Contra Baucus- selected comments and analysis

Revenge of the Vine -  the Baucus Cult in Western History

What's really wrong with Max Baucus?  

Not many of us are taking the opportunity to dance on Max's grave - not yet, anyway.  Of course, he isn't dead, yet, which you'd never know from yesterday's Tribune with about 4 pages of nothing but tributes and praise for the man I have long called "The worst Senator in History" - meaning US history, of course.  I'm sure there were a few Romans or maybe even Latin American oligarchs who were worse.
  
The fact is, he's at the most dangerous point in his long career of serving Wall Street and just about every murderous, corrupt constituency in our Body Politic.  He's about to "reform" the tax system, to even better reflect the interests and "requirements" of the 1%.  Watch closely.  There will be a lot of sleight-of-hand, here.  Not that it's necessary.  The evidence indicates that he has no serious critics outside the Green Party and the Occupy movement (and of course Single Payer Healthcare advocates, who he treated like common criminals.  That would include Brian Schweitzer.).  

The Pope and Archbishop of Canterbury acting in concert would not be able to persuade Baucus and his crew of the need for any sort of ethical principles or social responsibility.  They have adopted the "self-interest" ethics of Ayn Rand along with every sort of intellectual dishonesty and disregard of scientific understanding - all the while pretending to represent the highest realms of intellectual excellence and legal "professionalism", from Harvard to Stanford, Yale, and now, Chicago.  They're all Straussians, now - like the guy who took away Oppenheimer's security clearance as much as Leo, or the Nazi Party favorite, Richard.  Maybe they're all Waltz Kings, after all.  Look at the success of Schwarzenegger, that echt Viennese King of the video rental store.  

It's Nietzschean, too, in its descent from Emerson and the early environmental radicals like John Muir or Gifford Pinchot.  The pursuit of excellence for a few, and mass sacrifice and tyranny for the many.  The pattern is clear, and I was just reminded of it by one of my unknown friends' posts:

"What I want to fix your attention on is the vast, overall movement towards the discrediting, and finally the elimination, of every kind of human excellence – moral, cultural, social, or intellectual. And is it not pretty to notice how “democracy” (in the incantatory sense) is now doing for us the work that was once done by the most ancient Dictatorships, and by the same methods? You remember how one of the Greek Dictators (they called them “tyrants” then) sent an envoy to another Dictator to ask his advice about the principles of government. The second Dictator led the envoy into a field of grain, and there he snicked off with his cane the top of every stalk that rose an inch or so above the general level. The moral was plain. Allow no preeminence among your subjects. Let no man live who is wiser or better or more famous or even handsomer than the mass. Cut them all down to a level: all slaves, all ciphers, all nobodies. All equals. Thus Tyrants could practise, in a sense, “democracy.” But now “democracy” can do the same work without any tyranny other than her own."
~Screwtape, From Screwtape Proposes a Toast, C. S. Lewis, 1959

Paul Stephens: When I used to associate with a lot of intellectual conservatives, they were always trying to get me to read this - I was more or less anti-christian, though, based on personal experience, so never read him. The above is right-on.

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Steve Kelly was one of the first to count coup.  "God is alive," he said, e-mailing his lists the story from the NY Times of Baucus calling it quits.  

Melinda Gopher's tweets soon followed.  She supported Mike Taylor against Baucus in 2002, and most NA's I know have long-standing grievances against Baucus as well as the Baucus family, itself.  (Disclaimer:  The Baucus family is from Great Falls, and actually neighbors - lived on the same block with the Diehl's, Swanberg's, and Peter's - all close friends of my family, as well.)

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Melinda Gopher
I was the one #Democrat that vowed to primary the most powerful Senator, in the #USSenate, while other state Democrats cowered...
Share · 1 · 11 hours ago near Missoula, MT · 

I reply:  "John Driscoll did it, so did Bob Kelleher - major Democratic party leaders - real labor guys, and social democrats.  Both were crucified by the Baucus Machine.  Max always pretended he didn't know what was happening - "plausible deniability," they call it."

Melinda Gopher
Believe the next person to lead #Democrats should be #LandlessIndian descendant
Share · 12 hours ago near Missoula, MT · 
Options

Melinda Gopher
#Baucus failed in his ENTIRE Congressional career to address #LandlessIndians needs...#13starflag

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Doug Wendt
Max Baucus 'our' "Senator from K Street" because of his ties to corporate lobbyists is RETIRING which makes his vote for unhinged massacres last week even more despicable. The Waterton Police faced hundreds of rounds & only stopped the bad guys last week when they paused to reload huge magazines. 4,000 dead in US from guns since Newtown. This ad puts the wrong headed liberal interpretation of the 2nd Amendment in context:

The Best Gun Control Commercial Ever Produced?
http://www.buzzfeed.com/copyranter/the-best-gun-control-commercial-ever-produced
A man walks into his office with a rifle. He takes aim at his boss, and fires...

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Paul Stephens:

People assume I have some sort of personal grievance with Max.  I don't.  I've never had a conversation with him outside of public forums.  I just consider him one of most evil politicians I have ever seen or heard of, sellling out to the bad guys in nearly every case that matters, and getting nothing worthwhile in return - like closing Malmstrom, or promoting Single Payer healthcare, instead of destroying it.  He's also largely responsible for destroying Montana Power, via his connections with Goldman, Sachs, who under commission from PPL, packed the Board, paid off the preferred stockholders, and then liquidated the company, selling the generating assets to PPL, which was the whole point of the exercise (PPL was looking to replace its nuclear capacity, which it expected would soon be shut down).  Essentially, they were stolen, and Max or his people (along with Racicot) were in the loop all along.  

There are many other areas where Max's "leadership" has resulted in tremendous destruction to the economy (especially Montana's, and rural/small towns across the country),  "ending welfare as we [the 1%] know it," the health-care system, education (NCLB, the Race to the Top, etc), research & development ("intellectual property" for corporations, not for people), and foreign policy in general.  Max has supported all the wars, the PATRIOT Act, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (getting Clinton to sign it, which he was inclined to do, anyway), and other Republican, corporate "de-regulation" and "free trade" policies.  Max is the quintessential "neo-liberal" and was even one of the original "New Democrats" from the '70's which included Evan Bayh, John (and Bob) Kerry, Gary "Monkey Business" (Senator from CO - can't think of his last name), Bill Clinton, and Al Gore.  

While hanging, for many years, on Mike Mansfield's coat-tails, Max had none of the common touch or working class values of Mansfield, and thus has been the greatest disappointment to the Democratic base, although his effective use and doimination of the media, public and private, has largely obscured that fact.  Even more disappointing for more sophisticated observers is how shamelessly Max has maintained the support of some of the best activists and progressive leaders, who seem to ignore everything he has  done since the 1980's, when he may have actually tried to be one of the good guys.  But no good deed went unpunished, and like so many others, Max just caved in, and became the active agent of all that is wrong with our country and its government.  

Little-noted so far is Max's tremendous influence and even domination of the Obama Administration.  Jim Messina, a hero and complete creation of the Baucus Machine, got Obama re-elected, or at least takes credit for it.  So, add to the long list of Baucus's own sins and indiscretions, the creation of a President who might yet destroy the country which  once enslaved his people and ancestors.

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Truthout
The Obama administration is suggesting a compromise with Republicans to tie your benefits to something called "Chained CPI."

http://www.upworthy.com/you-will-not-believe-what-the-government-is-planning-to-do-to-your-poor-gentle-sweet-old-grandma-2?c=to1

You Will Not Believe What The Government Is Planning To Do To Your Poor, Gentle, Sweet, Old Grandma

www.upworthy.com

It doesn't mean you'll get your benefits cut. It just means you'll get less money. Totally not the same thing.

Paul Stephens: Especially pernicious because inflation is grossly understated by Soc Security, etc. Plus, those who lived freelance or in the black economy most of their lives get only the barest subsistence - my total income, with SSI and Food Stamps, is a little over $800/month. I could work part-time in a minimum wage job, but only a few of them are exempt from having your other benefits reduced in compensation. I'd have to make at least $500/month to have a worthwhile gain (i'd lose SSI, Food Stamps, etc), and I figure my time's worth $25/hr - that's what I'd charge for informal consulting, tutoring (to those with middle-class incomes - I do a lot of it for free), photography, writing, etc. But of course there is no work available for me. Somehow, I've been blacklisted. 
And that's a paradox in itself - no one has paid me or hired me for that sort of work in all the years since I most needed it, after being fired by Diamond Cab. It's like that was a punishment which all my other friends and associates recognized!

Peyton Farquhar LMAO. Obama the tyrant who will throw granny under the bus finally proves that he is no different from George the dumber. Both blue & red teams work for Wall Street.
Like · Reply · 5 ·

Brenda Roehrich Peyton. Obama is NO tyrant. That requires balls. He does this shit because he is spineless. I wanted Hilary Clinton as President; not Mr. fucking nice guy.
Like · 10 hours ago

Sarah Sparklers AND they're treating MILITARY retirees the exact same way. LIES and cheating.
Like · Reply · 3 · 11 hours ago

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The "free trade" and Pharma sell-outs for which Baucus was most culpable are described, below.   He was actually the deciding vote, and one of only a few Democrats who supported the "Part D" $50 billion/year giveaway to the drug cartels, as well as all the overprescription rackets and resulting health disasters attributable to it.  

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ZNet Daily Commentary: Tremendous Pharmaceutical Profits or Totally Protected Plunder? By Dawn Paley


Tremendous Pharmaceutical Profits or Totally Protected Plunder?

April 22, 2013 By Dawn Paley

http://www.zcommunications.org/tremendous-pharmaceutical-profits-or-totally-protected-plunder-by-dawn-paley

What the TPP really means for Latin America
Quieter is better. That seems to be the motto driving the negotiations of the Trans-Pacific Partnership. The trade deal was initially called the P2, and it was a two-way affair between New Zealand and Singapore. Chile and Brunei joined the negotiations, which were renamed the P4. Then the US joined, and the deal was re-branded as the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership Agreement (TPP). Today, negotiating countries are splayed across the globe like a constellation only a highly trained astronomer could recognize. In addition to the first five, the TPP now includes Australia, Malaysia, Peru, and Vietnam. Canada and Mexico recently joined the talks and Japan is vying to participate in the negotiations
The next round of negotiations will take place in Lima, Peru, and proponents are pushing for a final agreement by fall.
But the language of TPP promoters rings hollow for those who have tracked the progress of other trade agreements, like NAFTA. “They’re saying that it’s going to open up opportunities for exporting more Mexican goods to other countries, like to Asia… That Mexico will become more competitive in other markets,” said Manuel Pérez-Rocha, associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, and member of the Mexican Action Network on Free Trade (RMALC). Pérez-Rocha pointed out there’s little concrete evidence that Mexican exports to Asia will increase as an outcome of the agreement. “Mexico has actually signed many Free Trade Agreements with other countries, and its dependency to the US market hasn’t changed a bit,” he told the Americas Program.

Another public radio Pledge Week.

Save your money.  You're going to need it when Baucus-Obama cut your Social Security


KUFM's "pledge week" has become a Montana institution, or at least one which needs serious psychiatric (as well as journalistic) help.  I listen to the professional liars and bullies like William Marcus, telling us what a great thing KUFM and "Montana Public Radio" is for us (of course, it's great for Missoula), and how they need all this money to pay for the vital NPR propaganda, without which  the corrupt Baucus Machine and AIPAC Zionism couldn't exist. 

I've been following KUFM and its "evolution" since 1979, when I was a volunteer participant at a station which was little better than what we have, now, at KGPR - the Great Falls station.  But it did get enough to pay several salaries from UM, as well as all the other bills.  Basically, fund-raising (the goal of which, in 1979, was about $40,000 - say, $100-150,000 in today's money) was just to buy and produce local, independent programming, upgrade equipment, and to pay for the NPR programming which KUFM then used sparsely, and at little cost.  
Terry Conrad imagined himself a much better programmer of jazz than the NPR staff, although they did use Piano Jazz (Marian McPartland), and some classical programming from NPR like the late Fred Calland's, St Paul Sunday Morning, the LA Philharmonic (produced by KUSC), Chicago Symphony and Lyric Opera, (from the venerable WFMT), etc.  Terry had a degree in music education, and extensive commercial jazz station experience, and had worked in both Chicago and Detroit.  KUFM didn't even carry the Metropolitan Opera in those days, which was commercially syndicated to private FM stations, and thus unavailable in that market. 

That was also the time-frame when KUFM started paying its announcers, who were previously only volunteers, or work-study students, etc.  It was still mostly a university station, not "community radio" which we hear so much about (negatively) here in Great Falls.  And as such, it was intellectually elitist, somewhat "New Age" or counter-culture, and otherwise socially concerned and a major cultural hub and resource.  As soon as I saw how it worked, I returned to Great Falls with the goal of starting one, here, or even a commercial "fine arts" station like KFAC, Los Angeles, which I had learned to rely on, there.  (KUSC was just a student station, but at a very good music school, so they had programming I listened to in the late 1960's).  

This was the time when Minnesota Public Radio, KUSC, and some other major stations quit NPR and started American Public Radio (now American Public Media), but it was mostly about music and cultural programming, not hard news.  NPR has managed to maintain rigid control over news programming at least since the Bush Administration, when several of the more "liberal" or independent voices were summarily dismissed. 

KUFM does well on two counts - the BBC (which was itself gutted during the Thatcher years, and made worse by New Labor, which was even more "connected" to the imperialist enterprise), and a few local news and public affairs programs, or independent ones like Alternative Radio from Boulder, CO (KGNU, which I  participated in starting, but didn't stay long enough in Boulder to see it completed).  Where they don't do well is in broadcasting any Pacifica content, which they have tried from time to time (the Pacific News Service). There are hundreds of people who yearly ask them to carry Democracy Now!, and Mr. Marcus and Sally Mauk, the News Director, unilaterally refuse to do. Why is this permitted - for them to veto the most valuable program they could possibly carry?

Locally controlled and programmed public radio is like a public library or history museum.  It's at the very center of a community's cultural and intellectual life.  And I've spent the  last 30 years trying to get local people to understand and support that.  Those who did were immediately captured by the charm of KUFM's programming, while ignoring  Missoula's monoply control over our local finances, programming, and "market share". 

Some of them were UM alums, and thus thought it was a matter of keeping the Bobcats (and KUSM TV, which originated there) out of the Great Falls market.  If we "went independent", and broke away from KUFM, they would lose money, as well as political influence.  That's what it's about, and why I haven't sent a dime to KUFM for more than 20 years.  

As  for the Bobcat-Grizzly rivalry, that has been resolved with MT-PBS studios in Missoula, and much closer cooperation between the two "official" stations.  However, MSU still has a campus volunteer station, and their main NPR station is KEMC from MSU-Billings.  (Originally, of course, EMC was not part of MSU, which is another big part of the problem of monopoly centralization of our intellectual and cultural lives and resources).  

Great Falls is the one city  in the country which needs a local, honest, truthful source of public information and analysis.  We're a world-power - something like the 5th largest nuclear arsenal in the world, and the most easily deliverable.  We can literally destroy 150 or more cities in less than an hour - anywhere in the world.  And there are still people here  - lots of them - who think that's a good idea!  See what I mean about crazy?  

We haven't had a local newspaper since the 1960's.  The Tribune continues to mock and ridicule the few remaining progressives and independent thinkers who are trying to save our local economy, dismantle the nuclear doomsday machines, and preserve the environment which sustains us all.  We need a local, full-time public radio station, financed by mill levies like the Library and County museums.  We can raise all the rest of the money through our own "Pledge week" which we started in 2000, but thanks to Dan Rice and Frank Clinch, was illegally shanghaied and diverted back to Missoula or somewhere.  

Now is the time to do it.  Don't send any money from the 594 zip codes to Missoula.  Just hold on to it, and maybe we can find a few Great Falls people who want to take back the station which the paranoid  Republican nut-jobs and Griz fans stole from us.  

The Ugly American, revisited

Why things keep getting worse


It often seems to me that the whole basis for our present education and cultural system is to PREVENT children (and others) from learning anything "controversial" which might be directed at or applied to "the powers that be."  This is the theory of totalitarianism, of one-party rule.  

"We know the truth, and we're going to make you believe it, too."  That is what they're  saying.  They're also saying "We're better than you" (more powerful, richer, etc), "so we get to tell you what to do, and make you do it if you refuse to "cooperate."  Certainly, this is the "theory"  of the modern public high school, libraries, museums, symphonies, and other parts of the supposedly highly-educated and sophisticated "cultural infrastructure."  

That's the theory, the principle, upon which our present system rests.  The Republicans might talk about Natural (God-given) Rights, the Constitution, the Rule of Law, and many other good things, but when you corner one and discuss it with her, you find that she doesn't understand those concepts at all, or at most, on an "operational" level.  (How can we use this concept, theory, etc., as a weapon against the Democrats, the Liberals, the Environmentalists, the Socialists, our workers, competitors, etc.?)

The Democrats used to be liberal, for civil rights, for protecting the environment, for curbing corporate power and excess military spending, for public education, public health, universal health care, etc., etc.  The prevailing Democrat Machine, today, has literally and figuratively abandoned every one of those positions!  It's unbelievable!  It's as though Royalists wiped out their own royal family and then went and found some foreign prince to be their king.  

Marxism has an explanation.  It's called "the dialectic."  The process by which things change, and the logical explanations how and why this happens.  It's perennial.  It's universal.  Therefore, it must be part of human "social genetics", which could also include actual cellular genetics, but not necessarily.  It's a "software vs hardware" issue.  

So, understanding what is happening, we can often second-guess the "leaders" who keep repeating the mistakes of the past.  But we can only do so if there is relative freedom to express and communicate what we know.  An "information-free society" is the same as one which is saturated with useless and counterproductive information to the exclusion (and disbelief) in any real truth or understanding.  

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I've just read a fascinating book, a best-selling novel (more than 6 million sold in the 1950's and early '60's) called "The Ugly American."  It was a sensation.  I remember it clearly, from the many book reports on it through my years of Junior High and High School.  I don't believe I completed it, myself, or maybe I couldn't use it because someone else in the class already had.  And the best of it is the last chapter, where these two working journalists (possibly with CIA connections, themselves - that was common, then) wrote about the defeat of the French and the moves by the US to take over and support the French Imperialist project.  Of course, we would have never fought in WWII if we'd known it was to maintain French colonial power in Indochina, and similar things.  India, Burma, and Pakistan explicitly said that they would help the British in WWII only with a firm promise of independence afterwards.  That happened, although the Old Guard monarchists who were still part of the Raj did a lot either to distort or prevent the governments from working.  It was the Partitioning that was disastrous, and we're still maintaining one in the Korean Peninsula, against all good judgement and historical perspective.  

The Ugly American even became an excellent movie starring Marlon Brando, which I've seen a couple of times in recent years.  The title character is a Republican businessman with a working-class wife (he is working-class, himself, but self-made worth $20 million in today's money) who take American values seriously, and help villagers with local materials and means to transform their subsistence economies into something compatible with health and cultural enrichment.  Their programs, which cost little or nothing, are successful while the $100 million "development" projects from the 1st world only lead to wars, ecological catastrophe, and enrichment of prevailing elites.  Almost certainly, Kennedy's Peace Corps was based on many of the same insights and experience.  

All this is clearly dramatized in the book, but is largely absent from the film.  [TUA was published in 1958, but written from experience in the 1954 Dien Bien Phu aftermath, as well as the whole "Asian situation".  The principle setting of the book is a neighboring fictional country which is in danger of collapse from the neighboring wars and revolutions.] The film (which I need to watch, again) seemed more intent on the personalities of the people involved (easier to dramatize than the policies, themselves).  And in a world like today's, where there literally are no "good guys" (and those who are portrayed as such are unspeakably ignorant and self-centered), we have no role models.  The best we have simply refuse to act outside the affective domain.  There is no theory; it's just "feel good and get along."  That's their highest virtue, which is more than most of the sociopaths who run things, now.  

Russell the Revolutionary

The following piece was written last summer.  I thought maybe I'd already published it as a blog or something, or included parts of it in another post, but I can't find it anywhere.  So, here it is.  

I didn't attend any of the Russell Auction events this year (not even the Native American shows, which I've usually visited in the past), but it looks as though nothing much has changed.  Artists who rent rooms and try to sell their works outside the auction format were reportedly disappointed,  while the main event auction at the Heritage Inn  was record-setting.  They still seem to be selling works out of the Museum, which is always tricky, and Tom Gilleon, a local artist I've met a time or two, had a work that sold for $225,000 - a record, they say, for a local, living artist in these auctions.  

What I did write about the Russell when I still had the Tribune blog was similar to this essay, so you may have already heard something like this from me.  The local "Charlie Russell community" is as diverse and often at odds with each other as any other group of independent thinkers, each with his or her own connections to the Russell legacy.  But I think we have turned the corner in finally doing what this essay proposes:  that we take back the Russell and his work from the boosters and promoters (and profiteers) whom Russell, himself, despised.  

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Russell the Revolutionary
7-11-12

Charles Bent Russell.  Remember that guy?  His mother was a Bent, his great-uncle killed at Taos in the territorial transition following the Mexican War.  The Bent's were as important to the development of the Southwest as, say, Pierre Chouteau or Manual Lisa were to the Upper Missouri.  And Fort Benton and the American Fur Company were basically just the "Northern Branch" of the same enterprise based in St. Louis.  (Thomas Hart Benton was the first and greatest "Senator From Missouri," and a bloody imperialist to the core - John Charles Fremont was his son-in-law, and together, they are credited with securing the conquest of California, among other things).

So, the local "boosters" of economic development, whom Russell vociferously opposed, were none other than Russell, himself, his family and associates.  He was at the center of what future sustainability historians might see as a "revolutionary cell" - bent (no pun intended) on overthrowing the natural, sustainable, long-term regime - that of the Plains Indians. 

But Charlie rebelled and recanted (his family had owned slaves pre-Civil War).  Russell is the guy who really "turned Indian."  Once he saw the process with his own eyes, he couldn't help but join the Resistance, and defend Native peoples with all his abilities and resources.  And that is why the local Great Falls business community has always hated him, and tried to suppress or otherwise get rid of his work.  It's worth a lot in oil money, so that's where most of it has gone - to the Oil Barons and the the museums they established.  The proverbial "supply and demand."  

Some of us have been diligently following this process, and attempting to alter it whenever the opportunity arises.  Since I practically grew up playing around Russell's home and studio, and the beginnings of the Museum which now exists, I claim some right to have an opinion on these issues.  Unfortunately, that's just about all that I can do.  And few, if any, listen.  There aren't a lot of people who share a love for the work of CM Russell who also have an understanding of the history and politics behind his work - especially that pertaining to Native Americans and their plight and struggle.  

For many, he has simply become a brand name - a "profit center" for our local community so that even something as simple and important as the Russell Auction cannot withstand the pressures of dealers, local convention and tourist businesses, and the demands of political expediency in managing the affairs of the City of Great Falls.  Randy Gray, a former Mayor, was a long-time chairman of the Russell Museum board.  And many other prominent local people served on it - few with any distinction or credit to themselves.  Replacing these people with a "National Board" (which does include a few wealthier Montanans - basically, you have to buy your way on to it) has been disastrous - even while the bricks and mortar (and debts) pile up.  

Several important works from the collection have already been sold, as well as the works of other Western artists closely associated with the Russell Tradition.  Imagine Russell as one of the 5 best-known French Impressionists.  That was approximately his stature among the Western American painters and sculptors (and writers, film-makers, etc.), and it still is.  His work is our greatest treasure, and using and abusing it as has been done in recent years (clearly marked by the firing of Elizabeth Dear and dispersing the archives she assembled in preparing the Catalogue Raisonne) is simply another sign of the decline and impending destruction of our Satanic nuclear garrison town, and the legal-political machines which control everything here.

What is a "legislator?"

More about problems with legislators and legislation

This might be considered an earlier and more detailed version of my post of a few day ago.  This one dates from the last Session, January 5, 2011.  It also elaborates on what we need to do to fix the education system (NOT "privatization", but more like "re-publicazation"  - what we have, now, is anything but a public system, as anyone knows who has suffered under it and its absurd rules and policies).  

What, exactly, is a "legislator?"  

In Montana, it's someone who has been elected to represent a Senate or House "District" in the Montana Legislature.  


What does this require or imply?  The short answer is "virtually nothing."  And with term limits, even the "on the job training" which used to allow the "successful" ones to keep running and stay in office no longer applies.  I was heartened to see that a few hours of the opening sessions of the 2011 Legislature were devoted to briefings by legal scholars.  At least, they recognized the problem.  

Basically, these "legislators" could just as easily have been picked at random, or according to some sort of popularity contest determined by how many people they know, or how much money they have to buy psychologically manipulative TV ads or slick brochures - in other words, how good they are as liars and manipulators of public opinion.  

There are no qualifications whatsoever in terms of their understanding or experience in government, the law, or any particular area of public policy expertise like the environment, infrastructure planning and maintenance, public education, law enforcement/prisons, etc.  And practically speaking, the only skills that count are fund-raising and maintaining an efficient media (propaganda and "public relations") machine.  

Legislators are not required to have a college degree, or even a high school diploma.  They don't have to believe in God, economics, engineering, environmental science, or any other sort of higher learning.  Nor do they have to be "ethical" in any meaningful sense.  All they have to do is to obey the "laws" which they themselves or their predecessors have already passed - which are very often contradictory or simply absurd.  

And most importantly, they don't even have to know what government is, or believe in any sort of principles underlying a free society, a Republic, a Democracy, or anything of the kind.  In many state legislatures, they do have to swear or affirm their support for the existing Constitution of the United States as well as their State Constitution.  It is clear that in Montana, many people have been elected who don't support or understand either one.  But this is derivative from the fact that those who vote for them needn't do so, either.  

Indeed, one need not be literate, well-informed, a property owner, gainfully employed, or possess any other qualities which would be necessary, say, to get a driver's license, automobile or health insurance, or secure a loan from a bank.  Yet, in Montana, a homeless person may be restricted from voting even if he has a PhD or some other superior demonstration of intelligence and respectability.  (It isn't clear that a homeless person would be barred from running for the Legislature, since one needn't live in the District being represented, but one might have to prove citizenship and a period of residency in the state).  But being born in a different country may make one's very presence here "illegal" - regardless of any other qualifications or interest in the future of Montana and the USA.

What, then, should be the sort of preparation which a real "legislator" or "congressperson" needs to have?  

I am not one to admire or defend the legal profession as it presently exists - much less the "criminal justice system" (now recognized as being little more than corporate slavery).  But the traditional preparation for the bar is certainly much of what a real legislator should have mastered.  

Law schools, of course, are a fairly recent invention, although the philosophy of law ("jurisprudence") has been an academic study throughout history.  Practicing lawyers, after a standard "liberal arts" education, were basically apprenticed, and many, like Abraham Lincoln, had no college or university education whatsoever.  They merely "read law" while working for a practicing lawyer or judge, and after years of such study, passed the bar exam.  Until fairly recently, one didn't need to go to law school in order to take the bar exam.  Like so many other fields, the major universities changed this to increase their own attendance and revenues.  

Merely being a great lawyer, teacher, accountant, physician, etc. is not enough to get a license to practice.  One must have the degree and "credits" from an accredited college or university.  Is it any wonder, then, that the professional class has become synonymous with self-regulating state monopolies?  

This is totalitarianism of the worst kind, because it deprives us of our basic rights to take responsibility for our own lives, and those of our families and communities.  If one doesn't have the right to learn, to heal, to produce one's own food and medicines, and trade the products of one's labor with others, how can we possibly be considered "free", or living in a "free society?"    

But getting back to what sort of preparation should be required of a Legislator, we can point to the "Greats" curriculum at Oxford centered on the study of the history of ideas - principally philosophy, politics, and economics.  One begins with a knowledge of Latin and Greek, or at least a thorough study of the classics in translation.  Nowadays, one might substitute one Asian language (Mandarin or Japanese, Hindu or Arabic) and one Romance language (French or Spanish) for the study of Greek and Latin.  But a knowledge of other languages (and cultures) is absolutely essential.

In most countries of the world, students complete their secondary education being able to fluently speak and understand at least two other languages besides their own.  There is no doubt in my mind that the decline of America's position in the larger world is due mainly to the fact that such requirements don't exist, here.  Indeed, such real education is actively discouraged in every field that promotes corporate interests and the economic/military power of the state.  

In "The Education of Henry Adams," the son and grandson of two Presidents, claimed that all one really needed to learn in school was German, French, Spanish, and mathematics.  All the rest could better be learned from life experience, from independent or guided reading, and the development and self-realization consistent with an ethical, free society.  He might have added "learning how to learn" and "becoming a life-long learner" - but that is implicit in what he wrote in the rest of the book.  

Most "progressive" or "humanistic" education theories support or emphasize those things, too, as well as having mentors and exemplars from whom one can learn directly.  Rows of students listening to a teacher lecture and completing reading and writing assignments is virtually worthless as a learning experience, yet that is what we spend most of our money on in "public education" - at the same time starving libraries and educational broadcasting, museums, music education, and all sorts of community programs which don't require massive spending and a whole professional class to maintain them.  No wonder so many opt for home schooling, unschooling, community schooling, or whatever.  

The seven medieval "liberal arts" were somewhat different than what we think of, today, and included grammar, logic, rhetoric (epistemology - the theory of knowledge as presented in speech as well as written composition/exposition), and the four branches of mathematics - arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.  With that foundation, one proceeded to study theology, ethics (moral science, including history and politics), medicine, and the natural sciences (primarily cosmology, biology, and other aspects of "natural philosophy.")

Paradoxically, the "liberal arts" today are considered irrelevant and useless - to be distinguished from "practical" studies like business, accounting, medicine, engineering, or scientific research, as well as the "fine arts".  Yet, it is obvious that the real Liberal Arts are the foundation for all other learning and practice.  In some respects, math and science are much better taught and understood than they were 50 or 100 years ago - even in American public schools, which rank near the bottom in achievement in these (and all other) subjects, relative to other "developed" prosperous nations. 

"Computer literacy" could go a long way towards enabling our society to function at a higher level.  However, simply being able to do e-mail or Facebook, or even spread sheets, CAD graphics, or other workplace skills seems to have little value in helping students (or future legislators) to think more clearly and critically.  

Artistic creativity is also much advanced in today's quality high schools, but such schools, instead of being the norm, are ever rarer and more exclusionary in their enrollments.  Most "education reform" now consists of closing down "failing schools", but few of those displaced can get into better ones.  In many cases, they literally have to "win the lottery."  Mostly, they are shunted into already overcrowded regular schools, thus forcing them to move from poor to totally failing.  

And the corporate "charter schools" have most of the same problems, with a much greater cost to the taxpayers and/or other sources of funding.  Still, they are so much superior to the failed state bureaucracy schools that virtually all public school students would attend an independent, self-governing charter school, magnet school, or other "reformed" institution if they had the means or were permitted to do so.  

In Montana, the public education system is very nearly as bad as it is in the inner cities.  Test scores (now a practically worthless measure of anything) are marginally better, but the numbers of students mastering calculus in the K-12 systems, for example, is still less than 10%.  I recently read that only 8% of college students are enrolled in a foreign language course - and this is NOT because they are already fluent in 2 foreign languages, as nearly all European, Japanese, Korean, or Russian students are.  

In America, we still hold on to the archaic "English system" of weights and measures, which even the English and Canadians no longer use.  This in itself costs us the equivalent of years of schooling in science, engineering, and international trade and other relations, since our high school and college graduates don't even think in the same terms as the rest of the world.  And we are arrogant and proud of the fact that other nations must adapt to our ignorance, rather than improving the quality of our own understanding!  

A knowledge of history is practically extinct in our secondary schools, and is certainly short-changed in the state colleges and universities - even for those who plan to teach history or broadfield social sciences.  Someone said that "All we learn from history is that we don't learn from history," and that is now taken to be a justification for ignoring our own history entirely - let alone that of other nations and peoples.  

The study of psychology is similarly reduced to psycho-babble, without history or context, and usually restricted to the ideas of "rehabilitation" or other counseling, rather than the development of the mind and spirit.  In my own field, economics, I have despaired of ever being able to communicate even the simplest concepts of value and cost, substitution, or the meaning of property, production, and trade.  I would venture to say that not one out of 10 Montana legislators understands the concept of "opportunity cost", or that more government spending and services requires more taxes on those most able to pay them.  It is as though the "laws" or principles of economics simply don't exist for government officials or legislators.  And even when they do, it's in the form of some sort of convoluted, special case idea like a Keynesian "stimulus" policy which is the equivalent of a shot of adrenalin (borrowed, costing 1/3 of one's annual income) for a body which is already in cardiac arrest.  

Instead of "future focus" and the 7th Generation Rule of Native Americans, our state and federal governments operate on the principle that "in the long run, we'll all be dead."  And even then, don't collect any taxes from the deceased.  Unlike the Federal government, Montana must have a "balanced budget," but there is no requirement that pension funds, Worker's Comp, or other future liabilities must be taken into account.  Meanwhile, the "conservative, free-market" (itself a contradiction in terms) advocates claim that any "surplus" must be "given back" to "those who earned it" - meaning, usually, millionaires or billionaire corporations who have stolen or expropriated their wealth at the expense of Nature, indigenous people, or the working poor - not to mention the less-wealthy and powerful taxpayers.  Military force, "the criminal justice system," and the printing press are the sources of all this "surplus" wealth - not the "discipline" and "entrepreneurial genius" of a few patent-holders and the highly-trained, privileged, and organized "professional class."

One needn't even go into foreign policy and our local global nuclear military strategies to realize that we are on a course which could easily end human civilization as we know it, at any time.  Yet, those are issues which you will never see discussed in the Montana legislature, except to lobby for more budget-busting "missions" of the same kind. 

Continuing to burn coal and other carbon-based fossil fuels, alone, will mean the end of the world as we have known it during the past 10,000 years.   Yet, our governor and a majority of the cabinet (all Democrats, at this point) see nothing wrong with accelerating this process.  Thus, it is especially important to recognize Superintendent Juneau and Attorney General Bullock for their votes against leasing more state land to the coal monopolies.  One wonders if they would have voted the same way if "their side" was in the majority.  Many such votes are only possible because they are meaningless - i.e., the other three Democrats were able to take the heat, while a Native American and an Attorney General really interested in justice obviously couldn't do so.  In any case, they are to be commended - especially Juneau, whose own budget would have been reduced, under existing funding formulas, by the failure to lease the School Trust lands for coal development.  

But to add insult to injury, the price at which these irreplaceable coal resources were leased, was only a small fraction of its market value.  One can only marvel at the other 3 Democrats on the Land Board - all of them supported by the Montana Conservation Voters and other environmental groups - and their flagrant disregard for the most basic environmental (and fiscal) responsibility.   And yet, "liberal, progressive" pundits claim to be totally mystified why those who voted Democrat in 2008 largely stayed home in the mid-term elections, and why the Republicans won by a landslide.  

What is "legislation," and do we really need more of it?

Advice for state legislators

Or, what is "legislation", and do we really need  more of it?

I have often tried to give some advice to state legislators, who have been fed a toxic brew of corporate lies and propaganda by an organization called ALEC since the 1980's.  ALEC was started by some of the same people I knew as a Young Republican.  I didn't like them, then, and needless to say, having more wealth and power has not improved the quality of their leadership and "model legislation. "  So, here is the "anti-ALEC":

1.  Even if you run as a Republican or Democrat, do NOT join or participate in your local party organization. You don't have to.  You don't even have to join your party caucus in the legislature.  Call yourself a public servant, and that's it. 

2.  As soon as you have been elected, declare yourself free of party influence, and instead, form a local council of people from your district who voted for you, and who are known to you as being honest, knowledgeable,  and public-spirited.

3.  Learn some basic  economics.  This is easier said than done.  If you're a "liberal", you'll end up thinking that Keynes was God, and that perpetual deficit spending is the only way to prosperity.  If you're a conservative or otherwise "free market," you'll be told that welfare is evil, corporate criminals are your only friends, and the only people responsible for "creating jobs" and "balancing the budget"- unless you  happen to live in a military town, in which case you'll be told that the more money spent on weapons and killing people, the better-off we'll all be.  Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom is actually quite good.  So is Henry Hazlitt's Economics in One Lesson.  Just understanding the concept of "opportunity cost" would be a major advance over present legislative and state administrative thinking.  

4.  Military people tend to see everything in military terms.  They can't conceive of a society which isn't dominated by military discipline and "order."  They can't conceive of a world without "enemies", and the duty of a soldier is to kill anyone the President and Congress designate as "enemies."  Congress has abdicated its responsibility, over and over again, to maintain cordial relations with other nations in the world.  The President and the "secret government" behind him is totally subservient to military lobbies and "strategic thinking" based on "Mutually Assured Destruction" and "Full Spectrum Dominance.  And it's like pro-sports.  It's all about "us vs. them" and maximizing profits, and has little to do either with sport or with national security and legitimate "defense". Legislators must take back their  constitutional authority in this respect, and refuse to allow state troops (the National  Guard) being deployed on corporate missions to loot and destroy other countries overseas.  Several states have already done this, and there is wide public support for it.
  
5.  Simple sanity.  This is another standard which only a few understand, and many misuse or misrepresent.  For example, you don't give psychoactive drugs to school children.  If they need drugs, they shouldn't be in school, and the schools should certainly have nothing to do with cooperating in such a program.  
Any group of parents, for any reasons, should be free to educate their own children in their own way, with the same taxpayer support which the large prison-schools receive.  We already reimburse local school districts according to attendance, so we can just as well pay alternative schools for the students who attend them. 

Whatever "regulation", testing, or other standards are needed may be applied, to make sure that they are real schools or other learning places, and real learning is happening, with the full participation of the parents and students, themselves.   Although many might object, the decision to give taxpayer money to private, religious schools is debatable.  Most other countries with large independent school systems also support religious schools, and deciding what are "real religions" and what are merely "cults" is difficult.

The large, "consolidated" public schools, although they sometimes work well, only do so if they have the full support of the parents and local communities.  In today's fractious climate of corporate gang warfare and suppression of any and all free inquiry by authoritarians of all stripes, a bureaucratic, centralized, rule-bound public school bureaucracy is nothing less than the final stage of dictatorship.  

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Now, for a little background as to how I arrived at this information.

Friedrich Hayek, who visited my neighborhood for about 5 months in 1968, wrote a very good book at that time called Law, Legislation, and Liberty, published in three volumes by the University of Chicago Press.  By some dialectical  perversity, I actually sat in on and got credit for the initial presentation of that work in a UCLA philosophy seminar.  They didn't even put professor's names on our transcripts in those days, so everyone here thinks I made it up - obviously I couldn't have studied under such a famous conservative - or counter-revolutionary, to some of my Marxist friends.  

There's  a lot more to it than that, and why Hayek should have been there, doing that, at that time.  His title, which no one now remembers, was Visiting Flint Professor (of Law, Philosophy?)  I don't know who Flint was - I should google it, but UCLA was ranked 4th in the country, then, in Legal Philosophy, and there were a couple of professors who also taught in the Law School.  I was an economics-philosophy major, and later tried being a grad student in philosophy, which only lasted two quarters, during which time I took psychedelics and became "enlightened".  Professor Yost and other senior faculty actually taught "expanded consciousness" with such texts as William James' Varieties of Religious Experience as well as the more recent psychedelic literature, which by then included Aldous Huxley, the Beats, etc.  Woodstock Nation was being born at that very time, and of course LA was one of the hubs of this New Consciousness.  

The fact that I used psychedelics AFTER studying with Hayek totally negates his influence, right?  The slate was wiped clean.  But they don't really change you that much - especially in an academic setting.  We used to say that the only thing psychedelics do is bring out the "real you" - they liberate us from our family and cultural biases and presuppositions, although we quickly learn that most of what is old, is good.  Experience matters.  So, nothing much really changed except that we became more "old fashioned", "folksy", or otherwise "down home," (and anti-science and technology, in many cases) and those of us closely tied to the land and a particular regional history soon returned home.  "All the Buffalo Returning," so to speak.  

About the first thing I did when I returned to Montana in January, 1972, was request a catalog and application from the UM Law School.  In part, this was due  to my having been "profiled" (as a hippy), arrested, charged with spurious crimes, and otherwise fallen victim to an "establishment" which I had previously thought I was part of.  I had been Vice President of the Bruin Young Republicans.  I was a libertarian.  I read all of Hayek's books in anticipation of his coming to UCLA.  And after these seminars, I really understood what "the Law" is, what is good about it, and what is wrong. 

Briefly, Hayek's view was that there are two kinds of law - Nomos and Thesis.  One is "exogenous" or imposed from without by "authority".  The other is "endogenous" or internal, built-in, etc.  We come hard-wired with moral principles, which can either be accentuated and reinforced by parental guidance and childhood experience, or negated by that later "training."  The English Common Law is a good example of how people, over centuries, establish the rules and principles for civilized and harmonious living.  This is the real Law.  The stuff that legislators do is purely administrative - how to tax, provide public services, "provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our posterity."  The two kinds of law are very different, yet in the American system, they are totally confused and conflated.  And "coalitions of organized interests" (Hayek's expression) control the Congress and State Legislatures almost totally.  

So, what we needed (and still need) is a Constitution which recognizes these two kinds of law, and keeps them separate.  Hayek proposed a two-house Congress in which the House of Representatives would be the main unicameral "legislature" or Parliament, and another "Upper House" would be something like the British House of Lords, in which members would be elected for life (at the age of 40, and only by their own age-cohort - the other 40 year-old's in that year).  This body would deal with broader issues and long-term consequences, creating overall policy and even acting (as the Lords does) as a Supreme Court determining the validity and appropriateness of whatever the main Parliament passes on.  But it would not  be partisan, it would not have to face elections, and it could be insulated (like the Supreme Court) from any organized interests trying to use laws and legislation to benefit themselves or their organized group. 

How many members would it have?   Hayek suggested two from each age cohort over 40.  So, if the average age of death was 80, there would be 2 x 40, or 80 members.  By the age of 40, there would be a number of people with national reputations who could run for this, and it would be very prestigious.  Hillary Clinton is my age, as is Brian Kahn (the Charlie Rose of Montana, only better), etc.  

I don't know if Hayek ever studied the Iroquois Confederation and its system, which our Framers did.  They also have a three-council government, with the "fire keepers" being a kind of buffer or referee between the other two (which could easily be geared to gender or other function - labor/capital, military/civilian, or some combination of these).  I've long believed that we should either have a Women's House and Men's House, or else one man and one woman being elected from each district.  For some strange reason, I've never met a feminist who supports that!

All of these should have been discussed in Montana's Constitutional Convention of 1972, and I was prepared to go and participate, but not having been elected, and our neighbor Bob Woodmansey having been, I was out.  I had been arrested a couple of times as a teen-ager in Great Falls.  But I never thought of myself as "an enemy of society" or threat to anyone.  Indeed, I was often bullied and punished in other ways for things I had no connection with at all.  

By  1972,  I was a political radical.  But I didn't consider myself either a Leftist or a Rightist.  I was a Survivalist - something I probably learned from Boy Scouts and just growing up in a heavily militarized post WWII environment. 

Still, being arrested after earning a college degree and having done some notable, worthwhile things, was a major wake-up call.  Suddenly, I  became very interested in the plight of the poor and minorities, as well as gays, atheists, and other traditionally persecuted minorities.  What the psychedelics had done was to have removed my fears and inhibitions - "the thin veneer of civilization" which had prevented me from violating the delusions of the middle class.  Being arrested and getting to hang out with murderers and mafia-types for awhile was worth a law degree in itself, and I didn't need to go to school anymore.  

Like most universities, UCLA had a large pool of academic hangers-on who were neither students nor teachers.  They used the libraries, visited lectures, and otherwise "crashed" the system which they (correctly) believed, belong to the people.  Sometimes they worked for the university (which I did for more than 2 years after I graduated).  UC was tuition-free in those days, so there was no need to fight for "scholarships."  Just having an interest and showing up was sufficient (of course, it was difficult to get admitted to student or graduate status, but not nearly so much so as it is, today.  I had excellent test scores - they were APTITUDE tests, in those days, and no one studied for them.).  

One thing that still puzzles me is pricing and other cost-accounting for government, taxpayer-provided services.  Like heath care, there is no provision for ordinary people purchasing what they need in an open market.  It's  all about monopolies, licenses, corporate lobbying and extortion, med school bottlenecks, Federal programs and kick-backs, vast disparities in pay even among those who work in the same fields, etc.  How did we ever get to this?  Who can possibly believe that this kind of system is workable or good for us?  
Basic primary care is  very cheap - even if doctors are paid $200K a year.  With nurse practitioners, who make somewhat less, but may be better primary care providers, it costs even less.  We needn't get into the thorny topic of medical politics and elitism - apparently, it's always been that way.  But we know that real health care (as opposed to the "health insurance" racket) is charitable, spiritual, and otherwise real medicine and "hospitality", not some sort of protection racket which says: "Your money or your life."  "No insurance? No credit?  No shoes?  No service."  "There's a hospice across the street.  They'll let you die, there."  "Abandon all hope, ye who enter here."  

And with this kind of "system", we pay anywhere from 2-5 times more in the name of health care (most of which is simply stolen or extorted) than any other country, and we're the least healthy in the whole OECD (the so-called "developed world).  

Bill Moyers and the Liberal Consensus

We were talking about eggs.  

"I am only an egg," said the Martian in Stranger in a Strange Land. It's what Mork came in.

BILL MOYERS: So humor me for a moment. I'm the proverbial Martian coming to earth sent by Martian control to report back home on what I can learn about this banking and political culture down here on this weird planet. And I come to you for help because you have this interstellar reputation for telling it as it is. How would you sum up this financial and political culture so that I can give a believable report back up there?

from  
http://billmoyers.com/episode/full-show-banking-on-greed/

======================

What's wrong with Bill Moyers?

It's time I finally "took a stand" on Bill Moyers - whose most recent target has been our own Sen. Max Baucus, caught once again with his hand in the drug coffers.  Like it or not, Bill Moyers is one of the very few serious journalists with a national audience who is still working.  Of course, the fact that he basically designed and created PBS, as LBJ's Press Secretary in the 1960's, may have something to do with it.  Still, I have serious reservations against recommending him and his shows and "philosophy" - whatever they might be.  

While listening to a discussion yesterday on the "legality" of drones with several different "liberal" players in this debate, I  was struck, once again, by their rigid legalisms, reflected in their "concerns" as to whether or not foreign or domestic "drone strikes" (targeted assassinations) were "constitutional" or otherwise legitimate and defensible.  I'm screaming at the radio: "What part of "Thou Shalt Not Kill" don't you understand?"  

Murder is always "wrong" and "illegal", and contrary to civilized behavior - even in an allegedly "free society".  It is the original "capital crime" - taking another's life fully justifies forfeiting one's own. And what about Ecocide - wantonly and intentionally destroying the planet which sustains us all?  Surely that is even more "capital," as crimes go.  

Even "conservatives" and other members of the 1% opposed bank robbery, whether  it is the banks that are robbing or being robbed - the other topic under discussion in this Moyers and Company broadcast.   They did ask and reflect on why none of the bankster crooks and their elected or appointed regulatory cronies have been prosecuted.  

The common denominator, here, is Statism - the idea of Authority (and why it must not be questioned or opposed/exposed), the National Interest, which is invariably equated with the interests of Big Business, Finance Capitalism, the 1%, or whatever you want to call them.  L'etat, c'est them.  

Moyers, like most Texans and other Americans, is a Statist.  He believes that the "duly constituted government" - the State - is and perhaps even should be Omnipotent.  It has, as Ayn Rand said, "a monopoly on force."  I remember being astounded when some of her acolytes defended that, and thought it was a good thing.  But of course, as a public figure and extremely popular and influential, how could she say otherwise?

When Moyers worked for the Johnson Administration, he was a loyal servant.  You  have to be to get and hold that job, and few people hold it for very long - even a single presidential term.  So, that is a reason not to listen to him at all, and if it were simply a matter of agreeing or disagreeing with Bill Moyers and his "philosophy", I wouldn't be listening at all.  But he has very distinguished and diverse guests, now tending more to the "classical liberal" (corporate libertarian) position than the peace, justice and other public spirited activists who do not hold positions of wealth and influence.  Many of his guests over the years have been intellectual and spiritual leaders of the first rank, as well as a lot of pop gurus like Joseph Campbell, the Dali Lama, scientists and poets, theologians and statesmen, etc.  So, we get to hear a pretty good presentation, with Moyers' guidance and questioning, of our current situation and how we might go about repairing it.

So, why is Statism bad?  Our present government supposedly rests on "the consent of the governed."  It can only legitimately do what the people want and demand of it, according to a venerable Constitution which says, among other things, that our government was established to:
  
"Provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and ensure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity."   And it makes very clear that "unenumerated powers" rest with the individual states or the people.  Somehow, "liberals" never want to discuss or hear about this part of the story.  Weren't the  "Framers" just a bunch of ignorant farmers, small businessmen, and slaveowners/drivers?  Why should we listen to anything they said, or follow any of the rules or Constitution they promulgated?

Great!  Let's be revolutionaries, then!  Let's have a new Constitution!  That view, too, is taboo.  

Abraham Lincoln was obviously stuck on the "more perfect union" idea, also part of the Preamble, and somehow concluded that an enforced union of unwilling participants was "more perfect."  We have been living with that mistake ever since.  That's when the United States ceased to be a voluntary confederation of independent states, and became, instead, a "World Power" and Imperial Nation-State encompassing hundreds of millions of people. 

By violating  this basic covenant, the USA has lost its moral legitimacy, and that's the only legitimacy which actually matters.  It is "making a mistake" from the get-go, and as we all know, if you get off on the wrong foot, you need to stop and regroup, not continue the wrongful course into oblivion. 

Another good metaphor, which I have used since I was in college, is that gangster capitalism functions like a cancer.  It  takes over the immune system, the blood supply, even the brain and its control of behavior and bodily systems.  Our government has been shanghaied and diverted into destroying the systems and communities which it was supposed to facilitate and defend, "eating out the substance" of the people and local economies like a foreign army of occupation.  

There was a news broadcast following Moyers about the Post Office dropping Saturday mail delivery in order to "save money" and "return to profitability."  Again, I was screaming at the radio:  "It's not about making money  or profitability.  It's a Cabinet-level department of the Federal Government, a public service, the basic Federal presence in our local communities, and it IS "enshrined in the Constitution." In fact, it was created by one of the main authors of the Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence - that guy on the $100 bill, Benjamin Franklin.  "A penny saved is a penny earned," was one of his maxims. 

Basically, we no longer have a government of the people, by the people, and for the people (Lincoln's charming - and fictional - coinage).  We have a predatory rogue state, totally out of control, and bent on world domination and totalitarian control over every aspect of our lives, our work, our relationships, even our thoughts and dreams.  It is psychotic and sociopathic - just listen to the ALEC-drenched Republicans in Helena and Congress.  The Taliban aren't attacking Montana.  It's Montana and all the other NATO conspirators against world peace who are attacking Afghanistan, Yemen, and a hundred other countries and local communities who only wish to relate to the rest of the world peacefully and for mutual benefit and enlightenment.  

Are there other criminal states in the world besides the United States?  Certainly.  We didn't invent the category.  Indeed, we were originally established precisely to get away and isolate ourselves from such states and empires.  So, why have we rejoined them, and with some apparent "vengeance" when all the wrong seems to be on our side?  There's only one explanation.  Ideology, the corporate media, state propaganda (enshrined in our once free and local Public Schools), public broadcasting, etc.  It's all state propaganda.  It all serves the 1% and gangster capitalism (AKA the Military-Industrial-Congressional-Pharmaceutical-Education-Prison Complex).  

There is no more independent judiciary.  The function of the law is no longer to protect our rights and freedoms, while maintaining fairness and justice in our everyday exchanges and relationships.  It is to further enrich the 1% and, most concretely, lock up, register, and monitor the behavior and thinking of nearly every American citizen, not to mention the rest of the world.  We are a Prison State, and one which must be forcefully resisted at every turn if we are to regain our freedom and sanity.  

Believe it or not, Muslim children are not obsessed with attacking American symbols of power like the WTC and Pentagon.  They used to like Americans and want to be like us, with our "high standard of living", good schools, free enterprise (Mohammed, MHNBP, was a merchant), etc.  Muslims largely created what we call "the modern world" based on science and mathematics, medicine, humane treatment of women and minorities, free trade, and limited government.   We have our problems and they have theirs, exacerbated by the insatiable demand for irreplaceable fossil fuels - one resource which the Arab world retained in abundance from its glorious Caliphate of 1000 years ago.  

But do they, should they, could they have designs on our wealth, as well?  If something is stolen from you with the use of illegitimate state power, does that mean it's OK?  Should they now become "patriotic" and love their new masters and tormentors? 

Even though more Muslims now live in the United States than Jews, they have little political power, and Israel continues to dominate and control American foreign policy against the interests of Palestinians and other indigenous people in the Middle East, as well as all the rest of us who don't care to support or surrender to  military occupation, surveillance, taxation, confiscation, rape, and slavery.  The Taliban, Al Qaeda (if, indeed, any such organization ever existed outside of CIA operations), and other "radical Islamic" movements and organizations ask nothing of the USA and its people except the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, with their drones and other instruments of resource theft, slavery, murder and assassination. 

It would be simple enough to do this, if we actually had a Congress and President who acted responsibly.  But of course we don't.  They don't seem to have any idea  what this would entail, or how to go about it.  And once, again, it is the media, public education, the law schools, the political scientists, and the public universities in general who are to blame, by sins of omission and commission.   

I suppose one must thank Bill Moyers for something, and that would be his commitment to truth-based journalism and vigilance in protecting the public interest.  It hasn't been easy for him to do this, and powerful  forces have resisted and suppressed his shows for many decades.  Not even journalists as great as Ed Murrow and Dan Rather could defend themselves against the CBS advertisers and stockholders.  

In one of his  last books, Leslie Fiedler asked, "What Was Literature?"  Now, 30 years or so later, we might ask "What Was Journalism?"   We seem to have forgotten entirely the power and supremacy of ideas, of scientific research, and of ancient and perennial wisdom.  Too bad, because that's what our civilization was based on.