FreeDemocrat's Freedom blog

A Socialized Dog is not a Government Owned Dog

2011-12-10T12:15:00.001-05:00

There are no great Libertarian Thinkers but there are major Clever Libertarian Propagandists that twist reality so folks with a lot of money will pay them well.

It is not about People Vs State as their propaganda would have you believe. It is about Society. One person alone can accomplish very little. Even if you cut your own tree and make your own lumber, chances are you did not make the saw or the steel for the saw. So it takes the actions of many people, each doing their bit, to accomplish anything.

The great problem is that for each to do their bit requires someone to organize that. Not the hardest job or the most important, but it carries power, and that is the rub. The person who organizes is the AGENT of all who cooperate but is often the embezzler of the goodies and pushing the costs to others rather than sharing that either.

In a Socialized Society (as in socialized dog) all who wield power have to be held accountable for their decisions and actions, and all who cooperate must be Empowered to have a part in achieving the greatest contribution and fair share of the result, that actually causes the maximum return on effort, enriching everyone in the society.

Built into our brain is the ability of Empathy that can recognize Fairness, and those with that part damaged are called Sociopaths. It is the goal of Libertarian Propaganda to make everyone Sociopaths, look to their profit only, and ignore those who are damaged by their destruction.

Freedom Is Freedom From Abuse, Not Freedom To Abuse

2011-04-12T14:06:00.003-04:00

Economic freedom is freedom from abuse and not freedom to abuse others who should be free of your abuse. The primary vehicle that a society has to restrain such abuse is the government. There is almost nothing that can be accomplished by one person alone. To accomplish a goal everyone working on it needs to do their part, and always it comes to one person to make the final decision or there is a contest of opinions that one person wins, or the goal is not achieved.

This job of making those decisions is just a job, it contains power, but is rarely the most difficult, and certainly not the most effort. But in holding that power, the person with the job is the Agent, by some level of assent, of everyone else that is affected by that goal, and how it is accomplished. As the Agent with the power, there is special responsibility to act in the interests of all, and giving one's self all the goodies and dumping all the costs on to others is tantamount to embezzlement, and criminal at least in intent.

Forming a society is one of those group goals, more complicated and spread across generations, but the structure underneath remains. Like many such groups you can only opt out by suicide, or at best distant travel, and you give assent by not doing those things.

One of the decisions in any group goal is indeed the distribution of goodies usually called wealth and perks, and it is a dysfunction of most groups that Agents see themselves as so deserving of that power that they have the right to embezzle all the goodies. They have even spent an enormous amount of those ill-gotten goodies to try and convince their clients that they actually deserve the situation as they have made it.

However any sane person who looks at the situation can see that all that embezzlement has reduced not only the lives of the client/victims but made the entire society more dysfunctional and less capable of functioning overall. Looking back we can see that even Kings lived pretty wretched lives because the freedom they suppressed prevented the accomplishments that would have benefited them as well.

It is hard to see what might be, but you can bet that this society has already fallen short of that, and is falling further as I write this.

The Cost of Honor, or why honest businesses are the first to go in an unregulated market.

2010-12-18T17:32:00.002-05:00

A dishonest businessman can always offer more than an honest one, because the dishonest businessman knows that they are not actually supplying what they offer. Blatant "too good to be true" offers may raise suspicions, but what about those not blatant? You might be able to boycott one bad company, but what if they are all not what they say? Can a company that delivers an honest product jump into, or stay in, a market filled with crooks? They are already established, and since they are making shortcuts that are not honest but save them money (else why do them) your expenses will always be bigger, and therefore your profits less. And even then who would know?

Without some sort of honest cop on the beat to collar the criminals and haul them out of the market, those who are honest will be driven out of that market. But the situation gets worse. Since the corruption is more profitable than honesty any funds spent to subvert or bribe that cop often can bring returns greater by far than the cost of the bribe. However money spent to fight that subversion or prevent the bribe returns no extra profit, nor does any effort to clean up the damage done. There is benefit to the entire society for an honest regulator (as that is what the cop is in the market) and why only the entire society can afford the effort.

Those who are so unsocialized as to have no concern for others may indeed chafe at being forced to behave at minimal levels of honesty, and all the more at being expected to help pay the bills to do so, and this is why they have created a great industry aimed at subverting oversight, and freeing them to loot at will, returning greater profits that can allow greater subversion. This is the main reason that the Right Wing Media is so robust and a real Left Wing Media barely exists.

Honesty enjoys greater support and willingness to sacrifice, but only when the real issues and facts are understood, and the tipping point is coming soon when no amount of sacrifice will stop another Totalitarian regime of Pirates from looting civilization into a feudal nightmare if not the extinction of the human species.

With all the hype how can we tell what is the reality behind a label?

2010-05-21T17:34:00.002-04:00

It is quite true that folk use nice words like Christian, and then propose agendas that do not fit that label, or try to make good ideas like socialized or empathy out to be evil.

All that can be sorted out quite well by asking what they think of the four Socialized values.:...

Empathy: can they imagine what others lives are like, are they willing to treat those others as they would wish to be treated if in their shoes.

Empowerment: Are they willing to help others to be all they can be and make the best for themselves, knowing that it is not a zero sum situation, and the advancement of others advances yourself as well.

Responsibility/accountability: that any position that allows one to make decisions that affect others (particularly politicians, but corp as well) are agents for those affected and a violation of that trust for personal gain is embezzlement, and should be treated as such, and if the Cop on the job does not do so, that is dereliction of duty and should be treated as such. Though like any group activity, perfection is impossible so you deal with it as you can, and with that empathy stuff as above.

Reality: This should be universal, but unfortunately is not. There are ways to decide what is real for the most part, and what is phony or illogical and that needs to drive the decisions about what enhances or detracts from the other values and as a package.

From such understanding the way through all the flack can be much easier.

Just What are the Real Liberal or Socialized Values?

2009-11-22T00:21:00.001-05:00

There has been of late a tremendous effort on the Right to redefine what it means to be Liberal or Socialized and ascribe to anyone claiming it a series of ideals and activities that do not reflect any sort of reality in this Universe, often giving a list of offenses that are more fitting of the last administration, and in fact actual policies of that administration, rather than the policies of the present one.

It is true that Obama has not tossed the entire Gang Of Pirates in jail and taken steps to assure that Bush/Cheney would stand as a warning to future dictators instead of precedence for them, and Clinton was conned by GOP criminals to signing the destruction of Glass-Stiegal and a few such things as NAFTA etc that have had a terrible effect and are not in the Liberal Tradition.

I guess in such an opposite universe Militant Quakers that have been advocating the invasion of Iraq and all the other violence and mayhem would not be an oxymoron, but they would be a null set in this universe. I suppose that in that universe the Neocons would be the peaceniks, willing to die themselves rather than be responsible for the deaths of others. Here, not so much.

But whatever the Universe the actual liberals would be the ones with four key values. Empathy, Empowerment of the powerless, and Accountability for the powerful to keep them from embezzling all the goodies and dumping the cost on to others. And a loyalty to reality to distinguish what the facts actually are as best they can be determined.

Basing their thinking on actual reality at least in making judgements of this world, some find their motives in various spiritual traditions, but almost all agree on scientific method where it can be definitive.

Basing their concerns in empathy for others, understanding them by being able to see through their eyes, and acting to the benefit of all in ways that could declared fair by any honest person. This is more leap than many on the right can make as they have had their empathy ground out of them and so are utterly confused by the concept.

With Empathy comes desire to give Empowerment to every person to achieve the very best for their own life, because a person empowered to contribute the maximum amount to society at the same time contributes to each member of that society in excess to what it cost in the first place.

For example if it is made a horrid and expensive ordeal to become a doctor there are fewer doctors, they are more expensive, and less doctoring is done. But if the barrier is only one of ability and society removes all the other barriers, there are many more doctors, and more doctoring is done, and at much less overall cost to society.

One lacking empathy might object to the expense of these freeloader doctors, but they would be very happy with the result, even if they could not make the connection. So it is with many things. Some like 3M have discovered how beneficial such empowerment can be, but as long as there is no accounting for the decisions of those in high places, most industries will be driven to the most unsocialized behavior by others in their industry who are still worse.

And this brings up the fourth value that lies at the heart of liberal thought. In every organization their must be leadership. Those without quality leadership might limp along if they are indestructible (at least in the short term) or explode eventually but not until they do such as Enron. The same is true of other jobs, but leadership confers the power of decision, given to it by all the members of the enterprise as their agent to assign tasks and benefits to those people with the expectation that they will do the job well and honorably.

Like Kings of old the job is not always done well or honorably, and as ever the problem is to hold them accountable for how their decisions affect all around them. The entire sweep of liberal history is to hold all who exercise power so accountable, no matter under what guise that power is exercised.

There have been many who claimed they stood on the side of accountability and did not, and many more who considered the idea of accountability an evil concept. While the former might be seen as false liberals who were conservative in their hearts, the latter would be unabashed Conservatives as the idea is currently framed.

The idea is not to elect perfect men to leadership but to create structures that those dishonest or self serving would be held accountable, and thus fear doing wrong if it ever enters their head to do so, not just in Government but in every enterprise where several or many are needed to accomplish a goal. To do that the accountant of last resort has to be a large enough government to do the job, and that government held accountable by its people as well.

Any policy or activity that deviates from those values, deviates from what is Liberal or Socialized, though honest folk can disagree about whether specific policies or laws work for or against those values, and there are even many wildly different societies that can still be expressions of those values. And of course it is a path and a process rather than a place where it would be declared arrived, but certainly differing levels along the way.

The founding of the country was indeed a giant leap along that path for the time, but they could and did improve on what was started, and not all changes were positive, but the liberal position has always been the greater expression of those values, just as the conservative position has been to retard them.

What price patriotism?

2009-08-26T13:07:00.001-04:00

From a friend a question

What do you think of Nationalism in general?
good or bad?
helpful or harmful?
valuable or worthless?

And my answer

That is a multi sided question because there are two big questions hidden in the one. On one side is the recognition that you are living in many layers of a collective, from your neighborhood or church, to your city, your state and of course your country. In each of those cases you are a member more or less as an accident of where you live, but if you work with the other members to improve the situation in the collective, your life is improved because you get benefits from that collective, even when you might not see a one to one relationship in your benefits and effort.

There is of course the largest collective that is all humanity, and while 200 years ago what happened on the other side of the globe might have few consequences to you, that is certainly no longer the case, from your factory that got shipped to China, to the collapse of the Antarctic ice shelves. So while you indeed do want to improve each of your other collectives, and need to work on that as you can, you need to work on the global one as well. If Chinese workers got a decent wage you would have more jobs at better wages, If the Antarctic Ice melts I get waterfront property.

There is of course another very much darker side that lays underneath any recognition of one's collective that can go from simply annoying to the worst sort of mass murder and genocide. At the lightest it is properly called triumphalism, that your collective is the most desirable to be a member of because of aspects you like and achievements you are proud of, plus you are in it and others are not. Internally this can gin up the troops to make more sacrifices for the collective, and under wise leadership can still bring cohesion and a better outcome for the extra effort, but from that point forward the slope begins to get slippery.

Things begin to get dicey when a collective adopts strong triumphalism that is directed outwards, especially when your collective is one of two or more in a larger collective, your collective can generate annoyance to downright hostility. A leader of your collective, particularly if unimaginative, or merely has an agenda to benefit himself at the expense of the collective, can use the hostility generated to create more triumphalism and get more support and sacrifice, even beyond what might normally be willingly given. This can cause a cycle of hostility that can easily get out of hand.

At some point there gets to be the idea that the Collective would be much better off if other collectives were not a part of the larger collective, and by eliminating them eliminate the source of hostility. This might take the form of wanting to divide the land in half, one collective or the other to run away or be pushed away, or if there is no away then mass murder can start. By the time this Eliminationism is in full flower, getting cooler heads to shut it down can be difficult or impossible, and the greatest evils humans know can be commonplace.

The trick then is to be mindful of the triumphalism, and hold leaders carefully accountable if they gin it up beyond that lightest levels, but particularly if they are unworthy of that leadership they will strongly resist efforts to do so. There in lies the Bane of Humanity.
Bob

A good Reference: "Eliminationism in America": Parts I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX and X, and Appendix.

Propaganda, Framing, and the Libertarian Graph

2009-08-04T17:49:00.000-04:00

In a further effort to make people think they support an ideology that they would never support if spoken plainly the Libertarian Party has put their Libertarian Graph that has been central to their self promotion onto Facebook.

As it has been around as long as the Internet I have largely ignored it but as it is newly in my Face I looked again at it, and with more educated eyes, see it as worse than I had originally realized. I do not suggest that they should not spew whatever they wish, but do suggest that what they do is a teachable example that folk can avoid anyone's propaganda framing games.

I listed all the questions I got (I don't know if they change them) but will try to take on each to see how they twist how they expect you to see them.

1. The state should restrict abortion in all or most cases.

One would think this easy, and it mostly is, but is not addressing the real issue of if you think a fetus is the same as a young child in human terms. If you consider a fetus as a foundation that a human can eventually move into then abortion is no different than any other medical procedure.

On the other hand if you think that a fetus, or a cow is as "human" as any 10 year old child then killing without good reason is murder. If you would make exemption for anyone's belief no matter how extreme for embryos, then you had better be prepared to defend cows as well.

2. Unions were indispensible (sp) in establishing the middle class.

Unions are one way to hold corporations, and their managements accountable for the treatment of their workers. It was a hard fight and there was no other force available to do so. Other stake holders, consumers, neighbors, even competitors don't have that power either so unions are at best a partial solution. This does not make unions in any way a bad thing, only insufficient.

And there have been middle classes arrive without unions, often by causing huge die offs as with the black death, or the Native American genocide, and even the most recent case a lot of folk died and were economically destroyed to provide the American "Boom". Western Europe did boom and a great middle class form, and unions definitely were a big part, but without the rest of the socialized solution they would not have been enough. In Japan there were no unions but accountability was arrived at by other means.

3. In nearly every instance, the free market allocates resources most efficiently.

Here again many things are implied and denied at the same time.

Any truly un-policed market would quickly become a criminal warlord zone, in order to operate at all there have to be rules, and in order to have them there needs to be enforcement, as well as decisions about what the rules need to be and what gets enforced. This implies power, but does not imply that the sources of that power are accountable to those without the power to decide or enforce those rules.

The existence of that power implies Government, either De Facto or De Jure or a mix of both, and it is that Power/Government that allocates resources, not the "Market". If you get the lion's share of the resources you might think them efficient, if not, then not so much.

Therefore it is power and not markets that allocate resources, and they can do a good or bad job of it, irrelevant to what market "Freedom" is defined as.

4. Public radio and television funded by the state provide a valuable service the citizens.

In the case of BBC or Canadian CBC the result certainly is valuable, Iranian Public Television not so much. American PBS is more middle ground. Like so much else it is accountability rather than funding that is at issue, with different laws and leadership PBS could be better, but it has suffered from GOP interference. All this irrelevant to the question.

5. Some people should not be allowed to reproduce.

An open bigotry question of little value besides that bigotry

6. Access to healthcare is a right.

Technically different from free speech or right of assembly, it is not a civil rights issue in that sense, but a sensibility issue, just like having access to fire or police protection is not a civil rights issue, but also a universal need that is not amenable to a market based distribution.

7. The rich should pay a higher tax rate than the middle class.

Again framed as if Government was taking something, instead of charging for the greater costs and benefits received. Also ignoring the social benefit that ratcheting up the cost of looting the economy makes it better to grow a business rather than take the money and run.

8. School science classes should teach intelligent design.

School science should teach critical thinking first, and actual science as the result of that critical thinking. Under those conditions Creationism makes a great negative example. Those pushing Creationism I would assume would prefer Science taught as belief alone rather than that.

9. Marriage must be heralded for the important role it plays in society.

Marriage is a religious institution that has no part in a secular society, but is defined by the religion. Living arrangements need to be the exclusive domain of those involved, and short of abuse, should be supported however the arrangers decide, without asking or even involving private sexual expression or the lack of it.

10. Sometimes war is necessary, even if it means you strike first.

Extremely situational, and two different points at that. Iraq obviously was not either of those situations, but it is possible (barely) to imagine some. Not part of the frame, that there are millions of ways to avoid even those, if you do not act stupidly.

11. Patriotism is an overrated quality.

More it is totally different ideas depending on what side you are talking about, and even who is in office for many.

12. Radio stations should be required to present balanced news coverage.

Again twisting the frame. The station is a tenant of the public spectrum with a mandate to use it responsibly. One does not need to micromanage that to determine when that mandate is absurdly violated.

13. Government should do something about the increasing violence in video games.

Again framing the issue all wrong. If someone is injured as a result of irresponsible activities of any person or corporation, that person or corporation needs to be held accountable. If a person preaches hate that leads to violence by their followers (think blind sheik, or Chas Manson) then they should be held accountable, anyone in decision position in a video game that leads to a similar result, should be held to similar responsibility, as well as the corporation to the top as well. That would end a lot of corporations and put the management in jail for a very long time over a lot more than video games.

14. If our leader meets with our enemies, it makes us appear weak.

Like above, very situational, agreeing to talk is not weak. Capitulating before negotiation is weak, it does not matter if we are talking Iran or Blue Dogs.

15. We must use our military from time to time to protect our supply of oil, to avoid a national crisis.

Protecting what you legitimately own is not bad, conquering and stealing what is not yours is bad.

16. Strong gun ownership rights protect the people against tyranny.

Unless of course the folk with guns plan the tyranny. Ask the folk in Somalia. Tyranny is not beaten with guns but with guts and brains. Look at Iran for the future or India, or South Africa for the past.

17. It makes no sense to say 'I'm spiritual but not religious.'

Only to those with no sense, or understanding of the meaning of those words. However many who say it make little sense. What makes no sense is how it relates to the quiz.

18. It is not government's responsibility to regulate pollution.

Any more than to regulate theft, or any other wholesale poisoning for profit. Like policing people and policing Corporations was somehow different, or pollution was like weeds that just occur without a polluter.

19. Gay marriage should be forbidden.

By Who? If your Church forbids it, fine don't do it or allow it there. Other Churches don't forbid it. Marriage is a religious institution and belongs there, and not in Government. See #9 for the rest

20. It should be against the law to use hateful language toward another racial group.

It is the hate and not the language that should be at issue. Eliminationist thinking is problematic and needs to be discouraged, just as those who advocate a totalitarian Government. Doing so however is one of the biggest problems Democracy faces.

21. Government should ensure that all citizens meet a certain minimum standard of living.

Again with the framing, this also is like Firefighting or health care, money is well spent if a few dollars prevent disaster, or protect those who need it from exploitation. Like the difference between empathy and sympathy, one either understands or not.

Insuring a minimum treatment of people is at least as compelling as a minimum treatment of animals.

22. It is wrong to enforce moral behavior through the law because this infringes upon an individual's freedom.

Like poisoning thousands is not immoral but sexual variation is? Or does preventing theft make for too much government interference and inhibit "freedom", or is theft by holdup different than by other means of power?

23. Immigration restrictions are economically protectionist. Non-citizens should be allowed to sell their labor domestically at a rate the market will pay.

More wild spin, let them form unions and make the market between equal powers, and what the market will pay will be very different, remove other protectionist barriers like patents, copyrights and other barriers to entry, and the markets would change some more.

24. An official language should be set, and immigrants should have to learn it.

Yes perhaps Cherokee, or Spanish as that was the largest area taken, or Chinese as that is where our money is. In practice those who have the gold make the rules, If everyone you sell to speaks Russian, even if just in that neighborhood, you will have few customers if you insist on English, even if they speak that as well.

25. Whatever maximizes economic growth is good for the people

As they are cheap and easy to produce, Credit Default Swaps can cause tremendous economic growth (for a while), and selling you heritage is also highly profitable but hardly sustainable, and of course cleaning up the differed costs is also a consideration, and if the CEO absconds with all the economic increase he would be the only "people" it would be good for.

If on the other hand the economic growth is people making actual stuff at wages they can buy the stuff with, they will not only have the economic growth, but will also have the stuff.

26. Racial issues will never be resolved. It is human nature to prefer one's own race

Yup, that is why the Irish, Jews, and Japanese are still segregated in walled ghettos or why there is still ghettos in Japan of people who's ancestors were livestock handlers, and non Japanese cannot see a difference.

27. People with a criminal history should not be able to vote.

The entire Criminal Justice system is more criminal than justice, and many of the worst criminals are never charged, but limiting the discussion to the false frame, regaining the right to live as a human, to have free speech is to be able to express an opinion in the voting booth as well.

Marijuana should be legal.

Driving stoned can be a bad thing, but many medicinal and technical uses are certainly lost and hurting society by the hysteria. Any law should not be about a cultural divide ignored by one side, be it hunting rifles or Marijuana.

29. The state should fine television stations for broadcasting offensive language.

Offensive to who? I am entirely offended by Fox but not at all by common expletives.

...snip..

31. The lower the taxes, the better off we all are.

Yes the Soviets did not have taxes and look how well that turned out. Likewise the Chinese support the military and other sectors by making them the managers of large parts of the economy thus keeping taxes low.

Somalis also pay very low taxes, or none at all.

Obviously the question is very much deeper than that frame allows. It is more about what you want the government to do and who pays and there is a lot more to that than I can write here.

...snip..

36. Toppling enemy regimes to spread democracy will make the world a safer place.

Yup like such enemies as Haiti or Honduras that had Democracies till we toppled them, or Friends like Tajikistan that boil their dissenters slowly in oil. Iraq and Afghanistan certainly have made the world safer by our efforts, just as our bullying has helped the situation in Iran and North Korea.

..Snip...
42. The military budget should be scaled back.

That would be the budget for weapons for Soviet era fighting? Money paid for awful and expensive contractors that the military could do themselves and did for 200 years? Or are we talking Body Armor and other tools that actual Soldiers need? Multi million dollar makeovers for Pentagon offices, or better beads for Veterans Hospitals?

An honest accounting system might save 90%, but the Pentagon will take the first dollar to scale back on body armor and blame it on the accountants.

43. Economic competition results in inumerable (sp) innovations that improve all of our lives.

That might happen if the competition was to improve people's lives, but as the point is to make a profit, the innovations are mostly ways to get more for doing less, and that has become the most innovative science on the planet. To the point that huge sectors of the economy get a very large percentage of the economy for doing almost nothing, and certainly less than would be spent without their hegemony.

44. It is not our place to condemn other cultures as backwards or barbaric.

It is not so smart to moralize about others even as you are considered backwards and barbaric yourself in so many ways.
.....snip.....
49. When corporate interests become too powerful, the state should take action to ensure the public interest is served.

When corporate interests become too powerful the society has been in grave danger for some time. Too big to fail is waaaay past too big to exist. Anytime a Government does not act in the public interest there needs to be severe accountability, unfortunately we are also way past the ability to do this.

.....snip.....

52. A nation's retirement safety net cannot be trusted to the fluctuations of the stock market

Nobody's future should be trusted to riverboat gamblers unless those gamblers would be willing to suffer an equal amount for failure as all their customers combined.

This is way late and over long but hopefully will enlighten some about how framing can lie or bring out the truth depending on how one thinks about the issue to discover what the real issue behind the issue is.

Deregulation has been an utter disaster.

2009-06-26T10:58:00.003-04:00

The biggest and best of everything used to be in the USA and now no longer
is. Europeans, for example, have had much better and more complex
cellphone service at a single lower price than the US and have done so for
many years.

The reason is that without a force to improve, and a rolling up and
buying out all competition Giant Businesses have taken maximum personal
profit and made minimum investment or innovation. Without that force of
competition the Government alone is left to provide that accountability.

It can only do that by forcing openings limiting monopoly power, or by
forcing a single neutral use of airwaves, that are owned by the Society
Commons in the first place.

By demanding single usable pricing for all wireless connection as per the
European model, only then can Americans have even near World Standard
Service rather than third world standard service.

Medical Redlining - Another way Medical Insurance Companies can defraud everyone

2009-05-31T18:55:00.004-04:00

As Congress gets to non debating a National Health care initiative that will not be change anyone can believe in, a new scam is percolating in the back of the Internet that will certainly become front and center if the current Baucus plan becomes "The Plan".

Unfortunately, as the last eight years have made really obvious, any corner not defined and held accountable by somebody will be cut by any company willing to do so and thus hold advantage over any company not willing to cut those corners. As well, the lower costs achieved by cutting those corners will not go to lower prices but to higher profits, not even for the shareholders but for the CEO.

In a case where the Insurance Company cannot cherry pick outright, they will cherry pick anyway that they can and this new scam is particularly pernicious. As their Ideology dictates, it will be profit and not need that sets policy and poor people with great need are less profitable. If price alone will not send them away, the new scam is to not offer services where they live.

By buying up and closing Hospitals that offer less profitable care you can force those not able to travel easily to travel farther to fancier hospitals, or stay away from any health care at all. Of course if the Insurance company refuses to make arrangements with doctors in redlined areas, then the Doctors will find that the preponderance of their business will be those "dumped" paitients on what will probably be the Government plan, and once again Taxpayers will be subsidizing Insurance Company profits, amid howls of protest that the Government plan is costing too much, and needs cutting.

Institutions that actually do something, like doctors or even hospitals, might indeed find ways to change practices in a way that has a chance of actually make more money and improve service (and even that not witout oversight) But an Insurance company can only be the middle man, it cannot add value to the equation, but only take its half out of the middle. It will have no purpose to be except that which it can gerrymander itself into false necessity.

Some examples http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmaJEvvMZ7c

http://www.bio-medicine.org/medicine-news-1/CNA-Presents-New-Data-on-Sutters-Medical-Redlining-4650-1/

http://www.news-medical.net/news/11717.aspx

A question of Agency & Accountability

2009-05-23T14:21:00.002-04:00

When Obama was elected I had high hopes. I knew that if he advocated the progressive agenda outright that there would be a barrage of calls that he was implementing the kind of leftist agenda that indeed most folks who voted for him hoped he would and that there would need to be sustained activity to back that agenda.

When he put together his team in December I was dismayed that of all the names that would spring to mind from Krugman to Dean as having been at the forefront of the fight to get where we were, were either not brought in or tossed under the bus. We were told that this was a stealth move by Obama, that Bush needed to actually leave office, and we could trust that Obama would be setting the rules and pushing all those folk who were against the Left agenda to move further left than their prior actions would indicate.

Then we were told there was a secret framing agenda, that measures that looked like the normal Bush policies actually were different in the details that fully reversed what Bush was up to. But there was no prosecutions of crimes that are now prima facia, or even investigations of them. We are still in Iraq and it looks like for a long time, and Afghanistan is getting worse with mostly the same tactics that dis not work before.

To hear the screeching and lamentations from the Right one would think that all the correct things were being done, but when their blather is sifted out the only thing they actually oppose is the name of the party with supposedly the levers of power. There have been a few things happen at the margins, but no great strides and nothing that could not be quickly swept aside has happened on almost every front.

Even the abandonment of Habeas Corpus that ruled all English and American law for a thousand years that should have been restored instantly with prosecution of those who denied it (before even getting into the Torture "Debate") is not the focus. Only that it was illegal and should be abandoned by passing a law legally abandoning this bedrock of Western Values.

This is a final class battle that is technically not even the very rich against the rest of us, but a whole range of gatekeepers who are supposedly the agents of a whole range of folk, mostly feeding the very rich even when they are supposed to be overseeing them, but even more feeding and supporting themselves to the expense of everyone, rich and poor alike.

As agents they do not actually accomplish any goal but assign pathways and tasks to those who actually accomplish the goals, and then assign benifits among those achievers. It is a position with great, but supposedly borrowed power, responsible often to many interests that at one time was able to hold them accountable, but breaking free they have perverted the system beyond stupid.

Banks, Insurance companies, other financial "innovators" come easily to mind, but every Large Corporation has become equally divorced from the "owners" that are buried in layers of Pension Fund, or "Mutual" Fund that itself is only marginally aware of it's agency position.

And other large bureaucracies that act as a class of themselves are a step further removed from that agency position that their very existance as an industry perverts hao a Society operates are one more step into the Morass. Universities, Military, and their further parasites of Manufacturers, and now Mercenaries, and similar satrapies of insurance companies, hospital complexes, and pharmaceutical firms or the sphere of Agrabusiness, chemical companies and "food" delivery, or the mass that is essentially WalMart.

In every situation this gatekeeper agent class gets special rules, while the folk who do the work get less and less, and even the Investors are shortchanged, but worse the bureaucracy works to make itself ever more necessary and monopolistic so wars are started just so Mercs can fight them, or education is defined by the ever growing need of the proper degree, and not the learning that used to define it, or medicine is defined by pills like people were so much bags of soup, or "food" defined by packaging and corner cutting rather than taste or value.

Unless these Parasite Satrapies are broken or removed from power completely there will not be a society anyone now alive would wish to live in. Health Care is at the moment front and center in the fights (having lost the fight with the banks).and our best hope of eliminating any of the Parasites. If they are left in place in any form that fight will also be lost, and that is about the easiest fight that we face.

Darwin is best example of bad framing of good science

2009-04-05T12:13:00.003-04:00

People keep having such a linear concept of evolution even among people who should know better. It is of great problem that it was Darwin who published instead of Wallace. Species do not ever evolve from a single individual but from entire populations that become separated and have traits that emerge differently.

Species become different mostly because of physical isolation that continues, and then may cease as mountains corrode or individuals make it back across the barrier. Among Humans after 600 years or so virtually everyone is a decedent of those who lived 600 years before as possible ancestors. Some will appear more times than others but few will "Die out" completely, it is only traits that increase of not. The number of children had will have little actual effect as negative traits are what survives or not, and that takes many generations.

It is only traits that "evolve" in a population, and even then a small change that exists in one group might be enhanced by the chance encounter with another trait present in another group. Eventually both traits might dominate the population but the ancestry would include those with the trait as well as those without it, with each trait "evolving" quite separately from the rest.

For example a particularly useful horn formation might first appear on an individual with a redder coat, but unless those genes were very close on the DNA the horn formation might stay and the redder coat not, they would not be connected. With a very large interbreeding population traits change very slowly, and only pandemic will change them quickly. Even then the trait that is lucky enough to hang out near the site of the anti-pandemic gene will be carried forward quite aside from its own favorableness otherwise.

Wallace's paper framed the facts in that much more correct manner, while Darwin opened the door to some of the most divisive and wrong headed politics to have plagued mankind for the last hundred years. Social Darwinism, Eugenics, and many of their derivatives like Nazis, Libertarianism, and some of the more odd variants of Soviet Communism as well as some of the reactions against Darwin from Creationism to the old Tabula Rasa ideas that have befuddled and muddied the behaviorial sciences for generations.

The Internet Flood at the Gates of the Citadel

2009-03-26T10:50:00.006-04:00

The one thing I see as a far outsider, well two things actually, is first that because they were monopolies newspapers were never the real watchdog of Democracy as much as another "Pig at the Trough" with their own power base, that balanced the other powers occasionally if they got out of hand, but were mostly complicit in that power, and mostly under pressure at the least from big advertisers, if not actually in pocket.

The second and perhaps more important thing I see is that all of Shirky's insights are also true in the much wider context. The printing press brought the Reformation but it also brought trade and innovation, and with that eventually "cheap" printing presses.

Once any person could print something that reached a critical mass audience, there was no King whose head was safe.

Those Publishers and Traders now consolidated power and became the new Kings, not just like the old, but just as fat and happy. And then along came Radio, and again there was cheap communication, and again the new "kings" were almost dethroned, but saved themselves at the last minute with "licenses" that made Radio, and later Television expensive and monopolistic.

Now along comes the Internet, and again anyone can own the new "Press" and again there is no restriction of content capable of reaching a critical mass.

The first reaction of power is GWB and a massive propaganda campaign, particularly juiced with Fear. This has been a part of the program that worked before as Communists were the boogymen and at first that worked, (the Internet was not yet at critical mass) but facts broke the propaganda model and GWB went down in flames.

Now we have a new battleground, some have never gotten it and their increasingly shrill pronouncements have left them looking as barking mad as they claim for everyone else.

But there are others who would use subversion where brutality did not work, if not to stop the now strongly running tide, then at least to turn it and protect the most potent parts of power, that they can retain their kingship as they did in the 1940's.

That battle is not over but it will not be an easy victory for either side.

This is a response to Rosen's Flying Seminar In The Future of News as I noted in a previous post the university structure sis also one of those "Pigs at the Trough"that the Internet is already destroying. It is only their gatekeeper status on the certification that one is educated that holds back the flood.

Lets have the Socialism vs Feralism debate

2009-03-18T18:51:00.000-04:00

I am really looking forward to the first real Ideological discussion in several generations. When it comes down to who you want running Society.

Should it be the Feral "lord of the flies" approach, where freedom is the freedom to act without thought or conscience, consider only yourself, and not be accountable to anyone? Or will we have the Socialized approach, where the fact that you did not care that the new toy you made contained poisons that killed dozens and injured tens of thousands was reason enough for you to be made very sorry and have a very bad life after that?

Shall we again turn America over to the Gang Of Pirates who do not believe that Government has any role except to throw the military at any group of folk we don't like? And since Government is naturally corrupt, to prove it by being as corrupt as humanly possible, shoveling money into no-bid crony contracts that accomplish as little as possible at maximum costs? (After Katrina the Gop paid out more to add blue tarps on houses than a new roof would cost, and then hired illegal aliens to do the work below min wage. A typical Gop contract.)

Or shall we have that sort of Socialized society the GOP is complaining about, where an honest and humane entrepreneur can create and run a business making real stuff without having it ruined by a sharpie who increase profits for himself by stealing from his employees, customers, and everyone else and undercut the honest business, so that eventually only Giant Feral Businesses like AIG, Wal-Mart, & Enron are left (well Enron is dead, but only because they stole more than existed, but the other giants from Disney to Home Depot are no less feral, just more solvent).

Until America re-establishes its social contract, that each person must consider others in their decisions, and work togeather on every enterprise for the common good. And recognize that everyone is advanced when every person can contribute their maximum ability without artificial barriers. And that it is the Government's job to reduce those barriers and hold accountable those ferals (foreign or local) who would steal by pen or gun from those who actually did the work, even as the entire populace would hold that Government accountable to do that job. There will be major partisanship.

If the Socialists win, there is a wide range for reasonable people to disagree. What is reasonable accountability, and what is intrusive. What are possible sorts of enterprises? Some might be governments like a city, or a natural monopoly like a power company. But perhaps accountability could still be managed if the power company only owned the distribution. Perhaps Schooling should only certify the knowledge and not how it was obtained (as long as anyone could still obtain it) But no more "leader gets the gold and everyone else gets the shaft" businesses.

The alternative is the usual case in history, with an elite that has no incentive to improve the world and a populace that has no means. In that case even the Elite suffer from the lack of productivity, but also lack the concern or imagination to see how things might be improved.

Faith can be problematic, but not "stupid" or really ignorant

2009-03-03T00:18:00.004-05:00

I have worked with many religious fundamentalists, and unlike some on the Left see a very sharp difference between Faith and Ignorance, much less what they put down as stupid. The best example that comes to mind is a person I worked with in an architecture office who could quote you the specifics of any law or rule from any of the various codes we had to design to, even faster and beyond most in the office.

This made him a very valuable, and not at all stupid person, however to explain structural 3d issues or complicated implications that involved mental athletics was very difficult and tedious. I realized over time that to undertake such an exercise in a fundamentalist world was to walk on very thin ice, and brought up in that culture you quickly learn not to go there.

Our boss was similar in being fundamentalist, but had learned to compartmentalize to an amazing degree. Positively brilliant he saw those issues before I did and had several ideas what to do about it ready before I got there. He was so brilliant it was easy to forget the fundamentalist part, and occasionally bump into the wrong compartment and be very shocked at the reaction.

Over the years I have met many partway along those extremes, but always there is a core that cannot be challenged, and to do so feels like watching you stab kittens, they are very put out and offended.

For some that area may be sharply limited, in others it bleeds out to every area of life, but in each case to cross that threshold is to engage in kitten stabbing.

I used to joke that real faith was impossible and belief divided into four types. The first was like growing up in the 1100's the earth looked flat enough, nobody thought otherwise, and the subject virtually never came up. Under that situation it is not faith but common understanding that the Earth was flat. No reaching needed.

In level 2 belief, you might hear that some kook has suggested that the earth is a sphere and no matter how far you go you will not reach an edge. But the preponderance of the evidence you are aware of still weighs for a flat earth.

In level 3 belief, it is an active conversation, that many or even most folk believe in a round earth. The round earthers have some good points about horizons and where the sun goes at night, but your leadership and loyalty is with people who stick to the flat side of the argument. That is stubbornness and loyalty but still not faith.

Now if you go up in a space shuttle, or even just live in the modern world with all the evidence around you that you live on a round planet and still believe that the world is flat, that is true Faith. Many fundamentalists, while not believing that the earth is flat, would still agree that such belief in the face of contrary evidence was the ideal of faith.

( cross posted from a discussion here)

Is Insurance Structurally Feral?

2009-02-21T11:42:00.003-05:00

It is happening again.

Nobody talked about it the last time, and they are not talking much this time either. All across the country companies are closing their doors. Not because they cannot get customers, though that is a much talked about part of the issue, and not because the banking system is frozen, though that also is a big part of the cause. But there are many companies who could both be customers and have customers, and are not dependent on bank loans to stay in business. These companies are going out of business for lack of any or affordable insurance. Many individuals are also finding themselves in similar straits making themselves poorer customers even if they have a job still.

As long as there is plenty money to be made speculating with other people's money (and even AAA rated obviously carries the risk that it is not) Insurance companies are expansive, writing as much as possible, making unsustainable profits in the use of money, even if the actual insurance gamble is break even at best. Then as always the bubble bursts.

Now suddenly the geniuses who made great incomes when the bubble was growing do not want to see any losses, and there is not so much to be made speculating no matter how much cash is available anyway, so suddenly loss of customers is not a bad thing, especially if you get a lot more profit from the customers you don't lose.

So now that the economy is on its knees the long knives come out to make it worse. Normal business insurance that rarely sees losses may just increase tenfold in cost because the Insurance company needs the extra profit, and more money from fewer people lowers their own exposure. And places like Florida or the Gulf Coast who are very high cash when cash is flowing become suddenly unacceptable risk when raw cash is not as useful, and those who would actually pay claims abandon those areas to ripoff and run operations who will just go bankrupt if there is any major claims.

Each Insurance type will operate slightly differently because the arithmetic is different, but while they will claim secret vetting, and some will do more of what they promise for the money they charge, without some embedded scam there can be no profit. And without a guarantee over time that serious losses will be made up, an actual free market would dump the burdened Insurance company for the one without past promises to keep. In short the Insurance company has to do the job of a government, but is managed as a Pirate Fiefdom, collecting the taxes but avoiding paying the bills, and with little to hold them accountable.

I already wrote about Health Insurance a while back and the Gapminder that showed differences between countries now also shows some information about different states as well. This particular view shows an assortment of states with the accidental deaths per number of vehicles to be fairly constant no matter the size of the state. Those above the diagonal are doing better than those below who have more deaths per vehicle and those moving toward the upper left are improving over time, the red pay higher insurance rates and the blue to green lower rates.
As one can see Texas and Florida have nearly the same numbers but Florida pays much higher rates, similarly with Illinois and New York. The link above goes to similar settings where it is even more dramatic. The live Gapminder there allows you to adjust what you are looking at .

What the Gapminder shows is that risk of deaths is quite unrelated to the price of insurance beyond that there is an increase in price nearly everywhere, even when the number of cars or number of accidents ( and thus the risk) is dropping. (Off the topic a bit is the sudden change in almost all states at Y2K and what might have caused that)

There is much hype in the air about how the Society is in such danger of being Socialized, as if an Unsocialized Society like an Unsocialized Child is a preferable outcome. Much pointing is done at the Soviets as the prime example of a Socialized Society because they claimed that they were one, but they also claimed to be as democratic as socialized as indeed they were neither in equal amounts.

The true Socialized Society is the opposite of feral, such as is found in some failed states, as the Government drowns in a libertarian nightmare of competing militias, and rogue warriors, that destroys all that society can produce. In short the Insurance company does for the most able to pay that which is least needed, and tossing the rest under the bus, and taking a giant piece of the society's productivity with it.

That safety net is what government is supposed to do, whether defending against outside enemies or inside disasters. A more deeply thoughtful system needs to be devised.

Deep Thinking is really needed now

2009-01-19T21:40:00.003-05:00

So often the stupidity of one system reaches a point that it collapses and while everyone jumps that way there is very little thought given to what the new thing aught to be. Some things like the Computer or the Internet could hardly have been imagined, but others like cars or public transportation had patterns set hundreds of years ago. (there are many others like Education, Government,Business/trade.. a very long list but I want to look at private/public transportation at the moment). We have built a civilization on sand, and the foundations need rebuilding if it will survive.

The Automobile culture, built of cheap oil, narrow goals of next quarter profits, with designs sold as sexual adequacy rather than transportation cannot survive in its present form, but the alternatives are resisted because they are much less pleasant and turned to only in necessity. While there is a real need to rethink the Automobile culture, to say nothing of years overdue to even rethink what an automobile should be, we have a golden opportunity to rethink from scratch what public transportation aught to be. Right now it is based on an 18th century model that people avoid if they can, and is relegated to poor folk who have no other choices.

To make the leap into something that would all but replace private transportation it would need to be all the good things cars are and all the good things trains are. It must come when you want and go where you want. It must be both able to take hundreds of folks but not run empty when those hundreds do not show up. It must get you quickly to where you want to be but if it stops at all the other places it cannot be quick. You need to go the shortest route but also any route, and of course the advantages of trains of low fuel consumption, no need for parking, and no need to drive.

What I wouldl propose I call Ultralight Rail. Rather than huge trains there would be small very light weight cars that would run on a single rail and get its electric power from the rail. Because the cars would be smaller and lighter the rest of the infrastructure can be smaller lighter and therefore cheaper than would be necessary for train systems and since it would be mostly overhead it would not interfere with existing infrastructure.

Computers are the answer that was not available very few years ago when all the other systems were built. By making the cars small and computer controlled the need to pack everyone into huge trains goes away. With an artery and capillary system vehicles could travel close together at high speed but each car could have different start/stop points either around a corner or to a different city, traveling up to 200mph in stretches of main arteries.

By making the car able to hold small vehicles like power chairs, bicycles, Segways, etc it would make door to door transportation fast and reliable. By each car being separately targeted, it would go the most direct route as fast as possible without stopping along the way. By only coming when called it would hardly ever run empty, but be able to handle large crowds with multiple cars, and of course as it would not sit by waiting it would get constant use and therefore replace many more cars that spend most of their time parked.

There is much more that such deep thinking could produce, what is needed most is a path that such things could be accomplished, not only for this bust so much more, that will be the real measure of this administration.

The Structure of Education is Crazy

2008-11-28T03:34:00.003-05:00

Education generally and higher education in particular is deeply suffering from structural binding that is making it much less effective and far more labor intensive for both student and teacher than it needs to be and what is worse has no real path to understand the quality of the result, or even the satisfaction of the need either for the student or Society itself.

A. Graduation/certification is hazing not a measure of knowledge.
Because certification provides entry into a class system that does not neasure actual ability, immense extraneous expenses in time and money are added far beyond the actual information or skills imparted, and to justify this and compete in self perpetuation most of a schools actions and decisions have little or nothing to do with education. This is especially true the more the emphasis is anything other than educating the students.

B Education is lifelong and not always at the same speed
The facts of life, written more in the real structure than rules or common belief, is that education starts with young children until 18-24 tears old and then is cut off to the average person. Differences in ability, or much more often life events that cause one to lose ground can only very rarely be made up at all. And even if the knowledge/skill is acquired by alternative means the certification is not, and the ability to contribute is blocked

C. Technology has Changed.
Senior professors who lectures a class of hundreds with the same speech year after year in order to justify his salary is short changing both themselves and their students. Technology could produce a much more interesting "Lecture" to convey information that is one way, and a secondary system to provide feedback like a FAQ system for common questions and one or two layers of human support for the places where the question is odd or interesting enough to warrant it. BitTorrent and technical support for computer programs etc have necessarily had to deal with these issues and while some bad ideas exist there, there is much that can be applied to all education.

D Government Support and Management is Critical
Of all sources of power to make decisions, and means to spread costs that are not directly transactional only the Government can act in the public good and in support of the Commons, and as an honest broker in the certification of facts.

a. Certify Knowledge Like the old banks that printed their own money, education certification is also money negotiated with dubious and certainly variable value, but unlike the old bank notes each certification carries with it an inseparable human life, causing each of them to be treated in equally unfair variety.

By creating a standard series of tests, perhaps thousands of questions long, that could be taken any number of times, it would create a standard measure of knowledge that could even be graphed blue where knowledge was strong to red where it was weak, that would apply a much stronger certification, without demanding where the knowledge came from.

b.Create an Alternative Path- By providing a Government supplied efficient Internet structure where through great BBC like explanations from the best, the general information is imparted, and then Bittorrent like a tree of seed providers and peers could efficiently impart and spread that information in ways pioneered even by Meetup, and the Obama campaign, the teaching of the most knowledgeable could reach millions instead of hundreds, and not just once but over years.

This would not eliminate books, but would impart more knowledge faster and more deeply than was technologically possible even 20 years ago,

c. Place all critical knowledge and skills back into the Public Commons. This can only be done by financing the production of the product, but by compartmentalizing and privatizing knowledge, not only are those who could contribute prevented from doing so, those with the knowledge can manipulate false outcomes, but two people, each with half of a majior breakthrough might never know, or if they can each discover it than what do they posses that is special.

A few modest suggestions

2008-11-07T13:05:00.002-05:00

The whole world awaits, holding its collective breath, not in horror like 9-11, but in Hope, wonderment, amazement, and the expectation that America will amaze everyone and do the best things possible after eight years of doing the worst imaginable and much that was worse yet. The entire world is United as never since 9-11 and the time is now to unite it more by doing the right thing and not disappoint and wreck all that has been gained. Here are ten things that can put us on that track.

#1 Justice

A. Do no harm, or perhaps better put, stop doing harm. There must be a layers committee to seek out all activities that the Bush Administration is doing that violate ethics, the Constitution, the law, human decency, and the Geneva Conventions and call a halt to all of it by proclamation in the body of the Swearing in Speech, backed up by whatever documents are needed. Since most will need to be sorted out, a plan to do that in each case will be needed before day one.

Before that moment they are Bush war crimes at the least. After that moment they instantly become Obama war crimes. Beyond that all shredding of the Constitution and the Magna Carta must be reversed.

B.Pursue Justice As Obama has put it there is a lot out there that looks like crimes and are crimes, but proving that a specific person is the criminal responsible is a much tougher thing. However to allow all that has happened in the past eight years to pass uninvestigated much less prosecuted is to ensure that it will happen again and soon and very much worse, just as Bill Clinton not pursuing the facts of Iran Contra and the S&L bomb gave us Enron, Bush2, and the current economic meltdown.

Fortunately there are people who have been looking at most of the details for several years now. It would not be a problem to sort them out and organize a program that will find wrong doers and have a Special Prosecutor sort out where there is prosecutable crimes, and to sort out where and how all those crimes, and even stupidity that looks like crimes can be locked away that they can never threaten us again. We have drifted very close to a level of proto fascism that I will be satisfied has been shoved back into its box when Obama and the new Congress actually take office. That box really needs to be nailed shut!

#2 Honor

A.The War on Totalitarian Theocracy - There is no war on "terror" terrorism is a technique. The only one open to anyone fighting overlords (like the Founding Fathers)and/or seeking to become them (like the CIA in Iran). It is used because it is effective, and because the military is the worst way to fight it. Every time it kills one the devastation creates many more. That is not "whack a mole" that is "whack a Hydra"!

It is not a war on Muslims. Many would like it to be so. It was so convienent to equate liberal ideas and Russian aggression and thereby create space for an American Totalitarian Theocracy to create and grow its base by being "anticommunist". It overplayed its hand by demanding Sarah Palin as "President in waiting", but it is only wounded and frightened, and we can expect that the danger of terrorist attack from that quarter, that has been covered up but still active, will increase a very great deal.

This is not about fundamentalist religion but eliminationism, Bin Laden or Muthee, they do not want negotiation but conquest. But they cannot be defeated by military but only on the field of ideas. It is only there that they are poorly armed. Attacked they swim in a sea of supporters, defending their policies they are a fish out of water as few would support if they knew the facts.

Unfortunately Israel is also led by Neocons and Theocrats. One cannot support the freedom, safety, and democracy of Israelis and at the same time support those who would use a perpetual war on Muslims, to give and keep themselves in power, and there will be no peace as long as Gaza is a concentration camp.

Israel is not a country of only Jews, but a dozen religions side by side. No matter how many are killed the demographics will make it majority Muslim even within the '67 borders in a very few years. The choice is only Apartheid or Secularity where there can be NO favored religion, the only other choice is the German path of extermination, and final solution, and I don't think even the most theocratic Jew could live with that.

3. Real Socialism- Not Soviet "government owns everything" "Socialism" but Socialized Person / child/ dog Socialism (the Soviets also claimed they were democracies. Why didn't everyone think one was as phony as the other?) Apparently even Barny is unsocialized.

My understanding of Socialism is an agreement to all work for a world where every person can contribute at their highest ability. That a person who has the talent to invent the solution to world energy needs not find themselves on the night shift of a 7-11 because their path was blocked on social or financial grounds. And not just the stars like that but at every level the whole society benefits if each person is as productive as they can be.

1. The National Bureau of Standards - One very great place that the Government can be crucial and reinvigorate the auto industry, as well as create industries as yet undreamed of is to rebuild the National Bureau of Standards to take back Government primarity of standards that corporations work to create their own standards to control and thus limit free trade, often crushing competition.

By taking control of everything from Computer Operating systems to bolt patterns on car parts, so that there was one published standard or a limited group of standards, managed as the GNU software is managed or the way that any hard drive fits in any computer, than any garage mechanic could produce the next generation of Green Car and become the American Honda.

2. The Electronic Commons

a. The Internet Al Gore was right that the government must create and defend a major Internet backbone that no other entity foreign or domestic can rule that Internet. Do that and demand Net Neutrality but allow other backbones as we have both USPS and FedEx will keep all sides honest and competitive.

A national investment in targeted satellite WiFi would also be a major leap that no NGO could do or should control that backed up with a program to make Internet available to every person no matter who or where, and especially backed up with a national education program about which more later, would bring America from 35th in literacy to number one as anyone could have college graduate level knowledge just by spending the time to learn it.

b. The Electromagnetic Spectrum - The electromagnetic spectrum is a limited resource, and more importantly it is one home to the font of information that our society bases it's Democracy. If that is captured Democracy fails, as indeed it would have even now but for the rise of the Internet to provide a surprise alternative.

The ownership of even two television stations, or other media is a restraint of trade as long as there is a responsible person wishing to use one of them. A rotating 5 year license that is open to genuine competition based not on bidding with money but based on what they would do for society, and how well they have behaved in the past, and that to receive one and only one license would bring press freedom back to America and America back to number one where we have fallen far to the back of the pack.

3.Corporate Criminality-Having abandoned Royalty and Baronies in 1776 they have come creeping back and threaten to overwhelm even the concept of National Government, replacing it with an international Gang Of Pirates formerly operating under the umbrella of the United States Government, but about to abandon even that for a world of Third World countries divided up into satraps not of land but of spheres of influence in some vital resource, with the ability to blackmail any country including America.

Not a conspiracy in the Illuminati sense, but the natural result of an ideology that does not believe that government should "interfere" in the doings of Corporations and that all barriers to their free exercise of power should be removed. Eventually they become "Too big to fail" and "Too big to oppose" but no one dares to say "too big to exist".

The first Step must be a special Prosecutorial team to prosecute and jail all persons in charge of corporate conspiracies to sell or cover up fraud and murder from the Vioxx case to the mass environmental disasters. Any decent civil litigation lawyer can point to a hundred grievous cases where massive death and destruction was protected because the corporation was at fault and the people involved felt immune.

The Idea of Corporations was that Investors were immune, not the entire corporation and all the operators. If the founding fathers saw what corporations have become they would be in a tizzy. If any person in a position of authority is not held accountable they will become as unsocialized as any pirate, as our current financial mess can attest.

4. Corporate Governance - There is no such thing as "Free Enterprise" where there are no rules but only Government enforced rules that till now have only been written by those wishing to protect only themselves. As a result it is not a surprise that CEO's who are supposedly only hirelings of the investors are walking off with what is often more income than the entire Corporation managed to net.

It is quite possible to change the rules to disallow default proxy voting, and what I am sure are other arcane rules that keep power in the hands of the CEO and out of the hands of any other stakeholders.

It is also possible to create a path for the emergence of the new Argentine style of Corporation that is owned and operated by all the people who work there in an American style Democracy that all levels of management are elected by those below. When there is a Government bailout of the investors instead of a deal with them to make a deal with the people who do the work and let them pay back the loan.

5. The Science Commons

a Chemicals - There was a time when most research was funded and run by the Government. Folks like the EPA went out and measured what was happening themselves, and HEW did basic research on chemicals to find beneficial and harmful chemicals like penicillin that drug companies competed to produce at the best quality and price.

The Antisocialists howled that the drug companies could do the work and report their results, and save taxpayers all that money. Now we can see how well all that worked out. The research is geared to what is most profitable and barely at all for common good. Testing asks only if a drug works at all, and not how it stacks up to other ways, and as the Vioxx case revealed even surpressed mass murder for the sake of profit.

There needs to be a return to Government research labs to build unbiased data in all fields. It can be easily paid for by charging a tax on all use of Government patents for private profit like the penicillin. Or taxing income from private patents funded by government research. Just collecting what is already owed would go a very long way to paying those bills.

b Biology- like the drugs genetic engineering all exists on the shoulders of research of hundreds of years, and like the Chemical and Drug Industries the Socialized dreams painted of abundant food and health have become unsocialized nightmares as power and profit rule ahead of social good.

Today one only has to patent a gene, even if it is detrimental overall, and have it spread to the entire ecosystem to be able to sue everyone in posession of the gene for patent infringement and control an entire food source. Such is the case with Soybeans, Corn, and many major crops. Instead it must be the patent holder that is responsible for the gene spread, and be the one liable if the gene causes a drop in productivity (as they usually do) of the folk who do not use the patented product. and that if the gene spreads beyond the control of the patent holder the patent cannot be enforced.

6. The Knowledge Commons - Our entire education system is a sixteenth century concept trying to do a twenty first century job, with all the sixteenth century prejudices built in. Our civilization can no longer afford an educated elite running an illiterate masses. We need every brain with the chops to manage the maximum contribution possible lest we all go the way of every previous civilization.

So what is needed is an Internet based National education program that anyone can obtain the knowledge and have a means of certifying that knowledge at the speed they are able without the overburden of regular college and grad school much less earlier grades where home schooling can supplement and advance regular public school rather than replacing earlier grades where socialization is an important part of early schooling.

To open or create the current college system for all people would be cost prohibitive, but a well planned and managed system that organized what the Internet already makes available, and added all the libraries and other forms of commons would leapfrog the entire civilization. Limiting the current copyright and fair use laws back to sanity would also be a necessary step.

7. A Creative Commons Award- built like the SBIR program a process by which inventions and other creative work could be called for and rewarded and put into the creative commons in full or partial amount.

As example an invention might be called for and a $50,000 reward offered and then a standard 1% fee given for every one made in five years, but available in a non exclusive basis to anyone who wished to go there

This would short circuit the labyrinthine patent process and spur creativity. It would also provide an inexpensive program to make it easier to manufacture without expensive litigation over rights.

Musical Chairs, Musical Houses, Musical Dollars

2008-03-26T09:56:00.004-04:00

When I was a kid, our kindergarten class played a hateful little game with the Orwellian name of "Musical Chairs". Who knew that the Gang Of Pirates were building recruits even then.

The chairs of course were not musical but ordinary, but the teacher would count to assure herself there were one less than the number of students, and tell the students they had to dance around the circle of chairs until the music stopped, and then everyone would have to take a seat.

It was an innocent enough group of kids, in another place or time there might have been a stabbing or an eye gouged out, but basically the teacher did not care how each child got the seat, only noticing who did not. Anyone who cooperatively shared a seat was told that they were both losers, and sent to sit in the corner and be ignored. Rather like that guy with a sign on the street corner today.

Oh how enlightening this was for the school yard bully , or pre-school Machiavelli, you could do any dirty trick, run any scam, just as long as the authorities (teacher) did not see it, and the only authority around did not look or wish to know or would not have had the game in the first place. After you had out conned, or out threatened all your other classmates, the authority would declare you the great winner, and someone who's leadership skills might make them president one day.

Well the Authorities have stopped the Music again, and all you folk who saw the hand on the needle have taken their dollars to where you can't get at them and many who only had their houses or retirement savings in sunshine promises, and funny money mortgages are out of luck, and those now Post-school Machiavellians are sitting in your house and on your money pointing and laughing and blaming you for the poor decision of letting them play in the first place.

The Good Tax

2008-02-14T16:38:00.003-05:00

Once upon a time in the land of Yor were a very peaceful and wealthy people who were mostly not very quarrelsome but for one controversy. The king had placed a tax on the sale of Cows. Anyone who sold a cow had to give the king 90% of the proceeds of the sale. As a result while there was a lot of demand for meat, as hardly anyone sold their cow, and many who were tired of caring and feeding their cow very much resented the tax on selling it.

Now anyone who had a cow could sell the milk, and many who did not actually own a cow usually got paid a percentage that milk, or occasionally they would get a calf. The tax on a calf was high but calves were cheap and abundant so the king's percentage was not a lot in total money, and when cows got old and stopped producing milk, there was nothing for it but to sell it to the butcher and pay the kings price, though the percentage was reduced for very old cattle.

In the end all the cattle ended up with the butcher, just not until they were very old, so meat had a price that allowed the butcher a living, but he felt that if he got all the proceeds, he could live like a king. Now the king had an evil twin that had been banished, and headed up a Gang Of Pirates beyond the Pale, but he made a deal with the butchers, that if they overthrew the old king the twin would eliminate the hated Cow Tax.

So the butchers, with the help of those folk who were tired of caring for their cattle, or resented the percentage of the milk taken by those who did, got together and overthrew the old king. The new king, being evil after all, turned to his Gang Of Pirates to buy the cattle as they had the gold, and the butchers could get their cattle at well under the market price and on credit to the pirates, that was paid off as the meat sold.

At first things looked very good, meat became very abundant and cheap, the butchers were making killings at a tremendous clip, and becoming almost as wealthy as the Pirates, though with the falling price of meat and the Pirates percentages not as well as expected. Those who sold the cattle felt suddenly wealthy and loaned the pirates their money on the promise it would make more than they made from the milk. Only those who had made their living actually caring for the cattle felt left out as the numbers of cattle to care for became far fewer, while their own numbers and needs did not.

As the number of cattle became less there were fewer calvs as well and their price went up dramatically. The Pirates offered an easily solution by loaning the money to buy the calves, and noted that the price would be very much higher if there was still a Cow Tax, but the loans would be very short so the cattle would have to be sold for meat at a very young age when the note came due, and of course the pirates had it written that they got the cow as payment.

Over a bit ot time the excess meat was consumed, and the price went to an all time high, as there were far less cattle about. Milk that was once plentiful and cheap also became much more expensive. Those who cared for the cattle had to do so for far less of a percentage of the milk as there were far more caretakers than cattle now. Between the fewer cattle and the percentages paid to the Pirates who were now the primary cattle owners, the butchers were also not much better if at all than before.

Those formerly caring for cattle began to steal and rob out of desperation, so the evil king blamed them for all the troubles, even as he hired some of their numbers as guards, that were mostly used to come down very harshly on anyone who commented on how much better things were under the old king, holding fake show trials calling these folk the leaders of the criminals.

Eventually the people rose up and threw out the evil king, but the now very wealthy Pirates had moved on to ply their trade to Hither and to Yon, the palace already looted, and the people were left hating the Cow Tax as the cause of their misery, and the land of Yor never again became a place anyone wanted to be like.

Outing Criminals is saving their Country,not attacking,

2008-02-10T15:34:00.000-05:00

Once again the "liberal" media runs like frightened children, when the Gang of Pirates accuse a film that outs the GOP crimes as being anti-American instead of confronting either them or the facts, or even attempting to discuss the real issues involved.

I find it amazing that when a Gang Of Pirates commit war crimes (to say nothing of the whole list of other crimes) that anyone would accuse the person noting the war crimes, of hating the folks who were the first victims of those Pirates. Talking about the monsters, is not an attack on the nation or populace they are controlling.

The GOP is not America, just as Saddam was never Iraq, or Hitler Germany. For the criminals (or their apologists) to wrap themselves in the Flag, like a bully who hides behind his mother’s skirts, as a means of deflecting justified outrage, is itself not only another outrage, but so cravenly cowardly as is beyond pathetic.

Americans do NOT torture, but some criminals, be they Mafia, rogue cops, or other sorts of monsters who happen to be Americans do. We cannot always bring such criminals to justice, but the vast majority of Americans wold want it to be so, if they knew about it and were able to do so. As long as such Americans are alive and the criminals also, it is not over.

For anyone to equate outing criminals with attacking America, they hoist themselves on their own petard as they are declaring themselves with the criminals and against anything actually American.

Watch out for other anti Bush types that seem "not right"

2007-11-18T23:34:00.000-05:00

As one who very early was involved in the Perot movement when there were equal numbers of folk from across the political spectrum, I got to know well many folk who I would never get to know otherwise and was lead into an "Alice through the looking glass" world of John Birchers, anti-tax, Illuminati conspiracy types and a cottage industry of books, schemes, and scams of a sort and level not seen on the left at all.

I met many who would have been Tim McVeigh, had the circumstances fallen their way, and the loose change folks are a natural there. There are two things that distinguish them in any crowd, both aspects of that looking glass.

One is the Right Wing Authoritarian Pathology with its special Illogic that is well described even if there is some dispute as to its qualities and origins. Even when, like loose change, they support ostensively leftist goals, they carry the RWA nature, that still gives real leftists the hives.

The other is the classic Strong Father view of government laid out so clearly by George Lakoff. Often taken in rebellion against the abusive father in the classic Libertarian fashion, they see themselves like the runaway child, in a brutal world where theft or prostitution are the only paths of survival and raw rage fuels the drive to power by any means, never with good results.

Unable to escape the Abusive Father frame, they see Liberals as the mirror side of their own horror, and cannot imagine the Nurturing Parent model that Lakoff gives as the model of actual Liberal Philosophy.

Rather than accept any point of view it is best to really look at what is said and not accept it just because you would like to agree with the speaker that folk you don't like are the enemy

Opposing the Gang Of Pirates

2007-10-19T06:16:00.000-04:00

As noted in the comments on my last post it has been a while since I have added to that last post. It has not been do to inactivity, but rather a quest to keep it relevant and important. If I filled the blog with the chaff about Senator Craig's stalling, or each additional needle of GOP corruption in what has become a planetary body of such needles, the better points I could make would be lost among the lesser ones. And besides, I usually make those comments at the site of the news;-)

But Tom Cat was wondering what happened and perhaps others are too, so what started out as a personal response became enough to make it relevant to anyone who might be wondering, and a good place to plea for help in the Good Fight. So this was the letter:

Hi Tom,
I am driven far more by the need to post information I have discovered etc, than the need to discover something to post, That tends to make my blog a bit more pithy but probably less regular than is ideal. I have added a couple of links to my "Basic reading/listening for literacy" list since I wrote about the Gapminder project, but no great revelations that would not be a rehash of previously covered info.

If you Google "Freedem", or occasionally "Freedemm" you will see quite a splash across the web with most of it me, with quite a bit of rehashing, particularly about the Gapminder project of late, in an effort to make actual reality most folks default reality. While I recognize that anyone can have a POV spin, or emphasis based on personal ego or agenda, I really do think that actual reality that is beyond such ego is the only sane basis for discussion, and the only glue that keeps a civilization from disaster.

On the ego, POV, agenda, front a Googling of "Gang Of Pirates" might produce nearly the same list as "freedem", though I would have hoped that would have become more general by now. Much that has been written has focused on Bush, even when it is not him personally at issue, and will be a major issue if he is there or not. By focusing on the GOP and even separating them as not exactly synonymous with Republicans, a whole group of good things happen.

The first is that there is an accurate and descriptive name of a group of folks and ideology that gets great power from not having a name, as only by naming them can they be opposed. By calling themselves Conservatives they cloak themselves in legitimacy they do not deserve, and as pointed out by Orwell, further destroy the language that can define opposition.

The second point is to steal the Initials. The grand ole party meme was based on the delegitimized Democrats as the party of Southern Bigotry and Treason. As all those folk are now Republicans, it is they who have lost legitimacy. If Gang Of Pirates is used enough (with the "Of" capitalized) and with GOP used after referring to the original "Gang Of Pirates" used earlier, then that can become the default thought for all those cases where only the Initials are used, do it enough and even Faux Noise will find that translation in their head every time they use it.

Thirdly it provides a common focus and target for the entire coalition, even though many members would claim to be different, and indeed in fine detail there are some competing agendas. An Atheist Libertarian may well seem to be opposed to a Dominionist Theocrat, and even claim to be a polar opposite, but when the votes are counted for destroying the Commons and disabling the government from helping actual people, while supporting Corporate Welfare, they are both on the same side of treason and kleptocracy, and thus GOP. (though the Gang has many more members beyond those two: Neocon, Plutocrat, Fascist, Skinhead, etc)

Fourth, it fully describes the common ideology and authoritarian mindset. As noted in Generation of Monsters the RWA pathology grants the father figure authority without accountability (often stemming from child abuse when that was the apparent fact) and the Pirate description, like the drunken child abuser description, removes the childhood feeling that their inadequacy was somehow responsible for the abuse, and places the blame and anger (and hopefully eventually justice) where it truly belongs.

On a parallel path I have been fighting to put Secular back where it belongs, and take it back from those who would destroy it meaning to further their agenda. As you can see noted in several posts around the web Secular is not Atheist, but rather having no connection to any idea of religion.

Rather Secular Government is like a Chess game, everyone gets the same set of pieces with the same rules. Religion may inform your decisions. You might even sacrifice a chicken to victory, if you believe it will help, just not in a time or location to disrupt those without your beliefs. And just because you are arrogant enough to believe you have found absolute truth, and even if they are called Bishops, you cannot give them any extra powers like teleportation, or invincibility, you have to play by the same rules as everyone else. That is sandbox 101.

The SiCKO truth

2007-07-06T08:15:00.000-04:00

Click on image for full scale

The hype is on to counteract Michael Moore's devastating new movie. However,in my surfing about I ran across a new Google gadget that graphs UN data sets. It doesn't have every sort of data you can imagine, but it does have an amazing amount of data, and while one would always want more flexibility, it does have a lot of flexibility.

In this graph I was able to arrange measured Life expectancy, and number of doctors on the x and y axis as a measure of the quality and cost of care and the income per capita for the size of the bubble. I also was able to show the trend as to getting better or worse. (you can click on the image to see full size)

The US is standing still and things are not looking good in Estonia, Jamaica, and Uzbekistan. China and Brazil may be reporting issues to show such great change at that moment but all the excommunist countries seem to be showing a drop in the number of doctors as health care becomes less available.

It is worthy of note that almost all the countries to the right and above the US have Government run health care. A few like the UK, Canada, and Japan, have a bit fewer doctors per person, but all those orange dots above and to the right are pretty much the rest of Western Europe, and all doing better than the US in both health and doctors and continuing to improve.

Thanks to the Gang Of Pirates much recent US data is missing, one supposes that it is not good news. If you do not believe you can pick on the title and go play with the data yourself.

On edit, Playing with the program more I was able to create this graph that is even more telling

As you can see I put child mortality and life expectancy in and managed to label almost every dot to a country. In this graph Cuba ends up very close to the US but the number of doctors per person is so high it was off the chart in the one above. The US (and others) has not published the most recent data but I would not be surprised if Cuba is actually ahead now.

Everyone who can, should print a copy and frame it and put it on the wall of their Congressman and Senator. Emailing a copy to your local pundit wouldn't hurt either.
Update 2
A bit more study of the history shows how the us was ahead of much more of the world in the past, and that Government health care provides benefit even in those cases where it started from a much lower point.
I highlighted China so it would be easy to distinguish from Portugal where progress has been double that in the US, starting way behind and passing us by. Of interest also is what happened in China in 1987 and Costa Rica in 1990 when steady progress suddenly went bad. It would be interesting to look up the history of those times. Russia's experiences with privatization are well known but document well here.

A Cult of Freedom

2007-06-04T17:55:00.000-04:00

I am constantly struck by how Christian most Western Atheism is. To quote myself "It is not that Atheists have no god that I have a problem with, many religions have no god, but that they have no religion".

Most religions grew up with "belief" in what was "common knowledge" in their time and culture. The God, or gods resided in the most impressive local landmark, and "religion" was seamless with the rest of existence.

As non western societies grew, their religions grew in place, and great thought was spent in the nature of society and the best way to operate within it.

As Rome was a hodgepodge of such groups, and there was a political class that wished to use Religion as a method of creating power for themselves, religion became something separate from location and culture, and took on the need for enforced "belief" in what could be observationally disproved, or illogical, as well as much that seemed unlikely, and self promoting by those in charge.

Some like "Secular Humanists" have attempted to accomplish an Atheistic Religion, but managed the worst of all cases. The most grievous crime perhaps, of attaching the word "Secular" to a religion, and thus giving Fundies cause to demand equal time with such Secular pursuits as Chess, or Cricket. But also in its antitheist dogmatism, becomes a jihad against other religions and invites the same, but still glosses over those ethics concepts that the Fundies have dodged to keep from accusing themselves.

Confucian thinking is intensely Chinese, and based on an anti Democratic, anti freedom, Imperial mode. It does however offer a glimpse of what a religion can be, that demands no fantasy but an ideal that all humans can aspire to, and methods to make life better for all.

Unfortunately like a Cult that combines celebrating free thought and many opinions, with individual freedom, it is a great challenge to accomplish.

"Fair" tax is very UnFair

2007-05-05T18:53:00.000-04:00

Recently there has been a rash of "Fair" tax proposals (as if the label "Fair" would make them so), mostly around the idea of an across the board flat tax on sales, and the elimination of the Income tax, and the abandonment of Corporate taxes. This is a position favored by many on the Right, but also Senator Mike Gravel who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

How far we have come when it was proposed that a Corporate taxes could be raised to the point that income and sales taxes could be eliminated! If the resulting wealth caused demand to rise to pay for the extra tax so be it, if not then the Paris Hiltons of the world could afford the difference.

In any case the point needs to be made-ALL Sales taxes are regressive! You can game the system to make them a bit less so by eliminating them on Food, Rent and perhaps a few other things, but a Poor person paying 5% tax on a $100 car is paying exactly the same PERCENT tax as a rich person paying 5% tax on a $100,000 car. What they are not paying is the same PERCENT of their total income, as the $100,000 car is likely to be a very much smaller percent of income than the $100 car, and there will have to be many more $100 cars as they will not last well or hold value as the very expensive case.

Encourage the Poor or even Middle Class to save? They cannot, rising prices and stagnant wages leaves most struggling on the edge of disaster, while debt of all sorts chews away at the bit of edge they have. Any preference to save or invest will go vastly to those who already have no financial problems.

Collecting a sales tax also involves hugely more paperwork, and/or will be hugely more scammed, as it already is where there is a state sales tax, and mostly by the rich who can get winks as the do so.

How to do you do a fair tax? it is very easy! Everybody gets zero tax on the first $10,000, no matter your total, add 1% on each of the next $10,000 so 20k pays $100 ( 0 + 100), 30k pays $300 (0 + 100 + 200), 100k pays $4,500 ( 0 + 100 + 200 ...+900) still a total rate of only 4.5%. Only those people with incomes larger than most countries would pay huge taxes as the taxes on the smaller amounts would be taxed exactly the same for everyone who made it to that place.

Corporations might have slightly different numbers but would also be similarly taxed according to the size of the total corporation, that way the smaller corporation would have a competitive advantage in taxes to offset the disadvantage of the power that scale confers. (if you think that scale is efficiency and not power, think of efficiency of scale as a ten acre hamburger stand, and power of scale as McDonalds)

There is no magic market, Money provides power and power provides money, it is a one way ticket to a feudal system. Only by Government intervention to act as friction where needed at the top and oil where needed at the bottom can a balance of real civilization be found. Money at the top is power and needs only to be restrained, it will still prosper in spite of restraint. At the bottom is pent up energy that can explode in creativity if only it is enabled, it is the only place that really good ideas come from, they will never come from the self satisfied.

The Generation of Monsters

2007-04-16T16:44:00.000-04:00

I have suspected for sometime that Dr Bob's RWA's were more than a statistical anomaly, and perhaps also a pathology not a lot different from depression or schizophrenia, containing a wide range of severity and a somewhat nebulous array of symptoms that, taken together, still have clinical meaning.

Missing from this Idea was specific causes and what mechanics might be involved. I suspected trauma as a place to start, as I had seen Religious cults, and groups that behave as cults zero in on PTSD like sharks smelling blood. What I had missed was the possibility that the biggest pool of recruits was abused, and neglected children. Not just those from obviously dysfunctional families, where the parents have issues with drugs or mental disorders of their own, but also and most commonly from families without such excuses, that deliberately abuse and neglect their children (though they would not call it that) for reasons of religion or ideology, often passing on pathology they themselves were poisoned by.

Alice Miller puts a fine point on the problem

.... However brutally these people were brought up, they showed no immediate signs of the harm done to them. On the contrary. Many of them grew up into seemingly well--adjusted young people. But sooner or later, usually one generation later, when the tormented children had themselves become parents, the former victims did the same with their children as had been done to them, with no feelings of guilt. It was the only thing they knew, after they had repressed and denied their own pain.

Studying child abuse confronts us with the astonishing fact that parents will inflict the same punishment or neglect on their children as they experienced themselves in their early lives. But as adults they have no recollection of what they went through. In the case of sexual assault on children, it is quite usual for the perpetrators to have no conscious knowledge of their own early life--history or at the least to be cut off from the attendant feelings aroused by those experiences. It is not until they are in therapy‹always supposing they are given any‹that it transpires that they have been reenacting what they went through as children.

The sole explanation I can advance for this fact is that information on the cruelty suffered in childhood remains stored in the brain in the form of unconscious memories. For a child, conscious experience of such treatment is impossible. If children are not to break down completely under the pain and the fear, they must repress that knowledge. But the unconscious memories drive them to reproduce those repressed scenes over and over again in the attempt (and with the false hope) to liberate themselves of the fears that cruelty and abuse have left with them. The victims create situations in which they can assume the active role in order to master the feeling of helplessness and escape the unconscious anxieties.
...snip...
Why were there people brave enough to risk their lives to save Jews from Nazi Persecution? Much scientific inquiry has been expended on this question.
....snip...
Almost all rescuers interviewed reported that their parents had attempted to discipline them with arguments rather than punishment. They were only rarely subjected to corporal punishment, and if they were it was invariably in connection with some misdemeanor and never because their parents had felt the need to discharge some uncontrollable and inexplicable feeling of rage on them. One man recalled that he had once been spanked for taking smaller children out onto a frozen lake and endangering their lives. Another reported that his father had only ever hit him once and apologized afterwards. Many of the statements might be paraphrased thus: "My mother always tried to explain what was wrong about whatever it was I had done. My father also spent a lot of time talking to me. I was impressed by what he had to say."

What a different picture we get from the reports of the persecutors and hangers--on: "When my father was drunk he took the whip to me. I never knew what I was being beaten for. Often it was for something I had done months before. And when mother was in a temper she tore into anyone who got in her way, including me." ....

So child abuse and neglect produces high RWA's and child protection produces low RWA's, and not surprisingly they translate their ideas born of abuse (or lack of it)into their political philosophy and even religious doctrine.

George Lakoff deals more specifically with these differences and finds it the basis for progressive vs conservative framing.

On the whole, they are defining the conservative position for the current debate about childrearing, as well as for legislation incorporating their approach. Since the ideas in conservative Christian childrearing manuals are fully consistent with the Strict Father model of the family that lies behind conservative politics, it is not at all strange that such fundamentalist groups should be setting the national conservative agenda on family values.

I should say at the outset that virtually all of the mainstream experts on childrearing see the Strict Father model as being destructive to children. A nurturant approach is preferred. And most of the child development literature within the field of developmental psychology points in one direction: childrearing according to the Strict Father model harms children: a Nurturant Parent model is far superior.

In short, conservative family values, which are the basis for conservative morality and political thought, are not supported by either research in child development or the mainstream childrearing experts in the country. That is another reason why the conservative family agenda has been left to fundamentalist Christians.
...snip...
To see more clearly what is at stake in knowing about research on such matters, let us look closely at what some conservative Christian childrearing manuals have to say about how children should be raised. These manuals are clear on many points:

1. Children are inherently sinful and defiant.
2. Only punishment and reward will train children away from defiance and pursuing their sinful desires.
3. The only way a child can be raised properly is for a father to demand absolute obedience to his authority. Any questioning of authority requires swift and painful punishment.
4. Obedience can be taught only through painful corporal punishment-by whipping with belts or beating with switches or paddles.
5. Continued disobedience requires greater beating.
6. Punishment for disobedience is a form of love.
7. Parental authority is a proper model for all authority, and children must learn to obey authority so that they can wield it properly in later life.

Reading the whole link is worthwhile as he details many major Right wing leaders as calling severe damage as good and wholesome support as causing "dangerous dependence"

Many other sources have noted the power wielded even beyond the political boundaries of the far right in recommending these destructive child rearing ideas. Notably this articlewith millions of emails, thousands of newspapers carrying his daily column calling for actions that researchers have shown causes trauma and even brain damage Dobson is paving the way for a new generation of Monsters who will feel nothing as they destroy civilization and murder millions without a thought of concern.

Paul Krugman is late to the party but welcome

2007-04-15T21:13:00.000-04:00

While a theocracy has long been a dream of the most extreme religious kooks, actually putting a long term plan into action has been gathering force since the 1970's. Like any real conspiracy, it has inner strife, braggarts, turncoats etc, and while subverting traditional conservative groups is being itself subverted by Moonies, but has still succeeded alarmingly, and is and is much more of a threat than Krugman lets on (or knows?).

Sara Posner has an excellent article on another of the real farm teams that provide the reserves for the Gang Of Pirates to draw from as well as doing great damage in their own right, as does another by her here

Others have spent the effort to see not just how these people are pursuing power, but what they would like to do with it. John Sugg has written in Mother Jones

Gary North, a top Reconstruction theorist, wrote in his 1989 book, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism. “Those who refuse to submit publicly…must be denied citizenship.”
..snip...
The Old Testament—with its 600 or so Mosaic laws—is the inflexible guide for the society DeMar and other Reconstructionists envision. Government posts would be reserved for the righteous, as long as they are male. There would be thousands of executions a year, with stoning a preferred method because it would turn the deaths into “community projects,” as movement theologian North has noted. Sinners in line for the death penalty would include women who commit adultery or lie about their virginity, blasphemers, witches, children who strike their parents, and gay men (lesbians, however, would be spared because no specific reference to them can be found in the Books of Moses). DeMar told me that among Reconstructionists he is considered something of a liberal, because he’d execute gays only if they were caught indulging in sodomy. “I’m happy to just drive them back into the closet,” he said.
...snip...
Besides facilitating evangelism, Reconstructionists believe, government should largely be limited to building and maintaining roads, enforcing land-use contracts, and ensuring just weights and measures. Unions would not exist, and neither would unemployment benefits, Social Security, and environmental protection laws. Public schools would disappear; one of the movement’s great successes has been promoting homeschooling programs and publishing texts used by tens of thousands of homeschooling families.
...snip...
The old left—the Communist Party and its many splinters—used organizing tactics called popular fronts, in which people were recruited through specific causes into a movement tacitly guided by the Party. Reconstruction has married those Leninist tactics to the causes of the right—abortion, evolution, gay marriage, school prayer. Gary North wrote in 1982, in an effort to reach Baptists,“We must use the doctrine of religious liberty…until we train up a generation of people who know that there is no religious neutrality, no neutral law, no neutral education, and no neutral civil government. Then they will get busy constructing a Bible-based social, political, and religious order which finally denies the religious liberty of the enemies of God.” Nowhere at the Restore America rally did anyone hoist a banner for Reconstruction; those attending came to develop a united front supporting such things as displaying the Ten Commandments in public buildings. But they were also introduced—and recruited—to the broader program.
...snip...
“All governments are theocracies,” he (ex-judge Roy Moore) said. “We now live in a secular humanist theocracy. I want to change that to a government with God at its head.”

(as if things like roads, or hospitals, even sports, are atheist inspired if not specifically Christian)

Katherine Yurica also weighs in with a detailed report that includes this list:

God’s People Are to be Regents Over the Earth: “Almighty God wants us to recapture the dominion man held in the beginning… Remember, at the time of creation man exercised authority, under God’s sovereignty, over everything. He was God’s surrogate, His steward or regent.
Dominion over Others Originates in the Bible: “The genesis account uses two colorful words to describe this. One… we translate ‘dominion. The word means to ‘rule over’ or ‘tread down,’ as with grapes…
Man Was Told to Subdue or ‘Trample the Earth’: “The other word…is translated ‘subdue.’ Man was told to subdue the earth. The root means ‘to trample under foot,’ as one would do when washing dirty clothes. Therefore… we have in part the concept of separating good from evil by force.
God Gave Man the Power to Govern and the Right to Subdue: “With the first word …God gives man the authority to govern all that is willing to be governed. With the second…He grants man authority over the untamed and the rebellious. In both instances, God gave man a sweeping and total mandate of dominion over this planet and everything in it.
God Intended the World to be Governed and Subdued by the Godly: “….God’s intention was that His world be governed and subdued by those who themselves were governed by God.
God Demands His People to Invest Their Capital: “Despite our preconceived attitudes toward social justice, God’s Law of Use controls the ultimate distribution of wealth. We must be willing to take the world as He made it and live in it to the fullest…

Very Scary folk

Foresight

2007-03-27T12:02:00.000-04:00

Discovered on the web

"You would make a ship sail against the winds and currents by lighting a bon-fire under her deck...
I have no time for such nonsense."
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821)

That is why the fewer Deciders there are in any system, the more backwards it becomes, compared to what it could be. It doesn't matter what the system is, Communist, Corportist, Feudal, or Theocratic, no leadership can take the time to understand a new concept, and even though it might save their bacon, will pay attention only to what they have predetermined to be important.

Another similar take on my basic concepts

2006-12-13T00:39:00.000-05:00

In wandering about the Net looking for something else I ran into Robert W. Fuller, Patient Revolution: Human Rights Past and Future which is an hour long video about his self named "Dignitarian" ideology. His elite background shows, and seems to me to be a major difference I have with him. But by talking from the position of the management, and his academic credentials he does provide a place and perspective that can allow managers to create a more humane and profitable system.

Of particular interest to me is the way he, as I have, actively differentiates what he is talking about from the Communist/Socialist unnecessary monopolies that are not different from the same thing that is "privately" held. He talks about managers treating others with dignity because it is ultimately in the manager's self interest, while my focus is to have a method to make sure that he does so, because few people can see their real self interest. He does make a point that social embarrassment is a mechanism of accountability, but history has often shown it weak and assuming the person can be embarrassed.

In memory of Jeanne Kirkpatrick

2006-12-10T21:33:00.000-05:00

The one speech that I remember By Ms Kirkpatrick while she was still a Democrat, was a spirited defense of why our thugs were better than their thugs (she used that term.)

Her contention was that while thugs the world over murdered and tortured their people, all of America’s pet thugs (like Saddam) were basically simple kleptocrats, who just wanted to rape the financial well being of these countries, and as long as you didn’t get between them and power or money, you were pretty much ignored.

She claimed that the only alternative was the “other guy’s” thugs who did the same thing but also insisted in controlling people’s social actions and opinions, thus imposing them selves on peoples daily lives, beyond keeping them in abject poverty. This was why Totalitarians were worse than garden variety authoritarian dictators.

Now it is a standard thing to accuse your enemy of tactics you plan on using, but I wish I had a text of the speech because almost immediately she did just that, it was hypocrisy even then, but has only gotten worse.

I have thanked her for pointing out the difference early, and I have used her talking points ever since. I only wish John Dean would read them.

It is indeed bad enough that the Gang Of Predators have gone on a kleptomaniacal spree, it is worse that they have gutted the Constitution and the Magna Carta, but it is worse yet that they are going completely Totalitarian that opinions and thought crimes are threatened, and in some cases carried out.

Ms Kirkpatrick did indeed call an early warning of what we should really fear, and the spent the rest of her life in support of that very evil.

Focusing On The Reality

2006-11-23T23:22:00.000-05:00

It would appear that regardless of any other principals laid out in any part of the law, if there is a democracy, the majority of voters would wish that the majority would prosper. As most of the arguments was not if they would prosper, but how, such would be the wish of nearly all the voters.

It would seem a reasonable guess that few would deliberately decide that they should do worse. Those who have achieved a level of prosperity, and were greedy enough to want to benefit from the impoverishment of the majority however might well work to reduce what the majority had to say about it, and work to convince them of concepts that would cause them to work against their own interests.

Whatever smoke and mirrors, the results are the ultimate judge of reality. That reality is that the power and prosperity of the majority of Americans has been in decline since the '50's with a gain at the top equal in total but divided among very few. Sometimes the pace is slower sometimes faster, but breakneck in the past 6 years. But the result can be seen here.

Thom Hartmann lays it out in great detail in his book and fairly well in his discussion here. As I point out in the basic concepts in the upper corner of this blog, that all group actions need to be seen as the reality it is and how benefits are assigned and how the folk in control are held accountable. It is this accountability that government needs to be the final force, with the elected democracy the final accountability on government.

This is a very different proposal than that the government actually be the unaccountable monopoly, but that there be no unaccountable monopoly of any type. All the Orwellian twisting of this point is no more than fraud and fakery.

A quick thought

2006-11-20T11:49:00.000-05:00

Until we reframe how we think about group actions, the Sharpies will continue to rake in the gold and give everyone else with the shaft.

All group actions, Government, global trade, any corporation, etc., have the stakeholders who are affected and shakers who have the operational control of the enterprise. If the stakeholders cannot hold the shakers accountable, they will give themselves more of the benefits and the rest of the stakeholders more of the costs. If they can the shakers will weasel out of what accountability there is. As indeed they have done, till there is hardly any left.

The new Congress has its work cut out for them, I can only hope they will be able to focus on that prize.

The Origins of Tyranny

2006-11-01T09:00:00.000-05:00

This is an important documentary shown on BBC in 2004. Needless to say I cannot imagine that any American Media would ever run it.

I would pick on a few points to disagree with, mainly that Liberal thought failed because crime went up. Their own detailing of the Straussian method, would indicate that much of that "failure" was due more to programs being cut off at the knees, and of rules inserted in them to create something to attack. This is exactly what is happening to a school system that has worked well for over 200 years, but is now, suddenly, failing.

They also fail to connect the thought of the Religious Right (Dominionists) as having more than similar interests to the Straussians, when they have such a similar thought process as both Strauss and the Islamists. As well as how the Straussian created fantasy has infected all aspects of Republican politics.

Their point, particularly in the first of the three movies, is that the founding thought of both Islamist, and Straussian,(and Dominionist)is that freedom is corrupting and ultimately lead to Nihilism and Hedonistic animal debasement (obviously understanding animals as badly as humans).

Their very detailed point that should be made stronger is that ALL these groups, Islamist, Neocon,(and Dominionist) truly Hate Freedom and Democracy, and are the real enemy of Humanity and Civilization. They also make well the point that Islamists as a group and AlQueda in particular, are mostly an annoyance at best, and would be rejected even in their strongholds without being pumped up by the Neocons, who need them as much as Bin Laden needs the Neocons.

Just .......WOW

2006-09-12T02:04:00.000-04:00

Here indeed is what Ed Murrow would sound like if he were alive today.

Here is what a real honest press would sound like.

It is a pity that only those who have cable or the internet will see such things.

No wonder that there is such a reality divide in this country.

Where did all the money go

2006-09-09T13:46:00.000-04:00

Starting with the Kennedy tax cuts money was bled from American business into the CEO class. That is not the investors, who were increasingly as screwed as the workers (as many were the workers, Pension plans etc. ). Small businesses have always struggled, but high taxes forced them to reinvest or pay the taxes. Most reinvested.

The high taxes were not high as long as the money removed was small so the differences in salary from top to bottom was as low as seven fold with the big boss making $35,000 and the janitor making $5,000, and most of the value went into increased production, better quality etc. I recall reading there was a new record breaking wage (after the Kennedy tax cut) of $800k and the race was on.

Since most giant businesses were managed by a tight ole boy network at the top salary was a matter of power, and CEO salaries leap ever skyward, with top management close behind. The stockholders were either in Mutual funds with infinitely diluted control, or if they were investing individually, had neither the clout or the ability to investigate adequately, and in nearly every business the rules were crafted to lessen the power of investors.

As smaller businesses tried to keep up there was a perception that their own leadership was slipping into second class status, and having the power to do so they also began to siphon off needed investment moneys. Never put in such stark terms (mostly), still there was an orgy of "consolidation" where good businesses were mined for their assets (worker pension funds among them) and the husk tossed away.

Many Billionaires were thus created, but it was the wealth of the thief not the hard worker. Many folk owned bonds with AAA rating one day and junk status the next, and as most of those moneys were hidden, so were the losses. Everywhere where folk did not have power, on the job, in a pension, or mutual fund, even many small businesses, they were robbed.

Even in the Government, when Reagan took office, the government was the largest landlord, mostly in public housing with trillions in assets. In one of the most under reported stories of the time, the man in charge had had a fire sale to all his friends at pennies on the dollar, in theft unmatched till the current administration. Then even that was defaulted (with much more theft) as these same friends cratered most American Banks.

With all that theft, how did Americans manage? Savings were eliminated, most American middle class had a lot of savings, today they don't. Real wages were cut in half, where there had been only the father working, now both father and mother had to work to keep the same lifestyle. Benefits like pensions and health care were "HMO'd" "down sized" or eliminated altogether (vacation times and rules included).

Many former or "would have been" workers spent their life savings to "buy themselves a job" and became "small businessmen" but that did not solve the problem and in many cases made it worse, providing intermittent services that used to be full time jobs, and competing on price, did the job ever cheaper, and even if they employed others and made money from them it only spread the pain.
Europe and Japan did not, at first, get this disease. Low top salaries and heavy reinvestment cratered American market share, and high taxes meant that wealth was shared as shorter work hours and longer vacations. I met with a German executive about some shared technical issues that we needed to work out, and he was aghast at what Americans put up with. The very idea that an 8 hour day did not include the lunch hour and a couple of breaks was the ultimate in management chiseling.

If today Europe is sickening from slow business it is not just that workers are well treated (and ever less so) but that in the global economy the kleptocrats at the top are ever less satisfied with salaries first at seven times average, then the next I heard 27 times, now hundreds of times the salaries of the folk on the shop floor. The investors aren't getting the money, stock prices and dividends have risen slowly if at all.

It is kleptocracy that is ruining the world.

Swiftboating nearly everybody

2006-08-18T10:29:00.000-04:00

I first noticed the dangerous strain when they "swiftboated" Frank Church. A reletively conservative Democrat who thought that mayhem and murder done in America's name and kept secret only from Americans was a bad thing. (those on the pointy end had the info first hand)

When I was in high school, the partisan conservative (Paleo) admin. had a complete class on propaganda, and subversive techniques, so we could recognize Communist influences. I wish I had better notes, as Techniques like Subversion, & Terrorism can be used in any ideology.

I watched in slow horror as these folk subverted groups from Baptists to Republicans, using the very methods I was taught, and made them all something they never were.

Another technique was to change the definitions of the arguments, that all who oppose you have this wild, straw dog agenda, making liberal a bad word, but also assigning the most extreme case of it in proportion to the awareness of the subversion rather than to any policy beliefs, marginalizing and suppressing embarrassing reality debate in one move.

Pre-accusing others of what you are doing, is another tool, like the pained winger cries of excess partisanship, even though arriving at the opposition 30 years late.

Well the Fascist straw left, like genuine Satanists, is at best only a few odd deluded folk, and if one feels the least extreme among extremists, it is only that these others have been "swiftboated" about their thinking as well.

Actual policy attitudes would be the same progressive libertarian range they always were, if we can ever get back to those happy days of being the major issues.

For now, as we fight for air, self actualization will have to wait.

Hat tip kuffsworld

Libertarian Dream, Human Nightmare

2006-07-16T08:36:00.000-04:00

Well they have gone and done it, or rather started to do it and will finish it if not somehow stopped. If there were only one "liberal" thing that a Government aught to be doing, against which the least argument could be made, it would be the building and maintenance of streets roads and highways.

Without which you would not be able to step away from your house without being in a foreign country that could decide everything from taxes to whatever rights (if any) you might have, or even if you could be outside your house at all, or perhaps only on Tuesdays. And then there is the bit of road beyond that.....

And you would have NO say in the matter.

In short if a private person owned the roads YOU needed to travel, they would have more to say about your daily life than any other official government.

But our new world Republicans are busy doing just that! That bridge that was built usually with all or part your taxpayers dollars? Sold to the highest bidder. Not the highest bid in the price of the bridge paid to the formerly legitimate government.... but the highest creative bribe to the folk who vote on the sale. (can I point to the exposure of any particular secret bank account?, no, but like wildly divergent counts between an official election count and exit polls, or number of voters, the fact of a criminal outcome is evidence enough that a crime is committed)

Many of the first sales are apparently already toll roads, and in some cases there are "Commissions" that operate them in the states name, often enriching themselves with legalized (or not) embezzlement by any of the tried and true methods. But at extremus, every citizen has the right and capability to find the facts, and expose and punish such persons.

"Sold" to a private person or Corporation there is no such accountability, if 90 cents out of every dollar of your multidollar toll, goes directly into the CEO's pocket, you have no way of finding out, and no way to hold him accountable if you did. It is all secret and private. And without accountability, you can bet that your pocket needs will not be considered.

Of particular interest is..

Some experts welcome the trend. Robert Poole, transportation director for the conservative think tank Reason Foundation, said private investors can raise more money than politicians to build new roads because these kind of owners are willing to raise tolls.

"They depoliticize the tolling decision," Poole said. Besides, he said, foreign companies have purchased infrastructure in Europe for years; only now are U.S. companies beginning to get into the business of buying roads and bridges.

These are the guys that wail and cry over official government "Taxes", but jump with joy when they are "Profits". When it comes to that sucking sound from your pocket the only thing you might notice is the increase.

Oh, and that nice sounding "depoliticise" that is the sound of YOUR RIGHTS to hold them accountable going up in smoke and mirrors. Before they are finished all you will own is the Debt.

Crunch Time Coming Soon

2006-06-17T13:01:00.000-04:00

I haven't published much recently. It has been like watching a car crash that has taken agonizing years, instead of seconds. Bush's first words after the Nov 2000 elections chilled me to the bone, as all that has happened since was painted in the body language, and unstated threat that he was the new king and would never be held accountable for any action.

The Internet was young then, and only those who had gone there to see what was really happening about the impeachment debacle had a clue to how badly we were screwed. Even two years later many senior Democratic leaders did not have a clue about information that was commonplace on the 'Net.

Even now most people don't seem to be able to get their minds around how drastically their world has changed, taking many freedoms for granted because they haven't tested them, or themselves been at the pointy end of the loss. Instead each outrage is not enough in itself to galvanize and organize the opposition, except in a few rare and mostly insufficient cases.

Most Americans are somewhat aware that their lives are not as open as they were, but still have hope that it can be fixed without themselves standing out too far from the crowd and turning a bad situation instantly, personally, horrid. This is the mindset that allowed so many Jews to find themselves in the gas chambers.

Robert Kennedy is one opposition figure that has at least brought open facts in some detail into a focus that is just such a terrifying fact that we are a long way down a road most wish to think that we haven't gotten to yet. In response many "Uncle Tom" Democrats are still trying to treat hemorrhaging Democracy as "barely a flesh wound", fearful that confronting the bullies will only get us all beat up more.

Mark Crispin Miller has deeply researched the problem and stood to defend Kennedy from liberal "Uncle Toms" (specifically Salon and Farhad Manjoo) and in doing so better defines more reality in fewer words than I have seen recently.

Specifically

We also hear that Democrats have been reluctant to speak out about election fraud because they fear that doing so might cut down voter turnout on Election Day. By such logic, we should henceforth utter not a peep about election fraud, so that the Democratic turnout will break records. Then, when the Republicans win yet again, because they've rigged the system, how will all those Democratic voters feel? Maybe those who haven't killed themselves, or fled the country, will recover just enough to vote again. Would it then be prudent for the Democrats to talk about election fraud? Or would it still seem sensible to keep the subject under wraps?

The argument is idiotic, yet the people who have seriously made it -- Bernie Sanders, Markos Moulitsas, Hillary Clinton's and Chuck Schumer's people, among others -- are extremely bright. The argument, as foolish as it is, does not bespeak a low I.Q., but, I would suggest, a subtler kind of incapacity: a refusal and/or inability to face a deeply terrifying truth. The Democrats refuse to talk about election fraud because they cannot, will not, wrap their minds around the implications of what happened in 2004, and what is happening right now, and what will keep on happening until we, as a people, face the issue. In short, whatever clever-sounding rationales they may invoke (no doubt in all sincerity), the Democrats won't talk about election fraud because they're in denial, which is itself based on a lethal combination of inertia, self-interest and, above all -- or below all -- fear.

Such fear is understandable. For the problem here is not simply mechanical or technological, legal or bureaucratic, requiring that we merely tweak the rules and/or build a better mousetrap. Any such expedient will naturally depend on a consensus of "both sides" -- and there's the rub, because in this great clash the "other side" detests American democracy itself. The movement now in power is not conservative but radical, intent on an apocalyptic program that is fundamentally opposed to the ideals of the Enlightenment, on which, lest we forget, this revolutionary secular republic was first founded. The movement frankly disbelieves in reason, and in all the other worldly goods that every rational American still takes for granted: pluralism, checks and balances, "the general welfare," freedom, progress, the pursuit of happiness. For this movement, condom use is worse than death by AIDS, however many millions the disease may kill; the ruination of the planet should be hastened, not prevented, as it means that He will be returning soon; the "war on terror" is a matter not of geopolitics but metaphysics, as our national enemy is "a guy named Satan"; homosexuals should not be citizens, the US having been conceived as a "Christian republic"; and -- most relevant to this debate -- the movement's adversaries, which means all the rest of us, are not human beings with divergent interests but literal "agents of Hell," demonic entities against which any tactic, however criminal or sinful, is permissible, because they are likely to use any tactic, regardless of its sinfulness or criminality, to force their evil program on the Righteous Ones.

Of course, that theocratic bloc does not comprise the whole Bush/Cheney movement, which, at the top, is heavily dominated too by frank neo-imperialists, corporate profiteers, careerist sociopaths and livid paranoids compelled by the intense self-hatred typical of such perennial types as Richard Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover. Revolution tends to work by unifying the energies, or bile, of only roughly complementary interests. This revolution certainly is no pure upsurge of religious fervor, for its plutocratic animus is just as powerful, apparently, as its crusade to "Christianize" the world. However, while it would be very foolish to ignore the movement's secular agenda (i.e., the avarice and power lust of Cheney/Rumsfeld and their corporate cronies), it is just as foolish to imagine that the movement's theocratic program is mere smoke, calculated just to daze the pious masses so that Congress and Wall Street can rob them blind.

This theocratic program is no secret, as the conquest of the GOP has been the top priority of US Christianist extremists since the early Nineties. It was their aim to put George W. Bush in office, and then to keep him there, despite the will of the electorate; and having done so, they have rapidly transformed our government into an instrument of their crusade. "George W. Bush is our agenda!" as the Rev. Lou Sheldon, head of the Traditional Values Coalition, boasted candidly to Salon's Michelle Goldberg a few years ago. He had every right to crow. The executive departments and top federal agencies are now in theocratic hands, and this government pursues no policy, foreign or domestic, that has not been devised or vetted by the party's theocratic apparat. The government now generously subsidizes many theocratic groups that proselytize explicitly, pushing both their own creed and the interests of the Bush Republicans. And now that Congress too is full of theocratic militants (who seem to have no strong opponents), the Supreme Court is just one seat away from an entrenched majority as frankly hostile to the church/state separation as it is to voting rights for all Americans.

The power and fury of the US theocratic movement have been amply documented by a range of keen observers, including Esther Kaplan, Paul Craig Roberts, Kevin Phillips, Stephenie Hendricks, Max Blumenthal, Frederick Carlson, Katherine Yurica, Michael Lerner and Salon's Michelle Goldberg, among others, as well as in my own books Cruel and Unusual and Fooled Again. The threat has also sounded strong alarms on solid Christian grounds, in writings by Jim Wallis, John Danforth, Jimmy Carter, Davidson Loehr, Rich Lang and Bruce Prescott. (Of course, the theocratic program is explicit also in the oratory and writings of the theocrats themselves.) It now remains for us to face the crucial fact that this regime's miraculous "re-election" in 2004 depended heavily on the countless block-the-vote activities of theocratic true believers, who did whatever they could do, from coast to coast, to cut the Kerry vote and pad the Bush vote. That effort was essential to the regime's inexplicable political success. Of all the interests collaborating in Bush/Cheney's drive against democracy, the theocrats alone have a grass-roots constituency -- not large enough, by any means, to sway elections honestly, but large enough, and fierce enough, and with sufficient funds and discipline, to help Bush/Cheney disenfranchise the majority. Although the corporations and the neo-cons wield awesome clout, they have no grass-roots muscle. The theocrats alone can claim that necessary asset, and it has given them enormous power.

The Republicans are indeed at a tipping point. If an honest government were to achieve power, sufficient to expose even what is common 'net knowledge, much less what is as yet still secret from everyone, a genuine house cleaning would land them all poor and in jail at best. They will not allow that to happen without violence.

If the propaganda cannot convince most people that what is sure to be surprising Republican victories are legitimately gotten, then the reaction could itself cause more reaction and bring on the worst "Uncle Tom Democrat" fears, and indeed would make some very unhappy times, and what has been a somewhat covert overthrow of the American Democracy overt.

With approval ratings in the 30% range, stealing an election is no less easy, but it would be harder to keep from being obvious to even the thickest dunderhead. And what happens then, be it whimper or boom, will not be at all pretty.

Update: I was wrong, while there was tremendous voter suppression and other dirty tricks, I think that the Democrat expectation of fraud actually reduced it in places like Ohio, and massive voter revulsion at late breaking sex scandals and similar incidents overshot Republican planning. Do the Republicans think that they can weather the next two years and let the massive Gerrymandering return things back? Only the next Congress will tell, it will be very dicey. With so much work and only two years, every action will have to be effective, rather than just feel good. (and there is so much more that would feel great, but might be less effective).

Totalitarians in Libertarian clothing, and how Conservatives became their "Fellow Travellers"

2006-04-29T09:37:00.000-04:00

(This was published a year ago but still speaks well.)

It would appear to me that either Libertarians are deliberately framing issues to obscure reality or have not actually thought their obsession through.

Now my understanding of a Straussian is that they have thought it through and decided that it is good to be the King, as long as it is just them as king and a few cronies to keep them in power, and the rest of the World can just KMA. But they also realize the rest of the World considers such people to be pure evil, and even their fellow travelers would prefer each of them be king.

So in order to avoid sharing a cell with Saddam, they invent elaborate propaganda structures, while looking intently how to stab others in the back, and avoiding others doing the same to them. This is pretty much how Saddam operated, as well as the Bush Administration, and all the other more obedient Saddams in all the Tajikistans about the World.

That the Bush Administration has not yet demonstrated all the excesses that Saddam & Sons exercised on their private property they called Iraq, is limited only by their perception of being held accountable for their actions. And therein lies the rub that actual Libertarians have not thought through.

Now it is my understanding that a Libertarian believes in absolute freedom of personal action and property rights, and that the only legitimate activity of Government is to protect such happy folk from losing those things. Now such thoughts are fine if you happen to be Saddam, but the rest of the Iraqis did not find such free exercise of property rights so enjoyable. No matter how much less dramatic you make it, universal freedom and universal property rights cannot coexist. Just the definition owning anything means that someone else cannot mess with your stuff beyond the limits of your freely given permission.

The actual reality is that any action done in concert by two or more people, or the divvying up of the assets of the World are matters of power and those who exercise it. The only real issue is what controls those who are acted upon have on the actors. While it is an old saw that absolute power corrupts absolutely, the less pointed out corollary is that ALL power corrupts to the limits of its accountability to other powers.

Libertarians are quick to point this out of Government De Jure, but totally obsficate the fact that any exercise of power is Government De Facto and is even less immune to such corruption because of its stealth quality. This is how the Republicans hoodwinked the nation by saying they wanted "to get the Government off our backs" when what they really wanted was to fire all the cops. The prisons are full of people with the same complaint, but without the massive funding required to exercise their "Free" Speech.

Now actual Liberals, unlike Straussian straw liberals, believe in the maximum freedom for every individual to decide as much as possible about their own life. They even believe in "private" property and what personal power it gives to have your own stuff to help structure your life. The issue is one of accountability and who is going to stop any person from abusing the power to exploit, injure, or otherwise limit other people from exercising their own freedom.

Now there are many issues that honorable people can differ on, as to who guards the guards, and how much accountability and what kind is appropriate, but there should be agreement that stealing millions of dollars, or horribly killing thousands or millions, should get a lot more accountability than your average street criminal (though he should be stopped as well). That such power is excercised as the choice of serious injury / forking over your wallet, or paying the power bill / living without heat cannot be considered a free will choice, nor so if the facts are hidden/twisted to cause you to make a choice you would not make had you known them.

There was a time when people of Straussian attitude feigned being Liberals, and called themselves Communists, today they are almost all Conservatives, finding their power base in Bigotry, Theocracy, and Corporate Megalomania (often referred to as Fascism or Kleptocracy). All are Totalitarian at their black heart, and all need to be recognized as the pure evil that they are. In the United States all such folk with any power are Republican, and why the World is at greater danger than anytime in the past, with nine months to decide its fate.

Stupider than Screen Sided Submarines

2006-04-12T17:35:00.000-04:00

What about this picture would make one immediately suspect that this trailer was not likely a Secret Biological Weapons lab?

Well duh, Biolabs need secure space, lest the pathogen escape and wipe out ones own side, much less the researchers themselves. They also require a controlled temperatures, and a clean environment, not only for safety but to keep the critters happy as well.

Lets see, 120 degree plus outside temperatures, check, dark brown canvas to keep the contents cool in the sun, not check, canvas sides as clean room siding, I don't think so, canvas tarps as level five pathogen security system, ROFL!

And still to this day these things are trotted out as proof Saddam had WMD or planned to use them for such. They even had drawings showing the canvas when Powell gave his speech.

If lies of this stupidity are believed what is the hope of seeing any actual fact.

Crazy Nakita was right

2006-04-12T01:07:00.000-04:00

I watched The Frontline program about the depth of horror of the crushed Tianamein spring, including depths I had not known about. I was also struck by the discussion of the new Chinese economic situation, for the winners and losers in that situation, and how control of information is the knife edge they walk on.

In this there was much information I am aware of, and this contribution raised a thought far more chilling than the individual points you made, chilling though those were.

The first Image is of Crazy Nakita banging his shoe at the UN and saying that "your Grandchildren will grow up under Communism". Those who did not laugh rushed through Trillions in wasted money on massive military fantasies of Russians invading and going through the U.S. like the Nazis through France.

But the real invasion started at the University of Chicago. Because from there came the new Marxism, with Leo Strauss as the new prophet. Actual Communist governments were built on a populist base, however fascist the reality, the populist pro formas had to be observed.

But where the old Marxism had seen evil and spoken against it, if only in a shadow of the promise. The New Straussian Marxism saw evil and embraced it, turning many ideas 180 degrees, without changing the intent of domination and control by an elite.

Mao had created a fanatic Jihad, all belief and energy, but ultimately failed a changed belief or behavior. Tianamein showed the power of an idea, and the threat to the elite, and when the blood was washed off the street I believe they adopted the new University of Chicago Marxism. Already being in absolute power, they could implement the plan swiftly and completely, while in the U.S. and Europe the plan had to proceed slowly, lest their true nature be outed.

Among the pieces of the puzzle missed by the Frontline story is how the Chinese Military became the biggest partner in the major Industries. It would be speculation on my part, but it is an obvious guess, that those who were among the murderers at Tianamein have been among the most blessed by the new economy, especially the leadership. Actual details of this would be most interesting.

In your outrage that "American" Multinationals, particularly Yahoo, Microsoft, and Sisco would be actively complicit in the suppression of freedom, you failed to notice that, for these companies specifically, their actual politics is not opposed to such suppression, and actively support the same in this country ( the role of Google appears much more complicated).

All of this leads up to the bone chilling realization that the program created. Look at this program and realize that THIS IS THE NEOCON PLAN FOR AMERICA.! Look at this Frontline view of the life of the Chinese worker, exploitable, and disposable, no rights, and hidden reality, covered over with a "free" enterprise fantasy. Of necessity there must be millions of used up workers, too injured, or physically broken, to take part in the "New China" anymore. Where are they? What has happened to them? Will their deaths bring about the population control that China has desperately sought?

Is this the way you want YOUR Grandchildren to grow up?

Its not Hypocrisy (its worse)

2006-04-10T11:25:00.000-04:00

NeoCon's reason d'être requires deception. It lies at the heart of their philosophy, and is inseparable from it. The very core of philosophy is two faced, one for public view and one, so satanically nihilistic they dare not show it, reserved for co-conspirators, that instructs their actual behavior.

Outsiders call it hypocrisy, but that makes way too lite of the matter, far more Joe Stalin than anything remotely Churchillian. Churchill spoke as any true leader, doing what was right, and knowing that every word would follow him through history and beyond death, and would stand by those words even now were he still alive.

NeoCons, like the Communists many were in an earlier part of their life, have no respect for words. Statements, and even sentiments, made today are only "operable" in the current context, and could be, and often are , a complete flip-flop when a new context requires it. Not because they have discovered a new insight, but simply because the new situation requires it.

In the Y2K debacle they even managed both sides at the same time, taking one side in one courtroom and the opposite in another, depending on the results expected. Famously even the Bush-v-Gore decision denied "operability" beyond the moment, and even in a context where every word is written in stone for the ages, it could be expected that the Roberts Court would do a 180 on that decision if the need arose.

Like the Russians, Americans do have memories, if somewhat short and faulty, and some have access to information the State has not controlled as yet. A certain amount of deception can be tolerated, if it appears reasonable and debatable. When it becomes absurd on its face, and provably stupid at the moment, no amount of spin can stand for long.

At long last, the sheer volume/ridiculousness is beginning to be noticed by all but the most ideological and/or stupid. The big question is whether a big Republican win in Nov. in the face of contrary reason and exit polls will cause enough gagging from within or outrage from without to bring Democracy back. Perhaps the gagging will start before Nov. Hope is a good thought but an unreliable plan.

Down The Hatch

2006-04-02T15:58:00.000-04:00

Yup Censure of the Emperor isn't just wrong, it is unconstitutional--- Hey Whaaat!

Orrin (nut) Hatch is often off the wall, even when on message and the message is getting wider off reality every day. As reported in Hatch friendly home town paper in a hometown School Ole Orrie really let his hair down on his legal expertise.

At times his language was humorous -- he talked of "Sith judges on the Dark Side wielding their gavels like sabers" -- but he was also stern, warning that an unchecked judiciary could usurp the powers of other branches of government and spell doom for liberty.

That some of those powers are actually spelled out in the constitution as being Judicial, is not a fact that he would let get in the way of the official spin.

"The Constitution governs the Supreme Court, not the other way around," Hatch said. "The Supreme Court does not have the last word. The people do.

"I would like to restore the Constitution to what it was."

Uhhh, The constitution says the Supremes have the last word, no matter how crazy (unfortunately) short a constitutional amendment to the contrary. If that were not true, we might still have both a Democracy and (likely) a Democrat as President.

"Judicial activism represents a radical departure from the way we govern ourselves in this country," Hatch said. "If it continues, it means the Constitution won't be worth the paper it's written on."

While Bush said "its just a piece of Paper" and in Bush vs Gore The Supremes wouldn't even stand behind their reasoning in "newspeak" activist judges mean those who actually respect, the constitution and law much less honor.

Of course for Hatch, as all Republicans, talking is mostly just making noises. Coherence, much less reason, much less actual principals, are not part of the agenda, but a means to an end that has nothing to do with what the founders of the country had in mind.

I wrote this and cross posted it at the links noted:

I recall when the meme was "us versus the Communists" there were many speeches about why the Communists were different than a usual party, and why even if we supported a lot of thugs in the world "our thugs were better than their thugs"

Top of their list was that the Communists were Totalitarian. It was not enough to do as you were told, but they expected you think as you were told as well.

High on the list was that "their" principals were for the current situation only and could rotate 180 degrees if the situation was different.

Another point was that there was a spin of the day and everyone was supposed to stay "on message", only one voice allowed no matter who was talking.

A fourth was an obsession with party loyalty, people who disagreed, or worse, changed their minds were dealt with harsher than even critics.

Those are all now typical Republican descriptions. I guess it is that part about making principals fit the situation. It is not hypocrisy- it is the totalitarian way of thinking.

The Great Libertarian Fallacy

2006-03-31T10:32:00.000-05:00

A good place to start is the Libertarian Mantras. All the wingers recite them, even when they are flying directly in the face of even the agreed base of the thinking.

But the mantras actually promote Progressive values if you correct just one bit of raging illogic (probably deliberate). That is the Libertarian very narrow definition of what is government.

Try this
"Government is what government does"

"Someone Deciding about your life (what medicine your doctor can prescribe, how your electric is produced,etc)"? Yes? Then they are government!

"Do they charge you for the privilege (Insurance bill,power bill, etc")THAT is TAXES! And then the key Question.

"can't hold them accountable for their decisions?" THEN THAT IS TYRRANY!!!!!

If you doubt it, try changing your power company, or your health insurance. Worse, your health insurance is often changed for you, with a whole new set of rules (LAWS!)about what you can and cannot do. And every year the laws are more oppressive and the taxes more obscene (over 60% of my not fabulous income, last I looked) They usually hide those costs in the salary you are not paid, so people don't know what they are really paying.

Also Libertarians usually talk about Free Enterprise and Capitalism as though they were the same thing when they are actually opposing things. I thought I was the only one who saw this till I read the Halloween Documents that should be required reading in every high school as they are as important to the nature of the country as the writings of the founding fathers.

Essentially if your business is a commodity {Free Enterprise (say building computers in the '90's)}your prices (and profits) are limited by what your competition will accept. The only way to control (raise) profits is to own (control) the market {Capitalism (think Microsoft)}. No real capitalist would knowingly invest in a business market that had real free enterprise because they could not make a profit beyond what everyone else is making. This dosen't mean they might make the mistake, or buy into such a Market and "De-Commoditize" it.

In any case Capitalism is "government by other means" and DeJure Government the means by which those governments are held accountable.

I am all in favor that the government governs best that governs least, but any action that involves several (or millions) achieving a single goal involves a de'Facto government, no matter what the name is on the door.

There are many things that need no government.
1.Who I engage in sex with, or how, as long as they are willing, aware, and old enough.
2. What (or if) I think about the Metaphyisical and how I want it to affect my life. (this does not include my actions that include others who don't wish to be included)

The list is much longer but again Libertarians are very selective in how far they let their logic go, it is up to progressives to show that freedom cannot be so limited. As soon as your action affects someone else in space or time you become a Government limiting their freedom, and thus must be accountable to them, or become the hated tyrant.

Whoa! ... You Go Girls!

2006-03-23T20:37:00.000-05:00

The Dixie Chicks were never my kind of music, you could find it here but never on a MSM station, so If my favorite musicians made those comments(and I suspect most would ) you would never have heard of it.

An I suspect that even the Chicks did not contemplate the depths of depravity so much of the country fan base had sunk to. But there is nothing like the dose of cold water a ton of depraved hate mail, and few hundred death threats can do to wake you up and make you pay attention. I guess if I had been a fan, the steel in their spine might not have been a suprise. But their new song aught to insipre even the "Boss" with these words.

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

I’m through with doubt
There’s nothing left for me to figure out
I’ve paid a price
And I’ll keep paying

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I know you said
Can’t you just get over it
It turned my whole world around
And I kind of like it

I made my bed and I sleep like a baby
With no regrets and I don’t mind sayin’
It’s a sad sad story when a mother will teach her
Daughter that she ought to hate a perfect stranger
And how in the world can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they’d write me a letter
Sayin’ that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

I’m not ready to make nice
I’m not ready to back down
I’m still mad as hell and
I don’t have time to go round and round and round
It’s too late to make it right
I probably wouldn’t if I could
‘Cause I’m mad as hell
Can’t bring myself to do what it is you think I should

Forgive, sounds good
Forget, I’m not sure I could
They say time heals everything
But I’m still waiting

The Democrats should make it their Anthem
or at the least invite the Dixie Chicks to do the National Convention.

Mr King was never this scary

2006-03-23T07:55:00.000-05:00

Stephen King always bored me because most of his scenarios were not good enough for even suspended disbelief. Maureen Farrell's article might be the same except for all the links backing up all her points, like several per paragraph.

Her story is no less surreal, but there has been a lot of surreal since Nov 2, 2000. It has been like somebody hijacked reality and stuck us in this bad novel. Well here is the punch line to that bad novel.

Legislation to Turn the US into a Theocracy is Introduced in the House

Remember when Ronald Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James Watt said that we need not worry about depleting our natural resources because, thanks to End Times prophecies, future generations wonÂt be needing them anyway? Or when Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger said he believed that "time is running out ..." as in Armageddon is approaching?

Back then, Frank Zappa appeared on Crossfire, shocking panelists when he said that the US was gearing up to become a fascist theocracy. More than two decades later, legislation to complete the transformation was introduced in the House.

"If enacted, the Constitution Restoration Act will effectively transform the United States into a theocracy, where the arbitrary dictates of a 'higher power' can override law," Chris Floyd wrote. Columnist James Heflin warned that "If the Act passes, Iraqis would have stronger protection from religious extremism than Americans."

Cosponsored by Sen. Brownback, whose rent is subsidized by the "secretive" religious organization, the Fellowship, the legislation is the work of Dominionists, or Christian Reconstructionists, who call for the "universal development of Biblical theocratic republics."

The crusade to Christianize America in order to prepare for Christ's Second Coming is not one that is going away any time soon. The Act, which was reintroduced in 2005, is currently being marketed by the media-savvy Concerned Women For America, which was founded and is headed by Rev. Timothy LaHaye's wife, Beverly.

and as a key part of their support forIsraell

In a starkly honest essay, Christian Reconstructist Gary North pointed to the elephant in the revival tent. "In order for most of today's Christians to escape physical death, two-thirds of the Jews in Israel must perish, soon. This is the grim prophetic trade-off that fundamentalists rarely discuss publicly, but which is the central motivation in the movement's support for Israel, he wrote, regarding fundamentalists' defense of "the doctrine of an inevitable holocaust."

Fun times ahead

The Unsinkable Molly Ivins....

2006-03-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Another cat bell, Another windmill. No one can say Democrats don't have ideas or that the Ideas are not practical. Only the problem is that without a way to hold congress critters accountable, they won't install any other way to hold them accountable.

I do like the idea of supporting democracy, however, and think we should try it—especially here in the U.S. of A. To this end, a couple of dandy ideas are now circulating, and I think they’re worth your support and excitement. For ages, all good reformers have wanted to get rid of the Electoral College and have direct popular election of presidents, instead. The disastrous election in 2000 finally culminated in Bush v. Gore, a Supreme Court decision so bad even the court disowned it at the time.

Every nightmare scenario about just how screwed up things could get with the Electoral College all came true. What a giant mess: a textbook case of why the Electoral College is toxic piffle. But the desire to Do Something about the mess in 2000 burned itself out. The Republicans who took over Congress are just not natural reformers.

Trouble is, the system has just about “ruint” presidential elections, which now turn on a handful of swing states, while everyone else is ignored. While millions of dollars, hours of political ads and hordes of politicians descend every four years on the swing states, you can barely tell there’s an election going on in the rest of the country. Should you live safely tucked into a solidly red or blue state, your vote is unsought, uncounted and unnecessary—we know how your state’s votes will be cast whether you vote or not.

...snip....

The Campaign for a National Popular Vote has a dandy new approach. Instead of trying to amend the Constitution through a long, difficult process that can and will be stalled by small states, the campaign proposes a simpler, elegant solution. According to the Constitution, each state legislature can instruct its own electors to cast their votes however the state decides, usually as winner-take-all for whichever candidate carries the state. But there is no reason a state legislature cannot instruct its electors to vote for whoever wins the popular vote.

Democracy! What a concept! The states can do this one by one, subscribing to an interstate compact that would take effect when enough states join to elect the actual winner—a majority of the 538 electoral votes.

....

The possibilities for unintended consequences here is boggling, to say nothing of evil intended consequences. A covert Republican campaign to get Dem States to pass such lege would guarantee a Republican switch but not necessarily one to the Dem side. Even a Maine type proportional voting scheme, could have similar consequences. The Florida lege even threatened to go the other way before the Supremes beat them to it, and there is nothing too keep them from doing it again for partisan gain.

In any case I wrote this to Molly's article....

What with computers and technology beyond the horse drawn wagon, why not try for a more direct democracy? While I might agree that having everyone vote on every issue might have some bad results (though an improvement on the present), a biannual bid that actually made EVERY vote count might actually work.

What if everyone voted for a favorite person to actually represent them? That person would usually come from where their supporters were, but not necessarily, but would have personal contact with nearly every voter who supported them.

So what if they get only say 10k votes, they could formally form a coalition of like minded fellows till they reached some magic number (say 1 million) and that coalition would put one of their number as the official representative in congress. The rest would essentially be the office staff, and thus still have a day to day impact. Those coalitions with the most votes would get the best chairmanships etc., evening out those with big excess votes with those barely over the line.

The result would be total representation all the time for each and every voter. Gerrymandering would be impossible, and no longer would nearly half of all actual voters, (much less the rest) go unrepresented.

Of course such a plan is as like my plan to staff the entire government bureaucracy with drafted conscripts, forced to do 4-6 years of patriotic service for their country, and then back to the real world, not setting up some lifetime program of empire building or cozy relationships, just go in, do your job for patriotism, and get out. Short a Wiser Washington, Jefferson, Franklin et. al. the chances of a real, thought out system are all but nil.

Even such reform as banning voting district pseudopodia, or width to length maximum ratios, is out of reach if there is no accountability.

And as the Majority of states get an extra edge of Three Electoral Votes when their population only justifies one, they would still over rule, unless the state voted against the actual vote count of that state. Say an Ohio that had a plurality of votes for the Democrat, putting all their votes for the Republican. Then two or three swing states could pull it off, but the partisan acrimony from which ever side got the short end would be deafening. Also a New York and California for instance could throw the vote Republican , but not Democrat as they would (presumably) have a Dem winner in any case.

Myself, I would be happy just to have an honest vote count. Without that, nothing good is possible.

Habeas Schmaebeas

2006-03-19T18:08:00.000-05:00

Check out the long version, apparently Bushco was handing out your tax dollars like drunken sailors to anyone who had a captive. So criminals just grabbed people off the street and sold them as AlKaka.

As a result there wasn't any evidence secret or otherwise, except what was beaten out of them. Real AlKaka got shipped off to secret black sites to have done what even Gitmo folk couldn't stomach, so it would appear that a high percentage at Gitmo were at best low level and more likely just folk.

The REAL reason against abortion

2006-03-19T16:15:00.000-05:00

Labored logic

Democrats have been buzzing about comments made by state Sen. Nancy Schaefer (R-Turnerville) at a recent eggs-and-issues breakfast in Hart County. We quote from the Hartwell Sun newspaper: "Commenting on illegal immigration, Schaefer said 50 million abortions have been performed in this country, causing a shortage of cheap American labor. 'We could have used those people,' she said."

It has always amazed me that these folk made such a thing about abortion. There are no graveyards for stillbirths or miscarriges. There is no history of counting one's age from earlier than birth. And all early literature I have seen is more concerned with the life of the mother for what was iffy medicine.

It is only when women get to the technical capability of controling reproduction that suddenly several religions decide that such is a bad idea, but show little concern for life after birth, much less the majority of "unborn" as yet unconcieved.

For this I cannot believe that there is any actual concern, at least at the leadership level. What then would make them so vociferous?

The only possible explanation is the desire to have as many desperate people as possible to exploit. That is why the Repiblicans are so conflicted about immigration. If they actually stop it, a prime group of exploitable folk is lost, but if they bacame legal they wouldn't be so exploitable. So they come up with halfway measures that keep them exploitable, and perhaps create another exploitable stash of folk neither legal or "Guests".

Have been keepin busy so posting less.
Had link to article but lost it.

Winger homophobes harass funerals of US soldiers killed in Iraq

2006-03-13T08:01:00.000-05:00

The Westboro Baptist Church first gained national notoriety when they picked the funeral of Matthew Shepard, a Wyoming student who was murdered in 1998 for being gay.

They have since picketed the funerals of Frank Sinatra and
Bill Clinton's mother, celebrated the terrorist attacks of September 11 as an act of God's wrath, and have even targeted Santa Claus and the Ku Klux Klan.

But it was the callousness and cruelty of harassing the grieving families of soldiers at dozens of funerals across the country that has sparked a grassroots movement of bikers determined to drown out the jeers and taunts.

Like Ann Coulter they stand beyond the mainstream, even of Republicans, not because of what passes for their Ideas, but because they give open voice to them, and in Straussian Ideology that is as great a sin as opposing the likes of these idiots.

Anatomy of Terrorism

2006-03-12T11:21:00.000-05:00

Oldish article very smart and indepth as to why BinLaden and Bush are joined at the hip, each the perfect foil for the other, and why that is a VERY bad thing for the rest of the world.

What can we expect Bin Laden to do next?

As the Iraq War drags on, it is becoming less and less popular. The Afghan War is mostly out of the public view, but to the extent that it also drains American lives and money with no end in sight, it also is losing support among those who are paying attention. The memory of 9/11 is starting to fade, as years without an attack convince more and more Americans that we are safe.

All of these factors threaten Bin Laden's plans. If President Bush is tempted into pulling our troops and TV cameras out of Iraq, Bin Laden loses. He needs the United States to continue playing the Great Satan role, because there are many secular Muslims who still hope to fit into the globalized world economy. He needs an enemy to focus their fear and anger, and only the United States is up to the job.

What's more, if he is going to bankrupt the US economy, he needs a wider war. At this point the US military is stretched thin, so a wider war would require a draft or some other unpopular measure for swelling the ranks. The American public would have to be very, very riled to agree to such a thing.

All of this points in one direction: Another attack on the United States, probably within the next year. Ideally, the trail would lead back to some area where the US doesn't currently have troops, and where there is an attackable enemy. Iran is an obvious choice, if Bin Laden can engineer it. But Syria would work as well, and may be easier to manipulate. Egypt, Pakistan, and/or Saudi Arabia could fill the bill if the attack on the US were coupled with a revolution against the corresponding US-supported government. So, for example, an attack on the US coming from Pakistan could be synchronized with the assassination of President Musharraf to draw American troops into that country.

Tamim Ansary penned a letter that went all over the internet that put the whole thing in shorter form, but as the above article points out Bush wants to have an enemy in BinLaden and solving the issue is what he would like least to do.

For his really scary prophecy..

Let me now speak with true fear and trembling. The only way to get bin Laden is to go in there with ground troops. When people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done," they're thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed. Pushing aside moral qualms and killing innocent people, what's actually on the table is Americans dying. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that. Will other Muslim nations just stand by? We're flirting with a world war between Islam and the West.

And guess what: that's bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants. That's why he did this. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the west wreaks a holocaust in those lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, that's even better from bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong, in the end the west would win, whatever that would mean, but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that?

Bin Laden does. Anyone else?

Mr. Ansary might have been too optimistic about the horse sense of the administration.

Who is the real enemy here?

It is the Stupid Ideology

2006-03-11T23:50:00.000-05:00

This is cross posted in response to questions concerning the relevance a teacher of the classics can have. His point is that Rich folk get what they want because they are rich and exploit the poor because they poor, and classic socialism is a cure for this.

There are so many ways to respond that I picked two....as follows...

It is not Dead Professors I am concerned about, nor have I forgotten the Classics, but just as Marxists took a skewed logic and made it a (more skewed) ideology, The results of Mr Strauss' teaching is a new ideology, combining Plato and Social Darwinism, that denys even a modicum of Social Responsability, that is at least paid lip service, in other schemes. The only lip service is in deliberate lies to cover true purpose as far beyond Orwell as Orwell is beyond Machievelli.

Leo Strauss and the American Right by Shadia B. Drury is a very detailed disertation on the point and should be required reading for those who would fight the Bushivicks. As it puts a very different perspective from where your comments would indicate.

As for the Socialist model, it is only as good as the ability to hold the leadership accountable, and has the same disadvantage of bigness when it tries to be a Government run Conglomerate.

I would much rather see an actual Free Enterprise Model where there was a strong, but complex Government that could enforce Honor, and make entry into any business as easy as possible, and making sure no "Captains" arose in any industry, maintaining a situation similar to the state that existed when people were able to become PC maunfacturers in their garages in that industry.

As Bigness became a problem taxes based on size could be a very effective weapon to incourage freedom and discourage empire building. Where there is a natural Monopoly, then that is government, and should be held to the same rules, if not actually a ministry of the main government, and that monopoly should be limited to the minimum necessary expanse, and allow competition where someone thinks they can. A good example is maintaining power poles and some power production but allowing anyone to sell to the grid (managed of course, to avoid the California worst case )

Of course as I pointed out, the current government, and the current voting system makes all such discussions academic, untill there is another chance to restore Freedom and democracy. Perhaps even then the gulf between best and possible would still be problematic.

I suppose that as yet most folk have still not figured out that the voting system is toast. They still think that the Republican Corruption Culture, will wash Democrats in like a Tidal Wave. I can only wish it so, but I will be as Flabbergasted as I would be pleased if it is.

Ion Sancho, American Hero

2006-03-11T09:05:00.000-05:00

Apparently Republicans believe that they can turn the country into something like Serbia under Molosivic and nobody would notice. Well not quite nobody, but finally there is somebody in a position to do something with both a spine and a gag reflex, namely Ion Sancho. I wrote this to the elections supervisor....

It would appear that Mr Ion Sancho should have a statue along side Paul Revere for PROVING that the three approved electronic voting systems are hopelessly flawed and any believable election on them impossible no matter the result.

I understand that Vote-pad and Auto-mark have both better records but are not authorized. And in the interest of saving Florida Taxpayers, I understand that the Austrailian system is absolutely free and open source, eliminating any questions of security, or fraud, and saving taxpayers millions of dollars to boot!

Why is it, after all this time, with so much PROVEN chicanery, the Greatest country in the world still is talking about a voting system a THird World country would reject and the WHOLE World is laughing at us about?

CC-Brad Blog-FreeDem blog

Prolly Bev Harris deserves a statue niche as well

Libertarians are wienies

2006-03-06T10:00:00.000-05:00

Freedom for all but this got banned from posting on their blog

Perhaps we are not liked (or more properly the local American face) because we keep stealing their stuff, and kicking sand in their face. Sometimes more one, sometimes more the other.

A Libertarian may see a difference between the US Government, and a Mulitnational Corporation full of Americans. But most folk only see power structure with the pointy end sticking them in the face.

60min and for that the DEA might look harder at the Narco-nightmare on the sothern border. As far as I am aware Mark Emory is not about murdering even toking opposition.

Perhaps the problem is that he is cutting into the Mexican profits.

60 Minutes--What should be astonishing, now almost ho-hum

2006-03-05T20:39:00.000-05:00

There was a bit of news here, I figured that hospitals were most abusive on folk who could least fight back (more of that Orwellian "faith based" and "non-profit") but at perhaps three to five times normal but CBS is reporting up to ten times normal prices to the uninsured. What with CBS fighting back the people highlighted got a break, too bad they can't do that for the millions of other suckers. Worse ..well read down.

The rest was not even a three on the astonishment meter, being old outrage on the web, and not even the strongest case at that. Though I suppose that the avarage Faux listener would be suprised, but then they would just take it as another reason to hate CBS and Canada, without even a clue to the narco-nightmare to the south.

This is what I wrote to them

Nice teasers, it is too bad you only scratched the surface of issues that have been on the web for years. It is true enough that Uncle Ed lived in a time when folk had a better idea of what news and honor is, and outrage was easier at a time when there seems there was so much less of it, though perhaps there was mostly less awareness. Now perhaps even he would get outrage fatigue.

The Hospital thing was best. I had figured that Hospitals and insurance companies were slicing and dicing the patients, but the hidden fact is that most people judge how much the insurance company pays, by how much the Hospital charges, and insurance companies rag on to emphasize those ideas. But for every uninsured the Hospitals rip off, the insurance companies are ripping off dozens. You could do a week of shows and barely touch the problem.

I am amazed at how much Mr Emory upsets the DEA, Perhaps he is cutting into the profits of the massive narco-nightmare on the south border. The connections to the Bush Administration and worse are all over the net, perhaps CBS could look into that, though it would be a more dangerous assignment than interviewing Zarqawi.

And speaking of him, I am glad you alluded to Wilkerson's wistleblowing, but of what I have read of what he said, much less what else is out there, you seemed to low ball it.

Even Uncle Andy seemed to walk softly::waves to Andy:: hey Andy They HAVE outsourced the government. Foreign (and Domesticish) corporations write all the laws, the guys in Washington are just the secretaries. And the little $400,000 stipend we give them is nothing compared to the money their REAL bosses pay.

Typical Doublethink

2006-03-02T20:07:00.000-05:00

Winger partisan attack disguises itself as an expose' of partisan attacks. To say that the teacher failed to offer a balanced view in an atmosphere overwhelming with right wing propaganda, it would appear that he was supplying actual balance, otherwise lacking, and that was why he was attacked.

In the 20-minute recording, made on an MP3 player, teacher Jay Bennish described capitalism as a system "at odds with human rights." He also said there were "eerie similarities" between what Bush said during his Jan. 28 State of the Union address and "things that Adolf Hitler used to say."

The United States was "probably the single most violent nation on planet Earth," Bennish also said on the tape.

Strong language, but less beyond the relm of fact than SOTU itself. The history of capitalism is a history of fighting abuse of workers, customers, enviornment, and more recently even the investors.

The SOTU speech reminds me more of Orwell than Hitler, as Hitler's bombast was far more obvious than speeches crafted today. But knowing the truth behind what he said, it is easy to hear Hitler in the plans, and certainly in the results.

The Violence point is not hard to make as well, though the competition from the later Hitler years, Cambodia, the Inquisition, and many others beats the US easily in sheer brutality, Technology and Gun laws has given us a lead in shock and awe violence....And the plans in the works makes Cambodia look outright mild

The 20-minute recording of only a portion of the class was made by 16-year-old sophomore Sean Allen the day after the president's speech. The recording has raised questions about
what level of academic freedom is acceptable for high school teachers. It also has generated discussions about Bennish on dozens of websites.

A quick check of Google show them all to be Right Wing Web sites. All a part of a pre-organized attack that the Newt himself called the "Mighty Wurlitzer" to hype and expand partisan attacks nationwide before sensible people are even aware of the attack

Sean, who appeared on Rosen's show Wednesday morning, said in an interview he had been disturbed by the "political rants" he heard in Bennish's class. He added that he wanted to tape the session for his father, who later shared it with the media.
Sean, who described himself as a political independent, said the comments seemed inappropriate for a geography class.

Secret partial recordings by activists, blasted nationwide by the "Wurlitzer" are SOP, as are the standard obscuring of the partisan nature of the attack. I would be quite not amazed to find the young man in question is part of a church youth group recruited for this purpose, the self described political independent is not credible, but I am not there to check it out.

AP , it appears reported on the real reaction as.....

At least 150 Overland High School students walked out of class today to protest administrators' decision to put a teacher on leave while they investigate remarks he made about President Bush during class, including that some people compare Bush to Adolf Hitler.

I wrote the following to Ms Rouse in response

It would appear to me that your attacks on Mr. Bennish are actually part of a partisan attack by people who hate American Democracy and Freedom. It you were actually reporting on partisanship in high schools you would have found and reported partisan rants from both sides. Instead you hide the partisan nature of Mike Rosen, who has actually guest hosted for Rush Limbaugh, and allow Sean Allen to claim that he is an independent when he is obviously part of an open conspiracy to only allow right wing partisan speech in schools.

This operation is openly promoted and advertised looking for volunteers to attack anyone who speaks outside the new PC. Many of these operations are part of a Dominionist plan to install a Totalitarian Theocracy in our country that makes the Taliban look easygoing. It is particularly revealing that your byline was not on the report when 150 (more?) students walked out in support of the teacher, and against the partisan attacks.

These folks have no honor.

Update:
It would appear that there is quite a bit of support for the teacher locally But I suppose that the facts will be reversed again by the "Wurlitzer" and they will blame what has to be spontaneous support as some sort of liberal conspiracy, while their conspiracy is framed as just a lone independant against overt PC by the left. Here's betting that young Mr. Allen is active in the local winger religious organization on campus.

Is the law a law or is it a piece of toast?

2006-03-02T15:13:00.000-05:00

Even mild mannered Garrison Keillor is calling for Impeachment

Wiretap surveillance of Americans without a warrant? Great. Go for it. How about turning over American ports to a country more closely tied to Sept. 11, 2001, than Saddam Hussein was? Fine by me. No problem. And what about the war in Iraq? Hey, you're doing a heck of a job. No need to tweak a thing. And your blue button-down shirt--it's you.

But torture is something else. Most people agree with this, and in a democracy that puts the torturers in a delicate position. They must make sure to destroy their e-mails and have subordinates who will take the fall. Because it is impossible to keep torture secret. It goes against the American grain and it eats at the conscience of even the most disciplined, and in the end the truth will come out. It is comingout now.

I am reminded of the story of the preacher, citing a long list of crimes and perversions that had become commonplace in his parrish, but cites one as just over the top. Well Mr Keillor they are all over the top, if they have the bit in their mouth, torture may end up the least of it, not because it is not soul killing, but because there is so much worse they could go and perhaps have when folk are so dishonorable nearly anything can be believed.

It looks more and more like the law is toast.

On The Nature of Honor

2006-03-01T17:08:00.000-05:00

The basic problem with behaving with secrecy, and dishonor, is that anything might be believed, not matter how crazy.

It all reaches to the real nature of honor. Not the honor of the guy who gets the medals and ticker tape parades, the ones most deserving are usually the ones most embarassed by such things, and the ones who most chase it least deserve it. Honor can only be achieved by each individual in service to themselves, even if no one else knows about it.

Such honor is almost never the easy path. The person who speaks out against blockheadedness while everyone else rushes for the Kool-ade has not taken the easy path, and is hardly the traitor to that group. People who have taken what is obviously the hardest path are the most likely to be following their honor, even if you disagree with them.

Honor requires strength of will, but streangth of will, or body, is hardly a measure of honor. If you posses great strength, your honor is most at risk. People will always root for the underdog even if the underdog is the bad guy, there is a reason for this.

There are obviously times that temporary operational secrecy is necessary, but real honor would justify a movie about it. If such a movie about the real story would be an embarassment, then that embarassment is a measure of negative honor, if the movie would be boring honor would not have been much tested.

There is sometimes less honor in secrecy than the truth of dishonor. When the Nixon tapes were released any expletive he used (even "damn") was replaced with "expletive deleated". Everyone who read the transcript automatically assumed the worst expletive they could think of . So it is with any secret if a person suspects that the secret exists (even if it dosen't). Only transparent honor can make such thoughts

Did Neocons order 9/11, The idea seems preposterous on its face, as even the mechanism of doing so would be as likely as Saddam ordering those attacks. But Neocons made much of the need for such an attack to advance their agenda, and they certainly have flogged it at every turn to squeeze the last bit of horror out of it to their advantage.

Would AlQueda benefit from the destruction? Certainly, but like the old days when "Commies" were the enemy Each side feeds upon the other to raise power money and recruits.

It was AlQueda's fondest dream that we would invade Iraq and have benefited greatly by our doing so. But his Mechanism for ordering Bush to invade, or even to persuade Saddam to be sufficiently secretive and dishonorable enough to allow others to say he was planning what he clearly could not do, is a similar stretch.

It is enough that Dishonor and Secrecy are the hallmarks of Right wing thinking, be they fascist or theocrat of any stripe or brand. The secrecy (as opposed to discretion) alone is prima facia case for dishonor, and dishonor when writ so large is reason for enmity from any and all humans who care a whit for even the concept of honor.

Bush Hatred or something else?

2006-03-01T16:57:00.000-05:00

this was published elsewhere but dropped here to get the blog started

I see very little hatred for Bush personally. True listening to him is like fingernails on the blackboard, as much for bungled nonsense as outright lies, but if he vanished from the picture, nothing would change. A change of Sock Puppet would only divert responsibility, as indeed seems to be the plan Of the "reform" Republicans (who are the unindicted coconspirators of the indicted "culture of corruption" Republicans).
IMO there are three evils threatening "Truth, Justice , Freedom, and the American Way"

#1 Fascism- not the jackbooted thugs (though that was often a method)- but the privatization of government.
The Libertarian/Randist logic has a major flaw that somehow government ceases to be that if it is called something else. It simply removes accountability, and any notion of public responsibility.
As bad as Government waste, fraud, abuse has been, Enronization, WTO, etc. has been worse.
The Mechanism of group effort (Free enterprise, communist, capitalist, socialist) is irrelevant, but without accountability you have tyranny.

#2 Theocracy- It is one thing to hold an opinion in an absence of evidence, It is perhaps the nature of faith to hold an opinion in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But when policy is contrary to the evidence, enforced on those who do not even hold those beliefs, tyranny can be the only adjective. If forced to believe, Totalitarian must be added as well.

#3 Bigotry- More than just black and white, the concept of caste by any division that places barriers, removes Freedom, and hurts not just those who would profit by their contribution but all the rest for whom the contribution would never be made.

There was a time when these evils were variously scattered in both parties, but today they are in alliance, and taken over the Republican Party, and true to their tyrannical nature tried (mostly successful) to stifle any path of accountability.

This is what lies at the basis of "bush hate" and other than opposing Tyranny/Totalitarianism has nothing to do with policies reasonable people can disagree about.
I think that this is why there are so many "opposition" voices. Only Totalitarians can have the discipline and stay on message, because that is their nature.

Purists versus reality

2006-03-01T16:23:00.000-05:00

This is part of a long post at Open Democracy.com. I am putting up many saved thoughts to get this blog started...

Democracy in a pure "everybody gets a say and a vote on everything" is clumsy even in small committees, much less in giant nations or the world. That does not mean that representational democracy is an oxymoron, or that the existence of a leader is proof of a lack of democracy.
Even in said committee someone has to count and announce the votes. The real trick is [b] how you hold the representative responsible [/b] to do the will of those he represents.

When the US was founded there were few examples of representational democracy, and none that encompassed such a large geographic area. On top of that there were well known evils that never the less had a strong constituency, and not a few lesser ones that no one had thought through because they were so pervasive. How and how quickly such evils should be addressed are the historical base of real Liberal and Conservative discussion but no longer.

Given all that, the result was amazingly strong and effective, but many Democracies since have added a few bits to prevent some of the rougher edges that experience taught. Foremost among these is various ways to avoid "winner take all"that has been a constant problem in American politics, that forces any third party to assist the side they like least.

And while many evils have been addressed by amendment or law or legal ruling ( basically by any means possible) many structural flaws, and unintended consequences have been impossible to address. As well Technology has changed the world with good and evil consequences the would give the founders headaches just to think about.

To recognize that old and new evils exist, is not to "Hate America", but to try and make every level of life better than we found it. To support thuggery because they are "our thugs" is hardly patriotic, even when the enemy is real. Nothing makes an enemy more so, than his outrage at your thuggery, and the expectation he would be treated similarly. Even if his side does worse, as he usually also "patriotic" and blind to his own evil as any who substitute gut for brain.

The outrageous thuggery of 9/11 had even Iran on our side for a bit, and aware skillful actions, by a legitimate leader, might well have set the world to scouring out those who would act so brutally, no matter the particulars of ideology or theology. Sadly the Ship of State had a bumbling fool of a fake captain at the helm to drive the ship into Iraq.

Sadly I only wish they went in for "only" oil. It would seem that there was to be an enemy of the month club, of a couple weeks to build up, a couple weeks to take over and a couple weeks to build and plan the next one. That this might not work beyond a crazed fantasy, did not stop them from applying it to the first two before getting bitch slapped by reality.