China which found --in GOP America --a market for its cheap crap. The PRICE of that 'crap' is not found on the label or the check out counter. It is found in the GOP destruction of the American labor movement, American productivity, the American 'standard of living', and, of course, our very futures.

The GOP is NOT a political party. It is a coven of kooky cultists who sold us ALL out to China and the Military-Industrial Complex which orchestrates our LAST REMAINING EXPORTS ---death and destruction.

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

U.S. to Prosecute a Man for Daring to Advocate the Defense of His Own Country!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The United States presumes to prosecute an Iraqi citizen for 'terrorism' when, in fact, all the young man had said pertained to the defense of his country by a foreign power --US!

I maintain that everyone has a right to defend their country against any and every invasion of that soverign nation by a foreign invader. That applies to invasions that are themselves violations of international law, invasions that are themselves more correctly described as:

INTERNATIONAL STATE SPONSORED TERRORISM!

This is the law that the U.S. --George W. Bush primarily --violated when it invaded Iraq though Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with 911.
§ 2441. WAR CRIMES

Offense.— Whoever, whether inside or outside the United States, commits a war crime, in any of the circumstances described in subsection (b), shall be fined under this title or imprisoned for life or any term of years, or both, and if death results to the victim, shall also be subject to the penalty of death.
That a nation may not invade another unless attacked is an established principle of international law. If principle is not recognized in the United States it ought to be. In fact, to the extent that the U.S. flouts its own committments, its own laws and, indeed, every International commitment or principle that the United States has --historically --insisted upon, it is a hypocrite.

This is what the young man said and this is why the U.S. is lying about him and calling him a 'terrorist':
"...if an enemy comes inside your country...everyone has to stand up and fight, there should not be anyone left out.."
There is NOTHING seditious in that! The U.S. has NO RIGHT to prosecute this man as a 'terrorist' for advocating the DEFENSE of his country. William Pitt said the same thing much, much earlier in the Houses of Parliament:
"You cannot, I venture to say it, you CANNOT conquer America...As to conquest, therefore, my Lords, I repeat, it is impossible. You may swell every expense, and every effort, still more extravagantly; pile and accumulate every assistance you can buy or borrow; traffic and barter with every little pitiful German Prince, that sells and sends his subjects to the shambles of a foreign country; your efforts are for ever vain and impotent—doubly so from this mercenary aid on which you rely; for it irritates, to an incurable resentment, the minds of your enemies—to overrun them with the sordid sons of rapine and plunder; devoting them and their possessions to the rapacity of hireling cruelty! If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, while a foreign troop was landed in my country, I never would lay down my arms, never! never! never!"

--William Pitt, Speech in the House of Lords


Tuesday, November 29, 2011

A Revolutionary Agenda

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

Why has the right wing apparently succeeded in stacking SCOTUS with 5 justices who have in common their disdain for the work of our founders? They succeeded for several reasons:
  1. the media, concentrated in very few corporate hands, demands 'free speech' but only for themselves;
  2. the corporate community is interested in their privileges but disdain YOUR rights;
  3. education is neglected and most notably in those states 'occupied' by the GOP.
Texas is a case in point. Prior to the arrival of the Bush crime family, one could get a good education in Texas. I would like to think that I am but one of millions who are the living proof of it. Bush/Perry, however, were more interested in the profits that 'private education' might make if declining test scores in the public systems were ignored. The 'private schools' are profitable but serve the ruling elite. Everyone else is expected to resort to crime and thus fill the gulag of corporate-owned prisons.

Recently, Karl Rove 'demanded' to know who gave us the right to occupy our country! Rove has apparently never heard of the Bill of Rights. I will be happy to educate Rove. In fact the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution does not 'give' or 'grant' those rights; it merely affirms the rights that all of us enjoy by common law.

I suggest Karl Rove read John Locke for a start. By 'common law' we have the right to speak, dissent, protest, criticize and, in every other non-violent manner, hold every politician --from elected dog catcher to President --accountable to US!!

Though he was not a 'founder' in that he was not among the delegates to the Constitutional Convention, Thomas Jefferson wrote of the right of people to abolish tyrannies, the right to abolish those governments failing to uphold their end of a 'social contract', a 'convenent' between government and people. Governments failing those responsibilities are in 'breach of contract', the 'social contract' which is, in fact, its only source of legitimacy.

Every philosopher who is connected in any way with what is called the 'englightenment' has held that when the 'government' i.e, the 'hired hands' who run it from day-to-day violate the terms of this 'social contract', it is the right of the people to 'abolish it. To wit:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

--The Declaration of Independence [authored by Thomas Jefferson; bolding mine, LH]
The nimrods in Washington D.C. to include all of K-street, the gang of lobbyists as well as paid liars like Karl Rove and numerous 'elected' representatives should go back to school. I suggest that their first course be entitled: HUMILITY with various lessons to include:
  • public service
  • the sovereignty of the people
  • the enumerated responsibilities of government to its sovereign
The people are the final jurors. We, the people, are tasked with deciding whether a particular government shall remain or be replaced. Jefferson and the founders as well believed that that was our right! I have, at this point, given up on a corrupt establishment, controlled as it is by the ruling elite of just 1 percent of the population. I have given up on the 'community' of 'legal abstractions' called 'corporations'! Enough! It is time that the people be heard! A new broom sweeps clean. All things must pass!

The time is near, perhaps arrived, when the people must re-establish as matters of law that:
  • the people are sovereign;
  • that whenever any 'government' has failed its duties and responsibilities to the people it is the RIGHT of the people to abolish it;
  • that any new government inherits, therefore, a legal and ironclad responsibility not to tolerate the rights of the people but to preserve, protect and defend them actively against all subversive attempts at home or abroad.
Our so-called 'government' --at least since Ronald Reagan --has failed the people. The Constitution is paid lip service. The Bill of Rights is reviled. The needs of the people are ignored. The environment is considered the preserve of corporations. Corporations are given 'rights' though they are not and never will be people. The coming revolution has a long list of wrongs to be undone and crimes to be punished.


Wednesday, November 16, 2011

The GOP is Not a Political Party; It's a Crime Syndicate and Kooky Cult

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The International 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':
  1. 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.
  2. 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).
  3. 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).
  4. The group has a polarized us-versus-them mentality, which may cause conflict with the wider society.
  5. 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).
  6. 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.

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Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Rick Perry's Latest 'Enrich the rich' Plan!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

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.


Tuesday, November 01, 2011

CIA Criminal Revolving Door

by Kevin Fenton

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.


Media Conglomerates, Mergers, Concentration of Ownership, Global Issues, Updated: January 02, 2009

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Is an Elite Feudal Society Preordained?

Is an Elite Feudal Society Preordained?: Monday, October 31, 2011by Staff Report, TheDailyBell.com

From source article:
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



Saturday, October 29, 2011

How the Ruling Elite of ONE Percent Enslaved Americans

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

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.

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Sunday, October 16, 2011

Why the GOP is a Problem, NOT a Solution!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

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!'!

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Thursday, October 13, 2011

How the Ruling Elite of 1 percent Became the 'Ruling' Elite and What to do About it!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

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, 2009

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Tuesday, September 27, 2011

How the GOP Will Bring About the End of Capitalism

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

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.


The End of Capitalism? [video h/t Vera Narishkin]