Blind Faith On Trial In ‘Divinity of Doubt’
An Exclusive Interview With Vincent Bugliosi, Author Of ‘Divinity of Doubt — The God Question.’
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Bestselling author and renowned prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi, in his new book, Divinity of Doubt — The God Question, presents evidence for and against the existence of God in his indictment of religion, theism, and atheism.
Bugliosi, known for his career at the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office where he successfully prosecuted 105 out of 106 cases, including his most famous trial, the Charles Manson case, was recently interviewed by Iconoclast publisher W. Leon Smith.
The prosecutor who penned Helter Skelter (based on the Manson case), the biggest selling true-crime book in publishing history, and more recently And The Sea Will Tell, Outrage, Reclaiming History: The “Assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder, has been called “the quintessential prosecutor.” According to Alan Dershowitz, “If you created a prosecutorial Hall of Fame, Vince would be in the entranceway.”
His latest book has been placed on the bestseller list at The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times and sells for $26.99 hardcover, ISBN: 978-59315-629-9.
In Divinity of Doubt, Bugliosi dissects the bible, drawing attention to inconsistencies and contradictions based on years of examination and fine attention to detail. He also examines Darwin’s Theory of Evolution and its improbabilities, plus strikes out against atheism.
“When I hear theists and atheists pontificating on how they know God does or does not exist, I can only smile at the irrationality, and yes, vanity of the notion,” writes Bugliosi. “Since the depth of a belief should be in proportion to the evidence, no sensible person should be dogmatic about whether there is or is not a God,” he declares.
In making his case for agnosticism – which he defines as believing that the existence versus nonexistence of God is “unknowable” – Bugliosi takes a fresh and provocative look at the evidence for and against God. With his trademark irrefutable logic and wit, Bugliosi exposes the intellectual poverty of atheism and embarrasses its leading proponents.
He takes on and eviscerates theism – its bible, religious beliefs, and prayer, as well as examining in highly stimulating and fascinating discourse such topics as evolution, intelligent design, the identity of Jesus, heaven, hell, morality, and death.
“Because the issue of whether there is a God is an impenetrable mystery, agnosticism is the only intelligent, strong position one can take on the question of God’s existence,” Bugliosi states. “Doubt is divine in that it impels a search for the truth. It opens the door to knowledge. Faith puts a lock on the door,” he adds.
Here is the Iconoclast interview:
ICONOCLAST: Divinity of Doubt has to be one of the best books ever written on the subject of religion and life. What inspired you to address the God question?
BUGLIOSI: Well, if you know anything about me, Leon, I like challenges, and I don’t think there is any bigger challenge than taking on the issue of God. It’s viewed by many people as being an eternal mystery, and I don’t report to know the answer to it. I’m an agnostic. For your audience, most of them will know what I’m about to say but some might not. Theists believe in God, as you know, atheists do not. Agnostics say, and I’m an agnostic, “I don’t know.”
I like to tell people, Leon, that I’ve got a rather bright — I’m being a little cute here — a rather bright person on my side. At least some people think he’s kind of bright. His name is Einstein. Einstein was an agnostic. Arguably, you know, the greatest mind of the 20th century. Interestingly enough, Charles Darwin was also an agnostic. Now I say interestingly enough, Leon, because most evolutionists, not all, but most evolutionists tend to be atheists, and here we have the founder of evolution, Charles Darwin, being a very strong agnostic.
I feel that the question of whether or not there is a God to be, like I said, an impenetrable mystery beyond human comprehension. The way Einstein put it, he said, “The problem is too vast for our limited minds,” and that’s why I feel the most sensible position to take on this question, the most responsible position to take, is that of agnosticism.
I like Gertrude Stein’s take on agnosticism. Back in the 1930s, she said, “There ain’t no answer, there ain’t going to be any answer, there never has been any answer: that’s the answer.”
Also back in the 1930s, the great criminal defense attorney Clarence Darrow perceptively said, “I don’t report to know what ignorant men are sure of.”
One little tag to this, Leon, is that more than one person has told me that after reading Divinity of Doubt, The God Question they found out who they were. What they meant when they explained it is that they had thought that they were either, let’s say, a theist or an atheist and they found out that they were neither, but they actually were an agnostic and they didn’t even realize it until they had read the book. They found that learning about their true religious identity was of some value to them.
In the book, I very heavily take on atheism also, and the atheists are not too happy with me. I view atheism as being an intellectually barren philosophy whose chief provocateurs, I’m talking about people like, oh, Christopher Higgins, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins — if you read their books, Leon, I don’t know if you have, but if you do, these people cannot find a non sequitur that they do not like.
I do not know whether or not there is a God, and the atheists may very well be correct when they say they don’t believe in God and some go as far as say there definitely is no God. But I do not believe that atheistic dogma leads one rationally to that conclusion because, as I say, if you examine what they say, and I give several examples in the book, they go from one non sequitur to another. I have yet to see an atheistic argument that leads irresistibly to the non-existence of God.
I’ve already spoken to one group that had quite a few atheists in it, and I’m going to be speaking to a group later this month heavily populated with atheists. I asked the last group to give me something that’s not a non sequitur and they couldn’t do it. At least theism has one argument that at least has common sense on its part, or not uncommon sense. I think a better word would be logic, and that’s the argument of first cause.
First cause arguably leads back to an uncaused cause and that uncaused cause being a God. So, a long answer to your question, and then I went off atheism and theism.
It’s a tremendous challenge; I’ve always been interested in the whole issue of God as so many people have been. I wrote myself many, many notes throughout the years and put them in a folder, never attempted to do a book. But I finally decided to do one, and I took about two years out of my life, worked seven days a week, got heavily, heavily into it. And I have to say that I’m more excited about Divinity of Doubt than any other book in my entire career and I’ve had seven New York Times bestsellers, three getting up to number one.
Helter Skelter, you know, on the Manson case, was my biggest book, and it’s not just because there’s no more important subject that God, but at the expense of sounding presumptuous, Leon, there are two things that make Divinity of Doubt, I think, different and one is that in the book I discuss virtually every single important issue in the entire area of God and religion, and if you’ve read books on God and religion, you will know that this is not common, not common at all.
But secondly, and I think most important by far, I offer fresh and, this is going to sound presumptuous but it just happens to be factual, I offer fresh and controversial insights on almost all of these issues. This sounds a little hard to believe since we’re talking here about a 2000-year-old conversation, at least with Christianity, in which it is well known that nothing significant has been brought to the table in a great number of years, but Divinity of Doubt has that.
I can give you a very short but a very perfect testament to what I just said. Have you ever heard the name Frank Shaeffer before, Leon?
ICONOCLAST: Um, sounds familiar.
BUGLIOSI: Okay, Frank Shaeffer and his father, Francis Shaeffer, were founders of the religious right in America. Shaeffer is no longer a member of the religious right. He saw the light of day, but he is still a practicing Christian and goes to church on Sundays. His father was a prominent theologian, and also a preacher. His mother was a missionary and also a preacher. Frank himself was a preacher for years. He’s written several books on God. His most prominent book, which is a New York Times bestseller, was Crazy for God. Frank, who is close to 60 years old, talks about the fact that as early as five years of age he can remember at the dinner table that all the talk was about God and religion. That’s over half a century that he’s been immersed in God and religion. We gave him a copy of Divinity of Doubt to read for a review, and I’ll just give you a part of the review.
He said “I found myself following my wife around the house reading passages of the book to her.”
Obviously, Leon, would Frank have said this if what he read in the book was familiar to him? There’s all types of very fresh insights into this book, and at the heart of the book I take on many age-old religious beliefs that people have unthinkingly accepted as true, such as free will, immortality of the soul, the virgin birth, the so-called power of prayer, that the Christian God is all powerful and all good, and I proved beyond a reasonable doubt that actually they are not true.
And I do this, Leon, in the same identical way I did as a prosecutor. I just let the evidence be my only master and then I draw powerful inferences from that evidence. Some of the things I say in Divinity of Doubt are so much against what people have heard a thousand times in the past that some people are very uncomfortable with them. It takes them out of their comfort zone, but everything I say is supported by the evidence.
ICONOCLAST: The veracity of Noah has always bothered me. How did he round up all those live animals, care for them, feed them, get more animals for years, and provide physical homes for them? Also, I always thought the rainbow deal was incorrect because of science. But the thing that really got me was what you referred to in your book, that God was saying he was about to commit premeditated mass murder…and, of course, we are supposedly made in his image. In a way that sounds more like something Satan might say or do, if he exists. Do you think the bible was written for the purpose of creating wars?
BUGLIOSI: Yeah, well you know he created man in his image, he’s supposedly happy with it, and then as you well know in Genesis he becomes very disappointed with the human race. What does he do? Well, he destroys, murders, the entire human race and in a very nice way — I’m being sarcastic, probably one of the worst ways of dying — he drowns virtually everyone except Noah, as you say, and his family.
The first question is, if in fact humanity turned out to be so bad, if he is all knowing, he is supposed to be omniscient. I’m talking about God. Why did he create human beings in the first place if he already knew that they were going to end up disappointing him?
But this gets into another issue: the issue of the monstrous God of the Old Testament as distinguished from the Jesus of the New Testament.
The God of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the New Testament, according to, not Judaism because they believe that Jesus was just a prophet, but according to Christianity, they are one in the same. They talk about the trinity, but they don’t distinguish between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, and yet if you talk to these people they have absolutely no difficulty overlooking the fact that God would really put the monsters and the tyrants of history to shame.
The thousands upon thousands of murders that he commanded his followers to commit doesn’t seem to bother people at all. They feel that everything that God did in the Old Testament was justified.
I’ve got a little quote here. Let’s see if I can find it. It’s by Thomas Paine, one of the people who inspired the American Revolution, a very brilliant man. Here’s what Paine said in the Age of Reason, one of his books, about the horrors of the Old Testament. For instance, in the book of Joshua, God commands Joshua to kill, as he did, all the people, 31 kingdoms, hostile of Israelites — a type of ethnic cleansing that included the slaughter of all men, women, and children. In Samuel, the Lord told Saul, the first king of Israel, “I have decided to settle accounts with the nation of Amalek for opposing Israel when they came from Egypt. Now go and completely destroy the entire Amalek Nation – men, women, children, babies, cattle, sheep, camels, and donkeys, which Saul did. There are many more instances like this, in addition to the fact that, of course, like I said, he murdered the entire human race by drowning with the exception of Noah.
Here’s what Thomas Paine says in his Age of Reason. He says, “The bible tells us that all the murders in the Old Testament were done by the express command of God. To believe, therefore, the bible to be true, we must un-believe all our belief in the moral justice of God, for wherein could crying or smiling infants offend?”
How do you get around that, you see? The Jews who believe in the Old Testament, in Christianity they believe in the Old Testament and New Testament, they have no trouble, they do not condemn God for doing any of these things, because whatever he did, there were justifications for it.
But like Thomas Paine says, “How could a smiling infant offend?”
What could an infant have possibly done to justify God murdering these infants? There really are no explanations for a great number of things that I talk about here in Divinity of Doubt, but I do get into some things, like free will and immortality of the soul, that really, if you can find them in other books out there developed in the way I have, I’d like to know what those books are.
ICONOCLAST: I have often wondered if the Book of Matthew in the New Testament was perhaps written, or co-written, by a guy named Mathias, Judas’ replacement. Are you familiar with that at all?
BUGLIOSI: No, I’ve heard of it, but no I did not get into that. It’s normally assumed that Matthew did not write the Book of Matthew, but most biblical scholars do not seem to know who in fact did. Mark, of course, was never even an apostle. He was close to Peter. Peter was an apostle. The Book of John, as you probably know, the Gospel of John, John they say wrote it when he was close to 100 years of age, which would have been 70 years after all of the incidences that were taking place that he writes about, and no one suggests that he was taking notes when he was with Jesus.
ICONOCLAST: Apparently Mathias was the note taker, you know, during Jesus’ reign. He was the one that took all of the notes and kind of kept records of everything. I was thinking, he might come closer to being a person that would actually write something like this than would a tax collector?
BUGLIOSI: Now there’s an allegation, obviously, that Mathias took notes, but where would that have come from, because, really, the only thing we have to go on is that it’s extremely unlikely that many of these things took place. What document, what historical record would say that Mathias was taking notes?
ICONOCLAST: I’m not sure there is one.
BUGLIOSI: It’s part of the mythology. And it may be true, you know, it may be true, but it’s hard to talk with too much authority about the New Testament because you’re kind of limited to the four gospels. And then, as you say, you were talking about Matthew. We don’t even know who the authors were. Although biblical scholars seem to concede that the four gospels were written, finally, at least the last one, by the end of the 1st century AD. It’s interesting also that the first writing in the New Testament was not quite that long after Jesus supposedly died on the cross in 33 AD. It’s normally believed by biblical scholars that Paul was not an apostle. Well, he was an apostle, but he never did see God and Jesus in life. He saw the apparition on the way to Damascus. It’s generally believed that his 1 Thessalonians was written somewhere around 51, 52 AD, which is only about 17, 18, 19 years after Jesus supposedly died on the cross. We’re getting into trivia or detail that really, really does not go to the heart of the book Divinity of Doubt.
ICONOCLAST: I’ve always wondered, why did it take them so long to write that stuff. You’d think they would get on it pretty quick instead of waiting so many years.
BUGLIOSI: Well, the one, and again we’re straying away from the essence of Divinity of Doubt, but one thing, there is an argument against that, and it ends up being a false prophesy of Jesus.
Jesus at one point in the gospels told his followers that he would return before some of the people he was talking to had died. In other words, some of the people he was talking to would still be alive when he returned. Now, we know that’s not the case. They called it parousia. I don’t know off the top of my head how to spell it, I think it was p-a-r-o-u-s-i-a. This was the belief of early Christianity that Jesus would be returning very, very soon, and that would be one possible justification for waiting as long as they did, thinking that “well, he’s going come back very shortly anyway.”
ICONOCLAST : Near the end of Divinity of Doubt in the notes section you refer to the “attainment of zero” whereby people strive to reach zero but keep getting knocked down. I have a philosophy that things are always happening in balance. If something good happens to you, you can count on something bad to happen to balance it out. And for me, I was contemplating your zero thing, and just trying to figure out if it fits into my theory?
BUGLIOSI: That’s just a philosophy of mind that has nothing to do with the book. It sounds very similar, but I just made a parenthetical observation of mine that I had as a youngster, that there really was nothing called happy. You can call it happiness, but there’s no condition of happiness. When we think we’re happy we’re just rising up to zero. When we are at below zero we’re unhappy for whatever reason, maybe we’re hungry, maybe we’re thirsty, but once we satisfy that need of thirst or hunger or whatever, all we’re doing is going back up to zero. And zero I guess would be a point at birth, or what have you.
ICONOCLAST: I’m not sure that this has anything to do with it either, but I’m going to ask you anyway; it’s kind of a stupid question.
BUGLIOSI: *Laughs*
ICONOCLAST: What goes through your head when in court a witness recites that he or she will tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God?
BUGLIOSI: I don’t even hear those words because if you talk to any trial lawyer they will tell you that perjury exists in virtually every trial, it’s almost taken for granted. To give an example, if a defendant is charged with robbery, and he takes the witness stand and denies committing the robbery, and the jury comes back with a verdict of guilty, that is a concomitant finding that he must have lied, or they believed he lied, when he took the witness stand.
He denied it, and they said no, you’re guilty. And yet, I don’t know of any case ever in America where after the trial the prosecutor says “well not only have I convicted you of robbery now, but I’m also going to convict you of perjury.” It’s not done. Why isn’t it done? Because it’s taken for granted that he’s going to deny it.
Prosecutors expect defendants to deny guilt. Look, if they hadn’t denied guilt, then there wouldn’t have been a trial, they would have pled guilty, you follow? So, I mean I hear those words up there but I do know that perjury is extremely common at a trial, and it’s unfortunate, you know, but it’s a reality of life.
ICONOCLAST: I’ve read several of your reviews, like on Amazon, and they tend to be hot or cold.
BUGLIOSI: Well, the ones that are cold, almost invariably, are the atheists or the evolutionists. They don’t even bother reading the book. They simply say, “Don’t read the book. It’s no good” and all that stuff. But no, the book has gotten tremendous reviews from actual reviewers.
It’s like my book on the Kennedy assassination, which is the equivalent of 13 volumes of 400 page books that weigh 7½ pounds, a monstrous book. It has over 10,000 citations and it takes people an entire year to read it.
In fact, Tom Hanks and his people are going to be doing a multi-hour mini-series for HBO for the 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination in 2013. My book is called Reclaiming History. The book came out, and the very next day there were these conspiracy theorists saying, “Don’t read the book, it’s a terrible book.” Well, they hadn’t even read the book. And it’s the same thing with Divinity of Doubt. These are the atheists that are attacking me or the theists, you know. But it’s an incredible book.
ICONOCLAST: Yes, it is an incredible book.
BUGLIOSI: Well I appreciate that. It’s the type of book that makes you think. People say you read one paragraph, and you have to stop and think about it, then you go on to the next paragraph, and then you have to think again, and people also talk about the fact that they find things, so many things, in the book kind of funny. I don’t know, did you find it that way? Did you get any humor out of the book?
ICONOCLAST: Maybe a little bit, but not really that much. I just thought it made me think and it took me a while to read it. I would read a few pages or a chapter and then leave it open a little while and, you know, kind of go from there.
BUGLIOSI: Let me just quickly talk about a couple of the things, that if true literally could spell the end of Christianity.
Free will. You hear everyone talk about free will. God gives all of us free will, they say. If you challenge them on it they’ll say, “Well, it’s in the bible.” But it turns out that contrary to popular belief, the bible does not say there’s free will. In fact, it says the precise opposite that there is no free will.
And, I don’t have to tell you, Leon, the enormous ratifications of this. How do you explain or justify God’s, assuming there’s a God, punishment of evildoers? If what they did was preordained by God, they had no choice. Now mind you, I’m not saying there’s no free will. If you were to ask me if I believe there is free will, I would say, “Well, why are you asking me? I don’t know anymore about it than my next door neighbor.” We’re talking about the bible here, and the bible isn’t something to be ignored. To just give an indication of the power of the bible, you take away the bible and overnight, overnight, Christianity and Judaism literally cease to exist. There is no way in the world they could even begin to exist without the bible.
Now, just a little support for what I just told you about the bible not saying there’s free will: Isaiah 63:17 says, “Lord, why do you cause us some free will; why do you cause us to stray from thy ways.” Romans 11:32 goes so far as to say that God “confines all men to disobedience.”
Talmudic scholars, Leon, for centuries have been struggling trying to get around, desperately trying to get around, because Judaism believes so much in free will, as Christianity does, trying to get around Exodus 4:21 where God tells Moses, “I will harden the heart of the Pharaoh, causing him to be stubborn, so that he will not set the people free” referring to the Israelites who were in bondage at that time in Egypt, thereby apparently justifying his imposition.
Another example of God being such a nice guy is his imposition of the 10 plagues on the poor people of Egypt until the Pharaoh finally capitulated. This is the type of support that I give for these positions that are just completely against what people have heard a thousand times in the past, that the bible actually says there’s no free will.
It turns out that the immortality of the soul, and I traced this all the way back, was a pure invention of Plato in the 4th century BC, pure invention, that Christianity was forced to embrace because without it, there’s no life after death. I mean, everybody knows that the body doesn’t rise from the dead, so if the soul’s not immortal, there’s no life after death, and if there’s no life after death, the problem there is that there is no what? There’s no heaven and hell. And I would ask the rhetorical question, Leon, how does Christianity exist? How does it continue to be in existence? How does it stay alive without heaven and hell? Isn’t this what it offers or threatens its followers with? But this is the type of stuff that you’re not going to find, and this is not a boast, it’s just an absolute fact, that you’re not going to find in books.
If they were out there — these observations — I would never have written Divinity of Doubt.
I also found, but we’re not going to be able to get into all the detail on it, but I found evidence in the New Testament, referring to Matthew which we talked about earlier, Matthew 1:18 and 1:22 which read in conjunction with the Old Testament, specifically Isaiah 7:14 proves, not just beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond all doubt, that Jesus was not born of a virgin. That’s if you look at Isaiah 7:14, that Matthew 1:18 and 1:22 rely on for that proposition. If Jesus was not born of a virgin, then he was not the son of God, and if he was not the son of God, then the Christian belief that God had his son die on the cross for our sins goes out the window, too, which in effect ravages much of Christianity.
This is why so many people have read this book and, several of the reviews said it, but there is no way that anyone can read Divinity of Doubt without being affected. You read Divinity of Doubt and you’re never going to feel quite the same way about God and religion again. Now again, I’m not saying that Jesus was not born of a virgin. I’d sound silly if I said that. I’m talking about the bible.
Leon, I really, really enjoyed talking to you and I wish you the very best in all of your endeavors down there. You’re aware of my book The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder so you and I are on the same side there, right?
ICONOCLAST: Yeah, I think so.
BUGLIOSI: We’re making a documentary on it. It’s about 99 percent completed. It’s got to go through post production. In fact, tomorrow I’m going to be working all day on it. So we should have The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder on the big screen probably within a half a year or so, and maybe I can come back and talk to you again.
Angered Masses To Storm D.C. In October
Message: ‘Stop the Machine! — Create a New World!’
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Oct. 6, 2011 begins a call to action by the masses fed up with the meltdown of America. The movement, to be headquartered in Freedom Plaza, is drawing attention worldwide, with one of its goals being to focus on human needs, “Not Corporate Greed.”
The Iconoclast will have reporters in the field there during the event.
According to promoters, “October 2011 is the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Afghanistan and the beginning of the 2012 federal austerity budget. It is time to light the spark that sets off a true democratic, nonviolent transition to a world in which people are freed to create just and sustainable solutions.
“We call on people of conscience and courage—all who seek peace, economic justice, human rights and a healthy environment—to join together in Washington, D.C., beginning on Oct. 6, 2011, in nonviolent resistance similar to the Arab Spring and the Midwest awakening.”
A concert, rally, and protest will kick off a powerful and sustained nonviolent resistance to the corporate criminals that dominate the United States government, it was noted.
Forty-seven years ago, Mario Savio, an activist student at Berkeley, Calif. said, “There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious—makes you so sick at heart—that you can’t take part. You can’t even passively take part. And you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all.”
The <http://october2011.org> website explains that the country is facing “ongoing wars and massive socio-economic and environmental destruction perpetrated by a corporate empire which is oppressing, occupying, and exploiting the world. We are on a fast track to making the planet unlivable while the middle class and poor people of our country are undergoing the most wrenching and profound economic crisis in 80 years.”
The clarion call for the movement is: “Stop the Machine! • Create a New World!” and is intended for “all who are deeply concerned with injustice, militarism, and environmental destruction to join in ending concentrated corporate power and taking direct control of a real participatory democracy. We will encourage a culture of resistance—using music, art, theater, and direct nonviolent action—to take control of our country and our lives. It is about courageously resisting and stopping the corporate state from destroying not only our inherent rights and freedoms, but also our children’s chance to live, breathe clean air, drink pure water, grow edible natural food and live in peace.”
The October2011 Movement steering committee has identified 15 core issues that they feel the country must face:
1. Corporatism– firmly establish that money is not speech, corporations are not people, only people have Constitutional rights, end corporate influence over the political process, protect people and the environment from damage by corporations.
2. Wars and Militarism – end wars and occupations, end private for-profit military contractors, reduce the national security state and end the weapons export industry. War crimes, crimes against humanity and crimes against peace must be addressed and those responsible held accountable under international law.
3. Human Rights – end exploitation of people in the US and abroad, end discrimination in all forms, equal civil rights and due process for all people.
4. Worker Rights and jobs – all working-age people have the right to safe, just, non-discriminatory and dignified working conditions, a sustainable living wage, paid leave and economic protection.
5. Government – all processes of the three branches of government should be accountable to international law, transparent and follow the rule of law, people have the right to participate in decisions which affect them.
6. Elections – all citizens 18 and older have the right to vote without barriers, all candidates have the right to be heard and to run and all votes should be counted.
7. Criminal justice and prisons –end private for-profit prisons, adopt evidence-based drug policy, prisoners have the right to humane and just conditions with a focus on rehabilitation and reintegration into society, abolish the death penalty.
8. Healthcare – create a national, universal and publicly financed comprehensive health system.
9. Education – all people have the right to a high quality, publicly-funded and broad education from pre-school through vocational training or university.
10. Housing – all people have the right to affordable and safe housing.
11. Environment – adopt policies which effectively create a carbon-free and radio-active free energy economy.
12. Finance and the economy – end policies which foster a wealth divide and move to a localized and democratic financial system, reform taxes so that they are progressive and provide goods, monetary gain and services for the people.
13. Media – airwaves and the internet are public goods, require that media be honest, accurate and accountable to the people.
14. Food and water – create systems that protect the land and water, create local and sustainable food networks and practices.
15. Transportation – provide affordable, clean and convenient public transportation and safe spaces for pedestrian and non-automobile travel.
The movement’s schedule of events includes:
Tuesday, Oct.4 — Nonviolence training 1 to 5 p.m. at St. Stephen and the Incarnation Episcopal Church at 1525 Newton Street NW at the corner of 16th St and Newton.
Thursday, Oct. 6 —
9 a.m. – Arrival in Freedom Plaza – registration to receive information and sign up to volunteer, teach classes and join a committee.
12 p.m. – Concert and Rally – featuring The Raging Grannies, Head Roc and Junkyard Empire, and spoken word artists as well as Rabbi Michael Lerner, Ashley Sanders, Cheri Honkala, Glen Ford and Kevin Zeese.
2:30 p.m. – Acitivities off Freedom Plaza
6:30 p.m. – Evening Program – featuring the music of Emily Angell, Emma’s Revolution and Watermelon Slim and Elaine Brower, Jacob George of A Ride Til The End, The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, Ted Rall and Chris Hedges.
9 p.m. – Candlelight vigil
Friday, Oct. 7 —
9:a.m. to 12 p.m. – Workshops and classes (schedule TBA)
12 to 1 p.m. – Lunch
1 to 3 p.m. – Activities off Freedom Plaza
3 to 5 p.m. – Committee meetings
5 to 7 p.m. – Open mic on main stage
7 to 10 p.m. – Evening Assembly including music and arts and committee reports. Evening assemblies will be livestreamed (more information to come).
Vaccine Liberation Army Battles Flu Shots For Kids
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Vaccine Liberation Army, an organization created to bring awareness to problems with flu vaccines and other drugs, has staged a strategy to warn children about vaccines that are being thrust upon them by school officials and drug companies.
The promotion involves distributing Halloween stickers to students to share with others as a means of warning about the use of these drugs.
Eileen Dannemann, director of the National Coalition of Organized Women <www.ProgressiveConvergence.com> is promoting this mission.
“Let the kids know this Halloween that the flu vaccine has mercury in it and the plan is to inject them every year with mercury until they are 19 years old. That is mercury thatwe are not supposed to eat in fish but we are asked to stand by while the government mandates that our children get injected with this known neurotoxin directly into their arms.”
The project involves distribution of printed stickers and a call for donations to print more.
Said Dannemann, “We thank those Angels who donated to meet our goal to print 20,000 sticker sand get them out before the intense flu propaganda.
“If you live in a small town, you will find that parents and children flock the town on Halloween in the daytime to share their costumes and excitement. These stickers are perfect for Halloween day. And are happily received even by parents who sometimes reel at the skull and cross hypodermic needle logo.
“However, the high school student, middle school and college students love them. They are virtually never rejected. On the contrary, they want 10 so they can share with their friends. If you stand just one day at the exit of a school in your town when the bell rings and roll out a line of stickers and say, ‘Hey, want a free sticker?’ they take one look and jump all over it.
“It may take a little courage to show up a the entrance of the school, but once you do, you will be so stoked at the response and you will be saving lives.”
Dannemann explained that the rolls of 250 perforated VaccineLiberationArmy.com stickers are free to anyone who wants to distribute. “We will send anyone a free roll. We are just asking for mailing cost which is about $4-5.00 which can be paid by hitting the “donation” button, or just contact me, Eileen Dannemann, at ncowmail@gmail.com and we can arrange mailing according to your needs.”
The website of http://vaccineliberationarmy.com offers numerous videos and reports concerning various drugs that cause autism in children, plus other major problems — issues that drug companies and the government try to downplay, often with erroneous statistics.
The Student Vaccine Liberation Army mission is this:
“Armed with the most powerful knowledge, we are committed to circulate information for the sole purpose of encouraging critical thinking and conversations about: the risks and dangers of vaccines, the risks of prescription drugs, the philosophy of sovereignty of personhood, and liberation through mental clarity and spiritual and physical health – all in such a way that such activities do not disrupt school operations or interfere with the rights of others.”
Recession Around The Corner?
It’s Been Here A Long Time!
Matters Worse Than U.S. Economic, Unemployment Statistics Reflect
Back in 1990, a publication called Underground Texas was created by W. Leon Smith, publisher of The Iconoclast. Although short-lived, Underground Texas was on target in predicting the future. Here is the text from an article written by Ruth Hacker in the October 1990 edition regarding the economy. Sound familiar?
By Ruth Hacker
Underground Texas Contributing Writer
Only now are U.S. government economists admitting that we are in a recession. Truth is, we have been in a serious economic slump for the last half of this decade. The recession, fully manifested at this point, can no longer be denied by those who would make us believe otherwise. Instead, they are now busy trying to conceal the impending depression.
It has been said that a recession and a depression can best be defined in this manner: “A recession is when you don’t have a job. A depression is when I don’t have one.”
Look around you. How many people do you know who are out of work or who expect a layoff any day? How many businesses do you see hanging in the balance, throwing good money after bad, trying to ride out this present downward spiral…hoping for even the slightest upswing in the economy?
Statistics released by U.S. government agencies have played an important role in the colossal cover-up to conceal the fact that our nation is bankrupt. Unemployment figures, for example, a key indicator of the economic climate, cannot be relied upon.
The headcount of the unemployed, released by the government for publication and broadcasting from time to time, is based on the number of persons receiving unemployment benefits at the time the report is generated. The dreadful truth is that many, many more people than this do not have jobs, but because they have used up all their unemployment benefits, and are no longer eligible to receive compensation, have been dropped from the unemployment roll! These are the long-term unemployed – many whose jobs have been exported – that government programs such as the Job Partnership Training Act were supposedly designed to re-train and put back on the job in other fields. But like most government programs, the JPTA has failed to deliver on its promise to the majority of those applying for assistance.
As one employee in the massive bureaucracy confessed, “It is heart-breaking to see these people lied to. They go through a long series of tests and preparation for interviews. All along they are encouraged and made to think that a new career awaits them. Months and months go by…no interviews, just more excuses. Soon, they realize that they have been wasting their time. They leave here more bitter and frustrated than when the applied for help.
“It gets harder and harder for me to be a part of a scheme which gives the terminally unemployed false hope.”
Figures released by the government concerning the S&L bailout are also deceiving. Although officials say $365 billion will take care of it, a number of insiders say the actual cost is likely to exceed $500 billion. This, they argue, may even be conservative since the final price-tag may not be realized until the assets of these failed institutions are disposed of by the FDIC – a move that will further depress the real estate market and building industry.
But taxpayers are already picking up the tab in more ways than one for the banks and S&Ls that have been robbed from the inside out. Instead of punishing the looters and establish internal security measures to prevent a reoccurrence, new banking policies which cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be described as “kinder and gentler,” are now being equally applied to everyone. And, whether or not you’re the patron of a bank under new ownership or old, you may have found that the situation has become a one-way street with everything favoring the lending institution.
By now, you have probably discovered that the banker who was once your partner in business has become your greatest adversary. You may be feeling the discomfort of strict, even harsh, guidelines. Could be that the hassle of meeting ever-changing conditions on a business loan may even have your business in a stranglehold. The injustice of it all may be that you have borrowed and paid back hundreds of thousands of dollars to this bank, but now, when you need help to weather the storm, there is none.
Perhaps this is evidence that even the banks do not see immediate hope for economic recovery. Further proof could be the fact that foreclosures, these days, are occurring even when there have been no delinquent payments, but because the owner cannot pay upon demand the entire balance on notes deemed undesirable by the lien holder.
In most instances, property values have fallen below the loan balance, making it for the owner to secure a loan elsewhere in an amount sufficient for a pay off. Those who did what the government had encouraged them to do — to put their profits back into business expansion – are losing their lifesavings. The Grim Reaper, who began stalking farmers and ranchers several years ago, is now knocking on the doors of family-owned businesses. Sadly, the “wheat” and the “tares” are being harvested together.
Interest is high, inflation is rampant, the budget deficit is out of hand, unemployment is on the rise, and our trade imbalance is abominable! Our Social Security funds have been raided – our future hocked on second-rate military systems and third-world countries. While our nation is teetering, the politicians who squandered our hard-earned tax money have been standing by, idly watching from the peaceful shores of foreign lobby soil.
Is our current mess what Ronald Reagan and subsequent leaders have touted as “the longest economic expansion in U.S. history?” Is there anyone left out there who still believes this fairytale?
Although our “leaders” are reluctant to acknowledge it, we’ve been waist-deep into a recession for a long time. You know it, I know it, but our “godfathers” won’t admit it! Unfortunately, the news ahead is not good, for we’re slipping out of the recession in the wrong direction. No Middle East diversion is going to change our fate. Only structural changes at home will provide that. We can only hope it’s not too late to head off the impending return of an overwhelming economic depression.
Earth stands on the brink of a human disaster. A global depression seems eminent. If that is the case, we could at least exercise one last act of defiance by expelling the lousy bastards who got us in this mess, and at least regain some of our dignity.
When the smoke clears, we might have a chance to build our lives, once more, under a new era of responsible leadership.
Payday’s a comin’!
Stillwater’s 9-11 Detective Novel
My 9-11 detective novel: Investigating the broken chain of custody of evidence
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2011/09/my-9-11-detective-novel-investigating.html
At a recent BoucherCon (http://bouchercon2011.com) murder-mystery writers’ and fans convention held in St Louis this year, I’m still getting all fired up by the “Who Dun It” question.
When we first arrived, everyone who attended was given a ton of free books — nothing better than that. Then at one event I attended, they honored Robert Randisi, an excellent crime-novel writer who, among other things, has written 550 books. “At one point, I could finish an entire book in only three days,” he told me later, “but I’m getting older now and can only manage writing a couple of books a month.” The man wears out four keyboards a year, he types that fast. Genius.
Next, I went to an interview with Charmaine Harris, a gentle kindly well-mannered typical Southern lady — who also just happens to write vampire books. She is the creator of that hot new HBO series, “True Blood”. And she doesn’t feel bad about killing off any of her characters either, “because it’s fun to write death scenes.” But sometimes she resurrects them if she likes a particular character a lot. “In vampire mysteries, you can always do that.” Plus her kids now think that she’s actually cool.
Then I went to a panel discussion on how to write books in the post-9-11 era. That was interesting, sure, but I think perhaps that the panelists missed one very important point.
One author stated, “I’m British. We are used to terrorism in Britain. But Americans before 9-11 lived in LaLa Land.” Too true.
Another author said, “People have an arc to their lives and some of them who worked at the Twin Towers never finished that arc. And that’s one way of approaching a book on this subject. But whatever you write on this subject, someone is going to misinterpret it. No matter what you write, you will be in for a kicking by someone because 9-11 is still too fresh and too new. Like Vietnam, we have to distance ourselves from the event before it can be approached through literature unemotionally.”
A third panel member said, “With all the coverage it has received, there is little to add to the actual event per se — but you can tell individual stories about people who were involved.” Another author was disgusted by the rampant commercialism of the recent tenth anniversary events.
One of the authors also said that, “As writers, we have chosen to make things up in order to put life events into perspective. So isn’t it our duty to write about 9-11? It is our job as writers to make sense of things that happen. And things have changed irrevocably after 9-11. It’s much darker now. For instance, we all had to go through security lines at the airports in order to get here. Writing has become much darker since then.”
Someone also commented that, “It is the job of a writer to take you where you cannot go in real life. The best example of this is still ‘All Quiet on the Western Front’. If you can’t be inside a war, this books shows you the absolute horrors of war. Your characters can bring these events to life and give your readers a better feel for what it was like on September 11, 2001.”
Another comment: “Detective novels are written at street level — which is why detective novels don’t work for big-themed events.”
And, “The real book waiting to be written is about how we now live in a world where there is always a war — where for young Americans, being a soldier is now a common career choice. And returning soldiers are now becoming a new under-class, violent, perhaps with drug problems. You could also write about what happens when the vets come back home.”
These are all good observations. But no one on the panel nailed it regarding what could possibly be the greatest detective story of all, the ultimate Who-Dun-It — who was really responsible for 9-11. For all too many thoughtful American citizens, this question has never been answered satisfactorily. So I started outlining my own detective novel on this subject.
“Jane Stillwater, hard-boiled NY private detective, was hired by a mysterious stranger to investigate what actually occurred on 9/11/01. Stillwater was dubious abut this assignment but started rounding up the usual suspects — the Saudis, Osama bin Laden, the CIA, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush.
“Stillwater, just another street-level down-on-her-luck gumshoe, had grudging taken on this difficult task for several reasons — her love of justice, her love of country, being patriotic as hell, and her burning desire to finally discover once and for all what actually had happened at the Twin Towers that day — but, most importantly, her rent was due and this huge new retainer would keep her landlord from throwing her out in the street.
“The first thing Stillwater did was check out the chain of custody of evidence: What kind of evidence was involved here and who had been in charge of it. ‘Time to start doing some legwork,’ she sighed, starting with obvious — the New York Stock Exchange. Who had bought up all those put-options on United and American stocks right before 9-11? The banks? Weapons dealers? Oil companies? The Saudis? The Cheney-Rumsfeld-Papa-Bush rat pack? Who had motive, means and opportunity? Dead end trail there. The chain of custody of evidence had been broken.
“Stillwater would have just loved to have grilled Osama bin Laden about 9-11, but the chain of custody trail was broken there too. Now the only ones who can give OBL the third-degree are some fishes.
“Next Stillwater went out to the landfill at Fresh Kills to see if she could find any evidence from the WTC building material itself. Clearly the chain of custody had been highly contaminated here. Burial in a landfill will do that. Plus how can one maintain a chain of custody of evidence after it has been hauled around Staten Island in a dump truck?
“‘What about all those airplane black boxes?’ Stillwater next asked herself. Maybe she could get her hands on a Black Box? But apparently American citizens’ right to know stops somewhere far short of the chain of custody of evidence here. And, frustrated, Stillwater couldn’t get a hold of any videotapes of a plane hitting the Pentagon either.
“But what about that L.A. Times report that Mohammed Ata and others had been training at U.S. military installations? That Saudis were flown out of the country after the attacks? Or the bizarrely-coincidental NORAD training exercises staged the very same day? Who even HAS the chain of custody there? And, since the chain has obviously been broken many times, then who broke it?
“Next, Stillwater tried to put a tail on Dick Cheney — but that trial led nowhere. That trail was as covered up as a Yeti in a snowstorm. That trail was cold. And unbeknownst to Congress, Cheney had already put a shadow government in place just hours after the attacks. How could Stillwater possibly shadow a government that was already a shadow itself?
“Next Stillwater tried to check out the air traffic controller interviews right after the attacks. Broken chain of custody of evidence there too. They’d disappeared without a trace.”
So. How is my new 9-11 crime novel going to end? Can’t tell you that! Because if I did, I would be instantly labeled a conspiracy theory nutcase instead of the next Dashiell Hammett. Or else I would have to be killed. So you’re just gonna have to wait until after my new book comes out (if I can ever find a publisher, that is.)
No wonder nobody ever writes murder-mystery novels about 9-11!
PS: The next exciting and wonderful BoucherCon http://bouchercon2012.com/ convention is going to be held in Cleveland, Ohio, in 2012. See you there! And maybe we’ll be able to see Cleveland’s congressional representative Dennis Kucinich there too. He’d fit right in at BoucherCon — because Rep. Kucinich is absolutely the best crime detective in the U.S. House of Representatives today — or ever! http://kucinich.us/index.php.
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Important coverage of the five-day-old non-violent occupation of Wall Street [This demonstration is highly necessary in order to continue democracy in America and to end the reign of oligarchs in Washington. So get on the subway, go down to Wall Street and join it right now!]:
http://www.readersupportednews.org/opinion2/279-82/7539-focus-a-message-from-occupied-wall-street-day-five …We’re still here. We are growing. We intend to stay until we see movements toward real change in our country and the world.
You have fought all the wars. You have worked for all the bosses. You have wandered over all the countries. Have you harvested the fruits of your labors, the price of your victories? Does the past comfort you? Does the present smile on you? Does the future promise you anything? Have you found a piece of land where you can live like a human being and die like a human being….
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From Robert: Verifiable Media Reports on 9/11: 1996-2001: Federal authorities are aware for years before 9/11 that suspected terrorists with ties to Osama bin Laden are receiving flight training at schools in the US and abroad. One convicted terrorist confesses that his planned role in a terror attack was to crash a plane into CIA headquarters. [Washington Post, 9/23/01, CBS, 5/30/02, more]
….Sept 11, 2001: Six air traffic controllers who dealt with two of the hijacked airliners make a tape recording describing the events within hours of the attacks. The tape is never turned over to the FBI. It is later illegally destroyed by a supervisor without anyone making a transcript or even listening to it. [Washington Post, 5/6/04, NY Times, 5/6/04]….http://www.wanttoknow.info/9-11cover-up.
Stargazer — October 2011 Night Sky
October 2011
Your guide to the stars
You can use the chart as a guide when looking at the night sky. The chart shows the sky as it will be at 10 p.m. on Oct. 1; 9 p.m. on Oct. 15; and 8 p.m. on Oct. 31.
Hold the chart so the direction you are facing is at the bottom. For example, if you are facing north, turn the chart around so the “N” representing north is at the bottom as you hold it out in front of you. The center of the chart represents the portion of the sky you see if you look straight up.
To keep your eyes adjusted to the darkness as you look a the night sky, use a red-light flashlight to view the chart. You can make your own by putting red cellophane over the light or by coloring the lens of the flashlight with a red marker pen.
Sun: Oct. 1 – Sunrise: 7:22 a.m.; Sunset: 7:14 p.m. / Oct. 15 – Sunrise: 7:32 a.m.; Sunset: 6:57 p.m. / Oct. 31 – Sunrise: 7:44 a.m.; Sunset: 6:40 p.m. (exact for Waco, Texas)
Moon: Oct. 3: 1st Quarter / Oct. 11: Full / Oct. 19: 3rd Quarter / Oct. 26: New
Night Sky Events
Held at arm’s length, the width of your fist is 10º and the width of your index finger is 1º . The width of a full Moon is ½º .
Oct. 3 Mon. evening: The Moon is at 1st quarter.
8 Sat. all night: The Draconid (Giacobinid) meteor shower peaks but the nearly full Moon will wash out all but the brightest meteors.
11 Tue.: The full Moon is called the Hunter’s Moon and the Dying Grass Moon.
19 Wed. morning: The Moon is at 3rd quarter.
21 Fri. morning: The Orionid meteor shower peaks tonight with the best views likely to come before the Moon rises in the wee hours of morning.
26 Wed.: The Moon is new.
27 Thu. early evening: A thin crescent Moon (bottom), Mercury, and Venus (top) are aligned vertically just above the western horizon after sunset.
28 Fri.: Jupiter is at opposition – opposite the Sun as seen from Earth – when it rises at sunset, is up all night, and sets at sunrise.
31 Mon.: Halloween, a cross-quarter day celebrating the middle of fall.
Naked-eye Planets
The Sun, Moon and planets rise in the east and set in the west due to Earth’s west-to-east rotation on its axis.
Evenings: Venus (setting low in west), Jupiter (rising in the east), Mercury (west, late in month)
Mornings: Mars (east), Jupiter (east), Mercury (early in month)
* Mercury emerges low in the west late in the month.
* Venus is climbing higher daily, becoming the prominent “evening star” in the west.
* Mars is up in the east well before sunrise.
* Jupiter rises in the early evening and is high in the west by morning.
* Saturn is now hidden in the Sun’s glare.
Constellation of the Month: Lyra the Lyre
Lyra the Musical Lyre is a small constellation just to the west of Cygnus the Swan and the Milky Way. Being rather northerly, it is visible in our evening skies over half the year, from June through December. While it may not look like a musical instrument, its shape is distinctive – a parallelogram hanging from an especially bright star, 1st-magnitude Vega, the fifth brightest star in the night sky.
It’s hard to miss Vega, being the most brilliant object nearly straight overhead in the early evenings of fall. Situated 25 light years away, Vega was made famous in the movie “Contact” based on Carl Sagan’s novel. In the story a radio astronomer, played by Jodi Foster, discovered a radio message from intelligent beings seemingly coming from Vega.
Vega also combines with the brightest stars of two other constellations, Deneb (in Cygnus the Swan) and Altair (in Aquila the Eagle), to form the large Milky Way Triangle (also known as the Summer Triangle) now high overhead.
In addition to Vega, Lyra also contains other jewels, two of which are Epsilon Lyri and the Ring Nebula. Epsilon Lyri looks like a rather ordinary star a finger-width (held at arm’s length) from Vega which binoculars show to be a double star. But that isn’t the whole story as a telescope at high power reveals each of those stars to be a double star, hence the star’s nickname, the Double-Double. These four stars, along with a couple of even fainter ones, form a multiple star system in which all the stars are gravitationally bound and orbit a common “center of gravity.”
The Ring Nebula, also known as M57, is one of the most popular and well-known planetary nebula. The term is misleading as it has nothing to do with planets; rather it is the visible remnant of dead star. Through a telescope M57 looks like a tiny, faint grayish donut-shaped cloud while astrophotography displays its rich colors. Unseen at the center is a small, Earth-sized dead star called a white dwarf, the hot and still-glowing “corpse” of a giant star that died less than 2,000 years ago at a distance of 2,300 light-years. The visible cloud is the star’s outer shell of gasses that were blow away during the star’s last gasp of stellar life. The Ring Nebula gives a preview of what our Sun will look like when it dies in 5-6 billion years.
Lyra in Greek Mythology
Lyra is one of the 48 constellations from antiquity. In Greek mythology the harp-like stringed instrument belonged to Orpheus, the superbly gifted minstrel whose music and voice could charm people, tame wild animals and even change the flow of rivers. It was given to Orpheus by the god Apollo who taught him to play with the power of a god. Like Willie Nelson and his guitar, Orpheus and Lyra were widely traveled. They accompanied Jason and the Argonauts on their quest for the Golden Fleece, and saved the ship and crew from certain shipwreck by drowning out the sinister singing of the seductive Sirens with powerfully beautiful music.
But alas, his life ended prematurely. His wife, the beautiful nymph Eurydice, died when bitten by a snake. Orpheus was so grief-stricken that, with lyre in hand, he climbed down into the Underworld to retrieve Eurydice. His music had such power that even Hades (Pluto) agreed to allow her to accompany him back to Earth – on the condition that Orpheus would refrain from casting his gaze upon her until they were completely out of the Underworld. Unfortunately, just before reaching Earth’s surface, he couldn’t resist glancing back to make sure she was still with him, and when he did, she immediately vanished and returned once again to the Land of the Dead.
The grief of losing his lovely young wife, not once but twice, was more than he could bear. Thereafter he forsook the company of all women, causing the wild women of Thrace, out of jealousy, to kill him. They threw his lyre into the river as Orpheus himself descended into the Underworld to spend eternity with his beloved wife, Eurydice.
Zeus, the king of the Gods, had Aquila the Eagle retrieve Orpheus’ lyre from the river and carry it into the sky where Lyra continues making music for the whole world to enjoy.
Astro Milestones
Oct. 4, 1957, the Russian’s launched Sputnik I, the first human-made Earth-orbiting satellite, beginning of the Space Age. Oct. 29 is the birthday of Edmund Halley (1656-1742), English astronomer of Halley’s Comet fame.
Star Parties
The Central Texas Astronomical Society’s simultaneous free monthly star parties are Saturday, Oct. 22, at the Lake Waco Wetlands, Belton’s Overlook Park on Stillhouse Hollow, and Hubbard City Lakes Park beginning at 7 p.m. CTAS also owns and operates the Meyer Observatory at the Turner Research Station near Clifton, Texas; the next monthly observatory open house is Saturday, Oct. 8, from 7-9 p.m. See www.centexastronomy.org for more information.
Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. His website (www.stargazerpaul.com) contains an archive of past Stargazer columns, a schedule of his upcoming programs, star parties and classes, and other basic stargazing information. Contact him at: paulderrickwaco@aol.com, or 254-723-6346, or 918 N. 30th St., Waco, TX 76707.
Perry & The Gardasil Mandate/Controversy
The American Academy of Pediatrics also lies because there have not been sufficient studies that prove Gardasil saves significant lives and that it warrants the use of the medication for ALL young 12-year old girls. In fact, many young girls have reactions to Gardasil and could activate cervical cancer in some.
This revelation should be quite shocking to anyone who has been following the debate over Gardasil and mandatory vaccinations of teenage girls. First, it reveals that Gardasil appears to increase disease by 44.6 percent in certain people — namely, those who were already carriers of the same HPV strains used in the vaccine.
In other words, it appears that if the vaccine is given to a young woman who already carries HPV in a “harmless” state, it may “activate” the infection and directly cause precancerous lesions to appear. The vaccine, in other words, may accelerate the development of precancerous lesions in women.
http://vaccine.immunodefence.com/2009/03/the-gardasil-scam-hpv-does-not.html
Furthermore, it is not merely the merits of the medication here, but it is the use of Perry’s Executive Order that is really a main issue. It is the mis-use and abuse of gubernatorial powers.
http://www.thepoliticalguide.com/rep_bios.php?rep_id=56615334&category=scandals&id=1219506227230808
A second main issue is the right of parents to make an educated decision for themselves whether or not to request the vaccine for their young girls.
http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/perry-says-gardasil-order-mistake-not-mandate
Third, Merck Pharmaceuticals has been a long-time Perry supporter and campaign contributor, which of course, Perry tries to play down every time it is brought up. He swears Merck only paid $5,000 but that’s merely the tip of the campaign contribution iceberg.
Merck actually provide approximately $400,000 overall to Rick Perry’s gubernatorial campaigns.
Perry’s feelings were hurt that Michele Bachmann accused him of taking money from Merck, which he claimed was only $5,000 because he know that he is being bought at much higher numbers. We should stop insulting his true worth.
Why don’t Americans see through Rick Perry? Could it be any more obvious that he is a special interest motivated governor and would be exactly the same if he were President.
Peter Stern, of Driftwood, Texas, writes on political issues, is a former Director of Information Services in private industry and government, a university professor, public school administrator and teacher, a disabled Vietnam veteran, and holds three post-graduate degrees.
Drought Correction To Take Years
COLLEGE STATION – Many agricultural producers in East Texas are feeling caught between a rock and a ‘hot’ place. The agricultural losses from the extended drought are extreme, according to a report issued by Robert Burns of the Texas AgriLife Extension Service.
But added to those costs now are frequent wildfires which have destroyed fencing, hay supplies and barns, and scorched what sparse grazing there was left, said Aaron Low, AgriLife Extension agent for Cherokee County.
“Talking with people who are more experienced with drought than I am, they’re anticipating that even it if starts raining right now, it’s going to be at least two years before our grasses are able to recover from this,” Low said.
Low noted that while much of the media coverage has focused later on the loss of private homes and whole neighborhoods, landowners have also suffered huge financial losses of fences and crops that often can’t be replaced by insurance.
Worse, while some fires have been started by truck blowouts and tree falls on power lines, other East Texas wildfires could have been avoided with a little common sense, he said.
“The big fire that started Sunday, west of Alto, was just from a truck parked in tall grass,” Low said. “The heat from the car’s catalytic converter started the fire. These guys came up from Houston and were filling up deer feeders, and the next thing, several thousand acres of timber and pasture burned.”
The Houston men lost their truck and trailer on land they only leased for hunting. The owner of the deer farm had more than a thousand acres burned.
Other loses from that fire included nearly two miles of fencing on White Oak Creek Ranch, Low noted.
“If you figure a post costs $5 each, and there’s a post every 10 feet, it starts to add up,” he said.
Statewide, about 5,500 miles of fence and 2.6 million acres of pasture had been lost to wildfire as of July 8, according to Dr. Andy Vestal, director of the Texas AgriLife homeland security and emergency management programs.
There’s also the cost of fuel, Bermuda grass sprigs, fertilizer and labor needed to restore pastures to consider if there is rain, Low said.
“We are talking losses of millions and millions of dollars in East Texas alone,” he said.
Meanwhile, regional livestock sale barns, such as Tri-County Livestock Market in New Summerfield, have reported about double the norm for cattle sales for an “extended period,” Low said.
“Our sale barn owners and managers are extremely worried that they’re going to have a rough time staying in business next year just for the simple fact there’s not going to be any cattle to sell,” he said.
More information on the current Texas drought and wildfire alerts can be found on the AgriLife Extension Agricultural Drought Task Force website at http://agrilife.tamu.edu/drought/ .
Perry Tries To Maintain Mythological Perception
Once A Sociopath, Always A Sociopath
As I have stated so many times over and over for the past decade, Gov. Rick Perry is a sociopath and a liar. Perry would NOT know the Truth if he tripped over it. He can’t help himself. He hasn’t a clue. He is so used to lying about most everything that he believes the lies himself. That’s part of the talent of a true sociopath.
Furthermore, Perry does not answer a question directly, He responds generally in clichés and with one lie building upon another. For example, if this lie is “correct” then so is this lie and that lie. It is the reason he can’t keep his statements straight. He maintains a sort of irrational logic that sociopaths often use.
Rick Perry always has been a danger to hard-working and hardly working Texans. He is grandiose and does NOT work in the best interest of the entire Texas community. He works for wealthy special interests who reward him with contributions and premium perks. His history shows that fact.
While in office as Governor, Rick Perry used his position to accumulate a fortune; he became a millionaire while in office — and it was not due to his poor selling book, “Fed Up!” The title of his book is how most Texans feel about the Governor.
Perry used his Executive Authority as Governor to push through legislation that mandates all young girls to be given the HPV vaccination. Merck is the pharmaceutical firm that manufactures Gardasil and the company is a large contributor to Perry’s campaigns. The bill was repealed and approximately 90 percent of the legislature was against the measure and didn’t appreciate the attempt by the self-proclaimed “King of Texas” to circumvent the legislative process to do a favor for his supporter.
As “Fed Up!” with the feds as Perry plays at being, he is the first to ask Washington for help when it comes to education financing or disaster relief. He complains that the federal government does not protect our borders with Mexico, when in reality Perry needs to bring his own shop in order. Drastic budget cuts continue to undermine the State’s ability to protect its own borders. Texas does NOT enforce our federal immigration laws; consequently, many wealthy Texas business folks and individuals hire illegals consistently for cheap and uninsured labor.
During the past decade, Perry and the Texas Legislature have diverted the State’s constitutional responsibility to finance public education to local (county) government, who in turn have overburdened home property owners to foot the majority tab to educate our children.
Rick Perry has always been a sociopath and there is no chance that he will suddenly turn-around and change his habitual ways. Texans have been short-changed by Perry for four terms and Americans don’t need another special interest driven liar in the White House.
Peter Stern, of Driftwood, Texas, writes on political issues, is a former Director of Information Services in private industry and government, a university professor, public school administrator and teacher, a disabled Vietnam veteran, and holds three post-graduate degrees.
Kansas City: A New Nuclear Weapons Plant!
Should the U.S. government be building more nuclear weapons? Residents of Kansas City, Missouri don’t appear to think so, for they are engaged in a bitter fight against the construction of a new nuclear weapons plant in their community.
The massive plant, 1.5 million square feet in size, is designed to replace an earlier version, also located in the city and run by the same contractor: Honeywell. The cost of building the new plant—which, like its predecessor, will provide 85 percent of the components of America’s nuclear weapons—is estimated to run $673 million.
From the standpoint of the developer, Centerpoint Zimmer (CPZ), that’s a very sweet deal. In payment for the plant site, a soybean field it owned, CPZ received $5 million. The federal government will lease the property and plant from a city entity for twenty years, after which, for $10, CPZ will purchase it, thus establishing the world’s first privately-owned nuclear weapons plant. In addition, as the journal Mother Jones has revealed, “the Kansas City Council, enticed by direct payments and a promise of ‘quality jobs,’ . . . agreed to exempt CPZ from property taxes on the plant and surrounding land for twenty-five years.” The Council also agreed to issue $815 million in bond subsidies from urban blight funds to build the plant and its infrastructure. In this lucrative context, how could a profit-driven corporation resist?
Kansas City residents, however, had greater misgivings. They wondered why the U.S. government, already possessing 8,500 nuclear weapons, needed more of them. They wondered what had happened to the U.S. government’s commitment to engage in treaties for nuclear disarmament. They wondered how the new weapons plant fit in with the Obama administration’s pledge to build a world free of nuclear weapons. And they wondered why they should be subsidizing the U.S. military-industrial complex with their tax dollars.
Taking the lead, the city’s peace and disarmament community began protests and demonstrations against the proposed nuclear weapons plant several years ago. Gradually, Kansas City PeaceWorks (a branch of Peace Action) pulled together the local chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, religious groups, and others into a coalition of a dozen organizations, Kansas City Peace Planters. The coalition’s major project was a petition campaign to place a proposition on the November 8, 2011 election ballot that would reject building a plant for weapons and utilize the facility instead for “green energy” technologies.
The significance of the Kansas City nuclear weapons buildup was also highlighted by outside forces. In June 2011, against the backdrop of the Obama administration’s plan to spend $185 billion for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex over the next ten years, the U.S. Council of Mayors voted unanimously for a resolution instructing the president to join leaders of the other nuclear weapons states in implementing U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s five-point plan for the elimination of all nuclear weapons by the year 2020. It also called on Congress to terminate funding for modernization of the U.S. nuclear weapons complex and nuclear weapons systems. Addressing the gathering, the U.N. leader declared that “the road to peace and progress runs through the world’s cities and towns,” a statement that drew a standing ovation.
Even more pointedly, Archbishop Francis Chullikatt, the Vatican’s ambassador to the United Nations, appeared in Kansas City in July 2011. According to the National Catholic Reporter, Chullikat “came to this Midwestern diocese because it is the site of a major new nuclear weapons manufacturing facility, the first to be built in the country in thirty-three years.” In his address, the prelate remarked: “Viewed from a legal, political, security and most of all—moral—perspective, there is no justification today for the continued maintenance of nuclear weapons.” This was the moment, he declared, to address “the legal, political and technical requisites for a nuclear-weapons-free world.” Highlighting Chullikatt’s speech, the National Catholic Reporter declared, cuttingly: “The U.S. trudges unheedingly down the nuclear path. Now more than ever we need to attend to the messages of the often marginalized peacemakers in our midst.”
Actually, peace activists in Kansas City looked less and less marginalized. Nearly 5,000 Kansas City residents signed the petition to place the proposition rejecting the nuclear weapons plant on the ballot, giving it considerably more signatures than necessary to appear before the voters.
Naturally, this popular uprising came as a blow to the Kansas City Council, which put forward a measure that would block the disarmament initiative from appearing on the ballot.
At an Aug. 17 hearing on the Council measure, local residents were irate. “You cannot divorce yourselves from the hideously immoral purpose of these weapons,” one declared, comparing the city’s subsidy for the weapons plant to financing Nazi gas chambers “for the sake of ‘jobs.’” Referring to the Council’s charter, which provided for the appearance of propositions on the ballot when they secured the requisite number of signatures, the chair of PeaceWorks asked: “Are we a government of laws or of . . . corporations and special interests?”
Since then, the situation has evolved rapidly. On August 25, the City Council voted 12 to 1 to bar the proposition from the ballot. The next day, the petitioners went to court to block Council interference. Honeywell, CPZ, and their friends dispatched a large legal team to Kansas City to fight against the citizens’ initiative, securing a court decision that might delay redress for years. In response, Peace Planters seems likely to speed up the process by crafting a new petition—one that would cut off city funding for the plant.
Whatever the outcome, the very fact that such a struggle has emerged indicates that many Americans are appalled by plans to throw their local and national resources into building more nuclear weapons.
Dr. Wittner is Emeritus Professor of History at the State University of New York/Albany. His latest book is Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Stanford University Press).
Honoring 9-11: Time To Audit CIA – al-Qaeda Ties
http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com/2011/09/honoring-9-11-time-to-audit-cias.html
Hmmm. Is it true that America’s Central Intelligence Agency pretty much invented, trained and funded al-Qaeda back in the days of Charlie Wilson’s secret war on Afghanistan? Or is that just another urban legend?
According to BBC News, “…Bin Laden left Saudi Arabia in 1979 to fight against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Afghan jihad was backed with American dollars and had the blessing of the governments of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. [bin Laden] received security training from the CIA itself.” http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/155236.stm. And apparently Bin Laden received approximately three billion dollars in venture capital start-up funds from the CIA.
How come the CIA never gave three billion dollars to me? Ain’t I more deserving and lovable than OBL? Humph.
Is it really true that there was NO al-Qaeda in Iraq until good old Shock and Awe gave birth to it — as a deadly branch off the CIA-created al-Qaeda tree? Or is that just another urban legend?
According to Reuters, the CIA recently stated that as of June 2011 there are currently still 1,000 al-Qaeda operatives now in Iraq — even after eight long years of deadly warfare, possibly a million people killed and over a trillion dollars spent. http://in.reuters.com/article/2011/06/09/idINIndia-57605920110609
But how many al-Qaeda operatives were there in Iraq before Shock and Awe and the CIA and Paul Bremer worked their magic? There were ZERO al-Qaeda operatives in Iraq before 2003, according to recent Pentagon reports released to CNN. Zero, zilch, nada. http://articles.cnn.com/2008-03-13/us/alqaeda.saddam_1_qaeda-targets-of-iraqi-state-iraqi-state-terror-operations?_s=PM:US We spent over a trillion dollars to put al-Qaeda into Iraq? Why that’s approximately three million per operative! Good job, CIA.
Then last spring Americans started hearing rumors that the “rebels” in Libya were not only CIA-created but also comprised of Al-Qaeda-connected operatives as well. Or is that just another urban legend too?
According to a recent article in Global Research, “Some 1500 jihadists from Afghanistan trained by the CIA were dispatched to fight with the ‘pro-democracy’ rebels under the helm of ‘former’ Libya Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) Commander Abdel Hakim Belhadj.” http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=26351
According to Pepe Escobar of the Asian Times, Abdel Hakim Belhadj is a known al-Qaeda asset. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs0DPb8d-Yg
And now we are getting intimations that the CIA and al-Qaeda are working together in Syria too. According to Global Research, ibid., “The Libyan model of rebel forces integrated by the Islamic brigades together with NATO special forces is slated to be applied in Syria, where Islamist fighters supported by Western and Israeli intelligence have already been deployed.” The CIA and al-Qaeda are now bonding in Syria too? Or perhaps that is just another urban legend?
We have also been told that al-Qaeda was responsible for the the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. Or is that another urban legend as well.
According to an FBI wanted poster, OBL has never been sought in connection with the bombing of the World Trade Center http://www.fbi.gov/wanted/topten/usama-bin-laden. And Osama himself denied any connection to this terrible disaster until four years after the fact, perhaps hoping to buzz up his sagging terrorist image in the press? So that he wouldn’t have to just sit all alone in his lonely hidey-hole in Abbottabad, watching past promo triumphs of himself from back in the day.
According to an interview with al-Qaeda’s top guy dated September 28, 2001, OBL had stated, “I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States. As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie. I had no knowledge of these attacks, nor do I consider the killing of innocent women, children and other humans as an appreciable act.” http://911review.com/articles/usamah/khilafah.html
Are we actually supposed to believe Osama? Hell no. But that’s what he said. And if al-Qaeda really was responsible for 9-11, you would at least expect them to be doing a chicken dance. And you would definitely expect an apology from the CIA for being a parent to these nasty kids.
But let’s assume that al-Qaeda was responsible for 9-11 (and not Dick Cheney — who actually did have means, motive and opportunity). If so, then the CIA is still on the hook.
According to an article from ThinkProgress.org, “Former Clinton and Bush White House top counter-terrorism adviser Richard Clarke alleges in an interview for a radio documentary commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that then-CIA director George Tenet and other top CIA officials withheld intelligence on two al Qaeda operatives living in the United States that ended up taking part in the attacks.” http://thinkprogress.org/security/2011/08/12/294748/clarke-cia-withheld-intel-cover-up/
We have been told again and again and again that al-Qaeda members are the BAD GUYS. Yet here, apparently, is America’s own CIA, intimately linked and tied to these Bad Guys again and again and again. And some fairly cogent proof has been offered again and again and again that these rumors are true. And yet NO ONE in America seems to questioning what is going on here? Huh?
In honor of the sad tenth anniversary of 9-11, as patriotic America citizens who love our country and resent like Hell having had it attacked — in light of these circumstances, do we not OWE it to ourselves and our fallen fellow citizens to freaking investigate and AUDIT the CIA — and its alleged incestuous relations with al-Qaeda, aka The Bad Guys?
Isn’t that the least we can do?
Or was 9-11 just another urban legend as well?
PS: And what would be the CIA’s motivation for lying down with dogs and getting up with fleas all these times (at the cost of millions of lives, including many of our own)? Here are two clues:
Today’s quote from my Franklin Planner sez, “There’s enough in the world for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Greed. Greed appears to be the top motivator for the CIA — not love of country.
And here’s a headline from an article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Chris Hedges that pretty much spells out the CIA’s “modus operandi” in black and white (or at least in pixels): “America to the World: We want Everything — If You Stand in the Way we’ll Kill You.” http://www.alternet.org/story/152304/america_to_the_world%3A_we_want_everything_–_if_you_stand_in_the_way_we%27ll_kill_you?page=entire
Actually it’s not we Americans who are saying that. 99.9% of us don’t in any way benefit from any of this pillaging and killing. Only corporatists benefit — corporatists and their enforcer, the CIA. The rest of us appear to be merely zombies, cats-paws, victims and suckers. http://www.cracked.com/article_19402_6-mind-blowing-ways-zombies-vampires-explain-america_p2.html
The GOP War on Voting: As the nation gears up for the 2012 presidential election, Republican officials have launched an unprecedented, centrally coordinated campaign to suppress the elements of the Democratic vote that elected Barack Obama in 2008. Just as Dixiecrats once used poll taxes and literacy tests to bar black Southerners from voting, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators has passed a series of seemingly disconnected measures that could prevent millions of students, minorities, immigrants, ex-convicts and the elderly from casting ballots…. In a systematic campaign orchestrated by the American Legislative Exchange Council — and funded in part by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire brothers who bankrolled the Tea Party — 38 states introduced legislation this year designed to impede voters at every step of the electoral process. http://www.democraticgovernors.org/news/articles?id=0550
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From Joe: Six mind-blowing ways Zombies and Vampires explain America [Vampire flicks are popular under Democratic presidents and Zombie movies are popular under Republican presidents] Read more here: http://www.cracked.com/article_19402_6-mind-blowing-ways-zombies-vampires-explain-america_p2.html
Weather! … Or Not?
CRAWFORD, Texas — Hundred-plus-degree heat has blanketed Texas for weeks. The old saying that weather constantly changes in Texas has, this summer, become a misnomer. Weather worldwide has been in a volatile state for several years — changing to a more violent state as scientists and politicians began arguing for or against global warming.
The Iconoclast several years ago pointed out that beginning in 2002 the occurrence of major earthquakes began increasing substantially. Prior to 1998, the average number of major earthquakes dating back to the 1700s was about a handful per year worldwide. The jump into the 30s per year was noteworthy, according to data collected from the U.S. Geological Survey.
<http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/world/historical.php>
This past week, with the earthquake on the eastern seaboard and a major hurricane that hit in its aftermath, and the record-breaking drought continuing in Texas and Oklahoma, the disasters seem to be increasing.
The reason has not been determined, although there are several individuals with ties to science and technology who are investigating everything from oil companies utilizing HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) to bombard the ionosphere with waves to find locations on which to drill for oil when the waves bounce back down to earth, to the U.S. Navy experimenting with HAARP to alter weather patterns for both military and economic purposes worldwide, to radiation gathering steam as it travels from places like Japan, to the advent of a suspected brown dwarf star coming in contact with our solar system and causing some disruptions on earth.
Here are a few links regarding HAARP:
<http://www.haarp.alaska.edu/>
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Frequency_Active_Auroral_Research_Program>
<http://www.haarp.net/haarpoverview.htm>
<http://beforeitsnews.com/story/20/951/Are_We_in_a_HAARP_Earthquake_War.html>
<http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/pandora/haarp.html>
Some of these investigations may seem “far out,” but because of the fact that dynamic weather patterns have emerged and no solid answer as to why has been answered, some of these aforementioned elements perhaps merit consideration without immediately being tagged as “conspiratorial.”
It was after George W. Bush became president and appointed individuals who have been described as his “cronies” from the oil industry into key positions in government that the advent of more earthquakes began. Oil companies and military corporations have substantial ties to HAARP, such as those involving both British Petroleum (which acquired Atlantic Richfield Co. — ARCO — in 2000, a company involved in the structure of HAARP) and BAE Systems Advanced Technology (one of the world’s largest military contractors). After the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico with BP’s oil surge last year, more questions emerged as to “why,” for which no solid answers in the mass media have ever been given. There is serious speculation that remedies to the fuel disaster have not really been solved.
Some scientists have explained that the non-publicized frequencies erupting from HAARP in Alaska and similar operations in other countries not only cause major disruptions on ocean beds because of violent vibrations, but also result in a heating effect, which can trigger hurricanes and, ultimately, tsunamis.
Regarding BP, the Iconoclast received an e-mail from a scared informant within BP on Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2007, consisting of a confidential British Petroleum memorandum written by a company security manager entitled: “Live security/terrorism exercise.” It explained that on Oct. 4 several agencies had been running a “command post terror exercise” in Texas City, and told various national and state law enforcement agencies that an exercise would occur on Oct. 18. It was listed as a major event. Through Capt. Eric H. May, military intelligence writer for the Iconoclast, a red alert for Texas City was posted on the Internet. Three hours later, at 2 a.m., in nearby Port Arthur, an explosion occurred with fire shooting up 100 feet, trees igniting like matchsticks, and toxic chemicals spewing into the city air. Oil reached $90 per barrel by the end of the day, a record.
About a year earlier, in 2006, May had predicted a BP refinery explosion, as well, in which 15 workers died and over 170 were injured, based on inside information and analysis of several related elements, from a military perspective.
Whether radiation can affect weather is another question being asked.
William Fox, a former U.S. Marine Corps major with expertise in military intelligence and investigations, recently sent a letter to the Icelandic Parliament warning of a serious radiation threat.
In the letter, Fox said, “Some of the radiation that is continually crossing from west to east across the United States with the jet stream is also falling on Iceland. As the Fukushima radiation crisis continues, radiation continues to circle around the northern hemisphere, accumulating over time in food and water as well as in the air. People in Iceland may not yet be breathing in five hot particles a day, as alleged in the article Seattle Residents Exposed To Five Radioactive ‘Hot Particles’ Per Day…
<georgewashington2.blogspot.com>
…which describes a level of exposure for Scandinavian Americans in Seattle that may very likely cause a significant number of them to die of cancer and other ailments over the next 5-10 years, but it is still enough that Icelanders in Iceland need to start thinking about their own civil defense measures.”
Several years ago, the Iconoclast conducted a series of interviews with highly regarded scientists from throughout the world, when it was documented that radiation does travel (the Iconoclast cover headline was “Have DU Will Travel”). The federal government had taken the political position that radiation does not travel, but was proved wrong following extensive research conducted by London scientist Chris Busby following the United States’ raid of Iraq with radiation producing weapons — the radiation spiking even in London — several countries away. The Iconoclast (which is not controlled by major corporations) was the only newspaper in the United States to run the story, although the finding otherwise saw significant coverage worldwide.
In a 1983 article appearing in The Washington Post, staff writer Thomas O’Toole wrote: (headlined Mystery Heavenly Body Discovered) “A heavenly body possibly as large as the giant planet Jupiter and possibly so close to Earth that it would be part of this solar system has been found in the direction of the constellation Orion by an orbiting telescope aboard the U.S. infrared astronomical satellite.”
The article stated that the astronomers did not know if it is a planet, a giant comet, or a nearby photostar that never got hot enough to become a star.
Astronomers have explained that the body is so cold, “it casts no light and has never been seen by optical telescopes on earth.” Its distance was estimated at 50 billion miles from earth, which in cosmic terms is close.
John DiNardo, a science educator in physics, says that over the years, this body has gotten much closer to earth as it journeys on its orbit, and is now affecting the weather here.
“For over two hundred years, and especially during the past three decades, astronomers and national governments around the world have been aware of a colossal celestial body, which they have unanimously determined to be a brown dwarf star, cruising toward, and now into, our solar system, This mystery body is being drawn in by the ever-increasing gravitational force of attraction between its own great mass and the even greater mass of our sun. Its focus, or target, is the sun.
“Scientists and researchers have long remained silent, fearing that what happened to Dr. Robert S. Harrington, chief astronomer of the U.S. Naval Observatory, would likewise happen to them if they were to speak out about this intruding brown dwarf star. Dr. Harrington died suddenly in January of 1993, just as he was expected to announce to the world his conclusion that his intensive calculations had been verified by his mid-1992 telescopic observations of the southern skies below the South Pole. Dr. Harrington had dispatched an appropriate telescope to the Black Birch Observatory in New Zealand, and had apparently studied the photographic plates upon their subsequent delivery to his laboratory in Washington, D.C.” DiNardo, and other scientists, think Harrington was murdered, to keep his observations quiet so as not to alarm the world.
In a dispatch sent to the Iconoclast on Aug. 3, DiNardo predicted that in a few days an earthquake would occur on the east coast of the United States caused by coronal mass injections by the sun. An earthquake occurred there on Aug. 23.
He wrote, “I have not seen any public announcements from scientists alerting the public to the fact that CMEs and extraordinary solar winds indeed cause earthquakes, nor have I seen any evidence that today’s scientists even understand the mechanism by which coronal mass ejections and solar winds provoke earthquakes.”
He explained that this cause-and-effect phenomenon is based upon the principles of electricity and magnetism.
DiNardo said that, basically, earth’s crust is shifting which could be allowing earth’s molten core to heat up, causing magma plumes to billow up through the molten rock mantle to impinge on the crust of the earth, which is causing “unprecedented shifts in the magnetic poles, the seabed eruptions, the wildest weather in recorded history, the greatest earthquake activity in recorded history, and the greatest volcanic activity in recorded history.”
He notes that the orbit of the dwarf star historically impacts earth about every 3,600 years, bringing major global catastrophes. One he mentioned included the “Great Flood of Noah’s day” which, he explained, fits that timeline.
Records are definitely being broken in Texas, all over the state, as days of 100+ degree temperatures increase in number. Water rationing is occurring, electricity brown-outs are threatened, farmers are sweating the possibility of going out of business, and the adopted psychology of expecting frequent changes in the weather has driven many Texans into the doldrums.
The question being asked is this:
Is Mother Nature responsible for this new brand of weather? Or not?
Iconoclast Publisher’s New Novel Entitled ‘Epitaph’
W. Leon Smith, publisher of The Lone Star Iconoclast, has authored a new novel, Epitaph, which is available at Amazon.com in both paperback and Kindle versions.
Epitaph is an Orwellian type thriller about a minority newspaper man who, along with an elderly farmer/rancher, challenge a military/corporate land grab. This emotional, riveting book is loosely based on actual events, including cave exploration, love interests, cattle mutilations, murder, depleted uranium testing, Comanche Indians, and a unique twist about a man fighting to undo racism. The book culminates in a decision that could change things forever. Continue reading
Murdoch, NeoCons, and Greed
If the media had followed the clear rules they had written for themselves, would we now be on the express down elevator to a meltdown of global proportions? Likely not. We would have problems, but we would have seen them more clearly. We needed the truth. We did not get it.
The first problem was that journalists so blithely ignored the standards of their profession.
The Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ) has established a code of ethics. The tenets of this code are short, clear, concise, and well-founded. But there is no means of enforcement. If journalists would follow them, we could trust the media. Today most of us do not. If a journalist ignores his ethical obligations, either from sloth or a desire to profit, nothing can be done. If raiding the cookie jar can be carried out with impunity, then there will be no cookies. I know this, having raised several children.
The SPJ has existed since 1909, four years before the Federal Reserve Bank came into being. Their founders could have included Ida Tarbell, the journalist who caused the break up of Standard Oil, though the site does not mention her – an indomitable truth teller. Tarbell told the truth, but a handful of years later the dispersed Standard Oil was larger than ever and still carried out the same exploitive pattern of business.
The takeaway: having the truth does not automatically solve the problem. You need to use the truth to build the cultural tools that enact accountability. We need that accountability today as the world melts down around our ears. Those responsible for the economic collapse got bailouts. Those who will be forced to pay are losing everything, even their Social Security.
It was not just banks or oil companies or the “military-industrial complex” of which Ike warned us, though the sense of immunity to accountability these corporate-cultural structures enjoy is another part of the problem. Many individuals made decisions they knew to be wrong. Along with those heading corporations, journalists were a pivotal part of this failure. They had ample opportunity to act ethically and make a decision that would have influenced the values by which all of us live, building the world through those uncounted separate choices. Unfortunately, they chose unwisely and unethically – and their bad choices drove out the good.
Large media (and non-media) corporations have swallowed up newspapers and other media outlets during the last few decades with alarming speed, with the goal being the use of these outlets as an extension of their control. Individual journalists did not have to cooperate – but they did, in large part. The lack of dispassionate, objective reporting in journalism morphed the profession towards use as a perpetual public relations service for those in power. The question became not “What is the truth?” but “What do you want the truth to be?” Power and profit became the unassailable be-all and end-all of corporate journalism.
These journalistic ‘values’ are best exemplified by Rupert Murdoch.
Sex, Lies, and Journalism
The following story, provided previously, illustrates how the cooperative efforts of the Bush White House, working with ‘media,’ such as owned by Rupert Murdoch, can eliminate potential exposure.
What did the culture of Page Six, combined with the Fox cadre of media outlets do to American culture over the last generation?
I first met Doug Dechert at a Fabiani Society Meeting in early 2000. The first words out of his mouth after being introduced was to offer me coverage on Page Six for payment to him of $10,000. My direct comments on Dechert appeared in, Stealing Truth: The John Fund Back Story, first published in January 2009. This article augments the previous version.
Over the next years Dechert occasionally surfaced for us through his relationship with John Fund and others we knew through the Fabiani Society. The period bridged the time when America was being sold the propositions George W. Bush had been legitimately elected President of the United States and Iraq possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction. Over those months I had opportunity to observe Fund and Dechert together and with others and reached the conclusion they were well acquainted, sharing many associates.
What else was going on, behind the scenes, besides hacking phone calls, about which we are now informed?
Most Americans, myself included, believed at the beginning of the first Bush W. Administration that the media was functioning as intended by our Founders, as the public source for truth. Today, most Americans understand this is not the case and the change over probably began with the placement of ‘journalists’ who did not respect or follow the tenets of traditional journalism, over a period of years.
The Manhattan Institute, Cato Institute & the Fabiani Society
During 2000 I had an apartment in New York at the Rivergate on 34th Street. At the same time we met Doug Dechert at the Fabiani Society we met Barbara Herbich, who soon after began a relationship with Doug Dechert for a while wearing the infamous diamond ring, said to come with a rubber band leading back to Doug, as a sign of their engagement. Doug moved in with Barbara at her apartment located at 845 W End Ave, Apt 15B. It was there Barbara found her self at loose ends one evening in Doug’s absence. She picked out one of the many videos he had brought with him and popped it in her player. It was not what she expected.
Barbara said she recognized the man, who was unclothed. The woman with whom he was having sex was, in her expressed opinion, a high-class call girl. Barb later expressed to us the opinion Doug was being paid to set up prominent NY men with prostitutes so their later actions could be ‘managed’ politically. Would this service have been provided for Murdoch or for Rove or both?
What prominent men in New York could have been blackmailed during those years? How might this have changed the outcome of events?
Barbara died suddenly in October of 2010. As a side note, the documentary she was then working on, “Nazi Persecution of Polish Christians,” remains unfinished. A talented documentary director, Barbara was working in New York when she met Dechert. MEMORIAL VIDEO
Domestic Violence
Morgan Pillsbury filed charges of domestic violence against Fund in early 2002. The Police claimed no photos were taken (see report, scroll to notes at the bottom of the page). The DA sat on the case. The NeoCon hate machine hit us like a tsunami. Fund’s connections, political and journalistic, came to his aid. One article, especially, told me how personal the attacks would be.
Fund solicited other attacks. Wendy McElroy, a woman who calls herself an individualist feminist and individualist anarchist I had known since the 70s, who wrote “False Rape Charges Hurt Real Victims” for FOXnews.com (published July 22, 2003). In so doing she also violated the tenets of journalism, profiting thereby.
Journalists are required to ensure the principals are heard. McElroy failed to call either Morgan or myself. Since I had known her personally since the 1970s, this was a shock. Despite my best efforts I could not even get McElroy on the phone after she published. There was no notice given in advance what so ever.
Instead of carrying out her ethical obligation to seek the facts she wrote the article exonerating Fund and was within weeks hired at FOX News, the major Murdoch outlet long associated with Fund and his fellow NeoCons.
McElroy has made her living for decades writing effective spin for niche groups that want to hear justifications for their positions. These include why women need pornography and why women are as likely to be batterers as men, among other unsupportable assertions. Would she have been hired without providing the hit job under cover of journalism? Soon, we were calling it the John Fund Jobs Program for Needy Journalists.
For me, these events made the political and profit elements, present with Fox News and human ambition, very clear. The subsequent purchase of the WSJ by Murdoch made perfect sense as a political tool which allowed him to reward, punish, and carry out covert operations under the guise of journalism and business as usual.
Also clear, were the strong incentives not to see the ‘elephant in the room’ evidenced by those whose livelihoods depended on pay checks from a media which had been completely centralized, much of it under the control of Rupert Murdoch, then answering to the Bush White House. Political Operatives, disguised as journalists, were in positions of power and control.
Power & John Fund
As a member of the Editorial Board of the Wall Street Journal for 18 years, Fund was on a trajectory toward greater power in 1998. The power he already possessed provided him with a feeling of invincibility. Already accustomed to sexual access to many women who were attracted to power and money, he became accustomed to ignoring the consequences of behavior that was deceitful and ugly.
His personal and professional life matched in this regard. He knew no matter what he did he would be protected.
In October of 1998, he began a sexual relationship with my biological daughter, Morgan Pillsbury, who was raised by my parents. Morgan first met Fund at a convention I helped organize in Los Angeles in 1985. I had known Fund myself since 1980 when we met at a Libertarian Party Convention, where he came across as nerdy and bumbling but likable. The impression stuck. Over the years we kept in touch. He told the kids to call him Uncle John.
When I heard a rumor that Fund was involved with Morgan, I called him directly. He lied to me, telling me she lived nearby. He claimed that he had been feeding her cat for her while she had been away. I believed him.
Having had experience with Morgan over many years, I knew she could be less than honest . She needed strong evidence to disprove Fund’s claims to me. That is why the audio tape often referred to as the “Weaselsearch tape” was made.
She and I were arguing about her claims of having had a relationship with John when she realized he was calling. Putting me on hold she recorded a conversation with him. The Beep noise is me calling back. I did not realize she was on the phone with him until she played the tape you will hear.
If you listen to the tape, it becomes immediately apparent that Fund did not want me to know the truth. He lied and pressured Morgan to lie about their relationship. There was no reason for this; if he had told me he was in a relationship with Morgan, I would have been surprised and appalled, but it had been many years since we had been more than friends. My time was occupied caring for my severely handicapped son, Arthur, and by my own health needs, not with his love life.
Morgan was no child. She was born July 5, 1967. John was born April 8, 1956. Adults make their own decisions.
If this had remained merely a case of a man lying about his love life, journalism would never have been an issue. But Fund wanted to continue the relationship with Morgan covertly so he could also have relations with other women.
Unfortunately for Fund, Morgan refused to be his dirty little secret – and it was she who brought computer savvy into the relationship. For much of the three years they were a couple, Fund used Morgan’s computer for professional purposes and to receive personal e-mail. Why Fund would have overlooked the chain of evidence thus produced says nothing good about his intelligence of foresight.
And not only did Fund consistently lie about his relationship with Morgan while pursuing other women, he left the evidence on her computer. It was a strange relationship, and I do not pretend to entirely understand it.
At each point I demanded proof from Morgan for just these reasons. I talked to Fund over dinner, on the phone from the apartment the couple shared. I listened as he assured me he loved Morgan and wanted to marry her. I received e-mails and other proof that could not have been falsified, for instance this IM conversation on AOL between Matt Drudge and Morgan. Drudge had been IMing with Fund on Morgan’s computer earlier. Fund went to bed, leaving the window up. Morgan continued the conversation.
Fund’s lies would have exposed him, if not for his connections.
Fund lied to the daughter of Claire George, Leslie. He had told Leslie Morgan was not living with him. Ms. George called Morgan, demanding she stop stalking John. Morgan told her to call John’s land line in two minutes. Standing by the bed she answered, spoke to Leslie, and handed the phone to John. Leslie then emailed Morgan, sharing her father’s opinion that Fund is a sociopath.
Newt Gingrich was also briefed by Fund and responded to our request for intervention with this email. Newt refused to provide information on what had been said, making response impossible.
Morgan’s ‘relationship’ with Sidney Blumenthal was limited to asking for help, being refused, and, according to Morgan, having a Blumenthal associate steal information for the book he was writing on the Clinton Presidency, The Clinton Wars.
Around January, 2002, Fund – despite claims to the contrary by himself and others – was fired from the Wall Street Journal, probably because of the scandal that exploded over his own behavior. A letter from Fidelity Investments advised him to, “make a decision about what to do with the savings you have accumulated in your former employer’s retirement plan.” That employer was the Wall Street Journal. The letter is in Morgan’s possession. Fund opened it in her living room and, as Morgan told me, left it laying on the floor.
Morgan told me he had battered her on multiple occasions, first in New Jersey and then after he stalked her back to Manhattan and insisted on moving in with her in her new apartment. I heard several of those incidents via cell phone – as did Eric Buchanan of Roswell, Georgia.
She finally decided to file charges in both New Jersey and New York. Her hesitation, she later said, was the threat made by Fund to launch an attack on her with the cooperation of Rove and Dick Cheney, both friends and close associates of his. She did not share this threat with me until 2009.
Events escalated.
Fund coerced a false confession from Morgan to hide his acts, using threats of violence. Morgan sent this email to me and others immediately to refute what she had been forced to sign.
Fund solicited and received the cooperation of other journalists to spin what had taken place.
Fund’s “Nuts and Sluts” Strategy
Eric Alterman, a New York based writer known for his partisan political writing, generally perceived as on the left but, in fact, a centrist, authored an article for the May 15, 2003 edition of The Nation, Who Framed John Fund? Morgan and I attempted to contact Alterman. On Mother’s Day morning, June 11th, Morgan received an email from Alterman urgently requesting a response to a list of questions. Alterman received her response within three hours. He used none of the material supplied, did not call to follow up on her reply, and did not ask for the further documents that Morgan had offered. On June 25, 2003 a response from another liberal, Mark Crispin Miller, was published with another from Alterman in The Nation. The exchange is titled, ‘Ugly Tactics Make for Ugly People.’
Alterman sent Morgan a dismissive E-mail on July 4th.
According to Fred Brown, vice chair of the ethics committee for the Society for Professional Journalists, many journalists would pause before writing an article requested by someone in Fund’s circumstances. A journalist who followed the tenets of ethics would also be careful to ensure that all principals had fully aired their cases. Alterman violated every tenet of the code as outlined by SPJ. If you peruse his own website you will see this does not stem from a lack of “credentials.”
Fund was at that time working to have the charges against him in New York dropped. To accomplish that, he had been told he needed to destroy our credibility – Morgan’s as the victim, and my own as a witness.
A perfunctory search of the journalists involved also leads to linkages between these individuals. Alterman states in articles he has written that he is a friend of Katie Rosman, about whom you will read more below. A Google search of their names showed they often appear at the same events and cite each other. Alterman “adores gossip,” by his own report, and admits to being an avid reader of Page Six, a gossip column run by Richard Johnson with associates such as Doug Dechert.
Dechert was a regular attendee at the Fabiani Society, which met the second Tuesday at the Princeton Club, a place where Fund was also a regular. The organization was disbanded in 2007, according to the Manhattan Institute.
The first time I was introduced to Dechert at one of these events, he asked me for $10,000 to be in Page Six. I did not know what Page Six was and would have declined even more rapidly if I had known.
Selling print in this fashion is not news, it is not journalism, and it is not respectable public relations. Discussing the matter with Fred Brown, we agreed that the term “Slime Journalism” worked to describe it (with apologies to slime, which is an important part of the ecosystem). Reading Alterman’s enthusiastic reports on the operation leads one to believe he expects dishonesty and scandal as standard, modeling his professional work on that of Murdoch.
The Fabiani Society was jointly sponsored by two NeoCon think-tanks, the Cato Institute and the Manhattan Institute. The speakers usually represent the opinions marketed by those institutions. Many came only for the opportunity to network or the excellent canapés and ample bar.
Fund sent this email to Morgan at the same time these articles would have been in the works, once again demonstrating his lack not only of professionalism, but maturity.
An article solicited by Katie Rosman, then at Elle, in the autumn of 2003, presents a strategy also intended to silence us using another tack. We met with Katie Rosman at a coffee shop in Manhattan where she asked for an exclusive on the story. We agreed. Soon her contact with us became sporadic. The story was stalled for months, during a critical time period, and then quashed (see correspondence).
Rosman’s career received a real boost by not writing an article for John Fund.
Rosman received a job offer at the Wall Street Journal simultaneous to the article being dropped. Katie Rosman is still working at the WSJ and is a friend of Eric Alterman’s, according to Alterman.
Fund solicited a woman law professor, Gail Heriot to assist him.
The site, John H. Fund, was originally registered at her address in San Diego, 4830 Hart Drive, San Diego, CA 92116. That has now been changed. Heriot put herself in the category of journalist when she wrote to Gene Gaudette, the editor of APJ, with a letter she sent across the Internet, effectively publishing it. Its content is libelous. (You can read that e-mail from Heriot to American Politics Journal and their demolishing response here).
Heriot had written an email to Fund on January 13, 2002 that reveals the reason she supported him. Morgan and Fund were still living together when she wrote, “So allow me to introduce myself. I am Gail Heriot, the woman whose hotel room you’ve found yourself in a few times over the last six weeks.” See the full letter here.
Gail’s articles also appear in the Wall Street Journal today.
Fund was offered support from a female journalist with whom he was evidently conducting an affair at Christian Broadcast Network. Her name was Christine Hall-Reis. Here is a semi-nude photo that she sent to Fund, which he downloaded to Morgan’s computer and became her property,given to me to use as needed. Fund and Morgan were living together at the time the photo was sent along with the accompanying email.
One can reach no other conclusion that each and every one of these articles was clearly solicited by Fund.
One also has to relish the irony of Fund using women with whom he was intimately involved to deploy a “nuts and sluts” smear campaign.
Fund also received help from individuals hoping to benefit from the opportunity presented who were not compensated. Two such individuals were Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo, now of Anti-War.com.
Both men had known Fund and myself for many years. Both were members of a small but self-consciously radical group associated with the Libertarian Party and Murray Rothbard, a highly respected free market economist who died in 1995.
I made a call to Eric Garris in 2002 asking for help. Morgan was in hiding, in fear of her life. Fund was using every avenue to destroy my reputation and credibility. Eric refused to help. In 2006 Justin Raimondo wrote an article that appeared on Anti-War.com. The original has been altered. I responded in 24 hours with this article.
Soon afterward I talked to Lew Rockwell of Lewrockwell.com, founder of the Mises Institute, who employs Eric Garris as a webmaster. Eric had read my assertion that the hit piece on Fund was motivated by the realization neither he or Raimondo would never profit by covering for Fund. Lew told me he talked to Garris right after he read my article. Eric, he said, affirmed I was exactly right.
Black Box Road to the Rove White House
Fund’s relationship with the Bush White House and the purpose of the book he was then writing, Stealing Elections, were less obvious in 2002. Fund has since admitted he has been routinely briefed by the White House, before and after he was fired from the WSJ. His road to being a willing tool of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was long and, in many ways, meteoric.
Fund first worked as a political operative in 1979, according to Justin Raimondo. His services were secured to ensure the nomination of Ed Clark for the Libertarian Presidential Nomination for 1980 by Ed Crane. Far from having an interest in stopping voter or election fraud, Fund himself committed a curious specie of fraud by claiming to be a candidate by taking out papers that year but never turning them in while claiming to be running for office and getting 46% of the vote. Justin Raimondo characterized Fund as “an expert lying propagandist of the sleazier sort.”
Never in all the years I knew him did I hear Fund express any interest in the issues of election or voter fraud. His political interests were more sensational; his personal interests run to Star Wars and Star Trek. If you really knew him, this sudden change in principal interests should have raised questions about his role with those associated with the administration. It did for me.
The book he wrote is now considered by those in the clean elections movement to be a misdirective tool intended to muddy the water on the issue of voter fraud. It focuses in on purported fraud by individuals, ignoring the enormous issues of fraud now ascribed to such companies as Diebold and ES&S. Fund proposed centralizing control over elections as a solution – an idea completely in line with the big and well-connected “black box” mongers – and is nearly successful in undermining the issue by injecting his spin.
Bev Harris of Black Box Voting said of Fund’s position, “It is amazing that this bogus solution is still being put forth. His solutions take us directly to ever more centralized control by a small group of insiders. What is needed is for the people to have local control and access to the results. Complete transparency.”
Mark Crispin Miller was even more explicit, saying, “Despite his pose as an impartial expert on American elections, John Fund is in fact a dedicated party operative, who for many years has turned out rightist propaganda for the GOP. Specifically, he has abetted the Republicans’ election theft by helping to promote the myth of widespread Democratic ‘voter fraud’–a fiction that has been disproved by every reputable study, but one which Fund has pushed at every opportunity. And so whatever he may recommend to help ‘reform’ US elections should be rejected out of hand, as on this crucial subject he enjoys no credibility at all.”
Vickie Karp and others involved in the clean elections movement also agree about Fund and his role as a propagandist and deceiver. All of the agree that Fund’s “solutions,” which provide cover for ever more centralization and displace real reform, are the opposite of transparency.
Inserting himself into that dialog would have been severely hampered had he been in jail for domestic violence. Yet Fund remains a high level political operative. Understanding how he accomplished his goals provides a clear understanding of the covert operation we know as the Bush Administration.
In all cases each of the individuals above achieved, or hoped to profit by using the appearance of journalism to sell lies.
Rupert Murdoch successfully converted journalism to propaganda, used to protect the interests of the elite of which he is a part and made a profit doing it. He acquired the WSJ in 2005, presumably after he realized how useful it would be to own the most prominent American publication on finance and covert politics. Journalists lined up with their hands out to help him.
For all these reasons it is time to lose your illusions, plant in your garden, and some reserve seed for next year.
No Guts, No Second Term
The Tea Party could have been a tiny afterthought, ridiculed or ignored by the many Republicans who switched to supporting Barack Obama.
President Obama could have been riding high on approval ratings that virtually guaranteed his re-election in 2012.
These two things would have been logical sequelae to his brilliant first term if his first term had featured serious political courage instead of mere charismatic speechmaking. Barack Obama, so far, is a coward, unfortunately, and unfit to really lead. He might have made a fine president in an easy era of prosperity and fat surpluses, but he is a poor choice when it comes to choosing a champion, someone who will fight for the people instead of caving in to the likes of John Boehner, Mitch McConnell, Lindsey Graham and the other crackers. Indeed, Barack Obama could have shown the world how to eclipse the job growth rate of Texas under Rick Perry only by making the environment cleaner, not dirty like Perry, and by improving health care, not making it inaccessible like Perry, and by strengthening education rather than cutting it and dumbing it like Perry.
How? How could our first black president have possibly achieved all those things in the aftermath of a Bush warmaking spending spree that wasted so much of the gas from the tank?
Well, he would have needed to come in swinging, ready to fight, politically, for the people, instead of ready to compromise. I teach in the field of Conflict Resolution and the basic negotiating lesson here is that you always compromise on those items which can be shifted around until everyone gets a fair deal, but you never compromise on basic ethical principle. Barack Obama could have had the principle that the welfare of the people comes before the welfare of the owner class. He could have assembled a scrappy team that knew how to frame legislation that would be radical in its shifts toward benefiting average working people. There are historical precedents, of course, and he could have used them and improved them.
Barack Obama inherited a major economic mess, created for the most part by the Bush regime. When Franklin Roosevelt inherited a disastrous economy created by Republican lack of governmental regulation, he made bold new policy that put millions to work building infrastructure still enjoyed by all Americans and everyone who visits, from park lodges and trails to beautiful bridges. Roosevelt didn’t do that by turning over $ trillions to the same financiers who had created the Great Depression. He created government programs that put people to work, making the most of the skills they already had and teaching skills to young ones.
The Civilian Conservation Corps operated from 1933-1942 and focused on providing work for some 2.5 million young unmarried men, on projects that conserved and developed natural resources on public lands. The Works Progress Administration operated from 1935-1943 and provided about eight million jobs, focusing on the goal of one job per family where they had been unemployed for a long period. Updating these sorts of programs to reflect our current gender mores, population growth, and infrastructure needs would be a hard sell to a Republican Congress. But Barack Obama is going to to have a harder sell to the vastly hurting and disappointed America electorate if he can’t make those sorts of hard sells to other politicians.
Roosevelt gave folks what they needed. His base was so huge he couldn’t lose, even though corporate officials dreamt of his ouster. His radical executive moves provide a blueprint and that blueprint has so far been ignored by Obama. His paradigm is closer to Rumsfeldian–privatize everything that the government does in order to massively enrich the owner class–than Rooseveltian, which angered the owner class and saved working families.
Can Obama grow a backbone and save anything at his late date? Stranger things have happened, but so far all his moves have been classic cave-ins to bullies. We usually elect people who will stand up to bullies. We thought he would and, so far, we have been wrong. We’ll see how this plays, starting with his upcoming speech. It will either be a revolutionary departure from his corporate bailout model or it will fall flat in failure, and his fate will be sealed.
Tom H. Hastings (pcwtom@gmail.com) teaches in the graduate program of Conflict Resolution at Portland State University and offers his personal views here.