9/11/01 - The Day America Gave Its Soul to The Fox

Sunday, September 11, 2011 - ten years later - was a day of reflection, if you believe everything you saw on television. The day was all about the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and Flight 93. The day certainly gave me a lot to think about, from the moving ceremony at Ground Zero to the 60 Minute interview with FBI Agent Ali Soufan, who interrogated Al Qaeda operatives (Frontline did an excellent job documenting Soufan's activities), to the documentary "9/11" hosted by Robert Di Niro about Engine #7, Ladder 1, a New York Fire Department response team just down the street from the World Trade Center, to the interviews with the 9/11 victims to the huge growth of America's Top Secret Security apparatus since 9/11, a thousand fold increase that now spies on its own citizens. Not all 9/11 victims died in the World Trade Center. Some were victims of the instant mood of the day; the national cry for vengeance, the dose of uber-patriotism - "the day the gloves came off," Cofer Black said. Cofer Black was "The" guy who sold Congress and the Bush Administration the "New" CIA war plan back then. He was in the right place at the right time with a plan, right or wrong, and America followed him to war. Well... there were a lot of people in the Bush Administration who already had war on their minds, especially war with Iraq. It was just a minor detail that Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan and not in Iraq, a detail that could be revised, repackaged and sold to fit the Bush agenda - even if it was a lie - especially after 9/11 finally set America's state of mind. The Iraqi War was a "product" and Bush put it on display. It is ironic that the Christian Evangelicals, one of which President Bush claimed to be, were so ready to go to war. It is ironic that, from their own behavior and speech, the God they claimed to represent mercy and justice became a God of War and injustice. After 9/11, America didn't care who it attacked, as long as the target could be even remotely connected to the Muslim extremists. The Christian Charismatic churches cheered - the end of days were near, the final war had begun. The War on Terror began - against Muslims, no matter who said it wasn't.

Two of my brother's grandchildren were born only a few weeks around the 9/11 attack. He reflected on the ten year anniversary, "What kind of world had my new grandchildren been born into?" What kind of world indeed? I would say a world of war, and this time it's different. They are ten years old and they've already been indoctrinated, in spite of anything my brother did himself, into the new America, an America with the "gloves off." They've heard the uber-patriotic ads on television and at movies about the glory of joining the National Guard, Army, Marine Corps and, although less so, the Navy and Air Force. They've heard to heroic deeds of Navy Seal Team Six who, in the dark of night and in a hostile country, killed Osama bin Laden. These are the paths to heroic deeds. They've never heard anything else. They've heard "God Bless America" so many times that they believe it's true. They will hear, if they haven't already, that "collateral damage" that kills a hundred thousand innocent Muslims is okay, and even willed by God. They will learn that torture is called "enhanced interrogation" and is necessary to find the truth, even though it never has. They may even get a daily dose of how God is on the side of our warriors, because the words "warrior" and "God" are used together more today than in the lifetime of their grandparents since World War II, if they were used as frequently in that war. The video games they see advertised, even if they don't play them, are mostly war games. Even churches build war game-rooms to attract new young members. Selling the American warrior is a big business.

By the time those children are eighteen, only eight years away, they will have been fully indoctrinated in the ways of war. We, America, may still be at war at that time, because Afghanistan is not a war we can end, even though it is identical to Vietnam, a war we did finally end by of overwhelming opinion against it. Nor will those children know any other economic system than one which gives unreasonably low wages to labor and extraordinarily high incomes to those lucky few to become industry leaders; the "trickle down free market" system. It is God's economic system, it is the system of "freedom." We've been told that for forty years. They will accept the fact that if they don't make it out of the lowly labor force, well - that's tough. They will believe that it is God's will that they are poor while other's have been given the blessing of the gospel of prosperity. That is the new religion that they will believe has been gospel forever. It hasn't been.

The above paints a picture of indoctrination, and I guess one might think that it began relatively recently, but it began a long time ago. This latest cycle, if I could point to a specific time, began in the 50s and 60s, with the rise of the New Conservatives, the neo-conservatives. Originally, Irving Kristol, the "father of new conservatism," was a Marxist, specifically a Trotskyist, and a liberal intellectual, but that changed under President Lyndon Johnson. Kristol's neocons liked Johnson's war against communism, especially in Vietnam, but they did not like his "Great Society" of welfare, so Kristol led his growing following to the Republican Party to support Senator Bary Goldwater's Cold War against communism. As a student of philosophy, he brought with him a philosophical principles that make me cringe.

"You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time." Abraham Lincoln said that. He should have added, "but, you can fool enough of the people all of the time." All it takes is "enough" of the people to gain power. Kristol knew this as did many of his closest followers, who later became the leaders of neo-conservatism. They preferred the political realism of Machiavelli, who principally said that anything goes in grabbing power; the goal is more important than the means used to get there, and the goal, even back in Irving's day, was to once and for all grab the ultimate power in the United States and keep it. People like Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Richard Pearle, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, all key players in Bush's Iraq invasion. Kristol particularly liked a Chicago University Professor/Philosopher, Leo Strauss. He integrated Strauss' philosophy into the New Conservative movement. Strauss believed, like Machiavelli, and taught that "fooling the people" was appropriate to gain power, and he especially believed that religion could be used as a tool to fool people into supporting a political agenda even when the agenda was against the best interest of the people. Religion, Strauss said, was a useful myth. Another neocon who joined Cheney and Rumsfeld in the Nixon White House was Roger Ailes, who is now the Chairman of Fox Television Stations Group and runs Fox News Corp. Ailes was the media consultant to Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, G. H. Bush and Rudy Giuliani. It was Ailes who saw the benefit of political party-media coalitions and propaganda in keeping a party in power and using the media, slyly designed advertising and outright propaganda to persuade a public to keep a political party in power.

And so the die is cast. My brother's grandchildren will hear it everyday, as many other children will and have, perhaps not directly from their grandparents, but in school, or maybe a teacher, or an aunt or uncle or their own parents. There is a teacher in South Gibson High School who regularly distributes anti-Obama, ultra Right Wing, Republican and racist emails to his list almost daily. That teacher will teach his hate and lies. They will not know that the government does good things because they hear that the government "is the problem." They will believe that all Muslims are evil. They hear angry slurs, curses, rumors and innuendo against President Obama, who really doesn't deserve the slurs and who, in fact, has followed more of a Republican agenda than he has a liberal left agenda. He is a good man. He is, in fact, a Christian man, but they will believe that he is a Muslim. They will not know that Bush's wars were illegal and unjust wars or that Bush is more likely a war criminal than not. Nobody told them that. How could they know? They live in a comfortable and secure home. They do not know how close they live to poverty caused by the deregulation, war and militaristic policies of the Right that slowly decayed the heart of a country since Ronald Reagan. They will never know that what they've seen and heard from the Right-Wing is more fascist than American democracy.

Congressman Ron Paul is more right than wrong when he said that the 9/11 attack is a result of three decades, and probably longer, of misdirected American foreign policies. We've been led down a road of force diplomacy rather than peace diplomacy. It is all documented on the website of the Project for New American Century, the website of the neo-conservatives, above. It is one of fear and of projecting America's military force to spread America's morality, system of government and its economic hegemony. But, Ron Paul was met with a yelling mob when he suggested that America may be partly at fault for the 9/11 attack as much as it was the hate of Muslim extremists. The yelling mob proves more that the indoctrination is successful than it proves any knowledge of truth by the citizenry.

So, ten years later, Americans have been indoctrinated very successfully. Most citizens hate Muslims - all of them. Most citizens glorify American warriors and reject any idea that their own children are being sacrificed or scared for life or destined to live a life with disabilities. We turn our back on anyone complaining, legitimately, of war-caused bodily or psychological wounds. Complainers are un-American. Suck it up and live with it, is the message. God is a war god and we lack faith if we question that idea. "Get a job!"  we scream at the unemployed, even though there are no jobs. Suddenly, the unemployed are freeloaders. Suddenly, the poor who have no place to turn are freeloaders if they take welfare. They should get a job or starve, we're told. Actually, none of these things happened "suddenly." It has been a gradual indoctrination, a brainwashing, in all aspects of American life, even religion. A preacher, Jerry Falwell, who was once thought to be a radical has become mainstream. He founded a university that teaches his particular religious beliefs and a number of Liberty University law students became district attorneys across the country. Publishing companies owned by Falwell, and other equally radical Christian organizations and preachers, now distribute their particularly radical beliefs to churches for Sunday School or the prepared text for the pastor's Sunday Sermon and even so-called "Christian" home-schooling. These companies even publish school books and many states now incorporate religious ideology in public school books.

America's indoctrination is nearly complete, if not fully complete. Now, all that's needed is maintenance, such as making sure new generations are brainwashed for the future, sort of like Hitler's youth programs that turned children against their own parents; country before family. It is all so easy. The truth is that 9/11 was the day that America turned it's back, a slow turn to be sure, on all of our compassionate and democratic beliefs. It was the day that we gave up freedom for security. It was the day that we became afraid. It was the day that we completed the Right Wing agenda and turned our back on God.

Dave

Wishy-Washy on Wikileaks

Personally, I consider Julian Assange a common thief. But, I have to admit, I can't wait for the release of this stuff, BBC News - Wikileaks given data on Swiss bank accounts. I hope we see some outrageous data on some very influential people so we can fire them, take them to Internal Revenue Service Court, tax the hell out of them, audit the hell out of them and once and for all get our money back. I hope we can boot any politician out of office who helped rip us off, too. And, finally, I hope this stuff educates all of us.

I had mixed emotions over the release of the diplomatic cables, but it was those cables that led to the overthrow of Tunisia's government and, according to what I've read about that government, that wasn't a bad thing. And, it sure was interesting to learn that President Bush was personally involved in getting our New Zealand Embassy to block the showing of Micheal Moore's documentary in New Zealand. And then, he had Karl Rove do a poll in New Zealand to see if our embassy's actions had affected his "popularity" in New Zealand. Huh? Bush is more concerned with what New Zealanders think than the other pressing matters in his office? I have to agree with Mr. Moore; it's paranoia in the White House.

So, we'll see if Wikileaks has any de-mythifying news about bankers and companies that evade enormous taxes through their Cayman Island post office boxes. Don't we already know?

Dave

The Ultimate Cause - Mexican Gangs and Immigration

After I read the "Family of Secrets" about the Bush family, I've begun to see bogeymen everywhere. Take this story:

This is a story of a Mexican mother whose teenage son joined a drug gang in Mexico, and was killed, and then her daughter, Tanya, an innocent bystander, was accidentally shot during a drug gang shooting in their own house and then, after all her tragedy, the mother migrated to the United States. The drug gang and the family are the focus of the story, but that's not what caught my attention. What caught my attention was only two or three sentences somewhat hidden in the story about the mother, Lupe; "she worked at one of the hundreds of factories making car parts, television screens and cell phone parts that end up on shelves in the United States... on a salary of $10 a day...not enough to buy tennis shoes for her children...so her son joined a gang for money." I immediately thought of NAFTA, the North American Fair Trade Agreement written during the George H. W. Bush Presidency and signed by President Clinton after Newt Gingrich began his reign as Speaker of the House.

Of course Lupe, the mother, talked about her dead children, the drug gangs, the fear in Mexico and her eventual migration to the United States for a decent job, not about NAFTA. It's telling, however, that even after companies moved factories to Mexico to make, we were told back then, a better life for Mexicans and our companies more competitive, that Lupe still had to migrate to the United States for a "decent job" and we are still hearing that our companies are still trying to be competitive. NAFTA was supposed to provide those jobs and to give our companies a competitive advantage. But, it didn't.

NAFTA was not really about the United States trade imbalance, or about unfair competition from foreign companies, or about our ability to sell products overseas or about providing decent jobs to Mexicans. If that was the case, Sweden would have a NAFTA. But, Sweden doesn't have one and it is super-competitive. Germany would also have a NAFTA, but it is extremely competitive and it doesn't have an agreement like NAFTA. Neither of those countries export their jobs. What NAFTA was really about was busting the Unions, once and for all, in the United States. That was a primary goal of both presidents, Reagan and Bush. Reagan took on the Aviation Unions, specifically the Air Controllers' Union. Bush was taking on all unions with NAFTA. The unions had become too powerful. NAFTA was deregulation, a way around the Taft-Hartley Act that allowed unions to collective bargain. It did what it was supposed to do. It dismantled Detroit and Lansing Michigan, the centers of the powerful auto unions, and left both cities in shambles, with the swoop of a pen. Many smaller factories went bankrupt because the competition, the large companies, began manufacturing cheap parts in Mexico under NAFTA. I'm reminded of a little factory in Owensville, owned by Bill Davis, that closed its doors because it could no longer compete with companies who could afford to locate in Mexico under NAFTA. NAFTA did the opposite of what we were told it would do. It actually killed many small factories across our country and consolidated those products into huge corporations, in effect, mergers by government non-regulation regulation. It was all nonsense and lies.

Everyone was sold on NAFTA. I guess if we had known the truth back then, we should have had an uprising. I also think, in spite of how implausible the "Family of Secrets" seems to be, maybe it is very probable that the United States is, in fact, controlled by men we don't elect, men working behind the scenes against America, men connected through business and political connections, and of course Bush. I don't like to think that is true. I like to think democracy works. But, now that I've read the book, I'm beginning to see a plausible conspiracy. A Plutocracy or Corporatocracy or a combination thereof. One thing is true, we are not a democracy.

On a slightly, but related thought, I recently heard on CNN that the Tea Party was angry over Senator Scott Brown's recent votes in the Senate. Apparently he didn't vote like the Tea Party wanted on the START Treaty and 9/11 Heroes Healthcare bill. What I would really like to know is specifically who is telling Senator Brown he's in trouble. Who, by name, is behind the Tea Party? More Bush Family Secrets?

Dave

The Secrets Behind Bush

I received a birthday gift a few weeks ago, an early gift, while two books were hitting the market. The gift was a Kindle, the $139 version that uses Wi-Fi. The Kindle, and Amazon, lets one download a "sample" of about 25% of a book so one can read enough of the book to decide whether to buy it or not. I downloaded the two books, George W. Bush's "Decision Points," and Russ Baker's "Family of Secrets." Both of these books are about Dubya, the first from Dubya's point of view and the second based, it says, on investigative research. Man, are they different!

I started Decision Points, first. It didn't take long to read the sample since the Kindle seems to help one read faster. Here, I have to say that I already knew a lot about Dubya, because I've been curious for a long time on just how a guy like him became our President. I read everything I could get my hands on and there were plenty of insiders, people who were "there" when he did things, who leaked publicly juicy bits of news on who G. W. Bush really was. I already knew that he was an alcoholic until his mid-forties or early fifties. I already knew that he failed at almost everything he did and in every job he had. I already knew that he was basically a "frat boy," a jokester and prankster, and who didn't take anything seriously, including America. I already knew that he was a bully in school, especially toward those who were not in his privileged East-Coast, elite, rich class and I knew that his governorship of Texas was essentially socializing with the big boys even though he took credit for his Democratic legislature's accomplishments, such as Texas school reform in those days, which turned out, by the way, to be a way for his brother's, Neil's, school supply publishing company to get the state's business.

So, when I watched his presidential campaign materialize, I knew we were listening to a con-man and a so-called born-again fraud. And, then there was the blatantly unconstitutional Supreme Court decision to stop the Florida vote count, with James Baker, a long-time Bush operative, leading the group of attorneys in court and also the activists in Florida that disrupted the Florida count. The whole thing, his campaign and the confusion in the Florida election, was a sleigh of hand, a trick, to make Dubya President. As soon as I read the first page of Dubya's book, I recognized immediately that he was continuing the con, portraying a simple, country, "drifter" Texan in cowboy boots who learned "family-value" lessons early in life from a "family-value" father and mother, a guy you'd like to "have a beer with," an honest guy like your neighbor, a compassionate guy, and on and on.

Oh, he admitted to a foot-lose life style, sort of drifting through the preppy Andover boarding school and Yale, and he admitted to drinking "a little too much" and not really trying too hard, which fit my image of him from all that I've read and my observations of him as President. But, what got me was his claim of his "early-life lesson on his anti-abortion stand." He said in his book that his mother, Barbara, had a miscarriage, put the fetus in a bottle, and he drove Barbara and the fetus to the hospital when he was about fifteen years old. He said "seeing the fetus" taught him that life was precious at any stage and abortions shouldn't, therefore, be allowed. The first question that popped into my mind was how does a fifteen year old, in 1961, even know about abortions or the idea that they were illegal then since Roe v. Wade wasn't decided until 1973? What fifteen year old raised in a family town like Midland, TX, knows about that? In fact, in 1961, I would think that only feminist activists would know or care about dangerous "back-alley" abortions way back then, if anyone did. And then he described so easily, off-handedly, those National Guard absences and his "fighter jet" flying as if he were, in an oh-so self-demeaning way, an "Ace" pilot, while I wondered as I read how he piloted a super-sonic jet, in close formation, while drunk and/or on cocaine. So, I immediately suspected that his book was just more smoke and mirrors, self-justification for his mediocre intelligence and the egregious decisions he made and his escaping Vietnam service and a cover for his much more devious lies. There were other "family-value, patriotic lessons learned" in the sample that contradicted his foot-lose, alcoholic and drug life style he only partly admitted to. I just didn't believe a person would continue a life he admitted to if he indeed learned family values. The book, in fact, seemed to be written by such a simpleton, at a fourth or fifth grade level, intent on continuing self-aggrandizement, to satisfy his own ego, an attempt to influence history for his own ego, that I didn't buy the book. It seemed to be a book that was written "for him," to hide what was really behind his presidency.

And then, I started reading the Family of Secrets. It's this book that I believe, even when it is unbelievable. In order to tell Dubya's story, and answer the question on how he became President, Russ Baker had to research all the way back to Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandfather, a Wall Street banker, a U.S. Senator, and an elite East-Coast good old boy in league with just about every other Yale-Skull-and-Bones rich and powerful in government, secretive CIA, FBI and industry to learn about the driving ambition behind the Bush family, including Dubya. One of the first experiences Baker's research contradicts is Dubya's so-called early lesson about abortion. In his play-boy, swinger life style of his twenties and thirties; he got at least one swinger-girlfriend pregnant. Now, doesn't that sound a lot more likely than a fifteen year old learning early about the evils of abortion in 1961? Yes, it does. According to Baker, Poppy Bush, George H. W. Bush, his father, and his mother, Barbara, got him out of that scrape by arranging an abortion for the young woman, and Dubya never saw her again, and in fact, denied knowing her when she came up to him later as he drank with his buddies in a Dallas socialite club. The abortion was reported as a "procedure," not necessarily an abortion, even though when the young woman walked out of the hospital she was no longer pregnant. Poppy and Barbara also got him out of other lust-infatuated relationships with women who "didn't fit the family image" they wanted to portray. And, in spite of media's portrayal of an innocent Laura Bush, she may not have been so innocent. She was known to hang around the same crowd as Dubya; the boozing, cocaine snorting, pool-partying crowd in Dallas in Dubya's early days after Yale.

And that wasn't even the tip of the iceberg. The story of Dubya starts with Prescott Bush, Dubya's grandfather, and all of his black-ops connections in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), his scheming banking and finance connections, and the world of intrigue, money laundering and international spies and assassins. It starts with Eisenhower and Nixon's, Ike's Vice President, planning the Bay of Pigs invasion to assassinate Castro, a CIA black-ops operation that failed under President Kennedy and which caused Kennedy to realize he was duped by the CIA and to fire CIA Director Allen Dulles, a friend of Prescott Bush, that made a lot of CIA-Dulles people mad. So mad, that a group of CIA agents involved in the plot to kill Castro were in and around Dallas, Texas, in November 1963, including the 22nd, when President Kennedy was assassinated, they same guys who were key witnesses blaming Oswald for Kennedy's assassination, the same guys who also bungled the Watergate break-in, in spite of being well trained CIA professionals at spying and breaking into offices like the Watergate office, and the same guys who show up again to spoil President Carter's agreement with Iran to free the Iran hostages in October 1980, "the October Surprise," before the election so that the hostages were not freed until January 1981 when President Reagan was inaugurated. Then, the same guys and a few new associates show up again in the Iran-Contra gun running affair under Reagan that turned into an "Ollie North" and Admiral Poindexter scandal, a deal, it turns out, that was intended to be a quid pro quo payment to Iran for holding the hostages a few extra months until Reagan won the 1980 election. Some of the same people involved in all of the spying and plotting again showed up in George W. Bush's Administration running top secret intelligence operations, such as Admiral Poindexter who ran the Electronic Surveillance System spying through phone taps.

And then there are the money laundering schemes, some through Harken Oil Company, that run from rich Saudi Arabia princes, English ponzi-scheming banks set up by Arabs to helping the Philippine dictator Marcos hide the legendary gold found after the Philippines was retaken from the Japanese, billions and billions of dollars that usually ended up buying up American corporations and property or funding corrupt politicians or blackmailing politicians. The resulting empire has, so far, oil, media, transportation, defense, food, financial and banking corporations under its control to the point where I'm not sure what to believe anymore. In fact, if the book is any indication of the degree of control the Bush family and friends have over America, I have to change my opinion on whether we are a democracy anymore. I've said, as a warning, that we are going to lose our democracy on several occasions, based on various news and media accounts. But, Mr. Baker has managed to change my mind. It is not a case of "going to" lose it. We've already lost it.

I now have to ask my self about who, exactly, IS behind the Tea Party, the Republican Party, Mitch McConnell, John Boehner and the other nuts who were elected on November 2nd. We know some of the names behind all of the corporate money financing the election, but that doesn't explain who or what they are and who bought them or paid them. If the politicians elected haven't been bought, then they soon will be, especially if they are Republicans, but even if they are Democrats. Those behind the intrigue don't seem to care who they buy or blackmail, or perhaps even kill, nor do they care about democracy, America or you and I.

It could be, and I think it is more likely, that the change we've seen in President Obama is the result of something much more devious than we can imagine. It may not be that he's changed or is less courageous. It may be that something is forcing his decisions. I'm not inclined to believe that he can be bribed. But, he may be threatened. Threatened in a way that forces him to not be his own man.

Read the book, Family of Secrets.

Dave

Some People Will Believe Anything - A False Witness Even on a Nice Day

I usually wake up early and listen to the usual suspects on the radio to get the daily blather while I go through the New York Times and Washington Post headlines. Funny thing this morning - the radio was playing Christmas music, and I love Christmas music. Well, I thought, the usual host must be taking the day off, so I let it pass and enjoyed the music. But, when 5:00 A.M. passed and the music didn't turn into the morning news, it got my attention so I listened closer to learn what station I was listening to. Someone, apparently, changed the station to KOIT (Kay-Oh-Eye-Tee, as it says, RADIO - you have to sing it). KOIT always starts playing Christmas music in November and I usually listen to it, so I left the station tuned to KOIT. It's a nice way to start the day.

That didn't stop me from thinking, however, about yesterday's Ronn Owens KGO Talk Show. Owens is easy to figure out. Track any Republican talking point, no matter how outrageously delusional it is, from Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Sarah Palin, Right-Wing blogger or any Fox News personality and it will eventually make it to The Ronn Owens show, and Owens usually takes the Right Wingnut side. Owens is a neo-con, a so-called "New Conservative." He's a Leo Strauss guy, the political philosopher, in that it is okay to voluntarily "fabricate a myth and an illusion (or delusion)" to attain the desired results. In other words, it's just fine to lie, distort the truth or create a myth to get what you want. It is also okay to accept a lie as part of an argument about any issue. Like Strauss says, "it is human nature to accept and choose, and in fact desire, a myth or untruth over the hard facts of the truth," or words to that effect. We can't face the truth, Strauss says, and we like it that way. Strauss' conclusions came, he claims, from reading all the great philosophers from Socrates to Locke.

Well, I'm no philosopher and I don't claim to be, but I can read and understand English and I can usually think through the things I read, hear and observe enough to come to a reasonable conclusion. So, I have to ask: How can anyone make a good decision about anything if they are not willing to learn the factual truth, or as much as they possibly can about the truth? But, in today's world, I am apparently wrong. I don't remember a time when so many people are so willing to believe and pass on distortion of facts, outright lies, rumor and innuendo. I have to wonder what happened to that old Golden Rule about not being a "False Witness." It's forgotten, I guess.

The truth is that I can't stand Owens' show because of his willingness to distort the truth and to continue myth. He is a false witness. I listen until I have to get up from the chair and turn him off, usually long enough to tell what the morning subjects are, where his conversation is going in his first hour and what his point of view is. Long enough to hear that what he has to say is the usual rubbish. But, yesterday, I listened a little longer because I found the position he took intriguing. I thought, until yesterday, that Owens knew his own political philosophy, that he identified himself as Right-Wing, a neo-con and a wingnut. But, after yesterday's show, I don't think he knows. He is just as deluded by his own blather as most Right-Wingnuts are and he thinks he's a moderate and he's gaming his listeners. His sole agenda is to be controversial, to compete with those other Right-Wing talk-show hosts for the sole purpose of gaining listeners, to improve his ratings. He's a con-artist and it's probably intentional KGO policy. He may not have an honest personal opinion about anything and he's not interested in the truth.

Yesterday's show was about Obama spending $200 million a day on his Asian trip. $200 million a day? Any normal person who has a brain should know from the outset that a statement like that is hogwash. But, the Drudge Report, the usual suspect, picked it up from some "anonymous" source in India and Minnesota's Congresswoman Michele Nutcake Bachmann repeated it on CNN with Anderson Cooper. Cooper checked into it and debunked it the next day and Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist, patted Cooper on the back for debunking the myth. Actually, I'd like to see more lie debunking by the mainstream media, but didn't we know that it was hogwash when we heard it? Do we actually believe that it cost $200 million a day for a Presidential trip? The story said that thirty-four U.S. warships were "standing off the coast of India" to protect the President. Are you kidding? I spent twenty years in the Navy and not once did we EVER send a single ship to protect a President, and they visited areas where we were close enough to do that. The FACT IS, our admiral would have laughed in the President's face if he got a request like that. THE NAVY'S MISSION IS NOT TO PROTECT THE PRESIDENT - IT IS TO PROTECT AMERICA!! In fact, a Pentagon spokesman said just that, "it's laughable." The Secret Service protects the President.

The story had other, just as outrageous, lies; such as 800 hotel rooms booked for the entourage in hotels that only had 200 or so rooms, nearly an entire air force following in tow, and other such innuendo to disparage Obama. Owens asked, "Where does this stuff come from?" acting incredulous. "This comes from the Right Wing," he said, as if the "Right Wing" wasn't his wing. He seemed genuinely unaware of what Fox News, Drudge, Limbaugh say on a daily basis, even when he eventually, in a few days or a week, picks up on the same subjects and the same points of views they discuss and spews it from his show. The "Muslim Mosque" that he was "sensitive to" and against and he completely ignored the Constitution, the "Koran book burning" "that he understood," the "two Presidents" that he thought "might work," "the British compulsory work plan for the lazy unemployed" he "supported" and the Sarah Palin "Presidency" that he thinks "might work" are all Right-Wing sponsored rubbish. I'm sure that he'll say, "I didn't say that" or "that's not the impression I gave," but he did. He pretends to be moderate, "looking at both sides of an issue," while he spreads the Right-Wing propaganda to his legions with a "soft touch." Of course all the while he's claiming "freedom of speech" for anything and everything he says. It's ironic that we've distorted the concept of freedom of speech so much that it now includes our right to knowingly and willingly lie.


I heard the $200 million a day story two weeks ago. I wrote a blog post about it on November 5th. I'm surprised that Owens picked up on it so late or that he picked up on it at all. Well, he reads the New York Times, so he picked it up. It's controversial, so he picked it up. And, since Anderson Cooper debunked it, Owens had no choice except to agree with Cooper. I wonder what train of thought he would have pursued if Cooper hadn't led the way to the truth to start with. But, Owens is not alone. It is a trendy thing to spread untrue hype, especially by email. I've managed to stop many of those rumor and innuendo, disparaging stories of false witness from reaching me by sending them back to the sender with links or references to where the sender can find the truth. I find it curious that those emails stop coming when the lie is debunked. That's not to say, however, that the person stops sending them to other people. I've noticed that those people that I once received those emails from are still sending them to other people, but not to me. Isn't that highly irrational? You'd think that once a viral email is debunked and the truth laid bare, that that simple fact would cause a person to pause before sending it on to others.

I also find it curious on who sends those emails. These are seemingly intelligent, educated people in positions of responsibility; teachers, lawyers, judges, doctors, investigative reporters. The last email disparaging President Obama I received, only a few weeks ago, was about "Subject:  REAL ESTATE SALES TAX TO GO INTO EFFECT 2013 (Part of HC Bill) -- Did you know that if you sell your house after 2012 you will pay a 3.8% sales tax on it? That’s $3,800 on a $100,000 home etc. When did this happen? It’s in the healthcare bill. Just thought you should know..." Actually, the truth is entirely different, and it can be found here. I sent the email back to everyone it went to, including the teacher who sent it to the person who sent it to me. I debunked the myth in my return email. And, of course, the other part of the healthcare bill story is that it wasn't Obama that wrote the health bill anyway. It was Congress, and if you're really interested in how the insurance industry manipulated the Senate process and the Senators who sold us out, here is the Frontline report on how Obama was backed into a corner on the healthcare bill. The story is called "Obama's Deal," but what I noticed is how much he didn't like the medicine that he was forced to take. It should piss you off at the corrupt Senators who sold out and the insurance companies who bribed them, not Obama.

The funny thing is that I haven't received an email from "that" person since. I did receive another from the "teacher," showing a small boy with a t-shirt that read "The mess in my pants is nothing compared to the mess the Democrats will make in this country if they win Nov. 2." That's funny... and delusional. The facts are that there is overwhelming evidence that Reagan's Supply-Side, voodoo, free market economic ideology led the way to our financial destruction by what our so-called leaders, including President Reagan who started the ball rolling, have been doing for the past 40 years. And, there appear to be only a few in Congress and government who understand the true cause, including President Obama, Speaker Pelosi, Congressman Barney Frank and Senators Carl Levin and Christopher Dodd, yet these are among the most hated people in the United States; hated because of hyped Right-Wing propaganda. Hated because of Ronn Owens and the wingnuts he follows and their nonsense he spreads. Republicans, as a whole, are more than willing to exploit ignorance of the masses, as is Owens. And, Republicans, as a whole, believe in the ideology, from A to Z, that got us into the mess we're in.

Another, and equally surprising point is that here we have a teacher, teaching our kids at his high school, who sends these lies to everyone when he hasn't a clue about the historical facts of the recession or the truth of allegations he sends in emails. Rather than find and spread the truth, which we might expect from a teacher, he would rather be a false witness. How's that for a teacher? It troubles me. Does it trouble you? I'm not surprised that our children continue to be more ignorant as each year passes in spite of paying more for education. I'm not surprised that the Tea Party leaders were able to exploit the ignorant in this country. It has been happening for years. They don't know any better. And, it is obvious that for the teacher, and those who are mislead, further self-education has stopped, perhaps on graduating from high school or college. Even recreational reading has stopped, apparently, otherwise, it is logical to assume that people at least would educate themselves on current events and would know better. In that regard, Fox News keeps them misinformed.

The scary thing is that we could very easily end up with President Sarah Palin, who said yesterday that she believes she can defeat President Obama. The fact that we had two terms of President Bush is proof enough that voters in this country can be misled over and over again. We too easily believe hype and lies and we elect those who tell them. Before we get to Palin's run for President, I'd like to see Britain's law passed in our country; if you lie to get elected, then you get kicked out immediately. But then, we wouldn't have a single person in office if we did that!

I guess if I had to make up a Christmas list, these items would be on it.

1. If you're going to vote, please, please learn about the person you're voting for. It's not about the person. It's about his or her ideology. Please don't vote for the same ideology that nearly destroyed us. You won't get anything you're voting for if you put those people in power.
2. If you're going to send me an email, make sure you're an honest witness to the truth. Do the research and tell the truth. Don't be a false witness or you will get the email back debunked to the best of my ability.
3. Be honest enough to tell the truth to those who send you distorted truth or lies the truth. Debunk the lies yourself and send them back to sender.
4. Be honest with yourself. If you're following the Right-Wing hype, find out if they're telling you the truth. Research their claims. Figure out, the bottom line, about why you are following it.
5. Read a book or see a documentary that gives a good account of how and why we came to be in the condition we're in, for example, All the Devils are Here, is about the economic collapse and who caused it. The Documentary "Inside Job" is also about the mega-bank crash, who did what, and is also good reporting. Learn about the wars we're in, and what's right and wrong about them and what the obstacles are.

And, on a personal note:
6. Don't buy me "stuff." My closet, drawers, bed-side table, bed-side chair, desk, garage and utility closet are full. I have no place to put the stuff you buy, not even space for a Christmas card. Send me a "Merry Christmas" email or text or call instead.
7. Use the time you were going to spend on shopping for me to take a nap - on me. You'll be refreshed.
8. Use the money you planned for my gift to buy yourself something, like a dinner for two - on me.
9. Have a Merry Christmas. Listen to some Christmas music.

Dave

G.O.P. Obstructionism - Controlling the Bomb

Here we go again. One of the first things Dubya did was tear up our Nuclear Arms Treaties, which in turn let the dogs lose on controlling nuclear material and made the United States less safe. In other words, it became THAT much harder to track nuclear inventories and keep it out of the hands of terrorists and hostile countries. Russia had a mess on its hands because its nuclear material could not be accounted for. Obama wants to solve that problem with a new treaty which is now in Congress for ratification. But, Senator Kyl, Republican from Arizona, is blocking it and so we won't have a treaty during the lame duck session and we probably won't have one next year after Republicans gain more power in Congress. Here's the story, G.O.P. Opposition Dims Hope for Arms Treaty With Russia - NYTimes.com.

The fact is that not having the treaty makes us LESS safe because we won't know when nuclear material goes missing. The treaty also reduces nuclear arms, which is a GOOD IDEA. As I read the article, Senator Kyl has no good excuse for obstructing approval of the treaty in spite of all the spin the Republicans put on it. It is clear that the only agenda they're following is to make Obama a one-term President, even if doing that makes us less safe. Oh well. I guess if we're going to hell, we just as well do it in a Republican hand basket.

Dave

Exploited

I'm going to go against my better judgment and obstinate nature. I'm going to buy "Decision Points" in spite of my horror of giving Dubya one more red cent than he already has. But, along with it, I'm also going to buy "Family of Secrets," because I want to know whether Dubya is telling the truth, or whether he's just leading us on again. His image, the gut-intuitive Texas cowboy, born-again Christian was all a ruse, fabricated to exploit the unknowing voter, and so I want to know if he's continuing the lie. And, I want specifics. My curiosity is overwhelming my distaste for buying the book.

Oh. What was I thinking? Of course he's continuing the myth. His ego won't allow deflation. But, that is the common theme, isn't it? Exploiting America. That's what it's all about. That's where the money flows whether we're talking about the Defense Industry, Oil Industry, Banks, Wall Street or Fox News and Tea Party. Money to motivate by what ever trick or scheme possible to get people to act against their own best interests.

I'll buy the book anyway. I'm curious.

Dave

Fighting Terrorism and Changing Hearts and Minds of the Disaffected

The other day while writing about President Bush's book, "Decision Points," I tried to remember, and searched for, those who performed non-torturous interrogations and who reported on how much more effective interrogations were when methods that cause pain and suffering are not used, techniques such as water-boarding, sleep deprivation, long and painful binding, loud music, and any method that is not respectful and dignified. I had forgotten the names of those I read about back then and I didn't find what I was looking. My memory was refreshed this morning as one of the persons I was looking for was a guest on the radio; Mark Fallon, who is now Senior Vice President of The Soufan Group. Back then, he was in charge of investigating the U.S.S. Cole bombing and was later involved in many interrogations in Afghanistan and Iraq and he was outspoken against the interrogation techniques Bush approved. Having his name led me to another professional interrogator that I remember; Ali Soufan, who apparently founded The Soufan Group. Back then, Soufan was a senior FBI Agent in charge of a number of Middle-East counter-terrorist investigations.

When ask by a caller if water-boarding is torture or not, Mark's response was, "it doesn't matter if one legal advisor says it is and another doesn't. What matters is that it doesn't work, and never will work. Water-boarding will never get information that can be trusted and neither will any other inhumane method. The person being interrogated will tell you something, anything, just to get you to stop." He went on to say that the primary goal when dealing with terrorist is to reengage critical thinking, because when they are able to think apart from the terrorist cell-group, they always come around to seeing that terrorism is not the right approach to solving their problems. It is "group-think that sucks them in," he said. Terrorist recruiters use group psychology and mob-power to recruit disaffected people into their cause. He gave examples of the most common things he heard from those he interrogated. Two stood out:

"I expected to be tortured... I was treated with respect and dignity." The prisoner willingly and truthfully responded to questions.

"I tried to place the bomb in a place that would cause the least damage and injury."

These, or similar expressions, he said gave him insight on changing the mind of the person he was questioning and getting them to divulge important and very useful information. His many years of experience in the Middle-East, he said, suggested to him that using brute military force on poverty stricken people and countries will not work. It only causes disaffected people to be more inclined to be drawn to group (mob) anti-American beliefs. It helps, not hinders, Bin Laden and Al Qaeda. He claimed, as well, that Islam-o-phobia, such as opposing the New York Mosque and burning the Koran, hurt America's cause fighting terrorism more than helping it. I already knew that.

He went on to say that Bush claimed in his book that using those extreme techniques obtained information that thwarted the attempt to bomb London's subway, The Tube. The British, however, dispute that claim, saying that the information that led to thwarting that attempt did not come from the United States. In fact, Fallon said that he knew of no information coming from using techniques that cause pain and suffering that was useful. He should know. He was on the inside.

At the end of World War II, the United States prosecuted Japanese military leaders for war crimes for using the very same interrogation methods that Bush approved and which he continues to be proud of. The Geneva Conventions of 1949, treaties to which the United States agreed to, outlaws methods that cause pain and suffering and it is specific to humanitarian treatment of prisoners. Those terms came directly from the war crime trials conducted in Germany and Japan. Under its terms, President G. W. Bush would be a war criminal, and that doesn't consider the tens of thousands of Iraqis that died because of the war.

It is also ironic that while Rudi Giuliani was stumping for President and shouting out his support for torture, in private he hired Ali Soufan as Chief Operations Officer of the International Division of Giuliani Security and Safety, LLC and that Soufan expanded the "global reach" of Giuliani's company. It is hypocrisy to defend inhumane methods in public while in private hiring someone who opposes them. I haven't heard a single Republican oppose using the inhumane interrogation methods that Bush approved. Is there anything Republicans say and do that can be believed or trusted?

The most important point that I took away from listening to Mr. Fallon was that mob thinking, group thinking, destroys our ability to think rationally. The mob lashing out against the Mosque was a perfect example. The foolish preacher in Florida who would burn the Koran was a perfect example. Both cases are examples where Republican politicians and Right-Wing pundits took advantage of irrational fear and they instigated and agitated mob and group mentality. We really need to think before we hop on a wagon, especially a hateful one. Actually, if we think at all, we would loudly speak out against these things.

Dave

Crucifying the Victims

We go to great lengths to imagine ourselves as victims, and we don't give up on that idea come hell or high water. Imagining that we are victims makes us do things we wouldn't normally do. It makes us act without compassion and without thought. We overlook injustices. We behave irrationally. There is real contradiction in our logic, too, when we describe how we are victimized and rationalize our response. Our response is to penalize and crucify the object of our scorn, both the bad and the good or innocent, anyone who fits our imagined description of bad guys. It makes us crucify true victims. For example, take some of the explanations President Bush is giving for his actions; he's on tour to promote his book, "Decision Point." His explanation for invading Iraq was "to protect America from weapons of mass destruction (WMD)" and "those Iraqi terrorists" and he makes that statement in the same paragraph where he says he was "sickened" when WMD were not found. And we know that there were no Al Qaeda terrorist in Iraq until after we invaded and opened the door for them. You would think, like Chris Mathews says, that he would now see how illogical it is to say that he "was protecting America" in the same paragraph where he admits that there was no WMD. What was he protecting America from? Imaginary weapons? Yet, he still claims that he was. The illogical logic reminds one of the definition of a psychopath; a personality disorder characterized by an abnormal lack of empathy combined with abnormally immoral conduct despite an ability to appear normal. In fact, Bush lost, or never had, the ability to step back and objectively evaluate data, or even to insist on objective data about Iraq. Actually, he never had that ability and it is because of his complete lack of compassion. He is totally self-absorbed. He was and still is incapable of seeing the destruction he caused in Iraq. I knew he totally lacked compassion and that he was totally self-absorbed when he was running for President in 1999.

Bush said, blatantly, that he ordered water-boarding, "because his lawyers said it was okay." "Use 'em," he said when he was told that extreme interrogation methods were legal. A person who has compassion and empathy for fellow humans would hesitate. He would ask the questions that need asking. He would listen to experts and military leaders, such as Colin Powell who said "it's a bad idea. It puts our troops in danger when we don't follow the Geneva Convention (that outlaws torture)." But, Bush asked no questions. He got no advice beforehand. "Use 'em," he said. "It worked," he said. What Bush doesn't know, even after the fact when more facts are known, is whether normal, less extreme interrogation techniques would have worked just as well or even better. There is evidence that normal techniques did work, and would have in all cases. Back then, there were reports from experienced interrogators, who did not agree with and did not use torture, that indicated that they got just as much, if not more, and better information by using normal techniques. But, we refused to listen to those professionals too, even though they were professionals, because we were victims and we knew better and we wanted vengeance. Here's Bush's interview with the Washington Post. It's interesting.

It is a group thing, because if we disagree with the common beliefs of our group, we would be disagreeing with our friends, neighbors and family who do agree. Everybody yelled, "Yeah! Torture the rag-heads," and we did. We follow the majority's opinion of those around us whether we would agree with the opinion or not if we were not associated with our group. Group pressure sucks us in. We're afraid to object or disagree when we're with our group. We are nice and comfortable being a victim along with our buddies. And, we tortured the innocent along with the guilty without distinction.

The same self victimization effects our ideas on almost every important issue. The other day, I listened to Ronn Owens, our local Right-Winger Talk Show Host, disparage the unemployed. He was discussing whether England's compulsory labor plan to force the unemployed to work without pay for a month would work in America. He agreed with the plan. The plan is proposed by the new conservative government that recently won in Britain's national elections. It follows the conservative idea that the unemployed are "milking the system," are in a "cycle of dependency," are "lazy" and "laggards." I hear the same thoughts expressed by conservatives in the group I associate with. An overwhelming number of callers to Owen's program expressed the same idea. "They're lazy bums!" most said, even though a few callers called to tell their own stories; in tears they explained of not being able to find a job, of how embarrassing it is getting food for their children from the local food charity and of being in despair that they are at the end of their rope. Poverty, welfare or homelessness are in their future. Even after those heart breaking stories, subsequent callers shouted, "lazy bums!" At no time did an unemployed caller say, "I'm milking the system." At no time did I hear a caller actually site evidence or a reference that proved that the unemployed are "lazy bums." Owens and all of those callers who said that are guessing; they have no evidence of it. Neither does anyone else.

It's sad that as we approach Christmas and as our economy actually needs many more people to shop this Christmas and we need much more money circulating in our communities that we have a situation in Congress where many of the unemployed will go without because our Congress believes we are victims. We would rather crucify the unemployed and innocent because of some imagined offense against us. This article, Dems Lowering Expectations for the Lame Duck Session - Blog - OpenCongress, says that since there is little "interest" for passing an extension of unemployment benefits through Congress that it will not be brought up in the lame duck session. In the time of greatest need of the unemployed and our economy, Congress is scaling back. There is a complete lack of compassion when we're a victim, real or imagined.

I suppose that there are a few unemployed who could be milking the system. But, I don't believe they would do it for long, if they do it at all, or that the overwhelming majority do. I haven't observed too many lazy people in America or, for that matter, in those other countries in the world that I've had the good fortune to visit at one time or another in my life. In fact, I've seen people do some of the lowest, filthiest, demeaning, belittling, laborious jobs that I would never think of doing myself, yet they did them; seemingly without complaint and without any display of being lazy. 

As a victim, we also are blinded to the side effects of our actions. We failed to see the uproar of world opinion when we tortured only a few. In fact, the side effect of using torture proved Osama bin Laden's point that we are a ruthless people. World opinion changed from respect for America to one questioning whether America was an imperious hegemonic country or not. Where at one time America was thought to be compassionate, we began to be seen as completely lacking compassion. We are blind to side effects of our policies at home, too, when we believe we are victims.

When I hear of the prevalent attitude against helping the unemployed, I also think of the street corner beggar, the guy trying to wash my car windshield, the guy wanting to paint my house number on my curb and the homeless. The growing homelessness is a side effect of refusing to help the unemployed. The ongoing argument in the Bay Area is whether to give the homeless cash or whether to give them in-kind services and goods; i.e., stuff. The prevailing thought is that if we give them cash, they will buy alcohol and get drunk, but if we give them services and goods; a place to live, food to eat, clothes to wear, they will be forced to "come back" into society using the stuff we give them. It's as if all of them, 100%, are alcoholics. Maybe most are, but we don't know how many are. And, we refuse to help them with the disease; we would rather they suffer abstinence alone. In either case, it's up to the homeless to make their own way back from despair. There is no "system" to help them come back. We do not help them learn ways to survive. We've done our part, we think, by giving them cash or stuff and we step back to see if they prove our point that they're lazy laggards and are only milking the system and victimizing us by staying homeless.

My wife and I got to know, as well as we could know, a homeless guy several years ago who, at one time, stood at the end of the 580 Center Street exit begging for handouts and later washed windshields at a gas station. I gave him a five dollar bill about every other week for a while until he no longer stood at the exit. A few months later, at my wife's suggestion - to get a windshield wash from a homeless guy, I stopped at the World Gas Station in Hayward. It was same guy that stood on the highway exit. I recognized him and, surprisingly, he recognized me.

"Hey," he said, "you gave me a five a couple of times at Center Street." he said. "I'll give you a free wash," he said. Imagine that! A homeless guy giving a free windshield wash!

I declined the "free," but accepted the wash. "My wife told me to stop here to get my windshield cleaned," I told him. He beamed at being remembered, like a kid getting a compliment; a smile from ear to ear. After I pulled into a parking space where we could talk. It was clear to me that he was not well educated and he didn't clearly understand how he became homeless or what he did that was so wrong that landed him and his family in the circumstances they were in. He had been, however, functional in society. From his ramblings, I pieced together his story. His name was Ken.

He was a carpenter who injured his hand on the job and the employer denied that the injury occurred on the job which in turn caused his workman's comp and unemployment claims to be denied. He used his meager savings for medical expenses. His union couldn't find work for him because, he claimed, word had gotten out that no employer would hire a person who filed for workman's comp. His union membership lapsed from non-payment. He was black-listed. He worked in the underground job market at odd jobs he could find for a while and then his wife lost her waitress job because of knee pain. They lost their home. He sold his carpentry tools; his livelihood. The state put his wife and kids in a homeless shelter, but the small two-room apartment the state furnished was too small for four people, so he took up sleeping where the homeless gathered in wooded areas around Castro Valley and Hayward and he visited his family daily if he could. The state, then, moved his wife and kids to another community without him knowing about it and out of his area and ability to see them. It took him weeks and miles of walking to find a state office that could tell him where they were, and even then he had to argue that he was the husband and father since he had no means of identifying himself to prove that he should be given private information about them. At the time we talked, he had been homeless for four years. The last thing, he said, was that his raggedy tent and what little belongings he had were stolen by other homeless from where he slept each night; in a small clearing beside the Castro Valley Creek. "I'm nobody," he said, in a tone that implied everything "nobody" could mean. He had nothing except for what he wore and nobody knew him. He had dropped out of every state and government system and off the edge of the Earth. I gave him ten dollars for the wash.

I saw him several more times and I gave him the phone number to Fresh Start, a charity I know about, and I offered to take him there. But, I don't believe he called them, at least at that time, and he refused my help to drive him. "Don't want to bother you that much," he said. He didn't want my help. After a while, he didn't show up at the gas station anymore. Chris learned that he worked occasionally at the Salvation Army in Hayward. She believes he had mental problems, and I don't doubt that. But, he did work and he needed much more help than my piddly ten dollars or whatever he earned from washing windows. He needed government sponsored system help.

In the midst of remembering Ken's story, I ran across this heart warming article about lending a helping hand, The Kindness of a Stranger that Still Resonates, during the Great Depression when there was no unemployment program, or any other social safety net for that matter. Back then, the unfortunate had nothing and no where to go, like Ken. All of the unemployed, 25 to 30% of the working population in those days, would have been considered lazy beggars by today's prevalent attitude. In this story, simple, anonymous kindnesses went a long way and may have been the one thing that turned the tide for those in need.

Please note that those in the story hesitated to ask and delayed asking for help as long as they could. “I waited two weeks because I didn’t want to apply for unemployment,” Mr. Macey, 25, said (in the story). “It’s embarrassing.” These are not signs, in my opinion, of people "milking the system." The story highlights the stigma attached to asking for help or charity. I don't see "lazy laggards" in this story. I see people who need systematic help. I also don't see people who need to be forced into a "compulsory labor" system just because of the imagined wrongs we believe, but can't prove, that they do to us. The "system" probably does need to be redesigned for more support, not less, to find better jobs faster as well as incentives for employers. But, in the meantime, we've got the system we've got and I don't see that the unemployed are guilty of doing us harm. They are not making us victims. Most, a huge majority, are innocent and probably trapped by an inefficient system. Why should we deny millions of that one thing, perhaps a single check, that may turn the tide for them? We haven't done enough, yet. I don't know when the time will come when we can say we've done enough. A safety net for unfortunate job loss is crucial, or else we risk having many more Kens. More Kens cost more than helping the unemployed because Ken has much more distance to come back to society and we must provide more support to help him come back. I called all of my congressional representatives a few hours ago to make unemployment a priority during the lame duck congress. I hope they pass a bill that Obama will sign to help them.

Oh well, today is a new day and we have another thing that we claim to be victims of; today the focus is on healthcare. There are 60 million, according to the radio today, more than we thought, who are uninsured. But, "kill the bill" is what we hear. It doesn't matter that the hype, exaggeration and distortion is imagined and false; the prevalent thought is that we are victims of this law. All who want to really know should check out this article and follow the links on life expectancy and infant mortality cited in the article, or look those statistics up here. Surely we can come to the same conclusion, you think? Are those who desperately need help the bad guys or is it our system that both caused their misfortune and refuses to provide support?

It's Christmas time. Time for giving. Or, is it just the thought that counts?

Dave

Fracked

Boy, those were the good old days, back in 2005 when Republicans were in control. Don't you think so? Those were the days before the Democrat 2006 takeover when Republicans could get just about anything they wanted through the House and Senate. And, indeed they did. Take the 2005 Energy Policy Act, enacted under Dubya, Cheney and the Republican Congress. That act had a big intentional loophole, known as the Halliburton Loophole. In fact, there is enough information about that loophole to suggest that the only reason the act was passed and signed at all was because the oil and natural gas corporations wanted that loophole. In fact, I would bet my social security check that the loophole was specifically requested in that secret Cheney-Energy Corporation meeting that Cheney refused to disclose. Remember that meeting? Ah, yea, those were the good old days. The loophole exempts oil production companies from having to comply with environmental safety laws when drilling for oil and natural gas.

Well, natural gas is a big deal and it has been the latest buzz since President Obama began running for president way back in 2007. "Drill-baby-drill," they said. T Boone Pickens made all of those ads to stop paying Saudi Arabia $700 billion a year by converting all long-haul semi trucks from diesel to natural gas. The United States, it turned out, had a super abundance of natural gas. A HUGE NATURAL GAS RESERVE! In fact, he sold me on the deal, too. I was ready and willing to be his spokesman. "Yeah! Stop paying Saudi Arabia for oil. Use our own natural gas!" Even Obama got on that band wagon. Ha! I should have known that there was a catch. There is always a Republican catch.

It was also back in the good old days that President Bush had those signing statements. Remember those? It turned out that even though Congress passed a law, that a President could just attach a little signing statement to his signature saying how the President "interpreted" the law, and Bush did. He instructed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to overlook and rubber stamp many oil and gas company drilling requests. But, the U.S. Minerals Management Service, by a Bush order, was already looking the other way and the signing statement just reinforced what it was already doing. And so, we got the BP Gulf oil disaster, which, by the way, isn't over yet - since it was discovered only a few days ago that a large area of ocean floor coral has died. We don't know everything, yet, it turns out.

But, back to natural gas and that Halliburton Loophole that exempts oil and gas companies from EPA rules. They can drill for natural gas anyplace, anytime. It turns out all of those natural gas reserves that we have is mostly contained in solid plates of shale rock. And, it turns out that to get the natural gas out of the shale, the shale must be broken up, or fractured into cracks and crevasses to release the gas. And, it turns out that "they," especially Halliburton, have developed a technique called Hydraulic Fracturing, "Fracking" for short, that breaks up the shale that releases the gas. Fracking involves injecting millions of gallons of fresh water into the shale under tons of pressure to fracture the shale.

Whoops. Here we are again. The "usual" suspects are at it again. It turns out that Fracking uses millions of gallons of your very valuable drinking and irrigation water and when that water recycles back into the ground water supply, through those underground seeps back to your city's water supply or your well water or your livestock watering trough, such as into those artesian wells for Owensville, Indiana or into the Wabash or Ohio rivers ground water system that supplies your personal drinking well, (I have friends and family I care for in that area - so I always mention it) it will contain highly toxic minerals and methane. The water cannot be used for drinking anymore. It will kill you. And, it will burn!

Well, according to this New York Times article, the gas companies are not "convinced" that they are the problem. "The jury is not in," they say. But, I guess if you had water suitable for drinking one day, and the next day your water burned and tasted like crap; looked foggy, yellow or muddy; and tests showed that it was full of toxic chemicals, and the only thing that could have caused it was a Fracking drilling rig within ten or twenty miles, then I guess that would be proof enough. In fact, the article says that many people are REALLY ANGRY about being fracked.

All of this, of course, goes back to philosophy, or more precisely, Republican philosophy. I guess if you believe the "drill-baby-drill" philosophy and be damned to any environmental impact, then the Republican philosophy is right up your alley. But, I guess if your water is burning, maybe you will change your mind. I wonder if you'll change your mind if your neighbor's water is burning? Or if your neighboring state's water is burning? Would you vote Republican in your state, say California, if you knew that your vote could cause water to burn in Lafayette or Owensville, Indiana or Gainesville, Georgia? (I have loved ones there too) Actually, it's too late to change your mind after your or your loved ones' water is burning. You've been Fracked!

Dave

Dismantling the Government

It seems to me that two reports are a bit late. Perhaps if they had come out a little earlier in the election, the election would have turned out different. Or, at least I would have hoped that. Maybe not. The first report was the "Jobs Report," which said that 159,000 new jobs were created last month, October. Under the circumstances, that was good. The second report, Recap of Fiscal Year 2010 Budget Results, from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), says the deficit turned a corner in 2010; the deficit in 2010 was actually less than 2009. What caught my eye was this sentence: "The large deficits in 2009 and 2010 reflect a combination of factors: an imbalance between revenues and spending that predates the recent recession,..." lower revenues (taxes) and more spending "...associated with...economic conditions,..." and government the cost of federal policies responding to economic conditions.  

The phrase that stood out was "predates the recent recession." In other words, it was President Bush's tax cut, wars and his non-negotiable Pharmaceutical Drug Plan that caused the imbalance of revenues and spending; i.e., taxes were too low and his spending was too high. A chart in the report, "Receipts and Outlays as a Percent of GDP," clearly shows that starting about 1992 and through 2000, while President Clinton was in office, spending was going down and revenues were up. We had a surplus. The fact that spending was going down indicates that government was getting smaller, the very thing that the Tea Party wants. That same chart shows that around 2002, just after President Bush took office, this trend was reversed; spending started up and revenues started down. In other words, government started getting bigger and taxes were cut. Well, Bush said, "it's the peoples' money, and they should have it instead of the government..." In hindsight, now we know that we could have used the surplus to defeat the recession. But, as Bush says in his book about the last few months in office, "...he felt like he was on a ship with nobody at the helm..." No kidding! In fact, the chart shows that nobody was at the helm through his entire presidency since "deficits didn't matter," as Vice President Cheney said. Ha. I guess they do matter!

There were other things that happened in the 1990s that hurt America, however. NAFTA was passed that released the flood gates for jobs to go to Mexico and other countries. Some companies moved manufacturing to Mexico before the ink was dry on Clinton's signature. This agreement was actually started under and promoted by President G. H. Bush (Bush I), and signed by President Clinton in 1994 after Newt Gingrich led the 1994 Republican takeover of Congress. But, there was a long history behind NAFTA; a long period of teaching a philosophy that was being sold to everyone, so it's no surprise that Clinton signed it. He had been sold on the philosophy as everyone else had, including me. Basically, the philosophy was "free trade, open markets and self-regulated markets would provide economic equality to the world." It is a Libertarian idea. It is an "economically liberal" idea. It's funny that an individual can be a Libertarian in favor of "free, unrestrained capitalism" and be an "economic liberal," which is to say that on economic and market matters, they are in favor of benevolent favoritism to corporations. They are, in fact, in favor of "bailouts" because bailouts prop up corporations and markets. Bailouts are the same as "subsidies" to oil companies and banks; always supported by Republicans. Deregulation is the same as a "bailout," since deregulation is a form of subsidy for an industry. Deregulation in in fact a "gift" that says you can do anything you want with your corporation including scam the public and take advantage of consumers. There are no limits and there is no consumer protection in deregulation.


Practically all financial and economic experts who have advised or held offices under Presidents or served in some form or another in the Federal Reserve Banking System for the past 30-40 years are libertarian and Republican leaning, including Timothy Geithner (Fed Reserve Bank, NY under Bush II and Obama's Treasury), Robert Rubin (Clinton's Treasury), Larry Summers (Reagan and Obama advisor), Ben Bernanke (Fed Chair Bush II and Obama) and Alan Greenspan (Advisor to Nixon, Ford and Reagan, Fed Chairman under Reagan, Bush I, Clinton and Bush II). It is these guys who helped sell us the idea that markets should be unrestrained, without regulation and without consumer protections and, in fact, these guys have hurt America by selling us those ideas. Ironically, it is these very same ideas that the Tea Party/Republican movement believes in and the same ideas that most of those that were elected in the Republican 2010 takeover believe in. So, you may have voted against President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, or whoever, in the 2010 election, but you really voted for the same experts that we've always had, so in effect, nothing has changed from the time President Reagan was in office.

In the 1990s while Alan Greenspan was the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, Mexico had a significant economic crisis that threatened the world economy. Greenspan, Rubin and others convinced President Clinton to bail out Mexico by giving it $20 billion dollars. What this says is that the people who claim to believe in self-regulation don't believe it when the crap hits the fan, but they'll let the problem grow until it cannot be controlled except by bailout. It was also in the 1990s that the Dot-Com bubble began to rise and the Federal Reserve had a chance to "temper" what Alan Greenspan called "irrational exuberance." But, he didn't. He didn't do anything because he believed that the market would self regulate. It did self regulate in 2000 when a small market crash happened when President Bush took office. But, that 2000 crash didn't threaten the world economy so it was allowed to happen without a bailout. While that small crash was happening, another bubble was already forming that took over the market; the monetary, banking bubble. While jobs were being lost in the tech sector, banks were hiring. The banking bubble started in 1998, when Senator Phil Gramm, a Republican, led a successful effort to deregulate the banks that unleashed the Banking Dogs. All banks were free to gamble in the markets after that and they were picking up steam by 2000. Everything was hunky-dory to you and me, since all of this was hidden to you and me. We really didn't see much of a change from the outside looking in. People like Paul Krugman probably saw it, as did those above. Paul Krugman is probably a rare exception to the normal economist. He's an admitted liberal. He says "do something about uncontrolled markets." He says "they're dangerous!" He agrees with a lot of what I've been reading over the past 10-15 years, since Gingrich's time, when I began to take an interest in the radical movement in America.

Another thing the chart shows is how wrong the Republicans are about Dubya. They now claim that he really wasn't a Reagan "small government" President. They are disappointed in him. In fact, the chart shows that he was a Reagan President. He kept the same deficit levels that Reagan and his dad did. Neither Reagan, Bush I or Bush II really believed in small governments, and neither does the Republican Party of today. It was only President Clinton who actually did something about deficits and made government smaller. Ironically, it is President Obama and those others the Republicans like to hate, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, who are headed in the same direction as President Clinton did. It is Obama, Pelosi and Reid who have the ideas that people say the believe, but vote against.

Well, we've got what we have. Like Alan Greenspan, who finally saw the light when he testified to Congress that he "was mistaken" about market self-regulation in 2008, Ben Bernanke, also saw the light in 2008 and is trying to control deflation, inflation and the market and he is now under attack. Ron Paul, famous for his Libertarian beliefs, is going to be Chairman of the Monetary Policy Sub-committee, and he says, "I think they're way too independent. They just shouldn't have this power. Up until recently it has been modest but now it's totally out of control." Paul is going to change The Fed! I am afraid of him doing that. The funny thing is that "Up until recently" was when President Bush and Alan Greenspan were in control, when the housing bubble was allowed to happen and deficits were okay. Now that Bernanke is trying to put some controls on the market, to bring it back to its senses, the Fed is suddenly "totally out of control!" Like father, like son, Rand Paul, Republican Representative from Kentucky and voted into office by the Tea Party, believes the same thing his father does; let the market dogs lose.


I do not know if Ben Bernanke is right in his latest move to inject a lot of money into the market by buying government bonds. It seems very complicated to me. From what I've read, it could be dangerous especially if "fiscal policy" doesn't follow, meaning that if the government doesn't also stimulate the economy by helping businesses and consumers, Bernanke's move could backfire. But, I would still rather have highly educated economists and financial experts running the Federal Reserve than Ron Paul, a medical doctor from Texas. I doubt that he knows anything about the economy. I have a problem with any politician running anything that requires a doctorate level education in a field of specialization. I can read a chart, however, and I can see the effects of bad ideology, and if there's anything the chart in the report says, it says that Reagan, Bush I and Bush II had bad ideas on running the government. And, we are getting the same bad ideas again with the Republican takeover. And, from what they say, they intend to take over the Presidency and the Senate. Their results won't be any different than the last time they were in control.

There is no doubt in my mind that voters voted against their own best interest on November 2nd. They want the deficit to go down, but Republicans can't do that with the ideology they believe. They want the healthcare reform repealed, but that reform reduces the deficit, especially the pharmacy drug plan paid by the government. We will go back to Bush's very expensive pharmacy plan and Bush's deficit. In fact, it seems the only reason for the Republican takeover was the dislike for Obama and Pelosi, and for no other reason, in spite of the fact that they are doing what the voters say they want. Dick Army led the revolt for corporations and the Tea Party bought it. Tea Party members were really not voting for what they thought they were. Sadly, the Republicans will take aim at a number of programs, such as Social Security, and may win the battle of once and for all in killing them. They seem intent on doing that. I don't believe anyone will be happy with what they kill. They seem intent of dismantling the government.

I don't think I have revised history too much. I primarily depended on my memory of what I've read and learned over the past years. I did not attempt to verify anything by referring back to articles or books that I've read.

Dave

This Time Is Different, but It Ain't

I spent the weekend trying to read a new book, "This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises," by Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff, two eminent economist. The data they collected for their study goes back centuries, to fourteenth century England, Spain in the 1500s, the economic effect of the Napoleonic Wars on France, Asian economic crises in China and India, African crises and Latin and North America crises. They collected a lot of data. It is very difficult reading and I'm only halfway through it. I would have preferred a summary, but they go to great lengths explaining how they used the data and where the data came from, so, to get to the point, you have to read all of the detail. So far, the point appears to be that the title of the book is intended to be contradictory: This Time is NOT Different at all. It's all happened before, again and again. The title seems to be sarcasm aimed at all of those policy makers and economist who say, "this time is different." But, a little attention to history could have save our bacon. Our government, and the Federal Reserve and Allen Greenspan in particular should have seen the crisis coming and should have done something. The thing that got in the way was ideology, the free-market, greedy libertarian philosophy, which in turn motivated the Republican government to deregulate.

So far, two things appear to be true in history:

1. A country that required through regulations that banks limit risks and hold sufficient assets in house to  support loans, i.e., debt, were much better able to weather the financial storm. They didn't need to bailout their businesses.
2. A country that saved during good times is better able to weather bad times.

Of course, we did neither of these. In fact, since President Reagan we deregulated at record speed culminating with the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that controlled banks in the late 1990s and loosed the dogs of the financial world. And, the "debt doesn't matter" Bush and Cheney Administration put us in debt at record levels with rich-man tax cuts and record defense and war spending, and of course the dumbest, most expensive drug, pro-pharmaceutical company prescription legislation in history, among other of the dumbest and expensive things they did. You name it and they screwed it up and put us deep in debt.

So now we have a good President inundated with ideological arguments in Washington D. C., and ideology seems to be winning - everywhere. Which legislation do you want to talk about? How about the climate change bill? The gist of the reason it failed to pass is that the so-called "Conservatives" are determined to "conserve" the oil and coal industry instead of conserving our country. It appears that we're going to continue to pay Arab countries for oil instead of revolutionize our energy industries to Green Energy. Go figure that one out. Even if you don't believe in climate change, wouldn't it be a good idea to be self sufficient? We are going to be sorry we didn't do something, such as kicking the conservatives out of government entirely.

Dave

Are We Learning Anything Yet?

The market is down today, primarily because of Greece's debt and its effect on the Euro, which is also down on the Foreign Currency Exchange market. And, profit-takers are taking profits. It was only a few years ago that everyone was flocking to buy Euros, as opposed to dollars, because it was the "thing" to do. The other day Paul Krugman pointed out that the nay-sayers about the Euro were probably right; countries that joined the union fell into the Euro trap. Once they accepted using the Euro for their currency, they were forever trapped from using their own country's currency in managing debt. The only way out of bankruptcy from that point forward is to cut wages and try, I say "try," to manage inflation or deflation. They can't print money anymore to do that; that's for sure. So, there is Greece whose greedy politicians got in way over their heads in debt, with the help of Goldman Sachs and other global banks, and fraudulently hid their debt to join the European Union. And today there are riots in Greece - because of the trap. I think the lesson is that there is no easy money and no easy way and no short cuts and no short term gains without eventually paying the price of negligence.

Another story today comes from the U. S. Department of Interior, specifically the Minerals Management Service who gave British Petroleum (BP), and all other oil companies drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, huge exemptions to standard safety and spill precautions so their company expense would be minimized. Countdown's Keith Olbermann pointed out the negligence of BP Oil and that a single safety valve costing only $500 thousand was not used on that TransOcean Deepsea Horizon platform because it was "too expensive." He also pointed out that the executives of those companies made twenty times the cost of that valve. Watch the video. The point here is, as is true of all companies, that the bottom line is profit and compensation and short term gains. It is not about the "right thing to do" for corporations. Huge risks are taken that bite us in the ass eventually. Contrary to what we've been fed for 40 to 50 years, companies are not more efficient than the government.

And then there is the movement, including the Tea Partiers, that suggests that President Bush II wasn't the worst president we've ever had. Laura Bush was on Oprah Winfrey yesterday and Oprah ask her about how she felt about the criticism of President Bush. "It hurt," she said, "because people don't know him." One of his daughters said essentially the same thing; that people would think better of him if they knew him. They have a uniquely personal perspective and it's probably true. If I were to have a beer with him, I would probably like him personally. I may find him funny and personable. But, I don't want to have a beer with my president. I want him to be a good, the best he can be, for this country. Bush was a terrible president. He neglected his country, hedged on infrastructure, underfunded our schools, promoted self-regulating policies for industry and in fact created a "culture" in his administration of "hands off" regulating and, of course, we went to war in two countries primarily because of his "gut feelings" and his extra-large ego. He implemented President Reagan's laissez faire economy, international belligerence and "debt doesn't matter" policies like no other president has done. Every where we turn, we find destruction, negligence and decay.

In fact, all of us accepted the laissez faire libertarian philosophy, small, hands-off government philosophy and the Republicans continue to spout it. Ideology, the great and deep rut that trapped all of us and is now biting us in the ass. Diligence and clear thinking could have saved us much of our heartache today. Good government that pays attention is what we want, not necessarily small government just because that's a cute thing to say.

Diligence means more than listening to "cutesy" phrases a politician or pundit says, like Sarah Palin's "how's that changy thing goin' for ya'." It means paying attention. It means learning about who you're voting for and what they really stand for. If all you can do is be star-struck and just want more of what we've done the past 50 years, then please don't vote. I've had enough of that.

Dave