Monday, December 16, 2013
Eunice Belgum's Akrasia Project - Links and podcasts
Who was Eunice Belgum?
Eunice Belgum was a Montana girl, in the matriarchal line, daughter of Esther Holberg, of Fairfield, MT. She was a Westinghouse Scholarship recipient, a graduate of St. Olaf's, with a PhD in Philosophy from Harvard. And she killed herself after her second year of tenure track teaching at William and Mary (her first job was at Trinity College in Connecticut) - after being voted Teacher of the Year, or some such thing.
Even after gaining a large following among young feminists, peace and justice people, etc., she was sure that she didn't deserve it. She had "the imposter complex". Her "self-concept" did not match her reality. Along with medical ethics (some published in the Harvard Law Review), her main work and life obsession was something called "Akrasia" - knowing better but doing the worse.
Akrasia has a long history in philosophy as one of those questions that don't get solved. Psychology has had better luck explaining various kinds of self-destructive behavior. But Eunice's PhD Thesis at Harvard was later re-published as one of the 50 best Harvard Philosophy Theses of the 20th century. I have a copy of it, and I was just lamenting this morning that she didn't simply write her own "account" of this problem, rather than "researching" what every white dead male in history had already written about it. Unfortunately, that is the nature of the academic game.
Esther was very free about discussing Eunice's "death", and was active in survivors and suicide prevention groups. Eunice smoked, and was unable to quit, so that was kind of a metaphor for her own "Akrasia." And she seemed to have become a lesbian, which Esther blamed on "radical feminists" who used guilt and other illicit methods to "convert" Eunice to their "cause" (which rather astonished me, but these were people who grew up in the 1930's and '40's. Eunice would be 67, now - a year older than I and a year ahead in school).
I wrote some poems and other things and showed them to Esther, hoping she would pursue the idea of writing her own book about Eunice, which she intended to do. One I remember was called "The Will to Suicide", which I'll try to locate and attach, later.
The Peace Movement in Great Falls
As major agents and promoters of the Peace Movement (especially Beyond War, the Sanctuary Movement, and other Peace and Justice projects) in the Nuclear Garrison Town of Great Falls, the Belgums' work and values were not especially welcome to the "Base Boosters" and Nuclear Mafia which largely control our town and even the whole state (we have an army general as Lt. Governor at the moment). Joe was from North Dakota and a graduate of North Dakota State, which didn't help much, either. Esther had attended the Normal School in Dillon, and taught at Greenfields School (part of the Fairfield district), where she met Joe, who was doing a Lutheran minister internship, or something. Pastor Lunde, who was based in Great Falls and confirmed my father and aunts, was also Esther's pastor.
It's important to note that Eunice's uncle, David Belgum was a well-known professor and authority on religious psychology at Iowa, and her father, Joe, was one of the most memorable characters one is likely to meet. So, with this pedigree and expectations, who can fail to understand the magnitude of this human tragedy? Nearly everyone who knew me and/or the Belgum's, apparently, for whom it was a great scandal.
Although I met Prof. David Belgum a couple of times, I never really discussed Eunice with him. I wish I had. He was all compassion, and professional in his response to this, but of course family dynamics would have prevented him from intervening, and Joe seemed resentful of his greater success, in any case
I devoted 4 years of my life to their service - literally - starting in 1985, when I met them at a Beyond War presentation, and house-sat for them. This was about 7 years after Eunice's death. I never met her, but read some of her private journals, etc. - all of which have since been destroyed, I think, by her brother - mainly to preserve his parents' (and his own) sanity. Aside from him, whom I am not in touch with anymore, I might still retain the best overview of this whole bitter drama, and its implications for everything from religion and morality to mental health, political sanity, etc. Eunice and I had very similar philosophical interests (as well as sexual identity confusions, family dysfunctionality, being Norwegian-American, etc.)
After Eunice's death (which basically drove Joe mad, and understandably so), the Belgum's retired from Lutheran Social Services, where he was employed in San Francisco, and returned to Montana, where Esther's deceased mother's home was available. Esther nearly always worked as a teacher and school counselor - an even greater burden (considering the outcome for her daughter), but one which she was trained to handle, and did quite well with it.
The main thing, for these devoutly Christian people, was whether or not Eunice had lost her faith (which several of her friends assured me she had, but Esther didn't think so), and if she had, whether or not Universal Salvation would still apply. That, of course, was Esther's view, while Joe knew in his heart that his beloved daughter was utterly damned. And so they fought and blamed each other incessantly, and had done so all along, which might have been the most significant factor in Eunice's decision to "end the pain."
Universal salvation was actually the basis for a small sect in New England called "Universalism," which later merged with the Unitarians - they are now "U-U's". And the Founder of Great Falls, Paris Gibson, was a Universalist, and a serious one - a fact which is rarely noted or understood in local history and lore. Lutheran doctrine, it should be noted, is strongly against Universal Salvation, where you must somehow "earn" or "deserve" God's Grace in order to be saved. It's the difference between welfare and workfare, I suppose.
Or more to the point, the difference between "universal health care" and the "health insurance" extortion and protect racket, where all you're buying is ACCESS to the care, after which they can still take your house, pension, and every other piece of property in your name to satisfy their fraudulent claims for minimal or palliative treatments, at a price of thousands of dollars per day, and send you to the poorhouse.
Since our local hospitals were established as Christian institutions, the importance of ethics in medicine has been thoroughly undermined by the "secular humanists" and their "business plan" for political control and directing revenues to Wall Street and the power-wielding 1%. A Harvard tradition, it would seem.
Many highly accomplished (and ethical) people are driven to despair, if not suicide, when they finally come to understand just how totally criminal nearly everything our "benevolent" welfare/warfare state has become, and how it throttles and destroys all human values in the name of "efficiency", "jobs," and "national security."
I'll be writing more on this, and inviting feedback.
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Here's a brief bibliography of information and links about Eunice Belgum and the endowed lectures in her name at St. Olaf's.
Amazon lists the version of her dissertation that I have.
http://www.amazon.com/Eunice-Belgum/e/B001KHYGRK
Eunice Belgum Memorial Lectures
Each year for three decades the department has sponsored the Belgum Lectures, which honor the memory of Eunice Belgum, who graduated from St. Olaf College in 1967. The lecture series was established in the hope that Eunice’s tragic death in 1977 would not end her impact on the profession, teaching, and scholarship she loved so much. While the lectures may be on any topic, the philosophy department makes a special effort to choose topics in areas of special interest to Eunice, namely ethics, philosophy of mind, and feminism. These lectures are supported by a fund established by Eunice’s family and friends.
http://wp.stolaf.edu/philosophy/eunice-belgum-memorial-lectures-podcasts/
35th Annual Eunice Belgum Memorial Lectures
"Character"
Daniel Robinson, Oxford University
Monday, September 23, 2013
Viking Theater, Buntrock Commons
More Information
http://stolaf-web.streamguys.us/podcast/academic/2013-09-23_belgum_two.mp3
MP3 Available
Previous Belgum Lectures
1979 Kathryn Pyne Parsons, Not Judge, Not Victim, Nor Savior
1980 Dagfinn Føllesdal, Understanding and Rationality
1981 Gareth B. Matthews, Conceiving Childhood
1982 Martha Nussbaum, The Fragility of Goodness
1983 Georg Henrik Von Wright, Truth, Knowledge, and Freedom
1984 Naomi Scheman, Authority and Paranoia: The Social Construction of Gender and the Philosophical Self
1985 Merold Westphal, The Religious Uses of Modern Atheism
1986 Kenneth Sayre, Myths for Our Technological Future
1987 Rosemarie Tong, Feminist Social Philosophy
1988 Laurence Thomas, Living Morally: A Psychology of Moral Character
1989 Keith Gunderson, The Aesthetic Robot
1990 Allan Gibbard, Moral Meanings
1991 Nancy Sherman, Virtue and Ethics
1992 Arthur Caplan, Ethics and the Genetic Revolution
1993 Amelie Rorty, The Many Faces of Morality
1994 Helen Longino, Scientific Knowledge and Feminist Theoretical Virtues
1995 Georges Rey, Superficialism about Mind and Meaning
1996 Gary Iseminger, Aestheticism: Defined and Defended
1997 Hilary Putnam, Mind, Matter, and Making Sense
1998 Jean Bethke Elshtain, How Far Have We Fallen?
1999 James Harris, After Relativism
2000 Stephen Darwall, Two Dogmas of Empiricism in Ethics
2001 Lydia Goehr, Listening, Laughing, and Learning
2002 Frederick Stoutland, How To Believe in Free Will
2003 Margaret Urban Walker, Forgiveness and Moral Repair
2004 Bas van Fraassen, Seeing and Measuring: Connecting
Science to Experience
2005 Jonathan Lear, Ethics and the Collapse of Civilization
2006 Galen Strawson, Episodic Ethics
2007 Julia Annas, Virtue and Happiness
2008 Barbara Herman, Making Motives Matter
2009 Elliott Sober, Philosophical Reflections on Darwin
2010 Thomas Carson, Lincoln’s Ethics
2011 Rachel Cohen, Hume on Virtuous Action and Character
2012 Lynne Rudder Baker, Persons: What We Are and How We Persist in Time
2013 Daniel Robinson, Consciousness, Again and Character
Friday, December 13, 2013
The War Against Enlightenment
Peace, non-violence, and Christian values
The control of information is based on a perceived need to control feelings and behavior. If people knew how bad things are, they would revolt, or commit mass suicide. Indeed, those are the very symptoms of despair and hopelessness. And people revolt in armed struggle only when they perceive that no other objections or protests are possible or effective.
Why, then, do "the authorities" want to keep people (including our leaders and the media) from learning, and thus changing their behavior, making better choices, being more "sociable", leading to a better quality of life, etc.? Some of us are working night and day for this, with total dedication, and we are regarded as fools. Why?
Maybe it's because we have "a negative attitude", and believe that "death is inevitable." I had an interesting experience last night, at a public lecture about peace good feelings, freedom and stuff. Actually, very little about freedom, except for the speaker emphasizing the total illegitimacy of coercion as a means of social interaction. No one, no group, no government has the moral right to force people to act against their will and conscience, etc. Especially as regards war and violence.
The very idea of a "military draft" (which we had, in this country, on and off for more than a century) is repugnant. The very idea of people being trained to kill and torture is obscene, in the deepest (non-erotic) sense.
It turns out Ms X (Or perhaps Mrs X, in her case, since she professed Christianity) has a PhD in Psychology, and has been in and out of the APA and the profession in general over these ethical issues. The irony is, she absolutely agrees with their resolutions and ethics code on this issue. Basically, the part of the lecture (and I guess it has 6 or 7 parts) that I heard was an elaboration of the APA rules involving its members participating in psychological manipulation (propaganda), or assisting military and "intelligence" forces in torture and interrogation policies like Gitmo, Rendition, etc.
Apparently, the speaker feared that the rules are not understood, nor is their intent. That would be to work to create a saner, healthier, happier, peaceful world. It was a fascinating presentation. I actually scrambled for a notebook I always carry (in case some great idea comes to me, I can write it down), and started taking regular college lecture notes. I didn't get very far, but I got some of the main ideas down.
One is "Altruistic Chagrin" - something sure to raise the hackles of anyone devoted to Ayn Rand, or otherwise “opposed to altruism” (which Rand defined in a rather convoluted way, distinguishing it from real benevolence). Basically, Altruistic Chagrin is Rand's "Never fail to pronounce moral judgment." It's a survival tool. Even if you don't literally "pronounce" it out loud, make it as a note to yourself.
"That guy is a real M-Fer." Stuff like that. Or, "Wasn't that a beautiful action [that a child took, sharing his toys, or kissing another child's hand as a token of affection - for which one 5-yr-old was famously charged with sexual harassment]?" Just the everyday judgments we make about people, politics, sports calls, or whatever. "We was robbed."
So, whenever you see people doing something horrible, irrational, exploitative, or whatever, don't just ignore it. Maybe you can't confront the person directly, but make him or her know that you are aware of what they are doing, and you strongly disapprove. That's Altruistic Chagrin. A very nice and useful concept, but again, it is utterly repugnant to our current "mind your own business" mentality. And there's a lot of that in any sort of libertarianism, I had to admit to myself, on further reflection.
I kept thinking of Seth Farber, a comrade in the struggle against psychiatric and other institutional tyranny. This lady should read his stuff, and the earlier work by Thomas Szaz on "psychiatric slavery," etc. She's very savvy about the academic game, and tries to use it in her favor, but that tends to backfire - something which any of us renegade thinkers and activists experience constantly. Better just to leave it alone. “Leave us alone and we’ll leave you alone...” Same with religion.
The question I wanted to ask her, but never got to in the press of other dialogue, was that she didn't mention the relationship (or lack of it) between professional codes of ethics, and actual statute and common law, torts, etc. which the state recognizes and enforces. Who is going to "enforce" the APA Code? And would that be a good thing? I don't think so, but that's a question she might want to consider further. Or perhaps she did in other lectures, which was the answer I usually got.
I want to give Mrs. X every credit for taking this on. She is especially concerned about the abuse of psychiatry and other medicine in the service of military conquest, torture, and other "black ops.”There's already some sort of professional organization along the lines of the "social responsibility" groups of Physicians, Biz, Educators, etc. In fact, this is all of interest to the educational and other public interest movements and organizations, as well as scientists and “policy wonks.”
It was especially "cognitively dissonant" for being held here in a town which hosts 150 nuclear-armed strategic missiles, capable of destroying as many cities anywhere in the world in less than an hour. I've had 30 years in the trenches, here, as a "peace activist" - I'm branded as one, in fact. Yet, I'd never laid eyes on this person, before, or heard her name, yet she claimed to be from here.
My first thought was that she's FBI or something, trying to infiltrate the local "movement." She needn’t have bothered. There's only about 3 of us, and we're always available for coffee. Many others have already been silenced by an official conspiracy to direct employers, service givers, as well as all government employees and military personnel to regard us with fear and hatred, for wanting to reduce military spending and the effects of militarization on our everyday lives... Of course, they call it “jobs” and “economic development,” which doesn’t conceal its real identity as the Doomsday Machine they described so well in 1950’s and ‘60’s movies and TV - Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove, On the Beach, and the various live TV dramas, as well as later ones depicting the horrors of nuclear war.
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Here's some wisdom from Karl Popper which bears on these issues in a fundamental sort of way...
Karl Popper [Facebook group]
'In Popper's view, the philosopher should not be concerned with the subjective aspect of knowledge - that is, the dispositions that cause individuals to uphold a theory with greater or lesser strength – rather, with its objective aspect, which consists “of the logical content of our theories, conjectures, guesses.” If subjective knowledge presupposes the existence of a knowing subject, “Knowledge in the objective sense is knowledge without a knower: it is knowledge without a knowing subject,” since it disregards the personal dispositions and inclinations of individuals and assesses a theory independently of them.'
Stefano Gattei, “Karl Popper's Philosophy of Science – Rationality Without Foundations”.
The quotes from Popper come from “Objective Knowledge”.
12-12-13
Karl Popper
“I've called truth a 'regulative idea', because even though we have no criterion of truth, we have lots of criteria of falsehood. These criteria of falsehood are not always applicable, but we can very often find out whether something is false. This is why our search for truth is a critical search. We know, for example, that a theory must be false if it is self-contradictory. Actually, self-contradiction is the main criterion of falsity, because we try always in criticism to find out whether the thing to be criticized does not conflict with something else. I mentioned in my lecture the cross-questioning of people who give a report. I mentioned that bees have not found it worth while to cross-question a reporting dancing bee. Now, what is the purpose of cross-questioning? It is to catch the person being cross-questioned in some sort of contradiction, or in a statement that contradicts something which we think we know from some other source. This is the only real purpose of cross-questioning anybody. So contradiction is really the main thing by which we discover falsity, and then we know, at least, that the theory is false. Of course, we also then know then that its negation is true. But that usually does not tell us much, because the negation of a theory with a great informative content has always a very low informative content. The greater the informative content of a theory, the lower the informative content of its negation. So we don't get very much truth when we have refuted a theory, as a rule. But at least we know where the truth is not to be found, and we can go on with our search. So truth works in the main as a regulative idea in the search for truth, or in criticism.”
Karl Popper, 'Knowledge and the Body-Mind Problem'.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
We will all die from misuse of intelligence
Thoughts inspired by Leonard Peltier
It's not just the drones....
Someone, I've forgotten who, made the observation that the "intelligence gene" is responsible for most of our current ills, and will result in our extinction unless we recognize and correct the problem.
No, the suggested answer is not to destroy our universities and other schools, burn all the books, dumb down the broadcast media to the level of a hungry (or horny) 13-year-old, and make sure that no highly-intelligent person has access to the work of other highly-intelligent people who might also be radicals or "dissidents." Or even to catalog and "study" them, so that the next generation of tyrants can do them in, and have all the "evidence" of their "sedition" and "breaches of national security."
We need intelligence and intelligent discourse - now, more than ever. But surely it is killing us, as well. Whether it is the murderous, predatory corporations and their "signature legislation" - the creation of a "one-world-government" based on the conquests of machine intelligence - the so-called "killer drones" in the service of the nuclear mafia - well, this is all well-known. The operant doctrine is (officially) called "Full Spectrum Dominance." That is the present military policy of the United States
Otherwise, we are proving to be non-competitive in every area except professional sports and corporate hegemony over every aspect of our lives (what used to be proudly supported by many of our ancestors as Fascism or National Socialism), or a monolithic "one-party-state" (Communism) for the rest (the so-called Left). After World War II, these policies were certainly not popular in the rest of the world, except that Americans promised a "higher standard of living" and new techno-gadgets - an area in which we proved to be much inferior to Buddhists and other Asians in the "real world" of "free-market capitalism" (surely a contradiction in terms).
Yet, the American people - those great innocents, spic and span in their moral superiority and being "chosen by God" or at least "Manifest Destiny" - continued to be welcome most places, and enjoyed great social status on a global scale.
"We are the people, not the government," they said. It's the same line used by the millions of refugees fleeing Russia or Nazi Germany. "Look, we're not like them. We're not part of the ruling class." And for a long time, that was true.
But military occupation teaches a different lesson, and it's the 700+ American military facilities in every part of the world which signals our true intent: Full Spectrum Dominance - economy, language, law, science, the arts, media - even "human rights" and "ethics" - qualities which are rigorously excluded from any real "government oversight, " but they are used to justify the rest of the murderous program.
The first thing we did upon "conquering" the Philippines in 1898 (as though we had some "right" to do that) was to dispatch 1200 English teachers there! A decade or two earlier, American missionaries who had become wealthy ranchers, sugar and pineapple farmers and packers, urged the US Congress to "Annex" the independent monarchy of Hawai'i to become an American "possession" - "before some other country gets the same idea," supposedly. The Queen was actually imprisoned and deposed by US Marines, with no future role in her country. Imagine suggesting we do that to QEII!
Although many would like to do that, the idea itself is preposterous. That is who we (of British heritage) are. If nothing else, it is none of our business. But not so Hawai'i, Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines! And this is was the days of American "isolationism" and rebuilding from our own disastrous Civil War, the effects of which still plague us a century and a half later. The Last Samurai, another film, tells how American arms merchants (as well as British and others) set Japan on its reckless imperial adventures in the 20th Century.
What happens when all the dirt on all the past heroes comes out? I wonder how many millions of votes the Democrats will lose on account of the revelations following the 50 year exclusion rule on exposing the Kennedy Administration's many crimes and corruptions? Peter Jennings told much the same story for ABC in about 2000 - shortly before he died. I wonder if it wasn't knowing he would die that allowed him to produce this remarkable document (much richer in details on Kennedy's essentially mafia-controlled and imperial presidency than the recent fare). I taped it off the air, and still have it. I doubt it is easily available otherwise.
But isn't that a GOOD thing, the Twilight of the Idols? Shouldn't liars and deceivers LOSE votes and public esteem? This isn't the mafia, making their own movies to justify themselves. It's actual history, where all the facts and inter-relationships count. There will be adjustments to correct willful lies, cover-ups and distortions. We can't simply say - well, that's history. We must proceed from where we are, today. Even though that is what we SHOULD do (and many of us are forced to do in our professional or public lives).
But not by the same dishonest and exploitative rules and practices. Those who go and sin no more will be recognized, if not rewarded. Those who don't will be liquidated - by the machines if not by the small number of still-surviving patriots and freemen. You cannot destroy freedom in the name of freedom with impunity. It's almost a natural law.
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Thoughts on the Create Channel (PBS)
The "globalization" community in Great Falls - liking African and Asian cultures, being "international" in whatever ways, no doubt watches channels 21-3 (Create) and 21-4 (World) channels the most. And I'm certainly part of that. I watch Rick Steves and some of the other travel programs on Create, and have even watched a few of the cooking programs - where I'm astounded at seeing them use handfuls of salt like there was no cardio-vascular tomorrow.
Today, I was "treated" to a Globe Trekker program about "Panamerica" - Central and South America, or what we used to call "Latin America."
Just before watching this, they ran the Nature program on Hummingbirds on 21-1 (the main MT-PBS station) as part of their "pledge drive"- a sort of extended "infomercial" using popular programs as "bait." And the Hummingbirds show was spectacular, with all sorts of evolutionary theory and advanced field biology included.
Imagine, then, my disgust and horror when 30 minutes later, in the "Panamerica" show (with some imperialist history, and very little real educational content), the hostess enters a shop in some remote village selling stuffed hummingbirds as "good-luck charms" or even "love tokens" (since live hummingbirds are so enjoyed and loved by those who have them as neighbors).
"How much?" our cheerful hostess asked? $3. "I'll take one." We can only hope and pray that she will be arrested at her home airport, and receive some hard time for her dirty deeds. If in doubt, leave it out. Even the dumbest corporation understands that!
But no, the purpose, here, is to make environmentalists and animal rights activists look stupid. It's a perennial theme here in Montana, where the main environmental watchdog organizations talk endlessly about mercury and coal dust, wolves, bison and grizzly bears, but refuse to ever comment on global warming, or the global environmental disasters we face from the nuclear arms race, and continuing to burn fossil fuels and use other unsustainable technologies. Thus, Greens are constantly pitted against unions, "jobs", "free trade", "economic growth", "national security", and even public health and safety. Even when the Greens are correct, and most people agree with us, there are huge campaigns through the corporate media to discredit environmentalists and their work - most notably, the anti-global warming campaign (characterized as a War against Coal - which it surely is) and the Single Payer Healthcare campaign (characterized as a "government takeover" - which it surely is) - all coordinated by ALEC and a host of other corporate crime syndicates.
Governments, as the servants of powerful corporate interests (especially the drug cartels, AMA, Hospital Associations, and others ) "took it over" decades, if not a century, ago. What we have, now, is almost entirely criminal and exploitative in intent, as well as in execution. And it is all governed by the rotten, lying, gangster-ridden "health-insurance" extortion racket - the only case, outside of automobile liability insurance, where it is reasonable - where people are forced, under penalty of a fine, to buy a defective product which is at least 4 times more expensive than the actual services it is supposed to provide.
And even worse, it explicitly depends on lower-income working people to pay for the healthcare of those who are far poorer, sicker, and in need of it! This is actually defended by the promoters of the ACA as "vital" to its working! It can only work if it further enslaves working people and those who take care of their health on their own! Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, more than half of existing healthcare costs (under this rotten system) is paid BY THE TAXPAYERS. Since we spend about 4 times what almost any other country spends (per capita, or as a percentage of GDP) on healthcare, it is clear that we need no new programs or spending. We only need to quit doing what we're doing now, and put everyone on Medicare, with strict regulation of prices and quality standards. Those who don't want Medicare should be free to start their own associations, or use a real "free market" (unencumbered by patents, licenses, etc.) to provide them with what they want and need.
I've probably spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours on this one idea - HEALTH INSURANCE IS A CATEGORY MISTAKE. The only way they can even sell something as absurd and fraudulent as "health insurance" as a way of providing health care, is if there is no other way to access and pay for healthcare - something which the providers, themselves, mandate by forcing cash customers to pay an average of 4 times more for the same services - and collectable in law - even from the estates of those who died of their overpriced and often fraudulent "treatments" (like radiation for cancer). If you can't get healthcare any other way, then, buying a promise of ACCESS to healthcare may be necessary, but only because THERE ISN'T ANY OTHER WAY TO GET IT. All we need to do is make sure that everyone has access, and that the monopolies don't control the supply and price, as they do, today.
That's another issue, but one which deserves mention, here. A century ago, nearly every voter and educated person understood the harm which monopolies were doing to our economy and to those who weren't part of the monopolies. Laws were passed against them and for a time, enforced. Since Ayn Rand denounced "Anti-trust Laws" (really, anti-monopoly and anti-corporate laws - both of which Rand supported) in the 1960's (especially Kennedy's political use of them against the steel industry and General Electric), they have been in disfavor.
There is virtually nothing of the real spirit of freedom and competition left in our legal system. Even professional sports is thoroughly monopolized, as are most other "industries" like health care, the "criminal justice system", education, universities, etc. The only way to be "free" of this "government takeover" is to pay your taxes, but provide for your own medicine, education, etc, - much of which is quite illegal, by now. We are, indeed, a military-industrial-education-prison complex. It's all part of the same deal, and we are its victims.
I wrote the above before reading this "Day of Mourning" statement from Leonard Peltier. Then I revised it. But it's all part of the same message....
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Day Of Mourning Statement From Leonard Peltier
EDUCATE! CORPORATISM, CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PRISONS
By Leonard Peltier, www.OfficialLeonardPeltier
November 29th, 2013
http://www.popularresistance.org/day-of-mourning-statement-from-leonard-peltier/
Greetings my relatives friends and supporters
It is yet another year. It seems like a thousand years ago but only a year in time in reality from the last time I dictated one of these statement for the day of mourning so, again, I want to say as last time, that I am honored that you would want to hear my words.
Sometimes when I lay on my bunk and I am between sleeping and awake, for a small moment of time, I am free and I am there with you. I know this sounds kind of melodramatic and I am not trying to be so, but things affect you differently inside of here and things affect you differently as you get older. But I want to say with all my strength, some things don’t change, at least not for me.
When I think about all we have lost to this corporate world, when I think about the losses of clean water and rivers and oceans and when I think about the losses of clean air when I think about the losses of freedom for hard working families that once had a father that could take care of his family with as single job but now has to work two or three jobs and the mother must work too and the children that come home from school with their own key and have to wait the return of one of their parents.
When I think of these losses, when I think of the wage slaves that are being created daily all over the world in the name of progress, when I think of these losses I think… we damn sure have a good reason to mourn, but I really believe that the word mourn should have a different meaning for us, not something where we cry and throw our hands up and say “ WHY WHY, WHY ME, WHY US, WHY THIS” but something that we say NO MORE to. Something we make a vow to, renew our efforts, renew our minds, renew our directions to take back our water take back our air take back our forests and our mountains and valleys, restore this mother earth to the natural balance the creator meant it to be. We need to talk to the churches, talk to the various religions, we need to get them to recognize that the strongest form or worship isn’t singing songs and bowing your head, the strongest form of worship is to respect and restore to balance the beauty of nature and the earth that was given to us, that is part of us, that we are a part of, and to be responsible for.
This may sound like the ramblings of some old 69 year old man in prison for 38 years but I have had a lot of time to think about these things and when my grandchildren come to visit me, it gives me a sense of urgency for all of us to start doing something NOW!
If each one of you would take a vow to get six other people along with yourself to do at least ONE meaningful thing to restore this balance and get each one of those people to network and get 6 more people and let it go out from there like the branches of a tree then together we can make a difference. We can make a difference starting today.
This day of mourning would become the morning of a new day!
I have quoted others before and I do so again because I respect the wisdom of elders and people long past. Someone once said and I don’t remember who said it, “All evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
[Edmund Burke, the grandfather of all modern "conservatives", and no less true for that. -ed.]
If this is more than you care to do, or if you think you can’t be involved with others for some reason, I respect that, but I would encourage you to at least plant one fruit bearing tree that someone in the future, perhaps some child would have something to eat. That maybe some other living creature might have a place of shelter and food to eat. there will always be changes throughout the earth and throughout mankind, some uncontrollable and some with design.
I know we can make a change for the better if we put our hearts and minds together and let this day of mourning be a time of renewal, we can spread the concept that mankind must live in harmony with the creators handy-work and with one another. If this time I have spent here in prison could produce anything of value I pray that it would move you to become involved. Find the right things within government and support them, and find the wrong things in government and change them. This government as it stands right now is on the verge of losing what constitutional rights people have. This government is violating the constitution over and over and over. These violations started before you or I were even conceived. As some of you may know the Constitution is a copy of the Iroquois 6 nations Confederacy law. The constitution originally was designed so that men would have maximum freedoms as long as they did not infringe on the natural rights of others or in essence harm someone else. The freedoms and respect that the law implies that we should have for one another in this nation should extend to all those outside of this realm because what is right for one man should be right for others.
We should allow other people to be free from fear. I remember an old Jewish man I once met in hardware store, I engaged in conversation with him. He had fought in WW2 and he said to me, and I always remember his words, “this isn’t the nation I fought for, this nation has become a nation of people who are afraid of their gov’t and anytime the people are afraid of their gov’t they are not free and I have noticed that what people will do to someone else wrongfully, sooner or later if circumstances change they will do it to you also."
These violations of human rights must stop. I know the task may seem overwhelming and I can’t say that I have the answer for success at making a change but I do know the answer for failure.. that's to do nothing.
So if my imprisonment serves nothing else but to be living proof of these violations, then so be it, but it is a reality. Right now, it has been selective violation, but there are powers at hand that seek to inflict those violations upon everyone. This reminds me of a story that I heard once where a man said:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
I ask you to remember these things because they are truisms that have happened and they will happen again to you and your children and your children’s children if we do not take a stand. a famous warrior named Emiliano Zapata from the Mexican revolution once said “I would rather die on my feet then live on my knees” …. I could go on and on but I suppose you get my meaning. I encourage you to be active, to stand your ground and help us recover the ground we have lost.
God, I wish I could be there with you.
I am going to close for now. Be thankful you have the time you have, be thankful you have each other, and give each other a hug for me.
I will see you when I see you
Your friend
Leonard Peltier
It's not just the drones....
Someone, I've forgotten who, made the observation that the "intelligence gene" is responsible for most of our current ills, and will result in our extinction unless we recognize and correct the problem.
No, the suggested answer is not to destroy our universities and other schools, burn all the books, dumb down the broadcast media to the level of a hungry (or horny) 13-year-old, and make sure that no highly-intelligent person has access to the work of other highly-intelligent people who might also be radicals or "dissidents." Or even to catalog and "study" them, so that the next generation of tyrants can do them in, and have all the "evidence" of their "sedition" and "breaches of national security."
We need intelligence and intelligent discourse - now, more than ever. But surely it is killing us, as well. Whether it is the murderous, predatory corporations and their "signature legislation" - the creation of a "one-world-government" based on the conquests of machine intelligence - the so-called "killer drones" in the service of the nuclear mafia - well, this is all well-known. The operant doctrine is (officially) called "Full Spectrum Dominance." That is the present military policy of the United States
Otherwise, we are proving to be non-competitive in every area except professional sports and corporate hegemony over every aspect of our lives (what used to be proudly supported by many of our ancestors as Fascism or National Socialism), or a monolithic "one-party-state" (Communism) for the rest (the so-called Left). After World War II, these policies were certainly not popular in the rest of the world, except that Americans promised a "higher standard of living" and new techno-gadgets - an area in which we proved to be much inferior to Buddhists and other Asians in the "real world" of "free-market capitalism" (surely a contradiction in terms).
Yet, the American people - those great innocents, spic and span in their moral superiority and being "chosen by God" or at least "Manifest Destiny" - continued to be welcome most places, and enjoyed great social status on a global scale.
"We are the people, not the government," they said. It's the same line used by the millions of refugees fleeing Russia or Nazi Germany. "Look, we're not like them. We're not part of the ruling class." And for a long time, that was true.
But military occupation teaches a different lesson, and it's the 700+ American military facilities in every part of the world which signals our true intent: Full Spectrum Dominance - economy, language, law, science, the arts, media - even "human rights" and "ethics" - qualities which are rigorously excluded from any real "government oversight, " but they are used to justify the rest of the murderous program.
The first thing we did upon "conquering" the Philippines in 1898 (as though we had some "right" to do that) was to dispatch 1200 English teachers there! A decade or two earlier, American missionaries who had become wealthy ranchers, sugar and pineapple farmers and packers, urged the US Congress to "Annex" the independent monarchy of Hawai'i to become an American "possession" - "before some other country gets the same idea," supposedly. The Queen was actually imprisoned and deposed by US Marines, with no future role in her country. Imagine suggesting we do that to QEII!
Although many would like to do that, the idea itself is preposterous. That is who we (of British heritage) are. If nothing else, it is none of our business. But not so Hawai'i, Cuba, Puerto Rico, or the Philippines! And this is was the days of American "isolationism" and rebuilding from our own disastrous Civil War, the effects of which still plague us a century and a half later. The Last Samurai, another film, tells how American arms merchants (as well as British and others) set Japan on its reckless imperial adventures in the 20th Century.
What happens when all the dirt on all the past heroes comes out? I wonder how many millions of votes the Democrats will lose on account of the revelations following the 50 year exclusion rule on exposing the Kennedy Administration's many crimes and corruptions? Peter Jennings told much the same story for ABC in about 2000 - shortly before he died. I wonder if it wasn't knowing he would die that allowed him to produce this remarkable document (much richer in details on Kennedy's essentially mafia-controlled and imperial presidency than the recent fare). I taped it off the air, and still have it. I doubt it is easily available otherwise.
But isn't that a GOOD thing, the Twilight of the Idols? Shouldn't liars and deceivers LOSE votes and public esteem? This isn't the mafia, making their own movies to justify themselves. It's actual history, where all the facts and inter-relationships count. There will be adjustments to correct willful lies, cover-ups and distortions. We can't simply say - well, that's history. We must proceed from where we are, today. Even though that is what we SHOULD do (and many of us are forced to do in our professional or public lives).
But not by the same dishonest and exploitative rules and practices. Those who go and sin no more will be recognized, if not rewarded. Those who don't will be liquidated - by the machines if not by the small number of still-surviving patriots and freemen. You cannot destroy freedom in the name of freedom with impunity. It's almost a natural law.
======================
Thoughts on the Create Channel (PBS)
The "globalization" community in Great Falls - liking African and Asian cultures, being "international" in whatever ways, no doubt watches channels 21-3 (Create) and 21-4 (World) channels the most. And I'm certainly part of that. I watch Rick Steves and some of the other travel programs on Create, and have even watched a few of the cooking programs - where I'm astounded at seeing them use handfuls of salt like there was no cardio-vascular tomorrow.
Today, I was "treated" to a Globe Trekker program about "Panamerica" - Central and South America, or what we used to call "Latin America."
Just before watching this, they ran the Nature program on Hummingbirds on 21-1 (the main MT-PBS station) as part of their "pledge drive"- a sort of extended "infomercial" using popular programs as "bait." And the Hummingbirds show was spectacular, with all sorts of evolutionary theory and advanced field biology included.
Imagine, then, my disgust and horror when 30 minutes later, in the "Panamerica" show (with some imperialist history, and very little real educational content), the hostess enters a shop in some remote village selling stuffed hummingbirds as "good-luck charms" or even "love tokens" (since live hummingbirds are so enjoyed and loved by those who have them as neighbors).
"How much?" our cheerful hostess asked? $3. "I'll take one." We can only hope and pray that she will be arrested at her home airport, and receive some hard time for her dirty deeds. If in doubt, leave it out. Even the dumbest corporation understands that!
But no, the purpose, here, is to make environmentalists and animal rights activists look stupid. It's a perennial theme here in Montana, where the main environmental watchdog organizations talk endlessly about mercury and coal dust, wolves, bison and grizzly bears, but refuse to ever comment on global warming, or the global environmental disasters we face from the nuclear arms race, and continuing to burn fossil fuels and use other unsustainable technologies. Thus, Greens are constantly pitted against unions, "jobs", "free trade", "economic growth", "national security", and even public health and safety. Even when the Greens are correct, and most people agree with us, there are huge campaigns through the corporate media to discredit environmentalists and their work - most notably, the anti-global warming campaign (characterized as a War against Coal - which it surely is) and the Single Payer Healthcare campaign (characterized as a "government takeover" - which it surely is) - all coordinated by ALEC and a host of other corporate crime syndicates.
Governments, as the servants of powerful corporate interests (especially the drug cartels, AMA, Hospital Associations, and others ) "took it over" decades, if not a century, ago. What we have, now, is almost entirely criminal and exploitative in intent, as well as in execution. And it is all governed by the rotten, lying, gangster-ridden "health-insurance" extortion racket - the only case, outside of automobile liability insurance, where it is reasonable - where people are forced, under penalty of a fine, to buy a defective product which is at least 4 times more expensive than the actual services it is supposed to provide.
And even worse, it explicitly depends on lower-income working people to pay for the healthcare of those who are far poorer, sicker, and in need of it! This is actually defended by the promoters of the ACA as "vital" to its working! It can only work if it further enslaves working people and those who take care of their health on their own! Unbelievable.
Meanwhile, more than half of existing healthcare costs (under this rotten system) is paid BY THE TAXPAYERS. Since we spend about 4 times what almost any other country spends (per capita, or as a percentage of GDP) on healthcare, it is clear that we need no new programs or spending. We only need to quit doing what we're doing now, and put everyone on Medicare, with strict regulation of prices and quality standards. Those who don't want Medicare should be free to start their own associations, or use a real "free market" (unencumbered by patents, licenses, etc.) to provide them with what they want and need.
I've probably spent hundreds, if not thousands of hours on this one idea - HEALTH INSURANCE IS A CATEGORY MISTAKE. The only way they can even sell something as absurd and fraudulent as "health insurance" as a way of providing health care, is if there is no other way to access and pay for healthcare - something which the providers, themselves, mandate by forcing cash customers to pay an average of 4 times more for the same services - and collectable in law - even from the estates of those who died of their overpriced and often fraudulent "treatments" (like radiation for cancer). If you can't get healthcare any other way, then, buying a promise of ACCESS to healthcare may be necessary, but only because THERE ISN'T ANY OTHER WAY TO GET IT. All we need to do is make sure that everyone has access, and that the monopolies don't control the supply and price, as they do, today.
That's another issue, but one which deserves mention, here. A century ago, nearly every voter and educated person understood the harm which monopolies were doing to our economy and to those who weren't part of the monopolies. Laws were passed against them and for a time, enforced. Since Ayn Rand denounced "Anti-trust Laws" (really, anti-monopoly and anti-corporate laws - both of which Rand supported) in the 1960's (especially Kennedy's political use of them against the steel industry and General Electric), they have been in disfavor.
There is virtually nothing of the real spirit of freedom and competition left in our legal system. Even professional sports is thoroughly monopolized, as are most other "industries" like health care, the "criminal justice system", education, universities, etc. The only way to be "free" of this "government takeover" is to pay your taxes, but provide for your own medicine, education, etc, - much of which is quite illegal, by now. We are, indeed, a military-industrial-education-prison complex. It's all part of the same deal, and we are its victims.
I wrote the above before reading this "Day of Mourning" statement from Leonard Peltier. Then I revised it. But it's all part of the same message....
=============
Day Of Mourning Statement From Leonard Peltier
EDUCATE! CORPORATISM, CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND PRISONS
By Leonard Peltier, www.OfficialLeonardPeltier
November 29th, 2013
http://www.popularresistance.org/day-of-mourning-statement-from-leonard-peltier/
Greetings my relatives friends and supporters
It is yet another year. It seems like a thousand years ago but only a year in time in reality from the last time I dictated one of these statement for the day of mourning so, again, I want to say as last time, that I am honored that you would want to hear my words.
Sometimes when I lay on my bunk and I am between sleeping and awake, for a small moment of time, I am free and I am there with you. I know this sounds kind of melodramatic and I am not trying to be so, but things affect you differently inside of here and things affect you differently as you get older. But I want to say with all my strength, some things don’t change, at least not for me.
When I think about all we have lost to this corporate world, when I think about the losses of clean water and rivers and oceans and when I think about the losses of clean air when I think about the losses of freedom for hard working families that once had a father that could take care of his family with as single job but now has to work two or three jobs and the mother must work too and the children that come home from school with their own key and have to wait the return of one of their parents.
When I think of these losses, when I think of the wage slaves that are being created daily all over the world in the name of progress, when I think of these losses I think… we damn sure have a good reason to mourn, but I really believe that the word mourn should have a different meaning for us, not something where we cry and throw our hands up and say “ WHY WHY, WHY ME, WHY US, WHY THIS” but something that we say NO MORE to. Something we make a vow to, renew our efforts, renew our minds, renew our directions to take back our water take back our air take back our forests and our mountains and valleys, restore this mother earth to the natural balance the creator meant it to be. We need to talk to the churches, talk to the various religions, we need to get them to recognize that the strongest form or worship isn’t singing songs and bowing your head, the strongest form of worship is to respect and restore to balance the beauty of nature and the earth that was given to us, that is part of us, that we are a part of, and to be responsible for.
This may sound like the ramblings of some old 69 year old man in prison for 38 years but I have had a lot of time to think about these things and when my grandchildren come to visit me, it gives me a sense of urgency for all of us to start doing something NOW!
If each one of you would take a vow to get six other people along with yourself to do at least ONE meaningful thing to restore this balance and get each one of those people to network and get 6 more people and let it go out from there like the branches of a tree then together we can make a difference. We can make a difference starting today.
This day of mourning would become the morning of a new day!
I have quoted others before and I do so again because I respect the wisdom of elders and people long past. Someone once said and I don’t remember who said it, “All evil needs to triumph is for good people to do nothing.”
[Edmund Burke, the grandfather of all modern "conservatives", and no less true for that. -ed.]
If this is more than you care to do, or if you think you can’t be involved with others for some reason, I respect that, but I would encourage you to at least plant one fruit bearing tree that someone in the future, perhaps some child would have something to eat. That maybe some other living creature might have a place of shelter and food to eat. there will always be changes throughout the earth and throughout mankind, some uncontrollable and some with design.
I know we can make a change for the better if we put our hearts and minds together and let this day of mourning be a time of renewal, we can spread the concept that mankind must live in harmony with the creators handy-work and with one another. If this time I have spent here in prison could produce anything of value I pray that it would move you to become involved. Find the right things within government and support them, and find the wrong things in government and change them. This government as it stands right now is on the verge of losing what constitutional rights people have. This government is violating the constitution over and over and over. These violations started before you or I were even conceived. As some of you may know the Constitution is a copy of the Iroquois 6 nations Confederacy law. The constitution originally was designed so that men would have maximum freedoms as long as they did not infringe on the natural rights of others or in essence harm someone else. The freedoms and respect that the law implies that we should have for one another in this nation should extend to all those outside of this realm because what is right for one man should be right for others.
We should allow other people to be free from fear. I remember an old Jewish man I once met in hardware store, I engaged in conversation with him. He had fought in WW2 and he said to me, and I always remember his words, “this isn’t the nation I fought for, this nation has become a nation of people who are afraid of their gov’t and anytime the people are afraid of their gov’t they are not free and I have noticed that what people will do to someone else wrongfully, sooner or later if circumstances change they will do it to you also."
These violations of human rights must stop. I know the task may seem overwhelming and I can’t say that I have the answer for success at making a change but I do know the answer for failure.. that's to do nothing.
So if my imprisonment serves nothing else but to be living proof of these violations, then so be it, but it is a reality. Right now, it has been selective violation, but there are powers at hand that seek to inflict those violations upon everyone. This reminds me of a story that I heard once where a man said:
“First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak out for me.”
I ask you to remember these things because they are truisms that have happened and they will happen again to you and your children and your children’s children if we do not take a stand. a famous warrior named Emiliano Zapata from the Mexican revolution once said “I would rather die on my feet then live on my knees” …. I could go on and on but I suppose you get my meaning. I encourage you to be active, to stand your ground and help us recover the ground we have lost.
God, I wish I could be there with you.
I am going to close for now. Be thankful you have the time you have, be thankful you have each other, and give each other a hug for me.
I will see you when I see you
Your friend
Leonard Peltier
Wednesday, October 30, 2013
Iran, Harvard, and Neo-liberalism
Iran-Nukes and the Harvard Imperialist Tradition...
I've just seen an Asian Voices program on the World PBS channel. They addressed the question "Is Iran's nuclear program a threat to the rest of the world?"
First, they had representatives and journalists from Iran explain what it was, what it wasn't, and why Iran insists on its rights to develop its nuclear industry, and how little uranium enrichment it has actually done or plans to do - not even enough for a research reactor, so far.
This was followed by a Harvard professor and think-tank expert, who represents the Kissinger-Powers axis of U.S. hegemony theory.
-----------
Harvard Guy:
International agencies have repeatedly investigated or passed resolutions against Iran and its nuclear enrichment program. Therefore, Iran is a serious problem and we shouldn't let up the pressure on them to end their nuclear program.
-------------
As if this "international", Security Council, IAEA policy had nothing to do with US pressure, responding to Israel's vengeful, paranoid view of the world???
If we were serious about Iran's nuclear program being a threat, we'd have to acknowledge that every other nuclear program in the world - especially among non-signatories of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, like Israel, India, Pakistan, and others - is a much greater one, since they have actually built and tested nuclear weapons. And there are very good reasons for a total moratorium on all further nuclear fuel or weapons-grade uranium/plutonium processing. It's called Fukushima, which at this very moment, threatens to render most of Japan and much of China and Korea uninhabitable for decades, if not centuries. Instead, we're talking about Iran, which doesn't have enough nuclear fuel or enriched uranium to build a single bomb - even if they wanted to build one. But Fukushima threatens to release the radiation of 10,000 Hiroshimas. The Japanese government has declared itself helpless to defuse that time-bomb, and the rest of the world hasn't even started, after 2 1/2 years, to help them.
*********
Is Harvard the problem?
I'm beginning to think that there is a consistent pattern in "Harvard" thinking and policy. They always pretend that the embargos and sanctions against "terrorist" countries (like Iran or Cuba) is an open, democratic, scientific process, when in fact they are all CIA, NSA, and other "secret government" operations, with very different purposes than what journalists are allowed to tell us (or even Members of Congress or the President might know). Call Harvard "CIA U" from now on, but so is Yale, Princeton, and several others. And so, they keep stoking the fires for new wars, US corporate hegemony, etc.
Remember, Teddy Roosevelt was a leading Harvard alum at the time, and those attitudes dominate to the present day. Instead of "Inventing the Future at MIT", the title of a Stewart Brand book about the Medialab, we might identify a parallel process of "Inventing Neo-liberalism at Harvard." There's an old saying that "Harvard alumni own the world, and MIT runs it for them." Too true, I'm afraid. Stanford, Berkeley, and Silicon Valley have given them a run for their money, though - to the further detriment of the planet and those of us forced to live here in poverty and deprivation.
Although I'm no fan of Neoliberalism, there is some sort of theoretical justification for it, so long as "human rights", free trade, and the other liberal shiboleths are somehow included in the package. In fact, it's better described as Military Keynesianism or even Disaster Capitalism, somehow made palatable by another Harvard economist, Josef Schumpeter (an Austrian contemporary and friend of Hayek), and his doctrine of "creative destruction." Although that works on the micro-level, in the theory of the firm and economic and/or technological advancement, it has little to do with actually bombing and killing people, which is what Military Keynesianism and Disaster Capitalism are all about.
And I shouldn't forget Princeton, either. Indeed, it might have an even more storied past, when it comes to fomenting wars and dictatorships (not to mention slavery and feudalism). I've had several close friends who were Princeton grads, so I know of what I speak. In fact, I was trying to figure out how I could use a recently-gleaned fact to play a kind of practical joke on them - especially with respect to the rhetoric of Jews vs. "anti-Semites" and "Holocaust deniers."
In 1938, Einstein finally decided he needed to get out of Germany. As a Nobel Prize winner, of course, he had his pick of jobs. He chose Princeton's Center for Advanced Study, over many prestigious alternatives. (Was it a blessing or Divine Providence that the younger and lesser-known Karl Popper, faced with the same alternative, could only find a post in New Zealand?)
After much soul-searching, and being informed that he was the #2 choice of Princeton students for "Greatest Living Human", or something to that effect, he decided to go there. Unfortunately, Einstein was not told, apparently, that the #1 choice in (early) 1938 was Adolf Hitler. Seriously.
Perhaps it merely speaks to Einstein's exemplary intellectual and moral courage. But it also teaches us an historical lesson. No one rises to greatness by evil means - or even just shrewdness and ability to manipulate the system. If a person had the ability to organize and destroy half of Europe, in the name of racism and "Nordic superiority", he certainly deserves at least a Nobel Prize. Perhaps that was the Norwegian Parliament's thinking about Obama. He is such a man, and they wanted to pay him off in advance. No matter how you twist it, you cannot claim that a Nobel Prize is an insult - no matter how many mass murderers have been named its "Laureates."
Had Hitler been given the Nobel Peace Prize in 1936, perhaps his evil designs could have been forestalled. Or, like Churchill, they might have given it to him for Literature (Mein Kampf), rather than Peace. Remember, he was trading in the same kind of capital the Zionists use, today. Germany was dishonored in the Treaty of Versailles. Wilson's 14 Points were disregarded. The world economy was destroyed by the demands for reparations and the inflations designed to reduce them. There was no "Truth and Reconciliation" process, and Americans by the millions believe to this day that the Great War was all Germany's fault.
Hitler played on this victimization of his homeland, which, after all, was Austria, not Germany. Somehow, he captured the sense of betrayal and despair in a Germany which hadn't been defeated on the battlefield, but due to American intervention. Although Germany hadn't surrendered (it was an "Armistice" - a cease fire with negotiation, not a surrender), but the Germans were soon disarmed and put under military occupation. This was dictated by the the French and British who had started the war, or at least made it inevitable. And when you consider that the British King, Russian Czar, and German Kaiser were first-cousins, who had played together as boys - all grandsons of Queen Victoria - the senselessness and pettiness of that 40 million dead made Hitler, a decorated common soldier, into the savior of his nation and people, much as Napoleon had been.
So, don't be too harsh on the Princeton boys. After all, it was their own university President, Woodrow Wilson, who created Hitler, and millions of other Nazis, National Fronts, and Neo-Imperialists of all kinds. Ask Donald Rumsfeld, who studied philosophy there.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Spielberg's "Lincoln," Justice, and other topics....
Once more: Civil Wars are not good, and should not be glorified or perpetuated...
Most people simply don't understand (or perhaps misunderstand) Justice. What is justice? Many seem to think it is fine as long as it can be used against others. It never applies to one's own actions or policies.
That's clearly what most people - especially our current President and most of Congress, the Judiciary, etc - believe, today. In other words, they do NOT believe in "the Golden Rule", Categorical Imperative, or other principles of universality and identity - "What's good for the goose is good for the gander," to quote a famous feminist whose name has been lost to history.
I was watching the recent Spielberg version of the final months of Lincoln's life and work. I suppose it is all as historically accurate as could be reconstructed from journals, letters, etc. Do we really know people before the days of sound and visual recordings? Of course, there were crude photographs, carefully posed and created at considerable expense, but before that, there were always artists to record history (and mythology).
One of the most controversial parts of Daniel Day Lewis's portrayal was the high-pitched conversational voice - nothing like the voice of a tyrant or other strong leader. Maybe it was Lincoln who TR was thinking of when he said, "Speak softly, and carry a big stick." In any case, it was thought to be historically accurate, and fits the psycho-analytic account of Lincoln as a kind of anally-retentive adolescent, or what we would now call "an Old Boy".
Of course, they were all cigar-smoking, whiskey-swigging barbarians by today's standards, but in Montana, they'd fit right in - even now. Lincoln had but a few years of any kind of formal education, yet read widely (or at least deeply) on his own - not by today's standards, but when you only have a few books, you read and re-read them carefully, even adopting that style of thinking and writing. The King James Bible and Shakespeare are all one really needs to re-create the mind of Abraham Lincoln (in a literary sense, anyway). Being some sort of backwoodsman or frontiersman accounts for the rest of what he was, which included Indian fighting. I'm not sure he was as personally friendly with Black soldiers as is shown in the film, either. But the prevailing attitudes of the time were much more racist, on average, than they are, today - although maybe not 50 years ago.
I bought a DVD of "Lincoln" at my local pawnshop (for $2) shortly after it was released - some good soul having quickly recycled his or her retail purchase. I had also read several reviews and essays on the film (and saved a lot more). So, I wasn't suprised, but found it difficult to watch, so put it aside until last week, when I watched it carefully in several installments.
Lincoln was the most important president in the Stephens family tradition (having long before divorced ourselves from the memory of "Little Aleck" Stephens, who is well-portrayed in this film). Yet, the women, at least (many of whom were trained as teachers) tended not to like him so much, and there are several books from my grandmother's library which are clearly anti-Lincoln (as most of the press and East Coast society were - a point brought out very clearly in the film).
In his own lifetime, Lincoln was widely hated, not only by Southerners and other elitists, but by his own party, the military, and, it's safe to say, nearly all common soldiers. Only a small percentage thought they were fighting to free the slaves, for example, and Lincoln was certainly a compromiser on that, caving into the "Radical Republicans" who held the government hostage, much as the Neo-Cons do, today (while it is all blamed on the "libertarian" TEA's, who are identified as today's "Secessionists").
If it was meant to be a parable for Pres. Obama, it is well-done - even down to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra performing in the soundtrack. I hope he watched it two or three times with some learned advisors - he could have learned a lot from it, and perhaps he has.
In the film, Lincoln asks an engineer if he studied Euclid, the answer being that he'd studied it in school, but remembers little of it now. Lincoln quotes something - basically, the Law of Identity - one of the Postulates or Theorems (which he called "common notions") which says that if a=b, and b=c, then a=c. It's also a basic rule of Aristotelian logic, which was supposed to "superceded" by Frege and Russell-Whitehead, among others. The Logical Positivists, Vienna Circle (Verein Ernst Mach), and even the General Semantics movement continued this crusade against Aristotle and the "tyranny" of his logic and naivete of his science.
In fact, such criticisms are nonsense, as those who studied the history of ideas pointed out - especially Popper. The fine points of logic and epistemology have nothing to do with the larger revolt against reason and science, which is destroying our world before our very eyes. And part of it is the idea that knowledge is bound by a priori rules, which are somehow to be "enforced" by academia, and the police powers of the State.
And so, Justice depends on Reason, but not in an authoritarian, deterministic sense. It depends on critical or "evolutionary" Rationalism, which includes everything, and does not categorically reject certain things because they are "immoral" or even "contrary to the public interest." Knowledge, as well as Justice, is an open-ended game.
The only real good is a good Will - the desire to help and respect others, rather than oppressing, attacking, or destroying them. And that is the great sin of our times - to treat people equally (badly), rather than according to what they are and what they have done, or what they can become with better treatment. Criminals are made, not born, as are every kind of sociopath, which used to be the very definition of "criminal." Whoever tries to exploit or enslave others is the criminal, not the persons who are so exploited and enslaved.
Lincoln probably understood this. But most of today's political power brokers clearly do not. As I've often said, we don't have political parties, anymore. We have corporate crime syndicates. And until we get rid of them or remove them from their controlling positions over every branch of government, we are more or less doomed - to poverty and slavery, if not nuclear or environmental catastrophe.
===========
I'm still amazed at the residual racism in Montana, even in those a generation younger than my own - and it's directed not only at Native Americans, but Asians, Blacks, Hispanics, and now more often, Muslims. Montana has good trade and investment relations with Korea, Japan, and the several China's - Hong Kong, especially. And with Southeast Asia - Thailand, Indonesia, etc. They all buy our grain and want to buy our coal. But most of the Blacks and Asians here, came with the military, although large numbers of Chinese came as laborers in the railroad and mining camps, and as soon as one job was done, and they had accumulated a little capital, they went into business - laundries, restaurants, gardening, etc., just like California.
At the same time, the Black regiments from the Civil War - called "buffalo soldiers" by the Indians because of their skin color and bushy hair - were stationed here, along with many freed slaves who became cowboys and businesswomen in various frontier town pursuits. WWII brought in a new generation of Black soldiers, and I'm told by some of their descendants that Malmstrom was actually designated as suitable for mixed-race couples who would have fared badly in the South back in the 1940's and '50's. Still, there were only a handful of black students out of some 2000 enrolled at Great Falls High School which I attended from 1962-65. And aside from a few Metis with French names, there were virtually no Native American high school graduates in those days. I used to take one in the cab who graduated in 1969, and he claimed to be the first one, ever.
A slight exaggeration, but not much. How ironic that the GF made of whitewashed rocks on Hill 57 also marked the home of the Indian shanty-town where people lived in the most abject poverty. (Hill 57 was so named because it had an improvised sign for Heinz products, "57 varieties" also formed of whitewashed rocks. Nobody said we weren't a steakhouse town!).
I spent my really formative years (birth-6 years old, and on through high school, although we lived "in town" during the school year) on a mid-sized wheat and cattle ranch - one of the oldest in that community - Upper Highwood - still in the hands of the original homesteaders' descendants. My grandfather Stephens was revered - by everyone, it would seem, but his own sons, who more or less did the opposite of what he would have counseled, and drank themselves to death in the process. My father did understand it intellectually, though. He was a very learned and refined man, without most of the vulgar bullying and other vices common to the peasantry who surrounded him in his early years (many of whom are quite accomplished and distinguished, now).
He was also a man of peace. His father, my great-grandfather, actually voted for Lincoln in 1864 - the first vote he ever cast for President. So, we were real "Lincoln Republicans", and from the same general location, Kentucky and Illinois at the same time Lincoln flourished. Some of my ancestors fought in the Blackhawk Wars, too - perhaps even as Lincoln's commander, since one was a Colonel Yocom, who was my great-grandmother's father. I even have a Bible in my possession which she gave to my uncle Charles when he was a small boy.
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Tester on Nuke politics and economics
Jon Tester's class
Nobody said Jon isn't a great teacher. And part of a great family or clan. So, I always push him forward as "one of the good guys" even while I revile some of the positions he has been forced to take.
What he has done, apparently, is separated his supporters into sheep and goats. It's like splitting the class in a small country school by year, or in this case, by temperament. Some people think for themselves. Put them together, or mix them judiciously with the sheep - who just do and think what they are told. Get every student on a growing, exploring, learning track - finding out things that are important to them. And never forget the Big Picture - global capitalism, a rapidly collapsing environment, constant wars over oil and religion - hey, it's getting to sound a lot like Montana, isn't it?
So, he is the man for the moment. But he's got to start talking more sense. He needs better speechwriters and advisers. He needs his own "brain trust" or think tank, which I would be happy to help organize (don't pack it with a lot of hacks and expect me to work with it, though). Etc.
Montanans never understood Baucus, or what he was about. As I've said, before, he was an Oligarch, created for the part. And that was disastrous - not only for us, but for the nation and the planet. And by supporting him, Montana's best and brightest have condemned themselves to eternal infamy. We told them a thousand times and in a thousand ways - this is wrong. Corporate capitalism is not the answer. But, they didn't listen, and now we're on the verge of extinction - something we have always been since Baucus's predecessors made us into a Doomsday Machine.
It's serious, folks. Tester's greatest mistake thus far is siding with the fanatical "missiliers". The issue has never been the Base (Malmstrom), or "the local economy" and "5000 jobs", and depending on the source, anywhere from 25-46% of this "local economy". I keep telling them: that's the figure for percentages of FEDERAL SPENDING in Cascade County or whatever. And it may or may not include other military spending like pensions and Vet's benefits (which should, of course, be the same for everyone, and not depend on military service or anything else - least of all one's financial resources, or lack of them). But even if it does, you'd find that military spending for the nation as a whole is less than 8% of the national economy, and if Great Falls has 46% military economy, there are lots of other places with less than the average (and whose bases have already been closed) who will want to know why.
Face it. We've developed a cult of nuclear terrorism. We ARE the nuclear terrorists, and have been since Vietnam, which at the time was out of Minuteman range. When our mission was seen as "resisting Communist aggression" (of which there actually was none - it was all part of the same revolutionary, anti-colonialist struggle which gave birth to the USA), they could find people to support it. But now that it's clearly fighting over nothing but religion and oil, and the mechanisms of "Disaster Capitalism", leading to frequent wars and a vast increase in deaths and suffering, as well as destruction of the environment - well, we're done with it. The main focus of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) has become anti-development, anti-intellectual, anti-intelligence, anti-culture, and like always, anti-peace and prosperity. You don't get rich off of a missile farm no matter how much fertilizer you spread on it.
Worse, in violation of all American political tradition, it has propped up imperialism and "globalization" (One World Government) at the costs of 10's of millions of lives and probably $10-20 trillion in present money. People who still defend Vietnam and the "sacrifice" our nation made to destroy another nation must be counted as Imperialists. Most of the rank and file soldier-veterans who were there understand. But their leadership so often seems to be still obsessed with blaming Jane Fonda or "Peaceniks" for our defeat. The short answer is "Our defeat was just. It was an unjust war we started, and we deserved to lose."
In WWI, the Germans lost after the British tricked and maneuvered the US (under the Southern Anglophile president, Woodrow Wilson) into joining the war against Germany (and the Ottoman Empire, which included the so-called "Jewish Homeland" which the Zionists had already planned to settle and seize by some sort of under-the-table deal). After the War, with Germany in ruins and forced to accept terms dictated, not by Wilson and his fairly sensible "14 points", but by the vindictive French and British, who were then expanding into Ottoman Territory which they then claimed as "protectorates" (still the basis for the nations and conflicts raging today). The German Veterans organized what they called "Freikorps", right-wing militias led by people who blamed the Jews and Social Democrats for "back-stabbing" in the Reichstag, and in the Jewish-owned press, and that's what gave rise to the Nazis and, arguably, WWII and the Holocaust.
NATO was supposedly organized after the Soviet Union organized the Warsaw Pact for mutual defense against attacks from the capitalist-imperialists (as well as religious anti-communist crusaders) of Western Europe, always controlled by the US, which had ended WWII unscathed, and as the totally dominant global economic superpower.
But of course NATO already existed, as the Allied Forces in Europe, which later evolved into the EU as well as NATO. The only mystery here is why the US continues to have a "Euro-focus" in its military and economic organization. In fact, large militaries are no longer needed. And we certainly don't need nuclear arsenals, which along with nuclear power generation, have proven to be the most catastrophic technologies ever devised.
So, why are we still in NATO? What is the purpose of a vast military alliance based on utterly destroying other nations and people, and even making them unfit for future habitation, not to mention destroying the whole global ecosystem which many want to deny even exists. NATO was directed against some alleged "threat" which the Soviet Union posed to Western Europe (even though most of Western Europe didn't feel threatened or want our "protection" - only their capitalistic elites). Finally, due to Gorbachev and Reagan having maintained some desire for peace and reconciliation, the Cold War ended. No more nukes. No more Doomsday Machine.
There's a great 60 Minutes episode from back in the 1990's (I have both tape and transcripts of this, somewhere) called "The Missiliers", in which they interview missile crews, officers, and generals in command in Russia as well as the US, basically asking the question, "Why are these still here?" Needless to say, most of the military people interviewed had the same question, with nothing but the "official answer" used by lobbyists for contractors and suppliers, as well as a few extreme "consultants" who were ex-missile officers, themselves. It's deterrence. It's our careers. It's local jobs, It's to prove we won't be bullied by "the other side", etc. The usual pattern.
To his credit, Dan Rather is suitably shocked when he finds that virtually nothing has been done beyond buying or securing a lot of the Russian arsenal, by turning it into reactor fuel, etc. So, we're down to something like 3600 lanchable warheads per side, and Start II has just been blocked in the Senate, which would have halved this number down to some 1600. Needless to say, Baucus and the other "Missile Senators" were key votes in this and every other treaty. And, the treaties themselves were deeply flawed. Old warheads weren't being destroyed. They only needed to be warehoused and defused.
The danger of an all-out nuclear war is no less, now, than it was 30 years ago - in fact, it's more likely with several new and "rogue" nuclear powers - starting with Israel. Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and is quite open about its lack of nuclear weapon ambitions. So, all the punishments, sanctions, etc. were for nothing, and they were and are serious violations of international law. Embargos (like we still maintain against Cuba, as well as Iran, North Korea, Syria, and a number of other countries designated as "terrorists states") are equivalent to an act of war - you can't stop other nations from trading, or tell them who to trade with except as acts of war.
Meanwhile, India and Pakistan now have substantial nuclear arsenals - the 200 or so thought sufficient by rational smaller countries - as a "deterrent" or whatever in hell they are supposed to do. Create jobs, I guess. Or make us feel more "secure." Yeh, right. Let me warn you - there's a lot of religion involved in it, and this can go in any direction at any time.
Any nation with a substantial (or even a small) nuclear power industry is only a few months away from building a plutonium bomb, which is what most of the warheads are. The higher-yield thermonuclear warheads we use on the Minuteman and Tridents use tritium, which decays and is hard to produce, as well as being very corrosive and toxic. The nuclear weapons production and maintenance industry is huge in the Western US - particularly Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and to a lesser extent, Montana and its neighbors actually housing the land-based strategic nuclear missile arsenal. Malmstrom and FE Warren (Cheyenne, WY) vied for leadership in this "power bloc", and for a long time, we had 200 missiles while FE Warren had the only MX squadron of 50 missiles, each carrying up to 10 warheads, allegedly to "counter" a Russian missile of similar capacity. Such was the strategy of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, which guided Cold War policy. It was largely our revulsion at the idea of building an arsenal for mutual destruction that finally ended the Cold War - just to get rid of it.
So now, Sen. Tester seems to be telling us something like this:
"Sorry, guys. We still have the missiles, and we're not getting rid of them. We have a kind of direct democracy in the Military. Them that's got the guns, got's the gold. Or plutonium-tritium, in this case. Do you know what a working Minuteman missile with a 320 KT warhead is worth on the open market? We could even provide the launch service. Just tell us where to point it, and pay the money. How much? How about $20 million, the same price some of you pay to spend a few days in a Soyuz space station, or a round-trip to the International Space Station (another $100 billion boondoggle with no benefits to the taxpayers). When everything else is gone, we'll still have the Missiles of Montana, or at least the holes they came out of. You can count on it...."
Nobody said Jon isn't a great teacher. And part of a great family or clan. So, I always push him forward as "one of the good guys" even while I revile some of the positions he has been forced to take.
What he has done, apparently, is separated his supporters into sheep and goats. It's like splitting the class in a small country school by year, or in this case, by temperament. Some people think for themselves. Put them together, or mix them judiciously with the sheep - who just do and think what they are told. Get every student on a growing, exploring, learning track - finding out things that are important to them. And never forget the Big Picture - global capitalism, a rapidly collapsing environment, constant wars over oil and religion - hey, it's getting to sound a lot like Montana, isn't it?
So, he is the man for the moment. But he's got to start talking more sense. He needs better speechwriters and advisers. He needs his own "brain trust" or think tank, which I would be happy to help organize (don't pack it with a lot of hacks and expect me to work with it, though). Etc.
Montanans never understood Baucus, or what he was about. As I've said, before, he was an Oligarch, created for the part. And that was disastrous - not only for us, but for the nation and the planet. And by supporting him, Montana's best and brightest have condemned themselves to eternal infamy. We told them a thousand times and in a thousand ways - this is wrong. Corporate capitalism is not the answer. But, they didn't listen, and now we're on the verge of extinction - something we have always been since Baucus's predecessors made us into a Doomsday Machine.
It's serious, folks. Tester's greatest mistake thus far is siding with the fanatical "missiliers". The issue has never been the Base (Malmstrom), or "the local economy" and "5000 jobs", and depending on the source, anywhere from 25-46% of this "local economy". I keep telling them: that's the figure for percentages of FEDERAL SPENDING in Cascade County or whatever. And it may or may not include other military spending like pensions and Vet's benefits (which should, of course, be the same for everyone, and not depend on military service or anything else - least of all one's financial resources, or lack of them). But even if it does, you'd find that military spending for the nation as a whole is less than 8% of the national economy, and if Great Falls has 46% military economy, there are lots of other places with less than the average (and whose bases have already been closed) who will want to know why.
Face it. We've developed a cult of nuclear terrorism. We ARE the nuclear terrorists, and have been since Vietnam, which at the time was out of Minuteman range. When our mission was seen as "resisting Communist aggression" (of which there actually was none - it was all part of the same revolutionary, anti-colonialist struggle which gave birth to the USA), they could find people to support it. But now that it's clearly fighting over nothing but religion and oil, and the mechanisms of "Disaster Capitalism", leading to frequent wars and a vast increase in deaths and suffering, as well as destruction of the environment - well, we're done with it. The main focus of the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) has become anti-development, anti-intellectual, anti-intelligence, anti-culture, and like always, anti-peace and prosperity. You don't get rich off of a missile farm no matter how much fertilizer you spread on it.
Worse, in violation of all American political tradition, it has propped up imperialism and "globalization" (One World Government) at the costs of 10's of millions of lives and probably $10-20 trillion in present money. People who still defend Vietnam and the "sacrifice" our nation made to destroy another nation must be counted as Imperialists. Most of the rank and file soldier-veterans who were there understand. But their leadership so often seems to be still obsessed with blaming Jane Fonda or "Peaceniks" for our defeat. The short answer is "Our defeat was just. It was an unjust war we started, and we deserved to lose."
In WWI, the Germans lost after the British tricked and maneuvered the US (under the Southern Anglophile president, Woodrow Wilson) into joining the war against Germany (and the Ottoman Empire, which included the so-called "Jewish Homeland" which the Zionists had already planned to settle and seize by some sort of under-the-table deal). After the War, with Germany in ruins and forced to accept terms dictated, not by Wilson and his fairly sensible "14 points", but by the vindictive French and British, who were then expanding into Ottoman Territory which they then claimed as "protectorates" (still the basis for the nations and conflicts raging today). The German Veterans organized what they called "Freikorps", right-wing militias led by people who blamed the Jews and Social Democrats for "back-stabbing" in the Reichstag, and in the Jewish-owned press, and that's what gave rise to the Nazis and, arguably, WWII and the Holocaust.
NATO was supposedly organized after the Soviet Union organized the Warsaw Pact for mutual defense against attacks from the capitalist-imperialists (as well as religious anti-communist crusaders) of Western Europe, always controlled by the US, which had ended WWII unscathed, and as the totally dominant global economic superpower.
But of course NATO already existed, as the Allied Forces in Europe, which later evolved into the EU as well as NATO. The only mystery here is why the US continues to have a "Euro-focus" in its military and economic organization. In fact, large militaries are no longer needed. And we certainly don't need nuclear arsenals, which along with nuclear power generation, have proven to be the most catastrophic technologies ever devised.
So, why are we still in NATO? What is the purpose of a vast military alliance based on utterly destroying other nations and people, and even making them unfit for future habitation, not to mention destroying the whole global ecosystem which many want to deny even exists. NATO was directed against some alleged "threat" which the Soviet Union posed to Western Europe (even though most of Western Europe didn't feel threatened or want our "protection" - only their capitalistic elites). Finally, due to Gorbachev and Reagan having maintained some desire for peace and reconciliation, the Cold War ended. No more nukes. No more Doomsday Machine.
There's a great 60 Minutes episode from back in the 1990's (I have both tape and transcripts of this, somewhere) called "The Missiliers", in which they interview missile crews, officers, and generals in command in Russia as well as the US, basically asking the question, "Why are these still here?" Needless to say, most of the military people interviewed had the same question, with nothing but the "official answer" used by lobbyists for contractors and suppliers, as well as a few extreme "consultants" who were ex-missile officers, themselves. It's deterrence. It's our careers. It's local jobs, It's to prove we won't be bullied by "the other side", etc. The usual pattern.
To his credit, Dan Rather is suitably shocked when he finds that virtually nothing has been done beyond buying or securing a lot of the Russian arsenal, by turning it into reactor fuel, etc. So, we're down to something like 3600 lanchable warheads per side, and Start II has just been blocked in the Senate, which would have halved this number down to some 1600. Needless to say, Baucus and the other "Missile Senators" were key votes in this and every other treaty. And, the treaties themselves were deeply flawed. Old warheads weren't being destroyed. They only needed to be warehoused and defused.
The danger of an all-out nuclear war is no less, now, than it was 30 years ago - in fact, it's more likely with several new and "rogue" nuclear powers - starting with Israel. Iran has signed the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and is quite open about its lack of nuclear weapon ambitions. So, all the punishments, sanctions, etc. were for nothing, and they were and are serious violations of international law. Embargos (like we still maintain against Cuba, as well as Iran, North Korea, Syria, and a number of other countries designated as "terrorists states") are equivalent to an act of war - you can't stop other nations from trading, or tell them who to trade with except as acts of war.
Meanwhile, India and Pakistan now have substantial nuclear arsenals - the 200 or so thought sufficient by rational smaller countries - as a "deterrent" or whatever in hell they are supposed to do. Create jobs, I guess. Or make us feel more "secure." Yeh, right. Let me warn you - there's a lot of religion involved in it, and this can go in any direction at any time.
Any nation with a substantial (or even a small) nuclear power industry is only a few months away from building a plutonium bomb, which is what most of the warheads are. The higher-yield thermonuclear warheads we use on the Minuteman and Tridents use tritium, which decays and is hard to produce, as well as being very corrosive and toxic. The nuclear weapons production and maintenance industry is huge in the Western US - particularly Texas, Colorado, New Mexico, and to a lesser extent, Montana and its neighbors actually housing the land-based strategic nuclear missile arsenal. Malmstrom and FE Warren (Cheyenne, WY) vied for leadership in this "power bloc", and for a long time, we had 200 missiles while FE Warren had the only MX squadron of 50 missiles, each carrying up to 10 warheads, allegedly to "counter" a Russian missile of similar capacity. Such was the strategy of MAD, or Mutually Assured Destruction, which guided Cold War policy. It was largely our revulsion at the idea of building an arsenal for mutual destruction that finally ended the Cold War - just to get rid of it.
So now, Sen. Tester seems to be telling us something like this:
"Sorry, guys. We still have the missiles, and we're not getting rid of them. We have a kind of direct democracy in the Military. Them that's got the guns, got's the gold. Or plutonium-tritium, in this case. Do you know what a working Minuteman missile with a 320 KT warhead is worth on the open market? We could even provide the launch service. Just tell us where to point it, and pay the money. How much? How about $20 million, the same price some of you pay to spend a few days in a Soyuz space station, or a round-trip to the International Space Station (another $100 billion boondoggle with no benefits to the taxpayers). When everything else is gone, we'll still have the Missiles of Montana, or at least the holes they came out of. You can count on it...."
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Punishment, Justice, and good government
Punishment Creates Criminals
It's a proven fact: punishment only REINFORCES bad behavior. One cannot be terrorized or coerced into being honest, ethical, obedient, or whatever. And certainly not free, sane, self-reliant, or any other imagined "good" social or political status.
Almost any lawyer or prosecutor will tell you that the police, courts, and prisons are NOT to punish anyone, but to minimize and prevent future crimes and conflicts. Yet, the average person believes absolutely in the value of extreme punishment including torture and execution in order to "deter" or otherwise prevent or minimize crime. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First rule of good government:
Don't accustom your constituents to corruption. And by that, we don't mean food stamps, Medicaid, or unions. The corruption lies in our minds and understanding - mostly originating with the corporate media, but our public media, under the false banner of "neutrality", gives the true and beneficial equal standing with the most outrageously ignorant and oppressive views, and their practitioners, and then presents us with "compromises" between them. It is our "public consciousness" which may be damaged beyond repair, as evidenced by a nuclear holocaust, climate holocaust, or just plain poverty and starvation holocausts - all of them imminent, and probably unstoppable.
2. Organize! It's the only way to accomplish anything. To do this, you must step outside the corporate parties. The Democrats, as we've seen over and over again, are no different (and often even worse, in a passive-aggressive pattern) than their Republican "counterparts." They are, in short, two sides of the same base-metal coin. They are "value-less", whether we mean "worthless" or having no moral or even epistemological values.
As Ayn Rand often reminded us, most people don't accept "the proposition that existence exists." They think they can "fake reality" at will, much like a magician or other conjurer or laboratory Frankenstein. We can actually make and patent new life-forms, and we're being killed by them on a daily basis. Do we blame God or do we blame the hubris of scientists, or the greed of the corporations which employ them?
Thus, we encounter the interface between the physical and virtual worlds - a kind of body-mind dualism, I suppose. Whim worshippers. Whatever they think, have been taught, or believe - it must be true, just because they believe it. This is the real "egoism" - not the noble pride which Rand tried to make it into. This is the selfishness of a hog, with the hunger of wolves, and often taking pleasure from inflicting pain and punishment on others.
3. We have little or no control over the external world outside of our own heads. The best we can do is try to understand it, and gain some sort of platform from which we can warn and advise those in power.
4. Facebook is such a hit because it gives people all over the world the opportunity to share thoughts and opinions with self-chosen "friends" and political allies. We are the advocates of freedom and a free, diverse, pluralistic, open society. We want to learn and trade with others, not enslave and exploit them. We want to improve humanity, not destroy it.
5. New Rules: Anti-Statism
Our existing legal systems were designed for the Roman Empire, and authoritarian, elitist regimes ever since. The English Common Law and other evolved, empirical systems are better, because they evolved in a tribal, local, and indigenous culture well-attuned with nature and natural processes. And that is probably why the British were so successful in spreading their language and knowledge around the world - it was generally humane and beneficial in intent, even if not in practice. The Common Law was like the People's Law, while the Roman Law, Code Napoleon, etc were designed to protect large estates, and enforce the dictates of a global empire, dominated by soldiers and war profiteers and plunderers.
6. The US today has abandoned all pretext at being ethical and humane, which returns us to the first point. The existing system has run its course. "Absolute power having corrupted absolutely ceases to be felt, and becomes, instead, omniscience." (That's actually a quote from me, circa 1972, in a letter to one of my fellow philosophy students).
7. It's time for a real "New Deal." Red + Green = Brown. We'll start over from scratch, with nothing held out from scrutiny, or maintained by "entitlement." As Hobbes said, "No better way to mend an ill game than with a new shuffle."
Conclusion:
Unfortunately, it's the very worst time in history for revolutions or coups d'etat. With dozens of isolated nuclear arsenals scattered around the world, it becomes a very complex exercise in game theory. That we have survived this long without a nuclear exchange of devastating magnitude is semi-miraculous. Nature, it would seem, must compensate with periodic "accidents-on-purpose" like Chernobyl or Fukushima. We simply must be reminded what the risks and dangers are, and start reversing or mitigating them.
The ability of the corporate puppet-states and their leaders to steer us away from any sane course is another minor miracle. But the only power they have is what we give them. Pres. Obama said as much the other day. You voted for me, gave me four more years, so we'll "stay the course" (and do all the same bad things we did, before, apparently).
But does this really require drone strikes, gutting the economy for bankster bailouts (L'economie, c'est moi) and being totally oblivious to all the other principles of a liberal state which people thought they had voted for? Does anybody really know this guy? He has been psycho-analyzed a lot lately. Perhaps he's trying to establish an insanity defense ahead of time. Stranger things have happened.
It's a proven fact: punishment only REINFORCES bad behavior. One cannot be terrorized or coerced into being honest, ethical, obedient, or whatever. And certainly not free, sane, self-reliant, or any other imagined "good" social or political status.
Almost any lawyer or prosecutor will tell you that the police, courts, and prisons are NOT to punish anyone, but to minimize and prevent future crimes and conflicts. Yet, the average person believes absolutely in the value of extreme punishment including torture and execution in order to "deter" or otherwise prevent or minimize crime. Nothing could be further from the truth.
First rule of good government:
Don't accustom your constituents to corruption. And by that, we don't mean food stamps, Medicaid, or unions. The corruption lies in our minds and understanding - mostly originating with the corporate media, but our public media, under the false banner of "neutrality", gives the true and beneficial equal standing with the most outrageously ignorant and oppressive views, and their practitioners, and then presents us with "compromises" between them. It is our "public consciousness" which may be damaged beyond repair, as evidenced by a nuclear holocaust, climate holocaust, or just plain poverty and starvation holocausts - all of them imminent, and probably unstoppable.
2. Organize! It's the only way to accomplish anything. To do this, you must step outside the corporate parties. The Democrats, as we've seen over and over again, are no different (and often even worse, in a passive-aggressive pattern) than their Republican "counterparts." They are, in short, two sides of the same base-metal coin. They are "value-less", whether we mean "worthless" or having no moral or even epistemological values.
As Ayn Rand often reminded us, most people don't accept "the proposition that existence exists." They think they can "fake reality" at will, much like a magician or other conjurer or laboratory Frankenstein. We can actually make and patent new life-forms, and we're being killed by them on a daily basis. Do we blame God or do we blame the hubris of scientists, or the greed of the corporations which employ them?
Thus, we encounter the interface between the physical and virtual worlds - a kind of body-mind dualism, I suppose. Whim worshippers. Whatever they think, have been taught, or believe - it must be true, just because they believe it. This is the real "egoism" - not the noble pride which Rand tried to make it into. This is the selfishness of a hog, with the hunger of wolves, and often taking pleasure from inflicting pain and punishment on others.
3. We have little or no control over the external world outside of our own heads. The best we can do is try to understand it, and gain some sort of platform from which we can warn and advise those in power.
4. Facebook is such a hit because it gives people all over the world the opportunity to share thoughts and opinions with self-chosen "friends" and political allies. We are the advocates of freedom and a free, diverse, pluralistic, open society. We want to learn and trade with others, not enslave and exploit them. We want to improve humanity, not destroy it.
5. New Rules: Anti-Statism
Our existing legal systems were designed for the Roman Empire, and authoritarian, elitist regimes ever since. The English Common Law and other evolved, empirical systems are better, because they evolved in a tribal, local, and indigenous culture well-attuned with nature and natural processes. And that is probably why the British were so successful in spreading their language and knowledge around the world - it was generally humane and beneficial in intent, even if not in practice. The Common Law was like the People's Law, while the Roman Law, Code Napoleon, etc were designed to protect large estates, and enforce the dictates of a global empire, dominated by soldiers and war profiteers and plunderers.
6. The US today has abandoned all pretext at being ethical and humane, which returns us to the first point. The existing system has run its course. "Absolute power having corrupted absolutely ceases to be felt, and becomes, instead, omniscience." (That's actually a quote from me, circa 1972, in a letter to one of my fellow philosophy students).
7. It's time for a real "New Deal." Red + Green = Brown. We'll start over from scratch, with nothing held out from scrutiny, or maintained by "entitlement." As Hobbes said, "No better way to mend an ill game than with a new shuffle."
Conclusion:
Unfortunately, it's the very worst time in history for revolutions or coups d'etat. With dozens of isolated nuclear arsenals scattered around the world, it becomes a very complex exercise in game theory. That we have survived this long without a nuclear exchange of devastating magnitude is semi-miraculous. Nature, it would seem, must compensate with periodic "accidents-on-purpose" like Chernobyl or Fukushima. We simply must be reminded what the risks and dangers are, and start reversing or mitigating them.
The ability of the corporate puppet-states and their leaders to steer us away from any sane course is another minor miracle. But the only power they have is what we give them. Pres. Obama said as much the other day. You voted for me, gave me four more years, so we'll "stay the course" (and do all the same bad things we did, before, apparently).
But does this really require drone strikes, gutting the economy for bankster bailouts (L'economie, c'est moi) and being totally oblivious to all the other principles of a liberal state which people thought they had voted for? Does anybody really know this guy? He has been psycho-analyzed a lot lately. Perhaps he's trying to establish an insanity defense ahead of time. Stranger things have happened.
Wednesday, September 11, 2013
9-11 & military spending
Obama, War Crimes, and the Holy Right to Punish
There should be a strategy already mapped out for this - we see it everyday. Those who are doing bad things either say that "I'm just following orders" [from whom?], or "the Devil made me do it," or in the case of national politics, "the Party (or AIPAC, ALEC, etc.) made me do it."
What is Obama's excuse? That Harvard (or Pepperdine) made me do it? But Kerry went to Yale (maybe Harvard law afterwards?) Why is he saying the same bad things - total non-sequiturs, total petitio princippi's?
They just assume that because they say they have "evidence" that Assad is "killing his own people" - that favorite line of GW Bush, that's a good reason to launch another "pre-emptive strike" on a country that is both civilized and rational, as its leader proved in his recent interview on Charlie Rose (a truly courageous act, backed by both CBS and PBS, to their credit). We don't have to see the evidence. It's a children's game of "hide the button" or "Truth or Dare." Just say it. If you don't believe them, you can be locked up or assassinated. If you're not with them, you're against them. We heard it all from Bush, and the press laughed, and said "We'll get a Democrat next time." And so they did. And he is going to do everything that Bush did, and more. It's all about ego and "not backing down." We keep hearing that.
All the evidence indicates that Syria's only interest in "weapons of mass destruction" is to have a deterrent against Israeli-Saudi aggression. As Assad pointed out, Israel already occupies Syrian territory, and has done so illegally since 1967. Since Israel refuses to acknowledge it has nuclear weapons (illegally), Syria should have the same rights to keep its arsenals secret.
And Israel has launched several unprovoked attacks on Syria in recent years, allegedly as part of the "war on terror" or against the Muslim fundamentalists (Jihadists) who are actively attacking both Israel and the secular government of Syria (Assad). Because of a really "unholy" secret alliance between (nuclear-armed) Israel and Saudis (and of course the Bush family and various NeoCons like Richard Perle), all fueled by oil and the "merchants of death," the "Assad regime" has been targeted for destruction - not because it is "anti-western" or "backward," but precisely because it is a progressive, secular society unlike the rest of the Middle East.
The weapons merchants (of which Israel is now a leading player) need a war every year or two in order to promote sales and the necessity for "upgrades" and "improvements" - "more bang for the buck," along with "new missions" (like anti-genocide, protecting women and other human rights), mostly just to keep "the war on terror" simmering. These, it is thought, will be more palatable to the voters.
Well, guess what? The voters are sick and tired of it, and the Zionist puppet, Obama, can no longer get away with it. He is sealing his own doom with this fanatical insistence that it is his "right" to attack anyone anytime he pleases, no matter what Congress says. If you're not outraged by that, what more can I say?
The sarin gas precursors have been documented to have been sold to Syria by British firms - they did it openly and legally, so the burden is now on the Foreign Office or whatever for approving it. That's no doubt one big reason why Britain bailed out of the attack plans. Do Obama and Kerry know this? If so, they are certainly keeping quiet about it.
http://www.popularresistance.org/revealed-britain-sold-nerve-gas-chemicals-to-syria-10-months-after-war-began/
(For references and sources, see a 3-part article in Counterpunch which deconstructs and refutes every step of the Obama-Kerry case for war.)
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/09/flooding-the-zone-with-bullshit-on-syria/>
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/09/11/syria-immodest-proposals-naked-emperors/>
We don't know if any sarin was produced by the Syrian government. It is easy to produce anywhere. And we certainly don't know if it was the official Syrian government or military authorities who used it. All the evidence seems to indicate it was brought in from elsewhere - by Israeli- or Saudi-financed elements, including Al Qaeda-like groups. Gadaffi said the same thing in Libya - it was Al Qaeda allies which NATO was supporting in overthrowing his government - after he had paid reparations for the Pan Am bombing and other things which weren't his fault. Instead, he was being punished for his Marxism and support of African revolutions.
We have a real test here of AIPAC, ALEC, and the other big war and weapons lobbies. Can they actually force our leaders to engage in a war which is no different from the original Gulf War, Afghanistan, and the subsequent "War on Terror"? All were "manufactured" for the benefit of the multinational oil companies and the "defense" industry whose only mission, these days, is to expend as much ordinance as possible in some whitewashed way like "stopping genocide" or "defending human rights."
It was the women's vote that got us into a war against the Taliban (religious teachers) in Afghanistan - the same people who were our allies in fighting the Russians, and whom we abandoned to Osama bin Laden when the Cold War ended. Now, they are joined by the Black vote, the Veteran's vote, the Blue Dogs, and everyone else who thinks that "war is good for business" and "the economy".
Here in Great Falls, we are told over and over, again, that Malmstrom (perhaps including the National Guard and pensions, Vet's health care, etc., but they don't say that) constitutes "46% of the local economy." Even if all those things are included (and many of them would continue if Malmstrom were closed), it's probably not even 20% of the "local economy" - whether considered as Cascade County, where most of the money is spent, or the whole of Montana, most of which gets no military spending whatsoever (beyond pensions and Vet's programs). The federal budget is about 25% of GDP (the national economy). The military is about a third of that, including pensions. interest on the debt, Vet's benefits, etc. So, nationally, we spend about 8% of GDP (this is higher than the figure usually given) on the military.
Why is Great Falls any different? I suspect that Peter Johnson's $200 million figure (see below) would be about 8% of "the local economy" (Cascade County). There are 4500 military people (active and reserve) getting checks in Cascade County, and another 3-400 civilians. The active duty soldiers are counted as "jobs" - clearly a mis-representation. And there are those whose jobs in bars, car dealers, construction, etc. are dependent on military customers (estimated to be 5% of local business in these areas). Do we count students, prisoners, or other institutional clients as "jobs"? No. If we had a draft and a real "service" instead of mercenary army, we wouldn't even think of calling them "jobs."
How far do we take this? The so-called "multiplier" effect counts such spending several times over. They never mention that the same jobs and income would be doing something else if the base weren't here. The important thing is whether or not we are actually benefitting from this spending, which in most cases is clearly not the case. It's called "the marginal efficiency of capital." Does an investment bear a return, or does it merely entail more taxes, more remedial expenditures, and more destruction? Clearly, the MEC of a nuclear arsenal is profoundly negative. Indeed, it might cause the very end of human civilization, never mind the local economy.
Peter Johnson, the veteran Trib reporter who covered military affairs for 20+ years, puts the direct economic impact figure at $200 million. That sounds about right. We know what the Minuteman program has cost the taxpayers over the past 50 years (at least $80 billion), and how much of that was spent in Montana. Very little, and no mention is ever made of "opportunity costs" - there are thousands of ways the same money could be spent with much better returns, whether public or private.
Congress guarantees that every state will have a major military facility. Ours is Malmstrom. And it would continue as large or larger without the Minuteman nuclear strategic missile mission.
We have open air space for training. We have vast landscapes in which any kind of troops could train. About the only thing we don't have is an ocean. So, there's no reason that we can't have just as many troops and federal dollars here doing something else. Except that it's the nukes that people here actually want (or fear or are addicted to). They're power-mad. They actually enjoy having the capacity to destroy human civilization. And one of these days, they'll do it, if the ability to do so is not removed from here (and everywhere).
That's the simple answer to 9-11. It's our own fault. It's the chickens coming home to roost, just like Ward Churchill and a number of others clearly said. It's a whole part of the world which has suffered and died at the hands of oil imperialists and the war profiteers. If we didn't trade them weapons, we couldn't get any Middle Eastern oil. We don't have the money. So we basically force them into wars by arming both sides, and then provoking them to attack each other.
A few, who were once our friends and allies (like Osama bin Laden) finally had enough. With the CIA's help, they trained and carried out 9-11, hoping it would bring us to our senses. But no. We're still blaming the wrong people for the wrong reasons.
Note: See my essay from last year, in which I made Churchill a general in the Royal Waldegren Navy.
http://paul-stephens.blogspot.com/2012/06/waldegren-ward-churchill-and-julian.html
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