Obama and the Nuclear Conundrum
[The following essay was written last year, and may have been circulated in a sightly different form]
We are in a war of principles and ideas, and the means to communicate them, yet most of our leaders have no concept of what a principle or idea might be, and how to reconcile it either with personal ethics or public policy. I wonder what Pres. Obama's teachers must be thinking. Is he doing what they taught him, or is he "the bad boy" who is trying to make everyone look corrupt and stupid?
Is he a proud black American, or has he become the weak, fearful, slavish pawn of "the dark side" of town, or the universe? What corporate gang bosses does he listen to, or does he think that he's actually the boss? Is he afraid for his family and reputation? He should be. He is following policies and principles which will allow anyone, anywhere in the world, to wipe him out by contract or some other form of "remote control," since those are the policies and practices he is inflicting on others (targeted assassinations with no legal proceedings or basis in law). As we used to say in the wild west, his life isn't worth a plugged nickle, and in the Nuclear Age, neither is the life of anyone else.
For more than 3 decades, I've been saying that the primary focus of all political action has to be the elimination of nuclear weapons. As long as we have this "Sword of Damocles" hanging over our heads by a thread, nothing else is worth doing or even thinking about. We are all an hour away from complete annihilation - literally vaporization and irradiation to a level of death within a few week's time. And here in Great Falls, we live, eat, sleep, and dream with the people who are poised to unleash this holocaust. Yet, no more than a few dozen of our "heroic Montanans" have ever been willing to stand up and confront it. Indeed, most of our appointed and elected officials are hell-bent on increasing the risks and even certainty that this will happen.
President Obama spoke out forcefully for the abolition of nuclear weapons. It was the one good reason people had to vote for him. So, who does he appoint as his Secretary of Energy? One of the foremost proponents of nuclear power, Mr. Chu (and this was a fact which was well-concealed in the confirmation process). The same is true of the Pentagon. What used to be a powerful faction there in favor of unilateral or universal nuclear disarmament, with the U.S. taking "the moral high ground" and leading this process, has been totally eliminated. The Nuclear Doctrine reigns supreme, even extending to the further development and deployment of nuclear warheads to counter the various "new members of the club" - Israel, Pakistan, and India. Besides those, there are dozens more countries with mature nuclear power reactor technologies and fuel cycles. It's only a few month's work to re-process or enrich enough plutonium or uranium to make some Hiroshima-size nuclear weapons. And there are still hundreds or thousands of Soviet-era nukes (as well as U.S. stockpiles overseas) which could be (or have been) stolen, diverted, or taken over by local forces and used in a matter of hours or days. So, even if you have total faith in the U.S., Russian, British, French, and Chines governments and military command and control systems, you have not yet begun to understand or appreciate the gravity of the situation.
In the early 1990's, local peace activists held a "Town Meeting" at the Providence Forum at UGF and invited all local political candidates to come and state their views. That was where I first met Stuart Lewin, who gave a very strong and moving statement against our strategic nuclear arsenal, and the dangers it poses both to our local environment and economy, and to the world. Peggy Beltrone, at the same event (it was her first run for County Commissioner) expressed her "support for the base" and maintained that it is a liberalizing and progressive influence on the City of Great Falls and Central Montana. I doubt that she was, even then, an advocate for nuclear weapons or nuclear power generation (they are basically one and the same - you can't have one without at least the potenial for the other). But no one runs for office here without paying lip service to all the "benefits" which our local nuclear arsenal provides to Montanans, if not the rest of the world.
This is the reality we face - people hanging desperately on to a Doomsday Machine in the hopes of gaining wealth or other benefits from it. And that is what must be changed.
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Peace, Emerson, Transcendentalism, WWII. Objectivism
Objectivism- A philosophy for automatons - slave labor
It just occurred to me that it is Objectivism, a non-denominational faith system bent on some sort of "aristocracy of ability", which now rules the world. The trouble is, this totally materialistic, life-choking system doesn't agree on what constitutes "ability." Is it the ability to destroy whole species? Is it the ability to melt the polar ice caps? Is it the ability to destroy human civilization entirely? We can sure do that! What kind of "abilities" are we talking about, here?
Or is it the ability (to quote the late Rodney King) to "get along?" Can't we all just get along? Why do we have to fight and destroy each other? And where are our "respectable" philosophers to tell us this, and help us "get it done?" They must be on sabbatical.
"Peace is Our Profession"
(the official "motto" of the USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) until the late 1980's)
It seems that the philosophy and spirituality taught and expressed at our military academies is somewhat different. In the 1980's, "Peace is Our Profession" was posted in huge letters at the Orwellian gateway to our local military garrison - Malmstrom AFB - and its "mission" of being prepared to launch up to 200 Minuteman Missiles, each of them carrying up to three nuclear warheads of 120-320KT yield (I've got the numbers somewhere, but that's close), nearly half-way around the world.
But don't tell anybody. "Ain't gonna study war no more" and all that rot. We need to learn it from direct experience, right?
Launching all (or one "Flight" of 10) only takes about 5 minutes, before any war or attack has actually happened, but if submarines launched a "first strike" attack off the coast near Seattle, it would only take 12 minutes for them to get here. That's how they figure it. It's called "launch on warning" - a doctrine which is now discredited, but still might be implemented in any of the world's strategic nuclear missile facilities, or by whomever ends up with them after a coup or revolution.
Indeed, the whole doctrine of "deterrence" has been utterly discredited, too, but that is still the official Pentagon and Congressional rationale for having a nuclear arsenal here, or having any at all. The classic "Committee of 100" doctrine is that to have developed nuclear weapons in the first place was a mistake, and with the Abolition movement of the 1980's (of which I was a peripheral, and I must say neglected, participant), the use of uranium fission to produce electricity was also thoroughly discredited, once it was understood that any such facility and its associated technologies (like uranium enrichment) are immediately transferable to bomb production.
No amount of "treaties" or "inspections" can conceal or negate that fact. Israel, India, Pakistan, and DPR Korea have all done it. And, indeed, that is exactly the rationale being applied to Iran, today, while all the other nations which have produced bombs out of their "nuclear power industry" are among the accusers and attackers of one country, Iran, which likely has no evil motives whatsoever. Just to shed some light, so to speak, on what everyone else is doing, Iran has become the designated scapegoat for the crimes of Israel, the Baathists, the Saudi's, et al. It's time to stop that nonsense before someone really gets hurt.
The importance of rationality in a world of nuclear hair-triggers
This is why many of us were so taken with Objectivism. Even though it is largely 19th century materialist doctrines which are now exploded, it struck all sorts of responsive chords. We were the new Abolitionists, the Freedom Fighters, the Revolutionaries who ended war and corrupt tyrants in a process of unifying and uniting the entire planet. We were Utilitarians. We were going to fix things that capitalism or Fascism or Bolshevism had thrown askew. It was the Happy Time!
But the discipline of reason, of understanding, remains supreme. It must be this way, or something like this. We can make those kinds of judgements based on reason and science, a sub-category. (Originally, it all came out of theology, so there was no sense that the two were in conflict, except that the theologians felt threatened by findings which questioned their dogmas and practice).
I took enough philosophy to have a minor in it, and one of the Upper Division/Grad courses I took was entirely devoted to Immanual Kant, a philosopher whom Ayn Rand professed to particularly despise. Like so many others, it was her characterization of the History of Philosophy, and many of the great figures in it (indeed, most of them - there are few philosophers whom Rand had anything good to say about, whatsoever) - it was this particularly obnoxious material which drove me out.
I'm sure that was intentional, but the deeper or "more structural" reason is that Kant's Categorical Imperative is perceived as the opposite of Rand's "Egoism", which is a later development in ideas culminating in Max Stirner and Nietzsche, as well as the New England Transcendentalists, who were close intellectual cousins. --particularly Margaret Fuller, who translated Kant professonally, and Emerson, who read and studied the complete works of Goethe in the original German.
Was World War II "Emerson's Revenge?"
I was joking the other day (like 5 years ago, maybe) with a descendent of RW Emerson whose father was a Mustang pilot over Europe during WWII. "It didn't get any better than that for the Emerson's," I told her. "That was the culmination of two centuries of history."
Later, reflecting on this exchange, it almost seemed as though WWII was a direct result of the Emerson and Forbes dynasty, and their "construction" of our own Civil War (not to mention AT&T or the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Berkshires Railroad).
Most people who read Emerson, today, don't like him. He is far too stiff, condescending, and maintaining the persona of a prophet - truly Nietzsche's Zarathustra. [Oh, and by the way, Zoroastrianism is the ancient, pre-Islamic religion of Persia (Iran), and is practiced in India and elsewhere, today - especially the Parsis (who speak a Farsi dialect) and include many famous people in the West, like Zubin Mehta. So, all this hatred of and threats against Iran is personal for some of us.]
The Mustang pilot's love was - you guessed it - airplanes, so he went to work for Pratt and Whitney after the war. And he married a midwest wind-generator heiress, but the family called him back, and persuaded him to put his 8 children through college by managing the Forbes Bank trust, which the merged family members all participate in. I'd heard of "trust fund babies", but I really didn't have a referent for it until I met these people (who, I think, were considerably burdened by this fortune, although it is now diluted down to maybe half or less of what a working person would earn in a lifetime).
Several other Emerson's I met were pilots, builders, small entrepreneurs, musicians, and the like - not really interested in "academics, " but intelligent and creative (and very morally acute!) in their speech and actions.
What about Fukushima?
As for TEPCO and its Fukushima power plants, the truth has finally been released in an official parliamentary finding. Everything we said all along has been verified - in somewhat muted form, but the main point, that the plants were not well-designed or subject to reasonable oversight and regulation, is well-documented. And it's not over. Nearly every week I read some new story about how the on-site fuel storage could combust at any time, with devastating consequences for the whole Northern Hemisphere. On the Beach, indeed.
===========
Inside the Beltway
It's getting so I can barely stand to watch any TV interviews or discussions emanating from "inside the Beltway" - Washington, D.C. Great Falls (VA) is the richest town in the U.S., now, having recently surpassed the more famous ones nestled in the New York and California suburbs - like Scarsborough or Beverly Hills. But you would never know this in Great Falls, Montana - a far more powerful and visionary city, which is now on its knees to ALEC, the Pentagon, Wal-Mart, and the medical drug rackets which have destroyed our schools and families much worse than marijuana or cocaine dealers could have ever imagined, and paid for with YOUR MONEY (Medicaid, CHIP, etc.).
Notice that Denny Rehberg is now proclaiming his record of support for these kinds of "Drugs in the Schools" programs (and every other totalitarian, mind and thought control measure). He might have said the word "libertarian" a few times, but he certainly doesn't know what it means. Dems and Reps alike are all big fans of Homeland Scurity, and keeping everyone under surveillance lest they look at pictures of naked children, or check out a Koran, or something. And the WWI Sedition laws, never repealed but thought to be dead letters, are being revived to suppress all criticism and dissent.
Seriously, the politicians and their respective power brokers and financial supporters are 90% or more behind all this stuff. Look at the recent Attorneys General, and how they only got worse under Obama. Whatever these people's conception of the law and Constitution, it is very different from what most people understood by them even 30 years ago. It's like the actual meaning and application of our once-fine legal system is now merely a game of social and economic warfare, where the "best-connected" usually win - often by simply avoiding any real legal or moral arguments and decisions, entirely.
I've been intending to write a lot about ethics and how our society's social and economic decline is the consequence of a prior ethical decline, which occurred during and after our participation in World War II. And that, of course, was only a follow-up to World War I, which was itself the consquence of various empires jostling each other over boundaries and treaties, natural resources, and the control of governments which possessed them.
It's been going on for more than a century, if not forever, and we're rapidly approaching the centennial of "the Guns of August" (1914) which began this calamity for Western Civilization and the rest of the planet. The interesting thing for us is that Montana has been in the thick of it since the late 1800's, and perhaps as early as the 1840's and '50's, when the people and landscape of what is now Montana first became known to the rest of the world.
If you've lived anywhere else, and told people you are from Montana, you know what I'm talking about. There's a lot of mystique and status to it, as well as suspicion from more urbane types, who can't help but think we're all gunfighters and savages. If so, we've apparently converted the urban centers and even other countries to our "vision" of a future full of war and barbarism.
Sen. Tester ran, initially, on a platform of repealing the PATRIOT Act entirely, and like Gov. Schweitzer, drew a firm line in the sand against "Real ID" and stuff like that - chip implantation in animals, for example.
Rehberg actually had a better record pre-2008 than Tester has now on this stuff - because of pressure from the Right - the Gun Lobby, military lobbies, TEA's, etc. Tester was doing fine until the Baucus people (including Jim Messina, who was running the Obama Campaign last I heard) started giving "advice." Now, the Baucusite controllers have thoroughly "Borged" him - he was taken over and made to act and speak and vote in ways which didn't "reflect badly" on Baucus's most deplorable record. And so, his record is very similar to Rehberg's, who is the real Republican, while Baucus and Tester are simply pandering to what they take to be the Republican position, hoping to attract Republican voters to their equally "conservative" (totalitarian) policies.
But, hey, one YD Dem is as good as another, right? Meanwhile, the rest will dig in as BD's and make sure that nothing "liberal" or "unpatriotic" gets by them.
I grew up with and still know strong Democrats and strong Republicans - who really believe in and will fight for this stuff - whatever their "side" and its bosses tells them to do.
I have a question. What if it's the same side? What if we're all in this together, and we'd better start listening and thinking straight or there won't even be one side left to hang on to? Most people, I've learned, actually fear one or both parties, and want nothing to do with supporting either of them, or if they are the timid type, will say or do nothing to oppose either "evil." And so, they suffer grievously in silence and submission. Isn't this a great country?
If that's the way people feel, I really have nothing more to say to them. We have to want to fix things and change for the better. If we don't have that, and a willingness to stand up to evil and oppression, then to hell with it. Just have a good time, and don't worry about tomorrow.
It just occurred to me that it is Objectivism, a non-denominational faith system bent on some sort of "aristocracy of ability", which now rules the world. The trouble is, this totally materialistic, life-choking system doesn't agree on what constitutes "ability." Is it the ability to destroy whole species? Is it the ability to melt the polar ice caps? Is it the ability to destroy human civilization entirely? We can sure do that! What kind of "abilities" are we talking about, here?
Or is it the ability (to quote the late Rodney King) to "get along?" Can't we all just get along? Why do we have to fight and destroy each other? And where are our "respectable" philosophers to tell us this, and help us "get it done?" They must be on sabbatical.
"Peace is Our Profession"
(the official "motto" of the USAF Strategic Air Command (SAC) until the late 1980's)
It seems that the philosophy and spirituality taught and expressed at our military academies is somewhat different. In the 1980's, "Peace is Our Profession" was posted in huge letters at the Orwellian gateway to our local military garrison - Malmstrom AFB - and its "mission" of being prepared to launch up to 200 Minuteman Missiles, each of them carrying up to three nuclear warheads of 120-320KT yield (I've got the numbers somewhere, but that's close), nearly half-way around the world.
But don't tell anybody. "Ain't gonna study war no more" and all that rot. We need to learn it from direct experience, right?
Launching all (or one "Flight" of 10) only takes about 5 minutes, before any war or attack has actually happened, but if submarines launched a "first strike" attack off the coast near Seattle, it would only take 12 minutes for them to get here. That's how they figure it. It's called "launch on warning" - a doctrine which is now discredited, but still might be implemented in any of the world's strategic nuclear missile facilities, or by whomever ends up with them after a coup or revolution.
Indeed, the whole doctrine of "deterrence" has been utterly discredited, too, but that is still the official Pentagon and Congressional rationale for having a nuclear arsenal here, or having any at all. The classic "Committee of 100" doctrine is that to have developed nuclear weapons in the first place was a mistake, and with the Abolition movement of the 1980's (of which I was a peripheral, and I must say neglected, participant), the use of uranium fission to produce electricity was also thoroughly discredited, once it was understood that any such facility and its associated technologies (like uranium enrichment) are immediately transferable to bomb production.
No amount of "treaties" or "inspections" can conceal or negate that fact. Israel, India, Pakistan, and DPR Korea have all done it. And, indeed, that is exactly the rationale being applied to Iran, today, while all the other nations which have produced bombs out of their "nuclear power industry" are among the accusers and attackers of one country, Iran, which likely has no evil motives whatsoever. Just to shed some light, so to speak, on what everyone else is doing, Iran has become the designated scapegoat for the crimes of Israel, the Baathists, the Saudi's, et al. It's time to stop that nonsense before someone really gets hurt.
The importance of rationality in a world of nuclear hair-triggers
This is why many of us were so taken with Objectivism. Even though it is largely 19th century materialist doctrines which are now exploded, it struck all sorts of responsive chords. We were the new Abolitionists, the Freedom Fighters, the Revolutionaries who ended war and corrupt tyrants in a process of unifying and uniting the entire planet. We were Utilitarians. We were going to fix things that capitalism or Fascism or Bolshevism had thrown askew. It was the Happy Time!
But the discipline of reason, of understanding, remains supreme. It must be this way, or something like this. We can make those kinds of judgements based on reason and science, a sub-category. (Originally, it all came out of theology, so there was no sense that the two were in conflict, except that the theologians felt threatened by findings which questioned their dogmas and practice).
I took enough philosophy to have a minor in it, and one of the Upper Division/Grad courses I took was entirely devoted to Immanual Kant, a philosopher whom Ayn Rand professed to particularly despise. Like so many others, it was her characterization of the History of Philosophy, and many of the great figures in it (indeed, most of them - there are few philosophers whom Rand had anything good to say about, whatsoever) - it was this particularly obnoxious material which drove me out.
I'm sure that was intentional, but the deeper or "more structural" reason is that Kant's Categorical Imperative is perceived as the opposite of Rand's "Egoism", which is a later development in ideas culminating in Max Stirner and Nietzsche, as well as the New England Transcendentalists, who were close intellectual cousins. --particularly Margaret Fuller, who translated Kant professonally, and Emerson, who read and studied the complete works of Goethe in the original German.
Was World War II "Emerson's Revenge?"
I was joking the other day (like 5 years ago, maybe) with a descendent of RW Emerson whose father was a Mustang pilot over Europe during WWII. "It didn't get any better than that for the Emerson's," I told her. "That was the culmination of two centuries of history."
Later, reflecting on this exchange, it almost seemed as though WWII was a direct result of the Emerson and Forbes dynasty, and their "construction" of our own Civil War (not to mention AT&T or the Burlington Northern Santa Fe and Berkshires Railroad).
Most people who read Emerson, today, don't like him. He is far too stiff, condescending, and maintaining the persona of a prophet - truly Nietzsche's Zarathustra. [Oh, and by the way, Zoroastrianism is the ancient, pre-Islamic religion of Persia (Iran), and is practiced in India and elsewhere, today - especially the Parsis (who speak a Farsi dialect) and include many famous people in the West, like Zubin Mehta. So, all this hatred of and threats against Iran is personal for some of us.]
The Mustang pilot's love was - you guessed it - airplanes, so he went to work for Pratt and Whitney after the war. And he married a midwest wind-generator heiress, but the family called him back, and persuaded him to put his 8 children through college by managing the Forbes Bank trust, which the merged family members all participate in. I'd heard of "trust fund babies", but I really didn't have a referent for it until I met these people (who, I think, were considerably burdened by this fortune, although it is now diluted down to maybe half or less of what a working person would earn in a lifetime).
Several other Emerson's I met were pilots, builders, small entrepreneurs, musicians, and the like - not really interested in "academics, " but intelligent and creative (and very morally acute!) in their speech and actions.
What about Fukushima?
As for TEPCO and its Fukushima power plants, the truth has finally been released in an official parliamentary finding. Everything we said all along has been verified - in somewhat muted form, but the main point, that the plants were not well-designed or subject to reasonable oversight and regulation, is well-documented. And it's not over. Nearly every week I read some new story about how the on-site fuel storage could combust at any time, with devastating consequences for the whole Northern Hemisphere. On the Beach, indeed.
===========
Inside the Beltway
It's getting so I can barely stand to watch any TV interviews or discussions emanating from "inside the Beltway" - Washington, D.C. Great Falls (VA) is the richest town in the U.S., now, having recently surpassed the more famous ones nestled in the New York and California suburbs - like Scarsborough or Beverly Hills. But you would never know this in Great Falls, Montana - a far more powerful and visionary city, which is now on its knees to ALEC, the Pentagon, Wal-Mart, and the medical drug rackets which have destroyed our schools and families much worse than marijuana or cocaine dealers could have ever imagined, and paid for with YOUR MONEY (Medicaid, CHIP, etc.).
Notice that Denny Rehberg is now proclaiming his record of support for these kinds of "Drugs in the Schools" programs (and every other totalitarian, mind and thought control measure). He might have said the word "libertarian" a few times, but he certainly doesn't know what it means. Dems and Reps alike are all big fans of Homeland Scurity, and keeping everyone under surveillance lest they look at pictures of naked children, or check out a Koran, or something. And the WWI Sedition laws, never repealed but thought to be dead letters, are being revived to suppress all criticism and dissent.
Seriously, the politicians and their respective power brokers and financial supporters are 90% or more behind all this stuff. Look at the recent Attorneys General, and how they only got worse under Obama. Whatever these people's conception of the law and Constitution, it is very different from what most people understood by them even 30 years ago. It's like the actual meaning and application of our once-fine legal system is now merely a game of social and economic warfare, where the "best-connected" usually win - often by simply avoiding any real legal or moral arguments and decisions, entirely.
I've been intending to write a lot about ethics and how our society's social and economic decline is the consequence of a prior ethical decline, which occurred during and after our participation in World War II. And that, of course, was only a follow-up to World War I, which was itself the consquence of various empires jostling each other over boundaries and treaties, natural resources, and the control of governments which possessed them.
It's been going on for more than a century, if not forever, and we're rapidly approaching the centennial of "the Guns of August" (1914) which began this calamity for Western Civilization and the rest of the planet. The interesting thing for us is that Montana has been in the thick of it since the late 1800's, and perhaps as early as the 1840's and '50's, when the people and landscape of what is now Montana first became known to the rest of the world.
If you've lived anywhere else, and told people you are from Montana, you know what I'm talking about. There's a lot of mystique and status to it, as well as suspicion from more urbane types, who can't help but think we're all gunfighters and savages. If so, we've apparently converted the urban centers and even other countries to our "vision" of a future full of war and barbarism.
Sen. Tester ran, initially, on a platform of repealing the PATRIOT Act entirely, and like Gov. Schweitzer, drew a firm line in the sand against "Real ID" and stuff like that - chip implantation in animals, for example.
Rehberg actually had a better record pre-2008 than Tester has now on this stuff - because of pressure from the Right - the Gun Lobby, military lobbies, TEA's, etc. Tester was doing fine until the Baucus people (including Jim Messina, who was running the Obama Campaign last I heard) started giving "advice." Now, the Baucusite controllers have thoroughly "Borged" him - he was taken over and made to act and speak and vote in ways which didn't "reflect badly" on Baucus's most deplorable record. And so, his record is very similar to Rehberg's, who is the real Republican, while Baucus and Tester are simply pandering to what they take to be the Republican position, hoping to attract Republican voters to their equally "conservative" (totalitarian) policies.
But, hey, one YD Dem is as good as another, right? Meanwhile, the rest will dig in as BD's and make sure that nothing "liberal" or "unpatriotic" gets by them.
I grew up with and still know strong Democrats and strong Republicans - who really believe in and will fight for this stuff - whatever their "side" and its bosses tells them to do.
I have a question. What if it's the same side? What if we're all in this together, and we'd better start listening and thinking straight or there won't even be one side left to hang on to? Most people, I've learned, actually fear one or both parties, and want nothing to do with supporting either of them, or if they are the timid type, will say or do nothing to oppose either "evil." And so, they suffer grievously in silence and submission. Isn't this a great country?
If that's the way people feel, I really have nothing more to say to them. We have to want to fix things and change for the better. If we don't have that, and a willingness to stand up to evil and oppression, then to hell with it. Just have a good time, and don't worry about tomorrow.
Friday, June 8, 2012
Waldegren - Ward Churchill and Julian Assange
This is one of my other persona's - the 4th Duke of Waldegren, based on the science fiction of A Bertram Chandler. It's just as much me as anyone else, and should be of interest to those with Gothic proclivities...
When the Legends Die .... and all that rot
Further dispatches from the Duke of Waldegren
Ward Churchill's Defense
I don't suppose Ward is on Facebook - at least, I've never even seen a link to him here, among my elite radical friends. I owe him one, so here goes.
The failure of the intellectual community, the ACLU, and all the other defenders of truth and justice (not to mention The American Way - maybe that was the stickler) to go ballistic over the U of Colorado's and the Regents/Governor's handling of this issue marked a turning point. Ward was very widely known. We used to discuss his books and articles at the local coffeeship - Cattin's (which, of course, was headquartered in the old Wobby stronghold of Centralia, WA). He probably inspired more Native Americans to head for Academia than anyone in his generation. And yet, he was treated like a traitor - in the great tradition of his forebears - and driven from his tenured professorship for the most venal of motives - to placate the imperialists who suffered an overwhelming defeat to their plans of global domination.
I've recently been reading Hannah Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem, and this is the basic text for Ward's defense. If you've read that long essay, later published as a book, you'll understand what Ward was talking about. Eichmann was the Third Reich's link to the Zionists, chosen especially because he liked Jews and had many Jewish friends. He saw his job as saving Jews, and helping them emigrate. Later, he took charge of the Holocaust, itself, which is why the later Israeli government put him on trial. He was certainly guilty of the crimes as charged, but he was "only following orders" - a defense we often hear, today. So, indeed, whoever perpetrated 9-11 was "just following orders." They were "little Eichmann's" - what they called "Aparatchiks" in the Soviet System. They were not morally responsible for their actions.
Perhaps we should promote Ward to the rank of Brigadier General (the Brevit period is long past) in the Royal Waldegren Intelligence Services. Code Name - Kierkegaard
=========================
Duke's Proclamation on the Assange/Wikileaks Issue
We hereby call for an All-Goth's Council, to meet, of course, on Gotland, featuring Julian Assange, Chieftain of the Antipodal Goths, and whatever Scandinavian Royalty wants to show up. We especially request and welcome the participation of HRH Princess Marthe, and whatever other "hip Royals" want to participate. This is frankly a Monarchist matter, since it is a monarchy which threatens to detain, extradite (to the US or other hostile power), and thus destroy the very foundations of our cybernetic existence.
And with the recent capitulation of various Scandinavian governments to the NATO Menace, it is more important than ever that we maintain our political sovereignty and integrity.
As you know, I occupy a sort of intermediary role. I make my views very well known, but then I must fight for them. They don't fit into any "chain of command." In this sense, I am more of a shaman or prophet than a statesman, and that's what this proclamation maintains. No Authority, All Truth.
We are teetering on the brink of the worst global dictatorship and torture-slave pen in the history of the world. They're actually competing for that honor. And at the same time, we're an hour away from global nuclear holocaust and environmental degradation (including global climate change - the Curse of Loki) unimaginable in any previous age or existence. And we're not getting any better.
We have a sub-culture in the U.S. which was known as "the Goths." They were the kids (warriors) who did Columbine, and similar incidents. They're like more sophisticated punks and skinheads. But more libertarian and "heroic" in their outlook and behavior. So, they still exist, and I have always befriended them, for whatever reasons, seeing myself in much the same terms and traditions.
Mr. Assange is clearly in the same tradition, along with Bradley Manning. These are People's Heroes to us, and we insist that you treat them as such. This has been passed along to the Swedish ambassador, whence I'm sure it will receive high-priority consideration.
Since I'm not Swedish, but Norwegian with Icelandic and Danish connections (and brotherhood with Finns), I've got some bones to pick with you guys.. Especially Norway's Statoil (a public, but apparently not a royal, institution) and its participation in the NATO looting of Caspian oil as well as the (magnitudes worse) investment in and promotion of the Alberta Bitumen project. Who controls the Caspian oil is of little concern to anyone except the people who live there (and what about them?). But the Tar Sands promise to destroy more environment with less benefit than any project in history.
Of course, Canadians "think big," and will do anything for a buck, but it's time to get scientific and philosophical, here. And it's an absolute travesty for the Oil Barons of Trondheim (to which I am distantly related, I think - along with Liv Ullmann) to "invest" or otherwise profit from this disaster. This isn't state socialism you're practicing. It's Naomi Klein's Disaster Capitalism. (Hopefully, Ms. Klein will be a leading witness for the defense in the Assange hearing - I think she slept with him several times.) And what about the other Naomi I've suspected of that? Naomi Wolf. Surely she will participate, as well. In fact, I might make her my personal representative, since we're Facebook friends. Along with Paul Street and Glenn Greenwald (he and Robert Greenwald are Peers of the House of Waldegren, by the way).
So, the Russians have identified NATO as a "monarchist" institution. So, let's get it done. Let's be good monarchs instead of corrupt, degraded ones.
(signed)
4th Duke of Waldegren
==================
Here is a piece I recently wrote related to the above, dealing with intellectual and scientific honesty.
Are GMO's Lysenkoism?
I haven't taught biology lately (or ever, but I studied it quite a bit), but on some level, there must be a discussion going on about whether or not GMO's have "refuted" Darwin, and instead, vindicated his inheritist rival, Lysenko. (A Soviet biologist - Stalin's "biology czar" - who believed, along with established authoritarian dogma - not necessarily Marxism, but a lot of Leninism - that the State could mold any organism or even natural processes (like splitting the atom) to State purposes). They were also "futurists", who planned to control the future by - Yes! - molding the human genome, as well as plants and animals - to better-serve the purposes of the State (which, of course, is only the manifest Will of the People - the embodiment of the Volkgeist, or whatever).
All of these concepts were once considered "un-American", and more recently, referred to as "cultural Marxism", "Multi-culturalism", "Liberation Theology", and otherwise "bad things." They are exactly what Anders Breivik identified in his pogrom against "liberalism" and "social democracy" - Norway's present government and intellectual elite.
Breivik, by the way, should inspire dozens of PhD theses and other scholarly work. Here is a throwback to the Third Reich (but who thinks Hitler and the blind idiocy he inspired were wrong - obviously, the Zionists won that one, and should be recognized as powerful allies - what was actually the case between the Zionist organizations in the 1930's, and the Nazis. Eichmann was in charge of those negotiations, since he got on well with Jews). Or more like the very "terrorist" cadres which our modern National Security State is (supposedly) designed to deal with (by taking them over and adopting the same tactics, apparently). Perhaps Norway could exchange Breivik for Vanunu, the Israeli who merely verified what all the intelligence services already knew about Israel's nuclear program.
Of course, the Israeli's would never do it, not wanting to acknowledge their kinship with and support from such a "monster."
Speaking of which, why isn't the UN and IAEA examining Israel's completely illegal and criminal development and possession of nuclear weapons? Everyone in the Middle East (by a wide margin), and many Europeans (anti-Semites and other Nationalists) thinks that Israel is the nuclear threat, not Iran. So why are we defending the nuclear terrorist state? Because we are one, too, but the question remains: do we really want to be a nuclear terrorist state? And can we please have an open and complete discussion about it, before we spend one more dime on facilities like Malmstrom?
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Why we need local public radio - not NPR
The real history of KGPR
by Paul Stephens
(This was published in my Great Falls Tribune "greateco" blog on April 19, 2012)
Every year during pledge week, we get the same group of professional liars and UM alumni to tell us that we don't really have a local public radio station - we're just a satellite of KUFM, Missoula, and thus part of "Montana Public Radio." We can't have our own station in Great Falls because we're too stupid and apathetic. So, send your "pledges" to Missoula.
And some of the people who actually started KGPR - especially Bruce McKenzie (who left GF in disgust decades ago) and Sidney Graham (now deceased) - were adamant that we should have an independent station, and not be under the control of "the dicatator" Terry Conrad and the Missoula Gang, who were only interested in expanding their own signal, revenues, and political influence.
In those days, Missoula had several Marxists on its City Council, and the meetings were broadcast in their entirety on Monday evenings. So, the first priority was to substitute "local programming" for this 2-hour slot on Monday evenings - because, obviously, the people of Great Falls weren't "ready" to hear a bunch of radicals talk about democracy and local self-rule, and besides, this was just about Missoula. But no one here wanted to do local programming, so they played tapes of the St. Paul Chamber Orchestra and other canned music during that time. (Our symphony conductor in the late 1970's, Mr. Winkler, came from there).
The honest thing to do would have been to have a local public affairs program at the same time, or perhaps broadcast the Great Falls City Commission meetings (or a tape of them from the week before) in the same slot. But we know that democracy is not a value in Great Falls, and that our government has never been "transparent" or "accountable" to the people.
I was one of the people who wrote the original letters to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting requesting they approve a license for a LOCAL, GREAT FALLS station. Missoula and KUFM weren't even in the loop - indeed, they couldn't be. CPB doesn't fund, and the FCC doesn't license networks - just individual stations, and we are, and always have been, an INDEPENDENT, self-governing station, able to contract with any sources for programming.
That was how we originally contracted with KUFM to use their signal TEMPORARILY until we could develop our own programming. I tried twice to get on the board to carry forward this process. The first time, Stever Doherty was selected over me. A year or two later, John Torstveit and Carrie Calahan-Bronson (sister-in-law of the City Commissioner) and I were all selected for the Board. We formed a "programming committee" and began broadcasting a "Local Origination Program" on Saturday afternoons - usually just tapes of recordings we made of local events - it was the era of the Great Falls and Montana Centennials, so there were lots of things to record and broadcast.
I know Arlyne Reichert is getting along in years, and her memory is failing, but much of what she said in her history of KGPR broadcast on Thursday during the Mid-day Music program is false. (Her daughter, Claire Baize, was a graduate of the UM broadcasting program, and her family has always had close ties with Missoula. Claire, for the first time ever, has recently began doing short, humorous commentaries for KGPR, and I still count her as a personal friend). Carrie is also a graduate of the UM J-School, and worked for Stan Stephens in his Havre station, KOJM. So of course those "public radio activists" were not interested in a real public radio station independent of Missoula and commercial broadcasters (or the Tribune) here.
That has been the battle all along. Do the same people continue to control all of our "news" and civic discourse, or do we have a variety of independent sources with complete freedom to disagree and discuss the important issues of our lives?
The answer with the KUFM-dominated KGPR is clearly "No."
I was the first to do local broadcasts of original material in Great Falls. I was the first to broadcast the Great Falls Symphony and chamber music programs, here. That is all elided from the "official history" because I was twice kicked off the air - the first time for broadcasting a recording of the Easter anti-nuclear demonstrations at the Malmstrom Main Gate (at John Torstveit's insistance), and the second time for promoting the independent KGPR in 2001, when I was classical music director (at the insistance of one of the "Golden Triangle" UM alumni, who eventually shut us down, and made us revert to a KUFM satellite station). In neither case was there any "due process" or the right to defend myself, although I did so extensively in writing - all of which was suppressed. Arlyne and Carrie didn't even mention our two-year attempt to establish KGPR as a fully-independent local station, which they both helped to eliminated under the "leadership" of Dan Rice and some other UM Alums.
I have spent half of more of my working life for the past 30 years supporting public interest causes in Great Falls, and local public radio has been the greatest one. You can imagine how I feel during this "pledge week" to see this whole history distorted and made to conform to the gangster politics of the local political machines.
Thanks to Tom Halvorsen who at least has the guts to have long advocated that we broadcast Democracy Now!, and that failing, is featuring a descendent of Al Capone (Tom, like Terry Conrad, is from Chicago) as an advocate for our local station.
I found out just a couple of years ago that Amy Goodman, the founder of Democracy Now and still anchor of it, was college room-mates at Harvard with Cindy Herbig, a Missoula cellist who dropped out and was later killed working as a prostitute in Washington, D.C. Because of that, KUFM has steadfastly refused to broadcast Democracy Now! - an independent daily hour-long news program which is far superior to anything on NPR.
We also get the figures every year on how much KUFM spends for NPR programming - some $280,000, or nearly half the amount raised by our pledges. Democracy Now, the BBC, and other news programs (I'm sure we could get the CBC here, too, for little or no cost) are either free or very inexpensive. ATC and Morning Edition are about $100,000/year by themselves, while KUFM only pays $10,000 for the much better BBC, most of which is overnight. Many other independent news and public affairs programs are available free of charge. So even if you want to send money to Missoula for KUFM programming, you are not getting your money's worth.
Please support the repatriation of KGPR to the people of Great Falls, and don't send your money to Missoula, unless you want them to establish their own full-time translator here, which they have always been willing to do.
Now I'm really isolated
Now I'm really isolated
As a life-long "non-conformist" and otherwise a person who "keeps his own counsel" (although I also spend much of my time trying to determine what other people think, and why they think that), I lead a fairly isolated life. I've found it difficult, if not impossible, to live with other people - to "partner up" in whatever sense you want to take that. But like my friend Rik put it (a Norwegian by birth and family), "We're like blue whales. There are just aren't enough of us left to find suitable partners, and lead meaningful lives." Or, as we might put it now, our social networks have broken down or been co-opted.
The cyber-community persists, of course, and in fact, we're rapidly becoming mere accessories (or "applications") for our electronic hardware. How could this happen? Weren't computers and the internet supposed to be a kind of "equalizer", like the Colt 45 in frontier America? Even a little dumb guy could kill you, so you'd better be nice to him, and not try to rip him off.
We found that computers aren't "cultural". Or, they are "culture-neutral", a distant descendant of the "value-neutral" (Wertfrei) criterion in the social sciences. Arabs, Chinese, Hindus, and even the most "primitive" Africans and other black aborigines are all the same when it comes to math, science, and technology. White people, if anything, are inferior - if only because of our own self-aggrandizement and lack of ethical treatment of other nations and peoples.
Probably anyone who joined Mensa or some other exclusive club based on intelligence or ability was disappointed. These people aren't any different than my other friends and family - except maybe they are less ethical and more conniving. (Mensa has only one criteria - test scores. Call it the NCLB of social networks.) So, what's the big deal?
For libertarians, there isn't any. We already knew all this. Especially if we'd read and studied Ayn Rand. (Or many of her forebears, among whom I'll only name Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer, but there are hundreds). We already knew that the "superior man" (as they say in the I Ching) must follow a different course from everyone else. We might find an ally here or there; we might maintain the dignity and reputation to be a respected teacher, writer, entrepreneur, or even statesman, but we are not usually electable to public office.
What about "the magic of everyday life" - what we might call "The Harry Potter Factor", or earlier, the bizarre supernaturalism of Stephen King? They work very well on film, but what do we do if we're "like that" in real life? What if we're like Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger? Can we survive and prosper? Can we "get respect" from anyone, or will we always be burned as witches or executed as "enemies of the people?"
We might use sophisticated psychotherapy techniques to "re-integrate" ourselves back into "natural society." Just act naturally - as the song says. Pretend to be interested in all the insanity that surrounds us. Pretend to understand. Say that often. "I understand." It really reassures people. And all the while LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Always try to do "the right thing." Talk about it, and why you did that. Let people know you are no threat to them, and might just be a lot of help. Try to be a family counselor whenever you are in a family situation. But not pedantically. Ask questions instead of making statements. Teach by Socratic inquiry. It really works.
Suddenly, you will be admired and respected by everyone who knows you. People will want to help you instead of kill or torture you. They will come to you for advice and consolation. You can get laid a lot if you want to, but in this day and age, with numerous uncurable venereal diseases, you'll probably want to avoid that part of this "Sixties" thinking.
You might even "get lucky" and find someone to "partner up" with. But they will have all the same problems of identity and self-portrayal as you do. They will probably have a morally checkered past, if they have lived life to the fullest. There will be other obstacles, too - the worst of which I've found to be one's respective families. Whether your prospective partner's family likes you or hates you, you'll be in trouble with your partner. There are very few "well-adjusted" and mutually-supportive families, and those that are, probably won't have any rogue geniuses among them (although it depends on wider cultural values - in Sweden, this would be quite possible).
So, "soldier on," as they say in the Nuclear Garrison Town. We can win, but we've got to keep fighting. And loving, and talking, and listening. But the real victory is spiritual, not military or financial.
As a life-long "non-conformist" and otherwise a person who "keeps his own counsel" (although I also spend much of my time trying to determine what other people think, and why they think that), I lead a fairly isolated life. I've found it difficult, if not impossible, to live with other people - to "partner up" in whatever sense you want to take that. But like my friend Rik put it (a Norwegian by birth and family), "We're like blue whales. There are just aren't enough of us left to find suitable partners, and lead meaningful lives." Or, as we might put it now, our social networks have broken down or been co-opted.
The cyber-community persists, of course, and in fact, we're rapidly becoming mere accessories (or "applications") for our electronic hardware. How could this happen? Weren't computers and the internet supposed to be a kind of "equalizer", like the Colt 45 in frontier America? Even a little dumb guy could kill you, so you'd better be nice to him, and not try to rip him off.
We found that computers aren't "cultural". Or, they are "culture-neutral", a distant descendant of the "value-neutral" (Wertfrei) criterion in the social sciences. Arabs, Chinese, Hindus, and even the most "primitive" Africans and other black aborigines are all the same when it comes to math, science, and technology. White people, if anything, are inferior - if only because of our own self-aggrandizement and lack of ethical treatment of other nations and peoples.
Probably anyone who joined Mensa or some other exclusive club based on intelligence or ability was disappointed. These people aren't any different than my other friends and family - except maybe they are less ethical and more conniving. (Mensa has only one criteria - test scores. Call it the NCLB of social networks.) So, what's the big deal?
For libertarians, there isn't any. We already knew all this. Especially if we'd read and studied Ayn Rand. (Or many of her forebears, among whom I'll only name Nietzsche and Herbert Spencer, but there are hundreds). We already knew that the "superior man" (as they say in the I Ching) must follow a different course from everyone else. We might find an ally here or there; we might maintain the dignity and reputation to be a respected teacher, writer, entrepreneur, or even statesman, but we are not usually electable to public office.
What about "the magic of everyday life" - what we might call "The Harry Potter Factor", or earlier, the bizarre supernaturalism of Stephen King? They work very well on film, but what do we do if we're "like that" in real life? What if we're like Mark Twain's Mysterious Stranger? Can we survive and prosper? Can we "get respect" from anyone, or will we always be burned as witches or executed as "enemies of the people?"
We might use sophisticated psychotherapy techniques to "re-integrate" ourselves back into "natural society." Just act naturally - as the song says. Pretend to be interested in all the insanity that surrounds us. Pretend to understand. Say that often. "I understand." It really reassures people. And all the while LEAD BY EXAMPLE. Always try to do "the right thing." Talk about it, and why you did that. Let people know you are no threat to them, and might just be a lot of help. Try to be a family counselor whenever you are in a family situation. But not pedantically. Ask questions instead of making statements. Teach by Socratic inquiry. It really works.
Suddenly, you will be admired and respected by everyone who knows you. People will want to help you instead of kill or torture you. They will come to you for advice and consolation. You can get laid a lot if you want to, but in this day and age, with numerous uncurable venereal diseases, you'll probably want to avoid that part of this "Sixties" thinking.
You might even "get lucky" and find someone to "partner up" with. But they will have all the same problems of identity and self-portrayal as you do. They will probably have a morally checkered past, if they have lived life to the fullest. There will be other obstacles, too - the worst of which I've found to be one's respective families. Whether your prospective partner's family likes you or hates you, you'll be in trouble with your partner. There are very few "well-adjusted" and mutually-supportive families, and those that are, probably won't have any rogue geniuses among them (although it depends on wider cultural values - in Sweden, this would be quite possible).
So, "soldier on," as they say in the Nuclear Garrison Town. We can win, but we've got to keep fighting. And loving, and talking, and listening. But the real victory is spiritual, not military or financial.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Political parties are crime syndicates
In the following essay, we've only touched on the role of "government schools" in our present malaise.
Political Parties or Crime Syndicates?
All politics is local.
by Paul Stephens
Like most people, I am surrounded by Republicans and Democrats. They are like two grindstones, and we are the grain in between, being pulverized on a daily basis. My mother and father were basically New Deal Democrats (my older sister, Eleanor, was born in 1941), although my father was raised as a Prohibitionist Republican, which he might have remained had he not drunk some of J.C. Peters' whiskey at about age 10. Peters, father of the artist Les Peters (who recently passed away - he and my father were the same age), is also known for having built the Country Club Tower back in the 1950's. My uncle Charles, a journeyman glazer, worked on that project, too.
So what are these "parties" which are systematically dismantling our country, its economy, and even - anyone can tell you - our military, by corrupting the appropriations and procurement processes, as well as "mission creep" to where our military is everything which Americans traditionally opposed, and the greatest single threat to the future of the human species.
Whatever "the two major parties" (hereafter referred to as "DemRepubs") are, they are not legitimate "political parties" as we have always understood them. Even the Nazis and Bolsheviks paid lip service to all the traditional goals of political theory and action - a just and peaceful society (remember "peace through victory" - that's the German name, "Siegfried"). Unlike the DemRepubs, a serious political party must be dedicated to better government, peace, human welfare, the Constitution, and otherwise representing the best interests of the people, as well as the global ecosystem and future generations yet to come. The "empire" or other system must last at least 1000 years - another way of saying it must be "sustainable," "perpetual" or "steady-state." The Catholic (and Orthodox) Christian Churches meet the test, as does Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Direct Democracy, Monarchy, etc. Most indigenous peoples also followed this principle, as in the "7th Generation" principle of Native Americans. Don't do anything which will harm even the 7th generation - 100 or 150 years from now.
It would be better to call the DemRepubs "gangs" (as everyone by now must realize), if not mobs, or maybe armies - that's what they're really fighting over - control of the military because, as Trotsky said, whoever controls the military controls the Revolution and the Future. But following my mentor, Sam Peltzman, the DemRepubs have always looked a lot more like "Crime Syndicates" to me. (Peltzman, known originally as one of Milton Friedman's proteges at the University of Chicago, has researched and written extensively on the theory and practice of organized crime).
Once you think of the DemRepubs this way, it all makes sense. They're only talking to teach other. They are rival gangs, fighting over and dividing our "territory" - now expanded to include the entire planet, with "full spectrum dominance." They control everything. We can only oppose them *sub rosa*, on the spiritual and intellectual planes. We can't openly confront them on the battlefield or in the Halls of Congress, although we'd better start doing at least the latter, if we want to survive as a human species.
They are not about to address the threats of climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, or even the financial crises which are now almost sure to result in the collapse of our government and the takeover by some explicit military or corporate dictatorship. Fortunately, the military as a whole is better-able to coordinate rational policy solutions to any of these problems than is the Congress and the civilian bureaucracies. When democracy fails, there will always be people there to take up the slack, and that is the best prediction for what will happen - if we don't get into a major war, first, which would simply accelerate the process, since there is no organized peace movement to stop it.
As Gen. Smedly Butler pointed out in the 1930's, "war is a racket." www.youtube.com/watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0
And the Racketeers - the Crime Syndicate bosses - are the same families and people, now, as they were, then - the Rockefellers, the Bush's, the Kennedy's, the Pews, DuPont's, Dow's, Ford's, Carnegie's, Cargill's, Guggenheim's, etc. except that they've had to enlarge "the family" considerably to take in OPEC, the Zionazis (AIPAC), the Tongs (much of California and the West Coast, along with SE Asia), the Yakuzi, and all the other ethnic gangs and power blocks known to control significant parts of the global economy. (Every hear of the Scan-Am Mafia? I didn't think so).
Thanks to the prevalent anti-intellectualism and political takeovers at once-independent universities and law schools, the Criminal Law is often - surprise! - on the side of the Criminals. Yes, I am in favor of a legal system, as well as open discussion and full transparency about its application and interpretation, but the real and enduring laws aren't made in our Legislatures of the Bribed and Coerced. They are EVOLVED over centuries by courts and judges, which must remain wise and public-spirited, activist and independent if we are to save ourselves from tyranny.
The "blue bloods" have become the Blue Dogs - "solid middle-class people" with a lot of friends and influence, which is usually applied surreptitiously, and for very different reasons than the advertised ones. Call them the Junior Chamber of Commerce - the wannabe's, who will sell out in a moment to please and curry favor with the Gangster Capitalists. They are gangs as much as any others, and because they have a lot more influence within the Military-Industrial Complex, they have a lot more say over our national direction and policies.
Our constitutional principle of "civilian control of the military" has always been a joke, and becomes particularly acrid with a president like Barack Obama (or earlier, Bill Clinton) - always trying to be "tough guys" who "understand" what the military is supposed to want - total global hegemony and domination, in their view. They actually believe that soldiers are sociopaths who like to fight and kill, and that is what is being selected for in our "all volunteer military" - people who will sign away their rights and their country's future in exchange for some drinking money. As a few prescient people warned in opposition to the Vietnam-era anti-draft protests, the alternative is a mercenary army which will maximize its own wealth and control over the government and economy.
If there was ever a reason to abandon the monopoly education bureaucracy and standardized curricula, this is it. The Teacher's Unions are the largest single contributors to the Democratic Party. People have to be trained and conditioned to accept the present state of things - being on the brink of military dictatorship and police state, as well as economic collapse. People have to be lied to and confused incessantly if they are to believe what the DemRepubs are telling them. They must more or less have "given up trying to understand anything." And the only way this can happen is by the mechanisms of universal compulsory schooling, and through brainwashing from birth by the corporate-controlled mass media. So long as we never hear any criticism or alternative views of things, we will think our descent into bankruptcy and dictatorship is inevitable.
People always look to "government" to save them. But "government" - the State, the City, the County as well as the Federal Government are, as Reagan said, "the problem, not the solution." He was as much a captive of the corporations as Obama is - indeed, Reagan set the standard for what still exists, today. (See Bill Moyers' recent interview with Reagan budget manager David Stockman, who is now supporting Ron Paul).
By now, the federal government utterly dominates and controls our public education system, just as State and local gangs (the Klan, et. al.) did in the Age of Apartheid. But we always permitted both religious schools and cooperative home and community schooling, and they are stronger, now, than ever. Before the DOE bureaucracy ("Education Czar"), local schools were always controlled by local boards, which had to tax themselves to finance the schools. No "free money" here!
What a difference that one rule makes! How much snake oil, in the form of computers and e-books would schools buy for their students if they had to pay for them with local money, without federal funding and mandates? And how many drugs would they force their students to take if the Feds didn't spend $3000 per student per year on the CHIP program of "health insurance" - which every Democrat (and many Republicans) in the state vigorously supported?
The old ways hang on. We are now in the 3rd generation of "the War on Drugs," promoted and financed entirely by the "legal" drug pushers (Big Pharma) and prison industry, which is now responsible for maintaining 25% of the world's prisoners in a country - ours - with 4% of its population. The same numbers apply to our use of fossile fuels and pollution. And even worse numbers apply to our military spending. We spend nearly half the world's total spent on weapons and military operations with only 4% of its population! What's wrong with this picture?
We can see the results nearly every week in some report of student violence, falling test scores, and skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction - all enforced by the same laws which stamp our children's minds "Property of the State." All but the most determined and self-reliant students end up in dead-end jobs, the military, or prison. (Well, they still do encourage kids to be doctors and lawyers, here, but you wouldn't want to pay their fees to be treated by them, or entrust your freedom to their understanding of "the Law.")
It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to keep torturing and oppressing each other. We can return to our roots, or even reassert ourselves as an independent city-state - free to create our own society in the best ways we know how. All politics is local.
Political Parties or Crime Syndicates?
All politics is local.
by Paul Stephens
Like most people, I am surrounded by Republicans and Democrats. They are like two grindstones, and we are the grain in between, being pulverized on a daily basis. My mother and father were basically New Deal Democrats (my older sister, Eleanor, was born in 1941), although my father was raised as a Prohibitionist Republican, which he might have remained had he not drunk some of J.C. Peters' whiskey at about age 10. Peters, father of the artist Les Peters (who recently passed away - he and my father were the same age), is also known for having built the Country Club Tower back in the 1950's. My uncle Charles, a journeyman glazer, worked on that project, too.
So what are these "parties" which are systematically dismantling our country, its economy, and even - anyone can tell you - our military, by corrupting the appropriations and procurement processes, as well as "mission creep" to where our military is everything which Americans traditionally opposed, and the greatest single threat to the future of the human species.
Whatever "the two major parties" (hereafter referred to as "DemRepubs") are, they are not legitimate "political parties" as we have always understood them. Even the Nazis and Bolsheviks paid lip service to all the traditional goals of political theory and action - a just and peaceful society (remember "peace through victory" - that's the German name, "Siegfried"). Unlike the DemRepubs, a serious political party must be dedicated to better government, peace, human welfare, the Constitution, and otherwise representing the best interests of the people, as well as the global ecosystem and future generations yet to come. The "empire" or other system must last at least 1000 years - another way of saying it must be "sustainable," "perpetual" or "steady-state." The Catholic (and Orthodox) Christian Churches meet the test, as does Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Direct Democracy, Monarchy, etc. Most indigenous peoples also followed this principle, as in the "7th Generation" principle of Native Americans. Don't do anything which will harm even the 7th generation - 100 or 150 years from now.
It would be better to call the DemRepubs "gangs" (as everyone by now must realize), if not mobs, or maybe armies - that's what they're really fighting over - control of the military because, as Trotsky said, whoever controls the military controls the Revolution and the Future. But following my mentor, Sam Peltzman, the DemRepubs have always looked a lot more like "Crime Syndicates" to me. (Peltzman, known originally as one of Milton Friedman's proteges at the University of Chicago, has researched and written extensively on the theory and practice of organized crime).
Once you think of the DemRepubs this way, it all makes sense. They're only talking to teach other. They are rival gangs, fighting over and dividing our "territory" - now expanded to include the entire planet, with "full spectrum dominance." They control everything. We can only oppose them *sub rosa*, on the spiritual and intellectual planes. We can't openly confront them on the battlefield or in the Halls of Congress, although we'd better start doing at least the latter, if we want to survive as a human species.
They are not about to address the threats of climate collapse, nuclear holocaust, or even the financial crises which are now almost sure to result in the collapse of our government and the takeover by some explicit military or corporate dictatorship. Fortunately, the military as a whole is better-able to coordinate rational policy solutions to any of these problems than is the Congress and the civilian bureaucracies. When democracy fails, there will always be people there to take up the slack, and that is the best prediction for what will happen - if we don't get into a major war, first, which would simply accelerate the process, since there is no organized peace movement to stop it.
As Gen. Smedly Butler pointed out in the 1930's, "war is a racket." www.youtube.com/watch
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3_EXqJ8f-0
And the Racketeers - the Crime Syndicate bosses - are the same families and people, now, as they were, then - the Rockefellers, the Bush's, the Kennedy's, the Pews, DuPont's, Dow's, Ford's, Carnegie's, Cargill's, Guggenheim's, etc. except that they've had to enlarge "the family" considerably to take in OPEC, the Zionazis (AIPAC), the Tongs (much of California and the West Coast, along with SE Asia), the Yakuzi, and all the other ethnic gangs and power blocks known to control significant parts of the global economy. (Every hear of the Scan-Am Mafia? I didn't think so).
Thanks to the prevalent anti-intellectualism and political takeovers at once-independent universities and law schools, the Criminal Law is often - surprise! - on the side of the Criminals. Yes, I am in favor of a legal system, as well as open discussion and full transparency about its application and interpretation, but the real and enduring laws aren't made in our Legislatures of the Bribed and Coerced. They are EVOLVED over centuries by courts and judges, which must remain wise and public-spirited, activist and independent if we are to save ourselves from tyranny.
The "blue bloods" have become the Blue Dogs - "solid middle-class people" with a lot of friends and influence, which is usually applied surreptitiously, and for very different reasons than the advertised ones. Call them the Junior Chamber of Commerce - the wannabe's, who will sell out in a moment to please and curry favor with the Gangster Capitalists. They are gangs as much as any others, and because they have a lot more influence within the Military-Industrial Complex, they have a lot more say over our national direction and policies.
Our constitutional principle of "civilian control of the military" has always been a joke, and becomes particularly acrid with a president like Barack Obama (or earlier, Bill Clinton) - always trying to be "tough guys" who "understand" what the military is supposed to want - total global hegemony and domination, in their view. They actually believe that soldiers are sociopaths who like to fight and kill, and that is what is being selected for in our "all volunteer military" - people who will sign away their rights and their country's future in exchange for some drinking money. As a few prescient people warned in opposition to the Vietnam-era anti-draft protests, the alternative is a mercenary army which will maximize its own wealth and control over the government and economy.
If there was ever a reason to abandon the monopoly education bureaucracy and standardized curricula, this is it. The Teacher's Unions are the largest single contributors to the Democratic Party. People have to be trained and conditioned to accept the present state of things - being on the brink of military dictatorship and police state, as well as economic collapse. People have to be lied to and confused incessantly if they are to believe what the DemRepubs are telling them. They must more or less have "given up trying to understand anything." And the only way this can happen is by the mechanisms of universal compulsory schooling, and through brainwashing from birth by the corporate-controlled mass media. So long as we never hear any criticism or alternative views of things, we will think our descent into bankruptcy and dictatorship is inevitable.
People always look to "government" to save them. But "government" - the State, the City, the County as well as the Federal Government are, as Reagan said, "the problem, not the solution." He was as much a captive of the corporations as Obama is - indeed, Reagan set the standard for what still exists, today. (See Bill Moyers' recent interview with Reagan budget manager David Stockman, who is now supporting Ron Paul).
By now, the federal government utterly dominates and controls our public education system, just as State and local gangs (the Klan, et. al.) did in the Age of Apartheid. But we always permitted both religious schools and cooperative home and community schooling, and they are stronger, now, than ever. Before the DOE bureaucracy ("Education Czar"), local schools were always controlled by local boards, which had to tax themselves to finance the schools. No "free money" here!
What a difference that one rule makes! How much snake oil, in the form of computers and e-books would schools buy for their students if they had to pay for them with local money, without federal funding and mandates? And how many drugs would they force their students to take if the Feds didn't spend $3000 per student per year on the CHIP program of "health insurance" - which every Democrat (and many Republicans) in the state vigorously supported?
The old ways hang on. We are now in the 3rd generation of "the War on Drugs," promoted and financed entirely by the "legal" drug pushers (Big Pharma) and prison industry, which is now responsible for maintaining 25% of the world's prisoners in a country - ours - with 4% of its population. The same numbers apply to our use of fossile fuels and pollution. And even worse numbers apply to our military spending. We spend nearly half the world's total spent on weapons and military operations with only 4% of its population! What's wrong with this picture?
We can see the results nearly every week in some report of student violence, falling test scores, and skyrocketing rates of teen suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, and drug addiction - all enforced by the same laws which stamp our children's minds "Property of the State." All but the most determined and self-reliant students end up in dead-end jobs, the military, or prison. (Well, they still do encourage kids to be doctors and lawyers, here, but you wouldn't want to pay their fees to be treated by them, or entrust your freedom to their understanding of "the Law.")
It doesn't have to be this way. We don't have to keep torturing and oppressing each other. We can return to our roots, or even reassert ourselves as an independent city-state - free to create our own society in the best ways we know how. All politics is local.
Some family and local history - Fort Benton-Highwood-Belt
Determining one's legal status in the Cosmos
Part I Choosing a team
The Great Falls Mafia, or the Belt, Highwood, Fort Benton Axis?
The older I get, the more I'm interested in my family's past and traditions. I have not been able to research this stuff, myself, since I have had to practically steal or otherwise surreptitiously record whatever information I could get out of my parents and grandmother before they passed on. My half-siblings and cousins had always ganged up on me - so much so that I started to call myself a "bastard step-child," which made a good joke since we are the Step-hens's.
It didn't bother me when I was younger. I always took responsibility for my own actions, and tried to mitigate whatever bad effects my relatives might have had. There were several different factions among them, depending on whom they had married, or what their larger-world experiences might have been. All were seemingly vying for some imaginary status and power. I never could figure out the logic of this - we could have been one the richest and most powerful families in the world, I thought, if only we would work together and use science and reason, ethics and esthetics, to inspire and lead our efforts. But for some reason, they never thought of me as "part of the family", or if they did, it was some dispreputable, evil part.
One thing I've always known was a real handicap (besides alcoholism) was an obsession with sex and sexuality - pro, con, and otherwise - simply reducing any issue or question to those of interpersonal relations and status, rather than the merits and facts of the case. I'm sure we're not unique in that. Teaching high school is a real lesson in this branch of knowledge - carnal knowledge. It seems like everything in "civilized" culture is about sex and sexual relationships, and the only ones supposedly free of that are the fundamentalist religious people who actually follow Christian principles on lust, greed, forgiveness, etc. But even when they don't, it sets an example of a higher way of life. We know both kinds of people, and those who are most casual and unobsessed with sex are definitely better-off, and more likely to be comfortable and happy.
As for acquiring wealth, it just never made sense to me - especially in a revolutionary age like ours. There are very few fortunes in this country which go back 100 years. In Montana, they are mostly ranches (not dryland farms) with low overhead and the ability to greatly reduce their taxes through conservation easements, etc. There are a few business and law families who go back that far. Last Saturday's (it's a couple of months ago, now) story about the Stephenson and Cooper law firm (now Jardine, Stephenson, although they don't seem to have any Jardines, either) is a case in point. Indeed, although no one in my family ever hired a Stephenson or Cooper lawyer, so far as I know, they were close personal friends, and Sam Stephenson even had a summer home close to our ranch in the Highwoods.
Robert Cooper, Ransom's son, was a Bowdoin graduate (like our Founder, Paris Gibson), and I knew him fairly well as a small child. Both my father and uncle were part of his drinking circle, exchanging books and correspondence. We lived 35 miles from downtown Great Falls, so they probably often crashed at his place, although it was nothing to drive the 35 miles dead drunk in those days. I still have in my library Coop's copies of the Random House Modern Library Nietzsche and F. Scott Fitgerald. There was also an old letter from Coop at the ranch when I returned from California in 1972. I might still have it, somewhere. I remember that it was addressed from "Somewhere in the space-time contiuum," and so I had a few conversations with my father and uncle about him. They both thought he was a genius - one of the most literate and philosophical people they'd ever known. Upon receiving his inheritance, he drank himself to death within a few years.
I also knew that his father, Ransom was the chief attorney for the Anaconda Company, but I assumed it was just local business involving claims against the Smelter by workers, etc. There was probably a lot of that, but people from this firm, if we can trust Ecke's account, actually went on to head the ACM - one of the Dow-Jones Industrial Average "Blue Chip" companies, in those days. (Like Kodak, one might point out, which is about to be de-listed altogether from the NYSE).
Baucus's and Swanberg's were also big-time lawyers, here. I guess I understand, now, why Max had no scruples about "Panama Paul-ing" Judge Hatfield when he ran against him in the 1978 Democratic Senate primary. If only Baucus were "the real McCoy" instead of just another crypto-Republican elitist pandering to the "liberals" while the rich people pretend he's their mortal enemy.
The Swanberg's and A.B. Guthrie, Jr. were also part of that group. I can still remember, although I must have been only 6 or 7 years old, sitting in Gus and Eddie's (where That Bar is now, but with a beautifl curved bar, neon purple lighting, and faux-leopard skin upholstered booths) with my father, Coop, and A.B. Guthrie, Jr. That was their main hang-out, I think, along with the Pennant, where all the Tribune reporters and printers hung out.
My mother, who had grown up in Al Capone's Chicago, was considered a usurper - in spite of being Jean Arthur's cousin, and the grand-daughter of one of the earliest founders of Billings. When her father, Arthur Nelson, died, Alex Blewett represented her half-brother, Skip, in the battle over the estate. And Bill Swanberg represented my father in their custody dispute over me. She won that one, but they always made it clear that I could mix and match however I liked. Of course I chose the drinking and gambling life of my father - as well as the intellectual aspects of being a teacher and writer. Somehow, that seems to have precluded me from inheriting the ranch, even though I am the sole surviving Stephens.
My mother's maternal grandfather, too, was an old hand in Great Falls, John Dunn, having moved here to work at the Smelter, if I remember right, in 1906. Both of my grandmothers went to high school at what is now Paris Gibson Square, with my grandmother Stephens (Paulson, changed from the Norwegian Sitje) being Salutatorian in the class of 1908. I think there were 19 graduates, most of them girls, in that year. You could test for a teaching certificate, and teach in a country school with no college, in those days - grades 1-8, at least. She also took the Civil Service Test (I still have the results of that), and was first in line for any job that opened (mostly Post Office, then - there was no FBI, Social Security, or other Federal regulatory or welfare agencies). But she married my grandfather, instead, who was literate and public-spirited, and they made a good match, even though he was 24 years older (not unusual in those days, when many men outlived several wives). I spent my first 6 years in their home, with my father and uncle more or less serving as co-parents - sort of like "Two and a Half Men," some have noted.
Two years after my grandparent's marriage in 1912, the Great War broke out, and the Lutheran Scandinavians and Germans, as well as the German and Eastern European Jews, were considered suspicious aliens, and actually tried and prosecuted, as well as being punished in many other ways just for opposing or even questioning the war, avoiding the draft, or even possessing German language papers and books. It was very much like today's situation with Muslims. They're even reviving "Sedition Laws" passed in 1917 to deal with this supposed "Fifth Column" of "peace activists."
Into my generation, we were still raised as Lutherans, although several of my cousins went to the Methodist Church (my grandfather was a friend of Brother Van, and a sincere Christian), but most of their kids don't go to anything at all, or perhaps some fundamentalist "Christian Right" sect. Both my father and I joined the local Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship, and since we were fans of Emerson and Thoreau, we fit right into that. I'll have to write a history of what I remember of that, some day. Mary Scriver was the circuit-Pastor during that time, and will no doubt leave a thorough account of it from her perspective. Grace Fishbaugh, Arlyn's mother, was one of the mainstays, along with Dr. Ernst Eichwald and some other doctors and lawyers, including the Best's, who were just getting started in their law practice, then. Elizabeth's grandfather, Dr. McPhail, an obstetrician, brought me and a thousand or more others into this world.
Paris Gibson was a Universalist (meaning Universal Salvation - an obscure Christian sect which intrpreted Divine Grace rather more broadly than most). The Unitarians and Universalists merged in the early 1950's.
The Belt-Highwood-Fort Benton Axis is the other "affinity group" for the Stephens family. Upper Highwood, early in the last century, was something like Big Sky is today - an elite collection of trophy ranches, rich doctors and lawyers, and of course the earliest city in Montana, Fort Benton, as well as the Coal Boom towns of Belt and Sand Coulee. It may seem quaint and picturesque, today, but these guys ruled the world. There were something like 10 Fleet Admirals and Generals from that "zone" in Choteau County from the First World War through Vietnam. And famous war heroes, intellectuals, scientists, entrepreneurs, etc., etc. Don't make me list them - Ken Robison is putting together a pretty good account of it, and there are many others to choose from.
My grandfather Stephens was born during the Civil War - 1864, in Illinois. His father voted for Abraham Lincoln. I've recently determined that he was also a fairly close cousin of the VP of the Confederacy, Alexander Hamilton Stephens. Of course, that Stephens (the leading advocate for chattel slavery) and Abraham Lincoln also knew each other from serving together in Congress. I suspect my grandfather spent his whole life trying to figure out the massive tragedy of the Civil War. He was the least combatitive person imaginable. Like Will Rogers, he "never met a man he didn't like", and according to my father, never made moral judgments about people - even those who were demonstrably evil. What a gift!
But his wife, my Norwegian grandmother, grew up mostly fatherless, in working-class boarding houses which her peasant mother ran, speaking Norwegian as a child, and suffering all the perils of alcoholism, sexism, and violent exploitation which characterized life in frontier Great Falls. She never imagined herself free of control by the indefinable "they" - some "authorities" who secretly control everything. She was very judgmental, puritanical, and a political Prohibitionist, like most of the "respectable" church-going women of that time. So, it's no wonder we all turned out so strangely, I suppose.
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