New Ruskin College

Everyone wants to get on to the act.

2011-08-31T15:21:00.000-07:00

August 31, 2011

"Shattered man" KGO --- Message heard understood acknowledged.

$12 trillion @ New Ruskin College

2008-09-29T22:45:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 9-30-08

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Upper class Warfare Part VII: Political Discourse Part III

$700,000,000,000 sounds like a lot of money. But when you consider that Mr. Paulson proposes to float $12 trillion worth of securities on a pool of liquidity of just $700 billion the question becomes is the $700 billion enough? What Mr. Paulson wants to do is establish a market for the securities. Why? In order to establish a market price. Why? So the holders of the securities will be able to assign a market price to their securities, a so called Mark to Market value. (Jonathan Weil of Bloomberg calls this Mark to Paulson Accounting.)

In this scheme the $700 billion is only incidental. It is needed to establish a “market” so the $12 trillion in securities can have a market value established. It is possible that this plan will make things worse for some holders of the securities if the Mark to Paulson “market” price is lower than what the owners had valued the securities on their books, as the director of the CBO, Peter Orszag, has warned. (CBO Head: Bailout Could Make Crisis Worse. The Washington Post reports, The Financial Times and New York Times also report on Orszag's comments.)

Most people think that the bailout is about the $700 billion being paid out to someone, a bank perhaps, never imagining that the true objective for the Paulson Plan is the $12 trillion in mortgage back securities. The $12 trillion is said to be “frozen” because no one trusts the paper as long as the housing market continues to plummet. Because it can not be traded it is worthless.

As I write this the stock market has lost $1 trillion in market value falling 6.98% or 777 points. For a long time stock traders “trusted” valuations of 25 to one. That is they thought it fair to value a stock at $25 for every one dollar in expected earnings. This is the price/earnings ratio. This when the market was at 14,000. More recently the price/earnings ratio has decreased to $20 to one. Historically the average price/earnings ratio has been $10 to one. So you can see the market has a long way to fall.

Will Mr. Paulson ask for a few trillion to buy stocks that have fallen into disfavor? Try and establish a “market” price for them too? After all if you thought the pricing was just temporarily “wrong” and that values will soon return then you would have only to weather the storm for a few days or weeks and wait for values to resume their former positions.

But what if these market conditions are not to quickly correct. What if the nation has been living beyond its means for a generation? What if there has been a stock bubble just as there has been a housing bubble? What if houses are not going to quickly return to their former values?

Suppose that we are at peak oil in a country that has assumed cheap energy. Suppose we must start paying off that mountain of debt we have accumulated instead of buying goods and services from one another or more likely from the Chinese. Suppose companies that were earning $5 a share will now only be able to earn $1. And suppose the correct valuation of those shares is 10/1 not 25/1.

What if we are facing a once in a century down turn? A black swan event.

Well then we should introduce Mr. Paulson to Mr. Market.

Over the next few days we are going to separate out the capitalists from the rest. It was easy to be a capitalist when everything was going up. Houses, stocks, everything.
But now what will you think when the market corrects stocks just as it has corrected houses? You have gotten so fat and lazy are you sure you want to be a capitalist anymore?

It was easy when prices were rigged to always go up. I mean it was easy if you had a home, and stocks, if you were part of the oligarchy.

But now what are you going to do? Try socialism?

For myself I am going to remain a capitalist even during the Second Great Depression.

So come and get me Krasny, Owens, Weiner. Imus? Do your worst. Fools. Cowards.

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$700,000,000,000 @ New Ruskin College

2008-09-23T19:41:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 9-25-08

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Upper class Warfare Part VI: Political Discourse Part II

$700,000,000,000 is what Mr. Paulson wants. For this sum he promises to collect worthless paper for us. Worthless because the housing bubble has burst and the paper was written, and even guaranteed, based on the assumption that housing prices would always go up. This is the assumption upon which the paper was underwritten.

And who were these people who made this assumption that prices would always go up and never go down? Well they are people like Mr. Paulson himself. For eight years he was the head of a Wall Street firm that made just this underwriting assumption. Mr. Paulson assures us that this is the best deal he could get for us. No equity position, no interest, just the worthless paper.
One wonders what kind of deal Mr. Paulson would have come up with if he had been working for us these past eight years and not Goldman Sachs. He would not have earned his reputed $700,000,000. But then that is the point. Where do his natural loyalties lie? With whom?
In deed why should we accept the representations of a man who thought housing would always go up? He was mistaken then why not now? Is he working for us now?

One of the largest owners of the worthless paper is the Treasury itself, due to its recent acquisition of Fannie and Freddie. Then too there are the guarantees that Fannie and Freddie improvidently made to other holders of the worthless paper. All through the bubble these two organizations, these government sponsored entities, churned out this worthless paper, as if they were on autopilot feeding the bubble. Now with the Treasury’s takeover responsibility for these guarantees falls to us. An obligation of untold hundreds of billions.

Was there no management examining the underwriting assumptions? Considering the risks? No.

We could now consider the managers of the government sponsored entities, how much they were paid, how they used their influence on Congress. We could take time to consider how all of these individuals, at Goldman Sachs, Fannie Mae, the Congress form a class of people who have been pursuing their own interests at the expense of the American people. And we could go on to argue that Mr. Paulson’s deal is really better seen as a product of this class interest than a fair appraisal of the situation with our interests in the uppermost.

But I don’t want to talk about the oligarchy right now.

What I want you to see is how confused the nation is. All through the bubble management not just at the government sponsored entities but at Goldman Sachs, and Lehman and Morgan Stanley, and Bear, and in Congress, the oligarchy taken as a class, failed to see the housing bubble. Continued to issue worthless paper and even issue guarantees on that paper right up to the present moment. Yes even now after the bubble has burst.

See how slowly things move. The realization, dimly at first, then slowly dawning into full consciousness, that all these people, some making millions of dollars, were simply wrong. Consider that Mr. Paulson thought that housing could go on up forever. He really thought so. To describe them as being part of the oligarchy implies bad faith. What I am asking you to consider is that our oligarchy was acting in good faith, they really thought they could issue this paper and housing would go on up forever, that everything would be fine.

Strange, no?

I am asking you to step back from this current crisis and to see it as just one more example of how our society deals with problems. Recall the Israeli retired colonel, head of El Al security in the 1970’s, who tried to get the FAA to secure the doors on the flight decks of passenger airliners. Our oligarchy didn’t think it important until 9-11-01.

Consider Iran. It is a country which has been hijacked just as assuredly as if someone had pulled out a box cutter and slashed the throat of a flight attendant. Day after day Iran is working to get the bomb. Though Tel Aviv is the first target, New York is the second target. And what is our oligarchy doing about Iran? Nothing.

They assure us everything will be fine. But didn’t they say the same thing about the housing bubble?

Didn’t they tell you that our National debt did not matter because “we owe it to ourselves” then later because it was “just numbers on paper?” And what about Social Security and Medicare? Here again the oligarchy tells us not to worry. Everything will be fine.

Well I am here to tell you everything isn’t going to be fine. The bomb is real. And our oligarchy is mishandling the problem just as they mishandled the housing bubble, just as they failed to secure the cockpit doors.

And the best way to bring about this realization is for us to focus on the current crisis on Wall Street. A second great depression is coming and it does not really matter if you take an equity stake in the firms you bail out or not. But as you watch it unfold think about the oligarchy and how well they have performed. Then remember the bomb.

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Political Discourse at New Ruskin College

2008-09-14T19:33:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 9-15-08

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Upper class Warfare Part V: Political Discourse?

“We are at or near the bottom.” --- Henry Paulson, June 2007

I guess if you are Secretary of the Treasury you can say whatever you please. Soon Mr. Paulson will be retiring from office and will no longer have to concern himself with affairs of the American people.

Contrast Paulson’s words with those of the British Secretary of the Treasury: “In a candid interview in today's Guardian Weekend magazine, Darling warns that the economic times faced by Britain and the rest of the world "are arguably the worst they've been in 60 years". To deepen the sense of gloom, he adds: "And I think it's going to be more profound and long-lasting than people thought."” (Nicholas Watt, The Guardian, 8-30-08)

Why is Mr. Darling able to speak candidly and Mr. Paulson is not? Is the political culture in Britain different from that of the USA? Perhaps Mr. Paulson thought he was required by his position to put a positive spin on economic conditions. But why doesn’t Mr. Darling? Then again Mr. Paulson may have actually thought we were at the bottom in 2007. This is the problem with political discourse --- we do not know when people are saying what they really believe, nor do we know what they really believe is true or false. (Note that in the market this is not a problem. People in the market back up their words with their money. If they say they like something we expect them to prove it by putting their money where their mouth is.)

Or contrast Mr. Paulson’s words with those of a private observer: “"Definitely, it (the dollar) is not a safe place to be invested in, as real inflation is closer to 10 or 11 percent than the actual inflation numbers given by the U.S. government," Hennecke said on "Worldwide Exchange". The end result of the global economic slowdown may be the U.S. announcing national bankruptcy as the government cannot afford the bailouts that it promised and the market will not bail out the government. "We expect a depression in the United States. We expect a depression, very possibly, also in Europe."” (Martin Hennecke, senior manager of private clients at Tyche, told CNBC on Thursday.)

Notice that Mr. Hennecke says the government is lying about the real rate of inflation. (If the government used the same method of calculating inflation as was used up until 1983 inflation would be reported at 10 to 11 percent. The government changed its reporting in part to keep the cost of indexing under control. For example Social Security is indexed to inflation such that if inflation were to be reported as 10 or 11 percent the government would have to pay much more than if they lie about inflation and report it as only 4%.) If Mr. Hennecke is right then what does this imply for our political discourse? Where is the transparency? How can we have an honest discussion if the government’s own statistics are deliberately distorted?

An easy solution to this problem of public discourse is simply to say that Mr. Paulson, Mr. Darling, and Mr. Hennecke are discussing the future so therefore of course they will have different views. In this we have the same situation as in the market. People disagree. But if Mr. Paulson and Mr. Hennecke were in the private market we would not ask why they disagree. In the private market it would be enough to know they disagree. If you think we are at the bottom in 2007 you put your money with Mr. Paulson. Or if you think true inflation is 10%, that the American people have lived beyond their means for a generation, that debt has gotten beyond their ability to repay, that the government itself is on the verge of bankruptcy, and that a second great depression is the necessary result, then you take Mr. Hennecke’s advise.

But transfer this discussion into the public realm and we must ask why they are saying what they are saying. Who benefits; was the old Roman question. A question to which there could be but one reply: For the good of the people. Thus Mr. Paulson might say that even though he did not really think we were at the bottom in 2007 he said we were at the bottom for the good of the people; to help keep prices up. In like manner it might be argued that Mr. Darling even though he really believes we are facing a grim economic down turn he should have nonetheless followed Mr. Paulson’s example and put a positive spin on the facts.

What I find so compelling about the collapse of the housing bubble is how it forces itself into reality. For example Mr. Paulson is no longer talking about the bottom of the market. And when the coming depression begins to grip the economy the political discussion will only then begin to address the down turn. But until it forces itself into being the depression will be discussed by government ministers in the same way they discussed the housing bubble. Some will doubt it because they really doubt it, others will lie, some will spin, still others will say what they think they are supposed to say. This is the problem with political discourse.

It is not just that Mr. Paulson was wrong, the problem is that we do not know what he was thinking. We do not know why he said we were at the bottom in June 2007. To know why he said what he said we would need to know a great deal more about Mr. Paulson. What else does Mr. Paulson believe? For example does he approve the tax deduction on mortgage interest? Even though the wealthy receive most of the benefits? Does he think that the tax exemption for the first $500,000 in capital gains on a home, in a country where the average home is valued at $200,000, is fair and equitable? Does he approve of ethanol subsidies notwithstanding the fact that it takes more energy to make than it produces? Does he support nurse practitioners to lower the cost of medicine? Does he support vouchers in education? Etc.

We would have to have the answers to these and a great many more questions in order to understand why he said we were at or near the bottom in June 2007. This is one reason single issue politics is so abysmal. On any given issue it is practically impossible to know the motivation of any particular political actor. This is why I, when I was involved in politics, first with the Math Project, and then later with the New Ruskin College Project, (see Math Project and New Ruskin College Project archives at the Moynihan Memorial Library), I always dealt with all the issues which were before my target audience: the Senate. If they were dealing with the issue then I had to make it my business to also deal with the issue. More than just being topical I tried to enter into a dialogue.

For example, I had to discuss vouchers, and what a market oriented education might look like, and explain that if market forces were allowed to work in education, technology would have been better utilized. And all of this had to be covered while discussing whether we should invade Iraq to liberate Kuwait. What I did not foresee was that if you are involved in a great many issues one becomes the target of people with political views contrary to one’s own.

So Yvonne was persuaded to betray me to her friends at KQED. And when I protested the people at KQED other of her friends contacted my employers and had me laid off. Michael Krasny at KQED contacted Rose Guilbault at AAA and had me laid off there. Ron Owens at KGO used his influence at Access to get me laid off there. Melanie Morgan at KSFO used her influence at Cen Cal to have me laid off there. (see CEN CAL Letters at the Moynihan Memorial Library) Owens or Weiner (aka Savage) used their influence at Farmers to harass me there. Don Imus harassed me at GAB. Weiner broke into my rooms at the Colonial Motel and photo copied the note book and harassed me for several days before giving the note book to others at KGO and KSFO. (see The Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan)

It suffices to say that this sort of harassment and intentional interference with contractual relations severely limits political discourse. How much of what is said, or not said, is because of the real fear of being targeted by the likes of Krasny, Owens and Weiner?

As we peer into the future we see Iran, a nation hijacked by radicals, developing the bomb, we see the emergence of the second great depression, the emergence of bio-weapons, and all of this must be discussed within a political discourse of such narrow breadth that the truth can barely slip in.

Class Project at New Ruskin College

2008-08-16T12:58:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 08-15-08

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Upper Class Warfare - Part IV Class Project

The figure bellow shows the home values from 2000 to the present. Now class who can complete the right side of the figure? Do you think the prices will continue to go down at the same rate, or will the line go up from here, or will the line go out at some angle? (Note class that the line does not have to stop at the base line. It can go on and fall right through all the gains run up in the 1990’s also. It can dive down very deep destroying equity all the way down.)

(To see figure go to Lecture Hall see Lecture Notes 8-15-08)

Pround Houses at New Ruskin College

2008-08-10T15:58:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 08-11-08

Upper Class Warfare - Part III Proud Houses

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The baby boom generation bought the American Dream and by the beginning of this century the competitive drive to own ever larger Mc Mansions finally ended with the bursting of the housing bubble as we have seen. The plan, if plan there was, apparently was for 76 million baby boomers to sell their houses to 48 million Generation X’ers. At the height of the bubble the portion of Americans who were homeowners reached 69%. As explained in Part II this is not coincidental. The bubble required ever more buyers to be brought into the market. For every Mc Mansion sold a buyer had to be found for the apartment which had just been converted into a condominium.

The bubble burst from sheer exhaustion. The supply of buyers was exhausted. And the credit line of those market participants was also exhausted. The American savings rate is now negative. It is estimated that the losses from mortgage defaults will total as much as two trillion dollars; this when the total capital of the banking system is $1.3 trillion. The average American family in addition to all those house mortgages which are daily exceeding the market value of their homes, and by ever larger margins, now has $8,000 in credit card debt, and all this debt is the private debt only.

We have been as profligate in our public finances as we have in our private finances. Let us not forget the national debt which is $32,000 per person and that public indebtedness grows when the Social Security System and the Medicare System are combined bringing the total debt to some $175,000 per person.

Household income has been flat in the 21st century for all income groups yet housing more than doubled in the twenty metropolitan composite of the S&P/Case-Schiller index. (see figure Lecture Notes 08-15-08 in Lecture Hall) Income simply could not support further expansion of the housing bubble. Therefore bust.

“Froth” --- Dr. Greenspan

Right now there are 19 million housing units of all types vacant on the market, 35% above normal, according to David Rosenberg North American economist with Merrill Lynch & Co. Of these 4.5 million were previously occupied homes and were listed for sale at the end of June, according to the National Association of Realtors. Of these 750,000 were bank owned. These numbers could easily treble as homeowners start walking away from their mortgages that exceed the market value of their homes. And Dr. Greenspan himself thinks we are not near the bottom. It was Dr. Greenspan who denied the existence of the bubble and whose policies were primarily responsible for the bubbles dramatic increase during the Twenty First Century. “The damage was done earlier, beginning when the Greenspan Fed lowered interest rates in 2001 after the bust of the technology bubble, and kept them too low for too long. They kept cutting the federal funds rate all the way to 1% through 2004, and then raised it gradually instead of quickly. This fed the credit and housing bubble . . .” (Nouriel Roubini, Barrons, 8-2-08)

The New York Times reported: “Most of the economists who were interviewed blamed Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, for his unwillingness to clamp down on either the technology stock bubble or the run-up in housing prices.” (Abha Bhattarai, New York Times, 8-5-08)

Yet in fairness to Dr. Greenspan it must be acknowledged that Australia, Great Brittan , Ireland, and Spain have all experienced similar housing bubbles. A generation came of age and bought houses with an acquisitiveness not seen before in history. It is difficult not to believe that something more than merely shelter was being pursued. Were they grasping at something less tangible? What was it they were looking for? Was it an attempt to find community? To try and differentiate themselves from their peers? Or to try and out do their parent’s home? All the proud houses were symbols of a success they longed for and could make tangible by simply signing a mortgage document. As the bubble continued it was easy to come to think of the home as a kind of saving account or retirement account. The national media encouraged the frenzy to buy homes or trade up. Time magazine on its cover showed happy homeowners watching their home take flight. There was no downside. No risk. Why had no previous generation discovered this way of wealth creation?

Madame Bovary Life Style

That the housing bubble was driven to such heights by people whose incomes were static or, in the case of the lower income groups, actually declining, is evidence of how available credit had become. A deliberate policy decision was made in Washington by the Clinton Administration to lower lending standards to push up the percentage of Americans who were “homeowners.” Never mind that they were owners only in the narrow sense that their names were on the mortgage papers. Many of these mortgages were no down payment loans with no principle and below market interest for 2 or 5 years. Everything depended on prices going up higher and higher.

With the negative savings rate, and accumulating debt public as well as private it is difficult to see how much longer Madame Bovary can go on. Everything our oligarchic elite could do to rig the market to the advantage of homeowners has been done: tax sheltering of income for homeowners, tax sheltering of capital gains, government subsidized loans, exclusionary zoning and building codes to reduce supply, any thought of savings has been abandoned, and now most recently with a $300 billion Housing Bill to help 400,000 homeowners. But in the end the market has tossed these attempts to rig the housing market aside as if they were so many toys.
And I think people are beginning to see that they have been mislead. There is no such thing as a consumer society. There is only a society in which people work and plan for the future and save money to finance their projects or there is profligacy and no savings for the future and society disintegrates. In the end Madame Bovary committed suicide.

Upper Class Warfare at New Ruskin College

2008-07-30T23:29:00.000-07:00

Lecture Notes: 07-31-08

Upper Class Warfare - Part II Laissez-faire

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The housing bubble’s collapse is the biggest economic news story since the Great Depression. Yet it is still not understood. I can recall quite clearly when it was debated if there was a housing bubble or not. I warned against it. But I recall one belligerent fool going on the air on Kudlow and Company or some such broadcast and saying sassily “I don’t think there is a housing bubble . . . I don’t think people have bought homes they can not afford . . . I don’t think builders will overbuild . . . etc. etc.”

Where is that fool now? Mr. Franklin Raines collected $26 million for rigging the “bonus” compensation system at Fannie Mae. Dr. Greenspan has retired to his pension too. Soon Mr. Bush will retire to his government pension. Recall that it was Mr. Bush who said that the deficit was just “numbers on paper.” (Let them eat cake.)

I have to smile at the press coverage to the effect that the “victims” of “predatory lending” were lured into debt by dishonest agents and brokers. As if their misfortunes now result from a few bad actors. It is so typical of American Journalism to focus on the specific case, the man in the street interview, but miss the totality of the story. And this, your misdirection continues even as the biggest story since the Great Depression continues to unfold.

These “victims” are not incidental to the story they are integral to the scheme. The story of the bubble is the story of millions of such people caught up in the frenzy of the times. The speculative bubble is like a pyramid scheme. It requires new people, new money, to be constantly brought into each new cycle of the swindle. These “victims” are merely the last marks to have been brought into the con before the collapse. The housing bubble was one gigantic Ponzi scheme. The people who told you otherwise were lying to you or fools, or both. And now when they tell you we are at the bottom they are lying again.

And even though now it is collapsing you still can not look at it and see it for what it was. Dr. Greenspan and Franklin Raines were at the top of the scam, the oligarchic masterminds, the newspaper “Home Section” was the means of finding the marks, the real estate agents were the front men, the mortgage brokers the bag men, and so on and so forth. Can’t you see that it was not sustainable from the beginning?

You have been mislead. Tricked. Lied to. And by the way this isn’t the bottom not even close. In the months ahead you will be reporting about the “walk-a-ways.” These will be the marks who got in just a little earlier than your subprime “victims.” As the collapse continues the walk-a-ways will start to perceive that they too are underwater by tens of thousands of dollars and sinking. So they will walk away from their mortgages and homes. This will cause house prices to fall still further. See this is the reverse of the up cycle. As prices fall lower more will walk away.

So what caused the speculative fever in the first place? Greed. And a government more than willing to feed the fever with discounted guaranteed loans. The oligarchic elite who rule this country concluded that if home ownership is good then why not everyone a homeowner? Then too the journalists failed to report on the bubble until it was too late. Of course the journalists are homeowners themselves and may have had a vested interest in promoting the up cycle of the pyramid scheme.

I am trying not to take pleasure in the collapse of the housing bubble. But it is satisfying to see one’s forecasts and warnings come to pass. When I think about how the average person was priced out of the market. How as a group industry and government conspired to drive up prices out of reach of average people. At one point at the height of the bubble only 8% could afford the median priced home in San Francisco. At the time I wrote questioning who was looking out for the bottom 80%. No one cared it seems that the price of land and housing were being driven up out of reach. Not the government. Not the journalists. Not even most people for 60% were “homeowners” and therefore part of the Ponzi scheme themselves.

So this market correction is not just an economic correction it is also a moral correction. For all of you who did not care about the consequences of ever higher prices on your fellow citizens you are now corrected by the market. For those of you who thought you could rig the market by using government to drive prices higher and higher, you are now corrected. For foremost in your calculations was greed, your personal gain from the manipulated market, and for this you are corrected.

The correction will not go on forever and ever. Housing has an intrinsic worth, a sustainable value, and the market left to itself will find this value. Eventually equilibrium will be achieved. Your interference with the market, your tax subsidies, subsidized guaranteed loans, your exclusionary building and zoning codes only delays and distorts the market.

Who will pay for the $300 billion Housing Bill just signed by Mr. Bush? A disproportionate amount will be paid by renters, that 40% of the population not favored by the oligarchy. The Bills sponsors hope that 400,000 “homeowners” will be helped by the Bill. Yet foreclosures and walk-a-ways will be numbered in the tens of millions. But eventually the truth will come out. Laissez-faire.

Iraq @ New Ruskin College

2007-07-14T15:58:00.000-07:00

http://www.newruskincollege.com/

Lecture Notes: 7-15-07

Not everyone likes Iraq. It is too hot for some. Too dusty for others. Then there is the politics of the place. Really civil strife. A government teetering on the edge.

One thing that puts some off is the fact that the average age is 18. It is a young, really adolescent society. People drive too fast. And then there are the guns. And bombs. All driven by youthful idealism or at least youthful conviction.

Have you noticed that the houses don’t have house numbers displayed at their entrances? For one thing how do they get their mail? Do they have mailmen? And how do you develop a data base for the population? How do you know where everyone is living? What do you put on their identity papers?

No, not everyone likes Iraq. I think our President has soured on the place. He wanted them to be more like us. Older, for one thing. Yes, and more temperate. I think their Parliament mystifies him. Everything is subject to negotiations.

The Constitution, for example, which they have only just finished writing, was to be changed because Mr. Bush felt that the federal system needed to include the Sunnis’ view. (Why didn’t he provide a constitution for them which included a stronger central government? He did not think he had the right to “impose” on them.)

The oil distribution law also is being negotiated. And again this law was not originally established when the government was being set up because he did not want to impose a fair pro rata distribution for all the people of Iraq. Some imposition. Our young people are permitted to stay out on point while these negotiations go on. He can impose on our young people just not on the Iraqi.

The negotiations on the Constitution are so deep it is hard to tell where they stand. Months pass in complete silence but we are told that the negotiations are continuing. As outsiders it is hard to tell. Then too whole Iraqi Army units show up at 50% of strength because privates have negotiated leaves for themselves. (Which they need we are told because there is no such thing as direct deposit.)

It is a place where everything depends on who you know. Which explains why the mail delivery may be a bit spotty and why the government appears to be constantly teetering.
So these are some reasons why people, including our President, don’t like Iraq.

But your perspective changes if you start out accepting that it is a country which is facing 9 years of civil war. Things look different if you assume a government that is constantly negotiating its way. Then its gyrations don’t look so wild. Accept that it will always appear to be teetering. If you accept that it is a hot dusty place, accept it for what it is, things don’t look so alien.

I think our President needs to change his perspective. He tends to be a little up tight. He always dresses nattily. He went on the wagon completely. No half way for him. He jogged until he damaged his knees. He is very particular about how he sees things. ‘Stubborn,’ is a word which is often used about him.

But he may just be one of those people who don’t like Iraq very much. Not his cup of tea. He can not accept it for what it is. A country at war, that will be at war for years to come. A people with their own ways of solving their own problems. A society where everything is subject to negotiations of a highly personal nature.

Does he understand, for example, that our troops, our young people, are seen by the Iraqi as just another aspect of what is to be negotiated? If the Iraqi is told ‘We will stay in Iraq as long as the Iraqis need us’, as he did tell them, then is it so unreasonable for the Iraqi to assume that this has been settled? As long as needed.

Did the President mean for that to be our negotiating position? Did he even understand that he was negotiating? Senator Carl Levin told the President that this was just the wrong thing to tell the Iraqis. The President seemed to admit his mistake when he told the Senator in reply, “That’s a good point.”

Does the President propose his policies for Iraq because he likes Iraq so much? Or because he doesn’t like Iraq so much? Doesn’t like Iraq the way it really is?

Rather than changing Iraq perhaps the President should change his attitude about the place and accept it for what it is.

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Mr. Bush @ New Ruskin College

2007-07-09T13:45:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 7-9-07
I told you so Part II

Dear Mr. President;

So now after much delay and many casualties you are considering pulling our troops back to military reservations from which they can assist the Iraqi Army with logistics and training, and striking high value targets, instead of trying to do everything ourselves. Good.

You could have followed this policy years ago when I first proposed it, and avoided many casualties. But better late than never. Unfortunately now there is a question of whether Congress will allow you to keep the troops in Iraq even in this deployment.

Instead of allowing the Iraqi Army to take the lead as I advised, you disbanded it, and put our troops out on point patrolling the dusty streets of Iraq. The resulting casualties have so eroded support that you may not now be allowed to keep them in Iraq.

And what is possibly even worse you allowed the enemy to define success as his ability to carry out tactical operations. As long as he can set off a car bomb somewhere in Iraq he wins for you have allowed this to serve as the definition of our “winning.” You confused tactical success with our strategic goals.

In other words during the intervening years, and intervening casualties, you allowed our strategic goal, of having our troops deployed in Iraq were they could serve as a backstop for the Iraqi Army, (and a counter weight to prevent the odd coup), to be undermined by casualties taken for short term tactical goals. Tactics over strategy. A classic example of winning every battle and losing the war.

From a larger philosophical perspective we can agree with Alan Watts when he said that “the goody goodies are the thieves of virtue.” By doing everything for the Iraqis you have prevented virtuous Iraqis from coming forward. Or as I put it several years ago: There is a reason the cavalry only comes to the rescue in the third reel . . . if they came to the rescue in the first reel there wouldn’t be a picture.

Your officers are all type ‘A’ personalities. Their aggressiveness and controlling personalities have their advantage in most military problems yet what was required here was more subtlety. From a systems point of view the Iraqi political social system was too complex for an outsider, even one trained at West Point, to master.

For example, the question of which militias to incorporate into the Iraqi Army and which to disarm and disband, is one best left to those whose lives depend on the outcome of the question. Nothing would focus the attention of the Iraqi Parliament so much as knowing that their security is being provided not by the American Army but by their own officers that they have themselves promoted to office.

Hopefully it is still not too late to salvage our strategic goal of having a force situated in Iraq to guarantee the newly won independence of the Iraqi people.

http://www.newruskincollege.com/

Iran Zimbabwe and Nazi Germany at NRC

2007-07-03T20:19:00.000-07:00

from http://www.newruskincollege.com/

Lecture Notes 7-4-07

Iran and Zimbabwe push forward with price controls.

New York Times reports Zimbabwe is trying to implement the same price control policies Iran is attempting according to the Gulf Daily News. Professor Gotz Aly reports in his recent book, Hitler’s Beneficiaries, that Hitler was forced to war by the logic of his own mismanagement of the German economy. He needed to plunder neighboring states in order to get at their gold reserves and other resources, manipulate their currency, and seize the property of the Jews.

Hitler had used credit to purchase his arms race and in January 1939 the strains on the economy had become so great that the Reichsbank felt compelled to send him a letter which read in part:

“The unlimited expansion of state expenditures flouts every attempt to draw up an orderly budget. It has brought state finances, despite the drastic tightening of tax legislation, to the brink of collapse and threatens now to destabilize both the national bank and the currency. No financial recipes or systems --- no matter how ingenious or well thought out --- and no institutions or set of fiscal mechanisms can suffice to rein in the disastrous consequences of unbridled deficit spending on the currency. No national bank is capable of propping up the currency against the inflationary spending policies of the state.” (39)

This may be regarded as the letter that caused World War II. Hitler used WWII to cover up his phony bookkeeping. He was a simple opportunist with no idea how to run a national economy. Now today Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe carry out the same policies of state control.

Will Mugabe or Ahmadinejad turn to war in an attempt to conceal their economic mismanagement? Their policies are not sustainable. Disaster must follow their “price control” legislation. In the case of Iran will that disaster be nuclear?

The second Holocaust proceeds like the first.

The Cross Parts 6&7 @ New Ruskin College

2006-02-24T14:25:00.000-08:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Lecture Notes:
The Cross: Christian and Buddhist Meditations on Death

Part Six

Wait a minute. . . . What have I been thinking . . .! It had nothing to do with spelling errors did it? That was just another excuse . . .

Now I get it! Just another way to demean me, to diminish, to marginalize . . . and to justify your misconduct. A justification.

Not enough to break into the Colonial Motel and go through my papers (see Intel Ops., see Psy. Ops.); Michael Weiner had to let me know he had the stolen notebook (drop little hints during his radio broadcast less then 24 hours after the burglary) . . . and then later we got: ‘Oh, by the way you misspelled apocryphal.’ (see also The Stolen Notebook Archive at the Moynihan)

It was all part of the same game: The process of destroying a man. As if we needed another demonstration, at the end of the bloody Twentieth Century, of the principle that if a group of powerful people unite they can destroy another.

Most of you have no excuse . . . --- Ah . . . (By which I mean, that is, most of the regular visitors here at New Ruskin, for whom the site was originally created; they have no excuse. (This website was originally established for a small group of media elites who were “in the know” about what was being done to me. I wanted to embarrass the ones who were intentionally interfering with my life, by drawing the attention of their peers among the media elite, to them and their misconduct. But now we have so many “civilians” (or noncombatants) visiting this site, we must remember to specify who we are talking to. Now we have two audiences.)) I am referring to you, the media elite.

Counselor: Oh, two audiences. That must make you feel important . . . ?

You can not excuse yourselves by claiming to be ordinary men. You are not. You want the standard, our expectations, to be lowered for yourselves now that it is convenient for you, to escape judgment, and then you want us to raise the standard for everyone else! (It has been said that the political genius of Clinton and Bush can be seen in their ability to manage expectations, i.e., to lower them. Clinton did not accomplish much and we did not expect that he would accomplish much.)

You are the elite but you want to be judged by the same standard as the common man. Consider for example why you are still visiting this web site? I mean the reason other than the macabre spectacle of a man deprived of his livelihood, driven into poverty, despair, ending ultimately in his death, . . . however it should turn out . . . Quite a spectacle. (see Last Will and Testament)

Your visits to this site, (and its mirrors, (oh, yes, I track the downloads, page by page)), proves my point. Besides the stolen notebook recall your keen interest in those letters of mine fifteen years ago to the Senate, and the President, and all the rest of our rulers, (see the Math Project and New Ruskin College Project Archives at the Moynihan).

Why still visiting? Why such interest? Because of this fundamental fact:

Your grudging acceptance that I represent, mediocre though I may be, those others, that “other” 95% (or 88%) who are not earning seven figure incomes, are not on television and radio, do not have newspaper columns, are not millionaires, do not even know any millionaires at all, who are not you, in fact not like you at all, and all those like you, your friends and colleagues, the elite. (“I realized that I have not know anyone since High School who had a SAT score under 1400.”(Name the elite “media personality” for five points extra credit.))

This is after all why Dr. Murray and Dr. Hernstein wrote their book, The Bell Curve: To remind the elite that their assumptions about the world are only possible because of your statistically unique genetic combination. Because the base pairs aligned up at a few key locations of your chromosomes just so, you have “merit.” You vainly think you “merit” this windfall which is after all only a statistical fluke, the outlying fringe of the bell distribution. You represent at most 12% of the population, and more likely just 6 or 8%. You confuse your experience of the life, your way of thinking, your world view, for that of the rest of humanity: the other 88% or 95%.

This is why you are here at this website. And this is why the original letters received so much attention. Not because I am such a genius. No! Because I am ordinary or as that Senator would have it, (I recall he was from Nebraska): mediocre. Reading me is like opening a window to the world, and all those others, the mediocre, the ordinary, the people.

Learn how the other 88% think.

But of course this is also why some setout to destroy me and why the rest of you, who knew about what was being done to me, simply watched, did nothing, and found it all so “amusing.” The very same qualities that caused you to read me in the first place were the very same qualities that allowed you to dismiss me. I did not count. Ordinary. Mediocre.

The bottom 88% have no rights. And even to say so is to be boringly obvious; it is all mildly vexing. ‘Really, does he expect to be taken seriously?’ Right? ‘Can you imagine? It thinks he has rights?!’

We do not figure into your thinking. Just look at your laws! The rules of society are all slanted to the advantage of the elite, the ones who control the government, the corporations, society itself. You were intrigued to learn about those others, and also at the very same time resentful. (I got what I deserved is what you think.)

But then Murray and Hernstein were marginalized also. Racism, sexism, were among the charges thrown at them by this very same elite. Exactly the very same people whom they were trying to reach. And the real and important issues which their book raised and examined were simply ignored, or demeaned, diminished, marginalized.

I like that. It gives me some comfort.

I am in good company.

Part Seven

Yes, in good company.

The people of Darfur are another example of people you do not care about. The millions of Mexicans who illegally enter the US and must live a life in the shadows because you do not care about them nor their rights. (They have none.) You do not care enough to control your own borders. Nor do you care what effect the unregulated movement of labor has upon your “fellow countrymen”. Because they are not your fellow countrymen. You do not care about them either. To say nothing of the millions in Mexico who might have lived better lives but for your indifference. The children in Pakistan’s mountains shivering in the cold. Africa . . .

At one time it was thought that economic development, the heaping up of capital for future investment would benefit all, but you no longer believe in capitalist progress, nor in savings. Just as your social lives are self-absorbed so this is reflected in your “economics.” It annoys you to have all these examples conflated. You have distinct and separate reasons why you are indifferent to all these different people in this world of suffering. You are indifferent to the blind orphans of Bangladesh, the people of Africa --- all the Third World because --- well, because they are the Third World aren’t they? They are too many for your sympathy.

You call it compassion fatigue. You are fatigued. At least you are not openly contemptuous of their suffering. You do not call them the “Turd World” as does Michael Weiner. But you secretly enjoy his “openness.” You can not yourselves engage in his cretinism but you would like to. You can not keep from smiling: ‘“Turd World” Yes, that’s good.’ (This is called The Revolt of the Elites (Christopher Lasch, 1996).)

The President of Iran calls for “wiping Israel off the map” and you go on with your lives oblivious to the danger because you are oblivious to all of us. The blind orphans in Bangladesh, yes, and your neighbor down the street, the whole world of suffering and torment . . . it is all so boring for you . . . isolated as you are by your seven figure capital accounts . . . by your cynicism . . .

The national debt, the housing bubble, the pending collapse of Social Security and pension system, of . . of . . . of everything and everyone. You ignore me!? You ignore everything!

Mr. Oliphant for example. Another Harvard. How is it that one graduates from Harvard and then spends the rest of ones life writing a newspaper column? Ought we not expect more from a Harvard graduate? The great American novel or something? But again the meritocracy runs only in one direction. He can set any standard he likes for us, but we dare not ask him: Where is your life’s work? Newspaper columns? Is that all? Shouldn’t a Harvard have done something more with his life?

Mr. Oliphant appears regularly on the Imus show. And like Senator Hatch, (“I’ve heard what you do to some of your listeners”), Mr. Oliphant knows that Imus has harassed me for years and he does not care. He knows that Moslems have been called “stinking animals” on the Imus show, knows that Imus has repeatedly called for the nuclear incineration of the Middle East, knows and does not care. Imus helps sell Mr. Oliphant’s books. But shouldn’t we expect more from a Harvard graduate? Just kidding.

Any day now Mr. Oliphant might drop a “Turd World” of his own on Imus or where ever he goes.

(Answer for the extra credit question: Howard Fineman.)

Lehrer and Russert and Schieffer are all Imus regulars . . . to be continued . . .

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

The Cross Parts 1 to 5 @ New Ruskin College

2006-01-25T09:44:00.000-08:00

"Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail / Whistle about us their spontaneous cries; / Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness." This physical world, an endless round of birth, death, and the seasons, is more lasting than any interpretation of it. Religions, myths, philosophies, and cultures are all fictions and pass away, but "April's green endures." "Sunday Morning" is Stevens' most eloquent description of the moment when the gods dissolve. . . . continued at www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/sunday

Notice:
Plinio Designori was arrested by the San Francisco Police on 09-30-05 a block from the KQED building in San Francisco. His .357 Magnum was confiscated. Other property was simply stolen by the police. He is still being held. He recently said, “This changes nothing."

"Just because you have silenced a man, does not mean you have convinced him..." ----- Lord Liverpool
(see Liberal Toryism, www.HistoryHome.co.uk)

“The officer, surrounded by these noises, was moved and a little embarrassed. He turned away to give them time to pull themselves together; and waited, allowing his eyes to rest on the trim cruiser in the distance.” --- William Golding, Lord of the Flies
Bullying in the Workplace - An acceptable cost?By Andy Ellis, Ruskin College, Oxford, UK

Introduction.In 1994, Staffordshire University Business School published the results of a survey indicating that 1 in 2 UK employees have been bullied at work during their working life. This particular statistic is just one of many which have been piling up across the world attracting little or no interest from either the politician or the businessman.

The hypotenuse which I intend to cover during this project report is that workplace bullying is not only unhealthy for those being bullied but also for the organisations which are allowing it to continue. I intend to show that even many of the employers which are leading in this area by adopting anti bullying policies are allowing their line management to ignore the policy and instead provide an atmosphere of uncertainty within their organisations. . . . continued at :
www.workplacebullying.co.uk/aethesis

Note: New Ruskin College is not affiliated with Ruskin College, Oxford.

Lecture Notes:
The Cross: Christian and Buddhist Meditations on Death

Part One

After all these years someone finally comes forward.

Right at the end.

The last minute.

Why?

On the cross there is a small shelf, just a board. It is placed there for the condemned. Just above their buttocks. (This is the diagonal bar on the Russian Cross. (The second of the two cross bars represents The Christ on the cross.)) They could lift themselves up and hold themselves on it. So the condemned could take the weight of his body off of his arms and chest. If it weren’t there even the strongest would soon die. Their hearts and lungs would not be able to take the strain of all their weight from their arms and upper torso focusing down on the chest. Their hearts and lungs would soon stop. So the board.

But each pause, each rest, only prolongs the suffering. It was reported that none could resist though. They would squeeze themselves up, again and again, and rest for a moment taking the weight off their chest, reviving, then slipping back down.

From: Anonymous comment blogger com
To: PlinioDesignori
9-14-2005
wed 14, 2005 11-19-38-pdt
"And Imus, at State Farm, using Shotgun Tom Kelly’s brother, and then years later Frank Blaha, at GAB Robins, Michael Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson, . . . and Ron Owens, . . . Rick Alber, . . . the Red comedian . . . Scott Bobro . . . Mengus, . . . Sotos . . . Michael Krasney . . . . . . and now Franken, what do all these people have in common?"

How did I get mixed in with that group?---- Rick Alber

---Posted by Anonymous to New Ruskin College at 9/14/2005 11:17:42 AM

newruskincollege.blogspot.com 2oo5 05 Frankin McCain at NRC

Part Two:

For those of you who have forgotten Alber is the regular on the O’Donnell show on KSFO who had monitored the research on Bio-warfare at Kinko’s Copies down in Santa Clara when I was working at Farmers, where Scott Bobro was working for Owens or Weiner. The system designer. Then after I commented on his on air reference to “blood labs” he commented on my posting here.

But for some reason this is not enough for him. He wants more.

But then Don Imus is boasting about wanting to “bring it on” because he has paid a big retainer to some attorney, and Mrs. Jack Swanson is condemning the harassment of conservatives in the work place, and . . . well it goes on and on.

The word “hypocrites” doesn’t do you justice.

The above anonymous email had HTML code and hot text which I have deleted from here because of potential virus. However I have saved the copy in hopes that if there is a Coroner’s Inquest it can be subpoenaed and traced back to the senderr.

There has been an email from Mengus also. (Saved on the Sprint email server.) For years I have suspected his involvement because he placed me at CENCAL, AIMS, AAA, Farmers, but I was not sure until after GAB Robins and years have gone by without any contact, even no response to my many emails regarding his advertised openings.

And now at the end he sent a contact regarding employment. He did not respond when I contacted him. It seems he just wanted to get in one last hit. Because I am such a terrible anti Semite, such a racist, such a . . . etc. And the Voinoviches will think so too. ‘Where there is smoke . . . Please no controversy.’

Oh, and yes, Kellyservices.com visited again. No, no work! Just checking to see if I am dead yet. Not yet! Yes, we are all of us checking. Waiting. But not dead yet.

Will he raise himself up again? Pull his arms up and crouch on the board again? Again? No, not again. Stay down Sir. Stay down. It will all be over a few minutes. Please, Sir, stay down . . .

He suffered all day on the cross.

Part Three:

All day. A tremendous will to live.

His suffering is both: the sacrifice that redeems mankind, by whose resurrection the prophetic promise is fulfilled that sin will be finally vanquished, and God will no longer be separate from mankind, but we will know Him as a direct experience, this is His body, this is His blood, so that we will not merely obey The Law form the outside, (God as other), but now live God's Law in our daily lives; and His suffering serves also as an example to us in our suffering, and encourages us to imagine that justice might yet triumph over injustice even as His teaching has survived his tormenters, the resurrection being completed now in our lives, our hearts beating now for Him, our lungs breathing now for him, not mystically in somewhere after but right now, in the actuality of the present moment, our devotion resurrects and saves our teacher even as He saved us.

This then is the Christian meditation on death which affirms life. For both us and The Christ death is inevitable, this is why we call is sacrifice. Inevitability, (for every life there is a death), is what makes it sacrifice. ((See also Iris Murdoch on the nature of the tragic. Metaphysics As A Guide To Morals.) It should be pointed out that in the Jewish tradition the rabbis would be disappointed with us if we imagined that they favor mere rote obedience to The Law. "God is a Verb" as one rabbi has put it in the title of his book. Alan Watts has compared Judaism to Zen Buddhism in that The Law serves only as a means of instruction which will eventually force even the most vain student to finally admit that legalistic analysis must be superceded as one comes to live The Law in one's heart, just as the Zen teacher trips and overturns the reticent student into experiencing reality now, in this moment, not after clever analysis which must always be completed at some point in the future, in time, analysis always requiring some more time to be completed.)

The Buddha's death also illustrates his teaching.

He died a good old age after a lifetime of contemplation and teaching. He died because, according to legend, he was too polite to refuse tainted meat that was offered him by his host, a poor goat herder who was honored to have such a personage in his home. When he eagerly offered the Buddha the last piece, the Buddha saw it was tainted, but not wanting to offend, ate it anyway. He died a few days later.

In the Buddhist meditation on death the inevitability of death in not regarded as simple an element of the tragic, but is itself taken as another example of the impermanence of all things. (Corpse are often brought into Buddhist temples and the monks attend the bodies during their decomposition. (Have you never meditated on the transformation of a forest in Autumn? (Never considered that all those colorful leaves are dying? . . . the beauty of impermanence . . . of death?)) How pretty, impermanence. Then gone.

Indeed this impermanence adds to the Eastern eye a quality to the moment, this moment, that may well be called beauty in its own right.

All living things must die. Change is inevitable. Are you the same person you were 20 yeas ago? 10 years ago? Yesterday? In every moment of life there is a death. A constant rising up, and a falling away, until the day of emptiness when we return to that time before we were born.

In the deaths of Jesus, The Christ, and the Buddha you can see the difference between the two religions, and I think a symmetry.

Rather than focusing on the contrast I ask you to consider the similarity. It matters not if one is outspoken in confronting the Pharisees, or if one deliberately lives a life of poverty and contemplation, death is inevitable. Both accepted death. Jesus struggled all day, the Buddha reflected on the last piece for only a moment. The inevitability of death and suffering, and its acceptance by both is an aspect of this symmetry. The inevitability is an element of the tragic (Western) and an element of beauty (Eastern). He lives: Z.

Seeing as how it is inevitable, how then could it be disgraceful?

Sometimes I have confronted the Pharisees and sometimes I have turned away for a life of contemplation. It made no difference.

Part Four:

I recently received another email apparently from the same sender as quoted above.

After I published the above post about the e-mailer who gave his name as Rick Ablber. I received a 2nd email, using the same name, complaining about bloggers who are “Anencephalic babies.”

We do not know for sure who sent the email, (the name can be falsely entered), but we do know that the e-mailer was a geek.

How? Anencephalic Babies!

Think of the terrible tragedy of having a newborn baby born without a portion of his brain. Imagine the grief. The anguish. How horrible. Yet the geek, (autistic?), is blind to this tragedy, this suffering. The geek only wanted a “scientific” name. Something that could be used with “babies.” See a blogger who chronicles 15 years of harassment and abuse, is only a “baby.” Again the geek is blind to other people’s suffering.

So the geek uses a word “Anencephalic,” unaware, (or is he just uncaring?), that this word will over power the rest of his sentence bringing in to it real tragedy, the agony of parents and their children, dying, into a sentence which he simply wants to use to “get even.” Even? He thinks: sure he used his influence with Kinko’s to spy on my use of a computer in Santa Clara, then used the O’Donnell radio program to harass. But like all the others we have encountered, he thinks that for me to complain about the spying and harassment is intolerable. Who am I to complain? Such are the egos involved in broadcasting.

But that is enough of that. I no longer care about our email correspondent. (He gave a little hope that someone had come forward but now it does not matter.)

George Will has written a private rebuke of some kind to Don Imus and has now lost the opportunity for that show’s fifteen minutes with a few millions of listeners during the morning dive. Still if you are selling books . . . So why did George Will do it? And what did he do exactly. Dr. Will has not sent me a copy.

Should I feel insulted? He gives up this huge sales tool, the Imus show, but will not tell us why? Keep it secret? But why secret? Imus who received the rebuke knows what Dr. Will said. Who is he protecting now? But even this does not matter.

I am trying to quiet my mind again. I will not die in a furry. I am not leaning back and I am not leaning forward, nor on one side or the other.

I recall that one of the Senators, back when I first began writing letters, made a reference to “what is this . . . I suppose even mediocre people should be represented . . .” I had written several letters at that point and something about what the Senator said, (perhaps it was something he had just said prior to that, I no longer remember the details, not even the Senator’s name), gave me the impression that he might be referring to my letters. (I think he was speaking to Senator Moynihan. (The phrase comes from the Judge G. Harold Carswell confirmation hearings: Senator Roman Hruska: “Even mediocre people deserve representation on the Supreme Court.”))

I had written a few letters to the Senate, they had gotten some attention, and that was fine, but what was this: “mediocre”, about? I was just one of 300 million citizens --- no wait, residents, (they are not all citizens), one of 300 million residents, (longer odds than the California Lottery), and now I learn that my letters were being judged? Not enough that they expressed my opinions, that they had attracted the attention of the Senate, the President, etc. but now apparently there was some other test they must pass.

This Senator presumed to judge my letters? For what? Style? Penmanship? I was a citizen requesting redress of grievance and this old fool presumed to judge what? Me? As if they were school masters and I their student. Am I acceptable? Citizenship counts for nothing.

Do I write in the polished prose of a professional author? Is that what is required? Does one need a PhD. to be heard? Is this not the case of the best becoming the enemy of the merely good? A “schoolmarm meritocracy” where only the elite are to be heard. (The phrase is George Gilder’s.)

I should have stopped right then. After all that has happened subsequently it is now easy, looking back, to see what a maelstrom I was entering. Not enough to be a citizen. No there is some other standard one must reach in order to have one’s petition heard.

People like Garrison Keillor are the kind of pedants who succeed in this world. Even Officer Vic (KSFO) was criticizing my spelling after the theft of the Stolen Notebook, (see Stolen Notebook Archives at the Moynihan Library). My Notebook was stolen and his only interest was in the quality of the spelling. The burglary, the publication of the Stolen Notebook, none of this held any interest for him, just that some words were misspelled: Apocryphal. A-poc-ry-phal.

Garrison Keillor is the type of old woman who would find a corpse in the woods, the gun in the mouth, the back of the skull blown away, blood still oozing into the ground, the suicide note on the ground next to the man, and would pick up the note and start checking it for spelling errors. On his show he has repeatedly mocked and ridiculed spelling errors, lauded his own academic achievement as an “English major,” yet no where will you hear him discuss his Masters in Sociology, or his PhD. in Political Science. That is because he ain’t got one nor neither.

Those to whom much is given, much is expected. No! Not anymore. Our meritocracy is now a one way street. No special duties are thought to attach to those selected to become our rulers. Screw obligations. Duty. No, Garrison never continued his education. And yet Senator Moynihan, (who did have a PhD. in Sociology), never once mocked my letters, for he understood that he as Senator was the servant of the People, not the other way around. He once corrected a spelling error in one of his own papers on the floor of the Senate saying, “just a hand written correction nothing wrong with that . . .”

I can not reach you. You are lost in a great hall of mirrors, an echo chamber, absorbed by your own egos. Mean horrible creatures. And if I attempt to touch you, a letter, just a letter, your scorn, contempt, abuse knows no limits. Mediocre. So? I am just an ordinary man. Now tell me --- what is your excuse?

Part Five:

Nagarjuna, the “Second Buddha”, (http://www.iep.utm.edu/n/nagarjun.htm), according to legend killed himself upon royal command using a piece of dried elephant grass. (His king ordered his suicide it is said because he felt shame at abandoning his old teacher, Nagarjuna, whom he venerated, for a new teacher. To relieve himself of this anxiety he ordered the death.) But then it has become customary to assign to Buddhist Saints such deaths in order to highlight their transcendence over ordinary attachments of the mind, . . . life for instance.

The legend of the death may be apocryphal yet it illustrates the Buddhist view about life and death. Having compared the Buddha’s death with that of Jesus let us now compare Nagarjuna's death with that of Socrates. Socrates also obeyed the command of his rulers even though he might easily have escaped Athens. . .

New members: EJ Dionne of The Washington Post and Time magazine's Joe Klein join ABC News' Martha Raddatz and George Will on This Week 01-29-06, welcome EJ Dionne, . . . see also Mark Shields on the Newshour: "rote" , 01-19-06 . . . Mr. Shields is a returning member of the club . . . welcome back Mr. Shields . . .

. . . To Be Continued . . .

Katrina Orpahns at New Ruskin College

2005-09-20T19:19:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Lecture Notes: Oh, Mercy; because now you are an orphan!

The Morning Morons (they would want me to use their names) say they just do not get it. Dr. Walter Maestri’s mother died in the St. Rita’s Nursing “Home,” (located in St. Bernard Parrish), not on Friday just as the Federal troops started to stream into the affected area, after being delayed by the Governor who demanded control of the Federal troops. (She already had control of the State National Guard. (The Governor of New Mexico, a Democrat himself, says he had offered his Guardsmen earlier but the Governor had not responded. (Of course he did not think to send his troops anyway. (And this is the “man” who will it is said bring substance and judgment to the expected Mrs. Billy Clinton Presidency. (Not a good start.)))))

“Why, what difference could it make?” they say incredulously. “Where is your heart? . . . Some people’s thinking just is not connected to their hearts.”

And they wonder why I call them the Morning Morons.

The President of Jefferson Parrish was on the air, 6 days after the storm, claiming that Mr. Bush “killed” the people of Louisiana due to the fact that the troops, offered Wednesday, did not receive permission from the Governor, also a Democrat, until Saturday. (Not the Saturday before the storm but the Saturday after the storm. (The Mayor related the President’s offer on Air Force One, that Friday. The Governor said, he relates, “she would think about it.” (The National Guardsmen were arriving on Thursday, and were, recall, “more than ready” to shoot to kill according to the sensitive Governor, A Woman.)))

The President of Jefferson Parrish, did I mention he is a Democrat, offered the tearful story of how Dr. Maestri’s mother survived the storm and called her son, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and drowned on Friday as evidence of how the “Federals” had “killed” the people of Louisiana. The Parrish President Mr. Broussard used the example of the death of Mrs. Maestri in a bitterly partisan attack on the President of the United States during a time of crisis.

Previously we have pointed out that Mr. Russert, a Democrat operative, let Mr. Broussard’s wild and self contradictory story go on the air unchallenged, and in the weeks since, has failed to correct the record. For example after the storm all communication was lost so the claim was self evidently false at the time it was broadcast. (And evidence has been previously submitted. (See below, Admission Against Interest.))

Yet not withstanding this partisan use of Mrs. Maestri’s death, the personal attack on the President of the United States by Mr. Broussard, a Democrat, in which he accused the President of “killing,” of “murdering” the people of Louisiana, the Morning Morons do not see what difference it makes if Mrs. Maestri died in the predicted tidal surge on Monday, the day of the storm, in a nursing “home” which sits in a 12 foot depression at the edge of a Mangrove swamp, less than an hours drive from both Dr. Maestri and Mr. Broussard’s “command center.”

The Morning Morons do not see what difference it makes that Dr. Maestri spoke with his 90 year old mother not after the storm, but before the storm, on Friday, and Saturday, and Sunday before communications were lost. What difference does it make that St. Bernard Parish Coroner Brian Johnson Bertucci knew on Sunday, before the storm, that the owner of St. Rita’s was not, I say they told him they would not, evacuate the home prior to the storm? That they would “ride it out.” In the end some patients were saved by floating them on their mattresses, in the flood, during the storm, to a high school which sits on a slight rise of land a few hundred yards from the St. Rita’s “home.”

Now you need to know that the person most responsible for establishing a disaster response plan for the Parrish of Jefferson, which borders St. Bernard Parrish, is none other than Dr. Maestri. And the first duty in the event of a storm is the evacuation of the people. And first among them are those with “special needs.” Like, just for one example, his own mother, a lady of 90 years. First of the first to whom the highest duty is owed. Or do they not understand that word? “Duty?” She had lived to see the First World War, The Great Depression, The Second World War, . . . 90 years of American History, . . . oh, and she lived to see the flood waters race in through the windows, (someone tried to nail a table against one window to stop the waters), lived to see the tide rise to the ceiling of her “home.” What difference does it make?

And here you have the Emptiness of life.

“Don’t you have a heart?” The man is an orphan!

If you do not have a mind what good is the heart? Emotions, yes. Like any other animal.

Note that the owners of St. Rita’s have been charged but not the Parrish Coroner who by his own admission knew the “home” would not be evacuated. Who by his own statement had not one but “two busses” for the evacuation of the inmates of St. Rita’s. Who by his own admission knew on “Sunday” --- God’s Day --- BEFORE THE STORM --- that the “home” was a death trap.

The Parrish Coroner knew all of this and knew too what he says the owners had told him over the phone: That they had “signed waivers” from the “families” that the patients could remain in the “home”, located in a depression, on the edge of a Mangrove swamp as a Category FIVE storm approached with its 26 foot ocean surge.

“What difference does it make?” they ask.

Well it made no difference to the Attorney General of Louisiana who has given a pass to the Coroner of St. Bernard Parrish. No negligence. They said they had “signed waivers” from the “families.”

And Dr. Maestri, the man in charge of emergency evacuations in Jefferson Parrish, we now learn, he also knew all of this. We now learn he called his mother every day before the storm. This son. This expert. Less than an hours drive from her.

And this is the evidence that the “Federals” “killed” and “murdered”? But we are not allowed to criticize. Oh, no. Please no criticism . . . or we will destroy you. We are Women. We are Blacks, Jews, . . . orphans. Can you not see?! We have “heart.” We are Victims! We are justified in destroying you, how dare you question us! Well, congratulations, you have destroyed me. What an accomplishment.

Oh, Louisiana, I am about to die and my heart aches for your people! . . . but not your politicians . . . orphans now they may be . . .

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Katrina Memorial Park at New Ruskin College

2005-09-20T19:13:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: Katrina Memorial Park

I propose that at the lowest point in the City of New Orleans a Memorial Park be created in memory of those who perished in the Storm Katrina. At the center of the park there should be excavated a Lake Katrina to a depth of ten feet below the existing water table.

The storm drains of the city should be directed to this lake. Pumps can maintain the lake’s level during storms but the surrounding park can also be allowed to flood. (Reverse flow can maintain the lake during dry spells if needed.) In this manner the water can be used to recharge the city’s water table and stop the subsidence problem.

The park can have fields but the design should be to preserve the flora of the greater wetlands. Elevated walks and bridges through the park will allow for recreation. The park will be a large urban green zone for the residents of the city who will live in a taller, more dense housing elevated on piers, the “ground” floor being used for parking in the areas damaged by flooding. Modular construction will allow the buildings to move as single structures thus preventing cracking due to differential movement of the alluvial soils. (And the factory method will allow for cost savings sufficient to offset the higher costs of the monolithic foundations and prevent the expected corruption.)

The streets should be elevated up to the “first” floor and set on concrete bunkers or “tubes” through which the city’s utilities can be rerouted as the recharge of the city’s water table will cause differential movement of the utilities. Inside these utility tubes water, gas, and electric can be easily serviced. The sewage can be conducted through a separate tube structure which well serve as the foundation for the utility tube and the elevated street above. The street height to be two feet below the first floor to prevent run off.

Between the tubes and the surrounding garages, fill, taken from Lake Katrina and other sumps, can be used for additional green zones and plantings off the streets in front of the modern multi story modular buildings. The Lake and sumps can be shored with concrete panels which will maintain the soil structure while permitting the water to pass into the new water table. The utility tubes will gradually reach ground level at the height of three feet above Lake Pontchartrain.

Historically significant buildings can be jacked up to the height of the new streets to protect them from new flooding or the owners of these areas may choose to remain at ground level. In this way the new buildings may approach the old quarters of the city or kept only in the low lying areas around Katrina Memorial Park. The utility structures with their streets above will also act as additional levees within the city sectioning the city to prevent flooding of other areas on the other side of these elevated streets.

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The Gift at New Ruskin College

2005-09-15T08:40:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: The Gift

This is my gift for you.

I will demonstrate that the rich and powerful can not oppress us as they have me these fifteen years.

They think they have won. They think they have destroyed me. They are wrong. They have destroyed no one.

I pray that you will send them a message also. Take away their broadcast licenses. Make them adhere to a standard of decency. Make them obey the law.

Punish them, show them that they can not oppress us. Show them that they are not as powerful as they imagine.

Take care of each other.

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Admissions at New Ruskin College

2005-09-11T10:12:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: Admission Against Interest

What is it with Louisiana? St. Rita's nursing home, St. Bernard Parish, 32 dead:

See here that the Coroner Bertucci seems utterly unaware that he and his “council” may be individually liable for criminal charges.

“St. Bernard Coroner Bryan Bertucci said he called nursing home owner Mabel Mangano during a Parish Council meeting at 2 p.m. on Aug. 28, a day before the storm. He said he asked her why she had not followed the evacuation plan she filed with the parish and removed her patients to Baton Rouge and Lafayette on the two buses set aside for them.

``She told me she had a generator and five nurses and had gotten the permission of the patients' families to stay put,'' Bertucci said. Then she asked me if I thought the council would be mad at her.''

Mangano could not be reached for comment. Her whereabouts and safety are unknown.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a7nghsZnLNng

Or is it just that they do not fear prosecution? . . . in Louisiana? But what about Federal?

And here is another one. Note the attempt to blame “the Feds” for gross negligence.

“From the elderly residents -- at least 31 -- who drowned in their nursing home to the hundreds stranded for days on a dock as the Mississippi lapped violently at the sides to the administrators of Chalmette Medical Center who flew away to safety and left 30 nurses abandoned on the roof surrounded by 10 feet of water, the people of St. Bernard Parish for much of the early, difficult days of the crisis were on their own without any state or federal assistance."We were surrounded by water and we was out of communications entirely," said Henry J. "Juniour" Rodriguez Jr., a jovial potbellied politico who's partial to snake skin belts, cowboy boots and a cane that he just might poke one with if they're not careful. "You want to talk about the cavalry riding to the rescue, the Canadian Mounties got here the second day. The feds, we didn't see those (S.O.B.'s) until the fifth or sixth day."”
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0909katrina-nursing-home09-ON.html

Can he really be that dumb? They have no fear!

Rosie Allen is from Louisiana. That explains a lot.

Then who knows maybe they are right. We will blame it all on “the Feds.” They are like children.

But then ABC management has no fear that they will be found out. Weiner, Imus, all of them. They do wrong but do not worry what anyone thinks of them.

Lord what country is this?

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Politics Louisiana Style at New Ruskin College

2005-09-11T10:06:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes:
Introduction to Louisiana Politics Part II (see also September Lecture Notes)

“Russert explained:
"The mayor of New Orleans is African American. OK? The notion that he somehow turned his back on his own people" doesn't make sense, he argued.”
---- NewsMax, 09-06-05

Russert, a Democrat political operative, placed a Democrat politician whose years of incompetence exposed tens of thousands to risk in his Parish and may have killed thousands, before a national audience. After a week of Louisiana race baiting, partisan media manipulation the President of Jefferson Parish told a series of lies that went unchallenged on Meet the “Press.” Now that Mr. Broussard’s emotional tales have been exposed as lies will Mr. Russert correct the record?

Don’t count on it. Just think about that. A race baiting political operative who put a fellow Democrat on the air will not correct the record. (see also ABC’s Stephanopoulos who allowed a Democrat Senator, also from Louisiana, to perform as an on air narrator of “news” footage culminating with the Senator demanding that no one oppose her or she would “punch” him, apparently referring to the President.)

Lies? Race baiting? Say it is not so, Tim.

So Broussard, who claimed that Wal-Mart's aid was outright rejected (a three truck loads of water), was wrong. Based on Wal-Mart's information, their trucks were taken where FEMA thought they were needed most. It would appear that the same story occurred with the Coast Guard fuel issue. Broussard said that FEMA wouldn't release the fuel to Jefferson Parish - but surely that fuel went somewhere else it was needed. Thanks to Wal-Mart's Sharon Weber for tracking down this information. Red State http://mikewas.redstate.org/story/2005/9/6/114926/3369

Broussard claimed that an infirmed woman in a nursing home (“in St. Bernard nursing home”) called every day for five days before drowning on Friday. If Broussard was referring to the St. Bernard Manor in Jefferson Parish why did he not do something? If he meant “a” St. Bernard home how is it that he did not get a boat and rescue her? The home is less than 8 miles from Jefferson Parish. One home in St. Bernard was not evacuated, the St. Rita's, and 32 patients died. How the other 33 patients were rescued has yet to be explained. Why wasn’t the St. Rita's evacuated? Who is responsible?

It is unlikely that the calls came from St. Bernard Parish as all communication lines were down. How is it that this one phone worked for five days in a row?

“We had evacuation plans for all the nursing homes," said parish coroner Brian Johnson Bertucci. "This particular home, due to extenuating circumstances, could not evacuate. They had special-needs patients, which made it difficult to get a bus to lead the people up."

. . . Katrina knocked out communications for several days, so emergency officials couldn't call for help . . . The parish president in St. Bernard says a search and rescue team from Canada finally managed to get in, but it was two days more before any American federal help arrived."We were surrounded by water," said Junior Rodriguez. "All our repeaters were down. Communications were down. . .”
CBS 5 Bodies Recovered From Flooded Nursing Home http://cbs5.com/topstories/local_story_250212859.html

Mr. Broussard, the Jefferson Parish President, had a duty to develope a flood emergency plan including rescue. 100 people who managed to find refuge from the storm in St. Bernard in a riverside warehouse are reported to have died due to lack of drinking water. If the Parish President of Jefferson which is also located on the Mississippi, it borders St. Bernard Parish, is not responsible for this gross incompetence to plan for and rescue 100 people just on the border of the Parish, then how is it that the Federal Government is responsible? Where are the Parish rescue boats? Where are the Parish emergency supplies? Storm evacuation centers? Any plan at all? Yet nothing is said about any of this.

Instead of taking responsibility for his criminal neglegence Mr. Broussard seeks with tears and emotion to deflect blame and punishment. He then actually blames the Federal Government for killing the very people his own incompetence drowned.

But do not look to the media to follow up on any of this. Russert will not because Mr. Broussard is White and the people he killed were also White. Is that it people? "The notion that he somehow turned his back on his own people" doesn't make sense, as Russert argued? Do you agree? But again, do not expect the media to ask, because Democrats control the media at NBC, ABC, CBS, NYT, etc. etc. . . . .

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SS New Orleans Titanic at New Ruskin College

2005-09-10T10:25:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: SS New Orleans Titanic

The Titanic was advertised as being unsinkable because of the “water tight bulkheads.” However, the bulkheads did not extend all the way to the top of the hull, because this was cheaper, and because it was thought unlikely that more than two compartments would be flooded simultaneously. The Titanic had only half the needed life boats. The steerage passengers were locked below decks. The owner demanded that the doomed vessel steam at speed through the ice berg field over the objections of the ship’s captain. The owner wanted to set the speed record, heedless of the danger. The SS California was near and saw flares but thought that the lights were for the entertainment of the passengers. At first passengers were reluctant to board life boats, one of which, designed for 40, was launched with only 12 passengers.

NPR reported, 09-07-05, that the Governor, A Woman, specifically declined to order in the Louisiana State Guard because she did not want to appear to be using the “military” on the Black citizens of New Orleans. And yet she and the Democrat establishment would a day later criticize the President for not sending in troops.

In St. Bernard Parish 100 found their way to a warehouse on the Mississippi river, and died after waiting several days for rescue. They did not have drinking water. Patients at the St. Rita's Nursing Home were not evacuated, 32 died. A table was found nailed to a window in an apparent effort to block the water.

There were no emergency warehouses with bottled water, food, blankets, cots, . . . life boats. The pumps were located below water level and flooded. Three pump houses had their roofs blown off before they were flooded. Half the pumps had no backup power supply. The levees were operated as individual political fiefdoms, mandated in the State’s constitution, for the benefit of the corrupt political machine, (Democrat).
No integrated plan for flood control or the consequence of the failure. Busses not used to evacuate and locate out of storm cone. City ‘leadership’ failed to plan before and failed to organize during and failed to lead after the storm.

Even Bangladesh large safety towers were erected on steel columns in and around the low lying countryside for safety.

Franken could not find this article which appeared on the front pages of hundreds of newspapers the day after:

Storm floods new Orleans, Mississippi
By Allen G. Breed
Associated Press to print 08-30-05

“NEW ORLEANS- Announcing itself with shrieking 145 mph winds, Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast just outside New Orleans yesterday, . . .

. . . it was not the apocalyptic storm forecasters had feared. . . .

The federal government began rushing bay formula, communications equipment, generators, water and ice into hard hit areas, along with doctors, nurses and first aid supplies. The Pentagon sent experts to help with search and rescue operation. . . .

. . . But it weakened to a Category 4 . . . before it came ashore around daybreak . . . a path that spared the Big Easy . . . from its full furry. . . .

. . . But the doomsday vision of hurricane waters spilling over levees and swamping the city in a toxic soup of refinery chemicals, sewage and human bodies never materialized. . . .

“The real important issue here is that when it got to the metropolitan area, it was weaker,” said National Hurricane Center deputy director Ed Rappaport . . .”

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Good Bye at New Ruskin College

2005-09-10T09:53:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: Good bye?

What is going on? Everyone wants to say good bye? Or are you just trying to justify yourselves one last time before I die?

More rationalizations?

Dr. Edel? Dr. Dobson? Rush Limbaugh?

OK, fine, good bye back at you.

Man of Science. Man of God. Man of . . . well, fine. Have it your way. Dyslexics are “Klutzes” on the low end of the “bell curve” with limited “hardware, like a computer, you know, we each have only so much hard drive space, RAM . . .’ Right, a man of “Science.”

Garrison Keillor is another one who presents himself as an affable good natured fellow while concealing his true loathsome egotism. And like Keillor Dr. Edel also makes no claim of fairness as he explains his party affiliation: ‘The Democrats care about people and want to help people in need, but the Republicans only believe in survival of the fittest, and if you have difficulties and need help you should be left to die for the good of the gene pool. That’s why I am a Democrat.’

Ironically Dr. Edel has himself speculated, as has Michael Weiner, that ‘his people’ are genetically superior to the rest of humanity. Recently he said, for example, that he and ‘his people’ received the genetic benefit of the risk taking ‘gene.’ He reasoned that his forbearers had the foresight to escape Europe while others were perhaps genetically predisposed to staying put heedless of the risk.

Now this is just bad science. The behavior, evaluation of the social political and economic risks and opportunities, is far to complex to be the result of a “gene.” Secondly evolutionary selection takes place over many generations and could not be, even in comparatively simple genetic traits, such as the color of a moth’s wings, be transmitted or selected for in one generation.

Dr. Edel’s theory has more in common with the ancient idea of “the blood” recently popularized by the German NAZI Party than it does with modern genetics. (Michael Weiner has several times on his own radio show speculated that descendants of European Jewry may have been ‘improved’ by the ‘selection’ process of repeated anti-Semitic genocidal pogroms, (including the Holocaust itself), because the ‘smarter’ or ‘tougher’ Jews survived to pass on their ‘genes.’ (Of course, Michael Weiner, as has been observed before, is a raving lunatic.))

But Dr. Edel is so determined to justify his actions, or inaction, that he is willing to misrepresent his “Science” in order to assuage is guilty conscience. Anyone familiar with the literature on IQ distribution knows that dyslexia is coextensive with IQ, and not skewed to the lower, ‘smaller RAM’, end of the distribution. There is some suggestion that dyslexia is greater in the upper distribution though sample bias may explain this.

But the point is that here again Dr. Edel’s political, social, psychological need to justify himself, and his inaction, causes him to distort and misrepresent his “Science.” Indeed this misrepresentation is particularly harmful, for it was generally believed in our lifetimes that dyslexics were “retarded” and many with normal intelligence were until only recently branded “retarded” by school bureaucrats in our government controlled school system.

And this bias continues to this day in part because people like Dr. Edel continue to put it out, contrary to the best research, that difficulty with language is 100% associated with the ‘G Factor’ i.e. intelligence. Again, IQ testing, testing for ‘G,’ does not confirm Dr. Edel’s repeated assertions over the years that verbal writing skills are directly correlated to ‘G’. (This issue is distinct from whether dyslexia is an ‘illness’, or ‘abnormality’, or a ‘disability’ etc. which are social political classifications. Such factors prevent Medicine from becoming a Natural Science.)

But the point here is to see how Dr. Edel twists his “Science” to serve his psychological needs. Ask yourselves: Why has Dr. Edel such a strong psychological need? So much for objectivity.

And further, anyone familiar with the political and sociological literature would know that the social political economic policies advocated by the Republican Party are supported by our best social and economic research. I do not say if you are familiar with the best research that you must be a Republican. For example, Senator Moynihan.

I only say that if you are familiar with the research you could not grossly distort these policies as being “social Darwinism” as did Dr. Edel. You could not dismiss them so easily. Senator Dr. Moynihan never did so. He argued. He reviewed the evidence but he did not grossly distort. Just as Dr. Edel misrepresents his own science in support of his racial theories, or to explain his repeated and false assertions that dyslexics are “slow” or ‘retarded’ he also misrepresents sociological and economic research in support of his political prejudices. For that is what they are. Politics is just prejudice without reason.

Such is the power of his need to justify himself. Why such need? He works a KGO in San Francisco. He knows about the burglary, the years of harassment, and he had done nothing.

Good bye Dr. Edel. You have shown yourself to be a hypocrite even in you own “Science.” Recall Dr. Edel’s story about stepping over a homeless person on the sidewalk while attending the theater in San Francisco, and concluding, we live in “a nation of haves and have nots.” The man on the sidewalk was not their because Dr. Edel, and Dr. Edel’s “profession” the doctors of California had abandoned their duty to their patients. California physicians have not left their patients to drown as did the physicians of Louisiana.

And of course, Dr. Dobson, it must be my “unforgiving” nature which caused my enemies to pursue me for fifteen years. It is because I am “obsessed” with them. Right. I am so “unforgiving” that I went back to see Yvonne that second time. I followed them from job to job place to place for fifteen years. I burglarized them? I placed electronic eaves dropping equipment on them? I stole their mail, interfered with their employment?

Sure. And when I am dead you will blame “Buddhism” for my death. You will not think of how many Christians participated in the harassment. You will not for example consider that Mrs. Jack Swanson regularly brags about being an “Episcopalian.” Do you not think that many other “Good Christians” know what has been done to me over these many, many, years and have done nothing, made no objections, even joined in with Rosie Allen and Ted---

Counselor: . . .

Ed Baxter? The KSFO weatherman? All Christians! Do not Christians and their religious theology bare some examination? You? Is there a Christian justification for inaction? Yours too?

(For example, are their no Christian families in Louisiana and Mississippi who could benefit from professional assistance in preparing their insurance claims? (Even at this late hour my mind is franticly hoping for some way out. Previous fantasies included being called back to work by the insurance companies, even the ones who actively participated with my enemies in harassing me. Wild unreasonable hope, even now! Or that I might have worked for the new Governor of California even though the day after I submitted my resume Mrs. Jack Swanson had apparently been told that I had applied. Or when I hoped that I might assist in Iraq. Or with FEMA! Mightn’t Mr. Bush have benefited from my 25 years experience in catastrophe claims? And every minute some new miracle is dreamed up. Hope spills out of me and runs down my face. There still might be some other way. Even now! There is no dignity.))

Many have known what was done to me. Some of you knew while it was going on. Some of you joined in on it. Some found out later, and still joined in. (“I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” Senator Hatch. A Mormon.) There is no reason, no religion, no principle of any kind. Emptiness.

Right.

Rush, the reason Dr. Edel thinks Republican are hateful, and believe in “Social Darwinism” is because of your unthoughtful blithering. Please stop it. Read. You are not helping conservatives. We are not conservatives because we want to hurt people but because we want to help people. If you do not want to help the people stop calling yourself a conservative. If you want, advocate selfishness. Start a selfish party if you want but stop hiding behind “conservatism.”

You oppose market pricing of roads. You support exclusionary zoning. You deny that Social Security is a welfare program. You support the state apparatus which excludes people from participating in the market with its zoning, licensing, and mass of administrative regulations. You support the corporate welfare state and unregulated “tax shelters.” You are not a conservative. You do not want to “join” my “parade” because I am too unforgiving? Don’t. Good bye to you too.

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Race and Katrina at New Ruskin College

2005-09-08T17:36:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: September

“Russert explained:
"The mayor of New Orleans is African American. OK? The notion that he somehow turned his back on his own people" doesn't make sense, he argued.”
---- NewsMax, 09-06-05

See? If you is an “African American” you can not, by definition, be negligent with your “own people,”
‘cause yous Black like dim.

And no one will question the Democrat operative, now NBC on air “personality,” Tim Russert.

Tim Russert is a racist. He thinks that you are determined by your race. If your race is Black you can not fail to develop and practice a plan for the evacuation of your city. If you are Black you can not fail to provide for “your people” during the 72 hours it takes help to arrive in response to the emergency.

If you are Black, according to Tim Russert the school buses will not be left in the city to be flooded. Provisions for the first 72 hours will not be neglected. If you are Black you will not fail to supervise the police, or secure boats for the expected flood and rescue operations, will not fail to obtain the assistance of the 6,000 Louisiana State Guardsmen or the 1,000 State Police from the Governor, A Woman.

If you are Black, according to Tim Russert, your conduct and incompetence will not evidence a reckless disregard for the poor and infirmed of your city if they be Black. ‘Cause wes alls knows thats these Blacks they is all of uss dim one big family, ya know? Man?

Recall last week Russert advocated a candidate for the Supreme Court because she was “A Woman.” Now he grants to all “African American” mayors a free pass from criticism. Tim Russert is a sexist and a racist.

Where is the reporting on the administrators of the St. Bernard Nursing Home for allowing their patients to tread water for five days?

St. Bernard Manor2300 Archbishop Hannan Blvd · Meraux, LA 70075-2649Ph: (504) 277-2441 · Fax: (504) 277-6300Independent Living Units: 82
St Bernard III 2400 Archbishop Hannan Blvd Meraux LA 70075 504-277-0037
Independent Living Units: 82Assisted Living Units: 0Nursing Care Units: 0Alzheimer Care Units: 0

Who is responsible for the patients? Did they just abandon them? Why not ask? No professional integrity. Why didn’t they insist that the school busses be used to evacuate their patients?
St Bernard Clinic, (504) 278-6592 , 2712 Palmisano Blvd, Chalmette, LA 12.55 mi

The nursing home is located near:
Archbishop Hannan High School, 2501 Archbishop Hannan Boulevard, Meraux, LA 70075, Tel: (504) 279-1921
Didn’t anyone check in on the folks in the home just a few doors down and across the street?

And on Monday the locals were allowed to return:
Parish access and road information---Jefferson: You can return Monday with your ID. You will be allowed to collect your belongings and will not be allowed to return for a month.

Or are the administrators of the St. Bernard Nursing Home Black? Oh! Is that it? If they are Black then it is ok for them to let that poor woman drown after five days of having been abandoned? Is that it Mr. Russert? If you are Black we do not ask any questions?

But then we must remind ourselves that Mr. Russert is not a journalist. He is an operative of the Democrat Party.

And a racist.

Or perhaps the “president of Jefferson Parish,” Mr. Broussard, was referring to “a” nursing home in St. Bernard Parish? There are several nursing homes in St. Bernard Parish: St Rita's Nursing Home, (504) 682-2650, 1422 E La 46 St Bernard, LA, Fernandez Nursing Home Incorporated, (504) 682-0131 ,2725 Bayou Rd St Bernard, LA, Huntington Place Senior Commun
(504) 279-4461 3819 De La Ronde Dr, Chalmette, LA .

However the situation remains the same, for St. Bernard Parish also has an emergency plan which calls for the evacuation of those with “special needs.” If Broussard was referring to St. Bernard Parish why did not they follow their plan? And because St. Bernard is 90% White Mr. Russert can ask this question. Right? Because White?

Criminal Negligence!

Reckless Disregard for Human Life!

22 found lashed together in St. Bernard Parish.

31 found dead at St. Regis Nursing Home in St. Bernard Parish. Home had 65 residents.

No explanation for why they were not evacuated according to Parish emergency plan for people with “special needs.” Elderly left to die by incompetent Parish officials.

They were waiting for the Federal Government? They did not evacuate because they thought that the next day the Federal Government would be there? The next day!?!

“Even some people who were able to get to the parish's evacuation centers did not survive. Representative Charlie Melancon, a Democrat who represents the area, said in an interview in Baton Rouge that 100 people in St. Bernard Parish had died while trying to leave, which he attributed to a lack of water and food.” (NYT)

Again! A lack of water and food! Criminal charges, resignations will not be good enough!

But because St. Bernard Parish is 90% White we can make these points. If the incompetent county officials were Black we of course could not say they had ‘somehow turned their back on their own people.’

Right Tim Russert? It is ok for us to criticize Whites?

Russert is not a “reverse” racist. He is just a racist.

Mr. Broussard:
The guy who runs this building I'm in, emergency management, he's responsible for everything. His mother was trapped in St. Bernard nursing home and every day she called him and said, "Are you coming, son? Is somebody coming?" And he said, "Yeah, Mama, somebody's coming to get you. Somebody's coming to get you on Tuesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Wednesday. Somebody's coming to get you on Thursday. Somebody's coming to get you on Friday." And she drowned Friday night. She drowned Friday night.

Counselor: So, what you are saying is that by criticizing the Woman Governor of Louisiana you are proving that you are not a sexist?

Yes.

Counselor: And by criticizing the Black Mayor of New Orleans . . . this shows that you are not a racist?

Right.

Counselor: And criticizing a Jew proves that you are not anti-Semitic.

Exactly.

Counselor: This just seems so counter intuitive. We are back to Women, Blacks, and Jews! All this is just the opposite of everything we have learned and believe.

But this is why you are here at New Ruskin College . . . to learn.

Counselor: Hmmm . . .

Drudge

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Katrina at New Ruskin College Part II

2005-09-08T17:31:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: This is America?

The question was asked again and again. I gained some comfort from listening to the question asked over and over in many different ways.

Sometimes there was surprise. In some faces shock. Good!

For is this not what tormented me for so many years? In 1991? And then after the IRS gave my name to Crawford and Company after they had asked me to help investigate them? And then in 1999 after the burglary. And for months in 2000 when the San Rafael Police followed me referring to me as the “Colonial Motel Suspect”? Did I not ask, ‘Is this America?’

After Ron Owens harassed me at the health club with Michael Weiner, and then at Access. And the two later harassed me in 2001 at Farmers? Or Michael Krasney in 2000 at the AAA Auto Club? And 2002 Mrs. Jack Swanson at CENCAL and finally Imus at GAR Robins in 2003, the straw; after State Farm in 1998?

Is this America? And best of all the wide eyed surprise. The disbelief.

See? It is not just me. Lots of people are taken by surprise by how vicious you can be. How uncaring. That you will let us die while you look on dispassionately. We had been given a false belief. We misunderstood. After a taste of reality we now know better.

After I wrote the Last Letter in 1991 criticizing Yvonne for betraying her client Michael Weiner and Ron Owens and Michael Krasney justified themselves by claiming I was anti-Semitic. Anti-Semitic? How so? Because Yvonne is a Jew! Criticize her you criticize Jews. To criticize Jews is anti-Semitism.

To criticize the “Black” Mayor is to be a racist, so don’t criticize him; criticize the President he be White.

To criticize the Governor, “A Woman,” is sexism, so don’t criticize her either; criticize the President he is Male.

One standard for White Males another for A Woman and another for the “Black” Mayor. You are still not ready to allow Women and Minorities to participate in our society. You claim to be “liberals” but you do not accept them. You can not criticize them.

Recall that this is why you dynamited the public housing. You could not bring yourselves to deal with them. I am not the sexist or racist, you are. You can not criticize them even now when you can plainly see, after watching for days their incompetence, their corruption laid bare, right before your eyes, that they did not even try to carry out an emergency plan.

But you can not bring yourselves to ask the tough questions of the “Woman” and the “Black” even now when the “Woman” is a Governor who has repeatedly broken down, and utterly failed in her duty, and the “Black” is a Mayor who has hidden on the 27th floor of the Hyatt Regency, the penthouse, screaming that the Whity does not care about Blacks, as the school busses filled with water and the elderly and sick were left with no way out, the police without direction.

There were no pallets of bottled water, no sanitary facilities, no plan for State police, or Guardsmen, no radios, no planning, and after 20 years of “Black” leadership what do we get? Only the complaint Whity does not care about us. And you do not dare challenge this with any inconvenient questions. What is this but the racism of lower expectations?

And I do criticize the President. I do not exempt him because he is a White Male. He did not call up our forces, military and civilian, in expectation that the levees would break, which should have been anticipated. (see Army Navy Club Item #51 at the Max Weber Institute)

I criticize the President for not listening to me, and not for the first time. (If he had he and the nation would be better off.)

But this time at least I was not surprised. He has known about my case for years. He has made many references. For example, once after the election I had bitterly criticized him for not allowing debate, not participating in genuine discussions. Then appearing before the press he felt the need to claim he had “vigorous debates” in his Administration. (Vigorous!) This can not be true for if so how could he have been so unprepared to discuss and debate the issues during the campaign?

I doubt now, knowing his father as I do, that he heard these issues being discussed even at the family dining table.

No, his Administration’s poor performance did not surprise me. This time.

He will let me die in front of the KQED building in a few days. He does not care for justice in my case.

But some were surprised. Our borders are open. No caretaker government was set up for Iraq. Our troops must wait for the Iraqis to set the time table. No quarantine even though bio attack had been repeatedly threatened. No serious proposal for the debt, or Social Security or pensions or health care or the American Labor Problem. No school vouchers. He even supports racial and gender quotas. (Why don’t the liberals love him?) With a million new homeless will he now speak out against exclusionary building and zoning codes? Why now? He has said nothing even as three million came across the southern border every year.

But do you learn? You think we are prepared for a bio attack? (see Bio War News #30) Now who is the suicide?

Yes, he will leave me to die, too.

This is America; I am not surprised.

And now both hosts, preparing for the storm
Of adverse battle, their encampments form.
VIDA'S GAME OF CHESS
OLIVER GOLDSMITH

Oh!, now suddenly it is the “blame game.” Last week Bush bashing because the “Black” emergency plan put 20,000 in the Superdome without any provisions, without any plan, after 20 years of “Black” “leadership” of New Orleans, after hundreds of years of Democrat “leadership”, with “A Woman” as Governor, Commander In Chief of the Louisiana’s State National Guard, with thousands of trucks, busses, all the resources of the State of Louisiana, . . . no, no, now it is the “blame game.”

You 2##@&&^%@$# holes $#$%@@%% dumb %#$%@^##&!!!!

You have your nerve. Decades of corruption have consequences. The lesson to learn is that this is your country. This is your society. Did you suppose that your corruption will not have consequences? You know what Imus, Weiner, et al. have done to me and have not come forward. And don’t you think people knew that the corrupt politicians of New Orleans did not have plans for the 20,000 at the Superdome and said nothing? Went along with it? Knowing people would die . . . ? ---- Or, you don’t think I will kill myself in a few days? Is that your excuse? You did not know?

“How fitting that the nominee under consideration is a Woman from New Orleans . . .”
---- Tim Russert, Imus regular, NBC, Meet the Press, 09-04-05

(He actually said this: A Woman.)

"I don't think anyone anticipated the breach of the levees."
---- George Bush, 09-01-05

(Recall Dr. Rice’s comment: "I don't think anybody could have predicted that these people would take an airplane and slam it into the World Trade Center, take another one and slam it into the Pentagon, that they would try to use an airplane as a missile," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said in a May 2002 news briefing.)

“These troops know how to shoot and kill, and they are more than willing to do so if necessary.”
-----Governor Blanco, 09-01-05

(If you had any doubt that she is an incompetent . . . “more than willing.” Those boys from Arkansas they is more than willing to kill? What a fool. She finally acts to restore order, on Thursday, after her incompetence allowed the city to descend into anarchy. And even then she does so not as a statesman but as a vicious punk . . . “more” than willing. Oh, but A Woman! That is important because she has more “sensitivity” than do men. No troops pre-positioned on Saturday or Sunday, none on Tuesday, and then after the old earthen levees gave way none on Wednesday, and then on Thursday? We get her, “They have M-16s and they're locked and loaded” and her “more than willing,” but still no troops. Look into the mirror. This is your society.)

“ . . . When President Bush told "Good Morning America" on Thursday morning that nobody could have "anticipated" the breach of the New Orleans levees, it pointed to not only a remote leader in denial, but a whole political class.

The uneasy paradox which so many live with in this country - of being first-and-foremost rugged individuals, out to plunder what they can and paying as little tax as they can get away with, while at the same time believing that America is a robust, model society - has reached a crisis point this week.

Will there be real investment, or just more buck-passing between federal agencies and states?

The country has to choose whether it wants to rebuild the levees and destroyed communities, with no expense spared for the future - or once again brush off that responsibility, and blame the other guy. . . .

. . . It has been a profoundly shocking experience for many across this vast country who, for the large part, believe the home-spun myth about the invulnerability of the American Dream.

The party in power in Washington is always happy to convey the impression of 50 states moving forward together in social and economic harmony towards a bigger and better America.

That is what presidential campaigning is all about.
But what the devastating consequences of Katrina have shown - along with the response to it - is that for too long now, the fabric of this complex and overstretched country, especially in states like Louisiana and Mississippi, has been neglected and ignored.” (BBC)

(But note that the liberal British twit for the BBC then speaks of “genuinely heroic mayor” even as he then goes on to describe how there was no plan for evacuation, that the mayor abandoned “his” people, and the city police and staff were also left with no leadership, Black or otherwise, no direction, no effort to bring in other resources, the State’s own National Guard, for example, or anything, but he is still called “genuinely heroic”; that before, decades before, the levees were allowed to fall into disrepair. He does not point out that even the pumps were placed below water level and that their roofs were blown off in the storm. That most of the pumps were “electric” i.e. did not have their own power source. That the city’s school busses were not used to evacuate. Well, . . . This is the second British disease, liberalism. )

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The Mirror of New Orleans at New Ruskin College

2005-09-08T17:25:00.000-07:00

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“It is not the property . . . it is the break down of society.”
----Ron Owens on the looting

Break down of society! I am still astonished by his hypocrisy.

He dares to speak of the “break down of society.” What a God damned hypocrite. Anarchy? Isn’t that what Ron Owens and Yvonne and Sedge Thomson and the Red Comedian and that bitch (his wife?) at Gymboree were doing? What was all that but anarchy?

“they treated us like animals.”
----Survivor of the Superdome

“You are treating us like animals.”
----That’s what I shouted at Yvonne after she betrayed us.

Lecture Notes:
The Mirror of New Orleans

Of course you are not going to accept that you are looking in a mirror when you look at New Orleans.

You have not allowed your earthen levees to fall into disrepair. Of course you see no analogy to your national finances, the debt, Social Security, pensions both public and private.

Years of neglect. Avoid facing the problems. Failure to exercise moral leadership. Corruption. Corruption high and low.

How much would the $70 million levee project cost the one million citizens of New Orleans over say 30 years if they had issued municipal bonds? Answer: $3 a year. And how much if they had done this for each of the last 30 years? $3 X 30 years = $90 A year!

Do you think the people of New Orleans wish they had paid a few dollars . . . a year? (I once moved a California hillside for $50,000 for an insurance claim. So $70 million would be 1,400 hillsides. Each year. Move 1,400 hillsides onto the levees for 30 years and you would have a very large levee.)

And do you not think that you will wish later that you had done something sooner?

Is this not a mirror?

Do you not see yourselves?

“Well, . . . . enjoy your failure.”
---- Armstrong and Getty, KNEW radio (see Lecture Notes 08-24-05)

Do you not think many knew of the pending disaster? Yet the “reporters” said nothing. The politicians did nothing. Have we not seen this before? What country is this?

For example the people of the Bay Area are building a bridge which they have been warned will not withstand the maximum foreseeable earthquake, or even “a small car bomb.” (see Technical Correction #6, at the Max Weber Institute)

And again, our Bay Area reporters do not only fail to report the truth they publish the lies of the corrupt politicians of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, but willingly and falsely put it out that the new Bay Bridge will be the “world’s largest” “single tower suspension bridge” when in fact it is a self anchored bridge, a design which is highly vulnerable to earthquakes and other damage, such as even “a small car bomb.” (It will be the “world’s largest” because no one else would do such a thing.)

But this is just one example of what? America! What you have become. The dishonesty of public discourse.

And me, what was done to me for the last fifteen years, what is this but another poor example? You knew, Jim Dunbar, Chris Matthews, Senator Hatch, Senator McCain, yet did nothing, or rather joined in.

Look in the mirror of New Orleans.

See your cruelty, see your dishonesty, see your meanness, unfairness, folly, selfishness . . . see yourselves.

I have not eaten for eight days. It is difficult to focus. Sometimes I forget things. For example sometimes I get depressed that Marlene and I did not have a family and then after a long nap, I am tired now, I woke up and recalled that retarded people do not have families. That is why Marlene and I got together in the first place I did not want a family.

Or I wonder that I suffered this harassment for fifteen years. Then I remember that I survived as long as I did because of that “glitch.” That is why I kept fighting so long. Now the levee has broken and I am tired, the battle is lost.

I had a dream about a destroyed city. I helped set the new foundation.

I only have to do one last thing.

Lecture Notes: Fatal Flaw

“I think there ought to be zero tolerance of people breaking the law during an emergency such as this, whether it be looting, or price-gouging at the gasoline pump or taking advantage of charitable giving, or insurance fraud.”
---- George Bush (43) President Of The United States Of America

Well, . . . ok, ok, I stand corrected he does care about the $1.5 billion . . . so there are a few things we agree on.

I haven’t eaten in seven days.

I have done it to myself again. Always that hope! Just when I think I have put it all behind me. Free! Then . . . such anguish. Why do I do this to myself?

Hope even now, at the last minute, I could get a call . . . ‘don’t they want in adjuster with 24 years experience?’ I wonder to myself.

Why do I set myself up for this. Forget.

But the jobs for Katrina are just another example. For years now there have been thousands of job openings here in the Bay Area. But not for me.

You would think that after all of this, for fifteen years, by now! I would have gotten the message by now. Why do I torture myself.

And they are all such egotistical liars. Such fact hypocrites. Garrison Keillor, such arrogance . . . and he is so sure that he is a good man, invincible egotism . . . He and Imus, Weiner, they share this egotism to such a degree that it is pathological, . . . and because so sure . . . they never examine themselves. Like Limbaugh they take pride in there utter lack of circumspection. Boastful that they can not be reached . . . showmen. Why can’t I put it behind me?

Why am I still waiting? How can there still be any hope? Why do I still want to live? Why?

But then this is why I call it a protest. I choose, therefore a protest. This is what makes it a protest. Just this agony.

Lecture Notes: The Glitch

“The pressure was taking a serious toll on the survivors. A man in the main emergency evacuation centre, the Superdome sports stadium, where up to 30,000 took refuge, was seen to jump to his death after calmly telling people in the seats below to ‘watch out’.”
----- The Daily Telegraph, 08-30-05

So my enemies discovered this glitch. I can not rule out that they learned of this vulnerability from Yvonne. She knew Ron Owens, had been on his show. Michael Weiner seemed to know what I said to her the next day. But then so too did the people at Green Gulch Farm.

Every time I thought to try again, all I could think was what will they do again? If I did get a job what if another incident . . . ?

Another Scott Bobro? Rick Alber? Where are they? Imus? This is what he found so “amusing.”

Have they gone through my car? Briefcase?

So I stayed by myself more and more.

Hope is all gone.

I think they knew how to work it.

Is this what happened to Garrett?

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Betrayal V at New Ruskin College

2005-09-02T08:33:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 08-30-05
Betrayal V

Brian Lamb interviewed George Bush (41) one last time, (one hopes), a few months ago. It was only an hour long interview but it seemed, as with all Mr. Lamb’s interviews, to last much, much longer. (Mr. Lamb learned his interviewing technique from years of taking depositions. (But he never seemed to realize that though people have to sit through depositions, they do not have to endure Mr. Lamb’s interviews. Where did you go to school? What was your major? What was your grade point average? Do you have any letters of recommendation from your professors? Which ones?))

However Vietnam did not come up for discussion until just a few minutes before the merciful end. Mr. Bush put it out that he thought the second most important lesson of the Vietnam War, for America, was that when we go to war we should never stop short of victory. And what was the most important lesson?, Mr. Lamb asked.

When we go to war we should support the government, the troops and the war, Mr. Bush declaimed with resolute finality.

And it was indeed final for then Mr. Lamb brought the interview to an end, along with, one hopes, Mr. Lamb’s career as an interviewer.

Here you have in a nutshell the absurdity, the full moronic nature of American public life.

Isn’t that just the point? What are we supposed to do if our ruling elites decide to administer a war, not trying to win, just administering it, year after year, grinding down the conscript army, simply to protect themselves? Not protect themselves from the enemy! No, not at all. Just administering the war to protect themselves politically!

What if we had an elite so alienated from the people, pursuing its own interests after 20,000 of our young men were killed, and then continued on to administer the war for political cover, so they could not be said to have “lost Vietnam,” as another 20,000 died? And then still thinking only of itself, following out its own political logic heedless of the consequences which befall those “others,” the people, in the flyover territories, as another 20,000 of our brothers the conscripts were killed?

Can you imagine such a bastard elite running a nation? Can you imagine an elite so removed, so alienated from its own country that it could go on year after year pursuing its own selfish interests? Can you imagine that?

Can you imagine a duller, dumber, more mind numbing interviewer than Mr. Lamb? Well, no. But he typifies the American public discourse.

For Mr. Lamb did not ask George Bush (41) what then should we do if our government were to fall into the hands of such a calloused elite, so indifferent to the people as our sons and brothers and fathers and uncles were sacrificed by the politicians in Washington?

The whole point of the problem, ‘What then should we do?’ is left unasked. Un-thought even. And this is absolutely typical of American public life, the George Bushes: Things should be a certain way, and we should therefore act a certain way.

But what if the circumstances are not that way? What if the assumptions are wrong?

‘Well, they should be.’ is the only answer the George Bushes have for us.

And what makes America so devastatingly, so mind numbingly empty, is that we have no one to ask such inconvenient questions for us. (Yes. Good bye Mr. Lamb.)

For example the current occupant of the Oval Office wants us to consider how to save the Social Security System. We have previously described how the “system” is arranged:

The top 20% of “recipients” have non Social Security incomes of over $75,000, control 50% of the national income, 60% of the financial assets, but all of this is not enough, we must add every month additional payments, which are taken from the wages of 3.3 workers, whose “contributions” are taken from their less than $35,000 (the national median) incomes, to buy the support of the elite 20%.

This transfer of income, from these lower class workers to these wealthy individuals we are told is the crowning achievement of the “New Deal.” And if the unfairness of the “system” is pointed out, (assume the conversation is allowed to progress that far), if we strip away the lies about “contributions” and “trust funds” and “lock boxes,” (just suppose the discussion is permitted to go that far), we have it explained to us that we have to pay these rich people because if we did not transfer the incomes of these much poorer workers to these wealthy old bustards, then these rich people, the whole class of rich powerful people who control our country, would destroy the Social Security System.

We have been here before. What land is this? Vietnam.

In other words the argument will boil down to just this explanation, (assume a democracy in which open discussion is possible, (use your imagination)):

This income transfer from the poor to the rich is a bribe paid to the elite. It is a fee which we must pay to the elite so they will allow the Social Security System to continue. For if the elite did not get its end it would destroy the Social Security System and no one, not even the 66% who would be in poverty without Social Security; no one would get any assistance.

And if you are thinking no, no, our elite is not as cold hearted, as selfish, as cruel as this, then I say: remember Vietnam. The unexamined assumptions. The unasked questions. The elite pursuing its own interests at the expense of the people, or at least at the expense of the conscripts.

(You can do such things with conscript armies. Grind them down, throw them away, for the conscript is a kind of slave army. (There is a difference. One can be ground down and constantly refreshed. One can be abused, sent on a fools mission for years, a decade. (But tell me, do you know how to command a professional army? Ever done that before? Or is your experience confined to slave armies?)))

As a consequence of our success in arms in the Twentieth Century we created a global system of free trade. And as a consequence of this free trade, (only made possible because of the People’s Navy), American workers have increasingly come under competition. (Victims of our success.) First manufacturing labor came under pressure as the produce of the world began to spill into our ports. And now as the process has continued more and more sectors have experienced this increasing competition. [Business Week Outsourcing Innovation] And many have complained about the dangers. [Paul Craig Roberts]

But it is useless. There is no discussion. Nothing.

I had thought that some statistics speak for themselves. 3.3 workers for every 1 retiree. What else need be said?

But the discussion is brought to a quick end. The Rush Limbaughs, as empty headed as can be imagined, pronouncing that “Social Security is not a welfare program” ends any possibility of honest discussion. Yesterday he advocated the “savings accounts” as a replacement for Social Security which he decried as a “forced savings program.”

In other words just backwards. The proposed accounts are “forced savings.” The state requires that you save the money. It is forced on you. The Social Security program is not now a savings program it is a welfare, income transfer, program. (Not just a transfer to the poor but from young workers to the top 20% whose incomes are over $75,000 as just explained, for the hundredth time.) Limbaugh does not know what he is talking about. But like Mr. Lamb he is absolutely typical of American public discourse.

Statistics:

84% of Californians can not afford the median priced home in the state.

10,000 applied for 400 jobs at Wal-Mart in Oakland.

$145,000 in debt for every citizen of the United States.

And what answers do we get?

That when we go to war we should support the government. That we should have “savings accounts” for Social Security, even though these will do nothing for the pending shortfall and the Democrats, in any case, are unwilling to discuss any reform. The Marin Senators think savings is “risky”.

We are encourage to believe that open borders is the proper response to the 3 million (Time magazine) who cross our southern border. (The number from other ports of entry is unknown.)

That exclusionary zoning is a necessity, even commendable. That the national debt is “just numbers on paper”, . . . That racial quotas are good. That High School graduation standards should be the same for the 50% of students whose IQ is less than 100, as they are for students with over 115 IQs who are less than 17% of the population. That a ‘college education’ is the solution to America’s labor problem, which is a lie for only 17% can succeed in college no matter how hard they “apply” themselves. That we can not “impose” a government, even a caretaker government during the transition for the writing of a new new “Iraqi” constitution. That we can only hold suspects for 72 hours in Iraq as in Kansas. That the 40 hour week is a “thing of the past.” That we must bribe the rich to pay the old age pensions to the poor.

As I say useless. No explanation. No reason.

What planet have I been living on? I saw the pictures of the famines and wars. I saw the photos of America in the Great Depression, of lynching, saw but thought what?

That we were all of us committed to doing something?

I’ll write about laser disks and then . . . kill myself. I will explain why self paced instruction, choice, is so important in education. Explain why “one size fits all” is wrong . . .

There is just this emptiness . . . they do not speak for themselves. They are mute. It is impossible to reach out across this void . . .

I see the thousands of visitors to this site and wonder that though many must no the truth about what has been done to me . . . nothing . . . but how could I have thought otherwise? Did I not see the piles of corpses? Did I not see the proud man’s contempt? I saw them spit on the others but thought? Not me?

Is this all not the same? There is no one.

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Emptiness.

Katrina at New Ruskin College

2005-08-29T14:38:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: CAT

‘A catastrophe is about to hit New Orleans,’ is what the headlines say.

But you do not know the half of it.

For example if there are $30 billion of insured losses how much money will be deposited into the accounts of the crooked underwriters and insurance company executives and their bag men, the corrupt insurance adjusters and their contractors?

Let’s see. 80% of the claims will be adjusted honestly so that amounts to what, $15 billion of the losses? Most claims are small. (This is true in health insurance also. The president of Blue Cross said that 90% of his claims were under $2,000. (There are implications for our public policy discussion of health care which I will not be able to go over with you.))

So who will get the remaining 20%? The other $15 billion? Who do you think? Many of the smaller companies will assign these files directly to the adjuster. This is the first clue.

And the take? 10%? $1.5 billion in fraud. $750 million to corrupt underwriters and executives who assign the files, and the other $750 million to the adjusters who “document” the loss. This is the second clue. These adjusters will report work schedules which would require them to work 26 hours a day inspecting losses. How do they do it?

Their contractor “friends” “help out.” In Los Angeles I was surprised to learn how many Canadian contractors had immigrated to the United States. Then I realized that they had “come down from the North like wolves” with their “friends” the Canadian adjusters. Thereby the unpaid tax subsidized the claim operation, (resulted in an increase in the earnings of the adjusters).

The insurance companies used the Canadians because they did not have to take withholding taxes from their payments. Independent contractors. Nor did the Canadians report the income to the Canadian government either. (see The IRS and the Illegals from the North at the Moynihan)

And soon they will all be meeting again in Louisiana. GAB Robins, Crawford and Company, all the adjusting companies. Recall for example that Frank Blaha when not harassing me had an adjuster who was given the wind damage claim for a hospital in the Marianas. An adjuster in Concord California given a file in the Marianas Islands? Don’t ask me, ask Mr. DeLay, or that colleague of his, the one that was just indicted.

Now, some may say, ‘well, see here if this is bad as you say surely there must be someone in the insurance companies looking out after things.’ Perhaps now is the time I should explain reinsurance to you? You see if the claims total more than a sum certain, say $500 million for a company like Farmers for example, that means that after paying out its $500 million the reinsurance company pay everything else, including the corruption. Not much of an incentive to be watchful is it?

(Even in normal claims handling the companies have not done their due diligence. Have you never wondered at the body shops being raided by the police? The charge? They were defrauding the companies. Where were the adjusters? That is just the point. The companies now simply pay the body shops without adjusters at all. They have turned it all over to the police, i.e. cost transfer to society, for again, the premiums have all been adjusted, upward, to protect the companies. (And please don’t think the insurance departments are looking out for your interests. They are not.))

Then you might reasonably suppose that the Names at Lloyds will then look into the loss of $1.5 billion. Ah, the Names. They are not what they used to be. Many are in over their heads. Then too just think about our previous lessons. Class, what have we learned here at New Ruskin about market allocation of costs? Yes, Yvonne.

Counselor: The market redistributes all costs through the price mechanism.

So this corruption, this is not the first time is it? The corruption it turns out like taxes, and energy, etc. is just another cost of doing business. The corruption tax has already been collected in the premium. The Names are protected already.

Yet still, they could save $1.5 billion if only . . . if some how . . . but how? That is the question. Possibly some Names might try and band together to demand that Lloyds or . . . or . . . well who? That is the question. The State of Louisiana? They could teach the adjusters a thing or to. Oh, oh, wait a minute, I know, the IRS!

Oh, no, remember I tried that and the IRS gave my name to the very company they had asked me to assist them in “investigating”?

We could tell the President! That some illegals from the North are coming into the country illegally . . . ah, no, I don’t suppose he would care about that or for that matter about the $1.5 billion either.

And if he did what could he do? Direct the IRS to . . . what? Consider that for years billions of dollars are being taken year after year and the IRS has never been able to find the money. Now, in the middle of a storm they are going to go after the very criminals they have helped protect?

No. I do not think the Names are going to find it any easier this time than in any of the other thousands of times that over a billion dollars has been taken from their pockets. Just who do you think is making the assignments? Do you suppose that the honest adjusters are feeding each other files, or does it not sound more likely that the corrupt adjusters will work together? Of course, the corrupt have a common interest, their share of the spoils $750 million.

There will be thousands of jobs created by this catastrophe but do you suppose my phone will ring? Don’t talk to me about free markets, let me instead tell you some truths about your society, and you. For has this corruption not also sprung from the same silence with which you have greeted everything else?

So while this adjuster in San Francisco will be sitting down in front of the KQED building, the corrupt adjusters will be descending on the storm victims.

Ironic. No?

And you? Let me guess. You will say nothing.

You do not want what has been done to me, done to you.

Smart.

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No Net at New Ruskin College

2005-08-29T10:36:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: No Safety Net

I previously explained that I have a psychological “glitch,” a tendency to stay too long with things, situations, watching, waiting to see what happens, collecting data, analyzing, hypothesizing possible explanations.

For example I stayed with Marlene for 19 years when arguably we should never have been together in the first place.

Or, for example, I went back to see Yvonne a second time, (a 2nd time!), after she had conspired with her “friends” at KQED, had betrayed Marlene and me, had continued to lie to me for months afterwards, how stupid is that, encouraging me to listen to Garrison Keillor’s program and his little messages . . .

And after the Red Comedian made his little witticism I continued, about my sister Susan and what . . .? Something about Zen. Zen? Allan Watts lived in Marin . . . what could that mean? Analyze, analyze,

Counselor: (Anal.)

How is that? Yvonne! Please you are not allowed . . .

Counselor: Oh, . . . I forgot.

It is your parentheticals that caused all of this ----

Counselor: Yes, yes it is all my fault.

I am too patient.

You see I have to be very careful. Mustn’t jump to conclusions . . .

Being an insurance adjuster was very agreeable. Collecting information, analyzing the data, preparing reports, offering considered judgments . . . and I got to meet people. And I met people under the most extraordinary circumstances. I would often check them into a motel ---

Counselor: . . .

Ah, after their homes burned down, or something . . . or in the hospital . . .

I met people from all walks of life. The doctor who had just rear ended someone----

Counselor: See!

Please Yvonne. People hit crossing the street. Or people who had just hit someone crossing the street. In Oakland. At 2 am. Drunk.

I met people all across the country . . . but I digress . . . so I thought to go to a Zen center in Marin where I thought Allan Watts may have visited, Green Gulch Farm. After I went back to see Yvonne the second time after a year, one Sunday morning five different people came up to me and made some reference to something I had said to Yvonne.

I wrote a letter to Reb Anderson the Abbot. Then a few days later attending a class at Green Gulch it occurred to me that the class was strangely quiet. Reb Anderson entered the room and sat down, a moment of silent meditation, then looking around, commented: “I sense some tension in the room . . .?”

Oh, no, I didn’t jump to any conclusions! I never do! Collected more data, test the hypothesis.

In the letter I quoted Yvonne’s comment about Green Gulch during its period of “trouble.” Mr. Baker the then “Abbot” had in Yvonne’s words been “fucking all his dominant females.” Monkey consciousness. I also pointed out the stories about Green Gulch as described in Zen in America. For example, there was the story about Jerry Brown, then the Governor of California having drinking parties at Green Gulch and the “Head of Practice” being tasked to pick up the Mumm’s champagne bottles that were strewn about the place.

This was my thinking: Some of the inmates of Green Gulch seemed to know what I had said to Yvonne, yet they were not willing to come forward. Why? I know, I’ll write to Reb Anderson, the Abbot, and see what happens. Collect more data. . . . Sounds like a good idea?

There was dead silence in the class. Reb Anderson looked around.

This was before, years before, David Horowitz wrote his biography where he mentions the Bay Area and Green Gulch Farm, and describes how Mr. Brown the “Abbot” “gave refuge” to Huey P. Newton and aided his flight to Cuba to avoid drug charges. Horowitz reveals in Radical Son that Newton, in route to Green Gulch Farm, stopped on the Bay Bridge and dropped a revolver into the bay which he had just used to kill an 17 year old prostitute, the same gun which had earlier been used to kill a police officer.

In other words the Green Gulch Farm inmates gave “refuge” to a cop killer, who ‘ran’ prostitutes, and had recently killed one, just a few hours before, dropping the gun in the bay before joining them in his flight to Cuba; they also had sponsored Jerry’s drinking parties; they covered up Mr. Browns sexual troupe, his malfeasance, betrayal of the Dharma; and thus his betrayal was their betrayal for they kept silent, covered up, acquiesced in the abuse. (Rule one of all cults: never criticize the cult.)

And Reb Anderson looked around the stony silence of the room, left right, (he also has a photographic memory, (memorizes everyone’s name so he can call on any of the 50 or 100 students, by name)), “ . . . what’s going on . . .? . . . is there some tension . . . ?”

Silence.

And Reb Anderson had himself made some references to what I had said to Yvonne; which I had made supposedly in private to her alone. For example, months earlier two inmates had been talking to each other but in my presence, for me to hear (?), “I think it is so pathetic to have to pay someone to listen to you . . .”

Next I saw Yvonne I related their conversation and admitted the truth, it is pathetic isn’t it?

Then the next week Reb Anderson speaking to the group at Green Gulch commented that “every relationship costs something.”

I was very enthusiastic. Ah! We have a relationship, Yvonne and I! A “relationship.”

But this is what I mean. I collect data. I watch. Don’t want to jump to conclusions.

Everyone was silent. No one had anything to say.

How could I have supposed that anyone would come forward? The first time I visited Green Gulch I attended a “meeting” of the ‘Alan Watts Society’ with two Zen “priests” or a “priest” and his butt boy. (see Lecture Notes: 07-06-05 Mill Valley ) They were from the “Hartford Street Zen Center” in “the Castro” of San Francisco.

Because they are “Gay” they have a right to lie, organize harassment, torment, destroy another’s life. Or if one is “radical” or if one has seen the “truth” or Dharma, or if one is a member of any other subject class, Jew, Woman, Black, or Green, Third World, any of the aggrieved, one has the privilege, permission, “right” to twist justice to his aims, his ego’s satisfaction.

Indeed, all you really have to do is get angry. Consider for example the anger against AIDS and the demand that the scientific method of double blind experiments be abandoned and the “treatments” be given directly to those in need. This policy, enacted in anger and frustration, has now been dropped.

Why? Has the anger all gone?

Some day we will return to “contact tracing” for contagious diseases, or rather for AIDS, the only contagious disease we do not use contact tracing to fight. Why the only disease? Oh, righteous anger.

Next consider, dear reader, how many have died for want of a scientifically tested treatment, in want of contact tracing? How many have you killed? What? Oh, you object to that pronoun? Your silence does not make you complicit in those deaths either. Oh. How very lucky you are. It seems you can never be held to account for anything. How I envy you your rationalizations, . . . of course, I mean I envy your reasons! Yes, yes of course. Have it your way.

So yes I have this glitch. I spent too much time collecting data, making sure, I didn’t want to accuse Yvonne wrongly. Or Marlene. Or any of you, sitting there in stony silence.

Then too I was mistaken from the first. I thought this was just happening to me. I imagined that there was some justice elsewhere. That you were treating each other differently, possibly when I was out of the room.

There was “refuge” for Huey P. Newton, who had, just hours before killed a 17 year old prostitute in Oakland, the place where I had helped people whose houses had just burned down or who had just been in a car accident, but there was no refuge for me. Huey P. Newton was aided by the Zen Center, the cop killer was helped to escape justice, but not one person came forward to tell me what they knew about Yvonne or the others.

They let me know that they knew. Not unlike so many in the media who have over the years let it be known that they knew about the burglary, the many times my employers were persuaded to let me go. I concluded that at Green Gulch the motivation may have been to tell me that they thought it was ok, that they had considered it and did not think it wrong for Yvonne to betray me, or for Michael Weiner to burgle my notebook (see Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan).

They had considered it all and they thought it was fine. (And this may also have been my sister’s motivation. The San Francisco painter wanted me to know she too thought it just.) And the class at Green Gulch, the stony silence, they too thought it just.

No one came forward. And even then I hypothesized that it was still just me! I conjectured that I was caught between the Leftists, like the friends of Huey P., on the one side and the Rush Limbaughs on the Right. But this too has been shown to be false. Null. No, not just me.

This is the world. There is no net.

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Jumpers at New Ruskin College

2005-08-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 9-11 WTC Jumpers: Why did they jump?

Better to ask: Why didn’t they jump sooner? What kept them hanging on so long?

No doubt they had some story they were telling themselves. The firemen will come. A long ladder? Helicopter.

As I look back at my life there is an astonishing since of release.

Oh! God! It wasn’t just me . . . after all?

I too had a series of stories which served to explain the world for me. All this must be because when I was nine years old my teacher told my mother that I am retarded. This explained why the students made fun of me at school. “You were held over? Are you a retard?”

And this also explained my brothers and sisters. It explained everything. The universal explanation. I got my first pair of glasses when I was fourteen. My brothers and sisters regarded this as a great embarrassment. What’s wrong with him? And my parents? It must be me again, I let them down early on.

When things started going badly with Marlene, and though we had been together 19 years, for years I thought, this must be because of me. I assumed it was just me.

That is how life is for me. What can you expect? You are retarded!

Whenever things get difficult my mind always wonders back to my earliest memory of trouble. ‘Your teacher says you are retarded.’ All life was judged against this fundamental fact. This was the explanation for everything.

Of course, it is clear now that if the other children had not ridiculed me for being a year older they would have ridiculed me for something else. My brothers and sisters would have been the same no matter what.

Marlene was following her own course quite independent of me.

It is as though the world had been veiled from me by my explanations.

I created this constant excuse for it. They appear harsh, cruel, obnoxious, but it must be because I am retarded or something?

Now the veil is drawn away. This is how they really are. It has nothing to do with me.

For example, I always felt that there must have been something in my letters which caused Yvonne to betray me, for the people at KQED to inveigle Yvonne to bring us down to their studio. Something that I had written with which they disagreed. Or the way I wrote?

It must be me. Something I said.

NO, fool. Nor the Last Letter neither. Nothing. Nothing I did, nothing I said caused these cretins to harasse me.

Whew, what a relief.

I simply attracted their attention. One person heard something, said something to someone else. They had no arguments. There was no reason. Nothing. Word got around. And then when I criticized Yvonne in the Last Letter it was not the criticism, it was just the additional attention which it had created.

One thing led to another and fifteen years later . . . Michael Weiner, Don Imus . . .

There is nothing that I did. This is just how life is. People are like that.

From the beginning to the end.

Cruel. Stupid. Vulgar.

I had always thought of some explanation. I always looked for some reason. Something about me. Something that I did. The way I relate, or don’t, with people. Searching for some clue to explain what is going on. And if your own thought process is brought into doubt, as mine was at the age of nine, you always have to search yourself, double check what you are doing, what you are thinking.

Watching yourself once, twice, even three times. For how do you know that after you have double checked yourself you should not check again? Remember you are retarded. It must be me. Always searching for some reason, some story to explain what is happening. Why are things going badly? For it is when things are going badly that we search for explanations. When things are going well we tend not to inquire very deeply into the causes. Will except good fortune if only due to luck.

Now I see the world for what it is; without explanation or reason or theory.

Emptiness.

But I will not strike out at the world. I will demonstrate how not to strike out blindly, for how would you know when to stop? When would you have done enough killing? 3,000 in the WTC? Is that enough?

This is one of the problems with the President’s “kill them over there so we do not have to fight them over here.” If you have no strategic goal in mind, no professional military plan, no aim other than just to “kill”, how will you know when you have killed enough?

Killing people is not a very effective way to create social change. (That is not what the military, war, is all about.) Killing just confuses the dumb bastards even more than they are, makes them even more emotional, irrational, moves them even further away from reason.

I will kill just one person to show you that I have seen through the veil, this is not me. I have been singled out, Weiner followed me, obsessing on me, harassed me for years, Imus, Mrs. Jack Swanson joined in, and thought they were tormenting someone. What fun! They thought I existed.

When Michael Krasney called me at the AAA Auto Club he thought I was on the other phone. Ron Owens rejoiced in humiliating someone he thought was me.

And they have all been mistaken. And all the rest looking on, adding their jibes, they thought they were taunting someone, or not, thought that they were letting someone be destroyed . . .

I will show you all that you have been confused. There is nothing here. Watch.

For years I was like you are now. I thought that there was some reason or explanation. There is nothing. Watch.

Emptiness.

Look . . . geese!

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Emptiness VIII at New Ruskin College

2005-08-29T09:55:00.000-07:00

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08-27-05, 08-29-05
Emptiness VIII

We have seen in things both large and small, near and far, the consequences of the simian’s willingness to tell pleasing lies to each other.

The “channeled quickness” (E. O. Wilson) of our minds allows us to double back in our arguments, in a single breath contradict ourselves, without pause to notice. One illogical, self serving, irrational thought follows another in an apparently random manner.

Rationalizations piled up around the ego for its self protection in a hostile world, more than for any political philosophy, or search for truth. For who among us could remain sane if he knew, as George Eliot put it, the sound of the beating of every heart? She concluded that we are all of us, luckily, thickly wadded with our ignorance.

No doubt, perceiving this and its consequence, a confused public discourse, many have simply given up on reason, logic, even self awareness in their grab for power. These are the people who, when they seek political power and have access to the mass media, are what I have called fascists. Their very act of “giving up,” is their bad faith.

Like Iago, the fascist makes an artful grab for power, manipulating ignorance, egotism, the ready willingness of the victim to believe that which is convenient to the ego. In play after play Shakespeare arranges for the good and honest to debate the clever and wicked with princes and the noble sitting in judgment. Almost always the dishonest arguments of the wicked are victorious over the just. The master playwright understood the power of words when marshaled in arguments to defeat truth.

In politics we find hidden behind the high sounding phrases and appeals for compassion, selfishness, masquerading as humility and decency. For without the truth test of the market, the requirement that one actually give up something for what one professes, how do we know who is true and who is false?

In example after example we have seen how the selfishness of the few, twists their reason, and by means of the power of the state they are able to funnel to themselves the advantages which except for that state action would flow to others. We have noted in these transactions that there is an association here of the Left with the oligarchy and we have wondered at this coincidence.

Politics makes strange bed fellows but why these two, The Left and the oligarchy?

The reason can be found in the fact that the Left has an ideology which justifies its meddling in the market, even proclaims the superiority of their meddling over the market. This ideology is supported by a series of false propositions all of which share the failure to accept the consensual associations of mutual benefit which are at the foundation of the market.

The market rises up out of the sea of lies and dishonesty which is the human condition. The market replaces the waves of disingenuous arguments with the rock of a medium of exchange, thus making economic calculation possible. Replaces false words with genuine acts and goods, which can be counted. Allows each to decide for himself what is “best” and “good” and what is “worth” and what is “worthless.”

But the Left accepts none of this and is antagonistic to the market and would replace the judgments of the consumers with the judgment of the leaders of the Left.

Now, who else besides the Left wants to escape the market? Well nearly everyone. We would all like to have things arranged differently for our own convenience. Why slave meeting the consumer’s demands when by a simple act of Congress all could be made “right”? But what can we do?

Then too most of us recognize that though we might personally benefit from a reorganization of the market, if it were done just so, we would most likely all lose in the expected fight as each of us sought some special privilege or favor from the bribed and dissolute Congress. In general the middle class recognizes that the market represents the most advantageous method of distribution.

But this recognition is not universally held. The oligarchy sees no particular benefit in ‘meeting the needs of the consumers.’ ‘Who are they to us? Why should they be given such importance? Better that they consume what we tell them,’ says the oligarchy to itself.

It is generally supposed that the rich are friends of the market for this is what they profess at every opportunity. This is not true. The rich would escape the market if they could. Wouldn’t we all? Ah, but the means are lacking. But not for the rich. They have means.

Also they know better than most that in the competition of the market they might lose. And they know too that they have much more to lose than most. Where as the market protects the middle class from the predation of the rich; for the rich the market acts as an impediment.

When the rich want to raise the rent who says ‘NO!’ ?

Answer: The market.

It is the market which stands between the rich and the savings accounts of the middle class.

So perceiving this obstacle to their ambitions the rich unite and form the oligarchy and look around for supporters and allies to harness the power of the state to their ambition of overturning the market, and removing this impediment to their privileged desires.

And looking around the political landscape they eye the conservatives, defenders of the market, . . . no, no good there, . . . and looking further they perceive . . . THE LEFT. For does not the Left also agree that the market is “unjust” or at least so they say they believe, but who really knows? Does not The Left prefer the power of the state over the market for reasons of “social justice”, or so they say? Yes, yes.

And so the political alliance was formed the Left and the oligarchy.

For example the Ethanol Fraud is a perfect example. The science is that the production of ethanol costs more, uses more energy, destroys, mines, resources to a greater extent than does oil. Yet an alliance has been formed between the oligarchy and the Left environmentalists.

In California Bill Jones, a Republican, threw an election; he failed to run a single ad against Marin Senator Boxer. He even took back out of his campaign the $2 million he had promised. Why? He claimed that he was forced to because all of his reputed $50 million fortune was tied up in his ethanol plants.

Then Left environmentalists who had argued against ethanol changed their positions and joined the Democrats of Californian and advocated ethanol. Mr. Jones’ fortune was secured. Lucky man. Just think of the risk of having all your money tied up not just in an industry utterly dependent on government environmental law, but in one company! Such a lucky man. Oh, he lost the election. The Marin Senator has another six years. The Democrats are so thankful.

Note that the Republican joined with the Left. The oligarchy is ecumenical. The point earlier was only that the Left in particular has a political philosophy that encourages state intervention.

Yet many on the Right can join in the plunder. For example in California the State pays 50% of the cost of photovoltaic panels. These panels are economically inefficient. No one would buy them in such scale if not for the subsidy. Thus the 50%. And who can afford the other 50%? The rich! All tax payers must pay but the rich uniquely benefit. What is the opposite of progressive? Regressive. Yes, Post Liberal.

Recently John Roberts of CBS, (and an Imus regular), was interviewing his “on the road” reporter about ethanol. The man enthused that 50% of all agricultural production in Nebraska was devoted to ethanol. And then acknowledged some had objected on “economics” but with the new dollar a gallon tax reduction, subsidy, “the wind has come out of the sails on that argument.”

Shakespeare would have appreciated the cliché in service to a perfidious end, in political debate. That the tax subsidy, reduction, of a dollar a gallon had no “economic” effect was apparently lost on both CBS “newsmen.” Ethanol is still not economic now even with the subsidy, the subsidy for ethanol was, as with the photovoltaic panels, required because it is not economic.

I am sure many Republicans in California have installed the panels and taken the State’s money, our money, our tax money, which we pay to a greater extent than do the rich because we, unlike the rich, do not have the same ability to raise our prices and offset, pass on the taxes. We all pay but the rich benefit. And I am also sure that many of the farmers of Nebraska are also Republicans. But the intervention in the market is sponsored by the Left, and its meaning is covered up by the Left, by people such as CBS’ John Roberts.

These miss-directions of the market parallel and are part of the misdirection described earlier. The trade unions have secured their public employee pensions, pensions of 105% guaranteed by the government as a growing burden on the people, not because they alone deserve such concessions but because they have joined with the Democrat Party machines to extort the money from the people.

Millionaires have “flood” insurance on their country homes paid for by the people not because they deserve this protection but because they have formed an alliance with the Left. This alliance has secured the oligarchy hundreds of billions of dollars in tax shelters for their “foundations” and “charities” and “institutes” such as the Gallo Brothers' wine institute. And see that the Left does not bother the oligarchy with any oversight. The rich alone can decide how to spend our tax money.

Our tax money? Well of course this is another reason the Left and the rich are so agreeable. For the Left will not accept the idea that the dynamics of the market redirects all cost through the price mechanism.

Every attempt to tax the rich in a free market, i.e. without wage and price controls, will only result in higher prices, inflation, as the rich raise their prices, which they can do because their goods and services are in high demand, unlike yours and mine which are replaceable. Thus the rich can raise their prices to cover the tax and then the Left says, ‘Oh, you can keep that share for your foundation, why it is only fair, after all it is 'your' money.’ And the oligarchy of course agrees once again with the Left.

And we can be replaced by whom? Well by foreign workers for one, either overseas or right here. For the Left and the oligarchy agree on unlimited immigration. Why should the rich have their property held hostage by domestic workers, who might try to raise their prices? Only the rich should be able to raise prices! Let us have open competition; competition for labor, and socialism for the rich!

The top 20% of Social Security recipients have not “contributed” the money they now take out of the paychecks of the people and add to their already substantial incomes of over $75,000. They too have connected with the Left and its claim of “universality.” But universality has nothing to do with the 50% of the income that the top 20% control, not the 60% of the financial assets which they control. No, no universality for any of this, this all belongs exclusively to the top 20%, only the withholdings from the people’s meager paychecks are to be made "universal", here with our money the Left and the oligarchy are all universality.

And this selfishness in our “public” policy is self destructive. If the unions had been more expansive in their lobbying on medical coverage, and opened the discussion up to those groups that all can agree should be covered, victims of accidents, i.e. emergency trauma care, the children, and those with congenital, i.e. uninsurable conditions, the cost of health coverage would have fallen and availability would increase. But selfishness prevented this.

Nixon offered Senator Kennedy a Federal health program but he turned it down, he would not compromise. Then during the Clinton Administration the Republicans again offered an incremental compromise on the Mrs. Billy Clinton proposal for a “single payer” system. The Republicans offered to insure all children but again the Democrat being the champion of the people turned down the compromise. They are such clever negotiators! They will never give an inch. Not on Social Security, not on health care, never! They are so “radical.” And the people suffer for there arrogance.

In our schools technology has not developed because the government bureaucrats have no interest in innovation even though this technology would be a boon to our own children and the world. And similarly in highways we again have seen the Left in league with the oligarchy pour our money into pork barrel highway projects misdirected by government while, for example, electronics could greatly increase both the efficiency of our roads and their safety. But because the highway bureaucrats, like the educational ones, are not paid to improve either, because there are no market incentives, 43,000 die each year on our roads, hundreds of thousands seriously wounded, and nothing can be done because government controls all. And who controls government? Without logic and reason, without honesty, can anyone control? Does it not simply become a base struggle for power in which factions contend to twist the market to their advantage?

We do not, as noted above, regularly make global reassessments of our situation. Who can fight city hall.

Just see how ridiculous I have appeared to you, and to the oligarchs, Imus, Weiner, Imus’ regular Senator Hatch, Senator McCain, all the rest . . . I rose above my place, my class and am destroyed for it. But is not my story simply itself another example for why politics is irretrievably corrupt. Can you not see how all is twisted by this political process?

The consequences can be seen anywhere one chooses to look:

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Armstrong&Getty at New Ruskin College

2005-08-24T13:03:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: August

“Well . . . enjoy your failure . . .” --- Armstrong and Getty, the morning morons on KNEW, 08-24-05

Statements like this sound homosexual to me. Because snide, glib, . . . feminine. Women are said to be more verbal, to have greater “social skills”, greater range in their ability to deal with competing social demands, etc.

And homosexuals are said to be more “female” for some of these very same reasons.

But the morning morons on KNEW are not homosexuals. At least they do not trade on it if they are. Ron Owens is another example whose snippy put downs have always made me think Queen. Perhaps he will come “out of the closet” and leave his wife and daughters.

That has become a pattern. The “closet Queen” walks out when they become teenagers. Become an Episcopal Bishop, the son joins the Taliban, or; I’m confusing stories.

I suppose that it is unfair to homosexuals. ?? Or not. Some I think would appreciate their reputation for being able to “dish it” with the best of them. But what does it say about our culture that heterosexuals now compete to “dish it”?

“Well . . . enjoy your failure . . . Don’t you just hate those people who always have some excuse, I’m failing but let me explain why . . . they have a whole explanation for how ‘the system’ is set against them . . .? well . . . enjoy your failure.”

It is like the weatherman on KSFO. It is embarrassing to even acknowledge them. Which is why for years I tried to ignore them. Even after the burglary. I thought someone will come forward and give evidence. You can not cover this up.

Anyway what can you do? The police are part of it. They were following me for months after the burglary, referring to me as the “Colonial Motel Suspect.” And as the years went by they escalated. Michael Weiner, and Ron Owens used Scott “now he probably thinks that I work for the JDL” Bobro at Farmers. Michael Krasney used Rose Guilbault, VP, at the AAA Auto Club. Mrs. Jack Swanson apparently knew the owners of CENCAL, and of course Don Imus had Frank Blaha at GAB Robins.

But Armstrong and Getty do not want to be left out the day I kill myself in front of the KQED building. They will high five each other on air the next morning.

Yesterday, Lee Rodgers was condemning the management of ABC’s WMAL for the firing of Michael Graham. “I would never work there.” Yet not four days before Mrs. Jack Swanson explained on the air that she would use her influence to have Christine Craft taken off the air. (Using her influence. Her husband the station manager.) Why? Craft had called her an “idiot.”

You can get taken off KGO for telling the truth? Mrs. Jack Swanson is an idiot.

What was Lee Rodgers’ point? Was he not by implication asking ‘Who would work for KGO?’ He was expressing his contempt for the cowards, Rosie Allen, Ed Baxter, Gene Burns, Bernie Ward, etc. who knew about the burglary, the years of harassment, and said nothing out of fear of retaliation by management?

Yes. Lee Rodgers and Mrs. Jack Swanson are contemptuous of their cowering colleagues. In other words Rodgers is a hypocrite. He enjoys the protection of Mr. Jack Swanson, even as Swanson keeps Rodgers’ colleagues in fear of their jobs.

Champions “free speech” for the hate filled Graham but does not want the truth spoken about Weiner, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Imus et al.

But we are passing hypocrisy.

Michael Weiner, Lee Rodgers, Mrs. Jack Swanson will daily advocate nuclear genocide of the Moslem people, the destruction of whole cities. Rush Limbaugh only asked why we were not considering “carpet bombing Iraqi cities.” Mrs. Jack Swanson advocated “bombing them back into the stone age.”

And then they claim that the Moslems are violent.

Weiner advocated “random acts of violence” against Moslems. Recommended that “random acts of violence” be perpetrated anonymously.

And so it goes. Is that not what was done to me? Random acts of violence? Anonymously?

But of course they were all indignation that Michael Graham was dropped for his repeated assertion that all Moslems are terrorists, that “Islam is a terrorist organization”, failing to make any distinctions. (We kill terrorists don’t we?)

Indignation about the loss of “free speech?” Glorying in triumph over how these rich powerful people have used their influence for fifteen years to destroy me. Glory? For example in Michael Weiner’s twisted neurotic view it has been a fair fight. How fair? Well, come on, I am Gentile! I am 6’2”. A WASP! Don’t you see that makes it fair.

Don’t you know what those Gentiles did to the Jewish people? And I have blue eyes too. Remember that? Blue eyes! A NAZI! See? And Mrs. Jack Swanson also thinks it has been fair. Why I am a MAN! She is just a weak struggling female. She was raised a feminist. Get EVEN! Before she used her influence at CENCAL she had tried to get Rush Limbaugh taken off the air back in the 1980s. And now Christine Craft.

But of course Rush Limbaugh raised Mrs. Jack Swanson’s fist in a victory pose at a recent event. He will go on for hours, three hours a day, putting it out, ‘Go on do your worst liberals, you can never do anything to us, you know why? Because we are White Males and we can take anything you can dish out, go on do your worst. Because we are stronger, better, smarter, than you, you can never hold us down, you know why because we are White Males. That is right we will just work harder, faster, smarter than you and you will never be able to keep us down , you know why, because . . .’

Shut up Rush. I am just begging you. Please, just shut up.

There is something beyond hypocrisy.

Emptiness.

Christian cleric issues a fatwa calling for the killing of the Venezuelan head of state. (Drudge)

This World Which Is Made of Our Love for Emptiness

Praise to the emptiness that blanks out existence. Existence:
This place made from our love for that emptiness!

Yet somehow comes emptiness,this existence goes.
Praise to that happening, over and over!For years I pulled my own existence out of emptiness.

Then one swoop, one swing of the arm,that work is over.
Free of who I was, free of presence, free of dangerous fear, hope, free of mountainous wanting.

The here-and-now mountain is a tiny piece of a piece of straw blown off into emptiness.
These words I'm saying so much begin to lose meaning:

Existence, emptiness, mountain, straw:
Words and what they try to say sweptout the window, down the slant of the roof.

William C. Chittick, The Sufi Path of Love:The Spiritual Teachings of Rumi

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COP Suicide at New Ruskin College

2005-08-23T11:25:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: Suicide Research

Suggestion for suicide research: Correlation between cop suicide and corruption. Cop suicides may be an indicator of corruption in their jurisdiction. What do you do when the “good guys” are the bad guys? Who do you report to? Not everyone is a Frank Serpico.

In my case the President of the United States has taken notice of this web site. Senators have taken notice, some Senators have even taken the side of my oppressors, (Hatch and McCain). Senator Kerry repeatedly went on the Imus show during his campaign. After I applied for a job with the new Governor of California, Mrs. Jack Swanson made a reference to my application. Even the new Governor has someone on his staff who leaks to her.

So where do you go from there?

This is why we should research police suicides. They join to help, to do good, and then they discover what I have discovered, the utter degradation, corruption, of society.

They find that the world is Empty. No truth or justice, just ego, greed, delusion, hate.

Where do you go from there?

ONE DOWN: Michael Grahams termination appears to come from his repeatedly calling Islam a terrorist organization and for not distinguishing between the practices and beliefs of Islam and the acts of terrorists and radicals. (R&R-Drudge) But what about the burglary? The fifteen years of oppression?

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Popcorn & The Mob at New Ruskin College

2005-08-23T11:18:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: Popcorn

After Michael Weiner began reading from my stolen notebook, and then Mrs. Jack Swanson and Brian Wilson, and Ed Baxter, and the morning guys at KGO, Wigand and Dunbar, I wrote a note to Yvonne about the burglary.

At that time I didn’t appreciate how hopeless my position. I had no chance. This was January 2000. I thought Yvonne would share the note and then as the burglary became public, people would talk, someone would come forward and Weiner would be arrested. Justice would be done.

Now I understand that I am in another class. It does not matter that everyone “knows” that Michael Weiner is a burglar. The rich and powerful are protected. Ordinary schlubs like me have no rights. But I came to realize all of this only later.

Then Garrison Keillor did a thing about popcorn on one of his broadcasts. He had made many comments, references to my letters, and seemingly to Yvonne, (Yvonne had encouraged me to listen to Keillor’s broadcasts), so I wondered if this too was not a reference to the stolen notebook. (see Yvonne’s story at the Stolen Notebook Archive at the Moynihan.) So I included this question in my note to Yvonne: why did Keillor reference popcorn in his broadcast?

A few days later Christine Craft on KGO coughed and apologized that she had choked on a piece of popcorn. But, of course, she never came forward.

Recently she called Mrs. Jack Swanson an “idiot” and encouraged listeners to attend a counter counter protest, (Mrs. Jack Swanson was staging the counter protest, (yes, I know, Northern California politics)). Mrs. Jack Swanson immediately, as soon as her next turn at the microphone, went on the air and condemned Christine Craft for calling her an “idiot” and for encouraging protesters to the counter counter protest and further, she, Mrs. Jack Swanson, would speak to Mr. Jack Swanson, the station manager, and have Christine Craft taken off the air.

And so it goes. Other than that one reference to “popcorn” Christine Craft never came forward. She must have known about the burglary from the other employees of KGO and Mrs. Jack Swanson and Brian Wilson had been talking about it the first Monday following that week Michael Weiner had first begun reading from the stolen notebook, which was less than 24 hours after the burglary.

Craft is an attorney. An officer of the court. And she has helped cover up a felony.

After Yvonne betrayed Marlene and me, after the Last Letter, I wanted nothing more to do with politics. If your life could be destroyed, your privacy violated, complete strangers could organize themselves to oppress you, and for nothing, for writing some letters about laser disks in education, then I chose not to participate.

But that was not enough for Michael Weiner. For years following the Last Letter in 1991, he was following, harassing me. Making covert references. Stalking me. I once caught him in Berkeley. He had followed me from Marin. Weiner is a lunatic. But then Ron Owens and Michael Krasney joined in. Then Imus. Then Mrs. Jack Swanson. Then Imus again. For years this went on, fifteen years.

Soon I will be dead. I tried to get out after the Last Letter. And then even after Weiner and Owens and Krasney, after years and years I tried to go on, to make a life. Now and then I marvel at how optimistic I had been in 1992, trying to start a new life for myself after Marlene. How did I have hope? I have no idea.

And after I am dead no one will know about the time Christine Craft mentioned “popcorn” on the air.

Mrs. Jack Swanson will have Craft taken off the air.

Weiner will harasse and oppress some other target.

People will say of me, ‘He had some kind of problem with Jews, didn’t he? I hear he was anti Semitic. And then there was something about the Bell Curve, wasn’t he a racist too . . . and then he complained he couldn’t find work . . . well who would hire him? He had a web site for Christ sake! All he did was complain. Oh, yeah, I know people like that! Who would want to hire someone like that?’

And the unfairness is galling.

And the hypocrisy.

And the class system that protects my enemies.

And the hypocrisy.

I am grateful I can escape this human wasteland.

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Lecture Notes: Lynch Mob

What’s the big deal? Don Imus and Michael Weiner just call it street justice.

Ron Owens and Michael Krasney don’t have a problem with it.

Didn’t employees of KQED and KGO join in. And others too, Scott Bobro of Farmers and Frank Blaha of GAB Robins? The mob.

Is that Rosie Allen? And Ed Baxter kicking?

And see over there? That is Mrs. Jack Swanson pulling the hair? What? Oh, she calls that "caboossing." You know from the rear.

No, there is no surprise here.

Oh, and look, Senators Hatch and McCain cheering the mob on.

What you thought the “good citizens” would come forward?

What are you . . .an idealist? Haven’t you ever watched a mob kill someone before?

Yes you have. Kill him . . . kill him . . .

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Emptiness Part VII at New Ruskin College

2005-08-20T18:13:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-20-05
Emptiness Part VII

Why did Senator Boxer not support a reduction in benefits for the wealthy Social Security “beneficiaries”? Why should ordinary workers, half of whom earn less than $35,000 a year, pay the Social Security of the top 20% whose income is in excess of $75,000? I thought the Marin Senator was on the side of the people? Why not redirect these funds from the rich back to the poor, depositing it into the savings accounts of the poor?

Because she is from Marin. She represents Marin. The rich. This is the Democrat party of today.

Do you think the Marin Senator has carefully evaluated the $109k paid to BART train drivers and reduced the Federal subsidy to mass transit for such union excesses? Of course not the Democrats are the mouthpieces for the unions. We are all of us forced to pay but the funds are doled out my the Democrat machine to the Democrat machine. (And do you suppose that the Republicans stay up nights worrying about this looting? In a word no. They do not care. Indeed they compete to loot for their states an equal share which their party machines can dole out.)

For example, has the Marin Senator carefully examined how Federal highway funds are used by states to subsidize their exclusionary zoning laws? Advocated limits on Federal funds for those who exclude the poor and middle class? Has she blocked Federal funds for cities like San Francisco that have used their zoning powers to down zone their cities? No, no, no.

Does the Marin Senator care that 12% of the wages of people earning less than $35k, (half the people), are being redirected to the top 20% who control 50% of the national income and 60% of the financial wealth? Again, I say, No. (Note too that the top 20% were “paid” back all of their “contributions” in the first few years of their retirement. All the money they now collect is pure profit.)

The Marin Senator does not care about fairness. The Democrat party has formed an alliance with the state and municipal employees to loot the public treasury. In San Francisco, for example, Mayor Brown added 4,000 employees bringing the budget to $5.2 billion. (San Francisco) But this is minor compared to the looting across the nation where the Democrats have systematically plundered the public treasury for votes: “According to the U.S. Census Bureau, major public pension plans paid out $78.5 billion in the 12 months ended Sept. 30, 2000. By the comparable period in 2004, that had grown to $117.8 billion, a 50% climb in five years.” (Business Week: Public Pension Sink Hole) Just as we have seen with the national debt, when the Republican stopped slaving to balance the budget the Democrat knew no limit and so thus, $8 trillion in debt, about which Mr. Bush said, it is just “numbers on paper.” (Peter Peterson, Running on Empty, Foreign Affairs)

And see how one lie leads to the next. For the Marin Senator will claim that we have “progressive taxation” which at least adds some fairness to the American system. But of course the dynamics of the market redistributes all costs, raw materials, energy, insurance, and taxes by the price mechanism. Taxation is a burden on the people it can not be made progressive. To the extent prices can be raised to offset the taxes they will be raised. And who then actually pays the tax? The people! (This is why taxes should be kept as low as possible.)

And see here a perfect kind of example of Emptiness. The Right regularly assails us with their triumphalist sneers that “they” pay most of the taxes. ‘See all the income tax “we” pay!’ they cry, failing to see that the taxes follow the distribution of income, let alone seeing that this income results from the ever constant price rises by which the tax is transferred to the people. Yet this myopia is matched by the jubilant cries of “tax the rich” from the Left, Post Liberal, whose smarmy manipulation of the people is matched by their smarmy contempt for the people, for they, of course, fail to point out that as long as “the rich” are free to set their own prices, the attempts to soak, or only tax, them will fail.

Thus both parties compete to mislead the people, and the Emptiness is found in not their dishonesty, but in the even more devastating thought that they are indeed sincere. They actually are as lost as they appear. And we are left to wander around the competing factions, in the dark, hopeless.

The so called “progressive tax” falls not on those who can “afford to pay” but on those who can not raise their prices, (for whatever reason). The classic example of a high earner who can not raise his prices is the “B” list movie star. He is still a movie star and has a high income but knows that the opportunity to raise his price is declining, even the opportunity to get another picture deal is falling. Yet the tax remains high.

And in Ronald Reagan’s time the income tax was real, rising to 91% during the height of “New Deal” “progressive” mania, but still at 72% prior to the Reagan Revolution. And see how this tax applied only to “ordinary” income. Wealth could be protected in tax shelters, in cattle ranch operations, oil and gas, in a hundred schemes created by War Time Washington. The War Raw Material Board, the War Energy Board, etc. created thousands of ways to administer the economy with preference to wealth, old money, not those with increasing incomes. (Kennedy tried to remove these regulations but it was not until Reagan swept through that these taxes and tax shelters were finally removed 35 years after the war’s end. (How much of the “stagflation” of the 1970s was a result of the effects of this massive redirection of the economy by these tax shelters and “redistribution” schemes? The government’s direction of the economy is always to stagnate and diminish opportunity, because of the fundamental dishonesty of the passion play which misdirects all efforts. This is the Emptiness.))

And today income is taxed but wealth is not. Capital gains are taxed, taxed even as ordinary income, but wealth, “patient capital”, is not. And even the “death tax” is now slated for elimination, the only way to tax wealth, unless the deceased had taken the precaution of tucking his capital away into another labyrinth of schemes to avoid taxes.

And note here the dishonesty of the Republicans who decry the “death tax” on the accumulated capital, even though this capital has often been accumulated “tax free” without even the payment of the 15% of the long term capital gains tax. But the American system as should be seen by now is not much concerned with fairness. Both sides contend to get what loot they can pull from the passion play, and fairness is of no concern. That ordinary workers pay taxes all their lives on their meager earnings while millionaires pay not even the 15% capital gains tax is not even on the agenda to be examined.

Yet what is fair about a tax system, for example, that levies the same tax on journeyman plumbers both earning the union rate, if one is 50 and the other is 25? Same income but the first already has bought his home, raised his children, funded his retirement, etc. while the younger one must try to start his family in a country where exclusionary zoning has pushed housing out of the reach of ordinary earners, where college tuition has pulled ahead of inflation, where the “debt bubble” has ruined the currency and the possibility to save, etc.

For practical reasons of administration, the wealth tax need not start until the accumulated wealth has reached the $10 million range, but this simple example has been used so that it can be seen that the fairness of the proposal is that those who have more, more savings not just more income, should pay more, since it can be seen to be fair even for low incomes.

The same market forces that redirect all taxes will also redirect capital or wealth taxes. As long as there is a free market without wage and price controls this is unavoidable. However the unfairness of loading the entire burden on income can be lessoned. For it is just those individuals who are creating wealth, and earning high incomes, but who have not yet accumulated great wealth who are now being heavily and unfairly taxed. These productive members of the economy are just the people we want to encourage. By taxing only income and not wealth we discourage innovation and reward the status quo. And the wealth tax would tend to encourage the productive deployment of capital as the tax will be due whether the capital has been invested or squandered on conspicuous consumption.

Note that the same process of market reallocation will take place with a capital tax just as it does with the current income tax. Capital will leave the country to avoid the tax. Interest rates will rise to attract capital back. The interest will thus be added to the cost of borrowing capital and passed on to you and me in higher prices.

And if you are saying, ‘well, what was the point if we are just going to pay it anyway,’ you still have not understood the first lesson of economics: it is a system of voluntary associations of mutual assent. You can not “take” other people’s capital in our system unless you first establish wage and price controls, i.e. government coercion. Again, the only way to make this proposal “progressive” is not in the tax, not in the “taking,” but as always in the expenditure. For example if the money thus raised were to be put in savings accounts for the poorest workers it would become “progressive.”

These workers would still pay the tax in the form of higher prices but they would uniquely benefit. Everyone would pay the higher interest but the poorest workers would receive the benefit of the individual savings accounts: therefore progressive.

(For example paying for half of the cost on installing photovoltaic solar panels on the mansions of the rich, as does California, is not “progressive”. But see how one lie leads to the next. The ‘Progressives’ will answer that this payment from California to the rich is funded by the rich? ‘Do not the rich pay most of the taxes?’ they will ask, ‘Are we not simply giving back some of what they have “put in”?’ (And this is how most people go through most of their lives, utterly lost.) So the myth of “progressive taxation” encourages and justifies the oligarchy and the misdirection of the economy. Emptiness.)

Note that from an national economic perspective it does not matter if the capital is in the accounts of the rich or in the accounts of workers for their retirement in 40 or 50 years. The capital tax simply transfers the money, at first from the accounts of the rich to these newly created accounts for the poor, and then as the rich demand higher interest for their capital we all end up paying higher prices for this interest.

The point was to spare those with increasing incomes, the most productive of us, from having to collect all the taxes themselves by sharing this onerous burden with those who are already rich. The rich only act as tax collectors for the state, passing the taxes on in their products or services. (The word ‘capitalist’ comes from the Latin for the one who bids for the right to collect the taxes from the provinces. The winner would pay the Senate in Rome and then to the province to collect back his bid, plus whatever profit he could collect for himself. Pilot was the CEO of a capitalist syndicate.)

In the above example, the two plumbers have the same income, and therefore the same income tax, but their wealth is not the same, and therefore their “ability to pay” is not the same. But do not look to the Marin Senators for answers to this unfairness. Nor any other. The Marin Senators stand for unfairness, for wealth and privilege, for the status quo, for Marin, in preference to the people.

But see how the Marin Senator Boxer and Al Franken can have it both ways: Ah politics!

They will cash in those bonds in the filing cabinet in West Virginia! Just as Randi Rhodes, (who Drudge rightly describes as little better than a trained seal with a ball on her nose), says that the tax payer will not have to pay for the pensions that have fallen into the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp., because the “insurance” will pay. But who pays the insurance, Randi Rhodes? (http://www.insidedenver.com/drmn/business/article/0,1299,DRMN_4_3430985,00.html)

(Drudge’s anger stemmed from Randi Rhodes’ advocacy of criminal trials for journalists who “lie.” (She describes her job, herself, as “filling dead air.”) Yet in the absence of any system of ethics or morality, any shared sense of right and wrong, what alternative is there to the courts and even criminal prosecution? Her logic is that without honor, honesty, all we have left is the courts. This is the logic of Emptiness.)

For example, the airline pilots, who complain that, before they drove their airline into bankruptcy, they had a $90k pension and now they will receive only $35k from their fellow taxpayers, do they have a reputation for concern about the welfare of their fellow workers? Citizens? I think not. I think airline pilots have a reputation for looking out for themselves. Egotistical pricks. And I think their fellows in the ----

Counselor: And you are not?

. . . And I think their fellows in the union ---

Counselor: Your Mr. Bush, The President, isn’t he a pilot?

. . . yes, . . .And I think their fellows in the union ----

Counselor: And your Mr. Rumsfeld? He too is a pilot?

. . . yes, . . . thank you Yvonne.

Counselor: You are welcome.

And I think their fellows in the union movement know this. I think the whole nation knows this. But see how not withstanding this fact, this ‘knowledge’, the pilots are still able to play the role of the righteous who are wronged by the powerful.

(Recall that it was the pilots association that blocked the attempt to strengthen the bulkhead and cockpit door to prevent would be terrorists and hijackers from gaining access to the cockpit and flying the airplane into an office block. The president of the pilots association shouted down the other speaker, shouting “our lives are on the line.” And what of the lives of the people of the World Trade Center, how did their lives figure into the president of the pilot’s association thinking? Their lives did not figure into his thinking. But do you not think this past president of the pilot’s union enjoys his retirement in Tucson? )

Yet in their selfishness and shortsightedness the Pilot’s Union is in no way exceptional. The American labor movement, unlike its European counterpart, was not concerned with “social justice” but with getting as much as possible for its union members, and therefore maximizing their union dues. They followed this “selfish” policy even to their own ruin.

For example German unions have ridden down declining industries by agreeing to work rules and givebacks to allow the firms to continue, prolonging their jobs and the usefulness of the sunken capital, where the American unions have simply driven their firms into bankruptcy. A large part of the union movement’s decline in America has been due to the closing of firms, whole industry groups, rather than allowing a compromise to extend the industry’s life.

Health care is an example of how American unions failed to use public policy and follow the example of the European unions. The American unions did obtain health care for “their” members and shortsightedly abandoned the rest of society. It does not follow that a ‘nationalized’ system need have been the only possibility, yet even so the French, Swedish, German health systems rival and surpass the American system in many respects. Nor is it clear that the American system, with its heavy government regulation and huge insurance bureaucracies even deserves to still be regarded as “private.”

Yet the American labor movement’s abandonment of the “uninsured” and now “underinsured” (with the advent of “limited” policies) has created a skewed payment structure where the cost of the policies rises due to the combination of shrinking consumer volume and the increase in moral hazard.

What if the American health system had been expansive, generous, instead of selfish? For example emergency trauma care is something everyone can agree on, yet the emergency rooms are often unpaid for the emergency care provided. Why? For though it would be a simple matter to divide up the cost of treating the injured by charging the causes of trauma care, e. g. cars, stairs, machinery, bathtubs, even this, something which is actuarially direct and simple to administer eludes us. Why? Because the contending parties refuse to work on their common interest, even as here, where all can agree any of us might be struck down. And one reason for this disunity is that the American labor movement asks, ‘what care we for those other fellows? They are not “members of our union,”’ each staying in his role in the passion play. See that the selfishness arises out of the Emptiness.

In a similar manner other groups of patients could be identified and a cost system developed. For example children do not represent a moral hazard. Underwriters cheer every time one of the little patients has to be dragged kicking and screaming into a doctor’s office. Those are the kind of “risks” underwriters want. And there can be no claim that the babe in swaddling clothes failed to “plan” or take “responsibility” or is trying to “live off of others.” Yet again, medical coverage for patient’s under 18 eludes the best thinkers of our day. Why? Selfishness.

Then too patient’s with congenital defects discovered in their youth can not be said to have shown a lack of prudence. Nor can patients whose policies have paid out their limits. In auto insurance the “uninsurable” can be placed or “assigned” with private insurance companies who provide the insurance coverage paid for under the assigned risk program sharing the costs, fairly. Fairly? If that is important to you. (Or do you prefer to stick these patients with some unsuspecting insurance company? Is that it? Still trying to ‘get over on the man?’ Still trying to soak the rich?) Similarly patients diagnosed with cancer in childhood might still be covered for unrelated medical claims with the “assigned risk” program paying for the detected cancer claim.

With the removal of each of these groups from “private insurance” the cost of the health premium goes down and the number of consumers who can afford the policy goes up, thus is the cost shared with a wider and wider pool of healthy individuals. Yet this happy situation has not developed in America, not because it is beyond our abilities, but because of shortsightedness, meanness, the selfishness of our leaders, in the union movement, in the insurance industry, and politics.

Yet see how the pilots, not withstanding this history of selfishness, ignoring the needs of their fellow citizens, having it both ways, playing their role in the passion play, they are all indignation and moral outrage that, after having driven their airline into bankruptcy, (United is employee owned the unions having forced an ownership position with their prior strikes), as have the steelworkers their steel plants, and as the autoworkers are doing to their auto plants, the tax payers will only pay 30% of their pension! Those selfish tax payers! The passion play’s audience’s appreciation of the pilot’s acting of their role of the ‘wronged’ is in no way diminished by the knowledge that the pilots are themselves the authors of their own misfortunes.

Have you not considered why the airline unions, (and GM’s unions, and Ford’s unions for that matter), did not secure their pensions and medical benefits? How secure? Well, . . . with money. Why not? Because there was no money left. The union movement now represents only 7% of the private workforce because they can only strike, hold for ransom, firms with large capital investments. (Ford has one metal stamping machine which cost $200 million.) Even if the airplanes sit on the ground the payments are still due. Leverage.

The only industries that can be struck are the ones with large capital investments. (Though interestingly silicon chip factories, Intel has plants that cost billions, have not been the targets of labor unions.) Thus held hostage the managements have agreed to terms that have mortgaged the future earnings as current accounts were all committed to wages and other costs. But in the passion play version of this industrial history it is the wicked corporations that have “cheated” the workers not the unions that have picked the pockets of these vulnerable highly capitalized firms and, of course, the public sector where the Democrat eagerly seeks to hand over the tax dollars, for the union’s support, a relationship reminiscent of certain kinds of bacteria floating in stagnant ponds, you know, scum.

Democrats, in good faith, see nothing wrong with this, having it both ways. They stand for every one in every thing never having to say no to anyone. Consider that it was only after the Republican gave up on balancing the budget, and (also having it both ways), started telling us the “deficits don’t matter,” under Reagan in the 1980s, that the debt bubble began to grow. Today we have two parties telling us that “deficits don’t matter.” Two parties having it both ways. (And I guess the national debt does not matter . . . if you die before it comes due. (Leave it for someone else. (The greater fool: your grand children. (Now who is the suicide?))))

Just as Franken can be for “progressive indexing” before he is against it, or for the war in Iraq before he turned against it, (after we were already there), and just as Kerry voted for the funding bill before he voted against it, American politics can be said to be the art of having it both ways. It is not really a discussion, it is a passion play.

For expressing such views I have been harassed and oppressed for these last fifteen years. In 1991 I thought that if only people could see the unfairness, if they could only attribute “bad faith” to my enemies, then justice might be done.

But now I see that it was hopeless from the beginning. There is no way, no religion, no philosophy, to move you. Some may attribute “bad faith,” yet even if they do it may have nothing to do with reason or justice. It would be mere chance or randomness.

Indeed my very act of writing the Last Letter in 1991 itself spurred on my enemies. I am left alone in a vast wilderness. Emptiness.

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Emptiness Part VI at New Ruskin College

2005-08-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-19-05
Emptiness Part VI

In any given epoch, moment of time, there is an utter chaos and confusion of ideas. Each individual following his own confused ideas, yet, thinking no doubt that he is following some religion or philosophy, imagining that there is some system to his wild mental gyrations, unexamined prejudices, vainglory, perhaps even going to his grave in the quiet satisfaction that he has in the end “understood.” (Imagine the vanity of even daring to know.)

May this confusion be shown only later, after the evidence is sorted out, the facts carefully examined in centuries of disinterested discussion? But why only later? Perhaps because in the moment of time you will not allow yourselves to engage in disinterested discussion. Will not admit that your own thoughts and methods of analysis are twisted by greed or delusion or hate. Will see this only later. Will you see this later?

Will think, in the heat of the moment, that even the idea of being “disinterested”, the very word “disinterested”, is cold, heartless: ‘MY GOD HAVE YOU NO SOUL? YOU WANT US TO LOOK AT THE CAT SCAN? Don’t you understand that we are dealing with a woman’s life?! And you want us to look at a CAT scan? Are you inhuman?’

Or ‘“strategy?”, men are dieing out there and you want to talk about strategy? Have you no heart, no soul? What care we for strategy, kill, kill, kill them over there so we do not have to fight them here. . . .’

Or, and now looking at the same question from the opposite side, ‘I voted for the war before I voted against it.’

(For example, I was singled out for attack because my letters to the Senate supported the First Gulf War. In San Francisco this is all it took to be marked out for attack and ruin. As Alan Watts noted, there is no one so militant as a pacifist, nor as imperious as an anti-imperialist. And in the Bay Area Women are encouraged to act out against men, Blacks Whites, Gays Straights, Latinos Anglos and peaceniks against “warmongers” and so on.)

That any of these people may be said to have been acting in good faith is irrelevant. We may decide to credit good faith, but the point I wish to make here in Emptiness is that even your attribution of good or bad faith is itself beside the point. Lost in your vanity and ego, the desire to ‘get along with others’, is more important than reason or logic. There is no reason.

Dodge responsibility. For example, being against the war spares the ego from having to accept responsibility for the dead. And yet a moments reflection should reveal that responsibility is not so easily avoided. This is not “your” society? And if awareness of your own culpability still eludes you, then consider how completion of the First Gulf War would have obviated the need for the Second.

(Fifteen years later, those who singled me out for attack, who betrayed me, can now see, that the consequence of leaving Saddam Hussein in power was the Second Gulf War. Do they now say, ‘Oh, sorry, I guess you were right?’; of course not. The mind has no dignity. (Mine included, if I could go on I would.))

There are whole other systems of rationalization that are brought into consciousness. Each sees according to his lights.

And the branches swayed in the warm wind heavy with the scent of the Indian Ocean before it was called “the Indian Ocean.” The sun rose above the morning fog and shown down through the triple canopy rainforests of East Africa where today there is only desert. Our ancestors, their tails wrapped around the swaying branches warmed themselves in the sunlight, and chattered to one another. And today we are still “alive and alert in the vanished forests of the world,” (Dr. E. O. Wilson). Still chattering to one another, still telling ourselves pleasing lies.

This was 60 million years ago. After the great crater in the Yucatan 100 miles across, 30 miles deep, was formed by a meteorite, 65 million years ago. 6o million years of chattering monkeys. (Technically not monkeys but the common ancestors of both humans and modern monkeys. (Dr. Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale))

What are your lies compared to this? What is your destruction of me compared to this? Deny the truth, go ahead, who cares? Don’t lift a finger. How very convenient for you that “a just society” seems to require nothing of you.

You have The Power! You can use technology so your chattering and screaming can be broadcast over an entire continent. Heard further, yes, but you are still the monkeys in the swaying trees, telling lies to one another.

And for all of history it has been the same. All of history is manipulated by your vanity and ego so that the story can be told with you always on the side of “the right” and “the just.” Slavery? Well of course you would have been against it. You would not have made some convenient rationalization! Are you quite sure?

Stood up to the NAZIs did you? (Funny thing is my grandfathers tried to warn the nation of the growing danger and I do not recall your grandfathers participating. Then my grandfathers stood in the minority. But now . . .)

In the story of the war which TE 194.5.4.4/1 told about Kerry, he was a hero valiantly crossing hundreds of yards of enemy fire to save a comrade, not the only skipper to take off down river when the mine went off, leaving his comrade behind, after he fell off due to the abrupt movement of that boat. Any officer might have written the report the way TE 194.5.4.4/1 wrote up the after action report, but none saw it that way, except one officer. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=39889 )

Springer and Franken brought it up again because they need a “war hero” not because they possess special knowledge of the events involved. It appeals to their vanity. Even as a war story it is not particularly interesting. But for them it is important, not for love of Kerry, but for love of themselves.

The entire Vietnam war can be seen as a series of false, or misconstrued reports, misunderstood, misapplied, misdirecting . . . a bureaucratized war which was administered only so that the politicians in Washington would not be accused by other politicians of having “lost Vietnam.”

In the end the politicians in Washington were not even interested in Vietnam the country, only Vietnam the political issue, did not care that a few miles further inland from the DMZ – Laos frontier whole armies were winding there way south. Did not know and did not care . . .

Sometimes one hears it said that the market is a cold uncaring thing and I suppose it is. Yet consider that it was government which had placed 500,000 men in Vietnam, 12% of that number killed, multiples of that number, (four times), of South East Asians were killed, and kept them there for a decade and the whole of the strategy can be summarized as not wanting to be accused of “losing Vietnam.”

A political cover. A pretense. A posturing. A having it both ways. And even now, the lies continue, and History is perverted to serve the ego’s need in the present.

The dishonesty continues today with Springer and Franken. The phrase “discredited Swift Boat Vets” repeated over and over because the Swift Boat Vets dared speak out against a powerful man, a leader of a political faction, who had himself, in the day, accused the vets of “war crimes”.

Springer and Franken thought that Kerry had a “right” to accuse the vets of “war crimes” but think it wrong now for the Swift Boat Vets to tell what they know, which was documented, even by Kerry’s own report.

Note that in the years since, for over thirty five years, the author, TE 194.5.4.4/1, has not come forward. Wonder why?

And if it is said who am I to judge Kerry, he was there I was not, yes, exactly, he was there I was not. I do not personally know if gunning your boat and racing off down the river is a good idea or not. But this is exactly my point. The Swift Boat Vets were there. It behooves us, those of us who were not there, to listen to them, respectfully.

Certainly it is wrong for Springer and Franken to malign them especially as it appears that Springer and Franken malign the Vets not because Springer and Franken have any personal knowledge or insight, some heretofore unspoken reverence for History, but only because Kerry is a member of the elite, to which Springer and Franken belong, and to their Party, their faction, and definitely unlike the middle and working class Swift Boat Vets.

Indeed why do Springer and Franken not also take the hint that no other skipper of a Swift Boat gunned their boats?

But then why is any of this an issue? Why are we not talking about Social Security, balancing the budget, building homes, educating the young?

Why are we being distracted again? History, far from being “settled” now, after having been scrutinized in “disinterested” discussion, becomes another tool of the “fat relentless ego” in its constant struggle for power.

One reason is that Kerry returned home to tell lies about Vietnam. It was not enough for him to simply report that we should leave Vietnam, he had to falsely charge he had witnessed war crimes, even participated in war crimes. And is this not another example of having it both ways? A war hero who committed war crimes? (No, a liar who lied about the war and his record.) What was Kerry protesting but himself: his own lying reports?

Then Springer and Franken complain about the Swift Boat Vet’s TV commercials! I admit that I do not feel this issue as intently as do the Swift Boat Vets. But then have you never noticed a vet wipe a tear from his eye while you looked coolly on? What? Did you think ‘what a cry baby”? Is that how you are? No, I never took Kerry’s charges of “war crimes” seriously, just consider the source, yet I respect the fact that the vets do take it seriously.

And which of us has the correct view? The vets or us in our cool disinterestedness?

And this is how it always has been and always will be. The subjective. See the same issue: Look at the Schiavo CAT scan? Or not? Ignore it?

Accuse the Swift Boat Vets of dishonesty and worse, while ignoring the testimony of the retired Admiral who was on the boat with Kerry and Kerry’s on contemporaneous journal entry nine days later?

Or say you are in favor of “progressive indexing,” (of the rate of INCREASE! of Social Security), before you say it is “pernicious”; why the very idea, the next week, as did Franken. Say we should not have to “bribe” the rich in order to have an old age pension then say the following week that we must pay the rich to keep it “universal” as did Franken.

There is no philosophy that can withstand these twisting demands of the ego. For example, Barbara Boxer the Marin Senator, opposed the Bush forced savings accounts because she said setting up savings accounts would be “too risky”. Just wrap your mind around that: savings is “too risky”. (Franken said he did not even understand what is meant by the words: “forced savings.” Does not understand the issue!)

There are many reasons to oppose Mr. Bush’s vague statements about Social Security reform: because he would create $3 trillion in added debt for a nation that has already fallen in to what just a generation ago would have been unimaginable debt; because the Bush accounts are “instead of” not in “addition to” Social Security; because they do not solve the short fall that Mr. Bush vaguely mentioned, (i.e. 2017 – 2047), when the burden of taxation must fall more and more heavily on the dwindling number of workers who must support the retirees; because Mr. Bush’s vague words never dealt with the fundamental unfairness of a system which draws out of the paychecks of ordinary workers, workers earning a mean average of $16 an hour, whose IQs are on average 100, and thereby forcing them to give their hard earned money to rich retirees, 20% of whom have incomes of over $75,000, whose IQs are above average, (who as a class control 50% of the national income, control over 60% of the financial wealth), and of whom many, most, perhaps 90% of whom, have voted as a class to block development even in our urban areas, forcing the middle and lower income far away by the use of exclusionary zoning, forcing them to long commutes on the highways, burning fossil fuels to get to homes whose mortgages have been raised higher and higher so that to day in California 84% can not afford the median priced home; they have blocked the exploration of oil and gas off our coasts; even blocked wind farms 12 miles from their seashore summer homes; blocked nuclear power for the last 30 years; have for no reason at all blocked progress at every turn, for example they have blocked the mass distribution of educational materials and distance learning to prevent the equitable sharing of knowledge among the people; blocked the entry into the professions with wildly ridiculous requirements such as the requirement that ordinary physicians be able to explain the atomic physics of disease and the molecular interactions of viruses with the membrane of individual cells, as a result our medical schools only can supply half, just 50%, of our new doctors each year, (Barbara Ehrenreich, Fear of Falling) thus draining off of the world the best doctors instead of sending out into the world our own doctors to help the world; blocked every attempt at reform that would lesson the control of the state over the ordinary affairs of the people, (for example, preventing the reform of the big city machines which control the payroll of city and state employees whose pay and pensions steadily rise further burdening the people, (BART train drivers earn $109k), the unfairness of which they try to conceal with claims of “progressive taxation” which is simply another of their lies by which they con the people into thinking that the cost of government can be shifted onto “the rich” instead of telling the people the truth that taxes are redistributed onto them through the price mechanism; or by maintaining state control of essential services such as our schools, or our highways and roads so that acting as a class they can use their power to direct roads to their real estate holdings to their private benefit, or directing state control over institutions and foundations whose tax free status, and state supported work, can be used to advance their interests in preference to the interests of the people; but none of this was mentioned or even hinted at by the Marin Senator Boxer. Why?

For reasons that George Orwell would have understood very well: After the revolution the revolutionary becomes the Tory (Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters). Every revolutionary is a Tory in waiting. The state now is victorious. And the supporters of the state are now the protectors of the status quo. The Democrats can not become reformers. They are what needs reforming. They must oppose reform or they will be swept away.

So, this is why the Marin Senator thinks savings accounts would be risky. The Marin Senator thinks it is safer for the people to be dependent on the state, and the state’s taxes on the wages of the workers, even though the ratio of worker to retiree, which was 16 to 1, and is now today 3 to 1, and will become 2 to 1, and will therefore force the workers to pay a larger and larger share to the very people whose mismanagement of the economy and selfishness have forced them into these reduced and dwindling circumstances. ( http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/504149.stm)

How can savings be called “risky” except by someone who is completely at a loss, utterly entangled in a twisted political ideology? Note that the national savings rate has declined from the lowest of any industrialized nation, at 4%, to the current level, 1.625% (as a percent on gross income for the last 12 quarters
(http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn/nipaweb/TableView.asp?SelectedTable=120&FirstYear=2002&LastYear=2004&Freq=Qtr ))

By all accounts America needs more savings yet the Marin Senator thinks not. And if you think we should give her the benefit of the doubt and think only that she was trying to “preserve” the social commitment to the retirees who are dependent on Social Security, I would ask you why then did she not say these words which you want to put in her mouth?

For example why did she not say she supports individual accounts “in addition to” the regular pension? (as did U. S. Senator Doctor Professor Daniel Patrick Moynihan). Because, staying in her role in the passion play, she does not want to “give an inch.” This is not a debate. There are no reasoned arguments. She prefers to posture.

And yet she may be credited with “good faith.” And what does it matter? There is no way to reason, and even time will not allow us to adopt a disinterested view, for history is itself twisted and used to support the ego in its self centered view. There is no religion, no philosophy, no way for us to understand. This is Emptiness.

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Ugly American at New Ruskin College

2005-08-19T08:00:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 08-19-05

The Ugly American

Senator McCain, (McCain see 4-28-05, Lecture Notes: 5-18-05, Lecture Notes: 07-18-05 Protest, Lecture Notes: 07-21-05), was on the television, (of course), explaining that America’s involvement in Iraq will not be complete, a “success”, until he can land at Baghdad airport and drive to the city center in a “ordinary car, you know not armored.”

In other words Americans will just have to go on dying until we remake Baghdad into Phoenix. Again McCain called for more troops.

What an ass.

At the center of the Middle East, a region where political assassination, terror, civil war, are more common than elections, America must go on fighting remaking an entire civilization by force of arms, until that glorious day when Mr. McCain can pick up his rental car at the Baghdad airport and motor into town. He would suffer our young people to go on dying for this, his limited, idiotic vision: the Phoenix Airport.

What an ass.

Yet no one challenged him. He was a POW, did you know? His every pronouncement is treated as if it were issued from his cell in the Hanoi Hilton. Our great leader has spoken. He suffered so much for us! In prison so long! And all for us! Tortured. For us! We owe him so very, very, and very much! Therefore every utterance, no matter how superficial, or incoherent, ridiculously absurd, is assented to because HE was a prisoner of war.

Recently Tom DeLay when asked if a Congressman, (Duke Cunningham), who was discovered living on a government contractor’s yacht, the very same contractor who had recently purchased the Congressman’s home for $700,000 over the market price, might be in breach of “Congressional Ethics”, replied that the Congressman was a “hero,” as if this were proof, an answer, as if Mr. DeLay were making an argument, engaged in moral reasoning, instead of being merely another example of Emptiness.

There was a poem by a Russian dissident that went: “Heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, heroes, . . .”

So the gadfly McCain is allowed to set the goal for America’s involvement in Iraq, to define “success,” and there is nothing that can be done to challenge him. For he is a hero. He was a POW, did you know? There is no reason.

We have a President who has said that he does not want to “impose” a government on Iraq, and instead negotiated this weak political process, where the parliament must be disbanded if “The Constitution” is not approved, to be replaced by another, and another, in an empty desultory plan extending far out over the political horizon into a political wasteland. The President will not even try and speak about the war, discuss the reasons for it, review the facts. Even he has given up, appears to want to ‘distance’ himself.

And our young people in Iraq are abandoned. Led by their Commander In Chief who refused to take responsibility for bringing the conflict to a resolution; BY OUR ACTS ALONE. Says he did not want to “impose.” Now the resolution to the conflict is entirely in the hands of the Iraqi parliament which is to be dissolved. Possibly “The Constitution” will be approved, possibly it will not be approved. No one knows. Its fate is to be decided by “the voters” of any three of the 18 provinces.

Did I say its fate? Well, yes, and the fate of our young people. Though I suppose better by them, whoever they are than by McCain. And we have gadflies like McCain setting our goal as one of turning Baghdad into Phoenix. And no one objects. He was a POW, did you know?

And when I sit down on the sidewalk in front of the KQED building in a few days, to complete my protest, there will be before me this uniform blur of liars, fools, idiots.

Top to bottom.

Crawling around on the bottom the likes of Scott (“now he probably thinks that I work for the J.D.L.”) Bobro, or that clerk at KellyFinancialServices.com who visited this site several times before calling me and asking about my “status.” And above them the people who manipulated Scott Bobro, and Frank Blaha, and Dean Sotos; the Don Imus’ and Michael Weiners; the rich and powerful.

And above them, at the top of the social pyramid of folly, George Bush and John McCain.

I had thought we were in this together. All citizens of the Republic. McCain’s grandfather and my grandfather had fought together. We are both Republicans.

Then came his betrayal: McCain, appearing on the Imus show, thought it a good joke to reference this web site. A wink at Don Imus. As if to say, ‘Good for you Don . . . good work . . . you destroyed that man. Congradulations.’ One egotist to another. This was after Senator Hatch appeared on the Imus show and said: “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” Another egotist to another. (see also William Bennett’s butt boy: “I think they called it . . . Operation Spear . . . or something like that.” see Army Navy Club Number 43 )

And that McCain and Don Imus and I are all three of us “White males” and that because of this fact we are all supposed to be part of the same ‘club’ only adds a little irony to the farce.

A uniform blur of idiocy. And that I have held out this long on hope, what is that but more idiocy? I had believed in the goodness of ordinary people. Then I had still thought that Senators, The President of the United States, they will not abide injustice! A fool. But I can not stand alone. If Presidents and Senators will join in then how can anyone stand?

How can any of you stand? If you will deny me justice how can you claim justice? When the next bio-attack comes, and you are murdered in your millions, tens of millions, how will you demand justice, you who have lived so unjustly, rejoiced in your injustice, gloated and smirked in your “viciousness”? (“Why do they hate us?”)

Marlene, Susan, and Yvonne. Betrayal after betrayal.

No I can not live without reason, without justice. How can you?

Yes, The Ugly American.

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Inflation at New Ruskin College

2005-08-16T13:55:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 08-17-05

What is the measure of inflation?

You might suppose that there is an objective standard. This is not true. A generally recognized measure of inflation is one that is generally recognized. This is why Economics is a tautology.

Inflation is not a natural force. It is what economists say it is. The “measures” of inflation are meaningful only if they are meaningful to you. There is no objective standard. As an alternative, consider: What would be a moral definition of inflation?

NEW YORK, Aug 17 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury debt prices retreated on Wednesday after a report showing July producer prices grew at double the rate forecast, suggesting the Federal Reserve will keep raising interest rates. (See News Exhibit Hall at the Moynihan )

WASHINGTON, Aug 16 (Reuters) - Surging energy costs drove U.S. consumer prices up in July at the sharpest rate in three months . . .

The Consumer Price Index, . . . climbed 0.5 percent last . . . The monthly rise in consumer prices was the biggest since a matching 0.5 percent jump in April and topped Wall Street economists' forecasts . . .

Energy prices rose 3.8 percent in July, . . . Gasoline prices jumped 6.1 percent. . . . (See News Exhibit Hall at the Moynihan )

LONDON (Reuters) - Soaring petrol prices pushed inflation above its target in July to the highest level since comparable records began in 1997, dousing expectations of further interest rate cuts.

The Office for National Statistics said the consumer price index rose 0.1 percent on the month, taking the annual rate up to 2.3 percent . . . “July's UK consumer prices are significantly worse than expected and will no doubt dampen hopes of further near-term cuts in interest rates,” said Jonathan Loynes, chief UK economist at Capital Economics.(See News Exhibit Hall at the Moynihan )

In Secrets of the Temple, the Left author, William Greider claims that a little inflation is a good thing for the poor. Possibly on the theory that borrowers are advantaged by inflation many might agree. Yet this is mistaken.

It is true that the expansion of the money supply is a good sign, especially for the poor. But the expansion of the money supply is not the same thing as inflation.

If money expands at the same rate that the people mutually promise to engage in further economic activity there is not inflation. Inflation occurs when the money supply increases at a rate faster than do the mutual promises to engage in future economic activity.

These mutual promises are wealth. The money symbolizes, represents, these mutual promises. This is why the often heard complaint that the rich of the world are stealing the “wealth” of the people is mistaken, sense the wealth is the mutual promise.

Lots of cash is just lots and lots of promises to participate in future economic activity. These promises can not be stolen as they arise from our mutual interactions. The cash is merely a token of our promises, and everyone else’s promise to engage in further economic activity. For the poor the problem is to create an environment in which this future agreement or planning can take place; establishing trust in the future, and in the tokens of these promises.

Though the promises can not be “stolen” they can be watered down. That is what inflation is, a devaluing, a falsity. You say you are going to participate in future economic activity but not really. In the future you will only participate in 90% of the activity you promised, 10% inflation, or 80%, 20% inflation. This is our moral definition of inflation: it is a fraud. The token of our promise are not to be honored. It is a lie.

I suppose if you are not sure, how much to expand the money supply, it is better too error on the side of too many promises than too few, (i.e. more money than economic activity would justify), as the alternative, insufficient money, would prevent or starve economic activity. Perhaps this is what Greider was thinking. (But why error?) However, the important point is to see the distinction between money supply increasing and inflation increasing.

Money supply increases when you and I mutually promise to participate in future economic activity. We promise and thereby create money. Because we nationalized the banking system (Federal Reserve) we are mislead into thinking that the government increases the money supply. They do officially, but only in response to us, our activity.

If they get ahead of us: inflation. If Ludwig von Mises had his way we would be using Bank of America dollars, and/or American Express dollars, Citi Bank dollars etc. Contracts would specify the currency. These institutions would create money, responding to us, our promises, (as backed by, secured by, their loan portfolios), increasing the money supply as required by our mutual promises. In theory the nationalized bank can follow along, estimating our activity, approximating the traditional banking practice.

In theory. There is always the ownership problem. Is Dr. Greenspan as “efficient” as the bankers? After all he does not have an ownership interest. In other words what if Dr. Greenspan simply goes along with the oligarchy? If it were his own money he might have a different view, but since it is the government . . .

Of course this is just what was argued in favor of nationalization of the currency: That now the central banker will be inefficient! That is, disinterested.

And that is the problem. Without the historic, traditional, connection between the money supply and the economy, Ludwig von Mises argued, how will the central banker know what to do? What if Dr. Greenspan goes along with the rich? (And as we have seen so many times here at New Ruskin, isn’t this the tendency? To go along? Even if some one is killed?)

For the rich a little inflation, as Mr. Greider argued, is a good thing. Inflation might wipe out a small capitalist, like you or me, but for the rich better to keep things rolling, churning, deal after deal: ‘there will always be more economic activity tomorrow to bail us out!’ Or so they hope. Irrational exuberance.

Isn’t this why we nationalized the central bank in the first place? Because we feared that the rich would over supply themselves and us, the economy, with money, faster than the underlying economic activity, (the mutual promises)? Inflation?

The best way to get people to agree to some scheme is to wave a fist full of cash at them. Excess supply of money greases the wheels. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. A sober banker may look to future profits but it is much faster to book the profits today instead of waiting for the promise of tomorrow. Push, push, push for profit today and forget about tomorrow.

And so the bubble economy. (Bubble means unsustainable. Promises un-kept.)

So then too debt, and the deficits. Yes, $8 trillion national debt; but what about your personal debt? Saved for retirement have you? Medical care? Nursing homes are what, $4,000, $6,000 . . . a month? Got all that tucked away have you? And that is if everything goes right. What might go wrong?

Not even movie stars can afford medical care after the policy runs out, as Christopher Reeve discovered. Half of all bankruptcies are the result of medical problems and the bills and loss of income which follow.

66% of Social Security recipients would be in poverty without the income transfer from young workers to the retired. Insufficient money was saved to support them in retirement. What is this but a deficit? Call it: The middle class deficit. (Middle Class Inflation Index.)

“Just numbers on paper.” (Peter Peterson, Running on Empty, Foreign Affairs) That is what President Bush called the national debt.

But you will not even put a number on this deficit. Elizabeth Warren has put some numbers on it. (Two Income Trap) But for the most part you will not even admit the question let alone but a number on it.

William Bennett spends his time patting America on the back ignoring these problems. (This is not social policy discussion. To participate one must focus on what is wrong, how to fix it. Ignoring Elizabeth Warren is the social policy equivalent of ignoring the Schiavo CAT scan. Then too, Rush Limbaugh will not even admit that Social Security is a welfare program and O’Reilly will never accept “income transfer,” (hissed in a deep Long Island sneer), but apparently has yet to learn how Social Security gets the money to issue the checks.)

So this is the political environment in which Dr. Greenspan, the political banker must operate. $8 trillion national debt? Just numbers on paper. Collapsing private and eventually public pensions. Just numbers on paper? Two incomes to support the family, and falling, where thirty years ago one income supported the family? Just numbers on paper.

Zero savings rate?

Highest debt levels in history?

The bubble economy. The elite profits today from the housing bubble as it profited yesterday from the dot com bubble. Push, push, push. Plunder? Get what you can grab. Loot?

And all of this, what is it, but promises to engage in future economic activity, which will not be kept? The money supply has lost its value?

Social Security? These promises represent an increase in the Money Supply. (We will pay you . . . in the future.)

Pensions? National debt?

Debt of all kinds?

Promises, promises.

And if the promises can not be fulfilled? What if people entered into a mutual promise and then later, when “the future”, arrived, it turned out that the promise was only to be 80% kept, or 50% honored?

What if the money does not buy the medical care? Pay for the retirement? What if you end up in the 66% who would fall into poverty without the (hold your ears O’Reilly) income transfer?

Or what if you are in the bottom 84% of Californians who can not afford to buy the median priced home? (For example Economists do not include house price rises in “inflation” on the theory that the gains in “homeowner equity” balance out the ledger books for the increases. (Now that is a happy thought! (Academics live their whole lives in such misty thoughts.)) But what about the renters? Or the homeowners whose homes have not increased? What is their “rate of inflation?”

(For example, at one time the Red state homeowner or renter could move to California or Massachusetts and purchase a home. Now after several years of 20% increases in California and Massachusetts the homes have doubled or trebled. Someone has a balanced ledger but many, most, do not. There is here a loss of freedom, opportunity. At one time the Red staters could move to California, and now they can not. At one time their money was “backed” by the opportunity to buy a home, and now it is not, they can not buy a home. The value of their money has gone down in value by this measure. This loss of opportunity, what is it called?)

What if the promises are not kept?

This is what Economists call inflation. Not keeping promises is called inflation. It takes more and more money to buy the same things. Yesterday we promised to engage in future economic activity but today when you come to the market, Surprise!

For those of you who think money is like “gold” or some “thing” this is paradoxical. But the mistake was made in thinking of money as some fixed thing. It is a token of the promises you make. The market is not fixed, static, it is ever changing, and it includes everything, the totality of all the relationships. The value of money comes from this totality. You can use it for anything, to participate as you like.

The dollar represents not just gold, but houses, shoes, etc. Everything is in the market, this network of relationships, promises. Money is “backed” by the whole network, all of it. And as you fail to meet your promises, as your society declines, when the bubble collapses, we can see that there was inflation.

Dr. Greenspan can not control inflation by himself. His little national bank is only a tiny part of this vast economy. In any case he is part of this oligarchic elite. The ones who think that debt is :“Just numbers on paper.”

The ones who make policy for the day, or at most until the next election. They have manipulated the money supply, the promises that they made. That home you thought you could buy with your money, guess what, you have been “zoned out.” You thought you could afford the school to educate your children, “zoned out.” That pension, that health policy, they will not buy what you were told they would buy. They have failed to keep their promises. They have defrauded you.

But none of this is called “inflation.” It is not even measured by the Economists. They will not even admit what they are doing ---- those who profit from one bubble or another while letting the likes of you and me die?

I know. This wont happen to you. That is what I used to think.

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Gas & Taxes at New Ruskin College

2005-08-15T08:56:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 08-13-05

Dishonesty to the bitter end.

The camera moves in on the anchor woman with the slightly panicked expression: “Oil prices continue to climb.”

If I hear one more interviewer say, “but these higher prices do not seem to have changed demand . . .?” I will . . . I will . . . stop listening.

See how this willful ignorance is no different than anywhere else.

That today’s price is $14 (a barrel) under the price in 1980, adjusted for inflation, is simply ignored. Willful ignorance. It must be willful, a way of jazzing up an otherwise boring news cast, for the information is available:

*The first point to note is that, when adjusted for inflation, crude prices are actually only around a third of the level they reached in the late 1970s. In today's prices, the 1980 price was equivalent to $60 a barrel. (Independent)

*Economists point out that when adjusted for inflation, gas prices are not at their peak. The American Petroleum Institute said that today's fuel costs are actually 44 percent lower than in 1981. Gas then was $1.35 per gallon, which would equal $2.69 in today's dollars. (AZ-Central)

*However, adjusted for inflation, they remain below levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged to upwards of $80 a barrel in today’s money. (Sify-India)

And even here the relevant facts are not included in the lead, which should be: “and in oil trading today . . . prices continued their long run up . . . starting to return to levels not seen in twenty five years . . .”

And isn’t this why the prices are not reducing demand? And doesn’t this also explain why consumers have shown less interest in fuel economy?

But this is itself only half of the story. For our economy is less dependent on oil than it was in the 1980s:

In the 15 countries of the European Union, for instance, the IEA estimates that oil's share of total energy consumption has fallen from 60 per cent in 1973 to some 40 per cent by 2001. In Britain, spending on oil used to be equivalent to 6 per cent of GDP; it is now just 2 per cent.
Even the US is less dependent on oil. William Poole, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St Louis, . . . estimates that, as a percentage of overall US output, the amount of oil the US uses has fallen by half over the past 30 years. (Independent)

So this ignorance, this distortion and misrepresentation is deliberate. The dishonesty in the mass media is only partly for ratings.

Note that the failure here to see oil prices in “adjusted” or “constant” dollars is very similar to the failure to see how the price mechanism is used to transfer taxes and other costs to the consumer in the dynamics of the market economy.

Previously we have noted that the maniacal focus on income taxes by the simple minded conservatives was a deliberate political tactic to take advantage of the ignorance of the people. We pointed out that “liberal” (really Post liberal) Democrats are willing partners for they too seek political advantage from the public’s ignorance.

The simple minded conservatives want the people to believe that the rich pay most of the taxes, and the Democrats also play off this falsity claiming that it is possible to tax the rich to pay for needed services.

As has been previously explained, in the absence of wage and price controls attempts to raise taxes on those whose products are services are in high demand will only result in higher prices for those needed goods or services, as the producers, (“the rich”, (this is why they are rich, their goods and services are in high demand), will simply raise their prices to offset the increasing taxes, as they will for any other increase in costs.

And these costs include the price of energy. The continuous rounds of price increases over the decades have not only offset taxes but they have offset the cost of Middle East oil. Year after year “the rich” have raised their prices, as did everyone who could, they have all raised their prices, and the relative cost of oil, and taxes, have fallen.

But to admit this, that the economy is a dynamic process where the price mechanism is continually adjusting these ever changing relationships would require the simple minded conservatives to admit that “the rich” are merely collecting the taxes for the state, (they can collect the taxes because their goods and services are in high demand), and the Democrats would also have to admit that their taxes on “the rich” are actually being transferred onto the people generally, (there is no free lunch).

So all parties are for political reasons locked into this lie, which the media can then use to sell advertising as it pumps up the lie that “oil is at a record high.” It is not.

Demand continues despite these price rises because the demand is responding to the real price, inflation adjusted price, not the hyped, false, price.

Supply has not increased in response to these prices because the “real” price has been low, below the cost of bringing on additional supply. The Tar Sands of Canada have more oil, energy, than does the Middle East. However the cost of extraction has been higher than the real price of oil until recently.

The danger for investors in Tar Sands is that because the real cost of extraction of Middle East oil is less than the cost to recover Tar Sands oil, if OPEC manipulated their price, dropping it down again, they could ruin the Tar Sands investor’s position. (Wall Street Journal) (Which is why I recommended an “oil floor proposal” price to prevent OPEC manipulation. see Lecture Notes: 03-03-05, Oil Floor Proposal)

But none of this is of the slightest interest to the TV and radio news readers who only want to hype the “record high price” of oil, the truth be damned.

And this is true as has been seen not just about oil prices but about taxes as well.

We live in a society in which we are continually being lied to by the powerful, the oligarchy which controls our society.

I will soon be dead. I will kill myself in protest of how society has allowed a few rich powerful people to harasse and ruin me. And some of the very same people who are now lying about oil prices, know the truth about what has been done to me, and some have actually encouraged my oppressors.

There is this invincible ignorance. A willful refusal to admit the truth. A betrayal of the truth and justice. Not just a betrayal of truth in the way they cover “news” stories but a betrayal of truth in all the rest of their lives. It corrupts our whole society.

So I go to my death, am forced to my death, by the very same willful oligarchy which uses its power to confound the people and keep them in ignorance.

How many have been betrayed? How many more will be betrayed? In everything . . .

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Emptiness Part V at New Ruskin College

2005-08-12T19:40:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

06-02-05, 08-09-05,08-12-05
Emptiness Part V

And you are thinking, ‘yes, the military!’ And you are wrong again. Not the military ---- Humanity. First of all we do not have the power, unless we are one of the few who actually have some office. (And see how easy it is for those upon whom some power has fallen, to mistake that, that accidental fact that they have been given some little bit of power, for a kind of absolute justification for all existence. “Isn’t America great!?” Subtext, because I have power, me, me, me, therefore . . .)

It is unrealistic to expect some soldier to change the entire geo-political thinking that has lead to the creation of his world, or even fully comprehend it, just as it would be unreasonable to expect, for example, that a mother or father should organize a school for their child and their community. In the case of education we could at least give vouchers to parents and allow them to select from a variety of schools, thus emulating the market. But it is utterly dishonest to tell the parent that they should “get involved” in the school board if they see some problem with the school. This is why markets are so important. In a market a consumer at least has a chance to find what they want, a parent, like an enlisted man three feet in mud in the Delta doesn’t even have a chance to “change things.” So this is why the Swift Boat Vets modestly confined themselves to what they knew.

How many times . . . a day are their similar examples? You “know”? You know it is wrong but you say nothing? (This is the power of the market. You are not required to deliver fine speeches, all you need to do is meet the price and go on your way. (Now of course there is here a danger. For suppose that you “knew” about a crime? Perhaps even went along “knowing” that it was criminal? Think how rare it is for anyone to speak out against injustice, for most of the time we “know” but say nothing. After years of living in the market economy it is easy to fall into the habit, the way of living, taking what is yours and forgetting the rest: society, Humanity.))

For how rare is it that anyone is ever called to account. Not just the architects of America’s Vietnam strategy retired by a grateful nation, but everyone, in what ever direction you should choose to look. Mr. Bush (41) claimed to support vouchers for schools yet I was puzzled why such an uncompromising proposal was put forward by his Administration. It went down in certain defeat.

Then I realized that that was the idea. Mr. Bush did not really care about vouchers he only said he did. This is another example of the inflation in the political economy I mentioned earlier. Rather than putting forward a proposal to allow public voucher schools open to all, the Administration put forward a narrow mean proposal to give a few thousand dollars to pay for part of a private school tuition. Instead of introducing choice into the public system, (without huge tuitions), they deliberately put forward an extremely exclusionary plan. But how would you ever know? How would you ever prove it? In the American system responsibility is so diffuse, no government stands or falls on a public vote, as in parliamentary systems, it is easy to hide in plane sight, even in the Oval Office.

The President can blame the Congress and vice versa, States the Feds, Cities the States, and so on. Consider that the nations borders and ports of entry are essentially unguarded. Anyone responsible? Ironically Kennedy and McCain have proposed legalizing the 20 million Illegals but make no provisions for securing the borders or holding Illegals at the other ports of entry. I say ironically because another Kennedy and McCain led the nation into Vietnam where for “reasons of state” our troops were prohibited from securing those borders as well.

Everyone knew that enemy forces were coming down through Laos but the Kennedy and McCain of the day did not feel we would be justified in blocking that movement. And today we again have a Kennedy and a McCain setting our national policy on borders, thousands of miles away from Washington. In Southeast Asia the borders were to be “respected” and today, when setting policy on our own borders, they tell us that borders do not matter.

But see that neither those Kennedys and McCains then nor today’s version feel the slightest doubts about their policies. President Bush also agrees with them having a few days after his re-election repudiated his oath of office to uphold the law. In McCain’s case this is remarkable because the majority of the people of Arizona disagree with him. However, he has little to fear from the voters because near retirement, and because he was a POW. Did you know that?

Now see here again, how the social status, or respect for his service and the hardship experienced during his service in a POW prison encourages the egomaniacal psychology in away not dissimilar to what was just discussed with racial and gender quotas and the cultivation of the egotism of “diversity”. And so McCain’s psychology is such that reasons, facts, the preference of the majority of his own voters has no effect on him. See that little smirk? ‘What can you do? I have the power?’ he asks. What can we do?

And doesn’t McCain’s little smirk say something more? Does it not ask what is your suffering compared to mine? And where have we heard this before? Do you not think that TE 194.5.4.4/1 returned to America and let it be known that He! was a Vietnam Vet!? And indeed is this not the answer to my question that I asked just before? Why did Franken and Springer bring it up again? Is it not that they enjoy having their very own “war hero”? Even if they have to manufacture him.

Is it not useful to them to have a foil against the “neo-con chicken hawks”? (Chicken hawk is prison slang for a young man forced into homosexual prostitution by the prison gangs. (Just think of the mentality which would discuss American foreign policy using the language of prison gangs. (Think about that. ( And note that here again the focus is not on the policy but on the nature or condition of the opponent. Not an examination of the policy question but an attack on the speaker.))))

And if you are thinking that at least now they must realize how disgraceful they are, you are wrong again. They use prison slang to show how angry they are. For anger, descriptive emotional states, are used the same way all other descripters are used: “as a Gay,” “as a Jew,” “as a Woman,” “as a (fill in the blank)”. That nothing logically follows from these statements or moods, these emotional states of anger, the outrage of the righteous, is not the point.

These descripters are useful in society for getting what one wants or at least as cover while one takes what one wants. “I am angry therefore I am right,” is a tool, and an instant justification. Recall that Laura Ingraham was “livid” with the court decision in the patient Schiavo’s case. That the statute by which the case was decided was the product of years of study and a bipartisan compromise in the Florida Legislature after open debate and due deliberation counted for less than the fact that this “Woman” claimed she was “livid.”

And again since then there has been no amendment proposed, no new evidence submitted, no model statute, nothing. Nothing other than to continually denigrate everyone else as part of the “culture of death.” While the angry, livid, advocates of the “culture of life” never seem to be able to put their philosophy down in writing, seem incapable of coming up with a rule, a procedure to show us, the heathens how to live or at least how to decide the cases. Oh, but there is anger. No reason but much emotion.

And what else is emotive? Being a POW? A Vietnam Vet? And one regularly hears debates between Vets being won on the point, “I am a Combat Vet!” Careful much high emotion there. Don’t want anyone going postal on us. Women, Blacks, Jews all have well established rights to anger. I have noted recently Catholics (RC) making claims to the anger of the righteously aggrieved.

But then what would a passion play be without passion? We are floating on a sea of emotions, flooding reason. Manufactured emotionalism drives the inflation, the dishonesty, of our political economy. In his last speech from the floor of the Senate, Senator Moynihan commented that he feared “reason was but a poor foil to the irrational.” (see Congressional Record at the Moynihan) And he was right. If you are aggrieved you may say anything, Left or Right.

And this psychology, of moral superiority, of the veteran contemptuous of his fellow citizens, the Black who thinks White suffering is an oxymoron, of Women for men’s suffering, of Jew’s certainty that WASP’s are by comparison weak or inexperienced and have not known the depths of true suffering, all of it, is itself connected to the “diversity” myth; I say myth because unspoken, for it can never be articulated much less held up to scrutiny. There is a sense, no, a certainty, that one is more “diverse” just as there is certainty that one’s suffering is really something far, far, greater than anything you could possibly conceive, and yet all of this goes unexamined, it is gauche even to question it. Of course, foreign nationals are more “diverse” than us.

And for those of you who are uncertain about the need to control the borders and ports of entry just answer why you and Kennedy and McCain want people entering the country to be illegal? Why not welcome them? I have previously proposed raising the limit on immigration from Mexico to one million a year for the next 50 years. (It is currently set at 170k. (50 million would be half of Mexico’s expected population increase.))

Why, because no one will take responsibility! Because the political discourse is dishonest. Letting Illegals into the country is literally an example of inflation in the political economy; i.e. we are inflating the numbers of residents. See the dishonesty: You make them illegal because you are dishonest.

By not controlling the borders and ports of entry you avoid having to take responsibility. No need to reach an agreement on the number of immigrants to be added. (Then too the elite finds it advantageous to create a new category or class of resident in these United States. And the Illegals do not stand on their rights, (they haven’t any (that is a great advantage! (to a corrupt leadership))); and more benefits, they undercut the wages of the lower classes; and they can be violated, i.e. deported, without the bother of a trial. Yes, the elite appreciates these many advantages of their subterfuge, and again see how they make the dishonesty of the political process work for them.)

And it is because of this dishonesty, this utter chaos of egotism and self delusion, of personalities unbounded, undirected by any philosophy or religion, which requires that everything which can be taken out of the hands of the government should be removed from the reach of the politicians. Not that politicians do not represent you, they do too well. There is not a single vanity, conceit, dishonest thought you have ever had that is not represented in any of your legislatures. They are just like you.

Do you not think, for example, that many “knew” that if the accounts of the savings and loans were guaranteed to $100k per account (not per person) that huge waves of capital would flow into those institutions? (And see that the Democrat blames the Republicans, even though Mr. Carter raised the “insurance” on the accounts. Again a case of having it both ways. But what percent of the Americans even have a $100K to be insured in the first place? Yet the “party of the people” thought it a good idea to protect the capital of the rich in the name of the people . . . . yes, abandon reason and have it both ways. (Less than 3% of the losses of the savings and loans resulted from criminal misconduct. (http://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/SavingsandLoanCrisis.html )))

And the Republicans “deregulated” the Savings and Loans when Reagan arrived. Deregulate? So they abolished the unlimited “insurance”? No. So they required that the industry meet the same capital requirements as banks? No. Their loan portfolios had to meet the same standards as banks?, No! As much as 40% of the loans were commercial real estate. The Republicans would not have allowed the Savings and Loans to use accounting gimmicks, like “good will” to cover deficits and losses . . . would they? Yes, they did. And oh, yes, they knew what they were doing. (http://www.fdic.gov/bank/historical/s&l/)

And do you not think that today, for example, actuaries “know” that the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. is not actuarially sound? (http://www.actuary.org/pdf/pension/funding_single.pdf • 1134.1k) But the dishonesty of the political economy is such that we will continue to “guarantee” pensions which we “know” are not funded because some workers are on the “in” and the rest of us will pay for it; will pay for those who are on the “in.” The reporters upon whom you rely for the “facts”, are they on the “in”? Oh yes. Your leaders, the politicians, their pensions . . . well they are as “in” as you can get. Public employees have 105% retirement pensions. (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_24/b3937081.htm )

And do you not think that many “know” that exclusionary zoning has ruined our cities and burdened the people? And the very same “environmentalists” who decry the reliance on “fossil fuels” and the automobile are themselves the very same “community activists” who have blocked development in the city centers and forced out the middle class into the suburbs necessitating those commutes. (see Jane Jacobs, http://bss.sfsu.edu/pamuk/urban/biblio.html (Smart Growth: http://www.smartgrowth.org/library/articles.asp?art=188&res=1680 (The New Urbanism: http://www.newurbanism.org/pages/416429/index.htm )))

In the Bay Area the new Bay Bridge will be vulnerable to earthquake damage or even a “small car bomb” owing to its design. How many engineers “know” that building the world’s largest single tower self anchored bridge in an active seismic zone is a mistake but said nothing? (see Technical Correction #6) “World’s largest”? Doesn’t that alone tell you something? That means no one else has dared to do such a thing. Wonder why?

Yet the local media, SF Chronicle, San Jose Mercury, followed the lead of the CalTrans bureaucrats and continued to refer to the proposed span as a “single tower suspension” bridge. The whole issue being that it is not a suspension bridge but is in fact a self anchored bridge. But because they control the media they can lie. The reporters and editors “know” about the controversy they simply will not report it. What can you do about it they smirk?

Do you suppose the politicians who are responsible for this fiasco, “the world’s largest self anchored bridge”, will be held responsible when the architects of our Vietnam “experience” were not? That they will be held responsible when the politicians who have opened up our borders are not? Or the ones who “deregulated the Savings and Loans”? Or the guardians of the Pension Guarantee Corp.? Or the ones who have blocked development to the point that today 84% of Californians can not afford the medium priced home? (Is Housing Too Expensive? Blame the Government)

After all of this you suppose that now suddenly we will hold politicians responsible? Why would you think so? What possible justification for such a lunatic thought could there be? Can you not see that you are delusional? No one will ever be held responsible for anything. This is the Emptiness.

For example, currently the State of California has agreed to dig two tunnels on the coast highway for an estimated $200m (so we can project that the actual cost will be $1 billion using the CalTrans rule of 5, (all CalTrans estimates are understated by a factor of five.)) Given that the State does not allow development of the coast will the tunnels collect sufficient tolls to pay for their costs? It does not matter as no tolls will be collected. All tax payers will pay, even those who have been zoned out of the coastal regions including the urban Bay Area. Just because the people have been excluded doesn’t mean they should not have to pay!

These two tunnels will be constructed out on the scenic highway in a county, San Mateo, where the average home costs $1 million. In the middle of the Bay Area the Caldecott tunnels which serve millions of commuters, all be it with hour long backups twice daily, (from 6am to noon and from noon to 7pm), are in need of expansion, which would also cost $200 million according to CalTrans.

But this tunnel expansion is not even scheduled. Why? Because the millionaires out on the San Mateo coast have more political clout than the millions of commuters in the Bay Area. Because there is no market allocation of roads. Because society is controlled by a corrupt oligarchy. Because the Republic has been betrayed. Because we were fools ever to have believed in justice, honesty, . . . Because the political economy is a mass of lies, . . . do you not yet see? Because of Emptiness . . . And this is a Blue state!

But why specify Blue states:
USATODAY.com - Some highway bill pork becomes road kill ABC News: New Transportation Bill Full of Pork Road Bill Reflects The Power Of Pork After 2-Year Wait, Passage Comes Easily Highway bill criticized for special projects - US News - MSNBC.com $286 Billion Highway bill!
From what has already been said it also should come as no surprise that the know-nothing Republicans also oppose the privatization of roads, or even the market pricing of roads. They too think it fair that drivers in Fresno should have to pay the tax at the same rate as people in San Francisco even though the roads of San Francisco cost several times what the roads of Fresno cost. Even so called “conservatives”, like Rush Limbaugh, Congressman Barr, all most all, see nothing problematic in being for markets while at the same time supporting a government bureaucracy to build “free” ways.

And see how this government control of the roads has stifled competition and innovation just as the government monopoly in education has there also blocked new technology. We do not have electronics in our cars to create digital traffic control systems just as in our schools we have not pioneered computer assisted education. 43,000 people are killed every year, hundreds of thousand seriously wounded, on our roads and highways in part due to the utter absence of safety electronics in the cars, from traffic warning, to automated accident prevention, to traffic enforcement including ignition interlocks to block the intoxicated from even starting their cars.

See here that your ignorance, as in war, kills people. You are ignorant that in the 1970s simple one way transponders could have coordinated traffic, that in the 1980s the electronics could have allowed two way coordination, and that in the 1990s fully automatic digital systems could have integrated traffic controls over entire regions. You do not know these things because your roads have been in the hands of government bureaucrats. The dishonesty of the political economy has hidden these things from you.

And recall that the point is not that the bureaucrats are stupid or lazy as the simple minded conservatives have mislead you into thinking. These bureaucrats are just like you. Markets do not make people ‘smart.’ The innovation arises out of self interest, ownership. Schools do not use computer assisted instruction because they do not have to, they have the government’s money. Your money. The guys in the orange vests in the highway department do not have to bother with electronic systems because . . . because they are the government.

Why do conservatives oppose the market allocation of roads? Because of Emptiness. They are not principled. They move from one pleasing, ego gratifying idea to another, in no particular order. What is there but ego, and vanity, and delusion? They support “free markets” only as a justification for their own success; they glory that they have “won” the “competition.” However, when their own egos are not directly involved they fall back into the ready acceptance of the status quo. Is this not also a case of having it both ways? Is this not the same dishonesty we have seen everywhere we have looked?

This is the Emptiness. They do not care if you get killed in a head on collision to night. They do not care if your children do not get the instruction that they need. Who are you to them? All the market does is create the possibility that the demands of the consumers will find their suppliers. Potentially this also exists with government but just consider, what would you do to the school principal who wanted to develop a computer program? What if some CalTrans bureaucrat started talking about putting electronics in your car?

Why would they even want to take the chance? Just look what happened to me. Fifteen years of harassment and oppression for writing about laser disks! Why would anyone want to get involved in this dishonest malignant political process? Face such Emptiness?

Can you not see that that is always how it has been for all of history? See it now?

No?

I have confused you? I am not making any sense? Wild ramblings? (" . . . The suicide left a long and rambling note with a series of disconnected accusations about persons of high office and rank, wild theories of conspiracies, of people on the radio talking to him, secretly reading his email and even his notebook. There were claims that high government officials and the local police department were some how involved . . . ")

Just look at the facts:
The trees are alive.
There is no crime.
Universal love.
---- Septamus Smith,
---- Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

Emptiness Part IV at New Ruskin College

2005-08-11T19:18:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

06-02-05,08-08-05,08-11-05
Emptiness Part IV

Passion Play: TE 194.5.4.4/1
(http://www.suntimes.com/output/elect/cst-nws-lip01.html)

For me the perfect symbol of the fascist is not the swastika, but the smirk. The smirk that says ‘I know what I just said is a lie as well as you, but so what? What can you do? I control the mass media and can say whatever I want . . . and you can not do anything about it . . .’

And do you not think that Davis, Springer, and Franken are smirking over what they have said about the Swift Boat Vets, and what they have done to Gardner? Didn’t you notice the smirk on Hannity’s face when he introduced Dr. Hammesfahr as the “Nobel Prize Nominee”, as did Glen Beck and Sussman, (a local weatherman turned hate radio talker), too? Could you not hear the smirk on Rush Limbaugh’s face when he reassured his listeners that Social Security is not a welfare program, “it is a Ponzi scheme.” (He had no larger point. He knows that his elderly listeners would be offended if told the truth. (What can you do?))

And do you not think that Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, Michael Krasney, Mrs. Jack Swanson, and Don Imus are smirking about what they have done to me?

They control the mass media, the power . . . what can you do?

In the Last Letter I argued that if your definition of fascism included the way fascists make use of the state then your definition would do you no good. For if the fascist must first take control of the state for your definition to be satisfied it will be too late!

My definition was operational: how the fascist acts on the world. I pointed out at the time that the bad faith of the fascist is not determined by the state of mind of the fascist, who cares if Hitler was “sincere”, but rather my point was that the “bad faith” is what we, the observers, attribute to the actor.

Simple minded conservatives find this contingent definition unsatisfying. They want an “objective” definition, and objective difference, between the fascist and the other political actors. They worry that if the only difference is “subjective” then it is less meaningful. My point has always been that this subjective judgment is more significant.

“Our men are our walls” was the Spartan boast. It is just because we say “bad faith”, just because we are here, now, making this judgment, that the “reality” is contingent on us, our act of judgment, which gives it importance. If it were “objective” then what of it? One might conclude: ‘I do not have to speak out against it, everyone will see, after all, it is objective.’ With my definition you do not have this out.

I say no. It all depends on you. I can not do this alone. Because we are contingent, floating in this moment of time, this is why your subjective judgment is so important.

I am set upon from all sides. I will conduct one last act, a protest. This I can do alone. But injustice, this I can not overcome by myself alone. If you do not first make the subjective judgment with me, that this is wrong, then I must die.

That is what was said in the Last Letter. Now what I am saying in Emptiness is this: After fourteen years of silence, of standing alone, I see that there is no one left. There is no one to make this subjective judgment, the attribution of bad faith.

For example Don Imus not only was reading my GAB Robins email on his program but seemed to also be getting reports from Bo Dietl’s “surveillance technicians” as well. This was in 2003. Twelve years after the Last letter. He thought it was a good joke. Twelve years later and he still thought it a good joke.

Senator Hatch, appearing on the Imus show, also thought it a good joke saying, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners.” I can not do this alone. There is no one left to say, bad faith.

In fact Don Imus yammered on so much that at one point Bo Dietl complained that Don Imus had blown his source by mentioning too much detail. (Then later, after many posts here at this web site about him, one day Imus sighed and said, “I deserve whatever happens to me . . .” But this is not quite right. If Deidre stays with him and he enjoys his mansions until his last dieing breath, he will not “deserve” that. God does not always intervene and punish the wicked, to say the least. (On second thought perhaps he does deserve Deidre. Perhaps there is justice?))

But the evil force which is at play among us, is not something out there, other, it is intermixed in you, in your every breath, in your ‘having it both ways.’ Not bad faith which is what we attribute to those with whom we disapprove, but good faith, this ready belief in ourselves, if not in any one individual act of ours, which we may be willing if forced, by a court of law for example, to admit was mistaken, even willfully wrong, then at least in our good intentions overall, by which we excuse ourselves taking into account our total life picture which we hold of ourselves.

Don Imus actually thinks that there is nothing wrong with what he has done. And Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he has done only confirms Imus in his false belief about himself. And the two support each other. Then radiating outward more are added until you have the entire society, a world of six billion, most living in appalling poverty, fresh water becoming more scarce, clouds of pollution hanging over their heads, . . .

And all of this results from this joke, Senator Hatch joking with Imus about what he did to “some of your listeners.” The failure to attribute bad faith. The city’s walls have fallen.

And this basic tendency to excuse, to embrace ourselves can be enhanced. Money for example can be used to create an environment supportive to the ego, and the egomaniacal life. Society too, may endorse this egotistical view of ones life. The real damage done by gender and racial quotas is not the misallocation of resources but is found in the damage done to reason and the reinforcement of the egotist’s view of himself. A whole culture of “diversity” has developed as invidious as it is insidious.

Who is more “diverse” than me, admittedly only a White male? The obnoxious theory encourages the various “schools of resentment”, as described by Dr. Alan Bloom. Simply being a Woman, Black, a Jew, a “farm worker’s daughter,” an immigrant from whatever country, legal or illegal, etc., confirms the egotist in his predilection to justify himself.

Rationalizations are always at hand. First, for example, they conspire with my employers to harasse me, then have me laid off, and drive me into poverty. Then say “See, he is poor. I told you he was no good.”

And some readers may not credit this, thinking ‘no, no one could be that . . .’ And this is the point. Mrs. Jack Swanson is that deluded. She thinks her conduct justified. Don Imus the day after I left GAB Robins, after months of harassment, said on the radio, “what is he going to do commit suicide?”

In fact those very villains who have worked with others to destroy my life have at various time stated on the radio that they do not believe one should simply give up and commit suicide. They want me to continue. “Don’t give up!” they shout, “You have got to keep trying.”

And again the point I am trying to make in Emptiness is that all of this is done in perfect sincerity. Ron Lowenstein, Michael Weiner, Michael Krasney, the Red Comedian, actually believe that “as Jews” they had a duty to harasse and destroy my life because I had “wronged” Yvonne, or because I had challenged there views.

And our liberal society encourages all of them in their hubristic self delusion. But not bad faith! Never them! They really believe that they are good people . . .

Connected with the notion of being “more diverse” is the idea of ones “good intentions.” Intentions are the focus, the justification, for all acts. For their acts will not be evaluated in rational, disinterested discussion, where the consequences are evaluated, but will rather be judged on the basis of who acted, how divers were they, and what was their intention not the consequences of their acts.

In the market economy such a labyrinth of rationalizations, such a personal focus on who is “diverse” or on the “in” and what their “intentions” were is of little consequence.

For in the market these motivations, delusions, are not the subject of the economic transaction. The subjective notions are irrelevant. See that this situation is just the opposite of that which obtains in the political economy where, as I have just argued, just the failure to make these subjective decisions leads to catastrophe. In the market the issue is: Buy this, or that, at this or that price? End of discussion.

In the political economy things are very different. And here again we have gained a nice vantage point to see how the simple minded conservatives are lead astray. How their very way of discussing these questions misdirects them from the reality of the situation into falsity. For the problem is not that the actors in the political economy are “lazy” or “stupid” or “greedy” as is often claimed by the simple minded. Indeed this focus on these personal qualities is exactly what is mistaken.

The solution is not to get more “diverse” actors with better “intentions” but to move as much of the economic activity out of the political sector as possible and into the private economy. If not directly then with vouchers and other substitutes, i.e. mediums of exchange so as to eliminate these psychological rationalizations wherever possible.

For the problem of dishonesty, inflation, in the political economy is insoluble. People are people. Show them one political problem or another and they will refuse to acknowledge it exists, if forced to acknowledge it they will justify it, rationalizations come into play, as has been described, they will argue that your criticism is not “diverse” enough, or that you have some prejudice, that in any case their “intentions” in the program justify this aspect or the other, and so on in an unending stream, which if they are pressed will become increasingly emotional as they inflate the political process until the discussion can be change to something more interesting to their own interests.

And this is why you live on a planet of six billion, in appalling poverty, without drinking water, polluted . . . etc. etc. (Recall that I originally wrote the Senate about the use of technology in education so we could educate the world’s billions. For this I have been set upon, and destroyed.) The world’s poor are not poor due to theft as the Pope and other churchmen and Marxists claim.

They are poor because of this misdirection. Because you misdirect most of your lives doing things like following me for fifteen years harassing and ruining. And then, like Senator Hatch, joking about it in the complete confidence that you are “good.” Because you would rather waste your time on your silly foolish selves, blocking every advance, laser disks, or nuclear power stations, blocking construction even of homes for your fellow citizens, foolish, selfish, . . . but all of which you immediately justify with a discussion of your “intentions” which are more “diverse” than mine and on and on . . . and then get “angry” and so the passion play continues.

Like your simian ancestors you cling to your branches chattering on and on, telling lies. What are your words, these puffs of air across your vocal cords, these sounds you make with your lungs casting air over your larynxes? So many grunts and screams, wild impossible sounds of agitation, assertions to power, some which attract the female of the species to mate with you, so as to secure for her offspring this ability to shout and lie.

And your history, what has it been but the regular harvest of your lies? In one interview one Swift Boat Vet was asked how it was possible that so many citations and reports could have been so inaccurate? The reply was that the Navy operated on trust and people like TE 194.5.4.4/1 took advantage of the Officer’s trust and the Navy’s reliance on the personal honor of Naval officers.

Had I been conducting the interview I should have asked if these controversies did not themselves cast a light on the Vietnam War? Was it not in fact a kind of make believe war, a fraud? How could any reasonable person have run the “Demilitarized Zone” from the ocean to the Laos frontier and with any honesty, with any honor, with one shred of integrity left, say, ‘Yeah, right, that is far enough, no need to go further, this is the sideline here, mark that with a chalk line, good, we will play on this side . . .’?

Of course, now, you can easily see this idea for the insanity that it was. Now you wonder ‘what were those people thinking?’ Now. But then there were all sorts of ideas, whole political-strategic theories, many reports, books, long speeches, thoughtful meditations, ingenious rationalizations by, TE 194.5.4.4/1, and by all the rest, the whole political establishment, the American elite.

And more, much more. Do you not suppose that some military officers knew the mistakes that were being made early on? Knew and did nothing? High ranking, politically connected officers who knew tens of thousands would die in utter futility? Men who retired to Tucson on pensions paid by a grateful nation? Admiral McCain for example? (The Joint Chiefs had a meeting to decide if they should resign in protest over the Vietnam War. (They decided not to resign. (Deborah Shapley, Promise and Power: The Life and Times of Robert S. McNamara )))

At the other end there was the conscript army, made up of the lower and middle classes. And all of it, the whole American society came tumbling down into South East Asia, with its mass of rationalizations, good ‘intentions’, and unbridled egotism. One young Naval officer brought a movie camera to film his political commercials to which Hollywood special effects would later be added. (I am not making this up!) A mass of confusion, an anarchy of ideas, Emptiness . . .

And it is instructive to note what the Swift Boat Vets do not talk about. They do not spend much time talking about global strategy circa 1960. They do not talk about the Ho Chi Minh Trail; the political question “who lost Vietnam”; the “mission creep” as Washington administered the war. They confine themselves to their little area of the beach, of things about which they have personal knowledge. Is this because they were low ranking officers and enlisted men? No! Because this is how most people are most of the time.

We do not lift up our heads and make a global assessment of the entire human epoch! We do not say, ‘Right, now let’s make an honest appraisal of the entire situation.’ We find ourselves in a situation, we take it for granted most of the time, but in any event what can we do? We find ourselves in the Delta, there are certain rules of engagement, “ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.”

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Emptiness Part III at New Ruskin College

2005-08-11T08:40:00.000-07:00

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06-02-05, 08-07-05, 08-11-05
Emptiness Part III

It matters not Right or Left. For example, recently Jerry Springer and Al Franken have started bringing up John Kerry’s service record again, and maligning the Swift Boat Vets. Why? They have not had enough of it?

Because they can. Because they have radio microphones in front of them and they can say anything they want. The can repeat the vapid phrase “the discredited Swift Boat Vets” over and over, (as if they were the final arbiters of what is and is not creditable), because now they have the Power!

Al Franken can be for the war then against it. He can say he agrees with “progressive indexing” one week, (for the rate of increase in Social Security benefits), if it starts for those with “incomes over 40k”, and then the next week he can claim that the very idea is “pernicious.” (see Lecture Notes: 05-04-05) One week he can agree that we should not have to “bribe” the rich in order to have an old age pension for the bottom 60% who would be in poverty without assistance, and then the next week claim all such discussion is reactionary.

He can support the Second Gulf War then claim he did so only because he was “lied” to. Lied? As with O’Reilly the fact that arsenals of chemical and bio weapons were not found means he was “lied to” or as with O’Reilly, the war was wrong or a mistake. Franken has expressed similar disappointment with the absence of nuclear weapons. Yet before the war Saddam Hussein had admitted to making Chemical and Biological weapons, claiming that they had been destroyed. Before the war it had only been argued that Iraq was making contacts to buy “yellow cake,” a raw material for nuclear weapons, certainly not indicating a bomb program nearing completion.

These three weapons programs were the only reason Franken and O’Reilly thought we should go to war? Are they serious? Yes! Franken and O’Reilly, both Harvard educated, would judge the decision making that led to the war not based on what facts the decision makers had at that time but based on what facts were developed later.

Only after the war, after the inspections had been completed, they argued this absurd position: ‘Because after the war, upon inspection, the chemical weapons were not found, therefore we should have known and trusted Saddam Hussein before the war . . .’; an argument so obviously disingenuous as to require no refutation. But because they control the microphone their nonsense pours out and poisons the national discussion.

That a detailed report lists dozens of bio and chemical laboratories, and recounts interviews with scientists who have explained that they were paid to develop programs for bio and chemical warfare, (though they did so only in a limited manner), to say nothing of the truck loads of material moved to Syria prior to inspection, all of this counts for nothing.

In one classic example Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the war, claimed that there was no evidence for the British Intelligence report that Iraq had sought contacts in Niger to purchase “yellow cake.” Only to have it revealed later that Mr. Wilson had in fact confirmed this report with a Niger government official, who said Iraq had sent a trade delegation to Niger.

(Previously Iraq had purchased 900 tons of yellow cake from Niger which was confiscated after the First Gulf War. (Bill Kristol claimed that the President used the word “recently” in his State of the Union Address, only in order to scare and panic the American people into going to war. Again Left or Right. Could it not be that the word “recently” was used to distinguish these contacts from the earlier ones in which yellow cake had been purchased? And, again, panic? Over an inquiry to purchase a raw material?))

Yet Franken continues to claim that the British Report was a lie not withstanding that Wilson, a man Franken has championed as a model of honesty, has confirmed that report. Yet his position is only slightly more ridiculous than that of John Kerry who famously supported the war before he was against it, calling it the “wrong war.” Yet Kerry had voted in favor of a resolution authorizing force.

In explanation of which he claimed that he did not know that Bush would “fuck it up” so badly. So which is it? Is his complaint that it is the “wrong war” or a poorly executed war? After a year of campaigning he never did clarify his views. Intentionally? For to do so, had he spoken clearly, he would have lost votes from one end of his party or the other.

Ah, control of the mass media! What a rush. Power! And is this not fascism? Is this not the very point I was making in The Last Letter, (see The Last Letter at the Moynihan): The mass manipulation of symbols for state control in bad faith.

And was that letter not why Michael Weiner and Ron Lowenstein had me followed and harassed me for over a decade? For example, on one occasion Michael Weiner gave a detailed account of standing outside my health club and describing the people he was watching inside. Then the very next day they had their homosexual friend follow me into the locker room at the health club. Then Ron Owens went on the radio to explain how to deal with homosexual harassment in the locker room.

On another occasion they burglarized my room at the Colonial Motel and then Michael Weiner started reading from the notebook the very next day, (see The Stolen Notebook at the Moynihan), and then the other employees of KGO started joking about it. And the employees of KQED also joined in, interfering with my life. They too followed me from AAA to Farmers, hectoring and harassing; Michael Krasney using his contacts to interfere with my employment . . .

And why? Because I had said in the Last Letter, 1991, that anyone can manipulate symbols in the mass media in order to gain state control, anyone can tell the big lie, anyone can be a fascist. (And more importantly for Michael Weiner, Ron Lowenstein, and Michael Krasney because by implication these arguments in the Last Letter could apply even to Jews who are in the mass media. Even Jews can become fascists. They thought they were exempt from such criticism. Like spoiled children they cried: Not us!

Ron Owens appears to have been a “friend” of Yvonne’s, (she has appeared on his show), and so my criticism of her in the Last Letter, my criticism of her betrayal of her client, (me), was for him personal. Yet also for him, as with Michael Weiner, the fact that Yvonne is the daughter of survivors of the Holocaust was an important factor. (see MICHAEL WEINER HOLOCAUST DENIER, Lecture Notes: 07-10-2004, Lecture Notes: 08-12-04 Silence)

(After the burglary at the Colonial Motel, where my notebook was stolen, I wrote a note to Yvonne in which I called Michael Weiner a fascist. Then shortly there after, Professor Alan Dershowitz appeared on TV, saying that there had been many prominent Jews among the fascists in Italy prior to the war. ( I think he might have been referencing a recent book on the subject . . . but . . . I wondered. . . was he referring to the that letter also? (Yvonne had a habit of circulating my letters to her. )) So not all Jews feel Jews must be exempt from all criticism? Indeed, why should we allow Michael Weiner and Ron Owens and Michael Krasney to hide behind “being Jewish?” Why allow them to speak for all Jews? Victor Frankel, himself a survivor of a NAZI death camp made the point that even the Holocaust itself can be used by fascists. Yes, not only can anyone be a fascist, but, also anything can be manipulated in the mass media in bad faith, even the Holocaust.)

But Michael Weiner, Ron Owens, Michael Krasney want to be exempt from criticism. They want to use their “Jewishness” to cover there fifteen years of harassment. They have waged a campaign of defamation against me. Simply making the charge of anti-Semitism is enough. Or simply saying, “He’s got a problem with Jews . . .” is enough. “With Jews?” This is how they hide: Weiner, Owens, Krasney, for them “the Jews,” is a get out of jail card.

And there is no reasoning with them or the credulous bystanders. You might think they know that they have been wrong, or unreasonable . . . But you have not yet grasped the point: They have the Power! They can do and say whatever they like. And their individual psychology is that they are VICTIMs and that they alone see more clearly, are free from fault, etc. This is an unstoppable combination: power and delusion.

Consider Don Imus who must have heard of the Laser Disk letters when they were first sent to the Senate in the late 1980s, (see Math Project and New Ruskin College Project Archives at the Moynihan), and then took the trouble to track me to State Farm in 1998 and then to GAB Robins in 2003. And yet as with Ron Owens and Michael Weiner he feels justified. Some aspect of his psychology says to him, “Yes, this is good, you are right to harasse and vex and destroy this man.” Ten years. Fifteen years. No limit?

Next consider all the others who knew and went out of their way to comment on all of this: Chris Matthews, David Fineman, David Gregory, Jim Lehrer, Senator Hatch, Senator McCain, on and on (see Lecture Notes) they have appeared on Imus’ show and made references to this web site to let it be known that they are in the know, and by implication that they agree with Don Imus: it is “amusing” to use your influence to destroy another’s life. David Gregory actually joked with Imus in the morning and then later that very day at a press conference with the President demanded if the President would admit his! “mistakes.” (see Imus Protests April 2004)

There was no trace, no hint, that David Gregory had the slightest self awareness that he was wrong, morally bankrupt to support and encourage Don Imus. No trace because to this day David Gregory thinks Don Imus’ use of his power and influence to destroy another person is acceptable. Like Senator Hatch, who said to Imus, “I have heard what you do to some of your listeners,” all of these individuals think their conduct acceptable, even something to boast about, (as did David Lowery the editor of National Review).

And here today, eight months after the election, I say after the election, we still have Jerry Springer and Al Franken who have not had enough of Kerry’s war record and want to go over the facts again? NO, not the facts! They want to malign the veterans again.

They do not want to go over the facts, have a review of the evidence, a reasoned discussion, they control the microphone, it is for them another display of their power, to show how they too can abuse others with impunity, they simply want to posture, to have it both ways . . .

And was this not the Vietnam War itself? Fighting the war . . . yes, but . . . not too much war please? The Vietnam War was a case of having it both ways.

The fellow officer who was on the boat with Kerry that night, December 2, 1968, --- I say was “on the boat” with Kerry, ---- says Kerry was not engaged with enemy forces. Kerry himself, writing in his journal, December 11, 1968, nine days after the incident, said, “A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky.”

(Purple Hearts are awarded for only those injuries sustained while engaged with the enemy. So therefore if as his fellow officer stated, and as Kerry here appears to confirm, they were not under fire, then his first Purple Heart was not justified, something he had been advised when he first made his request.)

Both Springer and Franken disparaged the Swift Boat Vets as a NAZI on air personality might tell lies about the Jews; knowing full well that the Jews would not have the opportunity to rebut the claims, argue against the charges, present evidence, reason, etc. Indeed why bring it up again? Because they can!

Their candidate twice requested a medal he was not entitled to receive and they continue to argue the matter even eight months after the election in perfect psychological equanimity because they really believe not withstanding the facts as set out in their candidate’s own hand. They really believe . . . this is the Emptiness. Not bad faith, (that which we attribute to others), no! They truly believe.

Don Imus, Michael Weiner Springer and Franken are beyond the reach of reason. There is no philosophy, no religion that will reach them. And what is more, this is humanity. Would that it was just these few . . . but I live on a planet where as I am destroyed by the likes of Imus and Weiner a crowed gathers round to jeer and ridicule . . . and they all feel perfectly comfortable with what they are doing, see nothing wrong with it, would be surprised if you asked them why they were not ashamed . . . might come after you if you were so rude.

I’m sure they have many rationalizations.

Springer and Franken know the power of mass media, the mass manipulation of symbols. They do not have to deal with the facts, reason, discuss the evidence, they can simply malign the character of the Swift Boat Vets and there will be no answer . . .

And what is this but fascism?

The officer who was with Kerry that night was a Lieutenant Junior Grade who later retired from the Navy at the rank of Admiral. When asked at the time if he would support Kerry’s claim for a Purple Heart, he said that he could not as they had not been engaged with the enemy that night. (http://www.nationalreview.com/document/document200408280010.asp )

Ironically it was only after Lanny Davis, on CNN’s Crossfire, questioned his credibility, that Rear Admiral William L. Schachte, Jr. (USNR), came forward to explain the facts publicly. (http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=40180 )

I say ironically because Springer, Franken, Davis, could have simply left the subject alone. Mr. Davis did not have to question Mr. Schachte’s credibility. Springer and Franken did not have to bring it all up again. Kerry himself could simply have said, ‘I had turned against the war, and there was this rule, that if you get three Purple Hearts you can leave, so I availed myself of this opportunity and returned home to try and help end America’s involvement with that war which I had come to see as mistaken.’

Not only does this approach avoid the controversies but it seems to be in accord with the facts and explains and connects Kerry’s subsequent acts seamlessly, i.e. the truth. (I previously made this point in a posting here at this site and John O’Neill appearing on TV a few days later made the comment that Kerry could have simply said he availed himself of this rule, “if he had no honor.”. . . coincidence . . . I’m sure . . . pretty sure . . .)

But Springer, Franken and Davis know the power of the big lie, the lie amplified by the power of the mass media and can prevent any reply.

Prevent? How prevent?

Well there are many other things that can be done. You could persuade the marriage counselor to betray her client for example. You could get the pill popping, trash talking, Scott Bobro to harasse your enemy while working at Farmers Insurance. You could get Michael Weiner to organize a burglary with the help of his friends at the ADL and the San Rafael Police Department and take the notebook and read it on the air. (see Intel Operations) Give copies to the other employees at KGO and they too can read from it, make comments about it, harasse, vex, torment. (see Stolen Notebook: http://www.newruskincollege.com/moynihanmemoriallibrarynewruskincollegecom/id7.html )

Don’t stop there. The former Mrs. Dr. Dean Edel at AAA can help Michael Krasney harasse there. Mrs. Jack Swanson can report where your enemy has been seen and also use her contacts at CENCAL insurance to harasse there as well. Don Imus can use his contacts to harasse at State Farm and at GAB Robins. (And if you are thinking that this is a digression think again, for something very much like this was done to the Swift Boat Vet Gardner, also an insurance adjuster, (see Lecture Notes: 02-14-05 Trophy Hunters, The Heart of Darkness,(http://www.newruskincollege.com/id28.html ), when Gardner came forward and dared to disagree with Kerry, Springer, Franken, Davis, et al.

Truth? Reason? Fairness? What do you need of these things when you have such power as this: the mass media?

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Emptiness Part II at New Ruskin College

2005-08-10T19:28:00.000-07:00

www.NewRuskinCollege.com

08-07-05
Emptiness Part II

Was Hitler acting in good faith? Did he actually believe that he was doing something good, or at least great? Even here in this extreme case it does not matter. In law we hold the accused responsible only if they knew the nature of the act, and were not under an irresistible compulsion.

Yet we leave it for ourselves to decide these questions, not the accused. So it may be true that some in the dock acted with a full sense of self righteousness and yet because we judge their conduct to be so obviously wrongful that we will not credit their individual psychology of righteousness and condemn them none the less.

Irresistible compulsion seems a safer protection from the hangman’s noose. The mother desperately calling the police for help minutes before she strangles her baby is an example. I believe that it will be shown that such cases have a biological basis. It will be shown that portions of the victims brain compete for control. One half aware that it is loosing the struggle calls the police while the other half wrests control and does the crime.

Further I believe it will be shown that this situation is in no way unusual, other than the momentary self-awareness during the desperate phone call. For each of us is the result of the interaction of hundreds of neuron networks conveying memories, ideas, the visual field, to an ever evolving frontal lobe of the brain. Our personality, our being, developing as a composite of these interactions.

At any given moment anyone of us may be said to be the product of irresistible impulses beyond our conscious awareness. What we know about ourselves, our passing psychological states, may always be veiled in mystery.

Mr. Bush may know that his calling for a criminal investigation of the patient Schiavo’s husband, fifteen years after the fact, but conveniently during the news cycle of the release of the autopsy, was cynical, or at least manipulative, but he may well feel that given the unfairness of the media, the further good that can be achieved by his party in the State of Florida, or more importantly the good he can still do if he can avoid a voter backlash against him, etc., all these rationalizations and more may have come to Mr. Bush, and encouraged him in his public call for an investigation.

And this confluence of ratiocinations may be regarded as an irresistible impulse. Mr. Bush can be seen as a kind of machine, driven by his conditioning, (we call this type of conditioning ambition), and events, tries to obscure the facts of the autopsy in the mass media in furtherance of his goals which he feels are “good”. Imagine if you can that he is sincere.

Where then are any of us?

Where does the soul sit?

This is the Emptiness. I am all alone. Surrounded by empty psychological processes. Rationalizations. Biological machines without soul or heart, Left and Right.

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Emptiness Part I at New Ruskin College

2005-08-09T16:06:00.000-07:00

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Emptiness Part I

06-02-05, 08-06-05
“Smiles and lies”
--- Oliver Wendell Holmes

Ah, now I get it! I told you that I am a little slow on the uptake. Betrayal! They pretended to reason when in fact they were only posturing in the mass media.

I could not figure out why the “Liars for Christ” (see Lecture Notes: 04-21-05) would ignore the CAT scan. If only as a debating technique you should not simply ignore an important piece of evidence. You have to say something about it. At least mention it! For example the “medical ethicist”, Wesley J. Smith, author of “The Culture of Death”, (and the husband of the columnist Debra Saunders), said that people who rely on the CAT scan for information on the condition of the patient Schiavo might be “red faced” if after the autopsy the patient Schiavo’s brain turns out not to be damaged.

Well yeah, ‘red faced’ I guess. But at least Wesley J. Smith, was trying to deal with the evidence. He did not just ignore it as did Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, etc.; Glenn Beck even denied that there was a CAT scan, saying: “Wouldn’t you at least want a CAT scan before you kill her?” (What a thoughtful man. But as long as he is allowed to park his fat ass behind the syndicated microphone his inanities will be heard across the nation; thoughtful or un-thoughtful.) Isn’t America great? And this is precisely what makes America great in Glenn Beck’s, and Sean Hannity’s, and Rush Limbaugh’s egomaniacal eyes. Not that we are free to engage in thoughtful discussion, but that they are allowed to control a national microphone. Power!

Yes power and money. Imagine how easy it is for them to delude themselves. They receive enormous amounts of money. And others, equally confused call them, write to them, “I completely agree . . .” they are told. And they do truly believe it. But it is not the thoughtfulness of the discussion which they prize but that they control it! This is America!; in their eyes. (see Lecture Notes: 03-26-05, Lecture Notes: 03-24-05, Hate Radio Talk Show Host’s Brain, Lecture Notes: 04-21-05, The End, (Prerequisite Lecture Notes: 04-16-05))

Now we know. We were not really debating. It only looked, sounded, like an intellectual discussion, with reasoning, examination of the facts, argumentation and persuasion. It was more of a carnival? Well, yes, but something more . . . something religious? Yes! Of course, a passion play. It was not really a discussion at all, it was a passion play, a display of religious devotion.

For example in the months since the media pageant where are the proposals to change the law? Where are the model statutes? In deed where have the ‘liars for Christ’ been as one patient after another has had their respirator turned off, or the feeding tube removed? Dr. Edel asked this question on his radio program about a patient in New York, a child with brain damage, disconnected and . . . ? Listen . . . ? No, not a word. Why?

The patient Schiavo was made a cause celeb, but no other? How can they just drop the issue? No proposals for change? The Governor of Florida, Bush, did jump into action ordering a criminal investigation of the husband for his alleged failure to immediately call for an ambulance . . . fifteen years ago. What should we think of Mr. Bush? Was he acting in good faith? Why did he wait until the day the patient Schiavo’s autopsy was released. (The autopsy confirmed what had been deduced from the CAT scan: brain death years before.)

And isn’t that politics today? Dishonesty? How do we know when anyone is acting in good faith? In economics we call it inflation. In our political economy everyone of us is capable of manufacturing a “position,” a “claim.” We can strike up a pose. Pretend a “grievance” or some “high moral purpose.” We can disconnect our father’s life support, as did Congressman Tom Delay, and then we can intervene in the case of the patient Schiavo pretending that we should never give up on any patient.

I ask again, where is the proposed statute which will solve the problem Mr. Delay claimed to have identified? He had the Congress pass a law allowing Federal Judicial Review for this one case, (Schiavo), but in the months since . . . nothing else has been proposed. Mr. Bush made his one desultory stab at instigating a “criminal investigation” during the same news cycle that the autopsy was reported but has since then fallen back into lethargy.

Now our friends on the Left will cross their arms across their chests and say “unhu”! They think the Right did this. And they have missed an important point. This is the emptiness I mentioned. Not the Right, all of us, humanity. People.

To think that Mr. Delay craftily manipulated the “Right to Life” crowd and deliberately mislead them; to think that the Republican Party regularly takes advantage of the “Right to Life” movement’s credulity, encouraging them to believe that abolition of abortion; or statutes making mandatory extraordinary measures to keep every last one of God’s creatures alive; or the outlawing of nucleic cell transfer, (cloning); that all of this is just one election away if only they will reach down into their hearts and wallets one more time . . . well, to think that all of this is done deliberately is scary.

But there is something even more scary. Emptiness. What if all of this is not crafty deliberate misdirection? What if Mr. Delay actually thinks he is on the side of the angels?

Or, and this is the real point what if this “inflation” in our political economy is inevitable? (This is why we need the free market. We need to keep an accurate record of what our comrades “really think.” Not just what they say they want but how they actually spend their money.)

What if all God’s children, Mr. Delay, yes, and everyone else is simply acting out one feeble idea after another; making up some rationalization or other when some glaring defect is made known to them, apologizing here, lost in blind ambition there, lost?

This is the Emptiness. There is no “Logic,” no “Reason” no “Philosophy” or “Religion” that guides you. You are floating, acting out one idea after the other as they come to you, working your mind the way a blind man works his cane, tapping, poking, trying to make sense of the echoes, lost in the darkness.

This is the Emptiness.

Don Imus used his influence to destroy my life, interfering with my employment at GAB Robins. Michael Weiner had my notebook less than 24 hours after it was burglarized from the Colonial Motel. My brother Thomas Joseph, (named after our illustrious grandfather), kept for himself the few dollars my father left me. And the countless others who knew about the burglary, the interference with my employment, the vandalism, the fifteen years of harassment, knew and did nothing, said nothing, kept their silence. And again, they had their reasons for not coming forward. They had their justifications. (Some reasoned that I had brought on all this myself. For example Barbara Simpson argued that I should not have kept a notebook in the first place. Then it could not have been burgled. (And see she is sincere. Your minds naturally accept these rationalizations. It is human nature. (“We did not know . . . yes we saw the black smoke coming from the chimneys but . . . but we did not know.”)))

You might think that these villains know their villainy. Know it from the inside as it were. They do not. Mrs. Jack Swanson boasts “Oh, I’m vicious.” You might think that this statement evidences some self-awareness, that she knows she is vicious. She does not. They all of them, like Mr. Delay, and Mr. Bush, have some justification, some excuse, some “reason.” Or like the hate radio types, they conclude that what is good for them is good for America. God bless us. They are lost.

And this is our state. This is what causes the “inflation” in our political economy. Looking at history you wonder how could they have been so mislead? What were they thinking? This is the explanation: Emptiness.

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The Will at New Ruskin College

2005-08-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

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Last Will

1- Do not attempt to resuscitate.
2- Any and all organs may be transplanted, provided the corpse is cremated immediately and not desecrated or photographed. (I will wait ten minutes to allow time for the ambulance to be called to transport the body.)
3- I leave everything to my sister Susan. The keys and codes will be left in an envelope on my person.

Codicil to the Will.

I will post a photo of cherry blossoms with a black border. When you see this you will know I am dead.

I ask if you should investigate my death, and determine that things are as I have alleged, that you take action against those who have wronged me.

Distinguish between those who merely commented upon these events, (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, George Will, Sam Donaldson, Chris Matthews, John Roberts, Tim Russert, Al Franken, etc. etc.), and those who took an active part in instigating the actions against me: Michael Weiner, Don Imus, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Ron Owens, Michael Krasney, Sedge Thomson, The Red Comedian, (he would want me to use his name), and all those who worked directly with them at the same stations and networks, Bryan Wilson, Rosie Allen, Dunbar, Weygand, Rodgers, Baxter, McGurk, McCord, etc., and the management of these villains, Mr. Jack Swanson, for one, and the others who allowed their licenses to be so misused, to hector and vex, and oppress a man to his death.

From the grave, in the name of justice, in the name of our common humanity, I ask that if you agree that they have used their broadcasting licenses perfidiously, maliciously, unjustly that you take their broadcasting licenses away from them.

I ask that you resell the licenses and give the money to a foundation, The Murdoch-Watts Foundation, for the promotion of health and human decency, justice and wisdom. (To the extent that my death itself may induce others to choose this path a portion should also be devoted to suicide prevention.)

Make Public Broadcasting and ABC and Viacom and the others pay for their wrongful conduct, and in justice devote the money raised to helping humanity. Taking guidance from the writings of Murdoch and Watts I am sure The Foundation’s board of directors will know better than I how the money should be spent. (I recommend that Jack Kornfield and Yvonne, and George Will and William F. Buckley, Jr., jointly decide on the board of directors.)

It is difficult to know what arguments should be made but my time has now run out. I beg for justice.

Note that in life they did not dare contradict me. I have previously offered into evidence the keywords recorded here at this site, but you may also check the logs of domains: NBC and CNBC have visited. The FCC.Gov has visited. By inference the domains from Parsippany New Jersey can be checked against GAB Robins where it is headquartered. (Like Farmers, State Farm, CENCAL, Dean Sodos, Scott Bobro, GAB Robins name appears on the search log.)

In life Michael Weiner, Don Imus, Mrs. Jack Swanson, Ron Owens, Michael Krasney did not challenge one word they read here though they have often made covert references.

They impudently and cowardly hid behind our unjust and twisted society knowing perfectly well that the rich and powerful are safe from justice.

What they have not fully considered is that justice might still be done even after my death. They conceitedly thought that upon my death that they would be safe.

Show them that they are wrong. Show them that justice may still be done.

I pray from the grave for justice.

--- The Colonial Motel Suspect

Testament 06-02-05, 08-04-05

Introductory Note:

I did not write again after the Last Letter, (see The Last Letter Archive at the Moynihan Memorial Library), in which I protested KQED and its interference with my life, how they had used Yvonne to get at me.

Not in 1996 when the IRS asked for my assistance and then leaked my name, not after 1998 when Imus used his contact with Shotgun Tom Kelly’s brother at State Farm, not after the burglary in 1999 when Weiner, and Brian Wilson and Mrs. Jack Swanson, and the others at KGO read from my notebook, not in 2000 after Ron Owens used his contacts to harasse me at the health club or with the children’s clothing designer at Gymboree, or Michael Krasney used his influence with Rose Guilbault, (they both worked at KGO before Krasney was fired in 1993 and Bernie Ward got his chance, that was before she was made a vice president with AAA), to interfere with my employment at AAA, nor when Weiner (or was it Owens) used Scot Bobro to harasse me at Farmers in 2001, at no time did I try to persuade others about the wrongs done me.

(I did write some notes to Yvonne, (see Dear Yvonne Letters at the Moynihan), and I talked to her a few times, and that was enough for me, to talk to just her. I wrote no more to strangers in Washington. For I knew from my experience with the laser disk letters how dangerous it can be to involve oneself with the “public,” and I knew too that no one, not even as great a man as Senator Doctor Professor Moynihan will help, for no one helped me after I published the Last Letter. Everyone knew how I had been targeted by the people at KQED, how they reached out and interfered with my life, knew and did nothing. (And I have come to think that the Last Letter was the cause of all that followed. Just this: That I should have dared to complain. Who did I think I was?, my enemies demanded, “To criticize us?!” Then they set upon me.))

And again in 2002 when Mrs. Jack Swanson waged her campaign of harassment, first having me followed and using her radio show to let me know I was being watched, and then using her contacts with the owners of CENCAL Insurance to harasse me at work. (There are a lot of malicious people in this world but most do not have radio programs which they can use to taunt their victims.)

And even in 2003, after Imus at GAB Robins and all of that, when finally after over a decade of harassment I started this web site, even then I only made a few postings hoping that I would be left alone.

It was not until April 2004 that I began making regular postings here, only then did I realize that my situation was hopeless.

Long before I announced my intention to end my life here at this site, in what I call my “protest” it became clear to me that I was not going to be called back for employment by any of the agencies: not by Claim Net, or Insure Staff, or Placement Pros., or Kelly Financial Services, or Mengus (who now appears to have been involved with my enemies having placed me at AAA, CENCAL, Farmers, and AIMS about which I was suspicious but had no clear proof but now in retrospect suspicion seems justified), or anyone else.

I am completely alone. (It is often said that the Left maintains closer solidarity than the Right. However, just consider Mr. Foster. The one time he failed to protect Mrs. Billy Clinton from herself, the ‘travel office’ caper, she cut him off. Yet I do think it can at least be said that the Right makes less pretence of comradely good fellowship. (Recall Mr. Lowery, the young editor of National Review going around boasting that he had lied to me.) )

Now I want to describe one last thing: my understanding of this terrible confusion, this anarchy we call life. I want to review some themes of recent Lecture Notes and some stories from my personal life, both things far off on the horizon, and some things from the middle distance, and the some things in the foreground, and show who they all indicate the same thing: the utter absence of any order or reason in this world.

Emptiness

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Savage Nation at New Ruskin College

2005-08-05T20:31:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: August

“An ideal is merely the projection, on an enormously enlarged scale, of some aspect of personality.”
--- Aldous Huxley, After Many a Summer Dies the Swan

I have nothing left to fight with except my life. I have to make what little there is left count. I sacrifice myself to protest you, your ignorance, your selfishness, your cruelty. I can not fight all of you, all alone. No one can. We are each of us dependent on the community. You have made your judgment known. Yet I still have this one last thing that I can do to protest you.

Michael Weiner (aka “Savage”) was repeating “after many a summer dies the swan, after many a summer dies the swan . . .” yesterday as a kind of mantra to distract his mind.

Part of his chaotic fractured mind knows that he has driven a man to his death and yet he wants to go on with his life without feelings of guilt.

And this is what most torments him. He knows his responsibility. This same since of guilt can also be seen in Imus’ erratic behavior. Mrs. Jack Swanson is perhaps too limited to feel guilt. Perhaps?

What will happen after I am turned to ash in the hospital incinerator after my organs have all been removed? He does not know.

Will the feeling of guilt and shame increase or will they disappear he wonders? But then . . . if they do disappear will that not itself be a sign of his further decline into insanity?

After many a summer dies the swan. After many a summer dies the swan. . . . will it get worse? And then if it doesn’t . . .?

He had an “irresistible impulse” to harasse, vex, torment another. For over ten years he has made it his business to oppress me. What will you do now Michael Weiner when I am gone. Is that what has you worried? Is that why you keep repeating your mantra: After many a summer dies the swan . . .?

You could try one of your fits, drop back down into one of your neuroses which you have cultivated over the years . . . let’s see . . . the gentile bastard one? You could try that one again: Getting even with them for all they have done to me and my people! Yvonne’s avenger? Play that role? You could try that again. (He plays these little games with his fragmented personality.) Scream in hysterical outrage Michael, go on, maybe that will work again . . .

. . . or perhaps even these bouts with your neuroses will no longer do . . . then what?

After many a summer dies the swan. After many a summer dies the swan. After many a summer dies the swan.

The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.
---- Alfred Tennyson, Tithonus (l. 82–88)

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Masked Ball at New Ruskin College

2005-08-02T18:54:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: August

#___ WEB LOCATION ___________________VISITORS_ # OF PAGES
122.__ deliciousteens.com/busty_teens/nude.htm ______1 _____25
130. __milf-xxx-action.com/milf_moms/free.htm _______1 ____25
119. __anal-sex-hardcore.info/painful_anal_sex/xxx._____1___ 25

Counselor: What is all of this?

A new student.

Counselor: A new student?! What kind of student visits from “xxx action.com” or “delicious teens.com” or ohmyGod!

My guess? I’m guessing Richard ‘Rick’ Parasol. Tiburon’s latest billionaire. (see A Tale of Two Houses Lecture Notes 07-27-05) But . . . but . . . his com . . . com . . . company only does the bi . . . bi . . billing.

Counselor: Well you are not going to accept him as a student are you?

He seems a very stu . . . stu . . . studious student. Very diligent. And perhaps he will have a job for me? God works in strange ways and that sort of thing.

Counselor: Well you wouldn’t accept that would you?

. . . well . . . well . . . I . . . I don’t want to die . . . he is perhaps our last hope . . . strange no? Eh, besides, I’ve been thinking we should have . . . a sex education class----

Counselor: This is pornography not sex education.

There is an interesting association between pornography and politics. Paul Johnson traces the rise of the Left, the “liberal” party, to the advent of pornography in the 1820’s. The poet Shelly and his wife, they had an “open marriage” you know, well . . .

Counselor: . . .

. . . no? Well anyway he adds some color to the last hours. The harlequin mask at the Venetian costume ball . . . death . . . and absurdity . . . we are all of us passing echoes in time . . . how can anything so insubstantial as life be taken seriously . . . but all the same there is some bitterness mixed in it.

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Social Equity at New Ruskin College

2005-07-29T13:27:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 07-28-05

Trade Equity

Note: There are many things I had wanted to write about which will be left undone. This is one that I had wanted to use to challenge American trade unions when NAFTA was being discussed a decade ago . . . . .

Social Equity Trade Tariffs are theoretically possible but in practice political pressure would push them up to restrict competition and protect the politically powerful domestic pressure groups.

What are Social Equity Tariffs? In principle it can be seen that part of the reason Chinese or Mexican goods under price American goods is that the domestic goods carry in their price the cost of educating American children. And vaccinating them. And providing sewer plants, and sidewalks, and . . . You got the picture?

Regular visitors will recall previous Lectures in which we have explained how “information” is conveyed to the consumer in the “bottom line.” For example we have previously explained that the so called “progressive income tax” does not fall as the IRS tax tables “objectively” suggest, on the narrow income bands setout in the tables, but rather they, like all other taxes and in fact all other costs of any type, are redistributed by the dynamics of the market economy.

This is called the price mechanism tax transfer. All companies and individuals operating at a profit are operating in a tax free state, for the “profit” confirms that all costs have been accounted for in the price, the “bottom line”. Their so called “progressive income tax” along with their “property tax” and their special district “sidewalks and curbs” taxes, all taxes, and all other costs have been charged off to the consumers of the good or service.

(What has not yet been examined is how this never ending round of price increases results in the inflation or over pricing of American labor and goods. Note that as America is priced out of the world market the American elite can shift itself to world trade abandoning the American people. For example we have extensively examined how the Blue States of Massachusetts, New York, England, and California have used exclusionary zoning and building restrictions to force up the cost of housing. Owners of real estate have experienced price appreciation of their assets yet see how these economies now have higher costs without higher increases in productivity. This is called inflation. The workers in these states now must try to increase their wages in order to afford shelter, which if they are successful will further increase their prices relative to other nations to the extent these price increases do not arise out of increased productivity. Though Californian workers will become less productive on the world market the American elite can simply transfer its activities to the lower cost producers. This is true even if it was this very same elite who originally set off the rounds of inflation with its anti-growth and no growth construction policies. (And note this is true even when this very same elite follows an “open borders” policy in the form of Mr. Bush’s White House. Unlimited immigration while simultaneously down zoning and excluding may appear here as a contradiction yet this logical fact need not in anyway influence the policy makers, the elite, who are free to defy logic and justice. At one time the American elite felt duty bound to increase the opportunities for the American people, i.e. to lower the cost of food, housing, etc. etc. not increase these costs. But this was a very long time ago.)

In principle then the toaster imported from China sells for $10 and not $11 because the $1 tax needed to pay for the education of China’s children has not been charged to the Chinese toaster manufacturer. Had health care been charged: $11.25. Place antipollution scrubbers on the steel plant which made the steel for the toaster: $11.26.

A brief review of the cost of sewer plants, schools, roads, houses, vaccinations, pollution controls, etc., etc., would allow the computation of the Social Equity Tariff to be imposed.

What makes this Tariff a Social Equity Tariff and not simply a Trade Tariff in restriction of international trade is that the entirety of the tariff is then rebated to the country of origin. If after calculation of the Social Equity costs the toaster now costs $16.35 the full amount of the tariff, $6.35, is then rebated to China. (The administrative cost should be born by a neutral third party, the OECD for example, and could be paid out of the interest on the float prior to rebate.)

The principle of Social Equity is that the consumers in the First World should not be enriched by the failure of the nation of origin to provide education for its children. The products should bare the full price necessary for sustainable social development.

Of course, the nation of origin could in turn simply rebate the checks to the producers without spending the money on the social goods and services, i.e. subsidize its exports. Or take the money and spend it on other activities, the military, for example. Such diversions would have to be monitored and the tariffs modified accordingly to counteract these diversions.

However, though in principle these calculations are quite simple at a practical political level the added Social Equity Tariff would be raised until the trade ceased as politically powerful groups, trade unions, domestic manufacturers, pushed for ever higher tariffs to restrict trade not Social Equity.

So we see the ever greater exploitation of labor in developing countries as those governments oppress the workers so that goods can be produced without the costs of vaccines, school books, pollution controls.

We could every quarter meet with the governors of Mexico and hand them Tariff Checks for the millions of dollars raised in America on the goods imported into the USA to pay for the roads, hospitals and schools their growing country needs. But instead the American consumer enjoys a good produced at the cost of Social Equity.

Why?

First because as has been stated above, the difficulty is that the system of tariffs would soon be exploited by the political elite to protect the elite not to increase Social Equity.

But more fundamentally the reader will note his own lack of interest in a program which will increase the cost of goods here, while providing social goods to “foreigners” in Mexico or China. ‘What’s in it for me?’ is the question that has been knocking around in the back of the reader’s head and now, seeing that there is nothing for the reader, the reader is unsatisfied and the reader’s interest is rapidly waning.

So much for Social Equity.

Children in China will move through polluted streets to slave wages workshops to produce goods for the reader that do not include the cost of schools, houses, all the things that make society sustaining.

Think about that the next time you go to the store and reach for the box on the shelf.

About what?

About the fact that the reader is not interested.

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Billionaire's Club at New Ruskin College

2005-07-27T08:35:00.000-07:00

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A Tale of Two Houses

From: (http://www.washingtonlife.com/backissues/archives/01apr/real_estate.htm)

Still another lawyer has parted with a D.C. property. Attorney William Green was assisted by Washington Fine Properties' listing agents Diane Fentress and Adaline Neely in the sale of 4875 Loughboro Road N.W. to John Reilly and Margaret Warner. Jean Smith of RE/MAX represented the buyers in the purchase of their new $1.2 million home which boasts five bedrooms and four fireplaces. Meanwhile, Weichert realtor Penny Yerks, who recently won a regional award for the "Highest Resale Dollar Volume," got John and Margaret $1,875,000 for their previous residence located at 175 River Park Drive in Great Falls, Virginia. Readers may recall that in 1984, John Reilly headed-up the Vice Presidential selection process for Walter Mondale. Margaret Warner is the chief Washington correspondent with PBS's "NewsHour with Jim Lehrer." The new owners of their former River Park Drive address are lawyer Terry Wingfield and his wife Fran.

June 27 - Tiburon If you've spent much time on the Sausalito side of the Bay, at Ayala Cove, or the dock at Sam's Anchor Cafe in Tiburon on Sundays, you've no doubt seen a loud and obnoxiously-operated red cigarette-type boat roaring around, often with topless women. . . . He was uncharacteristically down in the dumps one day at the pool, so we asked him why. He explained that he has a 200-unit or so apartment house in the South Bay with working class tenants. He said he was upset because the other person in the deal wanted to raise the rents just because they could. "We've got all these tenants busting their asses in low wage jobs just trying to pay their rent," he moaned, "and this other person wants us to squeeze another $250,000 a year out of them. It makes me sick." This was about five years ago.

Lecture Notes: 07-27-05

I just want to celebrate another day of living ----

Counselor: You are on.

The San Rafael Police were at it again last night. Not the sirens but that warning tone, sounds like a buzzer. What do you call that?

Counselor: And that too is my fault?

Well when Sedge Thomson or was it the Red Comedian over at KQED got you to betray me, I think part of your thinking was ---

Counselor: You know we are on.

Ah, fine this is part of the lecture.

Counselor: This is supposed to be The Tale of Two Houses?

That is what I am talking about. You live in Marin I live in Alameda. That was part of your thinking. And part of living in Marin is that you have these police departments which will carry out intel operations and photocopy the notebook and give it to Michael Weiner in less than 24 hours.

Or the Mill Valley Police trying to set up an incident with the school children. I have parked my car for years on the same street and they have never bothered it until the Mill Valley Police man is lurking near by. (Note O’Reilly, this is why I live my life like the “Groundhog Day”. (That way I can detect what is out of order.))

Did you know that the San Rafael Police would break into the Colonial Motel Suspect’s room and give the notebook to Michael Weiner? No, not exactly. Or that the Mill Valley Police would try to set me up for a felony? No.

But part of your calculation was that you knew you lived in the middle of this vast network of relations. Relations with the police and Sheriff of Marin and you knew that they are largely unregulated. They can do whatever they want. And you knew there were other relationships, with KQED and the Red Comedian and Sedge Thomson, and with Ron Owens at KGO, and on and on.

When I first moved to Marin I shared a townhouse in Mill Valley with Helga Lohr Bailey.

Counselor: No, first you had that apartment in San Rafael.

Yes! (Photographic memory.) You are right. I had forgotten. Then later I tried again to start over and rented in Marin. Yes I remember now. I have tried and tried.

Helga Lohr Bailey was an old Red from the 1930’s. A Jew who fled the NAZIs and married Mr. Bailey for the US citizenship she used to explain. He was a labor organizer as I recall. They were united in Red solidarity.

She worked at KPFA radio station in Berkeley. Some sort of “European News Report” or something like that. She was a difficult room mate.

Counselor: How is it that you end up in these relationships? I mean you are a conservative Republican and your roommate is an old Red, working at KPFA? Why do you think that is?

Sweetheart, . . . we are in the middle of a lecture . . . I am sure our audience wants to hear about the Two Houses, zoning, tax, government regulation, you know there is a kind of conservatism to the recent opposition to the Kelo decision. They support exclusionary zoning and, (or that should be AND), they support abolition of redevelopment zones. They oppose all progress! They do not want the government to allow construction anywhere! (And what are they but Post Liberal also?)

But . . . I have been thinking that my arguments have had more appeal with the left with liberals than with conservatives. People like Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity just don’t get it. “What’s the big deal?” they ask.

My arguments are directed not to conservatives but to the center or left of center to get them to come closer to the line, or even cross over. This is why here in the Bay Area I got so much unwanted attention.

I challenged their thinking, there long held assumptions. They really believe they are helping “the poor” and when I show that the opposite is true they are not only surprised but actually angry.

For example, all those people in the South Bay apartment complex owned by the Tiburon resident, the billionaire, Richard ‘Rick’ Parasol, are forced to pay an extra $250,000 it is because as Mr. Parasol says, because he “can.” Just that. The market condition is that he can raise the price. And why can he? Because the liberal establishment, the Democrats, liberals like Bernie Ward, and people like your friend Ron Owen, and good Democrats like the Marin Senators Boxer and Feinstein, because all of you working in combination, have created the situation in which the people are subject to the predation of the Parasols of Marin.

Those people are victims of liberalism. (Though I should say victims of Post Liberalism, in deference to our old Magistor Ludi, Daniel Patrick Moynihan. For he would have understood the distinction. (If you want to criticize the Democrats do so because they never considered Moynihan as their Presidential candidate.))

But you and your liberal friends in Marin, Berkeley, San Francisco have lived very comfortably in your homes, smug in the belief that you are ‘good’ and when it is shown that you are elitist egotists, pursuing your own interests at the expense of the people your friends actually become angry. And alas angry not at themselves and their hypocrisy but at me.

This is why they used you. This is why the county police and sheriff are gunning for me. This is why they all rejoice in my pending death.

So no. I do not blame you for the San Rafael Police last night. You did not create this society of hate and greed and delusion. You are just part of it.

But, to answer your question, I do not know why I ended up living with the old Red, Helga Lohr Bailey. Do you . . .?

Counselor: Oh! Now I am going to get blamed for that too?

Thank you Yvonne.

Counselor: You are welcome.

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Paul Duke at New Ruskin

2005-07-26T17:47:00.000-07:00

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07-25-05

This is a story of two houses.

You live in one house. I in the other.

Did you notice Sean Hannity, (Hey, Buddy!), hasn’t had anything more to say?

No more pokes? No more Jibes?

Give me one last smack before I go? Hey I know, I bet you a dinner at Ruth’s Chris Steak House . . . you don’t want to play? And I thought you were a player Sean. Buddy?

And this too is part of the story about the two houses. Hannity lives in one with the Tiburon billionaires, and I live in the other one.

But first I want to tell you how I came to see Yvonne again----

Counselor: You are rambling.

No, no, I will get back to the houses but first I want ----

Counselor: You are tired. Why don’t you get some sleep?

And I want to talk about those who condemn the Muslims for being violent while demanding we commit nuclear genocide. I want----

Counselor: Remember what your mother used to say?

What? . . . My mother? What do you ----

Counselor: She would say everything will look better in the morning. Remember?

How?

Counselor: And she has been right so far hasn’t she?

Paul Duke in Memoriam

“We are no relations. Not that Clan.
Not that Clan!--- Paul Duke

After writing a number of letters to President Bush, (41), and the Senate, Mr. Bush and several Senators began responding to my letters with veiled references during press conferences or from the floor of the Senate. Over time as they learned of my letters and the interest shown, many members of the press started making references of there own to what I had written. It became a kind of game I think.

I took no particular interest for I had intended to write about laser disks in education, do what I could to promote technology in education, (I had promised myself when I was in school that I would “do something,” (for there seemed no reason to me, then or now, why we had to make education so miserable), and then I planned to kill myself. This was before I met Yvonne and came to think that there was any alternative.

(Now, after fifteen years of harassment and oppression I am again brought to the end. Ironically it is because of the attention the letters achieved that I was followed and persecuted, first by the “oh so cool liberals” at KQED, then the lunatic Michael Weiner, and then by everyone else, Ron Owens, Don Imus, Michael Krasney, Mrs. Jack Swanson. Envy? Was it Envy? God knows. After fifteen years they have ruined me and I am again forced to seek refuge from time.)

Unintentionally I contributed to the “game” by limiting the distribution of the letters. I started off sending copies to all Senators but gradually limited “membership” to those who responded. I would mail several dozen letters at a time but only to the select group of Senators who had made some covert reference. (For example, one Senator, who was not included on the distribution list made some statement about my most recent letter and in the next one, addressed to him, I congratulated him on his acceptance to the club.) Then as members of the press learned about the letters and came to understand the covert references they too started to play, making references of their own to what I had written. It became a kind of game I think.

Washington Week in Review became a venue. For example after mentioning Buddhism in several letters the regular correspondent Hanes Johnson, (I believe his brother is Chalmers Johnson one of whose books I had quoted, (Japans Public Policy Companies, as I recall, (all my books are in boxes, (I could not bring myself to give them away after all, (but when I’m dead what the diff?))))), commented “There are a lot of conservative Buddhists in Japan.”

Part of the joke here is that in America Buddhist are all liberals. But you have to figure that the reason people are attracted to foreign religions is because they are dissatisfied with their own religions, and if dissatisfied with their own religions you can expect that they will be dissatisfied with much else. Rebels.

So American Buddhism is colored by this fact that most of its members are liberals, Greens, radicals, i.e. misfits. Alan Watts and most teachers, (the good ones), are at pains to try and point out this misperception, to correct this misinterpretation. For example the Tao Te Ching comments than one should not “display weapons.” Watts commented to his young students, this was the 1960’s, that the word is “display” not own. But most Americans assume Buddhist are leftists because of the self selection process among the small group that control Buddhist centers in America, a situation not unlike that with our colleges, where a small group of radicals are also in control.

Paul Duke himself made several references to what I had written in a number of letters. I recall that I had had some success with one letter, after which a number of personages commented. (see July 30, 1991, Senator Bradley, in the New Ruskin Project Archives at the Moynihan Memorial Library) I had pointed out in that letter that the South had been settled by Celtic peoples whereas the North on the other hand had been settled by the English.

I pointed out that much of the North South difference is really Celtic English differences. For example, “Black Pride”, I claimed, could be traced back to “Southern Pride”, and I said , “Southern Pride” can in turn be traced back to “Scottish Pride.” One Senator appeared on the floor of the Senate and seemed to make a point of saying he had “pride” in his State, in his people, etc. (Senator Gore as I recall.)

Then later Senator Moynihan was appearing on TV with someone, (the former quarter back who was Secretary of HUD), who was as usual extolling Adam Smith and our “Anglo Saxon traditions----.” Senator Moynihan interrupted him, “Celtic sir, Celtic, Adam Smith was Scottish not Anglo Saxon; let’s have no more of your Anglo Saxons.”

Also in that letter I made a point to explain that in the South clan was an inherited form of social organization, and that Black Americans had themselves also formed extended family groups under the Celtic influence of the clan tradition. Eleanor Holmes Norton that week seemed to go out of her way to claim that Black Americans had inherited their extended relations from their African roots and not from their Celtic slave masters.

Then Paul Duke ended the week with a Friday broadcast of Washington Week, by saying that several letter writers to his show had asked if he was related to David Duke, the notorious David Duke who was at that time being used to attack conservatives, including me, (see Senator Hollings).

Said Paul Duke: “We are no relations. Not that Clan. Not that Clan!”

I was not amused.

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Sean Hannity at New Ruskin College

2005-07-24T11:10:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 07-21-05

Hannity Responds:

Sean Hannity 07-21-05 went on the air and announced that he was “married” to his show and his audience.

I think he has been cheating on us.

For example, when introducing Dr. Hammesfahr as a “Noble Prize Nominee.” Didn’t Sean Hannity first consider that his audience would be able to see how dishonest he was? He did not care about our opinion of him or his credibility. We do not count in his estimation of the power situation.

Or when discussing the Bush open borders policy he said to an irate caller, “they are introducing technology to police the border. . . .” a line right out of the White House briefing instructions to stooges. Even Rush Limbaugh will criticize the Bush open border policy. But not Sean.

Or in discussing the Kelo decision he repeatedly claimed that the Supreme Court was taking, or seizing property, etc., instead of telling the truth that the court had permitted, or deferred to the elected officials, allowed that they should first decide what is a public purpose. Does he want only judges to decide what is a public purpose? Of course he was not himself proposing anything he has no ideas of his own.

Sean Hannity has recommended Michael Weiner’s books (“a great read”) and had him on his TV show. Weiner for his part now refers to Hannity as “that Irishman” or “Pawn Hannity” or “Mr.” --- well you get the idea.

Hannity is a suck up. He sucks up and kicks down.

He knows that Weiner and Mrs. Jack Swanson have used their influence to ruin my life. He knows about the burglary, about the stalking me from place to place, job to job . . . he knows and does not care.

He goes out of his way to show that he does not care, or even to let it be known that he enjoys the spectacle of his radio colleagues destroying another.

He delights in cruelty.

Sham Hannity.

And consider Al Franken recently going out of his way to show his enjoyment in another’s suffering, even suicide.

This is our society.

“Not bad for a homeless guy.”
---- Sean Hannity, 07-20-05, at the end of an “interview” with Senator McCain ( McCain see 4-28-05, Lecture Notes: 5-18-05, Lecture Notes: 07-18-05 Protest)

You see Sean, when you do things like this your business partners just don’t understand.

They are thinking: “We give him payola every week to mention Ruth's Chris Steakhouse, on the air, (how much do they give you Sean? all reported to the IRS is it Sean?), and now we have an IPO about to come out, an IPO for Christ sake! . . . and dis radio c___ s___ing dick is going ta screws it all up so he can f___ wit’ some guy in California? What a Long Island sack of s___.”

See Sean, your business partners have been working this scam for some time now. And you were just a part of it. To help with the buzz. Mention those delicious steaks, talk it up, get . . . what $10,000 a mention? Oh, $1,000? . . . cheap radio advertising . . . and this would help with the IPO, and God knows they need help with the IPO.

This pig needs a lot a lipstick: “debt load, which came in at $116 million as of March 27.”

They have not only cooked Sean Hannity some free steaks, they have cooked the books. They had to: “Revenue, which fell in 2001 and 2002, rose 14.6 percent last year and operating income climbed 50.6 percent from the year earlier.”

Sound impressive? How do you like that “.6%”? Not just “14%” but see that little something extra? Sean helped with that did you Sean?

Impressive? It is not until the end of the article that you will read: “Ruth's Chris didn't open any new restaurants last year and closed two locations, including one in Manhattan, as it overhauled its management, including hiring a new chief executive in March 2004.” (New chief executive? Gee I wonder why? Some problem with the books? Or . . .?)

Does ya sees? If you do not open any restaurants you do not have any of those “expenses.” Helps with the “balance sheet.” (Never mind that the business plan is to open 80 new restaurants with all those expenses.)

But the business “reporters” are all over the “trend in eating out” and how Sean’s favorite restaurant is free from any risk of a turn down in the economy. How so? Because it is so expensive! See? That is where the rich go to eat so, yas knows, the rich’s gota eat. Rich men like Sean, does ya sees?

But the reported did tell us who the players are, Sean Hannity’s business partners and why the IPO is so important to them: “Madison Dearborn could receive an additional payment from selling 1.7 million shares covered by the underwriters' over allotment option. . . . Other holders of junior and senior preferred stock are set to be paid a total of $20.6 million by Ruth's Chris.”

I wondered why Sean Hannity didn’t talk about how the IRS was auditing him. They even came to his studio to search for records. “I just never talk about it” is all he would say, on the air.

When I was targeted by the IRS (see The IRS and the Illegals from the North), I felt it was my duty to tell how, during the Clinton administration, the IRS revealed my name to the very people that they had asked me to help investigate, Crawford and Company, and told them that I had cooperated in the investigation. But not Sean Hannity: “I just never talk about it”. (Sees ya? Yas just gota dummy up. See? When das police are – ya know – questionings ya, you just gota dummy up. Right Sean?)

And for those of you who think the economy is an evenly rotating system of objective fixed relations here is an interesting example. Here at New Ruskin we have argued that, for example, the IRS tax tables do not accurately explain who actually pays the tax.

We have argued that the rich, (those who are making goods and services which are in high demand), pass on their taxes to their consumers in higher prices, (the price mechanism of tax transfer). This is why the poor have such a high “propensity to spend” they end up paying their own taxes, and all the other taxes, and all other expenses in the price of the goods they purchase. We have explained that both Democrats and Republicans misrepresent the situation, each for their own political calculation.

But let us now consider the true value of the payola paid by Ruth's Chris to Sean Hannity every time Sean mentions the steakhouse chain. How much is the under the table payment, (the tax free payment), worth to Sean given Sean’s tax bracket? For extra credit, Class, How much income must Ruth's Chris hide in order to pay Sean?

But now with the IPO, Sean, the stakes are much higher. How much is Sean getting out of the IPO? How much extra commission must the underwriters charge to pay Sean? (All reported is it, Sean?)

This is why yas “business partners” doesn’t understands yas Sean. Why would you mess with some guy in California right now, right when the IPO is coming out?

Now it is not just the IRS, and the FCC, but Sean wants to add the SEC!

See Sean? It is things like this that give good old boys from Long Island a bad reputation.

And “not bad for a homeless guy” didn’t even fit in the conversation with Senator McCain. You are supposed to at least try and work it into the conversation. See? That is what makes them covert.

Otherwise you just look like a dick.

ps Secrets and secrets. So many secrets. And this is the whole society. Top to bottom. Why didn’t socialism work. The economist say because it did not allow for “economic calculation” but really because people are so dishonest. My tormenters have stalked me for these fifteen years, brought me to the end, and Sean Hannity interviewing Senator McCain wanted to take a little poke. (In the middle of an IPO!) But this is just one small example. A world of hate, cruelty, . . .

Do but seriously consider how much more insupportable and painful an immortal life would be to man than what I have already given him. If you had not death, you would eternally curse me for having deprived you of it; I have mixed a little bitterness with it, to the end, that seeing of what convenience it is, you might not too greedily and indiscreetly seek and embrace it: and that you might be so established in this moderation, as neither to nauseate life, nor have any antipathy for dying, which I have decreed you shall once do, I have tempered the one and the other betwixt pleasure and pain. ---- MONTAIGNE

LIBERAL ISLAM WEB SITES Collected by Charles Kurzman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Islamic Statements Against Terrorism Collected by Charles Kurzman University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
International Tribunal For The Prosecution Of Terrorists Letter From Liberal Arabs & Muslims To The United Nations Security Council & The U.N. Secretary General

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Warner Trades Down at New Ruskin College

2005-07-22T17:31:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Notes: 07-20-05

What is a bubble?

It occurs to me that despite my best efforts you still think that “housing bubble” is an objective question. That is why you consult economists, real estate experts, and the like.

Once again you fall back on the easy: “objective”. And again my sad friends you are wrong. A bubble is a subjective decision, an opinion.

When we say real estate prices are in a bubble what we mean is that we do not believe the prices are sustainable.

But what do we mean: sustainable?

For example, as only 16% of Californian households can afford the median priced home, (see WSJ) then we might think that this is not sustainable. However, and to demonstrate the supremacy of the subjective, suppose now it is argued that in a world of 6 billion people, even if we focus only on the wealthiest ½ of 1 percent, that still leaves us 30 million people, 30 million potential customers, buyers, and many of these potential customers might consider purchasing a home in California?

Consider that in all of the United States we sell each year approximately 7.5 million homes.

That is less than ¼ of the top ½ of one percent of the world’s wealthiest! And what percent of the 7.5 sales need be bought to influence the price and keep it ever upward? If only a fraction of the world’s potential buyers were to decide to purchase a home in the USA, if only as a hedge against the world economy, all homes sold in that year could conceivably be sold to foreign buyers.

So this means that though only 16% of Californians can afford the median priced home, there were tens of millions of potential buyers around the world who could. As we have just seen if only a fraction of this small group were to buy in America not only could all California homes sales be bought up, but all homes sold for the entire year throughout America could be bought!

But now see the point, even though the price of homes could thereby be maintained one might nonetheless conclude that prices are still in a bubble.

Why?

Because one might conclude that the situation is not sustainable. One might consider what effect shutting out the bottom 84% of Californians from purchasing the median priced home would have on the California Republic? (see SFGate ) Consider the China bid for Unocal.

Do you need a degree in Economics to see a bubble? No! Indeed the economist is more likely to think that the bubble is an objective question rather than seeing the deeper issues.

We might say the price is not sustainable because a society which excludes 84% of its members is not sustainable!

There is more to say. I want to go on about the oligarchy. I want to describe how the oligarchy hides its venality behind liberalism. I want to hold Ms. Warner up to ridicule as an example . . . The rats and the sinking ship . . . leaving the people in the dark . . . and Mr. Bush’s open borders policy, and his support of racial quotas as another example . . . how left and right, Democrat and Republican join together . . . the easy answers, the avoidance of the real issues . . .

And here I want to talk about all of this as examples of our failure to respond to changing situations because of our dishonesty in our appraisal, our unwillingness to be intellectually challenged, our preference for the easy answers which our politicians are all too willing to provide us . . .

And quote Thomas Friedmen: “You can not make it as a B+ student in Brooklyn anymore.” (I think quoting Bill Gates approvingly.) That the reader can not see in Friedmen’s words the same dishonesty proves the point. This intolerance for the B+ barely conceals the utter disdain for the B, and the C, and what of the others? To say, almost joyfully, “can not make it,” is dishonest because it is easy, because it avoids the really serious questions. Like the Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O’Reilly, Glenn Beck, Michael Weiner, pap, and mental popcorn . . . with its focus on “excellence” and “success” and its repeated “this is what makes America great . . .” pomposity.

For example, California accepts the top 12% of its high school graduates into the UC system and the top 25% into the CSU system. Yet in a world of 6 billion people accepting only the top 3% would produce a potential entering freshman class of over 45 million students of college age, more than the total population of California. (There are a little over 2 million students in California colleges.) Why reach all the way down to the twelfth percentile? Why not just the top 3%? Why not the best? (From around the world? Don’t you believe in meritocracy?) Indeed, due to Mr. Bush’s open border policy, and California’s rule never to ask the legal status of students at its universities, the only thing preventing the rush on the colleges is the cost of the air faire to get to California.

And I wanted to describe how all of this is part of the bubble economy, for the bubble is not just the price, it is all of this subjective evaluation, critical thinking, of what is and is not sustainable . . . You could be expanding opportunities, using laser disks in education, world wide, you could be building more houses, using modular construction, building nuclear power plants . . .

I used to think that racial and gender quotas caused the deterioration in relations, encouraged the VICTIMs to act out, confirmed them in their false belief of moral superiority, encouraged their hatred and arrogance, etc. , but now I see that a society capable of enacting such a spoils system already had so ruined its human relations, so objectified its prejudices . . .

But as I say, I had a great deal more to say about this and much else . . . here are some links . . .

July 18, 2005 , House prices drop 1%, says Rightmove
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,9064-1698783,00.html
International investors play big role in S. Florida's housing boom
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/southflorida/sfl-zhousing15jul15,0,1483602.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines

Condo crazy at the heart of a boom
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0708/p01s01-usec.html

Europe buys more Florida homes
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/12135106.htm

As the last hours unfold it all seems pointless . . . Farmersinsurance.com, keeps checking waiting for the end, and StateFarm.com, and Travelers.com, and AIG.com, . . .

And it changes nothing for me to point out that Farmers Insurance was about to fall to BBB rating. (Only AAA rated insurance companies can write insurance for mortgaged homes.) Only the transfer of $10 billion from the parent company, Zurich Financial, kept the rating. It means nothing to point out that they have made one bad decision after another. (Previously I reported the $130 million judgment for overtime pay for 2,000 adjusters in California.) But the failure to use computers to track the claims inventory in part resulted from their pushing work off onto their adjusters . . . why invest in computers when you can simply make your staff work an extra 15 hours a week? Free labor drives out technology. See also farming. Building trades. Do you not see this as another example? Don’t you see . . .

Well . . . it changes nothing.

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Messages at New Ruskin College

2005-07-22T12:18:00.000-07:00

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Lecture Note: 07-19-05 Confirmation of Message

Al! Come on. You left out “brain matter.” That was the punch line wasn’t it?

What do you think folks? Al Franken? Comic genius?

You could try the vomiting into the metal trashcan. I think Glenn Beck podcasts . . . you could download it?

So there you are Dr. Pearson, Al Franken has given you the confirmation. What? Still not sure?

I know Al, you could do the Imus thing for Dr. Pearson. You know the one: “If you say you are going to do something you should do it.” That one.

O’Reilly used that line. Go ahead do the “if you say you are going to . . .”

Just a minute Dr. Pearson . . . . Go ahead Al . . .

Al? . . .

Al . . . go ahead do the Imus line for Dr. Pearson.

336. yale.edu 1 12

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