Political parties are crime syndicates

In the following essay, we've only touched on the role of "government schools" in our present malaise.  


Political Parties or Crime Syndicates?


All politics is local. 


by Paul Stephens


Like most people, I am surrounded by Republicans and Democrats.  They are like two grindstones, and we are the grain in between, being pulverized on a daily basis.  My mother and father were basically New Deal Democrats (my older sister, Eleanor, was born in 1941), although my father was raised as a Prohibitionist Republican, which he might have remained had he not drunk some of J.C. Peters' whiskey at about age 10.  Peters, father of the artist Les Peters (who recently passed away - he and my father were the same age), is also known for having built the Country Club Tower back in the 1950's.  My uncle Charles, a journeyman glazer, worked on that project, too.  


So what are these "parties" which are systematically dismantling our country, its economy, and even - anyone can tell you - our military, by corrupting the appropriations and procurement processes, as well as "mission creep" to where our military is everything which Americans traditionally opposed, and the greatest single threat to the future of the human species.  


Whatever "the two major parties" (hereafter referred to as "DemRepubs") are, they are not legitimate "political parties" as we have always understood them.  Even the Nazis and Bolsheviks paid lip service to all the traditional goals of political theory and action - a just and peaceful society (remember "peace through victory" - that's the German name, "Siegfried").  Unlike the DemRepubs, a serious political party must be  dedicated to better government, peace, human welfare, the Constitution, and otherwise representing the best interests of the people, as well as the global ecosystem and future generations yet to come.  The "empire" or other system must last at least 1000 years - another way of saying it must be "sustainable," "perpetual" or "steady-state."  The Catholic (and Orthodox) Christian Churches meet the test, as does Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Direct Democracy, Monarchy, etc.  Most indigenous peoples also followed this principle, as in the "7th Generation" principle of Native Americans.  Don't do anything which will harm even the 7th generation - 100 or 150 years from now. 


It would be better to call the DemRepubs "gangs" (as everyone by now must realize), if not mobs, or maybe armies - that's what they're really fighting over - control of the military because, as Trotsky said, whoever controls the military controls the Revolution and the Future.  But following my mentor, Sam Peltzman, the DemRepubs have always looked a lot more like "Crime Syndicates" to me.  (Peltzman, known originally as one of Milton Friedman's proteges at the University of Chicago, has researched and written extensively on the theory and practice of organized crime).  


Once you think of the DemRepubs this way, it all makes sense.  They're only talking to teach other.  They are rival gangs, fighting over and dividing our "territory" - now expanded to include the entire planet, with "full spectrum dominance."  They control everything.  We can only oppose them *sub rosa*, on the spiritual and intellectual planes.  We can't openly confront them on the battlefield or in the Halls of Congress, although we'd better start doing at least the latter, if we want to survive as a human species.  


They are not about to address the threats of climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, or even the financial crises which are now almost sure to result in the collapse of our government and the takeover by some explicit military or corporate dictatorship.  Fortunately, the military as a whole is better-able to coordinate rational policy solutions to any of these problems than is the Congress and the civilian bureaucracies.  When democracy fails, there will always be people there to take up the slack, and that is the best prediction for what will happen - if we don't get into a major war, first, which would simply accelerate the process, since there is no organized peace movement to stop it.  


As Gen. Smedly Butler pointed out in the 1930's, "war is a racket."  www.youtube.com/watch


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0


And the Racketeers - the Crime Syndicate bosses - are the same families and people, now, as they were, then - the Rockefellers, the Bush's, the Kennedy's, the Pews, DuPont's, Dow's, Ford's, Carnegie's, Cargill's, Guggenheim's, etc. except that they've had to enlarge "the family" considerably to take in OPEC, the Zionazis (AIPAC), the Tongs (much of California and the West Coast, along with SE Asia), the Yakuzi, and all the other ethnic gangs and power blocks known to control significant parts of the global economy.  (Every hear of the Scan-Am Mafia?  I didn't think so).  


Thanks to the prevalent anti-intellectualism and political takeovers at once-independent universities and law schools, the Criminal Law is often - surprise! - on the side of the Criminals.  Yes, I am in favor of a legal system, as well as open discussion and full transparency about its application and interpretation, but the real and enduring laws aren't made in our Legislatures of the Bribed and Coerced.  They are EVOLVED over centuries by courts and judges, which must remain wise and public-spirited, activist and independent if we are to save ourselves from tyranny.  


The "blue bloods" have become the Blue Dogs - "solid middle-class people" with a lot of friends and influence, which is usually applied surreptitiously, and for very different reasons than the advertised ones.  Call them the Junior Chamber of Commerce - the wannabe's, who will sell out in a moment to please and curry favor with the Gangster Capitalists.  They are gangs as much as any others, and because they have a lot more influence within the Military-Industrial Complex, they have a lot more say over our national direction and policies.  


Our constitutional principle of "civilian control of the military" has always been a joke, and becomes particularly acrid with a president like Barack Obama (or earlier, Bill Clinton) - always trying to be "tough guys" who "understand" what the military is supposed to want - total global hegemony and domination, in their view.  They actually believe that soldiers are sociopaths who like to fight and kill, and that is what is being selected for in our "all volunteer military" - people who will sign away their rights and their country's future in exchange for some drinking money.  As a few prescient people warned in opposition to the Vietnam-era anti-draft protests, the alternative is a mercenary army which will maximize its own wealth and control over the government and economy.  


If there was ever a reason to abandon the monopoly education bureaucracy and standardized curricula, this is it.  The Teacher's Unions are the largest single contributors to the Democratic Party.  People have to be trained and conditioned to accept the present state of things - being on the brink of military dictatorship and police state, as well as economic collapse.  People have to be lied to and confused incessantly if they are to believe what the DemRepubs are telling them.  They must more or less have "given up trying to understand anything."  And the only way this can happen is by the mechanisms of universal compulsory schooling, and through brainwashing from birth by the corporate-controlled mass media.  So long as we never hear any criticism or alternative views of things, we will think our descent into bankruptcy and dictatorship is inevitable.  


People always look to "government" to save them.  But "government" - the State, the City, the County as well as the Federal Government are, as Reagan said, "the problem, not the solution."   He was as much a captive of the corporations as Obama is - indeed, Reagan set the standard for what still exists, today.  (See Bill Moyers' recent interview with Reagan budget manager David Stockman, who is now supporting Ron Paul).  


By now, the federal government utterly dominates and controls our public education system, just as State and local gangs (the Klan, et. al.) did in the Age of Apartheid.  But we always permitted both religious schools and cooperative home and community schooling, and they are stronger, now, than ever.  Before the DOE bureaucracy ("Education Czar"), local schools were always controlled by local boards, which had to tax themselves to finance the schools.  No "free money" here!  


What a difference that one rule makes!  How much snake oil, in the form of computers and e-books would schools buy for their students if they had to pay for them with local money, without federal funding and mandates?  And how many drugs would they force their students to take if the Feds didn't spend $3000 per student per year on the CHIP program of "health insurance" - which every Democrat (and many Republicans) in the state vigorously supported?  


The old ways hang on.  We are now in the 3rd generation of "the War on Drugs," promoted and financed entirely by the "legal" drug pushers (Big Pharma) and prison industry, which is now responsible for maintaining 25% of the world's prisoners in a country - ours - with 4% of its population.  The same numbers apply to our use of fossile fuels and pollution.  And even worse numbers apply to our military spending.  We spend nearly half the world's total spent on weapons and military operations with only 4% of its population!  What's wrong with this picture?    


We can see the results nearly every week in some report of student violence, falling test scores, and skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction - all enforced by the same laws which stamp our children's minds "Property of the State."  All but the most determined and self-reliant students end up in dead-end jobs, the military, or prison.  (Well, they still do encourage kids to be doctors and lawyers, here, but you wouldn't want to pay their fees to be treated by them, or entrust your freedom to their understanding of "the Law.")


It doesn't have to be this way.  We don't have to keep torturing and oppressing each other.  We can return to our roots, or even reassert ourselves as an independent city-state - free to create our own society in the best ways we know how.  All politics is local. 

Some family and local history - Fort Benton-Highwood-Belt

Determining one's legal status in the Cosmos


Part I   Choosing a team


The Great Falls Mafia, or the Belt, Highwood, Fort Benton Axis?


The older I get, the more I'm interested in my family's past and traditions.  I have not been able to research this stuff, myself, since I have had to practically steal or otherwise surreptitiously record whatever information I could get out of my parents and grandmother before they passed on.  My half-siblings and cousins had always ganged up on me - so much so that I started to call myself a "bastard step-child," which made a good joke since we are the Step-hens's.  


It didn't bother me when I was younger.  I always took responsibility for my own actions, and tried to mitigate whatever bad effects my relatives might have had.  There were several different factions among them, depending on whom they had married, or what their larger-world experiences might have been.  All were seemingly vying for some imaginary status and power.  I never could figure out the logic of this - we could have been one the richest and most powerful families in the world, I thought, if only we would work together and use science and reason, ethics and esthetics, to inspire and lead our efforts.  But for some reason, they never thought of me as "part of the family", or if they did, it was some dispreputable, evil part.  
  
One thing I've always known was a real handicap (besides alcoholism) was an obsession with sex and sexuality - pro, con, and otherwise - simply reducing any issue or question to those of interpersonal relations and status, rather than the merits and facts of the case.  I'm sure we're not unique in that.  Teaching high school is a real lesson in this branch of knowledge - carnal knowledge.  It seems like everything in "civilized" culture is about sex and sexual relationships, and the only ones supposedly free of that are the fundamentalist religious people who actually follow Christian principles on lust, greed, forgiveness, etc.  But even when they don't, it sets an example of a higher way of life.  We know both kinds of people, and those who are most casual and unobsessed with sex are definitely better-off, and more likely to be comfortable and happy. 

As for acquiring wealth, it just never made sense to me - especially in a revolutionary age like ours.  There are very few fortunes in this country which go back 100 years.  In Montana, they are mostly ranches (not dryland farms) with low overhead and the ability to greatly reduce their taxes through conservation easements, etc.  There are a few business and law families who go back that far.  Last Saturday's (it's a couple of months ago, now) story about the Stephenson and Cooper law firm (now Jardine, Stephenson, although they don't seem to have any Jardines, either) is a case in point.  Indeed, although no one in my family ever hired a Stephenson or Cooper lawyer, so far as I know, they were close personal friends, and Sam Stephenson even had a summer home close to our ranch in the Highwoods. 

Robert Cooper, Ransom's son, was a Bowdoin graduate (like our Founder, Paris Gibson), and I knew him fairly well as a small child.  Both my father and uncle were part of his drinking circle, exchanging books and correspondence.  We lived 35 miles from downtown Great Falls, so they probably often crashed at his place, although it was nothing to drive the 35 miles dead drunk in those days.  I still have in my library Coop's copies of the Random House Modern Library Nietzsche and F. Scott Fitgerald.  There was also an old letter from Coop at the ranch when I returned from California in 1972.  I might still have it, somewhere. I remember that it was addressed from "Somewhere in the space-time contiuum," and so I had a few conversations with my father and uncle about him.  They both thought he was a genius - one of the most literate and philosophical people they'd ever known.  Upon receiving his inheritance, he drank himself to death within a few years. 

I also knew that his father, Ransom was the chief attorney for the Anaconda Company, but I assumed it was just local business involving claims against the Smelter by workers, etc.  There was probably a lot of that, but people from this firm, if we can trust Ecke's account, actually went on to head the ACM - one of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average "Blue Chip" companies, in those days.  (Like Kodak, one might point out, which is about to be de-listed altogether from the NYSE).  


Baucus's and Swanberg's were also big-time lawyers, here.  I guess I understand, now, why Max had no scruples about "Panama Paul-ing" Judge Hatfield when he ran against him in the 1978 Democratic Senate primary.  If only Baucus were "the real McCoy" instead of just another crypto-Republican elitist pandering to the "liberals" while the rich people pretend he's their mortal enemy.    


The Swanberg's and A.B. Guthrie, Jr. were also part of that group.  I can still remember, although I must have been only 6 or 7 years old, sitting in Gus and Eddie's (where That Bar is now, but with a beautifl curved bar, neon purple lighting, and faux-leopard skin upholstered booths) with my father, Coop, and A.B. Guthrie, Jr.  That was their main hang-out, I think, along with the Pennant, where all the Tribune reporters and printers hung out.  


My mother, who had grown up in Al Capone's Chicago, was considered a usurper - in spite of being Jean Arthur's cousin, and the grand-daughter of one of the earliest founders of Billings.  When her father, Arthur Nelson, died, Alex Blewett represented her half-brother, Skip, in the battle over the estate.  And Bill Swanberg represented my father in their custody dispute over me.  She won that one, but they always made it clear that I could mix and match however I liked.  Of course I chose the drinking and gambling life of my father - as well as the intellectual aspects of being a teacher and writer.  Somehow, that seems to have precluded me from inheriting the ranch, even though I am the sole surviving Stephens. 

My mother's maternal grandfather, too, was an old hand in Great Falls, John Dunn, having moved here to work at the Smelter, if I remember right, in 1906.  Both of my grandmothers went to high school at what is now Paris Gibson Square, with my grandmother Stephens (Paulson, changed from the Norwegian Sitje) being Salutatorian in the class of 1908.  I think there were 19 graduates, most of them girls, in that year.  You could test for a teaching certificate, and teach in a country school with no college, in those days - grades 1-8, at least.  She also took the Civil Service Test (I still have the results of that), and was first in line for any job that opened (mostly Post Office, then - there was no FBI, Social Security, or other Federal regulatory or welfare agencies).  But she married my grandfather, instead, who was literate and public-spirited, and they made a good match, even though he was 24 years older (not unusual in those days, when many men outlived several wives).  I spent my first 6 years in their home, with my father and uncle more or less serving as co-parents - sort of like "Two and a Half Men," some have noted.


Two years after my grandparent's marriage in 1912, the Great War broke out, and the Lutheran Scandinavians and Germans, as well as the German and Eastern European Jews, were considered suspicious aliens, and actually tried and prosecuted, as well as being punished in many other ways just for opposing or even questioning the war, avoiding the draft, or even possessing German language papers and books.  It was very much like today's situation with Muslims.  They're even reviving "Sedition Laws" passed in 1917 to deal with this supposed "Fifth Column" of "peace activists."


Into my generation, we were still raised as Lutherans, although several of my cousins went to the Methodist Church (my grandfather was a friend of Brother Van, and a sincere Christian), but most of their kids don't go to anything at all, or perhaps some fundamentalist "Christian Right" sect.  Both my father and I joined the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, and since we were fans of Emerson and Thoreau, we fit right into that.  I'll have to write a history of what I remember of that, some day.  Mary Scriver was the circuit-Pastor during that time, and will no doubt leave a thorough account of it from her perspective.  Grace Fishbaugh, Arlyn's mother, was one of the mainstays, along with Dr. Ernst Eichwald and some other doctors and lawyers, including the Best's, who were just getting started in their law practice, then.  Elizabeth's grandfather, Dr. McPhail, an obstetrician, brought me and a thousand or more others into this world.  


Paris Gibson was a Universalist (meaning Universal Salvation - an obscure Christian sect which intrpreted Divine Grace rather more broadly than most).  The Unitarians and Universalists merged in the early 1950's.  


The Belt-Highwood-Fort Benton Axis is the other "affinity group" for the Stephens family.  Upper Highwood, early in the last century, was something like Big Sky is today - an elite collection of trophy ranches, rich doctors and lawyers, and of course the earliest city in Montana, Fort Benton, as well as the Coal Boom towns of Belt and Sand Coulee.  It may seem quaint and picturesque, today, but these guys ruled the world.  There were something like 10 Fleet Admirals and Generals from that "zone" in Choteau County from the First World War through Vietnam.  And famous war heroes, intellectuals, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc., etc.  Don't make me list them - Ken Robison is putting together a pretty good account of it, and there are many others to choose from.


My grandfather Stephens was born during the Civil War - 1864, in Illinois.  His father voted for Abraham Lincoln.  I've recently determined that he was also a fairly close cousin of the VP of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens.   Of course, that Stephens (the leading advocate for chattel slavery) and Abraham Lincoln also knew each other from serving together in Congress.  I suspect my grandfather spent his whole life trying to figure out the massive tragedy of the Civil War.  He was the least combatitive person imaginable.  Like Will Rogers, he "never met a man he didn't like", and according to my father, never made moral judgments about people - even those who were demonstrably evil.  What a gift!    


But his wife, my Norwegian grandmother, grew up mostly fatherless, in working-class boarding houses which her peasant mother ran, speaking Norwegian as a child, and suffering all the perils of alcoholism, sexism, and violent exploitation which characterized life in frontier Great Falls.  She never imagined herself free of control by the indefinable "they" - some "authorities" who secretly control everything.  She was very judgmental, puritanical, and a political Prohibitionist, like most of the "respectable" church-going women of that time.  So, it's no wonder we all turned out so strangely, I suppose.