Psychologists Conclude: the GOP is Nuts!

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

The GOP is not a political party; it's a crime syndicate! It is also described as an irrational, kooky cult that cannot deal with facts or logic but is freaked out by 'scary images', 'boogiemen' and vague or even non-existent threats like terrorists, commies, liberals or normal sex.

"Conservatives respond instinctually [sic], not rationally, to scary images, "facts," and institutions. Whether this is innate and biological or cultural seems still up in the air. Democrats can't win with logical arguments or even appeals to the innate rightness of concepts like "diversity" and "tolerance," because those aren't considered essentially good and important by the voters they're trying to appeal to. This does suggest that an appeal to old New Deal institutional concepts like the Welfare State might actually be effective, if they're wrapped in the flag and a sense of duty. Also scientists still consider the majority of Americans to be like a fascinating exotic backwards tribe and the fucking country is doomed."
--Scientists Explain Why People Vote For Republicans

Much of this new research is consistent with Carl Jung's 'The Undiscovered Self" in which he said that about one third of any population is certifiably psychopathic.
Psychopaths are often defined by their 'utter lack of empathy', a phrase used by Dr. Gustav Gilbert who was given the task of keeping Nazi war criminals alive until they could be hanged.
Conservatives Are Scared A Lot

Rice University Political Scientist John Alford published some research in the creatively named journal Science about a possible biological basis to liberalism and conservatism. Basically, "46 mostly white Midwesterners who self-identified as having strong political beliefs" were shown "threatening images" ("a large spider on someone's face, a bloodied person and maggot-filled wound"). The conservatives were more scared, of all of the images. Or, as Newsweek puts it, "illegal immigrants may = spiders = gay marriages = maggot-filled wounds = abortion rights = bloodied faces. " Liberals were not sensitive to the scary images. Which means they're [conservatives are] biologically inferior, because they'd die if a gay spider tried to abort their faces to death.
--Scientists Explain Why People Vote For Republicans

Republicans are more sensitive to the 'scary images' which they equate with political issues -immigration, gun control, gay marriage, abortion rights and pacifism. As a result, the 'conservative mentality' is more likely to support greater levels of military spending, warrantless searches, violations of Constitutional rights and/or protections. Conservatives readily believed the pretext for war on Iraq: WMD. None were found yet many still believe the lie.

The rise of Ronald Reagan, a comforting, 'grandfather figure', confirmed this principle on a grand scale. It was a Republican, interviewed on the floor of the GOP national convention in Houston in 1992, who gave the game away: "He [Reagan] made us feel good about ourselves'. They were quite right. Reagan, indeed, made them 'feel good' about being greedy, bigoted, selfish and self-centered, and psychopathic.

It was shortly thereafter, as I recall, that Stanford University released its study indicating that conservatives, the GOP in particular, have more and more terrifying nightmares and night terrors than do normal folk. Nightmares are believed to be the manifestation in dreams of one's fears and irrational anxieties. [Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams]

John Dean's Conservatives Without Consciences, inspired by some very serious research, asserts that the conservative mind-set is characterized by the recurring qualities of 'the unbridled viciousness toward those daring to disagree with them' as well as by big business favoritism that has cost taxpayers billions. Dean's book is inspired by other studies identifying an 'authoritarian, conservative mindset', specifically Robert D. Hare's now-standard text on psychopaths, Without Conscience of 1993.

As I have charged, this 'type' is challenged to make valid inferences from premises. Observations by professional psychologists and psychiatrists repeatedly confirm my allegations that 'psychopathic' Republicans work backward from conclusions. A mentality that reverses logic cannot be expected to ever get anything right. This mentality may be expected to deny science, evolution, or pragmatic approaches of any type. This mentality may be expected to support wars of aggression against Iraq and elsewhere and for all the wrong reasons. This group has embraced or has inherited from authoritarian parents an ideology into which it will 'shoe horn' the evidence of science, experiment or statistics. Anything not conforming is discounted. It is not surprising, therefore, that every GOP politcial program has failed; that's everything from 'trickle down' theory to wasteful military spending which has made the US less safe, more vulnerable in fact to terrorist attack or foreign aggression.

This group will never admit its failures; it will rationalize even worse atrocities if it is believed they will cover up past mistakes. It is a moral and psychological black hole. The American Psychiatric Association's 'Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders' description of antisocial and narcissistic personality disorders, for example, provides a diagnostic context for behaviors that Dean describes as characteristic of "social dominants" and "double highs." Anti-socials, for instance, "show little remorse for the consequences of their acts.... They may be indifferent to, or provide a superficial rationalization for, having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from someone (e.g., 'life's unfair,' 'losers deserve to lose,' or 'he had it coming anyway')... They may believe that everyone is out to 'help number one' and that one should stop at nothing to avoid being pushed around." Conservative defenses of George W. Bush were most often of these types.

Conservatives were often encouraged to believe and overtly told that Iraq was somehow involved in the events of 911. If a survey were conducted now, I suspect that about half the GOP 'base' still believes Iraq had something to do with 911. Some will still repeat the WMD lie despite the facts that proved Bush a liar.

How Bush got away with it: conservatives refuse to believe facts
The conservative mentality will often label a 'fact' a 'theory' if it happens to be one they don't like. But conservatives are not opposed to all theories. In fact, the GOP still embraces the kookiest and least believable of all theories --Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911, more full of holes than Swiss cheese.

Evolution, on the other hand, is not believed because it is seen as a threat. The most prominent, text-book example is Sarah Palin, the poster bimbo for idiocy! Palin believes early man walked with Dinosaurs less then 10,000 years ago. I propose that we put Palin and Richard Dawkins, avowed atheist and evolutionist, in the same room!

Roll the cameras!

We've just produced a hot new series.

I think there is a certain justified irritation with young-earth creationists who believe that the world is less than 10,000 years old. Those are the people that I'm really talking about. I do sometimes accuse people of ignorance, but that is not intended to be an insult. I'm ignorant of lots of things. Ignorance is something that can be remedied by education. And that's what I'm trying to do.
--Richared Dawkins, Darwin's Rottweiller: Richard Dawkins' Tense Relationship with those who believe in God

Sarah Palin's only rival in idiocy is Joe, the Plumber! Alaska leads the US in global warming! As for Polar Bears --Alaska's entire population of Polar Bears will be killed off by the year 2050 unless Palin's policies are stopped now. These developments are concurrent with the increase of oil exploration and drilling in Alaska. Palin is lying about Alaska, about oil, about Polar Bears and about Global Warming. [See: Washington Post, Polar Bear Population Seen Declining; ]

As a result of these efforts, polar bears are more numerous now than they were 40 years ago. The polar bear population in the southern Beaufort Sea off Alaska’s North Slope has been relatively stable for 20 years, according to a federal analysis.
...
In fact, there is insufficient evidence that polar bears are in danger of becoming extinct within the foreseeable future — the trigger for protection under the Endangered Species Act. And there is no evidence that polar bears are being mismanaged through existing international agreements and the federal Marine Mammal Protection Act.
--Sarah Palin, New York Times

In fact, the polar bear population in Alaska is declining.

Two-thirds of the world's polar bears will be killed off by 2050 _ and the entire population gone from Alaska _ because of thinning sea ice from global warming in the Arctic, government scientists forecast Friday.
Only in the northern Canadian Arctic islands and the west coast of Greenland are any of the world's 16,000 polar bears expected to survive through the end of the century, said the US Geological Survey, which is the scientific arm of the Interior Department.
--The Associated Press, Washington Post, Polar Bear Population Seen Declining

Palin denies that human activity --including the drilling, production and refining of oil --has any effect on environments, a position that puts her to the right of George W. Bush. In fact, Alaska is where it's 'at' in terms of global warming.

We have billions and billions of barrels of oil and trillions of feet of natural gas. We have so much potential from tapping our resources here in Alaska. And we can do this with minimum environmental impact. We have a very pro-development president in President Bush, and yet he failed to push for opening up parts of Alaska to drilling through Congress — and a Republican-controlled Congress, I might add.
I thought when we hit $100 a barrel for oil it would have been a psychological barrier that would have caused Congress to reconsider, but they didn't. Now we are approaching $200 a barrel. It's nonsense not to tap a safe domestic source of oil. I think Americans need to hold Congress accountable on this one.
Sarah Palin, Newsmax

Palin has put short term economic and monetary gains above the longer term concerns about quality of life, the environment, and renewable energy. It is not only her positions that are wrong, it is the attitude and mindset that places shallow and short-term values of this generation above those of the longer term concerns of future generations, indeed, life on earth.

Palin is either wrong or lying about Alaska and the harm that is done to the environment by an oil industry that she is in bed with. Palin should have talked with folk in Texas, an environment that has been raped and despoiled since Spindletop. Some parts of the world --like Iraq --are simply bombed and waged war upon for oil! But there is a word for those folk, like Palin, who just do it for the money.

Though warming is happening faster in Alaska than anywhere else in the US — average temperatures in the country's biggest state have risen 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit over the past 50 years — Palin is on record doubting that human action is the main driver behind climate change.
...
More pertinent might be Palin's positions on oil drilling in Alaska, where rich petroleum reserves paid each citizen over $1,600 in dividends in 2007. Though the McCain campaign has made much of Palin's willingness to stand up to the powerful energy industry in Alaska — last year she adjusted the state Petroleum Profits Tax to close loopholes exploited by oil and gas companies — on the whole she's been a staunch supporter of fossil fuels. She opposes strengthening protections for beluga whales in Alaska's Cook Inlet, where oil and gas development has been proposed, and she spent $500 million in state money to encourage the development of a 1,700-mile pipeline that would transport natural gas from Alaska's rich North Shore. When the Department of the Interior in May listed the polar bear as a threatened species due to warming—an action that could interfere with drilling in Alaska's coastal waters, where the polar bears live —Palin sued the Federal Government in response. "Our main concern with Sarah Palin's positions are that they are based on doing what is best for the oil industry, and not what is best for Americans," says David Willett, national press secretary for the Sierra Club.
--Time, Palin Far Right on the Environment

Conservatives Have a Different Moral Code

There is often a pragmatic, reality-based price to be paid for believing lies. If an architect or engineer gets the math wrong, a building or a bridge may collapse with tragic loss of life. Similarly, there is a tragic price to be paid for being wrong on issues. Because George W. Bush was wrong about both Afghanistan and Iraq, millions are dead. After two years of war, I stopped posting the rising body count, the tragic price paid daily because a 'conservative', a 'Republican' was dead wrong!

Unfortunately, then, these fundamental differences are not merely the topic of academic speculation. There is, for example, a reason terrorism increases during every GOP regime. The GOP is but the political of arm the ruling elites. The 'ruling elites' benefit from the exploitation of terrorism. Certainly, the level of terrorism, since 1980, has always increased during GOP regimes.

The specific manner in which these 'elites' benefit from terrorism is not so easy to pin down. The archives of the Houston Chronicle, however, provide a clue. I am referring specifically to the BCCI scandals and numerous revelations about the Bin Laden/Bush partnerships in West Texas. A key player in this extremely complex web of partnerships, conspiracies and swindles is Khalid bin Mahfouz who built a multi-billion dollar mansion of imported Cararra marble in Houston's posh River Oaks area.

US moneys financed the Bin Ladens and/or Al Qaeda by way of an intricate web that is clearly intended to deceive the American people and, of course, the world. For the moment it is enough to know that US Foreign policy is insane! It wages 'war' on terrorism as it finances it. Ronald Reagan, for example, laundered the US financial support of the Contras by way of Iran. It was a series of 'off the books' treasons! Certainly, someone put some serious pressure on Lawrence Walsh who, nevertheless, managed to write a very carefully worded conclusion to his report. Clearly --Walsh believed that Reagan himself had committed high treason. Reagan should have been tried for 'high treason' but was, in fact, let off the hook.

Is the GOP Evil?

Hannah Arendt, a New School (NY) founder who 'covered' the trial of Adolph Eichmann, wrote of the 'banality of evil'. Arendt's conclusions are consistent with what is lately called 'ponerolgoy', the study of evil. Dr. Gustav Gilbert, who was assigned the task of interviewing the Nazis on trial at Nuremberg concluded that 'evil' was the 'utter lack of empathy', a defining symptom of what we call 'psychopathy'. Carl Jung had likewise identified a sub-set of about 30 percent in every population that were, in Jung's opinion, certifiably psychopathic.

Worst case conservatives often see no evil where 'liberals' are appalled. The meeting of Nazi bureaucrats at Wannsee, for example, never addressed whether or not the mass murder of European Jews was right or moral. The issue, rather, was how efficiently the genocide might be accomplished, what technology should be set up to the task, and, at last, how many could be 'exterminated' in a given time period and at what cost! It was all very businesslike, not unlike a GOP luncheon. The pate de fois gras was superb; the wine was of an excellent vintage, I am quite sure.

Between Wannsee and Nuremberg, a 'state'' murdered millions in order to make bigots feel good about themselves. At Nuremberg --top Nazis were tried for their very lives. As in a classical drama, the 'right wing' blind spot --its fatal flaw --would, in fact, convict them. I refer those who are interested to the 'film' (now transferred to video) of Justice Robert Jackson's examination of Hermann Goring. Earlier, Goring had already condemned the proceedings. 'Victor's Justice', he called them.

Addendum:

Facts About Global Warming

What we know:
Carbon Dioxide is a greenhouse gas. It allows light to pass through but traps heat. Here’s how it works: CO2 absorbs certain wavelengths of energy. This means that radiation from the sun can enter the atmosphere as light. Once this radiation hits the ground, it turns into heat. This heat then radiates back into the atmosphere and out into space. CO2 traps some of the heat.

1. CO2 has gone from roughly 280 ppm (parts per million) in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution to about 380 ppm now. Each year humans pump out about 6 billion tons of CO2 with an annual growth rate of about 1.9% predicted between 2001 - 2025 (although actual emissions growth was 3.2% per year from 2000 to 2005).
2. CO2 remains in the air for about 100 years, so even if we stopped emitting it right now we would still feel the effects for decades.
3. CO2 and temperature have increased and decreased together over the history of the planet.
4. There is more CO2 in the atmosphere now than there has been in 650,000 years. The rate of increase is unprecedented over the same period.
5. Svante Arrhenius estimated 100 years ago that a doubling of CO2 would create a 4 degree C rise in temperature. In 1979 the Charney report predicted global warming of 3 degrees C if CO2 doubled in the atmosphere (we are a quarter of the way there). In 1988 James Hansen of NASA predicted to Congress that temperature would increase over the next decades.
6. Temperature has increased since those predictions were made. The top 5 hottest years according to NASA are, in order, 2005, 1998, 2002, 2003, and 2004.The World Meteorological Association claims 2005 as the second hottest year on record. The difference is because NASA includes data from the Arctic. The top ten warmest years have been since 1990.
7. Since 1850, we have seen temperatures increase at a rate of 1.1 F per century (about 1.5 - 1.8 F total). The rate increased to 3.2F per century since the mid 1970s (click here for more information).
8. Species around the world are reacting to climate change: Since 1950, species distribution has shifted to the north 4 miles per decade, shifted to higher altitudes by 20 feet per decade, and Spring has advanced by 2.3 days per decade. In America, butterflies have moved their ranges north. They are no longer found in the southern parts of their old range. Costa Rican birds have extended their range northward. Tropical fish have been seen for the first time off the British Coast, and animals such as the Pied Flycatcher and the Winter Moth are finding their food supply affected by earlier Springs.
9. Climate has changed rapidly in the past. The common example of rapid climate change is the Younger Dryas, when temperatures suddenly plunged, interrupting the warming trend at the end of the last ice age.

What we think we know:

1. Temperatures are most likely warmer now than they have been at any time in the past 400 years. They are probably (slightly less certain) warmer than in the past 1200 years, perhaps (less certain) warmer than in the past 12,000 years, and new evidence suggests that we are approaching the warmest temperatures this planet has seen in a million years.
2. Models predict that Earth’s average temperature will rise somewhere between 2 to 4.5 degrees C in the 21st century.

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American politics: the choice between 'most bad' and 'not really very good'

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

A true democracy is the exercise of free choice among real alternatives. A recent US regime change means little to those daring to demand the truth about 911. That's because real power no longer rests with the office of 'President'. Real power resides with the axis of MIC/K-Street/CIA-NSA. This cabal has good motives for continuing to cover up 911 and suppressing the truth. This cabal is among those who benefited most from 911.

What was true of Rome is true of the US. Emperors could rarely be called 'good' --just 'less bad'. By that scale, Bush, like Caligula, is 'most bad', Obama 'much less bad' but not yet really 'good'. A spoon full of sugar does little to sweeten a thousand acres of sheep sour or smelly manure.

Unfortunately, the system by which our leaders are selected exploits this paradigm, the result of the raw power accrued to extremely wealthy and armed interventionists, the merchants of war and plunder. I had hoped the American people deserved a better choice than 'less bad Obama' vs 'most bad Bush'. We can expect surface changes but precious few fundamental reforms.

Nothing said by Bush about 911 is true. Everything said about 911 by the US government, most prominently the Bush administration, is but a part of the 'big lie'! The US required a real revolution but got the 'less bad' Obama. That's how the system works. The result is that the people are never adequately or honestly represented by government. It also follows that until 911 is fully investigated and those truly guilty brought to justice, no US government can claim to be legitimate.

The Obama administration will not bring George W. Bush to justice for the crimes of high treason and mass murder called '911'. The office of President is powerless against the entrenched and combined powers of the 'intelligence community', K-Street and the Military/Industrial Complex. The government, the nation no longer belong to the people. Our 'sovereignty', guaranteed us in the US Constitution, is mocked.

That nothing said by the Bush administration about the crimes called 911 is true is good reason to suspect Bushco of high treason and mass murder. That Bushco benefited from 911 is cause to suspect that 911 was an act of mass murder and high treason perpetrated upon the people by its own government! Bush, his administration and enablers had method, motive and opportunity to pull off the crime of the century.

A real revolution would make holding those responsible a high priority. A real revolution would bring them to justice. Tragically, Americans have neither the stomach for nor the means by which a revolution of any sort may be waged. The lesson is this: if you wish to commit mass murder for profit you must first seize control of the government.

1) Official Flight Data from the NTSB proves conclusively that Flight 77 could not possibly have crashed into the Pentagon. Flight 77 was at an altitude of 273 feet within less than two seconds of 'impact'. Source: NTSB, Pilots for 911 Truth, FOIA request, official computer data from NTSB.

The US State Department has a website to debunk conspiracy theories – not just about 9/11 but a whole range of stories circulating on the internet. But we found that simple requests, such as asking to see the plane wreckage of flight United 93 at Shanksville, or flight American Airlines 77 at the Pentagon, were refused after months of delay by the authorities. Yet if we had been able to film the wreckage from flight AA77 we would have had extremely strong evidence that a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon.

--BBC

The explanation is simple. The US government has NO evidence in support of the official story. If it had, it would release it and put this issue to rest once and for all.

2) No airliner crashed at the alleged site in PA. Flight 93, we are led to believe, managed to bury itself upon impact, a convenient lie designed to cover the fact that no airliner wreckage was ever visible at the alleged 'crash' site. This myth can be put to rest with a simple excavation. My challenge to officialdom is this: if you believe or wish me to believe that a 757 lies buried under the soil in PA, then go dig it up and prove it to me!

Otherwise --shut the fuck up and resign your pubic office! Show me the wreckage! Until that is done, I say that there was and is no wreckage because there was no crash. Magic tricks are easy to pull off when no one is looking and you have trillion dollar deficits with which to finance the lies and misdirection.

3) Purdue University 'modeled' a soft-bodied, aluminum airliner slicing through steel girders at WTC's Twin Towers. Nonsense! If aluminum could slice through steel, Switzerland would make army knives out of aluminum.

But --they don't!

I carry a Swiss Army Knife. The blades are made of hardened steel. Purdue University has made a Faustian bargain. By putting its name on this piece of crap, by practicing 'truth by animation', Purdue relinquishes any credibility it might have claimed as an 'institution of higher learning'. These days anyone can animate anything. You can do major motion picture quality work with a free download called 'Blender'. All it takes are a few working brain cells and some patience. Walt Disney animated a mouse but that does not make Mickey real. Purdue animated a bald faced lie. It does not make it true!

4) As David Ray Griffin and numerous experts and scholars have pointed out: steel has never melted at Kerosene fire temperatures. And, until the laws of physics are repealed, it never will. The towers of WTC collapsed as a result of a controlled demolition. There is no other explanation consistent with the science of physics. [See: David Ray Griffin, The New Pearl Harbor (PDF)]

5) Only a controlled demolition looks like a controlled demolition The collapse of WTC7 looks just like a controlled demolition because it was one. WTC 7 collapsed though no airliner struck it. Consider the implications: if WTC 7 was a controlled demolition, Silverstein and/or Bushco planted explosives prior to the attacks of 911. While all other official 'theories' merely raise more problems than they explain, the common sense conclusion is entirely consistent with Occam's Razor.

Larry Silverstein said that WTC 7 was pulled!

Later it was claimed by 'damage control' that Larry's use of the term 'pull it' really meant 'pull them' as in pull the firefighters out! Fire fighters are a 'them' --not an 'it'. Everyone else refers to 'firefighters' as 'firefighters', the 'unit' as a 'unit', they are not called 'it'! In fact, 'pull' --as Silverstein used the term in context --is commonly used by demolition experts to describe the professional demolition of buildings. One who is tasked with bringing about the controlled demolition of a building is said to 'pull it'. That's just the way it is, efforts to re-write history and common usage notwithstanding.

Just recently, a forty story steel frame building in Beijing was literally engulfed, totally involved in an horrific fire. Guess what! It did not collapse! And neither would WTC 7 which, of course, had help.

6) Clearly --anyone who commits a crime is most motivated to a) cover it up; b) lie about it about to protect the guilty. Who lied about 911? The most notable 911 liars are Bush himself and key members of his administration. Bush lied several times about having seen the crashes when, in fact, he could not possibly have seen them on TV at the time that he said he saw them. Perhaps the CIA had a arranged a non-network, 'closed circuit' set-up for him that he dare not reveal. Bush could not have seen the events 'live from New York' as he claimed unless someone in his administration knew precisely what was going to happen and when. Clearly --Bush and his 'players' were not ready for prime time. They fucked up and flopped!

Whoever that was, he/she/it might have gone to great lengths to arrange 'closed circuit' telemetry of the event for Bush's benefit. Certainly, there was no legitimate live coverage of the crash nor could there have been. Bush lied, revealing his complicity in the capital crimes of mass murder and high treason!

7) There were no Arab names on the official list of those autopsied from the Pentagon. The source for this is Dr. Olmsted, who filed an FOIA request. He had made the point that 'passenger lists' are just names someone types up on a piece of paper. It is not evidence. A coroner's report, however, is admissible in court. It's evidence. And, in this case, the coroner's report disproves Bush's official conspiracy theory of 911. There's nary a 'hijacker' nor an Arab name on the list.

8) The BBC interviewed several 'said' hijackers though they were said by Bush partisans to have died in the attacks. Dead men don't give interviews. Another fatal flaw in the official conspiracy theory.

9) Phone calls by Barbara Olson et al were most certainly faked. Her husband, Ted Olson, told two mutually exclusive stories. Even so, the best explanation, consistent with Occam's razor, is that the alleged phone calls did not occur.

In this video the distinguished research scholar and author, David Ray Griffin, reports to a conference at the European Parliament on an FBI court document revealing that Ted Olson did not receive any telephone calls from his wife, Barbara Olsen, on flight 77 on sept 11, 2001 as falsely reported CNN reporter Tim O'Brien in the hours following the attacks. Obrien's report provided an eye witness account of hijackers allegedly armed with box cutters. CNN has not yet commented.

The Barbara Olson cell phone story is included in David Ray Griffin's new book: 9/11 Contradictions: An Open Letter to Congress and the Press..

--Video of David Ray Griffen, 911 Contradictions

Only the guilty tell deliberate lies about crimes, especially those lies having the effect of obstructing justice as Ted Olson's bald faced lie did. 911 was a crime of mass murder, possibly high treason. Ted's deliberate lie about this crime makes Ted liable for prosecution in Federal Courts as an accessory to the crimes of mass murder and high treason. At the very least it could be evidence that Olson was an accessory after the fact.

10) WTC steel was ordered destroyed, hauled away and sold! The willfull destruction of evidence is a crime; in this case, complicity and obstruction of justice. [See: Achitect and Engineers for 911 Truth]

11) Marvin Bush handled security for the WTC before and during 911. It would appear that he succeeded in doing the job for which he was planted. You can rest assured that he was rewarded when, in fact, he should have been arrested, charged and prosecuted for his complicity in the crimes of mass murder, high treason and domestic terrorism. Marvin Bush represents 'opportunity' among abundant method and motive.

12) Bush signed Executive Order 13292 which classifies 'a broad range of documents' and keeps them beyond the reach of citizens for 25 years. The EO also gave 'classification' powers to bunker Dick Cheney, VP at the time.

13) Though al Qaeda was blamed for 911, it is a matter of record that al Qaeda, the creation of the CIA, was founded at a mujahideen camp in Afghanistan in 1988, during the Afghan war against the Soviet Union.

It did, however, lay the groundwork for the expansion of power of the most extremist groups of the mujahideen and their allies from the Arab world, including the organization al-Qaeda, which was founded at a mujahideen camp in Afghanistan in 1988. The Soviet withdrawal and the end of the Afghan-Soviet war led not to peace but to new rounds of conflict. See also Islamic Fundamentalism.

Following the events of 911, Syria denied the very existence of al Qaeda. I am more inclined to believe Syria than anyone inside the US government. Certainly, the Bush administration gave us only propaganda and exploitation but no evidence. Al Qaeda became the label the admin attached to acts that the administration arbitrarily chalked up to 'terrorism'. 'Terrorism' itself is Orwellian. It is simply whatever those in power say that it is, or more accurately, whatever those in power believe they can most easily exploit. Dissent itself may be considered 'terrorism', especially any truth that might have the effect of discrediting or subverting the illegitimate exercise of power.

14) Though al Qaeda was blamed for 911, the US government insisted upon waging war on nations that most certainly had nothing whatsoever to do with 911. What, for example, did the Taleban government have to do with 911? The Taleban, it should be recalled, had visited UNOCAL officials in Sugar Land, TX, Tom DeLay's home district. The war in Afghanistan was about the 'failed pipeline' deal --not the 'terrorist' pretext that the media swallowed, regurgitated and then puked up for us. This sounds more like a drug (oil) deal gone bad! In fact, the US had threatened the Taleban with carpet bombing months before 911.

It's time to investigate this crime, round up the guilty, try them, sentence them and execute them.

Simon Polakowski said that if he believed the government's story on Sept. 11, 2001, he might as well believe the Earth is flat.

Polakowski produces an hour-long show with his friend Bob Martin called "9/11 Myth vs. Reality."

The show airs at 8 p.m. Mondays on public access channel 27.

He said that on Sept. 11, he was listening to the newscasts and thought to himself, "This is such bullshit."

He started the show more than one year ago to reach people who had similar doubts.

"From what I've been researching, there are millions of people who do not believe the official story and explanation," Polakowski said. "There are shows like this all across (the country). We get a lot of our material off of YouTube and off the Internet, and I am very thankful for all the people who are doing this research totally out-of-pocket."

The story of 19 hijackers led by "a man in a cave" is something Polakowski and Martin have a hard time believing.

"It was the most far-fetched story I have ever heard in my life," Polakowski said. "The most powerful nation on the face of the Earth, the most advanced military with over 30 intelligence agencies with over $40 billion in the annual budget to protect the nation, and they all failed?"

Martin was working as a doctor and living in New York on Sept. 11 and said he went to Ground Zero to help.

"One thing that bothered me was that we all noticed that the skies were quite empty, and there were no planes flying because there was a stop order," Martin said. "But they were really quiet. There were no military aircrafts over New York City for quite sometime, and somebody yelled out, 'Where the hell are the jets?' That question gnawed at me for the following year."

Martin said that as the day went on, there were more questions and concerns that popped up in his head.

"Another thing that gnawed at me was when I went down to Ground Zero, - it occurred to me that there was almost nothing left of these structures," Martin said. "I'm looking at girders that weigh anywhere from 4 to 300 tons. They were embedded in other skyscrapers like giant arrows. We're talking about distances upwards of 400 feet. Because this was allegedly a gravity-driven collapse, I found it very hard to reckon with what I saw."

Polakowski said 9/11 was a shock-and-awe maneuver that caught Americans completely off guard.

"Franklin Delano Roosevelt said there are no accidents in politics," Martin said. "It was the ultimate political act. People were suffering from PTSD in New York City, and that is what war does. It unbalances the human psyche, and when there is something of shock, they are much easier to manipulate."

Martin said the TV show explores possibilities of how and why 9/11 happened. Martin said many parts of the government's story do not hold up to scrutiny.

"The event 9/11 is a seminal event of the century that triggered this global War on Terror," Martin said. "It goes logically from what we're positive of - that the War on Terror is perhaps a hoax and is contrived. And that has its origins in intelligence agencies and major corporations in the Western world."

Martin said he uses the basic question of motive and benefit to come to his conclusion.

"When detectives come upon a murder scene, the first thing they ask themselves is, 'Who benefits from this?'" Martin said. "'Is it a crime of passion? Is there something that was put together and planned out?' This is the main question that should be asked about 9/11, is, 'Who benefits? Did the Arabs benefit?' No. So, who benefited from this?"

--9/11: A government story full of holes

The 'rats' desert the sinking ship. Even former Bushies dispute the lies still told us about 911.

A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush's first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is 'bogus,' saying it is more likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the Twin Towers and adjacent Building No. 7.

"If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9/11, then the case for an 'inside job' and a government attack on America would be compelling," said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D, a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis headquartered in Dallas, TX.

Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes it's 'next to impossible' that 19 Arab Terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9/11.

"It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and building 7," said Reynolds this week from his offices at Texas A&M. "If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government's collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.

"More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9/11 right."

However, Reynolds said "getting it right in today's security state' remains challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9/11.

From the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government theory since most of the evidence was removed by FEMA prior to independent investigation.

Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover-up the evidence and the recent 9/11 Commission has failed to address the major evidence contradicting the official version of 9/11.

Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory include:

• Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where 10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning..
• When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower's flames had already vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and control without a total collapse.
• The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of fuel and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the firs could have been easily controlled.
• FDNY fire fighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also under a similar 9/11 gag order.
• Even the flawed 9/11 Commission Report acknowledges that "none of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible."
• Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse except for the three buildings on 9/11, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9/11.
• The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.
• WTC-7 was unharmed by an airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and twelfth floors of this 47-story steel building yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.
• WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.
• In a PBS documentary, Larry Silverstein, the WTC leaseholder, told the fire department commander on 9/11 about WTC-7 that. "may be the smartest thing to do is pull it," slang for demolish it.
• It's difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel (kerosene) to raise the temperature of steel close to melting. [or even weakening sufficiently to collapse]

Despite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration has brushed aside or basically ignored any and all critics. Mainstream experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire thermally weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.

Greg Szymanski – Artic Beacon June 12, 2005, Former Bush Team Member Says WTC Collapse Likely A Controlled Demolition And 'Inside Job'

It's too early to say that Obama will remembered as Marcus Aurelius --less bad, intelligent, thoughtful --or that Bush will be remembered as Caligula is remembered --a total waste of human DNA. A new paradigm is desperately needed, a paradigm that includes not merely the entire spectrum of political dissent but also the dimming hope that political morality might be electable and in some manner triumphant.

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GOP History: 100 Years of Crooks, Liars and Failures

by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

In a bit over 100 yeas, the GOP loosed upon an unsuspecting nation the likes of Calvin Coolidge, Warren Harding, Herbert Hoover, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan, Bush Sr., and Bush Jr. Coolidge said little and did less. Harding died in the middle of a scandal --the Tea Pot Dome Scandal.

The exact cause of Harding's death was never learned because Mrs. Harding refused to allow an autopsy. She also declined the casting of a death mask. And the body was embalmed immediately, before it ever left the hotel. All this led to rumors that Mrs. Harding had poisoned the President while they were alone together shortly before his death, perhaps with the help or knowledge of Dr. Sawyer.

In 1924 eyebrows once again were raised. Dr. Charles Sawyer died suddenly--and his death was strikingly similar to that of President Harding--while Mrs. Harding was visiting the Sawyer home. Had she slipped something into Sawyer's drink, too, perhaps to ensure his silence? Mrs. Harding herself died in November, 1924, before the ugly rumors of her role in the President's death ever reached print. In 1930 Gaston Means, an unscrupulous detective and convicted swindler, published The Strange Death of President Harding, in which he claimed he had been hired by Mrs. Harding to serve as her personal investigator. One of his most important tasks was to follow Harding's longtime mistress Nan Britton, who had borne the President's only child, out of wedlock.The widely read book broadly hinted that Mrs. Harding, seeking revenge for this affair and for Harding's many other infidelities during their marriage, had poisoned her husband.

Means also suggested that Mrs. Harding had another motive, a more compassionate one: to spare the President the disgrace of the political scandals about to be disclosed. "My love for Warren has turned to hate," she supposedly told Means. "The President deserves to die. He is not fit to live . . . and he knows it." Means claimed that after the President's death Mrs. Harding confided to him, "Warren Harding died in honor. . . . Had he lived 24 hours longer he might have been impeached. . . . I have not betrayed my country or the party. . . . They are saved . . . I have no regrets. I have fulfilled my destiny."

--Was President Warren G. Harding Murdered Also see: [Tea Pot Dome Scandal]

Since 1900, the GOP has given us failure, idiocy, crookery, wars and industrial scale graft. Only death would distance Warren Harding from the Tea Pot Dome Scandal and, as he called them, his 'God damn friends'. And he was probably as right out his 'God damn friends' as they surely were of him.

But nothing has 'distanced' the name Herbert from the word 'depression' --the economic kind. Hoover was the McCain of his era. Defending the very policies that caused the crash of '29, Hoover said of the victims: "let the poor sell oranges from a pushcart'.

The Republican Great Depression began in 1929, not 1932, and it was the direct result of 9 years of unrelenting trickle-down economics delivered under three Republican Presidents (Harding, Coolidge and Hoover) and their treasury Secretary, the anti-tax, anti-regulation corporate titan, Andrew Mellon.

As I write in the introduction of my new book, Yeah, Right: "This Economy Is Strong and Other Tall Tales:

Hoover came to the presidency in March 1929 after a campaign in which he insisted that a "continuation of the policies of the Republican party is fundamentally necessary to the future advancement of this progress and to the further building up of this prosperity."

When the market crashed in October 1929, the true cost of the Republicans' get-rich-today-and-don't-worry-about-tomorrow policies became all too apparent. Years of corporate deregulation, Wall Street manipulation, rampant speculation, cuts in taxation for the wealthy, and easy-credit expansion for consumers had fueled an unsustainable bubble of artificial wealth that popped with devastating effect.

But Hoover refused to acknowledge the collapse. The "fundamental business of the country," he insisted, was "on a sound and prosperous basis."

Compare those pre- and post- crash Hoover statements to these pre- and post-crash McCain statements:

He should be judged very, very well as far as the economy is concerned. We're in a long sustained period of economic growth.

- John McCain on George W. Bush, March 5, 2007

I still believe the fundamentals of our economy are strong.

- August 2008

Based on that record, there are few people in America who could more rightly claim to be the heir of Herbert Hoover than John McCain (if you're thinking Bush, you're close, but he's actually Calvin Coolidge's heir).

--Jim Oleske, Memo to McCain: Hoover was a REPUBLICAN, Daily Kos

Americans may be forgiven their often overt nostalgia for World War II. It was the only time in the twentieth century that American society was, in any way, egalitarian. By the time Ronald Reagan assumed the White House, the GOP had unfairly demonized Jimmy Carter¹ and had begun to roll back all the gains. Ronald Reagan seemed determine to return the US to a pre-1929 state.

The trail thus blazed, Reagan --by way of 'Reaganomics' --would effect a great roll back to earlier Twentieth Century economics in which only the very, very rich benefited. Reagan succeeded. Since 1980, the gulf between rich and poor has created two Americas --those who have very, very little and those who have almost everything. The GOP 'base' of just one percent of the total population idolize Reagan for having brought this about. The rest of the GOP idolize Reagan because they have no clue! Ergo: the GOP consists of two types: the rich and the stupid!

Those who have very little amount to some 95 percent of the entire population. Those who almost have it all amount to about one percent of the nation, yet own more than the other 95 percent combined. Hoover, Harding, Nixon, Coolidge must be beaming up from hell.

Clinton was reviled because he was not a part of the GOP plan to exploit America's riches for the very, very few. Every GOP charge against Clinton was disingenuous. The GOP didn't really care about the President's sex life. Not even the GOP could be stupid enough to equate oral sex with arming an avowed enemy of the United States, a crime that Reagan, in fact, perpetrated and lied about. The GOP, rather, could not forgive Clinton his success which, in turn, reduced the GOP to framing Clinton for trivial offenses. It's all the GOP had.

Clinton dared to protest his innocence of an act that was not even a crime. In pursuit of a dubious case, Kenneth Starr exceeded his charge, attempting to 'pin' a crime on Clinton that Clinton could not have committed for another three days. Starr was either 'psychic' or 'crooked'. Until this kind of 'psychic' phenomena are proven to exist, I will continue to believe that Starr was just crooked, that the subpoena was a set-up! Starr's investigation turned up nothing and nothing was left Starr but a crass entrapment for which he should have been disbarred.

Clinton was accused of lying to Starr's legalized 'witch hunt', the federal grand jury convened for the purpose of finding something that could be 'pinned on the President'. This panel, under Starr's direction, began its investigation of 'perjury' fully three days before it could have occurred.

Over the course of four years, Kenneth Starr's investigation of 'Whitewater' cost American taxpayers about $40 million dollars. The taxpayers got absolutely nothing for the utter waste of their monies. By Starr's own admission, his investigation had already found absolutely nothing in Whitewater that he could pin on Clinton.

"Trooper-gate" was a hoax! David Brock's story in Richard Mellon Scaife's 'American Spectator' consisted of allegations by Arkansas state troopers Larry Patterson and Roger Perry. To keep the heat on, Scaife tried and failed to buy witnesses against Clinton using laundered money. Original stories referred to 'Paula' whom we later learned was Paula Jones who found the eager market for lies about Democrats.

David Brock branded the exposé a case of "bad journalism" and called the troopers 'greedy'. He said they had 'slimy motives.' The words 'slimy' and 'GOP' in the same sentence are redundant.

The amount of conspiracist material attacking Clinton before and during the impeachment hearings was staggering. There are few reasons to think the attacks will cease now that the impeachment crisis is over. The small but vocal minority that originally supported the Starr investigation was nurtured by the conspiracist stories circulating about Clinton.

Much of the media coverage of Clinton from 1997 until 1999 focused on scandal and impeachment rather than ideological political issues or electoral politics. This was true not only in alternative right-wing media, but also in mainstream corporate media. Reporter Gene Lyons is especially critical of The New York Times (and to a lesser degree the Washington Post) for devoting so much coverage to the alleged “Whitewater Scandal” over a collapsed land deal, for which no evidence implicating the Clintons in criminal acts has ever been substantiated.

Lyons argues that much of the scandal coverage in the mainstream media “rests on ‘facts’ that are somewhere between highly dubious and demonstrably false,” and he calls it “journalistic malpractice” resulting from a coordinated right-wing “dirty tricks” campaign. In addition to corporate newspaper and magazine coverage attacking Clinton, there were books, newsletters, fax reports, videotapes, audiotapes, direct mail pieces, Internet sites, and more that spewed out from tiny—sometimes one-person—operations to international media conglomerates.

The most alarmist attacks on Clinton originated in right-wing alternative media, then spread throughout right-wing information networks, finally appearing in mainstream outlets. This troubling dynamic was described in a 1995 White House memo “Communication Stream of Conspiracy Commerce.” The memo was widely
derided in the corporate media, but it is essentially accurate.

--Chip Berlet, Clinton, Conspiracism, and the Continuing Culture War

Scaife's office building was back in the news but a bit later when the body of liberal activist, Steve Kangas, was found dead in a bathroom stall. Kangas' death was ruled a 'suicide' --the first case in history in which the deceased managed to shoot himself --reportedly --twice in the head.

Starr became a pornographer when he was left with nothing to send up to Congress but the pornographic "Starr Report" shot through with prurient minutiae having less to do with substantive charges than with the appearance of Lewinsky's breasts and the shape of ejaculate on her dress.

Normal folk think it absurd to charge a man for perjury or obstruction of justice for merely protesting his innocence --a basic and guaranteed right. Bush tried to get around the principle by merely 'deeming' one a 'terrorist', a neat little trick that Kenneth Starr was unfortunate enough not to have thought of earlier. During the Clinton administration, the GOP had not yet discovered how easily one is deprived of every right guaranteed in the Constitution. Only one word was necessary: 'terrorist'. The GOP might have labeled Clinton but were, instead, obsessed with sex, primarily the sex that was begrudged Clinton. Certainly, in Clinton's case, absurdity was compounded. Clinton was accused of a 'cover up'. But of what?! Getting a blow job is not a crime and the 'acts' for which Clinton would be charged would not occur until at least three days later. Starr was psychic!

In the middle ages, accused witches were subjected to a trial by water. Those lucky enough to 'float' were condemned as witches and grimly executed. Those drowning were considered to be innocent but --unfortunately --dead! The US practice of 'water boarding' throughout its CIA run gulag is the modern equivalent.

The GOP embraced the 'trial by water' and would base American jurisprudence upon the model. GOP justice is Medieval justice. Under Bush, the rule of law would lose all meaning. Bush would call the Constitution a 'goddamned piece of paper'. He would subject 'suspected terrorists' to the modern equivalent of the 'water trial'. The innocent and guilty alike are dead. And so --too --the rule of law.

The 'Watergate' case against Richard Nixon differed substantially from the spurious, purple rhetorical charges leveled against Clinton. Nixon was charged with real crimes -- 'obstruction of justice and perjury' with respect to actual crimes --not set ups or 'sexual' gotachas'! Nixon was accused of using the IRS as a means by which he might retaliate against political enemies. His gang of 'plumbers', tasked with plugging up leaks in the government, were paid by way of elaborate money laundering schemes --all illegal.

Nixons's crimes were real crimes. The Articles of Impeachment against Nixon should be read and compared with the Articles of Impeachment against Clinton. The charges against Clinton are rhetorical fluff, insubstantial claptrap, pornographic and purple prose. The charges against Nixon are, rather, descriptions of real crimes, possibly treason.

The means used to implement this course of conduct or plan included one or more of the following:

1. making false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

2. withholding relevant and material evidence or information from lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States;

3. approving, condoning, acquiescing in, and counseling witnesses with respect to the giving of false or misleading statements to lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States and false or misleading testimony in duly instituted judicial and congressional proceedings;

4. interfering or endeavouring to interfere with the conduct of investigations by the Department of Justice of the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the office of Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and Congressional Committees;

5. approving, condoning, and acquiescing in, the surreptitious payment of substantial sums of money for the purpose of obtaining the silence or influencing the testimony of witnesses, potential witnesses or individuals who participated in such unlawful entry and other illegal activities;

6. endeavouring to misuse the Central Intelligence Agency, an agency of the United States;
7. disseminating information received from officers of the Department of Justice of the United States to subjects of investigations conducted by lawfully authorized investigative officers and employees of the United States, for the purpose of aiding and assisting such subjects in their attempts to avoid criminal liability;

8. making or causing to be made false or misleading public statements for the purpose of deceiving the people of the United States into believing that a thorough and complete investigation had been conducted with respect to allegations of misconduct on the part of personnel of the executive branch of the United States and personnel of the Committee for the Re-election of the President, and that there was no involvement of such personnel in such misconduct: or

9. endeavouring to cause prospective defendants, and individuals duly tried and convicted, to expect favoured treatment and consideration in return for their silence or false testimony, or rewarding individuals for their silence or false testimony.

In all of this, Richard M. Nixon has acted in a manner contrary to his trust as President and subversive of constitutional government, to the great prejudice of the cause of law and justice and to the manifest injury of the people of the United States.

--Articles of Impeachment against Richard M. Nixon, Republican

Two of most troubling aspects of recent Republican history are the crooked nature of the Reagan Administration and the "election" of George W. Bush. Among hundreds of 'black marks' against Reagan, the words of Iran/Contra Special Prosecutor Lawrence Walsh are the most damning.

The Iran/contra investigation will not end the kind of abuse of power that it addressed any more than the Watergate investigation did. The criminality in both affairs did not arise primarily out of ordinary venality or greed, although some of those charged were driven by both. Instead, the crimes committed in Iran/contra were motivated by the desire of persons in high office to pursue controversial policies and goals even when the pursuit of those policies and goals was inhibited or restricted by executive orders, statutes or the constitutional system of checks and balances.

The tone in Iran/contra was set by President Reagan. He directed that the contras be supported, despite a ban on contra aid imposed on him by Congress. And he was willing to trade arms to Iran for the release of Americans held hostage in the Middle East, even if doing so was contrary to the nation's stated policy and possibly in violation of the law.

The lesson of Iran/contra is that if our system of government is to function properly, the branches of government must deal with one another honestly and cooperatively. When disputes arise between the Executive and Legislative branches, as they surely will, the laws that emerge from such disputes must be obeyed. When a President, even with good motive and intent, chooses to skirt the laws or to circumvent them, it is incumbent upon his subordinates to resist, not join in. Their oath and fealty are to the Constitution and the rule of law, not to the man temporarily occupying the Oval Office. Congress has the duty and the power under our system of checks and balances to ensure that the President and his Cabinet officers are faithful to their oaths.

--Concluding Observations, FINAL REPORT OF THE INDEPENDENT COUNSEL FOR IRAN/CONTRA MATTERS

Reagan armed Iran, an avowed enemy of the United States. Lest it be protested that we were not engaged in a declared war with Iran, I must point out that, likewise, our wars with the Taliban and against the people of Iraq were not and remain undeclared. Nevertheless, members of the Bush administration were quick to tar critics with the word 'treason' when, in fact, it is the very worst 'president' in American history whose loyalties must be questioned within the context of a full century of GOP incompetence and outright betrayal of the nation, its people and its Constitution.

The following video supports my contention that Bill 0'Reilly is a crook, a liar, a miserable worm, a waste of human DNA. But because the GOP has apparently made it party policy to be everything that defines Bill 0'Reilly, the 'right' will watch this video and cheer the lying idiot. Good folk, whom I define as being those people who still believe that some things can be proven true and that it is important to do so, will watch this video and be confirmed in their own beliefs.

Why is all that important? I give you the words of Jacob Bronouski and Bertolt Brecht.

Behave in such a way that what is true may be verified to be so.

--Jacob Bronouski, Science and Human Values

• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part I, Police States Begin With False Flag Attacks
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part II, A Climate of Fear is Maintained
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part III, In Fascist Dictatorships Telling the truth becomes a crime
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part IV, the state forces an 'existential' choice
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part V, Public Opinion Becomes Irrelevant
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VI, The government places itself above the law
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State: Part VII, The Government Denies 'Due Process of Law'
• Bush's Conspiracy to Create an American Police State Part VIII: Atrocities are justified with lies, myths or propaganda

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America begins slide into third world status

It coincides with the rising price of oil and the falling price of bucks. Three GOP administrations, Reagan, Bush Sr., Bush Jr., have presided over three pernicious trends: a falling dollar, the US loss of manufacturing preeminence, the decline of the US domestic oil industry. The sum of all three trends equals the loss of US empire. The policies of three GOP administrations have not merely failed to reverse the trends, they birthed them and made them worse with ideology, bigotry and incompetence. Those who called a new Bush regime a "banana republic" during the 2000 election debacle could not have known how prescient they had been. All has come true. The "empire" is lost.

The dollar has dropped 12 percent since the start of the year. My own sources --European bankers --tell me the dollar will continue to fall until the US has what they have termed a "credible" regime and credible leadership. Smart money all over the world is dumping the dollar for the Euro. Until Bush is retired, the American people will continue to pay for his incompetence and his lawlessness. Bush is content to finance the trade deficit on the backs of American consumers.

At the very root of the problem is the fact that in 2004, the US topped the list of oil importing nations with imports of 11.8 million barrels of oil per day. That's more than the next three --China, German, and North Korea --combined. The problem is not only oil. The US Department of Commerce reports that the US "trade deficit" --our total exports vs our total imports --has increased 18% from 2004 to a record $726 billion in 2005. US dependence on oil is responsible, says the US commerce department, for some two-thirds of the increase in the US trade deficit in 2005.

Technically, price hikes due to trade imbalance is not inflation but to a consumer trying to make ends meet with a dollar that buys less and less, what difference does it make?

There are two sides to any exchange rate: Europe's prospects matter as well as America's. In 2006 the Euro area looks likely to grow at its fastest pace for six years. That its GDP growth is modest by American standards, largely because of its slower population growth, is not the point: what matters is that this year it has surprised the soothsayers time and again. That has lifted its currency, and not just against the dollar. A euro now buys more yen than at any time since the single currency was created.

---The Economist, The Dollar Heads for a Tumble

So --when a European financial expert tells me that more and more people are dumping dollars for Euros, Americans would be well-advised to pay attention. It was not so long ago, after all, that the American right wing was advocating a boycott of French wines and "French Fries". What a ludicrous and pathetic spectacle that was! There is a sick, sophomoric mentality in America that likes to coin stupid terms like Islamo-fascism and Euro-trash. Both terms are "designer" red flag terms chosen by the GOP for their appeal to bigotry and jingoism. The US was even at that time a net importing nation of almost everything, in no position to terrify other nations with comic opera threats based upon the misconception that the US had not yet embarked upon an inexorable slide into third world status.

The unkindest cut of all is the Democratic sell out to the GOP! The result is the GOP has now "auctioned off" the office of President of the United States, an eventuality embodied in Mussolini's term: corporatism. Let's put it another way: the apparatus of the US government is now "owned" by rich, elite corporate interests who pay for the campaigns (bread and circuses), pay for the candidates, pay for the legislation they want and need to rape the environment, dominate the world's natural resources to include oil while enslaving the middle and lower classes.

Something similar occurred on March 28th, 193 AD, when the Praetorian guards, literally, sold the Roman empire to the wealthy senator Didius Julianus for the bargain price of 6250 drachmas. I haven't tried to buy drachmas (lately) but it sounds like a bargain compared to the absurdly high prices that are paid by US corporations for control of the US Presidency, indeed, the US government. Our modern day "Didius" has fared better than Julianus.

A magnificent feast was prepared by his order, and he amused himself until a very late hour, with dice, and the performances of Pylades, a celebrated dancer. Yet it was observed that after the crowd of flatterers dispersed, and left him to darkness, solitude, and terrible reflection, he passed a sleepless night; revolving most probably in his mind his own rash folly, the fate of his virtuous predecessor, and the doubtful and dangerous tenure of an empire, which had not been acquired by merit, but purchased by money.

- Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire; See also: Edward Gibbon: General Observations on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West

An important point must be made here. Gibbon reports that Julianus paid for the Roman Empire in "drachmas". "Drachmas" denotes Greek currency. At that time, the basic unit of currency in Ancient Rome was a bronze coin called an as or aes. A sestertius, another bronze coin, was worth four asses. A silver coin, the denarius, was worth 16 asses. [I will not go there!]

If Gibbon is correct, it is an indication that Rome, by that time in decline, had suffered a catastrophic devaluation of its coinage. Even now "real" money is considered by some to be "gold" if anything at all has intrinsic value. That Didius Julianus would pay in Greek currency, not Roman, indicates to me that the smart money had already dumped the as, the asses, and the sestertius for drachmas. At last, bronze would seem to have little intrinsic value as "real" money unless you had enough of it to melt down for public statuary. I would wager that only very wealthy Roman aristocracy possessed denarius, which they might have held against the complete collapse of bronze coins.

Kucinich Believes We MUST Impeach. He's right!

Part Deaux

Dennis Kucinich is correct in describing a "race to the bottom", a phrase that describes well the US decline under GOP domination and incompetence. All but Bush's increasingly tiny elite have financed Bush's on-going folly. A falling dollar is a market response to a balance of trade imbalance, a long-term decline in US exports begun, I believe, with the GOP administration of Richard Nixon.

Most economists will tell you that for most of some 50 years, the US enjoyed an economic pre-eminence if not dominance characterized by strong domestic industries, notably steel and automobile manufacturing. Since important discoveries in Southeast Texas and, later, West Texas, the US was, for awhile, the world's leading oil producing nation.

As US dominance of world supplies began to slip, "terrorism" grew worse. [ See chart at this link. ] I recently provoked the ire of the Heritage Foundation by stating and proving --to the foundation's chagrin --the simple truth: Terrorism is Worse Under GOP Regimes. More than enough stats make an equally compelling case about crime: crime is always worse under GOP regimes. That this should turn out to be the case may have something to do with the fact that since 1980, unemployment, as well as terrorism, is always worse under GOP regimes.

Job Growth Per Year Under Most Recent Presidents

Johnson 3.8%
Carter 3.1
Clinton 2.4
Kennedy 2.3
Nixon 2.3
Reagan 2.1
Bush 0.6

Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Current Employment Statistics Survey.

I don't believe in GOP coincidence theories. There are reasons for the sorry state of nation and state. GOP policies are injurious to the nation's fiscal health, its security, and the well-being of US citizens. The GOP is endemically corrupt and dishonest. I have stated and will repeat: the GOP is not a political party is it a criminal conspiracy not unlike that described by St. Thomas More in the England of Henry VIII.

...so God help me, I can perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of the commonwealth. They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely, without fear of losing, that they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labour of the poor for as little money as may be.

-Of the Religions in Utopia, St. Thomas More

There is a reason "terrorism" is worse under GOP regimes. As an Iranian diplomat told me in Houston almost one year ago, oil is a curse. He was not alone. Many "industry-watchers" now use the term "curse" to refer to the nature of oil exploitation that democracy, public institutions, and civil liberties are often retarded because of it. Civil liberties are most often dispensed with altogether.

Oil wealth concentrates at the top. People in Venezuela, Nigeria, and Azerbaijan enjoy few benefits of oil production their countries. We now see in the US the unseemly spectacle that other nations have always known, that is, ruthless factions scrapping for control and riches.

What is needed is a radically different approach. A recent report quotes British energy economist David Fleming:

Anticipated supply shortages could lead easily to disturbing scenes of mass unrest as witnessed in Burma this month [2006]. For government, industry and the wider public, just muddling through is not an option any more as this situation could spin out of control and turn into a complete meltdown of society.

--British Economist David Fleming in Crude Oil: The Supply Outlook, Report to the Energy Watch Group, October 2007

We may have already entered the melt-down phase. For too long, Americans were just barely aware that the price they paid for gasoline was about one-third the price Europeans paid. But you have to credit the GOP with resourcefulness. The Bush administration delivered a message to the faithful: the war in Iraq would result in lower prices even as Bush cited every other reason for waging war. To assert that oil was behind Bush's war of aggression was tantamount to treason. It was unpatriotic. It was enough to get you pilloried and ostracized. Every SUV sported a flag.

Many worry about a "hard landing". Inflation and interest rates rise as the dollar falls. A collapsing dollar threatens to make of the US a third world nation, a "banana Republican" nation, if you will. Americans had grown accustomed to the accoutrements of empire. Oil and the lifestyle it afforded was cheap. The rest of the world had a stake in keeping us afloat. After all, they wished to export to the US. That will be impossible should the dollar collapse.

Per capita oil production peaked in the 1970s. Globalization was supposed to make us rich even as it lifted millions in the "third world" out of poverty and hunger. This has not worked out as planned. The Kucinich take on all that is correct. Recently, the one-two punch of corporatization and globalization has undermined US welfare even as it threatens to end in a global crisis of our making.

Money as Debt

Additional Resources

• Strategies and Strategists
• Jeremy Scahill - US war of conquest in Iraq
• Retro: Mailer and McLuhan
• Mission Accomplished
• The Collapse of the US Dollar

An excerpt:


"Imagine being sent forward in time from 1967 to 2007. Instead of gas costing 25 cents a gallon, it's $2.50. A decent home, intead of costing $15,000, costs $250,000 or more. Imagine your shock that the average American family owes $9000 on their credit cards. Imagine entering a society where less than 2% of the cars on the road are owned by those that drive them, and less than 1% of the homes are owned by the people who live in them. Welcome to the debt based slave state of America in 2007. It is all symbolic of how the globalists have America right where they want it, and are eager to finish it off. As the dollar continues losing strength, what will this mean to the world?"

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$Billions for Murder$: the Axis of Bush and Blackwater

The real picture is one of murder, theft, and thuggery, a real "Axis of Evil" --George W. Bush, The Pentagon, and Blackwater. US taxpayer dollars trickle down to these hired killers to the tune of some some 1 Billion dollars since 2000. The amount of taxpayer money received by Blackwater is least six times that of our regular military.

Rarely has so much been written, so quickly, by so many about so few. Blackwater, recently called 'Bush's Private Army', is already remembered as having de-romanticized the "Bogart" image often associated with "mercenaries". As Sen. Lloyd Bentsen reminded Dan Quayle, "You, sir, are no John Kennedy". And Blackwater ain't Bogart.

"We saw the costs, in terms of accountability and dollars, for this practice in Iraq, and now we are seeing it in New Orleans," says Illinois Democrat Jan Schakowsky, who has been one of Blackwater's few critics in Congress. "They have again given a sweetheart contract--without an open bidding process--to a company with close ties to the Administration."

-- In the Black(water), Jeremy Scahill, The Nation

It's but the tip of an iceburg, another scam by big government Republicans. See: Federal Contracts to Blackwater USA, Inc.

Because Blackwater is now under investigation, officials will only speak anonymously about its role in recent shootings, "sensitive" discussions among various US agencies and the Iraqi government, and other private security firms in Iraq.

A State Department official asked why the military is shifting the question to State "since the DOD has more Blackwater contractors than we do, including people doing PSD [personal security detail] for them. . . . They've [Blackwater] basically got contracts with DOD that are larger than the contracts with State."

According to federal spending data compiled by the independent Web site FedSpending.org, however, the State Department's Blackwater contracts vastly exceed those of the Pentagon. Since 2004, State has paid Blackwater $833,673,316, compared with Defense Department contracts of $101,219,261.

--Private Security Puts Diplomats, Military at Odds, Washington Post

The Post's Walter Pincus analyzes one of the contracts under investigation by Congressman Henry Waxman. Blackwater's mercenaries "earn" more than US generals, including Gen. Petraeus who recently read to Congress a report that had likely been prepared for him by GOP PR experts in the Bush administration. According to Pincus' analysis, Petraeus makes about $493 a day, not including benefits. Blackwater, on the other hand, charge higher rates for murder. Here's how Pincus says Blackwater hit men get paid:

Average day-to-day personnel, $600/day salary paid by Blackwater. Blackwater bills Regency, $850/day for operators Regency bills ESS an average of $1100/day for all types of employees ESS charges Halliburton which charges the US based on a per-meal basis (I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that Halliburton has some profit worked into this)

Bush, meanwhile, has said US taxpayers need to cough up another $200 billion, a process of outsourcing the US war against the people of Iraq. If the people of the US were willing to "wink and nod" at the utter immorality the Iraq quagmire, what, then, are the US taxpayers to say about the how billions of dollars --almost as much as the amount Ronald Reagan spent doubling the Federal Bureaucracy --that have "trickled down" into the coffers of what is, in practice, Murder, Inc?

It's time for a reality check --the amount received by Blackwater is an amount at least six times that of our regular military. Never, ever try to tell me that the GOP is "conservative" in any way. It is, rather, a profligate and corrupt organization whose leadership should be under criminal investigations right now.

Blackwater has deep, long ties to the Bush White House and prominent Republicans, including Ken Starr.

When Blackwater contractors guarding a US State Department convoy allegedly killed 11 unarmed Iraqi civilians on Sept. 16, it was only the latest in a series of controversial shooting incidents associated with the private security firm. Blackwater has a reputation for being quick on the draw. Since 2005, the North Carolina-based company, which has about 1,000 contractors in Iraq, has reported 195 "escalation of force incidents"; in 156 of those cases Blackwater guns fired first. According to the New York Times, Blackwater guards were twice as likely as employees of two other firms protecting State Department personnel in Iraq to be involved in shooting incidents.

On Tuesday morning, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, will hold a hearing on the US military's use of private contractors. When Waxman announced plans for the hearing last week, the State Department directed Blackwater not to give any information or testimony without its signoff. After a public spat between Rep. Waxman and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the State Department relented. Blackwater CEO and founder Erik Prince is now scheduled to testify at 10 AM Tuesday.

--Bush administration's ties to Blackwater

My conclusions are confirmed again. The GOP is not a political party, it's a crime syndicate, a criminal conspiracy. The leadership of the GOP should be investigated by a Federal Grand Jury under RICO (Racketeering) statutes. Freedom of speech does not protect payments to hired killers even if the money is laundered through the White House and the Pentagon. This is organized crime on a scale never dreamed of by Al Capone. In this century, only the gangster Adolph Hitler has come close to organized crime of this magnitude. It seems like only yesterday that the US was called "the World's only superpower". Now the many openly call it the "world's biggest terrorist organization".

How quickly the Bush v Gore has made of the United States of America a gang of thugs, murderers, thieves, torturers, sadists, and run o' the mill bathroom stall blowjob artists! I repeat what should be obvious to all but the terminally stupid: the Bush administration, indeed, Bush himself an arch-criminal, liar and thief, is a threat to the world, world peace and humanity. This Bush administration, having long ago violated every provision of the social contract, having flouted its only source of legitimacy, no longer represents the sovereign people of the United States. This illegal and illegitimate regime must be ended now. Given this regime's utter depravity, the unconstitutional manner in which it seized power and subsequently ruled, any means are now legally justified. I suggest an interested reader review the words of Thomas Jefferson and, likewise, the US Constitution. Bush out now!

Blackwater Hearing: Waxman's Opening

An update:

AGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The State Department's initial report of last month's incident in which Blackwater guards were accused of killing Iraqi civilians was written by a Blackwater contractor working in the embassy security detail, according to government and industry sources.

In this September 24 photo, an Iraqi looks at a car that was destroyed during the September 16 incident.

A source involved in diplomatic security at the US Embassy in Baghadad said a Blackwater contractor, Darren Hanner, drafted the two-page "spot report" on the letterhead of the Bureau of Diplomatic Security for the embassy's Tactical Operations Center.

That office -- which tracks and monitors all incidents and movements involving diplomatic security missions -- has outsourced positions to Blackwater and another private firm, the embassy source said.

A highly placed industry source said that Hanner, who was listed on the report as the TOC watch officer, was working for Blackwater at the time the report was written, just after the September 16 incident occurred. He was to rotate out of Iraq this past week, the source said.

The man who approved the report was Ricardo Colon, whom the embassy source identified as the embassy's deputy regional security officer. A State Department source confirmed a Ricardo Colon Cifredo works for the State Department in Iraq.

--Blackwater contractor wrote government report on incident

An Iraqi police officer, directing traffic at Baghdad's Nusoor Square, witnessed the whole thing and, later, called it "hell". He said that Blackwater had "became the terrorists" when they opened fire on civilians, an incident the Iraqi government now says was unprovoked.

A 37-year-old Baghadad businessman and a father of four, whose youngest son was killed by a Blackwater bullet, said he wanted no monetary compensation but only for the guards to "admit to the truth."

The police officer and businessman on Monday gave CNN vivid descriptions of the incident in which a senior Iraqi investigator said 17 people were killed and 24 wounded.

Blackwater USA, the private security contractor hired to guard US diplomats in Baghadad, has said its employees responded properly to an insurgent attack, but the State Department has opened an investigation.

The convoy of four Blackwater vehicles drove into the square about half an hour after a bombing prompted another Blackwater team that was guarding a US diplomat to rush from the area and back to the Green Zone, the enclave in Baghadad where US and Iraqi government agencies have headquarters.

-- Blackwater incident witness: 'It was hell'

More:

Participants in a contentious Baghadad security operation this month have told American investigators that during the operation at least one guard continued firing on civilians while colleagues urgently called for a cease-fire. At least one guard apparently also drew a weapon on a fellow guard who did not stop shooting, an American official said.

The operation, by the private firm Blackwater USA, began as a mission to evacuate senior American officials after an explosion near where they were meeting, several officials said. Some officials have questioned the wisdom of evacuating the Americans from a secure compound, saying the area should instead have been locked down.

These new details of the episode on Sept. 16, in which at least eight Iraqis were killed, including a woman and an infant, were provided by an American official who was briefed on the American investigation by someone who helped conduct it, and by Americans who had spoken directly with two guards involved in the episode. Their accounts were broadly consistent. ...

--Blackwater Shooting Scene Was Chaotic, NYT Chaotic

Additional resources

• Bush and Cheney's Private Gestapo
• Some more details on Blackwater
• CBS News hid Abu Ghraib crimes
• Blackwater Shooting Scene Was Chaotic - New York Times
• Blackwater Portrayed As Out of Control
• Use Economic Sanctions Against Our Own Government!
• More questions on Blackwater

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