Ranting The Truth, not Gassing Political Platitudes

Bombed in Boston, Weeping in Somalia

2013-04-16T07:23:00.000-07:00

On the very same day that bombs at the Boston Marathon injured and killed innocent people, many other innocent people died in bombings in Somalia, Kenya, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. However, the major world news media gave their attention almost exclusively to Boston.

Immediately I grieved with those who grieve in Boston, and was angry against those individuals responsible for this horrendous deed, and hoped they would be brought to justice. It is human nature to grieve most strongly for our own people; that is a fact. Bostonians grieve for the dead in Boston, Somalians grieve for the dead in Somalia. But it is my contention that, in an age when the world has become very small, that we need to think of the entire world as our local community.

That is why I grieve not just for Boston but likewise for those in other countries who also weep for their loved ones killed by premeditated violence – every day. Their emotional agony is no less real and heart-rending than the agony felt in Massachusetts.

Some heartless people informed me that Boston has more of a right to grieve because such acts of terrorism are relatively rare in the United States, and/or that it’s “news” in the States, but not in Somalia. They told me that people are used to death in Kenya, so their grief is lessened by the frequency of it. They assured me that life is of little value in Iraq and Afghanistan, so nobody cares when a mother or a brother or a child is killed.

I am shocked by such attitudes. Their views verge on verbalizing bigotry, that the worth of a human being in Somalia is far less than the worth of a human being in Boston.

A child whose mother has been killed by a bomb, or a mother whose child has been killed by a bomb, is the same worldwide. Just because it happens more often in Kenya, for instance, doesn’t mean a husband or wife, a father or mother, says to him- or herself, “Ah, these things happen every day in my country, unlike Boston. So those Bostonians have a right to grieve, but I should just suck up and forget about my dead spouse or child because life means nothing here, not like it does in Boston.”

Some people object to my views, saying that drone missiles and bulldozing Palestinian homes are necessary acts of war, but that bombing the Boston Marathon is terrorism. What these people forget is that that innocent people are dying in both situations, including innocent children. And these people forget, too, that the perpetrators of both horrors each believe that their deeds are a necessary act of war. Those who commit violence against innocent people in the United States and Western Europe say they are at war with the West, and that these bombings are necessary acts of war. Likewise, the United States government says it is at war with several other countries, and that the drone missiles that kill innocent people are a necessary act of war. I say that bombing innocent civilians at a footrace is incredibly evil – and that drone strikes on innocent civilians are likewise incredibly evil. Neither should be tolerated.

I am an absolute pacifist. I do not believe war, or acts of violence, are ever good. I want to see all of this stopped, before the world is turned to cinders floating in space. I refuse to justify drone missiles, and I refuse to justify bulldozing Palestinian homes, and I refuse to justify bombing the Boston Marathon. They are all violent deeds that solve nothing.

So why is it that the corporate media only tell us about Boston, and not about the hundreds who die in bombings elsewhere in the world? Because they want us to hate all Muslims and all Middle Eastern countries. The plutocrats who own the media also own the military hardware corporations. They make fortunes by selling war material to the government, and additional fortunes rebuilding, at taxpayer expense, the same buildings and bridges they destroyed at taxpayer expense. War brings them big profits. If the people of the United States start to feel sympathy for Middle Easterners, war will be harder to sell. These billionaires know that prejudice and parochialism is good for business.

Therefore, those terrorist plutocrats want us to feel that the deprivation, enslavement, torture, and killing of people in other countries, and of other religions, is justified. They want us to believe it promotes our sense of safety and plenty. The truth is that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have made the world even more unsafe.

Nor – despite common belief – is the United States innocent or immune. Drone missiles are killing children every day – and they’re made in the United States. At Guantanamo Bay people are incarcerated without being charged and without trial, in defiance of the U.S. Constitution. The police in the United States were ordered by the plutocrats to crush the Occupy movement. And yet U.S. citizens think their country is immune from the horrors done by the terrorist plutocrats.

Thus, I do not hate nations or religions, nor do I blame them for this deed. All religions, including Islam, preach peace. All religions, including Christianity, preach understanding. It is understandable to hate the perpetrators of an evil act and want to see them brought to justice. But it is horribly wrong to blame entire nations or religions for such an evil deed. The deity I believe in is a God of Peace. And the deity I believe in is not only the god of the United States, but of the world. That deity loves all people, and not just those in one country.

This world is small and extremely fragile. It is victimized by two kinds of terrorism: the terrorism of the plutocrats who make fortunes from war, and the angry extremists who will go to any means to express their hatred and fear of the plutocrats. As long as we only grieve for some and not for all victims of terrorism, terrorism wins. As long as we hate other nations and other religions, terrorism wins.

When we start thinking globally, standing united with all who grieve in the world, then we begin to walk the path that heads toward real peace. As long as we think only of ourselves, we walk the path that will lead to destruction of this planet. We need to think globally, or the warmongers (including the corporate war merchants in the States) will win, and this planet will be destroyed.

So – yes, I grieve the tragedy in Boston, and I hope those responsible are brought to justice. But I grieve no less for all those, everywhere in the world, who have died at the hands of evil: bombs, drone missiles, “collateral damage”, and all the rest of it. I believe we all, worldwide, need to make vigorous effort to hook up against the corporate masters, the plutocrats who run the governments, who prey on the innocent and feed financially from war.

People are programmed by the media and government in the West to believe that drone attacks are somehow necessary. People are programmed by the media and government in the Middle East to believe that bombings are somehow necessary. We need as people to free our minds from the programming and to reach out and embrace each other, and make peace. Governments and media thrive on war; that’s where their profits are made. But the people, worldwide, suffer. The sooner we wake up and realize this and stand together in opposition to the warmongers, the likelier it will be that this world can be saved from destruction.

I hope you join me on the path to peace.

A Farmer Ploughed Under by Debt

2012-03-30T17:23:00.001-07:00

NOTE: This is a cross-post between James David Audlin's two blogs, "A Writer in Panama" (panamawriter.blogspot.com) and "Ranting the Truth, not Gassing Political Platitudes" (rantingthetruth.blogspot.com)

In Santa Rosa, a quiet village well away from the highways and cities, I visited a farm specializing in milk, rice, and platanos. It is a lovely, quiet place, owned and operated by the same family for generations, is spread out over vividly green hills as full of life a new mother’s breasts, with occasional copses of trees.

I was introduced to the owner, a man in his sixties. His sharply observant eyes were set in a face hardened and lined by weather. His feet stood on the earth the way trees do. He showed us around not with pride but with an unspoken confidence: he didn’t have to convince me that the farm was well-managed because he knew this as well as he knew his own name. He felt no need to hear the polite pompous approbation of a foreigner who probably knows nothing about farming, but like all gringos thinks he knows everything about everything, better than these ignorant Panamanians.

So I was ignored. He went on to discuss with family members the high cost of milking machines, which he said he needs to purchase somehow if he’s going to stay in business. The conversation, in rapid Spanish, was rather technical, with a lot of facts and figures. These people knew their subject; these weren’t ignorant, foolish farm folk, as some people from the urbanized United States might think but sharp-thinking, well-informed agriculturalists. I followed the conversation going on around me as if I weren’t there, and then I offered my own comments.

“It’s similar in the United States,” I told the farmer in Spanish. “Gigantic megafarms, run by huge corporations, are dumping huge amounts of cheap rice and milk on the market in the Northeast and other states. As a result, small farmers in those states are going bankrupt, and their farms being turned into suburban developments or shopping malls. And then, just as soon as these corporations have all the customers to themselves, the prices go up again.”

His eyes widened at my words. I had surprised him, and he was surprised, moreover, that a gringo could surprise him.

To his unspoken question I explained that for a decade, while I was editing the opinion page for a daily newspaper in upstate New York, I wrote editorials expressing considerable concern about dead and dying small to midsized farms. I told him that what local farmers told me as an editor cohered with my personal observations in the north of the state; the farms that had been active when I was a boy are now dusty meadows of weeds, repossessed years ago by the lending institutions.

“It’s the same thing here,” the farmer replied, speaking to me with appreciation and respect in his tone; he knew now that I was not just another ignoramus from the United States blissfully unaware of the damage that country is doing to his. “The same corporations are dumping milk and rice and other farm products on the Panamanian market. The prices are so low that the supermarkets eagerly buy, and we local farmers can’t possibly match those prices.”

“In the United States,” I went on, “farms usually produce much more in tax revenues per acre than they take in public services, such as fire and police protection. In other words, they help keep taxes down. On the other hand, the cost of public services for residential developments and shopping malls are generally higher than what they pay in taxes. The result is that taxes go up as a result of development. But government officials always seem to think the way to cover the shortfall is to authorize more development.”

“Yes,” he agreed. “And typically they, or their friends, are the rich businessmen who benefit from such development.”

This farmer was far from unique; farms are going under throughout Panamá and Central America, and his face reflected his awareness of that fact. He looked around at his beautiful land. His expression was different now; it was as if he could see his farm, too, like the ones in my memory, already subdivided, already covered with houses to sell to expatriate gringos coming to Panamá, eager to buy the good life at lower rates. Or it might be his inward eyes saw here no more than blowing fields, the barn and farmhouse falling in, decay everywhere. One way or the other, it was just a matter of time.

“And what,” he asked rhetorically – not asking me, just asking, “do people think they are going to eat when there are no more farms?”

There wasn’t much I could say to him. We both – as well as his family members – understood each other. We could only nod at each other, sadly. It was no balm for him to meet a citizen of the very country responsible for his woes and find out that his colleagues in that country were also suffering, in the same way, and for the same reason.

As for me, it was painful to hear again in Panamá the same story I’ve heard all my life. The new sorrow to me, and I told him this, was that I had thought those corporation megafarms were only destroying small farms in the United States and Canada; I hadn’t realized on what a global scope their depradations are wreaking havoc.

<><><><><> James David Audlin has released a new book this week! It is "The Book of Dreams", listed below....

<><><><> HARDCOVER EDITIONS:

James David Audlin’s novel "Rats Live on no Evil Star" and the nonfiction book "The Circle of Life" (the complete edition, unlike the shortened version published six years ago) are available in HARDCOVER at:

www.lulu.com/spotlight/JamesDavidAudlin

<><><><> E-BOOK EDITIONS:

Sixteen of his books are now available in E-Book format (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at this website. L'un de ses romans est disponible en français, y una de sus novelas está disponible en español.

www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin

<><><><> PAPERBACK EDITIONS:

The same sixteen books are available in uniform, meticulously copyedited and designed, softcover editions as follows. (Unfortunately, there is no single link for the following.)

Across the Silence: Poems of James David Audlin www.createspace.com/3794120
The Circle of Life: A Memoir of Traditional Native American Teachings www.createspace.com/3803888
Rats Live on no Evil Star (novel) www.createspace.com/3787733
Palindrome (ROMAN EN FRANÇAIS) www.createspace.com/3788729
Palíndromo (NOVELA EN ESPAÑOL) www.createspace.com/3788975
All You Need (novel) www.createspace.com/3789645
Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume I: The Voice of Day www.createspace.com/3791278
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume II: The Wings of the Morning www.createspace.com/3791399
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume III: The Productions of Time www.createspace.com/3791576
Seven Novels Of The Last Days Volume IV: A Mirror Filled With Light www.createspace.com/3792090
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume V: A Stitch in Time www.createspace.com/3792618
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume VI: The Stars Blindly Run www.createspace.com/3793296
Lives of the Saints (stories) www.createspace.com/3793905
Mooreeffoc: Stories from This World (stories) www.createspace.com/3790692
The Other: Stories from Elsewhere (stories) www.createspace.com/3795526
The Book of Dreams: that came to James David Audlin (dreams) www.createspace.com/3835074

Justice, Not Revenge

2012-03-23T10:41:00.005-07:00

Many are the calls for vengeance againt George Zimmerman, the "neighborhood watch vigilante" who is said to have stalked and in cold blood murdered Treyvon Martin, an innocent African American boy whose only "crime" was being black in public, who was carrying nothing more dangerous than candy and a soft drink.

I understand the anger against Zimmerman. Although I am an absolute pacifist, nevertheless this horrible deed enrages me, and I personally wouldn't mind pulling out every one of his toenails and fingernails with rusty tweezers.

But what I tell myself and remind others is that this would not end the horror.

We must bear in mind that white bigots think Zimmerman was entirely justified. Indeed, I've seen some horrifyingly disgusting blogs where white racists had all sorts of reasons why Treyvon Martin "had it coming".

And no less than schlock talk show host Gerald Michael Riviera, who goes by "Geraldo Rivera", has said that Treyvon bears responsibility for his own death because he was wearing a hoodie. Come again, Jerry? Do you also think that a pretty woman in a miniskirt bears responsibility for being brutally raped?

Therefore, if Zimmerman is revenged upon, the white bigots will see this as further proof that they must fight back against the "liberal media" and this "black Muslim foreign-born president". It will not make them understand that Zimmerman committed a horrible crime against an innocent human being. Rather, it will lead them to conclude that they must do exactly what Zimmerman did - take weapons in hand and go out and shoot liberals and minorities. These people already believe there is a war between them and the flood of dark-skinned people, gays and lesbians, and non-evangelical Christian, as well as their weak-kneeds white liberal supporters.
Revenge upon George Zimmerman would only exacerbate this war.

What is more, the ultra-rich plutocrats who are using their proxies in the Tea Party and the Republican Party to destroy our civil rights and take every penny they can from us and put it in their fat bank accounts - these plutocrats are thrilledto see us, the plebeians, divided amongst ourselves. When we engage in class war, we are doing their work for them! We are making it easier for the plutocrats to take over and destroy the world in their quest for more fortunes.

Instead of crying for vengeance against George Zimmerman, he should be treated strictly within the bounds of law and justice. He should be arrested, charged, and given an impeccably fair trial. If he has a legitimate alibi for murdering this boy, he should be given every chance to voice it. If he starts spouting bigotry against everyone but his bigoted friends, let him.

We need to show Zimmerman and all of his bigoted friends that justice comes not from violence but from truth, integrity, and dispassionate fairness. And we need to show the ultra-rich plutocrats who are out to destroy the structures of law and justice that they, too, could be found guilty of crimes against humanity.

A deeper tragedy is that this kind of bigotry happens all the time. I used to date a beautiful black woman, and I not just saw, but felt, simply from being in her company, being clearly her romantic partner, frequent glares, nasty comments, and outright maltreatment aimed at her, and at me for being involved with her. Every African-descended resident of the United States, and people of other minority descent too, has experienced this kind of bigotry nearly every day. And the bigots get away with it because the system allows it.

The system has, thus far, protected George Zimmerman. He goes free, while his victim is dead and buried. The police haven't done a thing - because, as sadly is so often the case, police departments are bastions of bigotry, pulling over African-American drivers for no reason other than their color, and charging them, and beating the merdeout of minorities under arrest while letting whites get the cushy treatment.

What we who care about Treyvon need to do is keep pointing out that this is not a tragic but isolated event - that it happens every day in every city in the United States, and many cities in Europe and elsewhere. And that it will not stop until we all say with one voice that bigotry must stop, the system must be once again a mechanism for ensuring that all the children of G-d are treated with courtesy and respect, and that those who fail to do so will be prosecuted. This is the answer to violent bigotry: not calls for vengeance but calls for justice.

INFORMATION ON JAMES DAVID AUDLIN'S BOOKS - Many released just weeks ago, and more coming soon!

<><><><> HARDCOVER EDITIONS:

James David Audlin’s novel "Rats Live on no Evil Star" and the nonfiction book "The Circle of Life" (the complete edition, unlike the shortened version published six years ago) are available in HARDCOVER at:

www.lulu.com/spotlight/JamesDavidAudlin

<><><><> E-BOOK EDITIONS:

Sixteen of his books are now available in E-Book format (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at this website. L'un de ses romans est disponible en français, y una de sus novelas está disponible en español.

www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin

<><><><> PAPERBACK EDITIONS:

The same sixteen books are available in uniform, meticulously copyedited and designed, softcover editions as follows. (Unfortunately, there is no single link for the following.)

Across the Silence: Poems of James David Audlin www.createspace.com/3794120
The Circle of Life: A Memoir of Traditional Native American Teachings www.createspace.com/3803888
Rats Live on no Evil Star (novel) www.createspace.com/3787733
Palindrome (ROMAN EN FRANÇAIS) www.createspace.com/3788729
Palíndromo (NOVELA EN ESPAÑOL) www.createspace.com/3788975
All You Need (novel) www.createspace.com/3789645
Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume I: The Voice of Day www.createspace.com/3791278
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume II: The Wings of the Morning www.createspace.com/3791399
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume III: The Productions of Time www.createspace.com/3791576
Seven Novels Of The Last Days Volume IV: A Mirror Filled With Light www.createspace.com/3792090
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume V: A Stitch in Time www.createspace.com/3792618
Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume VI: The Stars Blindly Run www.createspace.com/3793296
Lives of the Saints (stories) www.createspace.com/3793905
Mooreeffoc: Stories from This World (stories) www.createspace.com/3790692
The Other: Stories from Elsewhere (stories) www.createspace.com/3795526

The United States is a THIRD-WORLD COUNTRY

2012-02-26T14:11:00.005-08:00

Friends back home sometimes ask me, “Why did you leave the United States?”

My reply is that I didn’t. I say it's rather that the United States left me – and you and everyone else.

I say this because the United States is turning into an oxymoron: it is, today, an extremely wealthy Third World country.

And, yes, I know a thing or two about Third World countries; I live in the country of Panamá, which is widely considered to be part of the Third World. But my new homeland is a haven of democracy and justice and liberty compared to this strange new United States!

Third World countries are typically marked by oligarchies or dictatorships that do whatever they want, paying no attention to their constitutions. In the United States, the ultra-rich plutocrats control elections such that they have stacked the Congress and state legislatures with bought-and-paid-for puppets. State and federal courts, including the Supreme Court of the United States, have been widely subverted by crass ideologues.

Third World countries are typically marked by a ruling elite that distributes priviliges only to those of their own color and creed. In the United States, the dominant color, white, the dominant religion, evangelical Christianity, and the dominant gender, men, are doing everything they can to consolidate control. Civil rights legislation is being annulled, women’s health rights are being eliminted, and all religious minorities, including liberal Christians, are being systematically hounded.

Third World countries are typically marked by an extreme differential between rich and poor. Nowhere is this more true than in the United States. Most common people are finding it harder and harder to make ends meet - I was not alone in having to work five jobs, and still have trouble paying my bills. I was not alone in seeing my health coverage become more expensive and cover less, and then get eliminated altogether. I was not alone in watching prices for necessities climb ever higher. I am not alone in seeing my pension payments shrink.

Third World countries are typically marked by an access to decent medical services that is limited to the ruling elite and the wealthy members of the upper class. In the United States, an MRI (Magnetic Resonance Imaging) procedure costs on average $1,080, where in France it costs $280. Most people are forced to wait forever to see a doctor for only the brief moments prescribed by health insurance policies, and to all but force expensive testing and procedures dictated by those companies, out of fear of lawsuits.

Third World countries are typically marked by a gigantic do-little bureaucracy and powerful military that greedily suck in most of the government's finances and engage in meaningless unending wars so the rich profiteers who manufacture expensive missiles and tanks can make more fortunes. The clear and simple reason the United States is in such extreme debt is its unnecessary, unjustified, and extremely expensive wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere – with Iran probably soon to be added to the list. Cutting necessary services to the middle and poorer classes will never balance the budget, but that - plus cutting taxes to the wealthy - is what these crazed rulers are telling us is necessary. And the wars continue.

Third World countries are typically marked by weapons everywhere; by mass murders; by weapons fire for the "fun" of it; by murder for vengeance, robbery, insanity, or bigotry; by military aircraft often streaking across populated areas to keep them in a state of intimidated fear. The United States has more weapons per capita than pretty much any other country. It is marked by mass killings, especially lately in schools. It is marked by white bigots killing gays or Muslims or blacks just to "prove" some lame-brained "point" about their hatred of these people.

Third World countries are typically marked by censorship – the use of law to ban certain books from public libraries and schools, to forbid the teaching of certain subjects at universities, to control what doctors may say to their patients and, ultimately, to restrict free speech (both speaking aloud and in print) as regards any healthy criticism of the government and its agents. In Arizona, for instance, a law has forbidden university study of Mexican-American studies (which are important in that border state) and the reading of such classics as “The House on Mango Street”. In several states some of the greatest classics of United States (and other) literature have been banned from classrooms and libraries.

Third World countries are typically marked by rampant use of illegal mind-altering drugs and alcohol. The United States is the biggest consumer of both. The international illegal drug trade is fueled by American with money, and will come to an end not because the police arrest the "mules", the relatively poor people (usually minorities, leading to a far higher percentage of minority prisoners than in the general population) who sell on street corners, but by going after the rich (mostly affluent white) buyers.

Third World countries are typically marked by unusually high rates of violent crime, including rape and murder. Third World countries are typically marked by gigantic prison populations, with most of these comprising an unusually high percentage of whatever minorities are hated. Third World countries are typically marked by legal systems that can be "bought": if you have the money you get justice, but if you are poor you get an unjustly heavy sentence; if you rob a bank you go behind bars, but if you're the president of a financial institution that destroys the savings of millions of families, you get to retire richly. Nowhere are these things more true than in the United States.

Third World countries are typically marked by a gradual disappearance of farmland and a gradual deterioration of infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.). Every year enough farms go out of business in the United States to bulldoze a ribbon several miles wide right across the country. Experts agree that roads and bridges are falling apart, and it is but a matter of time before their disintegration leads not only to transportation difficulties, but injury and death.

Third World countries are typically marked by an increasingly angry populace that is kept helpless by the threat of arrest, prevented from expressing its anger by a heavily armed, unnecessarily brutal police or military. Police in Oakland, California; Atlanta, Georgia; and elsewhere have used excessive force to put down the “Occupy” movement, resulting in injuries and even deaths.

Third World countries are typically marked by news media that refuse to investigate and expose government corruption, but instead defend it, and spread lies and slander against those who still have the courage to speak the truth. Fox News (or, as I call it, Faux Noise) leads the pack, but other news outlets have increasingly shown an alarming tendency toward jingoistic conservatism; all of the countrywide news outlets are owned by ultra-rich potentates who have clearly given orders to downplay this citizens’ revolt. Even National Public Radio, desperately afraid Republicans in the Congress will cut off its funding, has sunken all too often into ultra-right gibberish. The major media, including NPR, at first ignored the Occupy story, then they denigrated it (with false stories about violence and drugs, as not having a clear message, and so on). At the last count I’ve seen, 34 reporters working for independent news outlets (i.e., those not owned by the ultra rich) have been arrested and charged for covering – not taking part in, but covering – Occupy events. And a man who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, Bradley Manning - who had the courage to expose government wrongdoing - remains unjustly behind bars, and will never be set free. He is a martyr, and joins Leonard Peltier as a political prisoner.

Welcome to the future, folks. George Orwell will take your ticket, Aldous Huxley will sell you popcorn, and Yevgeny Zamyatin will show you to your seat.

<><><><><>

Sixteen of my books are now available in E-BOOK format (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at this website. L'un de mes romans est disponible en français, y una de mis novelas está disponible en español.

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin

The same sixteen books are available in uniform, meticulously copyedited and designed, softcover editions as follows.

Across the Silence: Poems of James David Audlin www.createspace.com/3794120

All You Need (novel) www.createspace.com/3789645

Palindrome (ROMAN EN FRANÇAIS) www.createspace.com/3788729

Palíndromo (NOVELA EN ESPAÑOL) www.createspace.com/3788975

Rats Live on no Evil Star (novel) www.createspace.com/3787733

Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume I: The Voice of Day www.createspace.com/3791278

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume II: The Wings of the Morning www.createspace.com/3791399

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume III: The Productions of Time www.createspace.com/3791576

Seven Novels Of The Last Days Volume IV: A Mirror Filled With Light www.createspace.com/3792090

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume V: A Stitch in Time www.createspace.com/3792618

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume VI: The Stars Blindly Run www.createspace.com/3793296

Lives of the Saints (stories) www.createspace.com/3793905

Mooreeffoc: Stories from This World www.createspace.com/3790692

The Other: Stories from Elsewhere www.createspace.com/3795526

The Circle of Life (nonfiction) www.createspace.com/3803888

Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191

Democracy is Dead

2012-02-23T12:45:00.006-08:00

When I hear people discuss a presidential campaign (and in any country, including the United States, as well as Panama, where I live), they often say they would prefer Candidate A, but, since A is not a viable, electable candidate, they’re going to vote for Candidate B instead.

What does it mean to say a certain candidate is “electable”? It means that the news media have said that candidate has broad support among the people. But that’s a tautology, a logical loop-de-loop: people support a candiate because the media say people support that candidate. These people are “electable” because we are being told they are electable, because we are being manipulated into supporting them, instead of following the dictates of our own thought and conscience.

People should have the courage to support whichever candidate they think is the best, whether or not that candidate is deemed by the media to have broad support. In other words, the deciding criteria should be a candidate’s track record, views, and proposed policies, not the media’s anointing of “front runner” status.

This is, ultimately, another mechanism by which any pretense at a genuine representative democracy has been utterly undermined. You become a front-runner when ultra-rich plutocrats invest their money in your campaign, so you will do what the plutocrats want when you’re in office, and not what your constituents who voted for you want.

(And, what is more, the plutocrats get their investments back, because the money is used to purchase advertising time on television networks owned by the plutocrats, to buy storefronts in buildings owned by the plutocrats, to fly the candidate here and there to speak in huge conference arenas owned by the plutocrats, and so on.)

Other techniques for destroying democracy are also well known.

Politicians these days, as reader Zhimeng Yu points out, don't keep their minds open to good solutions. They rather are "branded", representing a previously arranged agenda. You don't get a representative who sincerely wants to fix problems, but one who wants to fix you: to persuade you to agree with the previously arranged agenda. These pre-programmed politicians intransigently resist any and all proposals made by members of other parties, even if they are good, workable proposals. Such intransigence freezes legislative bodies and amply prevents them from getting any real work accomplished. And, as Zhimeng Yu also points out, most people these days are woefully ignorant of economics, law, and even how they get their electricity or water, so they are not well informed enough to manage their public servants.

What is more, by law, the “party in power” is in charge of redistricting; that is, of redrawing the lines that define a voting district, and, in a method known as gerrymandering, they always do so to strengthen their own power and break up into different districts any communities where the other party is strong.

Polling likewise is a joke: whoever is footing the bill gets exactly the results desired (tricks of the trade, besides wording the questions to trigger certain responses, include polling during the day, when more retirees are at home, if you want more “conservative” results). Compare one party’s polling results with those of the other; though supposedly reflecting the views of the same voting bloc, you’ll think the results came from two different planets.

The Electoral College is another one. In presidential elections, the manipulators of the system keep careful tabs on this entity. Originally its purpose was to prevent fraud, but now it's a mechanism for fostering it, with the result that individual voters in most of the country are well nigh irrelevant. If a state's electoral college count is going to be solidly in one camp or another it is no longer subject to the attention of those manipulators. That is to say, if your state's delegation to the Electoral College is clearly going to be in the Democratic or Republican camp, there's no point your going to the polls. However if your delegation's stance is unclear, if it could yet flip one way or the other, then the manipulating begins. Districts in that state where the outcome is known are, like other solid states, ignored. The focus goes right down to neighborhoods in key districts, districts whose raw voting could change the delegate count and therefore whether that state's Electoral College delegates end up in one or another camp. These neighborhoods are peppered with advertising, canvassers, phone callers, offers of rides to the polling stations for people who might not otherwise vote: everything is done by both parties to try to squeeze out a win. And the rest of the country be damned.

The whole idea of “electability”, therefore, is the plutocrats controlling the system. In no way does it reflect the people’s choosing.

Once they get into office, the unfairness continues, because legislators vote at the behest of their party bosses. Political parties are not mentioned in the United States Constitution. And, in my view, they are unconstitutional. The whole thrust of the Constitution is to empower local voters to manage and control government as their servants. The way it is supposed to work is that a majority of voters in your district put Candidate A into office because A reflects their views better than B. Once in office, A then sets out to introduce legislation, or vote for legislation, with those views in mind. The way it works in actuality is that A votes not according to the views of that majority of voters, but at the behest of his or her party bosses. Those party bosses may be elected representatives, too (the Speaker of the House for example), but they represent other districts, not yours; often they are not even elected to office but are simply potentates in the party organization – in either case, you wind up without faithful representation by your elected representative, you are disenfranchised, which is contrary to the intent of the Constitution.

Some have objected to my anti-party views by saying “nothing would ever get done”, since, with hundreds of representatives, each one touting his or her little district’s needs, there would be no means to build consensus or compromise. I disagree. If someone from a certain district makes a good case that that district needs a new bridge, it is discussed in plenary session, and, if other legislators are convinced, and if the money is available, it will be allocated. If the bridge joins two districts, those two legislators present their case conjointly. Such a need is discussed and weighed against other needs elsewhere, so available funds can be best allocated. Nobody presses for their district at the expense of others; they work together, as they should, for the good of all.

Another trick to squelch democracy: Once they get into office, these charlatans keep up only a pretense of debate between the major parties. In reality, it is a happy compromise. Few are the Barney Franks and Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warrens, the genuine statesmen and -women, these days. Most Democrats only go through the motions of reflecting popular sentiment (especially that expressed by the Occupy movement), and they rest content in the knowledge that the Republicans will shoot down any efforts at real reform to the system that that gives them plenty of money and power. And the Republicans do the same, only making feints at pretending to do what they claim to support, knowing the Democrats will help them from making it really happen. It's a "gentleperson's agreement" in effect - the Dems can tell their supporters that they introduced the bills but those dastardly Reps shot the bills down, and the Reps can tell their supporters that, although those dastardly Dems introduced those bills, they, the Reps, bravely shot them down.

Another particularly nefarious nail being driven into the coffin that carries democracy off comes in the guise of religion. Rare is the political candidate who is without a personal religious perspective and membership. But increasingly rare today is the political candidate who thinks holding public office is an opportunity to press home her or his personal religious or ethical views.

I well remember the fear that many citizens expressed when John Fitzgerald Kennedy was running for the presidency, poppycock like that he would be getting his instructions over a hotline connected to the Vatican. Of course all this proved false – because, as former New York Governor Mario Cuomo, another great politician who happens to be Roman Catholic has eloquently explained, the job is to do the will of the people, not to impose one’s personal religious or moral views on everone else.

Thus, unlike some pundits, I have no problem with Mitt Romney being a Mormon. Nor do I have a problem with his being a privileged son of extremely rich, powerful people. Kennedy, too, was the scion of a wealthy, powerful family. But Kennedy stuck to his principles of doing the people’s will for the sake of the people. This is clearly not Romney’s approach; he seems more than ready to impose on the entire country his repugnant political views (or, more likely, those of his plutocrat masters, since he sang a rather different tune as governor of Massachusetts).

But I do have a problem with a system that prevents any serious candidate for political office, no matter how intelligent or qualified, who isn’t extremely wealthy and backed by people even wealthier – especially when these people use political office primarily to benefit the wealthy at the expense of the poor. It used to be that sons in both rich and poor families apprenticed with their fathers at the same work, to learn the trade and prepare for their own lives as husbands and fathers. Nowadays, only the children of the wealthy have this opportunity; no matter how stupid or unqualified, they can be sure of a cushy do-little job with daddy’s big firm. Mitt Romney is rich purely because daddy was rich; if he had had as much opportunity as you and me, he would be worrying about paying the bills just like the two of us. Nowadays, for those of us who aren't born into the plutocracy, our sons and daughters are lucky to find any work at all, and as parents there is little if anything we can do to help them.

Which brings us to Candidate Rick Santorum (or, as I call him, Sanatorium, because that’s where he belongs). Again, I have no problem with his being Roman Catholic or the pampered son of plutocratic potentates. But I have an immense problem with his selectivity as regards what aspects of his faith to promote publicly, and they are all the “conservative” ones; he ignores the strong Roman Catholic support for the poor and the environment, among other things. That is hypocrisy; who is he to say what is Roman Catholic and what is not?

He forgets that there are two kinds of law: civil and religious. As citizens or residents in whatever country we live in, we are all bound by civil law. As participants in whatever religious expression we espouse (if any), we are over and above the civil law required to obey the dictates of of that religious tradition. No matter what our religious viewpoint, it is not only foolish to impose our particular religious view on others who do not hold it, but an insult to the Deity we claim to venerate to drag the higher, spiritual, covenantal, religious law down to the level of merely human, secular, contractual, very human civil law. It is a blasphemous mistake no matter who does it – whether that person is an “Islamist extremist” as the media put it or a candidate for the presidency.

Santorum declares that anyone he disagrees with is influenced by Satan, and anyone he does agree with has accepted G-d’s will. What he forgets is that G-d gave us free will. That is to say: we may be tempted by evil or motivated to do the right thing by good, but we still choose as individuals for ourselves. Yet Santorum foolishly ascribes his words and actions, and everyone else’s, to either G-d or Satan.

What is more, he is guilty of hubris in assuming he is right, and therefore doing the will of G-d, and that those he disagrees with are wrong and therefore doing the will of Satan. That is not only ego, but idolatry. The truth is, although pretty much every person thinks of her- or himself as right, we can never be sure of our own rectitude, and thus we must constantly examine ourselves to strive to be closer to the good.

Sadder yet, Santorum, like the other Republican candidates, is not, or not merely, espousing his religious views. He is entitled (as far as I am concerned) to espouse any views he wants, no matter how repugnant they may be to me. But he is using religion as a tool, as a talking point, merely to try to win votes. Religion is something within the heart and soul (or it should be), not something used to sell automobiles or insurance policies or political candidates.

Santorum talks about the United States of two centuries ago as a kind of golden age. That is when only white men could vote, when African Americans were slaves, when Native Americans were being systematically exterminated and driven from their own homelands, when Latin Americans were on the very fringes of society. People of his ilk don’t care where dark-skinned or gay or Muslim or liberal people go; they don’t care even if there is no “there” for them to go to – rather, these rightwingnuts just want them to go.

And that is why none of them are fit to serve the people as president. And that is why democracy is dead.

I used to say "vote your conscience", rather than "hold your nose and vote for the least repugnant of the so-called electable candidates". More and more I am thinking it is pointless and worthless to vote. Those bright boys in the pinsuits have already calibrated your vote to make it work for them the way they want, democracy be damned. The only way to stop their evil is to boycott elections and take peaceably to the streets.

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Sixteen of my books are now available in E-BOOK format (Kindle, Nook, etc.) at this website. L'un de mes romans est disponible en français, y una de mis novelas está disponible en español.

http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin

The same sixteen books are available in uniform, meticulously copyedited and designed, softcover editions as follows.

Across the Silence: Poems of James David Audlin www.createspace.com/3794120

All You Need (novel) www.createspace.com/3789645

Palindrome (ROMAN EN FRANÇAIS) www.createspace.com/3788729

Palíndromo (NOVELA EN ESPAÑOL) www.createspace.com/3788975

Rats Live on no Evil Star (novel) www.createspace.com/3787733

Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume I: The Voice of Day www.createspace.com/3791278

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume II: The Wings of the Morning www.createspace.com/3791399

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume III: The Productions of Time www.createspace.com/3791576

Seven Novels Of The Last Days Volume IV: A Mirror Filled With Light www.createspace.com/3792090

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume V: A Stitch in Time www.createspace.com/3792618

Seven Novels of the Last Days Volume VI: The Stars Blindly Run www.createspace.com/3793296

Lives of the Saints (stories) www.createspace.com/3793905

Mooreeffoc: Stories from This World www.createspace.com/3790692

The Other: Stories from Elsewhere www.createspace.com/3795526

The Circle of Life (nonfiction) www.createspace.com/3803888

Undr (novel) www.createspace.com/3790191

The Panamanians Shall Inherit the Earth

2011-12-10T04:15:00.000-08:00

Jesus once said that the meek shall inherit the earth. This phrase is often taken as a bit of hyperbole, as his way of saying it’s better to be meek, to be poor and humble, than to be rich and powerful. But I am increasingly convinced that this statement is also to be taken literally, as a prophecy – of what is coming in the near future.

Worldwide destruction, like it or not, is coming, folks, so start getting yourself used to the idea. As the polar ice caps melt thanks to pollution, coastal cities around the globe are in danger of inundation. As the ozone layer dissipates, as clean air and water and food become increasingly scarce, as earthquakes caused by fracking increase in intensity and frequency, as more Gulf of Mexico-like oil spills and Bhopal-like accidents proliferate, as more and more countries plus private militias get their hands on “dirty bombs” and nuclear and chemical weapons, as a large meteor approaches the earth in 2014 – there is going to be cataclysmic destruction.

There are other kinds of destruction looming too. The only thing keeping the United States economy away from disaster is the fact that the U.S. dollar is the medium for international monetary exchange. It is only because of this fact that the U.S. government can stave off its creditors by simply printing more money. However, with the dollar in big trouble, a movement has already begun among the world’s financial leaders to switch from the dollar as the international exchange medium to a consortium of other currencies. When that happens – and it is a matter of “when”, not “if” – the United States will no longer be able to print unlimited amounts of currency to pay off its debts. And that will lead to a colossal financial crash in the United States with global ramifications.

The entire Western capitalist system is based on exploitation. What made Europe and North America the financial powerhouses they are today was what these countries did in the past – exploiting cheap raw materials in Africa and Asia, enslaving Africans and Chinese and Native Americans, and then selling the finished goods to a consumer base with plenty of disposable income. Still today, the big companies buy their raw materials on the cheap, export jobs to where work is cheap, such as India and México and Pakistan, and sell the finished goods at high prices. But this is becoming increasingly difficult; sooner, not later, the European Union, like the United States, is bound to collapse on itself – it will lose the cheap raw materials and labor, and it will lose the consumer base as more and more of its own people lose their jobs.

Capitalism breeds crime. The wealthy use their power to get around the law, and the poor use cunning to get around the wealthy. Government becomes legalized exploitation, enforced by the police and military. Many turn to crime - elderly people stealing food or even selling drugs - out of sheer desperation. And government becomes a form of organized crime, propped up and protected by propagandistic media and the military/police.

Which is why the worldwide Occupy movement is flourishing. What began in Tunisia and Egypt has spread worldwide, including the United States. People around the globe, long subjugated to the greed and arrogation of the ultra-rich, are rising up in determined, but largely peaceful resistance. Sooner or later, either the people will grow frustrated by governmental failure to make major changes and rise up in revolution (as has already happened in North Africa and is happening in Syria), or the plutocrats will send in their police and military to brutally crush the peaceful revolution. One way or the other, there will be massive bloodshed.

As the United States Congress puts forth the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the government (through its police and military puppets) to detain anyone in the world, citizen or not, on U.S. soil or not, to hold them in prison for any amount of time they choose, without trial. This is a clear and egregious violation of the United States Constitution, but these megalomaniacs do not care. This act in itself could finally bring the people to the breaking point.

And therefore I say that Jesus’s words – “The meek shall inherit the earth” – are to the point.

When destruction comes (be it from bombs or riots or natural disasters), it will be globally devastating. As Jesus suggested, if you build your house on sand - in this case, the sand of an economy based on speculative trading and vacillating stocks - that house will fall when the wind and waves beat against it.

Truly, skyscrapers will tumble, bridges will crash, and mass transit will stop running. There will be no gasoline for your car, no electricity in your house. There will be armed gangs roaming about stealing from you and your neighbors so they can survive. There will be no law, and no police to enforce it. The countries that rely on a massive infrastructure (North America, Western Europe, Southeast Asia, and Japan in particular) will be in disaster mode: there will be no food shipped in to feed starving millions in the cities, nor medicine, nor clean water. Nothing. Adding to the madness, the ultra-rich plutocrats are now looking at future disasters as a way to make yet more fortunes: in the United States they are planning to privatize FEMA, the government entity that responds to natural disasters.

When “earthquakes, wind, and fire” (to quote the story about the prophet Elijah) overwhelm the industrialized countries, millions will die when their big houses and office buildings and malls fall down on them. Millions will die when elevated superhighways and subway tunnels are tossed about and crushed. As the prophet Zechariah put it, they will beg the mountains to fall on them, and the living shall envy the dead. As the prophecy of the Nehiyawok (Cree) Nation puts it, in that day the wealthy will finally come to understand that they cannot eat money.

However, ironically, poor countries, Third World countries, with relatively little infrastructure, will fare far better. People who live in simple homes like I see here in rural Panama will be fine; a roof of straw or thin sheets of corrugated tin might fall on them in an earthquake, but they will just laugh and put it to rights again. Citizens in the urban seacoast – in Panamá City, Colón, and Davíd – will starve, because there won’t be any trucks bringing them food, because the pipes bringing them water will be crushed and broken. But up here, surrounded by the abundance of farms and wilderness, flowing rivers and clean mountain air, people will survive the destruction in relative comfort.

In the words of the Magnificat (in the New Testament), “He has thrown down the mighty from their seats,” as in an earthquake!, “and exalted those of low degree.” And, from the same passage, “He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty.”

So, clearly, when the industrialized countries are in ruins, simple places like here where I live will be still all right. “The meek shall inherit the earth.”

While, yes, Panamá uses U.S. dollars as its own legal tender and heavily relies on its gringos to bring in more wealth, I fully expect that, when the U.S. economy collapses, this country will simply declare its financial independence and what used to be dollar bills will continue to flow around Panamá as its medium of exchange.

More than that, here in the Tierras Altas (Highlands) of Panamá – and still in remote villages around the world – there remains the structure of a barter economy. I love how neighbors in my village come by with a bag of onions or potatoes, and we share the same way with them. I love how my dear Panamanian wife sends over to them plates of the same supper she has prepared for me.

Here, people live by genuine Marxian principles – those who have to spare share with those who don’t have enough, because people here realize we survive not as competing individuals, but as a coöperating community. “From each according to his or her ability, to each according to his or her need.” This is the kind of relationship that all religion urges: covenant, as opposed to the greed and cheating that inevitably are fostered by capitalism. As Saint Paul put it in the New Testament, my neighbors here “strive to outdo one another in generosity.” Or, as Jesus put it, quoting the Torah, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He condemned the rich, with their storehouses full of grain while the poor suffered. He urged his followers, if they had a coat to spare to give it to someone who had no coat.

And here in the Tierras Altas people look out for each other; if armed gangs come up here from the cities to try to steal their survival, they will face a choice - either they somehow defeat a united, strong community, or they respectfully join that community and live by its covenantal rules.

You see? “The poor shall inherit the earth.”

In a barter economy, the focus is on building strong relationships with your friends and neighbors and relatives – so one gives as much as possible and accepts as little as possible in return. In a moneyed economy, the focus is on buying as cheaply as possible and selling at as high a price as you can. return.

That’s the problem with money. There’s no end to how much of it you can gain – or lose. In a moneyless society, there isn’t any reason to stock up more food than you can eat, so either it goes to waste or you do the smart thing and give it to someone who doesn’t have enough.

Likewise, you may have nothing, but you can’t possibly have less than nothing, and, when you have nothing, somebody is going to help you out. But in a moneyed society, you can have more money than you can ever spend, and you can fall into having less than nothing, into a debt deeper than you can ever climb out of again. You see, a money economy removes the parameters naturally imposed by “everyone has what he or she needs and shares the excess with those who do not.” In a moneyless society it’s impossible to be a billionaire, and it’s impossible to be seriously indebted. A moneyless, barter society fosters sharing, not hoarding.

In a moneyed society, those who make a lot of money get to make the rules. If you’re rich, you can contribute to the campaigns of politicians you like – politicians who will change the laws so you can make even more money. Therefore, under capitalism, if you’re rich, you will inevitably get richer and more powerful, and, if you’re poor, you will become poorer and more helpless. The facts show it – in the United States and other industrialized countries the gap between rich and poor is widening fast. This is simply the nature of capitalism; it is inevitable in a capitalist economy.

The only way to prevent the tendency of capitalism to develop a rich class and a poor class is through government: that’s why, until recently, the U.S. government had laws to prevent monopolies, laws to prevent industrial pollution and mineral exploitation, and laws to ensure big business and ultra-rich people paid their fair share of taxes. These were instituted after past periods of excess: the railroad and coal barons whose greed brought about the Great Depression. Now these controls on rampant capitalism are being dismantled by the teaparty proxies for the ultra-rich, with the inevitable result of a widening gap between rich and poor, leading to total economic collapse.

Hence, more and more people are losing their jobs – and, what is even scarier is what the statistics don't show. The statistics give how many people have jobs, but it counts the under-employed (those who settle out of desperation for part-time work or very low wages) as employedD, so it doesn’t count them among those looking for work. Moreover, the statistics don't tell us about those people who are just as much overwhelmed with anxiety as the unemployed, filled with constant fear that they are soon going to be fired – those who have jobs, but probably not for very long.

Indeed, employers in most states do not even need to give you a reason; they can fire you at will, anytime. Most if not all states now have pro-employer legislation that allows them to fire employees at any time, with no reason needing to be given. And the first to go are usually the more expensive middle-aged people who need a higher income to support their families, who take more time off for family or health reasons, and who cost more in health insurance. They want to replace a middle-aged head of household with a kid fresh out of high school at a lower wage? They decide they don’t like you because you’re black or Muslim or gay? Doesn’t matter; you’re gone. I was let go as an editor at a certain daily newspaper because I refused to compromise my ethics and experience as regards tribal casinos – the newspaper wanted the advertising revenue from the casinos, and only I was willing to express in print the horrible devastation these casinos wreak. I was let go by a private company for absolutely no specified reason, though it was clear to me that it was because I was middle-aged and more expensive than a kid.

And, again adding to the madness, the ultra-rich are finding ways to make a profit off your joblessness. Consider the big financial company JP Morgan. It has contracted in a majority of U.S. states to provide food stamp debit cards. The company is paid for each case that it handles, so that means that the more Americans who go on food stamps, the more profit JP Morgan makes. In an ABC News interview, JP Morgan executive Christopher Paton admitted that this is “a very important business to JP Morgan,” and that it is doing very well. Considering the fact that the number of Americans on food stamps has exploded from 26 million in 2007 to 43 million today, one can only imagine the soaring profits JP Morgan makes in this part of its business. In the interview Paton said that 40% of food stamp recipients are currently working, and he said he expects continued “growth” in this “product”. JP Morgan, which is already one of the primary financial institutions implicated in the “robo-signing” forclosure scandal, has admitted to wrongly foreclosing on more than a dozen military families and overcharging thousands of other military families on their mortgages. What is more, if you seek help from a JP Morgan call center for your food stamps or child support debit card, and you will be talking to a Morgan employee in India.

We who oppose the evil schemes of the ultra-rich plutocrats are just as guilty. For we, too, are obsessed with money.

The ultra-rich are always thinking how to make their next fortune, and how to avoid paying taxes. For them it’s just a game, a job to do, since they certainly don't need more money. And the rest of us, constantly worrying about how we’re going to pay our bills and our taxes, tend to obsess about how to come up with more income. We fall for the schemes of the rich to make us covet the latest electronic gewgaw, to buy the brand-name instead of the generic brand, – such that the rich make another fortune, but we are left with nothing to pay the necessaries. Yes, the rich manipulate and mesmerize us into doing this, and that is part of their evil, but it is still ultimately our choice.

So let us not single out others when we, in a different way, are to blame too. We could, if we were wise, emancipate ourselves from their controlling influence.

We could join the ranks of the poor – and build strong local barter economies based on sharing, not on taking – and, when the cataclysms come, as inevitably we too will inherit the earth.

NOTE: The most recent chapter, "Village Economics", in my other blog, "A Writer in Panama", is on the same theme. Go to - panamawriter.blogspot.com

The Larger Ninety-Nine Percent

2011-11-28T12:17:00.000-08:00

Supporters of the Occupy movement in the United States are fond of pointing out their federal government’s hypocrisy for supporting the citizens’ peaceful uprisings in Egypt, Tunisia, and elsewhere, and then coördinating a police effort to literally beat down the uprisings in the United States.

But these Occupy supporters are themselves often guilty of the same kind of hypocrisy.

Even though those who started the United States version on Wall Street, New York City, drew their inspiration from Egypt and Tunisia, and even though the Egyptian movement has sent advisors to Wall Street, some of the U.S. Occupy people have become culturocentric: they claim, erroneously, that the movement was born on Wall Street, and that it spread worldwide from that beginning. No, it began in Egypt and Tunisia, and spread worldwide, including the United States, from there.

I've had it put to me that the Occupy movement is against the ultra-rich on Wall Street, and not against the government, but the signs and voices I hear in the United States and in the entire world are saying the same thing: that complacent, bribed governments of puppets to the rich are enabling the plutocrats to get ever wealthier at the expense of the 99%.

It’s all very nice being loyal to your own country. But it’s not so nice when it not only ignores the facts, but becomes an implicit racism. So let us accept the truth that the U.S. Occupy movement did not begin in the United States, and to say otherwise denigrates the wisdom and efforts of the peaceful citizen uprisings that preceded it - and continue to this day.

I say this because there’s another way in which American Occupy supporters hurt their own movement outside their country:

They forget the global perspective, in which the entire United States (and Western Europe and Japan) are the ultra-rich 1%.

They forget that other countries don't have strong environmental controls, and are being polluted with carcinogens and particulates that kill. They forget that other countries don't have strong labor laws, and children are forced to work to survive, that people work incredibly long hours under inhuman conditions - and count themselves lucky to have a job at all!

They forget that the 99% in the United States – even when they’ve lost their jobs and their pensions – are far better off than most people in the world. Yes, there’s a gulf between the 1% and the 99% in the United States – but that gulf is far wider between the billionaires and the world’s poor.

They forget that the poorest American, the American with the least access to health care and decent food, is still considerably better off than most people in the world. In the United States there are social services, food stamps, and other support systems. In much of the world, there are no support systems.

They forget that many countries don't have the constitutional freedom to assemble and speak in order to seek redress from the government - and, even if the Republican Party apparatchiks are seeking to take away this right, for now Americans still have it where many other peoples do not, and that therefore it is the responsibility of all Americans to speak out in behalf of those who cannot!

When the U.S. Occupy movement ignores the desperate plight of the poor in most of the world it is actually helping the evil plutocrats, the ultra-rich monster billionaires to continue their rape of our planet for the sake of profit. Shame on those who ignore and overlook this overwhelming global horror!

Here in Panama, some folks I know count themselves fortunate to earn $6-$8 a day. In parts of Africa, people earn that amount in a month. Others here, and in Africa, do not have any employment, any source of income, and are reduced to relying on family or friends, or, if they have none, the desperation of begging or petty thieving.

Strangers in my little mountain village stop me to ask, simply because I'm a gringo, if I can hire them. When I explain that I'm very poor, they ask if I know of any other gringos who are hiring. They are polite, but they are clearly desperate.

I live in a land where many people would be thrilled to earn a U.S. minimum wage – that rate would earn them in about 45 minutes what it takes them a day or more to earn, if they have a job.

We who support the Occupy movement must of course be concerned for the poor in our own countries, but we must never lose sight of the fact that the abyss between rich and poor is a global issue.

The same ultra-rich who are responsible for these problems in the United States have so raped the world that there are even greater problems elsewhere. There could never be a Bhopal in the United States, thanks to labor laws. There could never be maquiladoras, or child slavery. There are at least some resources available for those who are unemployed.

Here in Panama, for instance, if you’re unemployed, there is nothing, and you're desperate to find a way to feed your family, along with many other equally desperate poor people.

A family of Native Americans in my community with whom I am friends live in a shack made of corrugated tin and castoff boards. The floor is dirt. The stove is a wood fire. Their water comes in buckets from the river. Their shower is one of those buckets. They have no electricity.

The conditions in which they live would not be allowed in the United States.

These friends don't even know what a television is. They've never seen one in their lives. They are amazed by my little three-dollar camera, when I take pictures of them. One of the children found a broken camera in the road, no doubt tossed away by a wealthy expatriate American, and – even though it doesn’t work – she loves to aim it at me and pretend to take my picture. The children play outdoors, rain or shine, in the same threadbare (but always clean!) clothes and bare feet. I have watched them turn a stray plastic grocery bag into a kite and a tree branch into a swing, and remembered my own children whining, despite all their electronic toys, that there was “nothing to do!” This family of a hardworking mother and father and six children are desperately poor – yet they are happier than a lot of whining Americans.

Several studies have shown the world is capable of supporting its human population - the problem is one of distribution, not availability. Yes, birth control is needed worldwide. But it’s not for the United States, which consumes about 60% of the world’s nonrenewable resources, to preach to the rest of the world about conserving resources.

We need to think triage – help most immediately where the worst problems are – and that would be large regions of Africa and Asia, and even Central and South America, and the Native American reservations of North America.

We need to think long-term strategies for getting the overabundance in countries like the United States, where farmers are paid not to grow crops, to countries like Eritrea and Sudan.

We need to help U.S. citizens overcome the propaganda that has them believing that the Occupy people should take a bath and get a job. That, moreover, nobody should be helping those dark-skinned people who worship cows or whatever Faux Noise says, and realize that, as Jesus said, we are ALL G-d's Children!

We need also to insist that the United States government stop its campaigns against the world’s poor: sending its own poor children to kill the poor children in foreign lands. Sending low-flying military planes in Iraq and Afghanistan, simply to keep the local populations in a state of anxiety, so they will lose the ability to act decisively.

It is written in the Acts of the Apostles (in the Christian Scriptures):

“The apostles were brought in and made to appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. ‘We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,’ he said. ‘Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.’

“Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey G-d rather than human beings!’”

This tells me that we are required by Scripture to obey one Law only, and that is the Law of G-d, and obey human laws only to the degree that they conform to that Law – and, when they do not conform, and when the forces that decree these human laws don't obey the Sacred Law – it is our sacred responsibility to SPEAK OUT!

* * *

IN MEMORIAM Eleanor May Vock Audlin, 10 September 1926 - 25 November 2011, who was the author's mother and his first teacher of spirituality and honor and goodness.

Dear President Obama:

2011-11-19T13:19:00.000-08:00

Dear President Obama:

Nobody was happier than I when you were elected president. I wept tears of joy in the moment when you had secured the election, and once again watching your inauguration. I couldn’t help but think of all the tragic history in the United States that was brightened by the glorious light of your election.

And I thought about how the federal government – the same government that now you head – did a great deal to make your election possible. Your predecessor Abraham Lincoln fought a war to make possible the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation that freed slaves stolen from the Africa of which you are a proud son. Your predecessors John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson strove hard to break down the horrible walls of racial segregation. I took part in the Civil Rights movement, and it was the preaching of Dr. Martin Luther King that spurred me to enter the ordained pastoral ministry.

Remember, Mr. President, that it was the federal government that intervened in a “municipal decision” in Alabama, forcing local authorities to admit Black students to their schools. If it hadn’t been for that action, your excellent education, including a degree from Harvard University, might never have been possible.

So why, Mr. President, do you say as regards the horrible brutality of local police forces toward peaceful citizens engaged in the Occupy movement in New York City, Oakland, Atlanta, on the campus of the University of California at Davis, among other places, that “every municipality has to make its own decision about how to handle” these situations?

Why are you passively avoiding taking responsibility for the fact that your Department of Homeland Security, your Federal Bureau of Investigation, and others of your federal agencies coordinated these vicious crackdowns on your nonviolent citizens?

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” if their decision is to ignore the United States Constitution, which you, sir, are sworn to uphold and protect!

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when police forget their pledge to serve and protect the people, and attack your citizens.

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when police officers wearing more protective equipment than your soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq attack your defenseless citizens with truncheon, tear gas, and sound cannon.

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when an honorable retired captain of the Philadelphia Police Department, in uniform, is arrested and handcuffed.

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when elderly women in their 80s, your citizens, sir, are tear-gassed.

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when honorable veterans of your armed forces, the armed forces of which you are commander-in-chief, volunteer to serve and protect your citizens from those police officers who have forgotten their pledge.

No, sir, it is not “up to the municipalities to make their own decisions” when those honorable veterans of your Marines and Army - veterans of the wars you sent them to fight in - are so brutally attacked by thugs in uniform that they must be taken to the emergency room in danger of losing their lives!

When the municipalities fail in their responsibility to protect the rights of your citizens, it is your job to do so, sir!

You, sir, by failing to do the right thing, are guilty by omission or commission of allowing – indeed, approving and supporting – these outrages!

There are statesmen and stateswomen, who do the right thing, no matter what the cost to their political careers. And there are politicians, who dance away from the issues, who mouth platitudes like “it is up to the municipalities to make their own decisions”, in order to protect their political backsides.

Remember the Emancipation Proclamation. Remember the Atlanta Schools intervention. Some of your predecessors in office had the spine to do the right thing. Some of your predecessors in office were statesmen.

And bear in mind that your loyal citizens are calling on you – not the municipalities, but you and your government – to heed their voices!

They are begging you, sir, to establish a single-payer universal health care citizens for all of your citizens!

They are begging you, sir, to do a complete overhaul of the election system to get rid of the electoral college, to put a serious cap on lobbyists and PACs and gerrymandering!

They are begging you, sir, to end these endless oil wars, in which the children of our poor families are sent to kill the children of poor families in Iraq and Afghanistan - and, so it seems, soon Iran.

They are begging you, sir, to negotiate a serious peace deal between Israel and Palestine, and to tell the Chinese to get their genocidal hands off Tibet!

They are begging you, sir, to restructure the tax code so the ultra-wealthy 1% pays its appropriate share of taxes!

They are begging you, sir, to declare that corporations are not people and money is not speech!

I speak with some emotion, because I am one of your citizens, moreover one of those who joyfully voted for you – and yet I cannot afford to live any longer in the United States. I was working six jobs and still could not keep up with my financial obligations. My health was being ruined. I had to make the choice to live in a Third World country, where I can still afford – barely – to eat and put a roof over my head. My small, unassuming house in the United States I have had to abandon. My family, including my precious children and my very elderly parents, I will probably never see again.

And my story is nowhere near as tragic as some I have heard as a (now retired) pastor.

Mr. President, do you remember saying this, on 28 January of this year?

"I want to be very clear in calling upon the Egyptian authorities to refrain from any violence against peaceful protestors. The people of Egypt have rights that are universal. That includes the right to peaceful assembly and association, the right to free speech, and the ability to determine their own destiny. These are human rights. And the United States will stand up for them everywhere."

This is your word, Mr. President. But apparently the United States will stand up for these universal rights everywhere except in the United States.

You, sir, are failing your people, the people who put their trust in you by electing you, in two ways – you are ignoring their desperate pleas to correct the horrible wrongs in your federal government, and their desperate pleas to stop these police forces from using brutal force to deny the rights of assembly and free speech enshrined in the very Constitution that you are sworn to uphold and protect.

Do so, Mr. President. Do so quickly, because I fear there will soon be a bloodbath from coast to coast as these thugs in uniform beat down on a peaceful movement striving to get your attention - or, I fear, a revolution aimed at bringing about these changes by less peaceful means. I shudder at both of these horrifying possibilities, but they grow more possible every day, sir.

It can be done peacefully and lawfully – or not. It is your choice.

For the love of God, Mr. President, be a statesman, not a politician.

Respectfully submitted,

The Rev. JAMES DAVID AUDLIN

Iran? No, the Next Dictatorship to Topple is...

2011-11-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

If you believe the pundits, soon the United States will be invading Iran, or, minimally, conducting air strikes aimed at destroying alleged nuclear facilities.

Would another Middle East war be advisable? I think not.

First, the United States military is already spread thin in the world. Despite the vast amount of money poured into the Pentagon, soldiers are often fighting with less than adequate equipment as it is. The larger view is that an entire generation of young people is being devastated by these several wars; if they’re not coming home dead, they’re coming home with not just physical injuries but serious emotional disturbances as well. And yet medical support for the injuries is being cut by a Congress bent on relieving anything that resembles social responsibility on the part of its ultra-rich friends. And yet there is virtually nothing by way of psychological support for emotionally disturbed veterans, and few seem even aware of the growing rate of veteran suicides.

Second, if history is any teacher, then invading Iran will solve nothing – indeed, it’s far more likely to create problems down the road. Any credibility the United States once had as a force of integrity standing in defense of goodness is shot. Its European allies have largely abandoned it. In the Middle East it is hated. In much of the world it is despised as a bastion of hypocrisy. If the United States invades Iran, it is likely to learn that the allegations of nuclear capacity were at best exaggerated by intelligence experts, or utterly unfounded (as with Iraq and its nonexistent “weapons of mass destruction” that were the pretext for invading). Further, the United States will be bound to suffer greater damage to what little credibility it has left in the world.

If history is any teacher, the lies will soon be unmasked. Too many recent U.S.-led wars have pretended to be in defense of “liberty and justice”, but are too clearly about economics and political power (especially oil), and very likely a large dose of anti-Muslim bigotry. Certainly, if history is any teacher, the United States government pays no attention to the lessons of history and is doomed, as the wise man said, to repeat them. Having ignored the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics’ devastating experience in Afghanistan, the United States is now deeply bemired in that muck. A war in Iran would be another such mistake.

Third, the United States military is already a hugely bloated part of the federal budget. The lunatics in Congress are massively shifting taxes off the pampered shoulders of the ultra-rich and their corporations and ever more heavily onto the backs of the middle and lower classes. Further military expenses will drag the latter even more deeply into economic slavery and economic devastation. What is ironic is that the colossal Pentagon budget does not benefit the ordinary men and women in uniform – who come from those same ravaged middle and lower classes; you never see a rich man’s kid doing military service on the front lines – but rather the fat cat top brass and their ultra-rich buddies. Private contractors make a great deal of money from war; Halliburton, which is blithely escaping its responsibility for torturing and killing civilians in the Middle East and providing tainted water to soldiers, has made handsome profits for its principals, like former Vice President Dick Cheney. A war in Iraq would exacerbate this issue, with an inevitable further round of cuts in social services, education, and infrastructure, continuing to destroy those middle and lower classes.

Fourth, I am an absolute pacifist. I don’t believe war is ever a wise option, except possibly extremely rarely as a very last resort, as an emergency measure. I believe instead in earnest negotiation. However here is the United States hinting at war with Iran when there has never been any serious negotiation with Iran on the part of the United States. Until such negotiation is sincerely undertaken, war should not be a serious option.

Fifth, I believe in consistency. If the United States declares it has the right to force its opinions, its culture, its mercantile economics, its religious views, its political views down the throats of another sovereign country – then other sovereign countries have the same right to do the same to the United States. The government of the United States is sorely misguided if it thinks that it is “special” somehow. Might does not make right; being the strongest military power in the world does not provide the inevitable result that whatever is done with that power is a good thing.

Moreover, violence begets violence. As Jesus put it, “Those who take up the sword die by the sword.” I abhor war, but, if the United States continues to invade other sovereign countries, then it is only creating a world in which sovereignty means nothing – and any country with a mind to do so will invade any other country, including the United States.

Consistency is ignored in another way. The United States has often claimed it must invade this or that country in order to topple a malevolent dictator. But, if dictator-toppling is the goal, then citing this pretext leaves the United States bound to topple every dictator in the world. Yet there is no talk of the United States invading (for instance) North Korea or China. Likewise, the United States has often claimed that it must attack this or that country that is in the process of forcefully annexing a smaller neighbor; for instance, Iraq invading Kuwait or Argentina invading the Falkland Islands. But, again, if protecting smaller neighbors is the goal, then the law of consistency requires the United States to protect every such compromised little country in the world: yet there is no talk of the United States taking on Russia for its brutalities in Chechnya, or China for its devastating genocidal activities in Tibet.

Oh, but no, say the experts, we cannot possibly take on Russia or China! They’re our friends! They’re our economic partners! They have “Most Favored Nation” status with us! – So the truth is that the United States only attacks the little bullies and plays nice with the big bullies? In my view, that makes the United States itself a big bully! The truth is that the ultra-wealthy plutocrats who are the real powers in the United States hope to reap ever bigger profits in the economic orchard of China and Russia. And those plutocrats fear China, which could destroy the U.S. economy overnight if ever China cashed in all at once on its vast holdings of U.S. capital and government-issued bonds.

Besides, if it is truly the responsibility of the United States to invade the bully countries, the countries that invade other countries, the countries that have strong malevolent leaders – then the United States should invade itself! It is the preëminent example of a bully country invading other countries, while crushing its own people under a powerful plutocracy that has turned the country’s government into a sham, into a marionette show dancing on strings controlled by the ultra-wealthy plutocrats.

Hence the Occupy movement. Born in Tunisia and Egypt, it has spread across the United States and much of the world. The people realize the truth of what I am saying: that they are no longer governed by a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, but malevolent oligarchs unseen behind the puppets in Washington.

And military veterans realize the truth, that they were sent into war on false pretexts and made to kill innocent civilians, all for the sake of the plutocrats’ mad desire for more profit - that's why veterans, in increasing numbers especially after two of their brothers were extremely seriously injured by police brutality in Oakland, California, are joining the Occupy movement. They are sworn to serve and protect the people, not the ultra-wealthy plutocrats. They don't want to invade Iran; they widely recognize the insanity of such a notion.

So let the taking down of evil dictators continue – but not in Iran. In the United States.

Memo to the Police: We Are Not Your Enemy!

2011-10-27T05:48:00.000-07:00

Are you participating in the Occupy movement in your community? I hope so!

If you are, and the police come, you may feel the wish, or pressure from others, to criticize and condemn the police. I have a word of advice for you:

DON'T.

Yes, the police in many cities in the United States and the world are to blame for opposing the peaceful, unarmed Occupy movement, for opposing honest citizens exercising their constitutional right to express their conscience in the form of free speech.

Yes, the police in many cities are appearing in full riot gear, wearing more protective and attack equipment than the U.S. military do in Iraq and Afghanistan - clearly in order to intimidate and frighten and humiliate peaceful, unarmed citizens exercising their right to free speech.

Yes, the police in many cities, including Atlanta, Georgia, New York City, and especially Oakland, California, are culpable for using extreme measures against peaceful, unarmed Occupy participants.

Yes, at least one serious injury must be attributed to the police - that of Scott Olsen, 24, who as a Marine served two tours of duty in Iraq, but in Oakland was shot in the head by police with either a tear gas canister or a "bean bag" (a bag filled with lead shot), and at this writing his condition in hospital has been upgraded to fair, with a fractured skull and swollen brain. (Please keep Scott Olsen, and others injured, in your prayers.)

Yes, Oakland police further aggravated the situation by throwing a flash bomb in the midst of Occupy participants who had rushed to Olsen's aid.

Police officers who are responsible for these actions - and others, like tear gassing citizens, pulling them by the hair, and bludgeoning them with their billy clubs - should be charged as criminals and tried in court. So, too, should their superiors who ordered these attacks.

Maybe there'll be a sweep-it-under-the-rug investigation. At best, some sergeant or even the Oakland chief of police will be turned into the fall guy, put on leave or retired early, and that'll be that. Poof, problem solved. But anyone with sense knows the real orders came from high up. That's why we're seeing coordinated attacks in several cities in the last few days. That's why, when the Albany, N.Y. police refused to follow their mayor's orders to attack Occupy in that city, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo himself ordered them to attack - and yet they still refused. If Cuomo did so publicly, you can be sure that other governors are ordering these attacks, but don't expect them to be implicated! And, in any case, the order is coming from even higher than governors. It's coming from the plutocrats themselves - the ultra-wealthy men on Wall Street who have turned the U.S. government into their obedient lapdog.

Therefore, we, the Occupy movement and its supporters, must not make the serious mistake of condemning the police as a group. Instead, we must appeal to them to join our cause.

It's easy for us to say these officers had a choice, and should have chosen not to use such extreme, violent measures.

I've known plenty of cops, including as my parishioners when I was a pastor, and most of them are decent human beings who want to do the right thing. I'll bet they feel terrible about what they are being ordered to do by their superiors. But I'm sure that, deep down, they're scared - just as scared as you and I - and, overwhelmed by fear, they stick to the familiar, the safety of familiarity, and do what they're told. They're as afraid as you or I of losing their livelihoods and, as a result, being unable to feed, clothe, and house their families.

It's easy to say they have a choice, but so do you. You know perfectly well that your taxes are rising to cover the gap in revenue that grows as the ultra-rich and their corporations find legal maneuvers to avoid paying their fair share of taxes.

You know perfectly well that your taxes are being used to pay off crooked politicians, to fight attempts to repeal DOMA (the Defense of Marriage Act), to pay for the riot gear that police are wearing as they attack innocent, unarmed civilians - and worst of all to wage unjust insane wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and elsewhere.

But you still pay your taxes, don't you? Even though you know how your taxes are going to be used?

In the same way, I'll bet a lot of these cops know what they're being ordered to do is wrong, but they don't feel they have any choice. If they refuse, they are out of the force, and helpless.

Sure, it's easy for us here to say we'd refuse, but we don't know what pressures are being exerted on them. So, definitely cops who go overboard need to be charged and tried and, if found guilty, sentenced.

But we must not lose sight of the REAL villains!

The real villains want us to hate the cops. That's because as long as we, the citizens, are divided against each other, we will never unite, and become strong enough to take on the real villains.

So, whenever you talk hate about police - or hate about fellow citizens who, in good conscience, think the Occupy movement is a bad thing - or hate people who disagree with you as regards abortion, gun control, and so on - you are doing the bidding of the REAL villains. You are falling right into their hands.

And bear in mind that some police departments are refusing to obey orders to attack peaceful Occupy demonstrators - including, notably, the police department in Albany, N.Y., and, earlier, the police department in Madison, Wisconsin. This goes to show that police have a conscience and, with good superiors, do the right thing.

Bear too in mind that many brave honorable members of the United States Marines - of whom Scott Olsen is a brother - have volunteered to stand side-by-side with Occupy participants to protect them and their civil rights! If the Marines can do this, so too can the police.

So what can we do? What should we do?

When you're at your local Occupy gathering, and the cops arrive in full riot gear, waving billy clubs and flash bombs and guns with rubber bullets, they want you to be intimidated, and to back down, disperse, give up, and go home.

Don't give up.

Stand there, peacefully. Stand your ground. If they attack you, don't attack back. If they arrest you, stay calm; many of us have spent a night behind bars in defense of our civil rights. It's not the end of the world!

When the police come in their riot gear, tell them, in a loud, firm, loving voice -

"YOU ARE OUR BROTHERS AND SISTERS. WE'RE HERE NOT FOR OURSELVES ALONE, BUT FOR YOU TOO, AND YOUR FAMILIES! THE REAL ENEMY ONLY WANTS YOU TO DO THEIR DIRTY WORK. THE REAL ENEMY DOESN'T CARE ABOUT YOU. AS SOON AS YOU'VE DONE YOUR WORK, YOU'RE AS EXPENDABLE AS ALL OF US. SO WE APPEAL TO YOU TO TURN AROUND AND JOIN US, AND HELP US PEACEFULLY TAKE ON THE *REAL* ENEMY! JOIN US, BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE!

Are you a police officer yourself? Or an active or former member of the armed forces? My message to you is the same! You are sworn to protect and serve the PEOPLE from the ENEMY. You are not sworn to protect and serve the ENEMY from the PEOPLE. Please remember which is which! The enemy is taking away our right to free speech. Our access to affordable health care. Our children's right to a decent education. Our opportunity to buy property without being killed by the rates. Our right to a clean environment. Think about those brave Marines, and the courageous Police Department in Albany! And choose carefully - to protect and serve the PEOPLE.

If the cops join with Occupy, we are much closer to victory. If we keep saying we hate the cops, we are doing the will of the enemy, and pushing victory farther away.

How the Occupy Movement Will Succeed - or Won't

2011-10-25T08:01:00.000-07:00

Most people want not only food and water and shelter and air, but security – the confidence that these other essentials won’t suddenly be taken away from them by forces beyond their control. Most people don’t want to go back to the kind of life led by the mythical prehistoric caveman, cowering in his cave, hungry and wet and cold, looking out on the raging thunderstorm, fearful that a sabertooth tiger or enemy caveman was going to attack if he drifted off to sleep. In those early times it was natural for humans to band together in groups centered around strong and decisive leaders, assured that these leaders had the power and will to protect them.

That need for a protector is deeply and indelibly rooted in the human psyche; it is why to this day people largely support their leaders, democratically elected or in power by military coup, benevolent or malevolent – because they think that allying themselves with powerful men, even though the methods and goals of these individuals may be horrific, will serve to put a mantle of protection over the people.

It is often a surprise to Western Europeans and North Americans that people in other countries don’t rise up to overthrow their dictators. The main reason is that human beings tend to be defensive of their Weltansicht (the mental “lenses” through which they interpret and construct reality) because it serves as the axiomatic foundation for their entire lives. They know factually that their dictator is evil, that his spies are everywhere and that any of them, any at all, could be in any moment unexpectedly detained and imprisoned or executed without even the pretense of due process. But they refuse to think about this fact because it is simply too frightening, too threatening of the security they crave. So they outdo one another in singing praise to their dictator, hoping that loud voices of support will keep them safe in the dictator’s smile.

This is why it is a miracle, the worldwide “Occupy” movement that began in Tunisia – not just that it has so widely spread, but that it has, on occasion, been so successful in toppling dictators. It is a miracle that, despite this natural tendency to feign support for a feared dictator, the people in many countries fear their dictators’ excesses so much that they are rising up against them.

This is also why many people in many countries, including in North America and Western Europe, oppose the Occupy movement, expressing ridicule, calling them unpatriotic fomenters of chaos. Such persons still believe that the best choice is to cozy up to the dictator (whoever he, or whatever it, may be) rather than arouse his ire and risk losing that precious security. It’s not that they’re stupid or obtuse, as some Occupy supporters have alleged; it’s not that they can't get it, it’s that they don't want to get it. As Daniel J. Boorstin eloquently put it in his brilliantly prophetic 1967 work The Image, they prefer the comfortable, comforting lie to the frightening truth.

Just as people in a totalitarian state loudly proclaim the glories of their leader to protect themselves from his wrath and avail themselves of his strength to protect the country, so even in a democracy many people prefer to believe that the status quo may not be ideal, but it’s better than the chaos potentially unleashed by the Occupy movement. These little lies hold their lives together, and they will do everything they can to prevent purveyors of the truth from pulling down those false idols.

The Occupy movement needs to remember that everybody wants security, including those who question or oppose the Occupy movement. So the movement needs to help those others understand that these powermongers – particularly in North America and Western Europe that means the ultra-rich plutocrats who control the government (including the legislatures, courts, military, and police), the economy, the media – are, down the road, not going to protect them.

That these ultra-rich care not a whit for the common man and woman, except to use them for what pecuniary value can be extracted from them and, once the latter are deemed expendable, there will be no further security for them.

That adhering to these plutocrats inevitably will, in time, leave them bereft of protection, and destroy their well-being.

The Occupy movement needs to state repeatedly that the current privatized system of medical care, designed to make a profit, not to protect health, will leave them without access to decent medical care should they get seriously ill.

That the removal of pollution controls will destroy their environment and leave them, and their offspring, deathly sick.

That privatizing their schools will, like their universities, put the cost of a decent education out of reach of all but the rich, and/or turn schools into mere training centers for lifelong drudge-work.

That state laws allowing employers to fire employees at will, to ignore fair hiring practices, to get around minimum wage requirements inevitably will lead to mass unemployment and destitute poverty among minorities and single mothers, and eventually the white males as well.

That high fees on loans and credit cars from profit-making financial enterprises will destroy their future security.

That they no longer have any reason to trust these plutocrats will protect them and provide them security – that their very security is at stake. That, therefore, their best bet is to go with Occupy.

We have to persuade everyone of the truth of these statements.

But, to do so, we must remember that Occupy opponents want security just as do Occupy supporters. We must not call those opponents enemies, or stupid - we must appeal to their intelligence, so they see that the ultra-rich oligarchs are going to provide the people with security no longer.

The Occupy movement must be on guard. The usual procedure for governments or businesses found out to be corrupt is for those at the top to make some minimum changes – window dressing – so they can quickly “get things back to normal” – with those responsible for the corruption still in charge, and the sheep quiet in their pens. That means blaming a few token middle-management fall-guys, calling them aberrations or loose cannons, kicking them out as a sacrifice to “restore domestic tranquility”, and then pronouncing the system healthy, instituting a few meaningless, ineffective window-dressing reforms which they can promptly ignore – and then get back to the business of making more fortunes at your and my expense.

Some three and a half decades ago, after the Watergate scandal and the Storm King environmental furore, there were real changes. But ever since the “smart boys”, the legally shifty bureaucrats, have been paid good salaries to find tacitly legal circumlocutions around the good financial and environmental and social reforms enacted back then.

To name but one example among many I could cite, the New York state constitution clearly stipulates in Article I Section 10 that there shall be no casinos in the state. Period. It’s one of the strongest-worded such impediments in United States law. But there are several casinos operating in the state, and more are contemplated – why? Because greed in state government was allied with greed in the New York city financial institutions (often virtually the same thing), and so those “smart boys” were set to find legal tricks to get around their own constitution. How, I ask, can a government survive when it shoves aside its own foundation?

I could go on forever... let me just mention two prominent political prisoners, Bradley Manning and Leonard Peltier; the lies by the George W. Bush administration to get us into Iraq and Afghanistan; the criminal acts by the CIA and others in sovereign foreign countries....

We must constantly bear in mind how the ultra-rich plutarchs in this world are not ethical but pragmatic. They will “change sides” as easily as they change their expensive suits if it means more money. They are fighting al Qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan - but in Libya they sided with the revolutionaries, who were and are largely associated with al Qaeda.

Yes, a dictator was toppled, and perhaps now the people of Libya will now enjoy peace and freedom under a real democracy. But let's not kid ourselves that the Western support for the Libyan uprising (without which it would have failed, squashed by Qadaffi!) was really about toppling a dictator. If it were, then why does the United States cozy up to dictators in China, Russia, and half of Africa? Oh yes, profits. Oil in particular.

I still have some vanishing hope that President Obama will lead - that (to quote African American friends of mine) he will “go black on their sorry white asses, that he will take out a big ole can of whupazz and beat them with it.” As president, he has access to a powerful bully pulpit – HE SHOULD USE IT! As did Franklin Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln in the same office before him, as did Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King and Mahatma Mohandas Gandhi and John Lennon, for that matter. As long as he plays the game, negotiating with their sorry white asses, we the people lose. He's got to start a new game.

Moreover, the Occupy movement and Obama must keep in mind that this is a worldwide problem. If the United States “solves” the current economic crisis in a way that ignores the rest of the world, that is at the expense of the rest of the world, the problem is not solved, and it will just come back eventually – today’s economy is global, not national.

Bhopal and the Gulf of Mexico, the sweatshops of Asia, the maquiladoras of Latin America, my neighbors here in Panama who are lucky to earn $6-$8 a day, my friends in Africa who earn that much in a month – their problems are those of the United States too. “Buying American” and saying “the rest of the world can go to hell” is not the answer. Thinking globally and acting locally is. Otherwise, the problem is just exported out of the United States.

Gautama Buddha taught: “In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.”

Get over it, people. We are all one. The malevolent plutocrats, the ultra-rich who control our media and our schools – and therefore our minds – would have us believe that “we” must hate “you”. Americans are taught to hate North African Muslims, and North African Muslims are taught to hate Americans. Palestinians are taught to hate Israelis and Israelis to hate Palestinians.

The evil rulers (including the ultra-rich plutocrats in the United States, who manipulate the government and media) thrive on such division, since as long as we are divided amongst ourselves, everyone hating and fearing everybody else, we will never band together to overthrow those evil rulers – and we will continue to look to them to protect us from those people we’ve been taught to hate.

So we have Christian vs. Jew vs. Muslim, Black vs. White vs. Brown vs. Red vs. Yellow, Liberal vs. Conservative, West vs. East, North vs. South, one generation vs. another, male vs. female, straight vs. gay/lesbian/bi/trans....

And, if we are fatally foolish, we have Occupy vs. anti-Occupy. The Occupy movement will make a mortal error if it keeps speaking harshly to those who oppose it. The real enemy, the ultra-rich plutocrats, are delighted to see us fight amongst ourselves, because that way we'll never be united against them.

There are those who prefer to say that this “Occupy” movement began on Wall Street. It's very nice that they're so supportive of their own country, but I'm aghast when my fellow liberal friends adopt such a position, since it's one step away from the false but prevalent culturocentric notion that “anything good in the world” came from the U.S.A., a notion that we want to avoid not only because it isn't true, but because it is promoted by the hate-spewing "news" media and their ultra-rich masters, because it helps them sell American products and further rape the world economy - and it's only two steps away from ethnocentrism, and three steps from bigotry - the racist dogma that “anything good in the world” has come only from people of white northern European ancestry.

Nothing could be further from the truth, and this “occupy” movement is an example of that. It began, folks, in Tunisia, and it is from Tunisia that it has spread worldwide. When I challenged this notion recently, a friend of mine replied that the Wall Street version isn't against government but against Big Money. That is clearly not the case. I've been observing carefully the signs and statements of participants, and the reflections of informed analysts, and this is clearly directed, too, against a U.S. government that large swathes of the citizenry feel has so pandered to Big Money that it has failed in its responsibility to that ignored 99%.

So - as Tunisia celebrates its first democratic election - I shout hurrah! to that wonderful little country and thank them for showing the world how effective peaceful revolution can be!

This battle against the ultra-rich plutarchs is a worldwide battle with a worldwide solution and we must approach it on a worldwide basis. We must join hands with citizens in every country in solidarity against the real "Evil Empire". Let the plutarchs spray their propaganda that "America is Better", since that sells more Levis and Cokes. But let us be equal and united with our brothers and sisters the world over!

We must emphasize and bear in mind that all attempts to divide us (by race, by faith, by sex, by sexual orientation, by politics) ARE WELCOMED, EVEN INSTIGATED BY THE ULTRA-RICH ENEMY such that we defeat ourselves.

All these divisions are but an illusion. Race? There is only ONE race, the HUMAN RACE. All the rest are artificial, human-made distinctions. Pry deeply enough into your DNA and you realize what an illusion it all is. The farther back I go in my ancestry, the more I realize my ancestry isn’t this or that but a mélange of many. And I am sure that the same is true of you. So forget those foolish artificial distinctions.

We must unite against these ultra-rich potentates! We must unite and take on the Evil One... whether he goes by the name of Mubarak or Pol Pot or Noriega or Koch or Goldman Sachs. We must take him on wherever he lives – nonviolently, peacefully, but as persistently as water. As the ancient Chinese philosopher Lao-tse taught, “Water is the weakest thing in the world, but it can wear away a continent.”

And that, right there, is the strength of the Occupy movement that began in Tunisia - it has the power of water. The evil rulers cannot arrest it away or shoot it away, for when the people arise they keep coming and coming and coming until the evil is gone.

As individuals, all any of us can do is to look to ourselves and make sure we are doing, saying, thinking, and being the right thing.

Being a human being is not doing the expedient thing, the thing that helps you and yours be better off, but doing the right thing. Even at the expense of everything you hold dear.

Therefore, what we must do do is pray, stand up to evil, and support and encourage those around us to do the right thing. And – as did those mythical cavemen in the earliest age – we must band together to stand united against the evil forces.

If every individual (especially those of faith, whatever their particular faith-path) does this, the world will become a far better place.

How to Conduct the Revolution

2011-10-15T15:35:00.000-07:00

The most famous image of the Dada movement was of a smoking pipe, above which were the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe.” (“This is not a pipe.”) This image tells us strongly how to this day we are being carefully programmed to think the way the Powers That Be want us to think. They tell us that their demands to be released from paying taxes and from having to adhere to environmental regulations and employment fairness laws will be good for us. And, sadly, many people have believed them.

The current “Occupy” movement, which began in Egypt and Tunisia, moved on to Europe and Israel, Chile and Gabon, wound up in Wall Street, and now has spread worldwide. I’m overjoyed – people seem at last to be awakening from the lethargic hypnotic spell under which the ultra-rich oligarchs have put them. I, for one, despair at any shreds I still have of hope that the “system” can yet correct itself. It will more likely do some window-dressing, fire a few individuals while the real perpetrators go free, and then get on to business as usual – making money. I hope that revolution, far preferably bloodless, is in the offing.

All my life, as a pastor, I’ve urged forgiveness and forbearance, but the puppets in public office have been so well-programmed by the soulless ultrarich monsters who are our overlords that they take advantage of the forgiveness and forbearance of people like us in order to further their evil. On their slanted anything-but-objective news media they laugh at the “Occupy” movement, calling it diffuse, calling it leaderless, calling it unclear in message. For being peaceful in their demonstrating, these Powers That Be call them fools and dismiss them. But, on the other hand, if the demonstrators fail to “turn the other cheek”, then the latter can be blamed and arrested. Either way, the oligarchs are confident that they will win – that the crowds will eventually get bored and go home, or else lose their cool and get arrested. They believe that, no matter what the occupiers do, they, the ultra-rich, are going to win. Still, we all must hold to the truth, speak firmly but forgivingly to these wolves in sheep’s clothing, and pray.

The ultra-rich own, or control, pretty much everything – the halls of commerce, the news media, the educational institutions, the legislatures, the courts, the medical arena. Including, all too often, our minds and hearts. They have made us believe that obedience to them is “patriotism”, and daring to speak out in opposition is “un-American”. They use “country” as a way to stir our emotions, and xenophobia, fear of foreigners, as a way to manipulate us emotionally. It is all a form of brainwashing, of hypnosis.

This is why, of late, they have been spreading the message that anyone with intelligence, anyone with more than, say, a community college education, anyone who asks questions, anyone who challenges assumptions, is not to be trusted. Dumb is in. Stupid is cachet.

They repeat their advertisements over and over – and I don’t just mean television commercials or “product placement” in movies, but the “messages” about obedience and patriotism and do your job and don’t ask questions – and people just sit there unthinkingly watching them when the vapid entertainment program takes a “break” - such that, in the supermarket, they will hear those “jingles” when they see the brand name on the shelf, and be unable to keep from buying the products – and, in the voting booth, they will hear the vapid “sound bytes” incessantly delivered by tea party candidates. Back in the States, when someone had the television on, I would look away from it when the advertisements came on, and even “mute” them – and yet, to my chagrin, people would get angry at me because they “wanted to see them” - which told me that they were literally hooked on them, that this brainwashing was like a drug that they needed – which is indeed part of the brainwashing process, to love your jailer and torturer.

And the movies and television programs themselves are vapid, mindless bits of twaddle, with incredibly stupid “humor” that is clearly intended to dull our brains so we won’t question what these oligarchs are doing to us, and action movies (to say nothing of video games) that train the young people to answer the call when the bell of jingoistic patriotism is struck, so they can be killed in whatever senseless war is being waged this time.

Just before I left the United States forever, I was working five jobs, not including trying to sell signed copies of my books for a little extra cash, and yet I was still struggling to put food on the table, keep up with the bills, and pay the mortgage. It was literally killing me, it was literally killing my health. My house was “underwater”, worth less on the market than I still owed on it. The mortgage holder refused to let me refinance. I tried putting a young single mother in it, taking not a penny from her, but I could not keep up with the mortgage. Eventually she couldn’t afford even the little I asked of her and moved out, and I had no choice but to abandon the house; it has since been partially destroyed in a hurricane, and it was robbed of what worldly goods I still had in it, including precious family heirlooms.

All my life I’ve said we should, as Jesus said, give away all that we have and follow him. Before I left the States, I gave away my car to a poor black woman who lives in an inner city. I gave my entire collection of more than 100,000 books away. I cannot afford to return to the States to see my children who are dearer to me than anything, or my parents, who are in the final chapter of their lives. And I am living here in rural Panama in poverty, on a scant few hundred dollars a month, with only a suitcaseful of things I can call my own, doing my best to help poor indigenous people in this little village. That’s my choice, to do what Jesus said. I wish others would do similar.

Nor is it just government that is a “pipe”, despite what our overlords tell us. Every institution seeks above all to perpetuate its own existence, to expand its client (parishioner) base, to gain more money and power. Including, yes, religious organizations. It isn’t just the secular institutions, Wall Street, etc., that have stuck their hands in our pockets. We need to tell Rome, Salt Lake City, Jerusalem, Makkah, and all of them, the same thing – no more will they take our monetary and effort gifts until and unless they de-institutionalize in favor of really helping the needy. I’ve seen the riches of the Vatican with my own eyes, to name just one of many examples, and wonder how these people can call themselves servants of G-d when they control such wealth and power while millions are dying of chronic malnutrition, polluted drinking water, diarrhea, dysentery, AIDS, and, above all, war.

Sure these institutions are old and venerable, but the Word of the Lord is older, and, while they do not stand forever, “the Word of the Lord stands forever”, and that Word is to go, give away all that you have, and come, follow Him. Yes, the Pope holds an “ancient lineage”, yes, he represents a venerable institution. There are other venerable religious institutions even more ancient than the Pope’s. But more ancient than the Pope’s institution is the Word of the Lord. Jesus clearly said, “Go, give away all that you have [that's ALL that you have, not just what you can easily spare], and come, follow me.” Given a choice between venerating ancient lineages and following the Word of the Lord, I will choose the latter.

What can we do? A woman recently asked me for a website where she can make a difference. How trained we are by the oligarchs, to think the answer is somewhere on the internet. I don't see how any link can help. Rather, it’s an inward decision to bow to no human being or human institution, but only to G-d, to Allah, to Wakantanka, whatever term you use. It’s an inward decision to give these humans and institutions no power over you. It’s an inward decision to treat all humanity (and other species) with respect, giving to others freely, but yet speaking out and acting when others fail to treat people (and other species) with respect.

Here’s the answer: Buy from local farms. Buy direct from poor people in the Third World through various intermediary nonprofit organizations and coops. Buy generic, not brand name. Save your money at local independent banks. Frequent local independent shops, not big chain stores. Read books (bought at independent bookstores). Walk or use your bicycle. Pay cash as much as you can, or at least keep your credit card balance low; better yet, destroy it. Don’t invest in big business and take your money out of big banks.

Keep in mind the multiplier effect, which states that money that stays in a community increases in value, even if it doesn't increase in the number of dollars: the butcher buys from the baker, who buys from the candlestick maker, etc., in a web of relationships in which no new cash is ever introduced, but yet everyone gains plenty of value. However, when a Wal-Mart (or whatever) comes to that town, the amount of value in the town decreases – it’s sucked off to the ultra-rich slobs in Fayetteville, Arkansas, or wherever the slobs are who earn multiple millions a year. And worse, when one of these mega-companies goes belly-up, millions lose their jobs, their pensions, their health plans, and everything – but those slobs still have their mansions and their millions.

And, above all, don't let them control your mind. The oligarchs fuel our hatred for each other – liberals versus conservatives, whites versus blacks, citizens versus foreigners, Easterners and Middle-Americans and Westerners and Southerners each versus the other three, Yankee fans versus Red Sox fans – and, as long as we remain divided, they win. Right now, those in charge of us are stoking the hatred of “Occupiers” for “Tea Partiers” and vice-versa – because it serves their purposes well to keep us divided amongst ourselves.

I count among my dear friends many individuals whose politics and ethical views are diametrically opposed to mine. We have had many wonderful friendly arguments, not trying to bludgeon each other into agreement, but just exploring the profound depths of important issues. And, you know something? These people are wonderful people. They are truly good, truly moral, and want nothing but the best for this world. We simply differ on exactly what that "best" is and how to achieve it. I love them and trust them completely.

The people who disagree with you on these issues aren't the real enemy; if you think that, you're mistaken; that's what you've been trained by the real enemy to think.

Divided we fall, united we prevail. We should not be fighting amongst ourselves. We should be joined together against the real enemy, which isn’t pro-choicers or pro-lifers, pro-gunners, or gun-controllers, but the ultra-rich oligarchs who control all the institutions from the schools to the news media to the legislatures. Only in unity against the real enemy, the ultrarich oligarchs who, through their multinational corporation-persons, can we win back control of this world and our destiny before they succeed in destroying it.

The French Revolution was sparked by the intelligentsia, but the mob, long crushed under the royal heel, came tearing through the floodgates the intelligentsia opened, and a bloodbath of anarchy was the result. France (and I have lived there) is still suffering the pain of that anarchy.

The United States Revolution remained in the hands of the intelligentsia, with the result that the governmental institution enshrines the monied interests to this day (witness the insane Supreme Court decision that corporations are persons under the law).

I pray for a third way – a peaceful revolution that is neither controlled by the oligarchs to their advantage nor drowned in a sea of angry madness. So far, happily, these “Occupy” efforts are peaceful and surprisingly effective, despite the oligarchs-ordered media mockery.

May Creator guide us and protect us as we lead this revolution and create a New Heaven and a New Earth, free from bigotry and greed, in which all love their neighbors as themselves.

The Efficiency of Evil

2011-10-06T12:06:00.000-07:00

Living as an expatriate, first in France and now in Panama, gives me a better perspective on current events in the United States. It’s hard to see a city clearly when you’re standing on a streetcorner in the midst of traffic and hurrying pedestrians. But, looking down from the mountaintop, and remembering the details from that streetcorner, you can see far more clearly the overall condition and future of that city.

Furthermore, I have the ability to contrast how things are in the United States to Panama. Sometimes I’m not sure which is better – incompetent poops who barely manage to hold their country together or evil monsters who are all too coldly efficient in raping the world for their personal aggrandizement. Yes, it’s amazing Panama keeps stumbling and bumbling forward without falling flat on its face; just yesterday, merely in crossing the border into Costa Rica and back, I experienced several examples of blithering boneheadedness that could easily have been averted if officials had stopped to think for just a few moments, instead of just shuffling things along or insisting out of macho bravado on their rectitude when they’re clearly mistaken.

Still, the more I think about it, the more I’ll take the incompetent poops.

In recent days alone, we’ve seen several horror shows in the United States:

1) The Wall Street occupation (also bravely manifesting itself in several cities). The news media tried ignoring it until it got too big to ignore, at which time they started criticizing it as a “circus”; they hope in this way to denigrate it such that it will fizzle out. The New York Police Department has been breaking all sorts of laws by dragging peaceful participants by their hair, tear-gassing them, beating them with billy clubs, arresting them as much as seven hundred at a time, and yet the movement is still growing. Wall Street, built and maintained by our tax dollars (certainly not the tax-shirking rich folks!), has been blocked off by police paid with our taxes, who are only letting through people with big Wall Street firm identifications. In other cities, citizens are being denied their right to withdraw their money from their banks. Clearly, the orders have come down from the country’s ultra-rich masters that this movement is to be broken up at all costs, including the cost of trashing the Bill of Rights. It is just as clear to the protesters that this is their only chance; the movement caught those ultra-rich oligarchs flatfooted with surprise, but you can be sure that that will not happen again. And you can be sure that, sooner or later, the tanks will roll down the streets as they did in Prague and Beijing and Berlin, forcing these people to flee for their lives.

2) The State of Georgia executed a clearly innocent man, Troy Davis. Officials blithely ignored worldwide appeals for mercy, and marches demanding his release. The United States Supreme Court failed in its responsibilities in refusing to stop or even delay the – not execution, but murder of Troy Davis. Barack Obama failed in his responsibility to issue a pardon or other presidential decree releasing Troy Davis. Clearly this was to satisfy their ultra-rich masters and continue to frighten the masses into obedience. My friend Whiskey Jack, a homespun philosopher and former merchant marine whose wisdom I cherish, insists that government officials who put an innocent man to death should be tried for murder; I agree, and add that, if that were the law, you’d see those very same politicians falling over each other in their stampede to abolish the death penalty.

3) I’ve heard talk from these same these political lapdogs about building a gigantic wall between the United States and Canada, similar to the one constructed on the Mexico border. Clearly this is about a) lining the pockets of the ultra-rich when taxpayers (who are increasingly the poor and middle classes, as the political lapdogs lift all tax burdens from the shoulders of the ultra-rich) are forced to pay the private contractors; b) “proving”to the citizens who have been brainwashed by the likes of Faux News and Retch Limburger that “something is being done” about all those dang dark people sneaking into the country; and c) this wall proposal might serve to distract the citizenry from things like that pesky little problem down on Wall Street. I cannot help but compare these walls to the Great Wall of China and Hadrian's Wall, both of which were built at colossal expense in terms of both finance and labor, and which both utterly failed to keep the “barbarians” out; and the Berlin Wall, designed to keep the citizenry in. The Mexico Wall has clearly failed; drugs and refugées continue to pour into the United States, wall or no wall, prompted respectively by opportunity to feed on the wealth and drug-desire north of the border and by desperation. But I suspect that there may be something of the Berlin Wall in these Canada and Mexico walls – soon U.S. citizens will not be allowed to go abroad (unless they’re ultra-rich, of course), but kept instead chained to their grindstones in the "dark Satanic mills" envisioned by William Blake.

4) It was revealed that President Obama authorized the killing of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, on the pretext that he was more than a polemicist for alleged terrorists, but operationally involved. The known evidence for the latter, at this writing, is at best extremely flimsy – but that pales into insignificance in view of this setting aside of the United States Constitution and its Bill of Rights, the central documents to the entire rule of law in the country, by the president ordering the killing of one of his fellow citizens without due process – without a trial. Awlaki had been previously given the label “Specially Designated Global Terrorist” by the U.S. Treasury Departments Office of Foreign Asset Control, with the result that it was illegal for any legal person or entity (including the American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU, which tried) to represent that individual, unless a rarely-if-ever special permission is granted – even though by the Constitution, U.S. citizens have a right to legal representation, and are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.
Moreover, Reuters has since revealed the existence of a “secret panel” of U.S. officials who decide which vaunted enemies will be killed, citizens and non-citizens alike, and have the power to go ahead and order such killing, though the president apparently has the right to eliminate anyone on that list; again, there is no presumption of innocence or right of appeal. Why, then, Obama chose to allow this entirely unconstitutional murder of a U.S. citizen is, logically, way beyond me. If Awlaki did something illegal – fine; detain him and prove it in court. If he did not, leave him alone. But, if his constitutional rights are set aside, then the same can be done to anyone, including you and me.

I am extremely disappointed in President Obama. He has shamefully failed in his opportunity to lead the country into a new age of peace and prosperity for all people. He has catered far too often to his political opponents, the lapdogs of the ultra-rich. Two friends of mine, Buffy and Bonita, both African-American women, said to me, respectively, independently of each other: “Obama needs to go Black on their asses!” “He needs to go seriously Ghetto on these folk and open up a gigantic can of whup-azz.” Obama strikes me as a good man, an intellectually brilliant man, but one whose extreme care and lengthy consideration of alternatives eventually enervate him I still have hope that he will awaken to this imperative, but my hope is slowly sinking into despair. He needs to remember the ethical standards on which he sought this office. He needs to show emotion, to get angry, to lecture these people, and not to keep backing down. He needs to bring unity, not further division, to his fellow citizens.

Meanwhile, the ultra-rich oligarchs in control of this plutocracy – with no longer any pretense of true democracy – are absolutely thrilled to see us poor and middle-class folks divided asunder. They’re overjoyed to witness the political and cultural wars of “right”versus “left”, pro-choice versus pro-life, “family values” versus gay/lesbian rights, etc. This is why we see them sitting on their penthouse balconies high above Wall Street, sipping champagne and watching the “circus” being put on by the plebs down there on the street below. This is why we see their sign in the high window of the Chicago Board of Trade that says, “We are the 1%.” The ultra- rich intend to manipulate citizens into continuing to exhibit antipathetic rhetoric and behavior each toward the other, because, as long as the citizens fight each other, they will never unite – and thus will never build sufficient strength to “throw down the mighty from their seats” (as it is put in the Magnificat).

Given that choice between the efficient evil in the one country and the frustrating incompetence in the other, I’ll gladly take the latter. Here in Panama, at least, there’s still hope.

The End of the World Will Not Be Televised

2011-10-01T09:51:00.000-07:00

Inspired by the several revolutions in recent months in North Africa, citizen occupations are presently continuing, and building, in the American financial capital, Wall Street, in New York City, as well as other cities in support of that one. Hundreds of people are taking part, including some unions, and at least two well known figures, Susan Sarandon and Michael Moore. Police have been using excessive force, including at least one incident of tear-gassing people whose behavior was perfectly peaceful. Meanwhile, rich slobs sit on their penthouse balconies overlooking Wall Street sipping champagne and mocking those in that mundane world below them who foolishly protest the means by which these slobs became rich.

It is interesting to me is that this event has gotten hardly any mention on the mainstream news media in the United States. Even outlets like the usually reliable National Public Radio have refused to cover it - in the case of NPR, no doubt scared of the growing number of members of Congress (which provides its funding) who are marionettes dancing on financial strings jerked by the ultra-rich. If one wants to know what is going on, one must pull in various alternative news sources through the internet, or turn to the foreign press.

It doesn’t take much to figure out why this would be – the mainstream news media are owned by the very ultra-wealthy whom these demonstrators are protesting against. And the ultra-wealthy don’t want this kind of protest to spread, and the voices calling for a change in the current policy of relieving the ultra-rich of any tax burden and any impediment, economic or environmental, on their quest to accrue even more wealth.

And it is clear what the alleged reasoning behind this crackdown is: The widely held view is that "it's not real, it's not significant, unless it's on television". Reality (that, if you don't remember, is the context of events that cannot be accessed by electronic media) be damned, what matters is hype. These people believe reality can be controlled, that facts can be manipulated into twisted distortions that serve their end-game. These people believe that, if this demonstration is ignored by the electronic media, it is doomed through insignificance to eventual failure.

And it is clear to me that the police have been told to help bring about that eventual failure more quickly, to break up this demonstration by any means necessary. Clearly these techniques of dragging people by their hair, of insulting them, of tear-gassing them, are meant to incite violence on the part of the peaceful protesters. Once someone loses her or his cool, the police can arrest and detain that individual.

I am reminded vividly of what the prophet John Lennon said:

“When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system’s game. The establishment will irritate you – pull your beard, flick your face – to make you fight. Because once they’ve got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is nonviolence and humor.”

What Lennon said exactly coheres with the pacifist philosophies of Lao-tse, Thoreau, Gandhi, and King.

What is sad about Lennon's point, in this context, is that the very moment some number of these peaceful protesters do lose their cool - when the police "pull their beard, flick their face", or, in actuality, as the police are doing right now, pull them off by their hair and tear gas them - THAT WILL IMMEDIATELY BE HEADLINE NEWS.

I support this kind of peaceful citizen protest; indeed, I think there are times when it becomes our civic duty. When government forgets its prime responsibility to be of the people, for the people, and by the people – when government becomes against the people – it is the civic duty of the people to protest, to speak out, and to resist.

The right-wing ultra-wealthy control the news media, and have for years so successfully that a vast proportion of Americans have been duped into believing that the rich shouldn't pay taxes, that homosexuals and dark-skinned foreigners are out to get us, that our essential civil rights and health insurance and social services should be eliminated, that nonsensical neverending wars should be fought and our young people killed in them. I see efforts like this one on Wall Street as part of a last-ditch effort to awaken citizens to the serious danger this right-wing movement poses.

I say to these protesters what I tell myself: My hope and prayer is constantly that if just one person is awakened by my efforts, then my efforts, my life, were not in vain. For one person can go on and awaken one more, and that person one more, and so on. And, yes, the cynics are right; perhaps in the long run it won't make any difference, that the lunatics will destroy this world anyway. But, as Ezekiel was told by Creator, even if they don’t listen, you still have to blow the trumpet to awaken and motivate them. And I say, as did Martin Luther, if I knew for a fact that the world was going to be destroyed tomorrow, I'd plant a tree today.

The lunacy is setting in on all fronts. It isn’t enough that Republicans are crowding the field in their efforts to bring shame upon themselves; President Obama, a Democrat, has horrified me by ordering the killing of a United States citizen. Anwar al-Awlaki had become a key figure in al-Qaeda and a very influential communicator in both English and Arabic. I do not doubt that his efforts are detrimental to the well-being of American citizens, even though he was never connected in any material way to any terrorist attacks on anybody.

However, the United States Constitution, which President Obama swore to uphold, requires him to maintain procedures of due process.

When Awlaki’s father sought a court order to bar Obama from authorizing the murder of his son, the United States Department of Justice argued that such decisions were “state secrets” and therefore beyond the scrutiny of the courts. Awlaki has not been tied to any material support for terrorist attacks. As a result, he was killed for his ideas, for his words, rather than his actions. Which means his Constitutional right to the freedom of speech, no matter how widely repugnant his words may or may not be, was summarily ignored.

But, more importantly, the United States Constitution, which Mr. Obama swore to uphold, requires individuals accused of crimes to be guaranteed the right to due process – they are considered innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. If Awlaki was guilty of a crime – and that remains even to be alleged, let alone proven – he was not found guilty in fair trial. And yet he was killed. At most, he may have been guilty of – not treason, but of sedition: action, writing, speech, etc., directed unlawfully against state authority, the government, or the Constitution, or calculated to elicit contempt for these, or to incite others to hostility, ill will or disaffection against these. Sedition does not amount to treason, and therefore it is not a capital offense. It is not punishable by death.

Which brings us back to the peaceful protesters on Wall Street. They are protesting, among other things, government, for its sanctioning of, its legalizing of, the elimination of taxes for the ultra-rich, the elimination of civil rights, the elimination of social services. Are they, then, guilty of sedition? By the vaunted “logic” by which the killing of Awlaki was authorized, could police or military be sent in to kill them, too? It has happened before – and several times, from the Whiskey Rebellion to the unionist marches in the Great Depression to the forcible putdown of peaceful civil rights and anti-Vietnam marches, most egregiously the killings at Kent State.

A government against the people sees its own citizens as enemies. If all it takes to justify killing citizens is an executive decree of guilt (rather than a decision of guilt in a court of law), then we are now living in a police state, in which any of us, at any time, including me for writing these words could be justifiably murdered by our own government.

The same day I heard about the murder of Awlaki, I had an agent of the government accuse me, on the telephone, of lying to him. I am supposed to receive a refund of overpaid taxes. I have called several times to ask the tax officials to send my money to me here, where I live in Panama. They continue to mail it to a defunct address in the United States, and apparently ignore the sticker put on by the United States Postal Service, when the check is mailed back to them, which provides my present address.

Despite all this, the agent on the telephone accused me of lying when I assured him that I have repeatedly called to provide my current address. I was forced to explain to him in very clear language that my taxes help pay his salary, that he is an employee of the citizens, including me, and that he has no right to adopt an accusatorial tone and state, without fact or proof, that I lied to him. I cannot help but wonder, now, if my statements to him could justify an executive order to kill me.

It seems to me that the world is drowning in a sea of rhetoric. Nobody seems to care about truth any more, just about shouting louder than everybody else - hence they get more and more outrageous in their wild statements simply to gain more attention; as a result, they wander ever farther from the truth.

The truth is: If citizens can be legally killed because “they look or sound like a terrorist”, there will be bloodshed in the streets at the hands of police and military. We must hold to the rule of law.

If that is the way things are, then may G-d have mercy on our souls.

The Trashing of the World

2011-09-26T07:12:00.000-07:00

The other day, talking about how the ultra-wealthy have the rest of us ever more and more in their absolute control, I quoted the Yiddish proverb, “If rich people could hire others to die for them, the poor could make a wonderful living.”

My friend Glenda replied, “They already do. This is their recruitment of rural kids from the poor regions of the United States, who cannot afford to attend universities, who cannot find jobs, so they are going to war in place of the rich kids who are attending universities or are put by their rich daddies into the family business. However, the poor don’t make a wonderful living, they actually make less than minimum wage if you add it all up with the hours they put in.”

Glenda is right. I am more and more convinced that there is a cabal of ultra-wealthy individuals. Their names are not particularly well-known. They work from the shadows, through their proxies and puppets and puppydogs. They are reinstituting a worldwide slave society, in which all but they have to work constantly for pitiful wages to cover the ever-rising cost of living. Onto these slaves, chained by bills and taxes to their workbenches, the ultra-wealthy have put so much burden that people are crushed thereunder. More than that, wars are engineered as ways to make money (munitions industries, prison industries, construction industries, and so on), as well as to kill off excess populations, and keep people living in fear.

North Americans and Western Europeans are kept in a miasma of fear and anxiety by the overwhelming flood of information coming at them. They are made to feel guilty unless they watch the news and catch up on Facebook. But there is too much information to digest, and it leaves us confused and disorganized, and yet always craving more, and feeling guilty if we fail to review all of the information. Moreover, the information is largely propaganda, and carefully calibrated so people think and behave exactly as this cabal of ultra-rich want.

As I write this essay, there is a peaceful occupation of Wall Street, the financial center of the United States and, effectively, the world. While there was plenty of coverage of similar events in North Africa, this is getting hardly even a brief mention on the mainstream news media - which are owned by the ultra-wealthy who stand to lose a bit of their fortunes if this occupation reaches any meaningful outcome. I have just learned that journalists with the only news outlet providing video feeds - a small alternative outfit that broadcasts through the internet - have just been arrested. Hm. I wonder why.

Shortly before I wrote this essay, I watched in horror the video of a crowd cheering a Republican candidate for the United States presidency when he bragged about executing more than two hundred (mostly minority) people in his state of Texas. And the video of a crowd calling for the death of a man in hospital who had no health insurance. And the video of another crowd screaming imprecations at a man in the United States military, serving in the front line of one of these nonsensical wars, who happens to be gay.

Most people in North America and Western Europe don’t know that nearly one million people have been killed in Afghanistan and Iraq since the United States invasions, according to the lowest credible estimates. Americans are trained to be chronically incapable of thinking about anybody but themselves. They rarely realize that the Afghanistan/Iraq wars have no credible raison-d’être – there is no relationship between these countries and the September 11 attacks. They have no clue that, on the pretext of those attacks, the United States government has caused the death of thousands of people for every one individual who died in those attacks. These wars are entirely about oil and power, and ego on the part of the Bush/Cheney/Rove collective.

Most Americans are chronically unable to see how the arrogation and bigotry of their government, and its insistence that it has the unilateral might-makes-right to invade other countries and dictate to them how to run their own affairs made such an attack almost inevitable. The September 11 attacks were utterly abhorrent to any pacifist like me. But far more abhorrent, to me, are all the many, and worse, ways in which the ultra-wealthy, through the United States government-military-corporate establishment, have profiteered on their egregious exploiting of bloodshed in the world. Millions of innocent people have died in wars engineered by the United States. Millions more suffer thanks to United States corporatocracy (e.g., Bhopal, the Gulf of Mexico, the Exxon Valdez).

Americans are chronically blind to how their country, which was once upon a time loved and respected, is now broadly hated in the world. The United States has squandered and trashed the good will of the world by betraying its vaunted dedication to good. It now is clearly out to exploit the entire world, through commerce and war. And what is bound soon to happen as a result the United States can only blame itself for.

Descartes famously said, Cogito ergo sum. “I think, therefore I exist.” It is one of the greatest misfortunes of this age that very few people are capable of truly thinking any more, and one wonders if, then, they truly exist. Oh, yes, they think they think, but it is what they have been trained and programmed to think by the mills the public schools have been turned into, by the propaganda news media, by the politicians and the clergy. “Education”, in schools and the media (both news and entertainment) and houses of worship, is no longer about opening minds to the ability to think creatively and critically and to make decisions thoughtfully and to communicate eloquently, but to prepare them for their lifelong enslavement to the system of producing more riches for the rich.

Indeed, speaking as a retired clergyperson, I blame religion (all religions) as a social institution. Just like countries, just like the medical or insurance or legal or what-have-you social institutions, the short-sighted dimwits who “run” the religious social institutions, wear the sheep's clothing of vaunted spirituality to hide their lupine nature (the analogy is borrowed from Jesus of Nazareth) as they rape the people.

But religion is, as an institution, simply another pool of power, on the part of the ultra-wealthy, to control and harvest the people of the world. It is the Roman Empire, which never died; it simply became the Roman Catholic Church and its similar organizational hierarchies.

Spirituality is not religion. Spirituality, the sui generis yearning of the soul for the infinite, is decidedly not a social institution. Jesus, Mohammed, Lao-tse, Gautama Buddha, Black Elk, etc., on whom all be peace, were not religious leaders, not presidents of some social institution. They were spiritual people. As such, they were antinomian. As such, they condemned the social institutions – they condemned the “pharisees”, the establishment, as hypocrites (as, said Jesus, “whited sepulchres all white without and full of corruption within”).

We need more people like them. We need more John Lennons, Sojourner Truths, Martin Luther Kings, Mahatma Mohandas Gandhis, Dalai Lamas. We need more prophets, provocateurs, revolutionaries, poets, visionaries – people who have a vision of humanity as it should be, and have the courage like those I’ve named to stand in front of the military tanks in Tiananmen Square, to stand up to the well-entrenched powers, to outrage the people, to challenge common assumptions, to inspire and lead the way to a new world.

It is indeed always a battle of sorts between the visionaries and those who would convert the Sacred into the merely mundane. For every Jesus, every visionary, there is an organizer, a corporatocracist, a Paul, a Constantine, to set up the bureaucracy and turn the wild sacred power of spirituality into the mundane and malleable religion. Mircea Eliade and Emile Durckheim both pointed out this sad fact. coming from different scholarly directions.

But does that mean we should give up? As a spiritualist and an artist, I vehemently reject that notion. If through my writings I inspire only one person or maybe a few, and they go on to inspire others – then my life has not been an entire waste.

Death by a Thousand Cuts

2011-09-18T09:32:00.000-07:00

Capitalism is a shell game: by its very nature it leads to winners and losers. In a bounded economy (one with a finite number of people who are variously the workers, the investors, the merchants, and the consumers), some gain wealth only because others lose their wealth to them. When the economic pool has no external source of additional value, then profit on the part of some inevitably results in loss on the part of others.

More than merely a shell game, capitalism is a pyramid scheme, a "Ponzi" scheme: the first to do well in the game continue to well, and everyone else basically hands their money over to these first-ins.

How so? Once some gain wealth, they inevitably gain power, and can ever more easily manipulate the system in order to gain yet more wealth and power. The only possible corrective against this is through government regulation, setting barriers such that the rich cannot run away with the game. Yet the rich seek to break through those barriers - and often succeed. Those who profit gain ever-increasing control over the economic system, and therefore can manipulate the governmental system such that it serves mainly to protect their quest for more wealth, and thus they can change the rules to maximize their own further profit and control.

The only reason the Western economies have succeeded as long as they have is that they have for centuries exploited the Third World. They have enjoyed a seemingly unbounded economic system. These relatively wealthy Western economies took advantage of cheap labor (imported slaves and indentured servants, desperate immigrants into the capitalist country, and the citizens of poor countries overseas) and a seemingly infinite supply of raw materials and abundant consumer bases both within their own country and abroad.

Today, to some degree, they continue to secure an inflow of value into their economic system – they have lately relied increasingly on off-shore employment (cheap labor in Third World countries), and factory production where environmental standards are lax to nonexistent, or simply less stringently enforced after a few well-placed bribes. And some countries, desperate for foreign cash, allow this to happen, blinding themselves to the reality that, in the long run, that these wealthy foreign companies provide jobs and some local investment, but what little value they put into the Third World country is considerably offset by the value, the wealth, they take out of the country. These are, after all, profit-making companies, and they’re not going to invest in a foreign country unless they plan to get more value than they put in.

However, it is an illusion to believe that this system, in which developed economies take value from relatively undeveloped economies, is unbounded. It is only unbounded from the point of view of a single developed economy that is exploiting other, undeveloped, economies in the world. It is in fact bounded, because at any given time the potential value to be derived from the world economy is itself bounded, simply on a larger scale, and needing more time to be exhausted. A certain developed economy may conceive of itself as unbounded, but it is not; sooner or later, even if other less developed economies don’t take action to prevent this draining away of what resources they have, the value in the world that is yet to be absorbed by developed economies will eventually begin to run out.

Put another way, developed and undeveloped economies are part of a single world economy; just as wealthy individuals in a developed economy gain increasing control of the system such that they can accrue even more wealth, so too wealthy countries in the world economy gain increasing control of the system such that they likewise can accrue even more wealth.

Through international governmental and trade organizations, the wealthy developed countries in the world have long set the rules for international trade to their own advantage, just as the wealthy individuals do within their own countries.

To name one example, the wealthy countries do little of significance to counter the scourges of war, disease, and steeply rising populations that the poorer countries struggle with. It is to the advantage of the wealthy to allow – indeed, to subtly encourage, these scourges. Greater populations of unemployed, hungry people means, in the future, greater possibility of cheap labor. And greater instability in poorer countries caused by disease and war, and the like, goes a long way from preventing them from ever developing strong smart governments that could effectively counter this draining away of wealth through their economically porous borders.

To name one other example, countries like Monsanto aggressively market genetically altered crops to poor farmers in poor countries. Since the seeds, on an introductory basis, cost less than the “regular”seeds, many farmers buy and use them in their fields. But, unlike “regular” crops, which can be used to replant in future years, these genetically altered seeds must be bought every year you want to plant the crops – and here’s the catch – once a farmer has used these altered seeds, the regular seeds will no longer germinate in that field.

It’s getting harder for these ultra-wealthy and their companies. Cheap labor is ever harder to come by as poorer countries try to raise their minimum wage standards. Meanwhile, raw materials are getting increasingly scarce, competitors in other up-and-coming economies are cutting into what once were sure consumer bases, and pollution and regulation imposed by the “left”, even in poorer countries, is seen as further destroying the ability of the rich to get richer.

And more and more of these Third World countries are in fact “wising up”, taking bold steps to slow down the drain of wealth from their economies.

These countries already face considerable pressures because of their inability to compete with the developed economies. They are typically saddled with colossal foreign debts that they will never be able to repay, and on which the interest is forever multiplying like maggots. They don’t have the efficient factories, the investment pool, the know-how, the transportation systems, or the control of the world economic system to ever get on their economic feet: they are largely “on the outside looking in”.

Added on top of this, these countries struggle to feed and put to work their huge and steeply rising, and increasingly restive populations. And many of them are also caught in the web of endless wars, petty in nature but bloody in results, either in their geographical regions, fighting over crumbs with their similarly struggling neighbor countries, or trying to put down independence-minded resistance groups within. As a result, much of what wealth they have is wasted on huge military machines, and much of their potential work force is wasted on military training that will not later convert to peaceful employment, should the wars miraculously cease.

Still, some poorer countries are bravely trying to take steps against this drain of wealth – for instance by nationalizing foreign industries, by setting up economic impediments (such as import and export duties) to slow down this drain of wealth, and the like. Some are even taking the wise step of enacting strong environmental laws to prevent that form of exploitation that (Bhopal, for example) only further destroys what little they have.

These countries have no choice but to do this, beset as they are by exponentially growing national debts and rising costs for the goods and services their citizens are demanding (thanks to the way Western commercialism has so successfully marketed itself worldwide).

In response to these countering efforts on the part of weak economies, the major capitalist countries are increasingly turning to exploiting their own populations – to dumping tax burdens on all but those in control, the ultra-wealthy, to demanding more and more work (product, which converts into value for the ultra-wealthy), and to selling the finished product back to the powerless at high markups. Rather than relying entirely on exploitation overseas, these ultra-wealthy are seeking to create a Third World from their own poorer and middle classes, which they can then exploit.

The tea party lunatics in the U.S. Republican Party, and their equivalents in other capitalist countries, are therefore not the cause of this new trend, but merely a symptom. They are not the core of the problem. They have been duped by the ultra-wealthy, who control the system (and thus the media, education, and government), into believing that this exploitation of one’s own citizens will eventually benefit them, foolishly believing themselves to be the friends (not the exploited tools) of the ultra-wealthy.

The capitalist system, in short, is in its death throes, and the ultra-wealthy realize this, and they are trying (through their proxies, their puppets in government and media), to stave off its eventual utter collapse long enough to drag home a few more fortunes.

I believe that the ultra-wealthy have determined that somebody – if not they, then somebody else – is going to make a move for world dominance, and rape it of whatever value can be squeezed out of it now, and the future be damned. The ultra-wealthy may or may not literally believe the various conservative pseudo-Christian dogmas that say the εσχατον (the end of the world at the hands of G-d) is coming soon, but they DO believe that at least in some secular sense it is coming soon. Therefore, it might as well be they who takes advantage, rather than somebody else. Hence, they don't give a flying forkful of flapjack for “The Future”; they’re going to take what they can now, and then hole themselves up in their bombproof bunkers and ride out the conflagration that’s about to engulf the world because of their actions.

The ultra-wealthy have decided that public education is to serve not to enlighten, not to inspire, not to instill the beauties of culture, but merely to train. It is to serve only to prepare fodder for the mills of servitude to the extremely wealthy, and the military required to control the rest of the world. It is against the best interests of the ultra-wealthy to have the unwealthy educated sufficiently to question the moronic and inconsistent platitudes of their media marionettes and legislative lapdogs; it is more in their interest to keep the public blandly stupid so they vote as they are told.

They create a miasma of fear – most unwealthy Americans live in fear of losing their jobs (most states now allow employers to fire at will), fear of increasing costs, fear of terrorists, fear of, well, just about everything. Minorities – especially Muslims, gays and lesbians, and their supporters – are especially to be feared. Fear debilitates: it keeps people from thinking rationally through these issues, and from organizing to protest what the ultra-wealthy are doing to them.

The ultra-wealthy have set up an efficient organization – efficiency is what they’re all about. It is impressive to me how all of the political right talks and acts the same. They say the sound bytes, they behave in the same manner. It’s more, far more, than this or that individual politician. It’s the sum-is-greater-than-the-parts pervasive force of all of them. Clearly, there is a directive coming from above – from, no doubt, the super-rich whose financial abundance puts these inexperienced morons into power by buying elections (through gerrymandering, fake polling, TV ads, etc.). And these nouveau politicians, knowing that’s what put them into office, do as they are told, and speak hate rhetoric against gays and lesbians, Muslims, and left-handed liberal pinkos like me.

And, over time, the very plentitude of such hate talk, from radio and television commentators to lawmakers on the state and federal level, makes it acceptable. The first time you step over a body in the streets of New York City, you're shocked. But, after the twentieth time, you hardly think about whether this body is alive but drunk or on drugs, or dead; you just step over it and hurry on your way. It is becoming acceptable, centrist, to talk hate.

All of this is exactly the effective technique described by Adolf Hitler in his book Mein Kampf.

In this way “typical Middle Americans” are trained to believe that we “have to be tough on crime”, and that we have to “send a message” to the “criminal element” that crime will not be tolerated. They believe (wrongly, of course, as history and sociological studies repeatedly demonstrate) that prison and capital punishment are effective deterrents against crime; even though the United States has the highest percentage of its population in prison and has the highest rate of execution of any developed country in the world, with minorities, especially African Americans, at percentages far higher than in the general population, crime has not abated. In prison, young people simply learn from older, experienced prisoners how to be better criminals. When they get out, because of their criminal record they can’t get a job, so inevitably they go back into crime.

“Typical Middle Americans” are taught to believe that politicians who are “soft on crime”, probably “bleeding heart liberals”. just want to hand their hard-earned money to criminals, to “molly coddle” them in the form of government “handouts”. They are taught to believe that people who survive on public assistance are on drugs – despite the irrationality of this, since the demographics clearly show most drug-users are financially comfortable suburbanites.

Recently a live audience cheered and clapped when Texas Governor Rick Perry bragged about seeing some two hundred people executed in his state. When Congressman Ron Paul talked about someone in hospital without medical insurance, the audience shouted out that “they should let him die”.

As the Bible puts it, “All we like sheep” have been led astray by false shepherds. It’s a Pavlovian technique: the media have trained these people to applaud what these politicians say: when the plants in the audience (and you know media-savvy types like Perry have plenty of plants in the crowd) start the applause, everyone around them applauds too, even if they missed what was said, or didn’t fully comprehend it - like a wave rippling out from stones tossed in the water.

The ultra-wealthy, through their puppets, are determined to eliminate Medicare and Social Security and “privatize” them, so a profit can go into their pockets. Once Medicare is gone, a private system will cherry-pick the profitable clients, and the rest will be rejected.

Now the ultra-wealthy want to eliminate FEMA, the federal agency that responds to natural disasters, by refusing to fund it. In its place they intend to establish a profit-making private disaster-response company, headed up by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, son and brother of former presidents. This, along with profit-making privatization, in prisons, education, and hospitals, will enable the ultra-wealthy to collect a few more fortunes out of the system before it collapses.

“Death from a thousand cuts” - cut the cost of government, cut it until it is profitable for the ultra-wealthy who manipulate it in order to increase their wealth. Dump the burden of taxes onto the shoulders of the poor and middle classes. Set up casinos, which are really a form of regressive taxation, appealing as they do to the poor, the minority, the elderly on fixed incomes. Fund education through property taxes, so the suburbs where the wealthy live have good schools, and the poor inner cities and outlying rural districts, suffer with shabby education.

Economies are going to die. And there will be revolutions.

But don’t worry about the ultra-wealthy; they will be safe in their bomb-proof underground mansions while the rest of us up here fry in World War III.

As the Bible said: “The love of money is the root of all evil.”

Do Not Allow The Poor to Vote!

2011-09-03T10:56:00.000-07:00

According to a politically conservative columnist and author named Matthew Vadum, allowing the poor to vote is like "handing out burglary tools to criminals."

He goes on: "It is profoundly antisocial and un-American to empower the nonproductive segments of the population to destroy the country — which is precisely why Barack Obama zealously supports registering welfare recipients to vote. ... Encouraging those who burden society to participate in elections isn’t about helping the poor. It’s about helping the poor to help themselves to others’ money."

Of course, the conservatives are already doing their best to disenfranchise the poor - whom they believe, often correctly, to be predominantly Democratic or Democratic-leaning. Now that directly racist disenfranchisement is ostensibly illegal, they're doing it in other ways.

Registration processes are deliberately made complex so people without higher education, or a strong command of the English language, find it difficult to register successfully. There are fewer voting booths in poor urban districts, and they are generally older and more subject to breakdowns (real, intended, or imagined), creating long lines that discourage would-be voters. More often it is in precincts such as these that recounts are demanded, processes in which Republicans have gotten good at challenging every Democratic vote such that it is thrown out and, lo and behold, the Democratic candidate eventually is deemed to have lost.

Of course, the very sanctity of voting - that supposedly the people decided, that supposedly the outcome was unknown until the people had spoken - is long gone. It's such a science now that they know how you're going to vote even before you pull the curtain - no, not you specifically as an individual, but there are experts who can predict with appalling accuracy the results of every voting bloc: by district, by racial makeup, by educational level achieved, by religion, they have you pegged.

More than that, there are experts who manipulate - who pull certain strings in order to produce the election results that those who pay for their services require.

Thus it doesn't matter whether the poor, whether Democrats, vote or not: the Powers have set up mechanisms that engineer the desired outcomes to elections, notwithstanding what might have happened had the process of voting remained what it was intended to be. This is because the trained lapdogs of the ultra-rich in the Congress and state legislatures, put there by means of fooling the poor into voting for them, have destroyed any meaningfulness to the voting process.

The mechanism of this destruction includes gerrymandering, lobbying, no-bid contracting, PACs, corporations as persons, fit-the-desired-results pollstering, media blitzing, and of course owning the news outlets that tell people how to vote under the pretense of objective journalism.

Most appalling, these people use the emotional appeal of out-of-context religious phraseology and a flag-waving patriotic fervor to gain the support of millions of woefully uninformed citizens (thanks to financially undersupported schools that have been turned into menial-work-preparation mills and empty political platitudes in the guise of news but packaged as entertainment) - even as these people rip away from these people their civil rights, their jobs, their health, their clean environment, and dump heavy regressive taxes on their shoulders.

I'm reminded how, decades ago, I saw the manuscript for a fellow pastor's sermon. At one point in the margin his wife had noted, "Your argument's weak here. Be sure to raise your voice in emphasis." This, to me, is a metaphor for what these lunatics are doing - they have not weak arguments; rather, they have none at all. So they raise their voices into a din of outrage against those who try calmly to explain the complicated, boring facts.

Remember:

Those who do not set the bulwarks of their positions on the foundation of fact and raise them up on the girders of logic, but rather on the emotional appeal of flag and scripture, don't want you to realize that their rhetoric entirely lacks both fact and logic.

This Matthew Vadum fails to comprehend an essential feature to the whole idea of every citizen, rich or poor, white or minority, Christian or Jewish or Muslim, liberal or conservative, being able to vote. If every citizen is able to vote, it is much more difficult for a self-governed country to be taken over by an oligarchy.

We have seen in history what it's like when only whites can vote - blacks are kept as slaves. We have seen in history what it's like when only men can vote - women cannot inherit or hold meaningful jobs or get a decent education.

If only Christians get to vote, for instance, other faiths will soon be tightly regulated, or heavily taxed, or even outlawed. If only Republicans get to vote, there will be no "loyal opposition" to their maddening excesses. (The Democrats are no band of saints; they too have their idiots and their monsters. But they're all we've got in opposition to these tea party Republican lunatics!) And if only people who do not receive public assistance get to vote, then laws will soon be put in place denying those on public assistance (including the poor and the elderly) their essential civil rights.

It is only because those on public assistance (and those who agree to the necessity of providing it) still can vote that the poor and the minorities still have a few rights. It is only because they can still vote that the United States hasn't yet quite fully become an oligarchy of the wealthy. The country is already dangerously close to that, with lawmakers in state and federal legislative bodies doing everything they can to eliminate taxes on the wealthy, to create corporations as legal persons, to take away all public assistance (including health, housing, food, and other essentials), to eliminate environmental and safety standards, and safeguards against monopolies, and reduce all but the ultra-wealthy to slaves, working several jobs and still struggling to pay their taxes and their exorbitantly priced necessities.

And, if those on public assistance are denied the vote - even though the United States Constitution enshrines the vote for all citizens - then I warn you: You Are Next. Are you of a faith other than conservative Christian, or (shudder) of no faith at all? Is your racial heritage something other than Northern European? Do you have more than a high school education? Once they start that snowball rolling down the hill, there will soon be an avalanche of widespread disenfranchisement.

I'm a left-handed left-leaning scholar-writer, ordained in a liberal Protestant denomination and someone who practices (shudder) other faiths as well (Buddhism, Islam, Judaism, and Native American spirituality) who lives abroad because he can't afford life in the United States and is angry about that reality. I expect them not only to take away my vote, but to take away my pension and my Social Security that I paid for by working for forty-five years. You should be concerned that you, too, will lose certain essentials.

Vadum also fails to understand that voting isn't a "right" anyway.

It's a responsibility.

A right is something that is permanently yours. You can't lose it. A responsibility is something that, if you don't use it, you lose it. If you don't vote - and vote for people who will protect your rights and your responsibilities - both of them - you will lose at least your responsibilities, and very likely some day your rights, too.

Allow me to explain:

Every citizen has as her or his responsibility participation in self-government. If one fails that responsibility, one tacitly is allowing others - whoever those "others" may be, including the ultra-rich and the ultra-conservatives who toady up to them - to govern them instead. If a citizen doesn't vote, then a citizen has no right - this is where rights fit in - to exercise free speech to criticize the government.

That, at least, is what I used to say. But now that elections are so carefully managed that their outcomes are designed by the super-wealthy, the opportunity to exercise that responsibility has been taken away from us. I'm no longer sure whether it is worth the effort to vote, when the outcome is already been bought and paid for.

Vadum is only verbalizing what is increasingly a reality: that the United States is no longer a self-governed country, but an oligarchy of the super-rich.

Respect for Rick Santorum? I Think Not!

2011-08-21T09:30:00.000-07:00

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum (or, as I like to call him, Sanatorium, because that’s where he belongs) has recently announced that gay people should respect his opinion. I say he has every right to demand respect, but that respect is earned, not grudgingly given when demanded. And, since the former senator from Pennsylvania is wrong to condemn gays and lesbians, and promise that, if elected president he will take action to deny them legal rights and status, he has not earned that respect and should not be given it.

Fine, says a friend of mine. But gays and lesbians, by the same token, should not demand respect and expect it to be given automatically.

My answer is that there are two different kinds of respect. Respect for a group, a class of people, is not the same as an individual demanding personal respect: it is that class demanding equal legal and social rights.

I may or may not respect a certain couple (gay or straight) as a couple, you see, but I am required by the ethics of fairness and to a degree by law to give that couple (gay or straight) exactly the same respect I give to any couple. If I recognize any couples (whether or not I respect them personally) as couples, if I acknowledge that they are couples, with the same legal and social rights as any other couple, then out of fairness and by law I must recognize all couples as couples.

I may or may not respect individual couples, gay or straight. I may or may not respect gay or straight couples in general. (Indeed, I know some gay/lesbian couples that don't respect other such couples.) It is my right to like or dislike, to respect or disrespect whom I please, individual or group.

However, groups have a legal right under law to expect what is termed “equal treatment under the law”, and to demand it if they aren’t getting it. The United States Constitution, and every other constitution I’ve studied, beginning with Hammurabi's, enshrines “equal treatment under the law”. All of the major ethicists in history, beginning with Aristotle, have insisted that – no matter what our personal opinions may be – we are required by logic to be fair to all: rights and privileges given to some must be given to all, or we are hypocrites.

Therefore, I explain to my straight friend, whether you or I personally like the idea of gay and lesbian couples having the right to marry legally, we must accept it as their legal right, as a class. No matter whether we respect gay and lesbian couples as individuals or as a group. We must afford them the same right we straights enjoy ourselves.

So all groups and individuals have a right to demand respect from you and me, including gays and lesbians, and including Mr. Sanatorium. And you and I have every right as individuals to give respect to, or withhold it from, any individual or group.

But all individuals and groups have, under the Constitution not only the right demand the respect of being afforded equal treatment under the law. And you and I have no right to deny them that equal treatment. By law, all citizens are to be treated equally in all matters pertaining to the law.

(And yes, of course religious organizations and individual clergy have the right to refuse to sanction gay/lesbian marriages under the law. It would never be constitutionally legal or ethically acceptable to force institutions or individual clergy to sanction marriages of which they do not approve. On the other hand, public officials [city clerks, justices of the peace, etc.], as agents of government, as servants of the people, must afford to gay and lesbian couples the same service they give to straight couples: issuing licenses and providing civil ceremonies to all comers, notwithstanding their personal feelings on the subject.)

However, this is not the case for Mr. Sanatorium. By law he has to give all individuals and groups equal treatment under the law, whether he likes it or not. He can spew and foam about how gays and lesbians are responsible for the economic woes we're in, and responsible for the ruination of straight marriage. Yet he has one legal power you and I don't have: he and his bigoted cohorts in public office can change the law.

Let me explain.

Rick Sanatorium has every right to demand respect for his views from gays. And gays (and lesbians, whom he forgot to mention, being a chauvinist) have every right to refuse to give it, and I hope they do. I hope straights also refuse to give him any respect. He has, by law, the right to speak his bigoted views, but nobody is obliged by law to respect those views. Thankfully.

The difference is that gay-hating elected officials like Rick have the power to enforce their views. Ordinary citizens do not. Ordinary gay-hating citizens can't take a gun and shoot all gay or straight couples, or even one of them.

But Sanatorium can change the laws so as to enforce his bigotry against gays and lesbians. You and I cannot do that! He can make laws that strip them of their legal rights, even deny them “equal treatment under the law”. And, since more and more courts, including the Supreme Court, are now stacked with arch-conservatives like Sanatorium, any litigation demanding equal treatment under the law is likely to lose.

So, for you and me, it is illegal to take action on our dislikes, but not for him; he makes the laws.

That is why so-called people like Sanatorium and Perry and Bachmann and Palin are so dangerous. If straights can expect equal treatment under the law when they want to marry, then so should gays/lesbians. You or I may personally not approve of it, or not like this or that gay or straight couple, but they have, or should have, the same legal rights that you and I and other citizens enjoy. People like Sanatorium have the power to legally deny them those equal rights.

What is more, people like Sanatorium, Perry, Bachmann, and Palin want to remove all legal impediments on the ownership and use of weapons. And their rhetoric is often violent in nature, inciting violence against people who are not arch-conservatives like them and their followers. That is how Gabby Giffords and others got shot in Phoenix; that is how a bloodbath of conservative-inspired violence took place in Norway.

If Sanatorium and people like him are elected to office in sufficient numbers, not only will they change the laws so gays and lesbians – and other minorities, like Jews and Muslims, Latinos and Blacks, and liberals (and, who knows, perhaps also lefties and ugly people and old people and you and me) – lose their Constitutional rights ....

but they will change the laws so their conservative followers can take guns and legally blow away minorities.

And that, my friends, is why I say we should give no respect to Sanatorium (even though he has every right to demand it), and why we must give respect to all groups to enjoy the same legal rights we enjoy.

And that, my friends, is why Sanatorium and people like him are so evil and dangerous.

The Final War: Gingrich versus Buffett

2011-08-17T06:38:00.000-07:00

I think we can agree, whether or not we like him, whether or not we accept what he says, that former Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Newt Gingrich is an intelligent man. His acumen, like that of billionaire Warren Buffet, far exceeds that of those darling politibimbos Palin and Bachmann.

How, then, can someone like Gingrich (or, as I call him, “Givingtotherich”) say with a straight face that the legalization of gay marriage is responsible for the current worldwide economic meltdown?

I am sure that he is aware this is not really the case, that in effect he is lying.

I do not think he is crazy.

Nor do I think that he says these things just to please his audience; that, while it may happen, is insufficient to justify the continual repetition of obvious untruths.

In analyzing the cause behind Gingrich’s perorations, one must remember that all of these people – Gingrich and the rest of the “religious right” (neither religious nor right) – are a complex mess of evangelistic believers, america-firsters, gun nuts, arian skinheads, Republican pundits, and jus’ plain folks.

How is it, then, that such a widely disparate, extremely heterogeneous conglomeration of subcultural groups are all saying exactly the same crazy things – that Muslims are out to kill us in our sleep, gay marriage is responsible for these economic woes, that the super-wealthy and their companies should not be taxed (with the unspoken corollary that, since somebody has to pay the taxes that fuel government, it’s going to be the poor and middle classes), that guns should not be regulated (despite the shocking rise in gun violence), that health care should be privatized (despite the clear example from every other “developed” country in the world), that the United States has every right to influence politics in other sovereign countries and invade them to control their oil (but that no other country had better mess with us!), that environmental regulations are bad for us, that companies like Halliburton and Monsanto are godsends, and so on?

It is simply too much of a strain on my credulity to believe that people coming from such different subcultural communities – could just happen to be so completely in accord on so many obviously stupid falsehoods on so many topics.

The only tenable conclusion I can accept is that there is a very small group of people, unknown to us, the world at large, who have extremely carefully scripted exactly how power over the masses in the United States, and hence/thereafter the world, will be secured. This small group is considerably wealthy; it controls the major multinational companies.

I fully realize that I sound like an extremely paranoid conspiracy theorist in saying this, but I believe that this is the only conclusion that fits the glaring fact that all of these pundits, no matter which group they spring out of, are saying exactly the same things. This just couldn’t happen unless they were being told to do so by some entity powerful enough to coërce them into staying on point with everyone else.

Palin and Bachmann don’t have sufficient brainpower to tie their shoes without help, so they have to be getting careful training and grooming. Palin, however, has so often made evident what a dumb bunny she is that she’s now being set aside, and Bachmann being promoted by these powers in her place. Bachmann has risen from complete ignominy into a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, and I submit that that wouldn’t be possible on her own, unless she were getting significant help from very powerful people.

Neither Palin nor Bachmann has at her disposal enough brain matter to say to herself, “This blather they want me to say is complete nonsense,” and perhaps question whether she should say it at all. I have no doubt that Palin and Bachmann, in their own way, are truly sincere women who genuinely believe this tripe; just that they are too colossally stupid to review the glaring logical and factual evidence against it. Bachmann doesn't even seem to realize that her obviously repressed-gay husband is doing nobody a service with his clinic at which other gays can be trained to repress their nature as homosexuals.

On the other hand, how can an individual of Gingrich’s clear mental ability say, repeatedly, the obvious hokum he spouts? How can he justify to himself the glaringly, patently false allegation that gays are responsible for the economic woes we are in? Clearly, he cannot – unless there is a force being exerted upon him from above – or if he agrees with these mongers that an ultra-conservative takeover is required and that their plan is the most likely to succeed. And that “above”, again I posit, is this cabal of exceedingly wealthy potentates.

This group may or may not include the Koch Heads, but I'm starting to think they are shills set up by the group as well. the evidence. They have dutifully contributed large chunks of their financial resources to politicos and groups dedicated to exactly the same crazy views that Gingrich, Perry, Bachmann, Romney, and all of them spout as if it were Biblical truth. Yet even the Koch Heads have had the temerity to question publicly the economy-crippling government subsidies of the ethanol industry.

Still, overall, the Koch Heads remain firmly in step with the rest of the puppets of this secret cabal of powermongers. They have not yet, quite, stepped over the line as has Warren Buffett.

The latter has stated, powerfully and intelligently, that he and his fellow extremely wealthy individuals, should be glad to be taxed, glad to do their part to support the good work that government does. Warren Buffet has now broken ranks with the dutiful minions of these ultra-wealthy powermongers. He has refused to recite the script handed to him; he has dared to utter the TRUTH, that the super-rich should be taxed appropriately.

For that, Buffett is being harshly castigated and mocked by conservative commentators such as Gingrich – and on conservative pages on Facebook, which must please no end their genial host Mr. Zuckermann, who has been to Washington complaining that there’s “too much free speech”, and who is clearly censoring Facebook pages of a liberal agenda.

In other words, I think the cabal of mongers met in secret emergency session after Buffett’s outburst, and it has been decided to have their minions, Givingtotherich, etc., start repeating over and over that Buffet has gone soft in the head, senile, kooky, and so on. That way, should Buffett (as I anticipate) continue to dare to speak the truth, he will be dismissed by the masses, the cattle in the stall being milked by the mongers, as just another ludicrous, kooky crackpot.

This is the methodology adopted already with other eloquent, intelligent spokespeople coming from the other side, the liberals. Michael Moore, Al Gore, Bernie Sanders, Barney Frank, Rachel Maddow, Amy Goodman, and others are eloquent and intelligent, and persuasive if one listens to them with an open mind. But the script has clearly been handed out to brand them as kooky crackpots, and to indulge in ad hominem attacks when possible – notwithstanding the inapplicability of the attacks to the subjects at hand – Frank is gay, so anything he says must be wrong, for instance. Buffett now is being treated to the same methodology.

I don’t think for a second that the cabal of mongers promoting the religious underpinnings of this script believe these underpinnings. I think rather that, when it was decided to proceed with this plan for taking over control of the world, they looked around and saw that there was a large if unorganized group of conservative Christian belief, specifically dominionism and millenarianism (in brief general terms, the belief that the end of the world-as-we-know-it is coming soon, that there will be a Final War engulfing the entire planet, that Jesus is returning, that the [heterosexual conservative literalist] Christians will be saved and all others will be burning in hell). Seeing this amorphous group, they decided it had the most potential as a tool, so the group was carefully shaped by grooming spokespeople here and there – the very spokespeople I am writing about.

But I do think that the mongers support the sociopolitical goals that are drawn from this religious fervor – privatization of prisons, privatization of health care, privatization of the military, genetic engineering of crops so seeds have to be bought, and so on. And I do think that the conservative politicos who have been elected to office and will be elected to office represent another goal of these mongers: a complete, absolute takeover of the United States, and therefore of the world. And I do think that these mongers have decided there will be a “Final War” - not a religious battle of good versus evil, though they don’t mind if their minions think like that, but simply their war to take over control of this entire planet.

This constitutes a revolution, folks – a revolution not done by messy military means like the first American Revolution or the French Revolution, or even the revolutions going on now in the Middle East, but a revolution won by carefully taking control of every social institution: the schools (so they train children with work-oriented coursework rather than dangerous stuff like literature and history to be slaves to the economic system), the courts (so any attempt to challenge this takeover will be stopped), the news media (so the masses will be mesmerized into believing this takeover is a good thing), and of course legislatures on every level up to the federal Congress. And a takeover of other countries; by manipulating their elections, by pressuring them economically, by bringing in American ingenuity such as manipulative polling, other countries will dutifully elect U.S. puppets like Sarkozy and Berlusconi.

All of this, needless to say, is exactly in accordance with the recipe for revolution described (in Mein Kampf) and followed by Adolf Hitler. Repeat the big lies, again and again and again, stay on script, and in time the people will believe them. This recipe worked for Hitler. He only failed because he overreached too quickly for world domination. They have learned from his example and from his subsequent mistakes. They are well-positioned to succeed.

The only hope is that brave people like Moore, Gore, Sanders, Maddow, and perhaps now Buffett as well, will do exactly the same thing – stay on script, and again and again and again speak the truth. The only hope is that you and I continue to do the same with our friends, and on internet social networks like Facebook (as long as Mr. Zuckermann doesn’t shut us down too). We may not be likely to save the world from this takeover by the cabal of mongers, but we must not let this serve as an excuse for giving up. We have no choice but to try as hard as we can to save the world - not from idiots like Bachmann and Palen, not from glib talkers like Limbaugh and Gingrich, but from the intelligent and very well-heeled monsters who control them.

“The meek shall inherit the earth.” What a beautiful prophecy.

In these difficult times it is easy for us to lose hope. It is easy for us to believe that the strong, the bully, the big man who whips us along at our work, the bought-and-paid-for politician, the radio loudmouth, the megabillionaire who owns everything we see and touch and hear about. It is easy for us to lose hope, and to give up, and let Evil have its way. It is easy for us to think that perhaps, if we refuse to engage with Evil, we might not get hurt, we might remain relatively unscathed as Evil instead tramples those who do stand up to it under its marching feet.

But we must not lose hope. If we lose hope, Evil wins. If we lose hope, we become, at least tacitly, part of Evil's army. It may be irrational, it may be futile, but we must never lose hope.

Yes, the future - at least as I see it - looks pretty bleak, pretty lacking in goodness and light.

But I cannot bring myself to give up. I can and will continue to hope, to pray, and to do my best to bring a tiny speck of good, of light, into this world. My efforts may not be enough. Yet perhaps, as I hope and pray, other good souls will join me in this effort - other good souls that have not yet enslaved themselves to the Other One, or who have not yet given up and cowered away in spiritual suicide. Perhaps other good souls also will do their best to bring a tiny speck of good, of light, into this world.

If each of us does that, then maybe, maybe yet, the wisdom and the truth stated by Jesus, that the meek shall inherit the earth, will yet be our future.

I beg you, all of you who have read this and pondered our present and our future: no matter how bleak this age may seem to you - no matter how futile it may seem to you to try to counter, weak as we are, thse monsters that control the press, the schools, the legislatures, the mercantile and military, and the courts - no matter how irrational it may seem to believe in the good and the light, and to urge others to feel the same way, that is our only hope. The more YOU succeed in persuading others to do the same, the more our army of real human beings, armed with nothing more potent than love and light, can and will still inherit this earth.

I believe in you. I believe in hope. I believe in the future. I believe in love. DO NOT GIVE UP!

Silly Salary Slides would Select Slaves of the Super-Wealthy to Serve

2011-08-11T06:18:00.000-07:00

Once again, my liberal friends aren't quite thinking things through. Lately a lot of them, in response to the colossal federal debt in the United States, have on public media like Facebook repeated the following mantra:

Salary of retired US Presidents .............$180,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of House/Senate .......................$174,000 FOR LIFE
Salary of Speaker of the House ............$223,500 FOR LIFE
Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders ...... $193,400 FOR LIFE
Average Salary of a teacher ................ $40,065
Average Salary of Soldier DEPLOYED IN AFGHANISTAN $38,000
I think we found where the cuts should be made! If you agree... RE-POST

...and their friends do immediately repost, without considering the implications.

First, the above salaries represent a vanishingly small percentage of the federal debt. Even if every elected official (not merely the few listed above) worked for free, there would be no effect on the debt.

The real cuts need to be made in the Pentagon military budget, which is gigantic and, moreover, continuing to get padded at an alarming rate. In other words, liberals should focus not on the salaries of elected officials, but on getting those shamefully underpaid soldiers back home, and into good jobs back home.

Reforming a shameful health system - the United States is the only "developed" country without a single-payer universal health-care system - would be a big help toward balancing the federal budget, though not sufficient in itself to finish the job.

Second, liberals need to consider what would happen if the salaries of top officials are cut deeply.

One fact is: To get top talent, you have to pay top dollar. If we want the most qualified people to serve as (for instance) president of the United States, then we, the citizens, need to offer a salary package that will attract those people. Even as it is, a $180,000 annual salary - while it sounds filthily exorbitant to most of us in the middle and lower wage-earning classes - is in fact minuscule in comparison to the millions of dollars earned by the presidents and CEOs of the major companies. Talent is going to go where the money is, and I hope you agree that we want talented people as our elected public servants.

And if you resent (as the above quotation suggests) that former presidents get paid for life, again - that is nothing in comparison to the stunningly lucrative "golden parachutes" and retirement benefits accrued by former big-company presidents and CEOs. Again: if you want talent, you have to offer a package that will attract it.

Another fact is: It is extremely costly to run for president. Yes, technically, you and I and any citizen can do so. But the expenses of campaigning easily run into the tens of millions of dollars. Anyone who has a serious chance of becoming president is either independently extremely wealthy or has sold his or her soul to the presidents anad CEOs of those evil major companies. The lower the salary paid to the president, the more that president, any president, will belong to the monsters that have burdened us lower and middle class members with high taxes, few jobs, and vanishing social and medical security.

The United States should follow the example of other countries and drastically reduce the cost of campaigning. We should pass laws requiring television and radio to provide free publicity to all candidates (remember, we, the people, own the airwaves!, much as the arch-conservative owned-by-the-superwealthy media conglomerates may think otherwise!).

Better yet, media should be required to provide serious space in newspapers, serious amounts of time on radio and television for substantive debates of the real issues, rather than foolish and misleading "Willie Horton" sound bytes. That way, we might find unsuspected talent in, imagine this!, the poor and middle classes, rather than having to accept elected officials who represent the super-wealthy, the very people out to destroy us!

And the people of the United States should not cut, but increase the salary of top elected officials in order to attract independent-thinking and honest talent, not lapdog puppets of the super-wealthy.

Once again, my liberal friends, by not thinking things through, would have us do exactly what the super-wealthy want us to do: go chasing after windmills instead of identifying and correcting the REAL problems that beset the United States and the world.

Liberals are going to LOSE this battle for the future, to LOSE the opportunity to create a world of peace and plenty for all, and rather see a world of suffering and torment for everyone but the super-wealthy -- precisely because they have woefully misidentified objectives. It isn't the debt ceiling. It isn't elected officials. It isn't the salaries they make. It isn't the platitude-pooping popinjays on public airwaves. IT IS THE SUPER-WEALTHY AND THEIR HUGE COMPANIES!

So I'll thank my liberal friends if they think about this call to cut elected officials' salaries as a vaunted way to balance the budget before they copy it and ask me to copy it too.

"Power to the People Right Now"

2011-08-09T08:22:00.000-07:00

Once again my liberal friends are sorely misguided - and I wonder how often it is by the deliberate manipulations of public opinion by their enemies that my liberal friends are so often so easily duped into shabby thinking.

Many of my liberal friends are saying, "Throw the bums out," meaning: throw out the tea party officials and elect new candidates for public office, candidates who more accurately reflect the liberal agenda of appropriately taxing the super-wealthy and their companies rather than shifting it to the poor and middle classes, of protecting individuals through core civil rights from bigotry and arrogation, and of safeguarding social institutions to support people who cannot fully support themselves.

That agenda is superb and I support it with all my heart.

My liberal friends point, accurately enough, to the fact that their opponents - people of the largely Republican "Tea Party" "religious right" persuasion - did just that: the conservatives successfully threw out the people whom they thought of as bums - liberal and middle-of-the-road politicians - and put their arch-conservative candidates into public office.

However, what my liberal friends fail to understand is the system. "Throwing the bums out" isn't going to change a thing - because these vaunted bums are but puppets.

The puppets in elected office are controlled by strings largely financial in nature. It is extremely expensive these days to win elections (especially thanks to the cost of television time), and so candidates must dance to the tune of their biggest campaign contributors. These contributors by definition are going to be overwhelmingly representative of the super-wealthy class and their corporations - and thus will be giving money to the conservative types in office now, and not to their liberal challengers.

And lobbyists, who represent these super-wealthy and their corporations, are likewise strings tying these puppets to the will of their masters.

The same goes for pollsters - it costs a great deal of money to conduct polls, and it is a well-known fact that polls get the results required by whoever is paying for them. (If you want more "conservative" results, for instance, do your telephoning during the day, when more-likely-to-be-liberal young people are off at work and only more-likely-to-be-conservative retirees are at home; be sure to word your questions in a way that just about guarantees the results required.)

And the conservative powers - the super-wealthy and their corporations - now own critical newspaper chains and television networks, and blithely tell people what to think. Liberals failed to hold on to their media outlets, and they now have little opportunity to speak their views widely, outside of a few mavericks like Maddow and Olbermann and Goodman, whose audiences consist of the already liberal, who therefore have little ability to reach those people who listen exclusively to the conservative media's loudmouthed-bigoted-drivel-cum-reportage.

Moreover, the system in place puts a great deal of power into the hands of the incumbents - these conservatives - to gerrymander districts to promote their re-electability (incumbents in the New York State Legislature, for instance, have a ninety-nine-percent re-election rate).

Got a problem with the system? The courts are increasingly stacked with conservative judges. The police and military are there to enforce the laws that protect this system. Want to throw these bums in prison? It isn't going to happen. They will throw you in prison if you gain any power at all to change their system - which isn't likely to happen, given the very self-protective nature of the system. Remember, these stacked courts have decided, against all logic and reality, that companies are persons - except that they live forever, getting more and more powerful, and have even fewer limits on their political influence powers than do the super-wealthy folks who sit in their top-floor boardrooms.

So liberal talk about "throwing the bums out" is fruitless - one, because it will be almost impossible to do so, and two, because the system in place now will either render elected liberals ineffective or (because of the need for financial support) turn them into obedient puppets for the conservative super-wealthy and their companies - case in point, President Obama.

Throw the bums out and their replacements are almost guaranteed to become bums - again, maybe with one or two tolerated maverick exceptions like Sanders, mavericks with no hope of ever gaining sufficient support in their legislative chambers to do more than fume and fuss from their corners and garner applause only from the dwindling cadres of their liberal supporters.

So we must remember that elected officials are only puppets on the strings of the system, with the puppetmasters being the super-wealthy and their companies.

Government is simply legalized crime. The great fourteenth-century sociologist-historian Ibn Khaldūn called government “an institution that prevents injustice other than such as it commits itself.” Government is essentially a monopolistic corporation designed to provide services for the wealthy (and only incidentally for others), and mainly protect the wealthy, their wealth and their power.

Remember, the American Revolution was bought and paid for by the wealthy of that day, as a means of halting the bleeding, of taxation taking their profits off to England. Those who were wealthy before the Revolution were even wealthier thereafter; those who were poor before the Revolution remained poor - if not dead in the war.

So throwing the bums out will not make any difference. Ultimately, only revolution might make any difference. History again and again shows that those who are without, as they get hungrier and hungrier, more and more desperate, they get stronger. When eventually they get organized, or simply rise up in a chaotic mass, the super-wealthy will be in great trouble. The super-wealthy know this, and use their media and their politicians and their armed forces to dissipate and control this chaotic power - but some day it will destroy them.

But there is danger in revolution too, as shown by the American Revolution (see above) and the American Civil War (which was only ostensibly about slavery; it was really an economic war between the factory-based economy of the North and the plantation-based economy of the South). If a revolution is bought and paid for by the super-wealthy, it will only further strengthen their grip on power and wealth.

In the time of the American Revolution, the super-wealthy wanted to stop the flow of money from their coffers to England, in the form of taxes. So they bought and paid for a revolution. Today, the super-wealthy are stopping the flow of money from their coffers in the form of taxes by becoming puppetmasters using the strings of the system to control their puppets, elected officials. In other words, they do not want a revolution.

But, if the people get hungry enough, and angry enough, there will be a revolution. All of the media and the courts and the police and the military and the elected officials are in place to prevent this. The system is in place to keep the poor and middle classes powerless. But, as John Lennon asked, "You say you want a revolution?", and as he answered his question in another song, "Power to the people right now."

We liberals are deluding ourselves if we think throwing out the puppets will do any good. Instead, we should focus on throwing out their puppetmasters. The bums to throw out are not the politicians - the bums to throw out are the super-wealthy and their companies.

Keep the Debt Ceiling, but Use It as Intended!

2011-08-06T13:24:00.000-07:00

Liberals say ditch the debt ceiling that recently put the United States on the verge of an economic meltdown. They decry how the opposition party, the Republicans, clearly used it as a tool to try to humiliate President Obama.

Liberals point out that other sovereign countries don't have debt ceiling requirements, and seem not to suffer from that lack.

Should the debt ceiling therefore be eliminated?

The Founders intended it as a check on "cowboy wars", on military actions undeclared by presidents. The bombing of Libya is an example of such an action - the Obama administration justifies saying it is not really a war, that it is just a military action, by saying "no lives have been lost", meaning no U.S. lives, like Libyan lives don't count. The Congress would have been justified to use the debt ceiling check to oppose this action for what it is, an undeclared "cowboy war". Using it as they did, however, in an attempt to humiliate a sitting president is, of course, unacceptable.

But this egregious and shameful misuse doesn't justify getting rid of the debt ceiling.

That's because the debt ceiling serves as a necessary "check and balance" against an imperial presidency going off to war without congressional support - and the United States has a long and sorry history of "cowboy wars", and a frightening trend toward an imperial presidency with almost unlimited powers. Indeed, Obama is militarily involved on more fronts than George W. Bush ever was.

The argument that other countries don't have debt ceiling requirements is therefore specious. Other countries, except perhaps Russia and China, don't have a comparable recent history of "cowboy wars", of unilaterally deciding to intervene in the sovereign affairs of other countries. (Russia and China falsely claim, for instance, that their actions in Chechnya and Tibet are police in nature, quelling of civil unrest, denying what they really are - wars of genocide on nations that should by all rights be sovereign countries.)

Of course, government should be conducted on a pay-as-it-goes basis. Of course, any failure to do so should result in the elected or appointed perpetrators being immediately removed from office.

And of course, most wars almost inevitably require a government to go into debt. The ever increasing debt in the United States is not the result of social services to the poor, but of a colossal and fast-growing military budget.

Once government goes over the line into debt, and lightning doesn't strike (nobody gets booted out of office), then there is no more restraint, no more shame, and the temptation to go ever farther into debt is irresitable - the temptation to "solve" budgetary impasses not by negotiation but by giving everybody what they want - giving everybody their big piece of pork to wave in front of the voters back home.

And the larger the deficit grows, and the larger looms the very real possibility of a powerful economic entity, the United States, going entirely bankrupt - and taking the world, economically, down with it.

And this reality is exacerbated by the cuts in social services and the transfer of taxation from the super-wealthy and their corporation to the poorer and middle classes - all while the military budget continues to grow at an alarming rate.

The solution is simple.

Deep cuts in the military budget.

Tax the super-rich at the rate they should be taxed.

Tax corporations rather than giving them public money.

Support social services that enable poor and middle-class people to survive, to get on their feet.

E-Books: Will Literature Survive?

2011-08-02T11:05:00.001-07:00

Electronic publishing increasingly looks to be the future of books. As an author of many books - some published electronically, some physically, and some both - perhaps my views are worthy of interest.

On the plus side, internet publishing makes it much easier to get one's work to market, increasing the likelihood that, in the future, people will still read good writing, which is something we can justifiably worry about. With all the competition in "entertainment" (the profit-oriented category of human endeavor that has replaced the aesthetics-oriented category "the arts") literature has precious little to recommend it. It offers no eye-popping special effects, just print on a page. It provides no instant gratification, but demands rather a considerable investment of time to reap its rewards. It is no lazy sit-back-and-enjoy, since one is required to think while reading, and use one's imagination.

Certainly it is fiercely expensive to pay people to perform all the tasks needed to publish a book in physical form, from evaluating submitted manuscripts to manuscript editing to typesetting to copyediting to book-designing to printing to binding to distributing to publicity to retailing. With all of these specialties involved, it's no wonder that there's very little profit to be made in the book industry.

This situation is tougher in some countries, like the United States, where a Supreme Court decision ("Thor Power Tools") significantly increased the tax liability on printed copies of books stored in warehouses and not yet sold. So high is this liability that most publishers avoid warehousing as much as possible; if a book isn't going to sell out quickly, it's not going to be printed.

In the past, the very difficulty of publishing (physical) books created a kind of selectivity - something was far more likely to be really good if it was going to make it into print. Or, put conversely, if someone wrote a really good manuscript, it was bound to be published; the book houses felt they had a public duty to bring good works before the public.

That is to say, publishers used to publish on the basis of not profit but quality. The first works of many of the greatest authors - Faulkner, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Salinger, for instance - did not sell very many copies, and in fact the publishers expected them not to sell well, but the publishers knew these writers were good, and knew that some day they would be widely recognized for their goodness, and so they stuck by them.

Today, that would never happen. Publishing decisions are based not on quality but on quick profitability - hence (and I could use myself as an example) many great books languish unpublished while a lot of absolute sniveling crap gets heavily promoted. If I had submitted a book like my

novel "Rats Live on no Evil Star" in the 1930s or '40s, you can be sure it would have been quickly published, despite the economic difficulties during the Great Depression and World War II. Already a few hundred people have read it, minimally published though it is, and every one of them has come away from it saying it is one of the best novels he or she has ever read. But, nevertheless, I continue to shop it around from publisher to publisher, in three languages and several countries, and rarely do I even get a serious acknowledgement.

Which is not necessarily to blame the publishing industry. Today, a lot of would-be authors think that book house editors are heartless, tasteless ogres who irrationally and unjustifiably refuse to see that their writings are the next best-seller. But the truth is, with so little profit in the industry, that, unless yours is a household name, or the book or is a quick-sell item, or the book has a movie or toy-industry tie-in, it's not at all likely to be published. Hence all the books written (or so it is claimed) by actors and politicians and convicted criminals (but I repeat myself), and all the magnificent tomes such as "1,001 Uses for a Dead Cat".

On the minus side of electronic publishing:

While the e-book cuts right out most of the costs associated with physical publishing, one downside is that this eliminates a lot of jobs in an economy hurting for employment. And another downside is that valuable skills are being lost. Even physically printed books these days are commonly riddled with errors of typography, grammar, and spelling - if a copyeditor went over the galleys at all (which is increasingly doubtful), then that copyeditor, rushed for time and perhaps poorly trained by a public education which these days fails to convey the rudiments of proper English, utterly failed to do a good job of editing.

What is more, electronic publishing also denies the book lover certain fine tactile and olfactory splendors - the satisfaction of feeling a good book in your hands, the sound as the page is turned, the wonderful scents of ink and glue. It's simply not the same thing to curl up in bed with a Kindle or a Nook.

And, since e-publishing makes it so easy to get one's writing out there before the public, it exponentially multiplies the available amount of unmitigated shameless garbage. Thousands of people can indulge their little ego-trip of self-delusion that their poorly written derivative trash is going to be famous and make them lots of money - eventually they find out that, even through Amazon and the like, nobody will download their turgid nonsense even if it's offered for free.

Yet, if e-publishing helps to keep great literature alive - it is gratifying how many of the classic works of the past are available in electronic format for free - then, with all my qualms, I grudgingly must embrace it.

Moreover, in countries like Panama, where I live, it might help increase the literacy rate, and the interest-in-good-literature rate. And since, for expatriates like me there are virtually no English-language bookstores in the country and the cost of importing either one's existing book collection or mail-ordering new books from abroad is quite costly, one has little choice but to read e-books.

But what about the long-term future?

Electronic records - as anyone who has suffered from a computer crash or the loss of important data for one or another reason - are extremely vulnerable to inadvertent destruction. There is unlikely in some future age the sound of joy from archaeologists finding a treasure-trove of classics like the Nag Hammadi Library, for e-books will have long before have been reduced to mere a random static of free electrons.

What is more, even physical books these days are mostly printed on poor-quality high-acid-content paper, and won't survive more than a few decades at best - especially with the increasing amounts of corrosive pollution in the atmosphere.

Third, public education in most countries is being downsized and defunded, and the emphasis being put not on a well-rounded liberal arts education-for-its-own-sake, but on learning skills sufficient to be competent at some mindless trade. People are being trained by the profit-hungry market to want instant mindless entertainments that require no effort, that "relax" one after a hard work day. Literature is going to be of less and less appeal to such people.

A fourth factor, as noted above, is that the entire publishing industry (from printer to retailer) is run not by people who believe in literature for its own sake, but by bean-counters; if there is no profit in it, it's simply not going to be published, no matter how great a work of art it may be. I expect even free electronic versions of the classics to disappear soon.

So there is a serious possibility that all the literature of this age and past ages, that some unpublished Shakespeare or Dante or Murasaki of today or tomorrow may never be known and appreciated by the world of literature lovers. There is a serious possibility that the very lack of good literature will lead to the disappearance of literature lovers themselves. Tragically and ironically, the concern I raise here may be nonsensical in future ages.

I can hope that the electronic book will save literature, but of that - at this point in history - I cannot be sure.

DISCLAIMER: James David Audlin has written many books, a few of which have been published; most of them (he has thrown in the towel) are now available in electronic format at http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/JamesDavidAudlin - and in softcover through Createspace.com - and some in hardcover through Lulu.com

I Don't Want to Hear It!

2011-07-31T09:08:00.000-07:00

Ah, my liberal friends. They get themselves up in a lather over how these crazy tea party lunatics are putting through all sorts of nutty bills in state legislatures and even the United States Congress.

I don't want to hear it.

They get all hot and bothered about how desperately needed social services are being cut, how schools are being dumbed down and turned into training schools for dead-end jobs, and how the military-industrial complex gets all the public money.

I don't want to hear it.

They grind their teeth audibly about how the ultra-rich and the big corporations are getting out of paying any taxes, while more and more of a tax burden is being dumped on the backs of lower- and middle-class citizens.

I don't want to hear it.

They get steamed how the religious right (neither religious nor right) wants to get rid of everybody but the white, heterosexual, evangelical Christian, politically conservative.

I don't want to hear it.

My liberal friends don't want to hear it, but they have no one to blame but themselves for the state things are in. Their complacency is to blame. We're in this situation because my liberal friends got lazy and comfortable, and, while they were sleeping at the switch, the crackpots were everything that the liberals should have been - organized, with a clear uniting plan - and they, not we, got their people into Congress, they got their people onto every court from the local level to the Supreme Court, they took over the news media.

Some of my liberal friends still want to complain and belly-ache. They'll be whining about George W. Bush a hundred years from now.

I don't want to hear it!

Others of my liberal friends set all sorts of silly goals, like impeaching the boneheads on the Supreme Court, or getting rid of the Electoral College.

Nope, I don't want to hear that, either!

But this doesn't mean that I think we should just give up. That has never been my philosophy. But we have to decide our best course of action.

We're tilting at windmills if we think we can get anybody impeached when their friends control most of the state legislatures and the Congress.

And we're out of our minds if we think we can get rid of the Electoral College such that there is direct voting for the office of president; this requires a Constitutional Convention, and my liberal friends forget that the wackos are aching to call a such a convention to order - and once it's been convened, anything can happen, literally; any demagogue can stand up and say let's change the Constitution so only aardvarks can vote for presidential candidates, and if that demagogue persuades a majority to vote for it, it's the Constitution! And, since their friends in the various state legislatures will be choosing the convention delegates, their agenda will win out, not ours.

Instead, we need to think in terms of BUILDING BLOCKS. We need to start by continuing to point out the insanity that's going on (tax breaks for the rich and their companies, removing needed social services, attempts to privatize or eliminate Social Security and Medicare, fighting oil wars, trashing the Bill of Rights, and so on). We need to build a groundswell to elect to state legislatures and the Congress individuals who are more honorable, and more accountable to their constituents and not their big contributors or their party bosses.

Then, a decent Congress can impeach these nincompoops, and presidents like Obama can lead more effectively and appoint better people to the Supreme Court.

My talk about building blocks like this frustrates a lot of my liberal friends because it's slow, and it's frustrating because it doesn't yield the big results they want immediately.

Well, maybe so. But it has one advantage over silly talk about impeaching judges and canning the Electoral College.

It's a goal that we acually have a chance to reach.

We have to remain strong, consistent, and united. Remember, these blankety-blanks don't just control the Supreme Court and the Congress. They control a critical mass of (what used to pass for) print and broadcast news media. This is why it's going to be a serious uphill battle. But we have no choice if we want to save this world.

After all, what I'm recommending is exactly what the Tea Party wack jobs did. They were smart. They were patient. They set themselves a step-by-step plan. They first repeated, over and over, the same consistent message - that "we" need to elect people who think like "we" do. Then they put up candidates who provided that opportunity; and these candidates won.

This is a proven method - our opponents have proven it works.

Now we too must do the same.

So stop whining, my liberal friends. I don't want to hear it!

Instead, start repeating as often as possible to your friends who've been reprogrammed by the Tea Party nutbags our consistent point - that the creeps they've put into public office are endangering not just the financial and moral integrity and safety of the United States, but of the world.

We must put up candidates who repeat these same points.

We must not give up; we must continue to strive to win hearts and minds.

And this, after all, is why I wrote this column, and continue to speak in this blog. I believe in what I am saying!

If you believe it too, start saying it!

Winehouse and Terrorism

2011-07-25T10:32:00.000-07:00

Surely all reasonable people feel a deep sense of grief for the death of so many innocent people recently at the hands of madmen. From Arizona to Texas to Norway these madmen have decided to make their point in dramatic fashion by engaging in the wanton destruction of life.

I share those feelings of grief.

Surely all reasonable people also feel somewhat frightened - for there is an unpredictability about these events. Who can possibly predict when and where one of these crazies will strike?

I share those feelings of fear.

But I also feel angry.

I am angry with politicians who use violent rhetoric in reference to those who oppose their partisanship. I am angry with politicians who even go so far as to visualize their hate; Sarah Palin, a maverick lunatic politician of astonishingly limited acumen (that means you're stupid, Sarah), put images of gunsight targets on the faces of politicians she hoped to see lose their re-election bids. And I get increasingly angry at these politicians when they piously deny using such rhetoric or insist that it had no relation to the decision of crackpots who go out shooting and bombing -- in support of these politicians' views.

And I am angry with the news media. They play up the death of Amy Winehouse - even though no one should be surprised that a drug addict should be found dead like thousands of other drug addicts; her considerable musical talent does not make it any more noteworthy, since dozens, at least, of famous pop musicians have likewise died from drug complications. And while playing up Winehouse they play down the mass murders at around the same time in Norway and Texas.

Where is the outrage on the part of the media? Where is their sense of priorities as to what is a serious news story and what is hardly more than entertainment?

And I am angry with the public, worldwide, because I don't get the sense that very many people share my anger with the politicians and the media. I hear them "isn't it too bad" -ing about Winehouse, and the subject of Norway hardly ever comes up.

Today, the media are almost universally owned by large companies - and the people in charge do not demand impartial news coverage from their employees. They do not demand serious raking in the muck of evil that is drowning this world. No, they demand profits! So news is put up for its entertainment value. Giggly anchor people chitter-chat with giddy reporters, and rarely do the real events get serious attention.

Somewhere along the line - probably Roone ("Wide World of Sports") Arledge - realized that television news could be a profit-maker instead of a highly respected public service. Out with the Walter Cronkite types. In with the reporter-cum-celebrity and the ditzy weather girl with the big you-know-whats. Out with serious reports that lasted (can you believe it?) as much as five minutes, and in with little puff pieces no more than a minute in length. Out with reporting, in with inane banter among the boneheads in the studio. Out with integrity, in with ratings.

This is why the no-surprise death of Amy Winehouse gets bigger headlines than nearly one hundred people unexpectedly slaughtered in Norway at the hands of unmitigated evil.

What is more, those large companies demand the news that their employees publish to reflect their political values, to support the reactionary boneheads who call for violence against anyone who dares to disagree. Rupert Murdoch just let his people get a little sloppy. What his media empire does is done by every other news outfit from Cumulus to Fox.

And I am angry at how the news media slant their reporting in the direction of racism. Remember Fox News accusing Barack and Michelle Obama of committing a "terrorist fist bump"? Nothing has changed since.

It is immensely curious that news descriptions of the dual massacres in Norway included the word "terrorist" -- up until it was determined that no Muslim extremists were involved. Once it became clear that the, ahem, alleged perpetrator was ostensibly Christian, the word "terrorist" disappeared.

(Let me be clear in passing that Islam and Christianity, like every faith, denounce and decry violence and killing altogether, except perhaps in self-defense. They do not call for the murder of people of other faiths. They do not condone the murder of innocents in order to draw attention to the murderer's religious or political views. As far as I am concerned, anyone who kills for any reason other than unavoidable self-defense or the defense of innocents is not a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or anything else but a violent hypocrite. And, contrary to what you've been told by uninformed know-it-all news media types, Islam does not condone terrorism or mass-murder, or the forcible conversion of non-Muslims. In fact, the Qur'an clearly states that if you take one life it is as if you have killed all of humanity, and that conversely if you save one life it is as if you have saved all of humanity. There is more about Jesus in the Qur'an than in the New Testament. Judaism and Islam are incredibly close: kosher and halal are just about identical, the Tanakh is sacred scripture to both, and both have noble heritages of excellence in historiography, law, and philosophy. And so on!)

So why would the news media describe a mass-murderer of Muslim background as a terrorist but describe a mass-murderer of Christian background as just a mass-murderer?

Terrorism, simply put, is the undertaking of dramatically violent actions in order to inspire terror in the general population. All of these mass murders of late clearly fit this definition.

Some people prefer to say that it is the undertaking of dramatically violent actions in order to publicize some (usually religious or quasi-religious) ideology. But even by this definition, the horrible events in recent weeks still fit; a madman who kills innocent people to dramatize his ideology that Muslims are destroying Europe, like the wacko who killed innocent people in the Oklahoma City government office building, or the lunatic who killed innocent people on the streets of Phoenix, is clearly a terrorist.

Therefore, if the news media only call Muslims "terrorists", and not Christians, they are implying that Christians are not capable of terrorism. They are implying that Islam somehow condones terrorism - which it absolutely does not! - and that Christianity opposes it. They are guilty of racism.

Moreover, as a friend pointed out to me, the news media talk about ostensibly Christian mass murderers as "supposedly" Christian, or "fringe" Christian (the unspoken axiom being that "real" Christians supposedly don't commit acts of terrorism) -- but they talk about ostensibly Muslim terrorists as "hardline" or "hardcore" Muslims (the unspoken axiom being that Islam supposedly orders its followers to go out and kill non-Muslims).

Again, this is racism in the news media.

Again, the news media are, intentionally or not, encouraging people to hate and even inciting them to do something with that hatred.

Again, the news media are ignoring the very real possibility that some unhinged mind will be so caught up in this racism that the individual will go off and kill a whole lot of people.

Meanwhile, I hear the news media decry Muslims because there is (so they say) no strong outcry against the evil madmen who, under the cloak of religion, wreak horrible death on innocents. The sad fact is that many Muslims are afraid to speak out, afraid to draw attention to themselves, afraid of attracting the venomous hatred of non-Muslims. Many other Muslims know that their efforts to speak out will only be thwarted; most news media are unwilling to publish the views of moderate Muslims because they prefer to perpetuate the fiction that "all Muslims are out to kill us".

Words are powerful instruments - as Voltaire pointed out, they are mightier than weapons. And every weapon-wielding terrorist, it always turns out, was whipped into a frenzy by rhetoric in the public media.

Osama wanted to destroy the U.S. government? He's succeeded; these teabaggers wouldn't ever have gotten into power without him. He wanted to destroy the U.S. economy? He's succeeded; the money being poured into the Pentagon is wrecking the financial infrastructure. He wanted to prove the imbecility of most Americans? He did, by saying exactly what he was going to do - and then doing it.

Meanwhile, the news media continue to live in an imaginary world of people just like them - white conservative Christians. They refuse to see how most of the world is not only anything but white or conservative Christian, but is getting angrier and angrier at the bigoted cowboy hubristic arrogance of the United States. The media continue to give insult to others, like saying "jihad" means "holy war" (which it doesn't), calling for a "Crusade" against Muslims (which is like calling for a Holocaust against Jews), and calling Muslim mass-murderers Muslim terrorists while excusing Norwegian mass-murderers from being called Christian or terrorist!

One can only hope for the day to return in which the politician was a pillar of probity, whose measured words were of peace and goodness, whose promises were kept, whose lives were exemplary.

One can only hope for the day to return in which the news media return to their primary and only proper function - to determine the truth, even when it is hidden, and to tell it fairly and dispassionately. And for their opinion editors to express outrage for any and all acts of violence, for any and all racism and bigotry, no matter who is responsible and against whom it is directed.

Disclaimer: James David Audlin was for many years a newspaper opinion page editor.