WHETHER GOD EXISTS OR NOT IS TOTALLY IMMATERIAL TO ME.
I am an atheist. So what? Everybody hates an atheist except other atheists. That's because we disavow the existence of a creation in peoples' minds that has been touted as the most important creation their minds can conceive of. When we atheists do that, we create enormous discomfort in the minds of believers.
God probably exists, if he/she/it exists at all, in the minds of believers that god exists. It is impossible to convince any believer that it is impossible to prove a negative. Like, "Prove to me that god doesn't exist." So forget that discussion. I really don't care if there is such a thing as god or whether god exists or not.
What amazes me is the gullibility created by people's need to believe in the existence of god. What is of major concern to me is that religion has exploited, from earliest times and continues to exploit for nefarious purposes, people's need to believe in god.
Questions, anyone? Like, "What specifically, are those nefarious purposes?"
The concept that the need to believe in god is exploited for nefarious purposes must be shocking to many and laughable to others. Allow an explanation and then the history.
God is a higher power, ineffable - incapable of being described in words, mighty and almighty, a provider of comfort for the inexplicable and terrible events of life, a being to whom one gives attributes above all the attributes of which humans are capable, the Power to whom one turns for retribution to be visited on one's enemies, and the haven (heaven) to which one's loved ones go in death. There's more, but you get the idea. These are intimate personal beliefs and feelings, raw and sensitive in time of need, providing forgiveness for earthly failings called sins, and the source of all good that befalls some believers. This is the power of ALL.
There are two ways to reach this higher power.; private prayer and prayer in religion.
Religion is the door through which one can reach god, in the words of the tradesmen of religion, the purveyors of religion, the ambassadors of god, the representatives of god on earth. Once a believer goes through the door of religion, one word is added to the personal belief system, "Obey." Now, the believer has a larger belief system to which others conform, giving validity and support to the individual. Two prices must be paid for admission to this wonderful new order; money if you have it - no matter how little you have, and obeisance to the god of the system as demanded by the self-proclaimed representative of god here on earth. That obeisance generally is exercised in wartime, to enable wars to take place and to "know" that god is on our side. There's lots of money to be made in war. Remember that!
Because the variety of scoundrels is as unlimited as is their creativity, so too the variety of obeisance is unlimited. It ranges from the manner in which you cross yourself or kneel in obeisance, to the obedience demanded that you kill the non-believer. The "non-believer" is anyone who does not adhere to the particular religion to which you adhere. The religion is whatever someone, not god, in the past said or now says it is. The idiosyncratic nature of religionists, past and present, demands that you bang your forehead on the floor or flagelate yourself with whips and chains, or you put your womenfolk believers behind a wall to separate them from the men in prayer to almighty. You may even thank god for not making you a woman.
If it were possible to quantify all of the comfort that belief has provided to all of the believers on the face of the earth and if it were possible to quantify the pain and anguish, the slaughter, dismemberment, torture, poverty, and loss of loved ones, that religions have caused on the face of the earth, AND if it were at all possible to suspend that belief in their religions long enough to enable individuals who adhere to the religions to weigh those two quantities on appropriate scales, I believe it would be extremely unlikely that any change would take place on earth in religiosity or adherence to religions or their leaders.
To achieve that desired (by me) state of non-religion and proceed to a life of caring ethical humanism, education of their children to that end by all peoples must be made mandatory to the same extent that religious education has been made mandatory in life on this planet.
And that is another session.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, March 29, 2008
HISTORY IN THE FAKING- OKINAWA
1945
Hey people, listen up. The Americans are coming and we won’t be able to protect you. You will surrender and lose face. And we will lose face for not being able to defend you. You’re going to be raped, tortured, and murdered by the soldiers. You will die in shame. Your ancestors will not hear you nor look at you. Your families on the Mainland will be embarrassed and deny that you are in their families so as not to stain their children and their children’s children with your shame. Your names will be erased from the face of the earth.
We plan to commit suicide and we will help you also to behave honorably. We will provide you with grenades that will enable you to pass quickly and painlessly into your ancestors’ world. When the Americans come, even they, savages that they are, will respect and honor you. And the honor of your village will be preserved forever.
1946
The history of World War II was created by the Western winners, simply because they were the more powerful. The military coercion of civilians to commit mass suicide in villages on the island of Okinawa as American forces approached to attack the island as the war was ending, has been described in Japanese history books written after World War II. Since the destruction of the Japanese Empire and its conversion to a democratic country by dint of the American occupation and the reorganization of the political, legal, and economic structure, re-education of the population away from militaristic and fascistic functioning has been generally successful. Also, with expanded exposure to the Western World resulting from enormous business success, modernization has forced many changes in the ancient culture and practices of the country. Committing suicide to alleviate shame is a pratice that has been substantially diminished.
2007
But history can also be re-written by the losers. In April of 2007, mention of the mass murders instigated by the Japanese military on Okinawa, was removed from the nation’s history books at the demand powerful post-war reactionary forces. Such shame must not be permitted to be perpetuated in young Japanese minds.
2008
And on Okinawa and in the courts of Japan and in the history books, the newly powerful have been rebuffed in their attempt to remove the story of the military involvement in the mass suicides in the villages of Okinawa. Right-wing forces that are a major part of today’s Japanese Power Elites, wish to return to that wonderful feeling of superiority by re-writing the history of that shameful period. But over 100,000 people rallied in Okinawa to protect their history. They successfully objected to the faking of history on their island.
TORA TORA
Hey people, listen up. The Americans are coming and we won’t be able to protect you. You will surrender and lose face. And we will lose face for not being able to defend you. You’re going to be raped, tortured, and murdered by the soldiers. You will die in shame. Your ancestors will not hear you nor look at you. Your families on the Mainland will be embarrassed and deny that you are in their families so as not to stain their children and their children’s children with your shame. Your names will be erased from the face of the earth.
We plan to commit suicide and we will help you also to behave honorably. We will provide you with grenades that will enable you to pass quickly and painlessly into your ancestors’ world. When the Americans come, even they, savages that they are, will respect and honor you. And the honor of your village will be preserved forever.
1946
The history of World War II was created by the Western winners, simply because they were the more powerful. The military coercion of civilians to commit mass suicide in villages on the island of Okinawa as American forces approached to attack the island as the war was ending, has been described in Japanese history books written after World War II. Since the destruction of the Japanese Empire and its conversion to a democratic country by dint of the American occupation and the reorganization of the political, legal, and economic structure, re-education of the population away from militaristic and fascistic functioning has been generally successful. Also, with expanded exposure to the Western World resulting from enormous business success, modernization has forced many changes in the ancient culture and practices of the country. Committing suicide to alleviate shame is a pratice that has been substantially diminished.
2007
But history can also be re-written by the losers. In April of 2007, mention of the mass murders instigated by the Japanese military on Okinawa, was removed from the nation’s history books at the demand powerful post-war reactionary forces. Such shame must not be permitted to be perpetuated in young Japanese minds.
2008
And on Okinawa and in the courts of Japan and in the history books, the newly powerful have been rebuffed in their attempt to remove the story of the military involvement in the mass suicides in the villages of Okinawa. Right-wing forces that are a major part of today’s Japanese Power Elites, wish to return to that wonderful feeling of superiority by re-writing the history of that shameful period. But over 100,000 people rallied in Okinawa to protect their history. They successfully objected to the faking of history on their island.
TORA TORA
Friday, March 28, 2008
FROM CLUBS TO NUKES TO WHAT?
WHY WOULD ANYONE WANT TO GO TO WAR?
WARS ARE STARTED BY THOSE WHO DO NOT GO TO FIGHT IN THE WARS.
IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO UNDERSTAND ALL THE FACETS OF WAR.
FOR HOW MUCH MONEY WILL YOU SELL YOUR SON TO DIE?
HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT MAKING MONEY FROM WARFARE?
DO YOU UNDERSTAND CHILD SUICIDE BOMBERS?
DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE HAPPY MOTHERS OF CHILD SUICIDE BOMBERS?
DO YOU CARE IF YOUR NEIGHBOR’S SON DIES AT THE FRONT?
IS RELIGIOUS OR NATIONAL INSULT A GOOD REASON FOR KILLING?
WOULD YOU KILL OVER POSSESSION OF A HOLY ROCK?
IS CONTROL OF NATURAL RESOURCES A GOOD REASON TO GO TO WAR?
IS THERE SUCH A THING AS A “GOOD” WAR?
WHAT IS NEEDED TO START A PRE-EMPTIVE WAR?
AT WHAT POINT DO YOU START A “DEFENSIVE” WAR?
The reasons used to bring about war are interesting to study. Warfare has many faces. How wars are fought, what the weaponry is, where the killing fields are, how victory and defeat are determined? Slaughter of the enemy to acquire prestige is a major reason for war. All wars have an economic basis. Ethnic, tribal, and religious wars are masks for the economic reasons for slaughter.
How do YOU feel about war?
Do women feel differently than men?
Do rabbis feel differently than priests?
Do tailors feel differently than warplane manufacturers?
Are most “Conscientious Objectors” faking it?
Are religions different in their reasons for god killing people?
Is nuclear warfare on the way?
Have you ever seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their people after the atom bombs were dropped?
Have you ever seen pictures of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and their people after the atom bombs were dropped?
WILL WE ALWAYS HAVE WARS?
Monday, March 24, 2008
WORSHIP - THE BEGINNING OF RELIGION
WORSHIP
Reverence paid to a divine being or supernatural power.
As a noun, Your Worship = Your Reverence.
Extravagant respect or admiration for.
The act of expressing reverence.
Taking part in the rituals of reverence.
I come from a faraway island lush with water, food, shelter, and whatever clothing we wish to wear. At last count, we were over ten thousand inhabitants. Rains come and water our crops and fill our aquifers. Sunshine beats down and our crops grow. Our animals are fat from their food and we enjoy their bounty of milk and meat. The ocean that surrounds us is bountiful with fish that we catch as needed for food.
We have a few rules and our children are brought up to obey them unquestioningly.
Rule number one: Treat all as you wish to be treated yourself.
Rule number two: The work you do, whatever it is, is for the benefit of all.
Rule number three: No one may strike another for any reason.
Rule number four: If you break any rule, you must punish yourself by isolating yourself in the isolation area for a time determined by you. Only you can forgive you.
Our society is based upon respect for each other, always. We gather to sing, dance, and eat together. Our couples mate for pleasure and for offspring and are couples so long as they wish to remain couples. Couples may separate and come together with others and with other couples. Separation of couples is the most serious upsetment on our island. Tears are expected and sadness is common at separations. But these are the times when re-coupling enables a return to happiness.
No one may judge any other person but themselves. That is not a rule but rather an age-old custom.
When people die, they are placed in our four-sided open burial rafts and pushed out to sea with the tide for the length of the line that holds the raft. They remain in the raft until their bodies are gone and we reel the raft in to be used for the next person who passes on. We know that is where those who passed wish to find themselves if ever they waken, washed by the warm sea. We who wish to mourn their passing gather to hold hands at sundown at the launching place and remain there as long as each of us wishes. We sing songs of praise for those who passed.
We do not worship. We respect ourselves and others and always show that respect. No one is higher than another or lower than another. No one is better or worse than any other. We are all truly equal.
We killed one person who claimed to speak for a being higher than all others. We thought of him as evil.
Reverence paid to a divine being or supernatural power.
As a noun, Your Worship = Your Reverence.
Extravagant respect or admiration for.
The act of expressing reverence.
Taking part in the rituals of reverence.
I come from a faraway island lush with water, food, shelter, and whatever clothing we wish to wear. At last count, we were over ten thousand inhabitants. Rains come and water our crops and fill our aquifers. Sunshine beats down and our crops grow. Our animals are fat from their food and we enjoy their bounty of milk and meat. The ocean that surrounds us is bountiful with fish that we catch as needed for food.
We have a few rules and our children are brought up to obey them unquestioningly.
Rule number one: Treat all as you wish to be treated yourself.
Rule number two: The work you do, whatever it is, is for the benefit of all.
Rule number three: No one may strike another for any reason.
Rule number four: If you break any rule, you must punish yourself by isolating yourself in the isolation area for a time determined by you. Only you can forgive you.
Our society is based upon respect for each other, always. We gather to sing, dance, and eat together. Our couples mate for pleasure and for offspring and are couples so long as they wish to remain couples. Couples may separate and come together with others and with other couples. Separation of couples is the most serious upsetment on our island. Tears are expected and sadness is common at separations. But these are the times when re-coupling enables a return to happiness.
No one may judge any other person but themselves. That is not a rule but rather an age-old custom.
When people die, they are placed in our four-sided open burial rafts and pushed out to sea with the tide for the length of the line that holds the raft. They remain in the raft until their bodies are gone and we reel the raft in to be used for the next person who passes on. We know that is where those who passed wish to find themselves if ever they waken, washed by the warm sea. We who wish to mourn their passing gather to hold hands at sundown at the launching place and remain there as long as each of us wishes. We sing songs of praise for those who passed.
We do not worship. We respect ourselves and others and always show that respect. No one is higher than another or lower than another. No one is better or worse than any other. We are all truly equal.
We killed one person who claimed to speak for a being higher than all others. We thought of him as evil.
THE POWER OF IGNORANCE - HEALTH CARE
Before I approach my subject of health care, let me reiterate my belief that the American People are intentionally educated, indoctrinated if you will, with ignorance about how they are being scammed by the systematic cooperation of business and government to the financial aggrandizement of business and to the detriment of the financial condition of the American People. Major beneficiaries of this national socialism are the health care industry, armament industry, insurance industry, oil industry, agricultural industry, natural resource expoitation industries and the food industry. (An example, if you will. How much money went INTO the pockets of the American People from the trillions spent for the Iraq war? None! WHERE DID ALL THOSE TRILLIONS COME FROM? The American People! WHERE DID ALL THOSE TRILLIONS GO? Wealthy industrialist shareholders!)
I have been in the health care delivery industry for twenty years. I provide health care. The money being paid for my delivery of health care is being sucked out of my pocket (and yours) by the government and the health care insurance industry.
Ignorance is important to the success of this unholy partnership of government and "health" insurers simply because the system becomes slightly vulnerable when the voting booths are open to allow a change of politicians who must operate the system. A well educated population, given the facts and the understanding to go along with that knowledge, may become disruptive to the smooth operation of the system and choose politicians who not only promise to make changes but who have the intellectual and moral power to withstand the enormous pressure put on them to "go along" for their benefit and the benefit of "their constituents.
The politicians' true constituents are the ones who ply them with small money and emoluments and cheap goodies for themselves and their voting public, to the DETRIMENT of their voting public.
Now to health care. Michael Moore created a documentary motion picture of the travesty of our system of insuring for and the non-delivery of health care in the United States. If you are reading this, you are probably aware of the enormous smear campaign waged against him and the film, "Sicko." The campaign succeeded in its goal of de-educating those who saw the film and even those who never went to see it because of the smear campaign. The documentary showed the truth of the system that in return for money, provides insurance policies that are designed to be meaningless in times of health care need.
The government talks about and in small measure provides "COVERAGE" for health care. The insurance industry provides, if anything, what it calls "COVERAGE." The American People have been educated in ignorance to believe that they need "COVERAGE." Let me explain what "COVERAGE" is. It is real money that goes to insurance companies for fake health care coverage. NO INSURANCE COMPANY PROVIDES HEALTH CARE. It is ALWAYS in the insurance company's best interests to DENY health care that they have been paid to provide.
The government allows this because the government is made up of individuals who benefit from that same pocket that holds the health care COVERAGE money. The education of ignorance continues by convincing the American People to believe that the government will do a poorer job of providing health care than the companies that only provide COVERAGE. The American People believe that they do not want the government to decide the what, when, where, why, and who will provide health care. They have been indoctrinated to believe that it is better and wiser to have insurance companies take their health care money directly (or through their taxes poured into the insurance industry's coffers) and provide them with COVERAGE when they really need health care. The American People would rather have COVERAGE than health care.
What a great educational coup. Exchange your native intelligence for government issued ignorance.I would suggest that Libertarians, people who are close to anarchists in philosophy but have a fancier name, continue to obtain their health care from insurance companies. The American People should demand that the whole health care delivery system be turned over to the government and force the government, by elections, to provide health care. Only then will they get a reasonably fair health care deal from that well known, non-profit organization, the American Government.
I have been in the health care delivery industry for twenty years. I provide health care. The money being paid for my delivery of health care is being sucked out of my pocket (and yours) by the government and the health care insurance industry.
Ignorance is important to the success of this unholy partnership of government and "health" insurers simply because the system becomes slightly vulnerable when the voting booths are open to allow a change of politicians who must operate the system. A well educated population, given the facts and the understanding to go along with that knowledge, may become disruptive to the smooth operation of the system and choose politicians who not only promise to make changes but who have the intellectual and moral power to withstand the enormous pressure put on them to "go along" for their benefit and the benefit of "their constituents.
The politicians' true constituents are the ones who ply them with small money and emoluments and cheap goodies for themselves and their voting public, to the DETRIMENT of their voting public.
Now to health care. Michael Moore created a documentary motion picture of the travesty of our system of insuring for and the non-delivery of health care in the United States. If you are reading this, you are probably aware of the enormous smear campaign waged against him and the film, "Sicko." The campaign succeeded in its goal of de-educating those who saw the film and even those who never went to see it because of the smear campaign. The documentary showed the truth of the system that in return for money, provides insurance policies that are designed to be meaningless in times of health care need.
The government talks about and in small measure provides "COVERAGE" for health care. The insurance industry provides, if anything, what it calls "COVERAGE." The American People have been educated in ignorance to believe that they need "COVERAGE." Let me explain what "COVERAGE" is. It is real money that goes to insurance companies for fake health care coverage. NO INSURANCE COMPANY PROVIDES HEALTH CARE. It is ALWAYS in the insurance company's best interests to DENY health care that they have been paid to provide.
The government allows this because the government is made up of individuals who benefit from that same pocket that holds the health care COVERAGE money. The education of ignorance continues by convincing the American People to believe that the government will do a poorer job of providing health care than the companies that only provide COVERAGE. The American People believe that they do not want the government to decide the what, when, where, why, and who will provide health care. They have been indoctrinated to believe that it is better and wiser to have insurance companies take their health care money directly (or through their taxes poured into the insurance industry's coffers) and provide them with COVERAGE when they really need health care. The American People would rather have COVERAGE than health care.
What a great educational coup. Exchange your native intelligence for government issued ignorance.I would suggest that Libertarians, people who are close to anarchists in philosophy but have a fancier name, continue to obtain their health care from insurance companies. The American People should demand that the whole health care delivery system be turned over to the government and force the government, by elections, to provide health care. Only then will they get a reasonably fair health care deal from that well known, non-profit organization, the American Government.
Sunday, March 23, 2008
HISTORY - THE ENEMY OF PEACE
From Bob Janoff:
"Personal message: I know I don't know much about politics and am not well-read but isn't there now an Arabic state called JORDAN. JUST CHANGE THE NAME TO PALESTINE. Too simple?"
Bob, there are people who believe that should be the solution. Send the Arabs who used to live in what was called Palestine, to Jordan, and give the land that was called Palestine to Israel. Call Jordan Palestine and call Palestine Israel. Neat.
Between nationalism, patriotism, religion and holy rocks, love of country/land where you were born, and where the ancestors are buried, figure your chances of peacefully moving anybody to anywhere they don't want to be from places they do want to be.
"Personal message: I know I don't know much about politics and am not well-read but isn't there now an Arabic state called JORDAN. JUST CHANGE THE NAME TO PALESTINE. Too simple?"
Bob, there are people who believe that should be the solution. Send the Arabs who used to live in what was called Palestine, to Jordan, and give the land that was called Palestine to Israel. Call Jordan Palestine and call Palestine Israel. Neat.
Between nationalism, patriotism, religion and holy rocks, love of country/land where you were born, and where the ancestors are buried, figure your chances of peacefully moving anybody to anywhere they don't want to be from places they do want to be.
Saturday, March 22, 2008
ISLAM - DON’T CREATE – DO CRITIQUE AND DESTROY
The Muslim world is locked in a time-warp extending back thousands of years in most of the geographical areas it embraces. There are exceptions where modernity has been embraced by Power Elites for their comfort and pleasure and rarely, out of necessity. Tradition and the Islamic religion have been used to maintain the wealth wall. Slavery, sex, education, primitive religious law, and other indicia of backward societies prevail in this world.
The source of news, enlightenment, opinion, law, education, prejudices, mores and attitudes, for the most part, have all emanated from and are managed and controlled by the clergy who are supported and controlled in turn by the Power Elites. The tribal structure of the cliquish national and geographical societies has enabled the prohibition of advancement into modernity primarily out of fear of change, fear of loss of power by tribal leaders, their huge patrilineal families, and the Imams, the Islamic clergy under their patronage. Egypt and Jordan have moved toward modernity in sluggish fashion, as have some North African nations.
The difference between creating, building, growth and change, and acceptance of a rigid status quo is readily discernable in that vast world. Creation and advancement takes education, high-level thinking, learning by exposure to variety in the world, trained skills through guild apprenticeships, and spreading wealth. Creating lies in the difference between time usage and time passage. Any modernity seen in the Muslim world resulted from Western influence and work ethic. British colonialism, French expansionism, American industrialism, have been and continue to be to this day, the movers of these territories into modernity. The very work itself is performed, not by the locals, but rather by imported, highly paid, skilled labor of all kinds.
Ossama bin Ladin calls this degeneracy. He calls for the ascendency of Islam and the destruction of the West and Western values. Creating requires capital, many talents, much time, and has many attributes. Destruction requires no talent, little time, money for gunpowder, ignorance and skewed ethics. Its single attribute is chaos.
The goals of creativity and destruction are vastly different. Birth versus death. Individual power versus collective power. Freedom versus enslavement. Harmony versos chaos. A fuller, richer, freer life versus a limited, poorer life.
The motivational differences are also huge. Linear simplistic thinking versus complex thinking. Narrow versus broad goals. Despotic versus democratic societal control.
The nature of the forces of creation versus the religious nature of the forces of destruction are shockingly held up for distinction by lunatic religious leaders and are applauded with rabid enthusiasm by the indoctrinated followers of this generation’s Hitler-like religious psychopaths. In venomous utterings from Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, as much as the poisonous rantings from the hills of the Pakistani border and the resurgence of black-turbaned Mullahs in Afghanistan, the civilized world is looking future, continuous, war squarely in the face. This frightening resurgence of religious idolatry was initiated by and is supported by the Power Elites of the Islamic world in the horribly mistaken belief that the way to maintain and even aggrandize their power is through the disassociation of their world from the Western World.
The underlying error in their strategy lies in this; oil will cease to be as important in the future as in the past and will cease to be a major source of wealth for the Power Elites of the world. Islamic Power Elites do not have an alternative strategy unless they obtain nuclear weaponry and learn how to NOT use it. The saddest element in their miscalculation is that there is a great deal of wealth to be made from war by the winners of this one.
The source of news, enlightenment, opinion, law, education, prejudices, mores and attitudes, for the most part, have all emanated from and are managed and controlled by the clergy who are supported and controlled in turn by the Power Elites. The tribal structure of the cliquish national and geographical societies has enabled the prohibition of advancement into modernity primarily out of fear of change, fear of loss of power by tribal leaders, their huge patrilineal families, and the Imams, the Islamic clergy under their patronage. Egypt and Jordan have moved toward modernity in sluggish fashion, as have some North African nations.
The difference between creating, building, growth and change, and acceptance of a rigid status quo is readily discernable in that vast world. Creation and advancement takes education, high-level thinking, learning by exposure to variety in the world, trained skills through guild apprenticeships, and spreading wealth. Creating lies in the difference between time usage and time passage. Any modernity seen in the Muslim world resulted from Western influence and work ethic. British colonialism, French expansionism, American industrialism, have been and continue to be to this day, the movers of these territories into modernity. The very work itself is performed, not by the locals, but rather by imported, highly paid, skilled labor of all kinds.
Ossama bin Ladin calls this degeneracy. He calls for the ascendency of Islam and the destruction of the West and Western values. Creating requires capital, many talents, much time, and has many attributes. Destruction requires no talent, little time, money for gunpowder, ignorance and skewed ethics. Its single attribute is chaos.
The goals of creativity and destruction are vastly different. Birth versus death. Individual power versus collective power. Freedom versus enslavement. Harmony versos chaos. A fuller, richer, freer life versus a limited, poorer life.
The motivational differences are also huge. Linear simplistic thinking versus complex thinking. Narrow versus broad goals. Despotic versus democratic societal control.
The nature of the forces of creation versus the religious nature of the forces of destruction are shockingly held up for distinction by lunatic religious leaders and are applauded with rabid enthusiasm by the indoctrinated followers of this generation’s Hitler-like religious psychopaths. In venomous utterings from Lebanon, Iran, and Iraq, as much as the poisonous rantings from the hills of the Pakistani border and the resurgence of black-turbaned Mullahs in Afghanistan, the civilized world is looking future, continuous, war squarely in the face. This frightening resurgence of religious idolatry was initiated by and is supported by the Power Elites of the Islamic world in the horribly mistaken belief that the way to maintain and even aggrandize their power is through the disassociation of their world from the Western World.
The underlying error in their strategy lies in this; oil will cease to be as important in the future as in the past and will cease to be a major source of wealth for the Power Elites of the world. Islamic Power Elites do not have an alternative strategy unless they obtain nuclear weaponry and learn how to NOT use it. The saddest element in their miscalculation is that there is a great deal of wealth to be made from war by the winners of this one.
Friday, March 21, 2008
THE VIEW OF YOUR RELIGION FROM MY RELIGION
I am a Jewish Atheist. I am an atheist Jew. "A" means "non." "Jew" hm, means, well, equals a whole bunch of different things. I guess that three things make one a Jew in one's own eyes; being born to a Jewish mother, calling one's self a Jew, and practising the Jewish religion. I have two of the three and since I have no belief that god exists, the two are that I was born of a Jewish mother who was born of a Jewish mother who was born of a Jewish mother, etc. etc. etc., and that I call myself a Jew. (A Southerner with whom I worked many years ago insisted that I couldn't be Jewish because I didn't have horns protruding from my forehead. Believe it!! He did!)
Frankly, I think that the most benign thing I can say about religion is that it is ridiculous. (The least benign thing I can say about religion is that it is exploitative of the enormous human need to believe in a "Higher Power" by con-men and con-women acquiring enormous wealth and power.) Believers will find this assertion disturbing or perhaps stupid. So I want to provide a short rationale for my describing as "ridiculous" so powerful a force in the lives of billions of people.
It will be easier to understand how ridiculous religion is by viewing different religions from the perspective of one’s own religion. I recently attended a burial service in a Catholic church. I read the prayer book from the rack in the seat in front of me. I listened to the priest and the congregation as they went through the liturgy. It was difficult to comprehend how intelligent, cultured, modern, people could be saying the things they were saying. They were spouting obvious nonsense. They had to confirm their undying belief in the power of the (WHAT???) the CHURCH. The church is a building, a system of belief, a group of living representatives who will die, and a bunch of words written by con-men twenty centuries ago. And to show that I am not prejudiced, I must tell you that I feel the exact same way in synagogue, to which I rarely go. Now, imagine yourself a Muslim sitting in a church or synagogue, listening to the mumbo-jumbo of praying to someone other than Allah or his son Mohammed. How squirmy that must make you feel. And you are not even banging your head on the floor. Such prayer cannot be efficacious!
A nine-year-old child once looked at me in amazement when I told him I didn’t go to church. “You will burn in hell,” he assured me. I did not inform him that I went to synagogue, if I went anyplace. It wouldn’t have made any difference to him, let alone make any sense. He also told me that he was Jewish (despite the cross he wore around his neck). "How come?" I asked. "Because Christ was Jewish," he answered. So, even without knowing it, he agrees with my statement that all religions are ridiculous.
Today, I look at various world religions with a scoffing attitude, wondering how such nonsense could be acceptable to thinking people. I read the Book of Mormon and was incredulous that the patent con job was believed by large numbers of people, American people, not primitive gullible people. I read of the battle between Sunni and Baath and Sushi, or is it Shiite, Muslims. Is chopping off hands worse or better than burning in hell? The battle between and among religions is based on what a human being said and did and where he came from mostly centuries ago. And Christianity is based on a miracle, essentially, an unbelievable event. The religious killings in Africa going on day in and day out in the year of our What?
Finally, if Bin Ladin is a high-up religious figure, and presuming his request for the destruction of the Western World and its people and his calling for the elimination of the Jewish People from whom the prophet Mohammed was born, is indeed what he really believes will save the world, is that not ridiculous? Or is religion more dangerous than ridiculous?
Frankly, I think that the most benign thing I can say about religion is that it is ridiculous. (The least benign thing I can say about religion is that it is exploitative of the enormous human need to believe in a "Higher Power" by con-men and con-women acquiring enormous wealth and power.) Believers will find this assertion disturbing or perhaps stupid. So I want to provide a short rationale for my describing as "ridiculous" so powerful a force in the lives of billions of people.
It will be easier to understand how ridiculous religion is by viewing different religions from the perspective of one’s own religion. I recently attended a burial service in a Catholic church. I read the prayer book from the rack in the seat in front of me. I listened to the priest and the congregation as they went through the liturgy. It was difficult to comprehend how intelligent, cultured, modern, people could be saying the things they were saying. They were spouting obvious nonsense. They had to confirm their undying belief in the power of the (WHAT???) the CHURCH. The church is a building, a system of belief, a group of living representatives who will die, and a bunch of words written by con-men twenty centuries ago. And to show that I am not prejudiced, I must tell you that I feel the exact same way in synagogue, to which I rarely go. Now, imagine yourself a Muslim sitting in a church or synagogue, listening to the mumbo-jumbo of praying to someone other than Allah or his son Mohammed. How squirmy that must make you feel. And you are not even banging your head on the floor. Such prayer cannot be efficacious!
A nine-year-old child once looked at me in amazement when I told him I didn’t go to church. “You will burn in hell,” he assured me. I did not inform him that I went to synagogue, if I went anyplace. It wouldn’t have made any difference to him, let alone make any sense. He also told me that he was Jewish (despite the cross he wore around his neck). "How come?" I asked. "Because Christ was Jewish," he answered. So, even without knowing it, he agrees with my statement that all religions are ridiculous.
Today, I look at various world religions with a scoffing attitude, wondering how such nonsense could be acceptable to thinking people. I read the Book of Mormon and was incredulous that the patent con job was believed by large numbers of people, American people, not primitive gullible people. I read of the battle between Sunni and Baath and Sushi, or is it Shiite, Muslims. Is chopping off hands worse or better than burning in hell? The battle between and among religions is based on what a human being said and did and where he came from mostly centuries ago. And Christianity is based on a miracle, essentially, an unbelievable event. The religious killings in Africa going on day in and day out in the year of our What?
Finally, if Bin Ladin is a high-up religious figure, and presuming his request for the destruction of the Western World and its people and his calling for the elimination of the Jewish People from whom the prophet Mohammed was born, is indeed what he really believes will save the world, is that not ridiculous? Or is religion more dangerous than ridiculous?
Monday, March 17, 2008
THE IMPORTANCE OF IGNORANCE - WORD MEANINGS
PART 3
Connotative and denotative meanings of words can appear to be completely opposite in those cases where the goal of an emotional response or gut reaction to the word is to be achieved for wonderful or nefarious purposes.
The public is educated to believe that certain words carry strong negative and harmful implications. For example, the word "liberal" seems to be a dirty word in many people's minds. Certainly "communism" and "socialism" have become labels of bad things to come. Yet the words themselves have important meanings that require open-mindedness. However, when educated toward ignorance, even "Heil Hitler" has wonderful connotations.
Liberal:
–adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter ) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
Socialism:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Communism:
classless political system: the political theory or system in which all property and wealth is owned in a classless society by all the members of that society
Conservative:
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.
By learning the true meanings of words, connotations, the intended emotional response, becomes more rational. More rational means more thoughtful, More thoughtful means more educated, more intelligent in most cases. Then actions, like choosing a President, become more intelligently based. Hopefully.
Connotative and denotative meanings of words can appear to be completely opposite in those cases where the goal of an emotional response or gut reaction to the word is to be achieved for wonderful or nefarious purposes.
The public is educated to believe that certain words carry strong negative and harmful implications. For example, the word "liberal" seems to be a dirty word in many people's minds. Certainly "communism" and "socialism" have become labels of bad things to come. Yet the words themselves have important meanings that require open-mindedness. However, when educated toward ignorance, even "Heil Hitler" has wonderful connotations.
Liberal:
–adjective
1. favorable to progress or reform, as in political or religious affairs.
2. (often initial capital letter ) noting or pertaining to a political party advocating measures of progressive political reform.
3. of, pertaining to, based on, or advocating liberalism.
4. favorable to or in accord with concepts of maximum individual freedom possible, esp. as guaranteed by law and secured by governmental protection of civil liberties.
5. favoring or permitting freedom of action, esp. with respect to matters of personal belief or expression: a liberal policy toward dissident artists and writers.
6. of or pertaining to representational forms of government rather than aristocracies and monarchies.
7. free from prejudice or bigotry; tolerant: a liberal attitude toward foreigners.
8. open-minded or tolerant, esp. free of or not bound by traditional or conventional ideas, values, etc.
9. characterized by generosity and willingness to give in large amounts: a liberal donor.
10. given freely or abundantly; generous: a liberal donation.
11. not strict or rigorous; free; not literal: a liberal interpretation of a rule.
Socialism:
1: any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods
2 a: a system of society or group living in which there is no private property b: a system or condition of society in which the means of production are owned and controlled by the state
3: a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done
Communism:
classless political system: the political theory or system in which all property and wealth is owned in a classless society by all the members of that society
Conservative:
1. disposed to preserve existing conditions, institutions, etc., or to restore traditional ones, and to limit change.
2. cautiously moderate or purposefully low: a conservative estimate.
3. traditional in style or manner; avoiding novelty or showiness: conservative suit.
By learning the true meanings of words, connotations, the intended emotional response, becomes more rational. More rational means more thoughtful, More thoughtful means more educated, more intelligent in most cases. Then actions, like choosing a President, become more intelligently based. Hopefully.
THE IMPORTANCE OF IGNORANCE - The RIGHT to bear arms
PART 2.
The American people have been educated to ignorance in many areas of life, all to their detriment. However, there is one particular area of educated ignorance that never ceases to amaze, and that has to do with private gun ownership. Private owners of guns have killed and injured more innocent people by far than they have killed or injured criminals or prevented criminal activity. The Americans who believe that their security is enhanced by owning a gun, must read the tragic statistics that result from this intentionally mis-educated belief.
In 1956, 30,684 died from gunshot of which approximately 6% (1,841) were killed by law officers. In 2,002, 28,663 died from gunshot with a similar 6% of those killed by law officers. Accidental death and suicide resulted in the highest number of fatalities. There are no accurate statistics for killing in self defense or home defense because in many adult civilian deaths, criminal activity was between or among criminals that lead to death by firearm. The statistics on accidental death by firearm far exceeds criminal death by firearm.
The people of the United States are mis-educated to believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is either ambiguous or clearly gives everyone, man, woman, and child, the "right to bear arms." If you belong to a militia, you have the right to keep and bear arms. If you don't belong to a militia, you have the right to keep and bear arms. Hah!!
HERE IT IS, "A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, BEING NECESSARY FOR THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED."
The Supreme court has rarely decided cases that would clarify any ambiguities in this amendment. But that is not my issue. My question, and my answer to it, are these: Why should everyone have the right to bear arms? And my answer is, there is no earthly reason for everyone to have the right to bear arms unless you are in the business of making and selling arms!
Children, criminals, people with physical and mental incapacities to operate weapons safely, should not have the right to bear arms. And, as with driving automobiles, everyone who drives one must be above a certain age and learn how to drive and pass a government test that enables them to obtain a license to drive. And in order to obtain a license, the applicant must belong to a "well regulated militia."
But, if you are in the business of making and selling arms and ammunition for those deadly weapons, then by all means, fight for the right of everyone to bear arms. It means money in your pockets.
Where does ignorance come in? This is educated ignorance to enable the wealthy to accumulate more wealth and also enable patriotism to be converted to soldiering with greater ease, thereby putting even greater amounts of money into the pockets of arms manufacturers, members of the Power Elite.
This is the importance of ignorance. This is why the government spends less and less of its budget each year on education. This is why the textbooks used in school systems throughout the United States are the dumbed-down books acceptable to school boards whose members are themselves often dumbed-down.
The American people have been educated to ignorance in many areas of life, all to their detriment. However, there is one particular area of educated ignorance that never ceases to amaze, and that has to do with private gun ownership. Private owners of guns have killed and injured more innocent people by far than they have killed or injured criminals or prevented criminal activity. The Americans who believe that their security is enhanced by owning a gun, must read the tragic statistics that result from this intentionally mis-educated belief.
In 1956, 30,684 died from gunshot of which approximately 6% (1,841) were killed by law officers. In 2,002, 28,663 died from gunshot with a similar 6% of those killed by law officers. Accidental death and suicide resulted in the highest number of fatalities. There are no accurate statistics for killing in self defense or home defense because in many adult civilian deaths, criminal activity was between or among criminals that lead to death by firearm. The statistics on accidental death by firearm far exceeds criminal death by firearm.
The people of the United States are mis-educated to believe that the Second Amendment to the Constitution is either ambiguous or clearly gives everyone, man, woman, and child, the "right to bear arms." If you belong to a militia, you have the right to keep and bear arms. If you don't belong to a militia, you have the right to keep and bear arms. Hah!!
HERE IT IS, "A WELL REGULATED MILITIA, BEING NECESSARY FOR THE SECURITY OF A FREE STATE, THE RIGHT OF THE PEOPLE TO KEEP AND BEAR ARMS SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED."
The Supreme court has rarely decided cases that would clarify any ambiguities in this amendment. But that is not my issue. My question, and my answer to it, are these: Why should everyone have the right to bear arms? And my answer is, there is no earthly reason for everyone to have the right to bear arms unless you are in the business of making and selling arms!
Children, criminals, people with physical and mental incapacities to operate weapons safely, should not have the right to bear arms. And, as with driving automobiles, everyone who drives one must be above a certain age and learn how to drive and pass a government test that enables them to obtain a license to drive. And in order to obtain a license, the applicant must belong to a "well regulated militia."
But, if you are in the business of making and selling arms and ammunition for those deadly weapons, then by all means, fight for the right of everyone to bear arms. It means money in your pockets.
Where does ignorance come in? This is educated ignorance to enable the wealthy to accumulate more wealth and also enable patriotism to be converted to soldiering with greater ease, thereby putting even greater amounts of money into the pockets of arms manufacturers, members of the Power Elite.
This is the importance of ignorance. This is why the government spends less and less of its budget each year on education. This is why the textbooks used in school systems throughout the United States are the dumbed-down books acceptable to school boards whose members are themselves often dumbed-down.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
A SIMPLE SOLUTION - ISRAEL vs THE MUSLIM WORLD
The conflict between Israel and Palestinian Arabs is but the tip of the iceberg of a larger war conducted by Power Elites and entities that benefit from the continuation of the killing of Jews and Arabs in what is vociferously claimed to be the Israeli Palestinian conflict.
It has become apparent that all the Arab states are supporting the war with money and war materiel. It is also apparent that the United States is supporting the war with money and war materiel. The reasons for their doing this are obvious. Both sets of supporters protect their positions of power and their economies. The two fighters in the ring are punch-drunk but keep slugging it out in the hopes that one or the other will drop from complete exhaustion. At ringside, egging them on, are the promoters of the fight, the managers, the trainers, the media, the owners of the arena, the suppliers of boxing gloves, trunks and other paraphernalia of the trade. Everyone is making money. Only the fighters are bleeding.
They will be supported just enough to keep fighting but not enough to win.
Hooray! We figured out the causes. Now, how to break out of this viscious cycle?
Israel must declare that every killing of Israelis is causus belli for an attack by its armed forces on a neighboring Arab state. That declaration should also include the non-Arab state of Iran and the non-neighbor states of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Skip the small stuff of going into Jenin, Gaza, or Khan Yunis. Go to Damascus and Baghdad. Go to Teheran and Riyadh and Beirut. No big deal. One attack in Israel merits one bomb in the capital of an Arab country. Let's let them know, "You endanger my children, I kill your whole family including your mother, your grandmother, and all your children." Simply make it too expensive for them to stay in power by killing Israeli and Palestinian kids.
It has become apparent that all the Arab states are supporting the war with money and war materiel. It is also apparent that the United States is supporting the war with money and war materiel. The reasons for their doing this are obvious. Both sets of supporters protect their positions of power and their economies. The two fighters in the ring are punch-drunk but keep slugging it out in the hopes that one or the other will drop from complete exhaustion. At ringside, egging them on, are the promoters of the fight, the managers, the trainers, the media, the owners of the arena, the suppliers of boxing gloves, trunks and other paraphernalia of the trade. Everyone is making money. Only the fighters are bleeding.
They will be supported just enough to keep fighting but not enough to win.
Hooray! We figured out the causes. Now, how to break out of this viscious cycle?
Israel must declare that every killing of Israelis is causus belli for an attack by its armed forces on a neighboring Arab state. That declaration should also include the non-Arab state of Iran and the non-neighbor states of Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Skip the small stuff of going into Jenin, Gaza, or Khan Yunis. Go to Damascus and Baghdad. Go to Teheran and Riyadh and Beirut. No big deal. One attack in Israel merits one bomb in the capital of an Arab country. Let's let them know, "You endanger my children, I kill your whole family including your mother, your grandmother, and all your children." Simply make it too expensive for them to stay in power by killing Israeli and Palestinian kids.
No! That's immoral. That's for the Islamists to blow up people. Let the Israeli Airforce pick targets that specifically do not harm individuals but do great harm to military - industrial capability. Factories, warehouses, stockpiles of materiel, and the like. And ALWAYS provide sufficient timely warning to evacuate the premises.
There is no right or wrong. Stop shooting! Start talking! That's the solution.THE NATURE OF POWER ELITES
Power Elites, that is, those who control power in the nations and societies of the world, can be and often are viewed and misconstrued as the engines rather than the drivers. They are thought to be identical to those forces in societies that provide them with wealth and power – such as the forces of religions, political entities, entrenched educational and indoctrination systems, armies, and other forces that enable Power Elites to retain, control, and grow their power. Elected or dictatorial entities are the front offices and office-holders of Power Elites.
As an example, an armed force has tremendous power and is controlled by a political entity that has tremendous power that in turn is controlled by Power Elites. Building and maintaining an armed force requires the expenditure of huge sums of money. Those expenditures, as determined by political entities, especially in times of war, are the troughs at which Power Elites feed and grow ever more powerful.
It is not unusual that the party in power in any society is often believed to be the Power Elite. The expression, “The power behind the throne,” grew out of awareness that the throne was the apparent but not the real power in the kingdom. Power Elites quietly control the powers that operate the machinery ostensibly held and wielded by all of the individuals and establishments in a society. Power of the magnitude described here is not the engine of societies. The engine with all its bells and whistles and moving parts is the visible motor element of any society. Power is the unseen force directing and controlling the engineers who in turn control the engine that moves the train. No president, no dictator, no king or queen, controls power. They sit on their thrones at the pleasure of the Power Elites. They are all exposed and vulnerable to disenfranchisement, removal, and assassination.
Power Elites are, by definition, impervious to assassination. Power Elites are never crowned or elected. Power Elites are combinations of agreeing forces. They are embedded in interlocking directorates. In modern times at the upper levels of power, they appear as CEOs , CFOs, trustees of huge trusts, holders of shares in monopolies and multi-national corporations or other international conglomerates and organizations that are set up to manipulate each and every political, financial, military, and other entity that could maximize their power. Today, we see the transmogrification of the power structure through globalization. Power Elites have the wealth to play the shifting geography game. China, India, Iran, Brazil, and Russia, among other nations, are where the game is being played in the early second millennium. And the game goes on no matter who wins or loses or who gets jailed or killed.
Power seeks aggrandizement as part of its nature while it attempts to retain the apparent status quo of the society in which it is functioning. Power Elites do not wish to appear disruptive nor call attention to themselves. Power is at one and the same time revolutionary and extremely conservative. No ethics or morality is involved. Ethics and morality are humanistic concepts and humanism is the antithesis of power. Power must expand itself in whatever shape or form and by whatever means are available to it to accomplish its destiny to grow or be beaten back by other powers. In this ongoing struggle between Power Elites and their front offices, humanity is used and abused. After their idealistic establishment, power structures within communist and socialist states, by allowing power to determine human existence, elevated the mechanics of power to prevail over more humane, beneficial social systems.
The methods used to accomplish this magic elucidate one of the more fascinating examples of charlatanism. George Orwell’s, “1984,” explains the magic. Communist societies established on the ideological foundation of classless sharing and equality of the masses quickly degenerated and metamorphosed into stratified dictatorial nation-states with unassailable totalitarian Power Elites in control of all aspects of life and ready to do battle with other nation-states’ Power Elites. Capitalist powers rose up and worked assiduously to destroy the “Communist Menace” and “Godless Communism.” They succeeded in large measure because the idealism of socialism was undercut by the reality of a poverty-stricken non-socialistic life under dictatorships in closed two-class societies. Also, nothing replaced the dynamism and power of religion as a major tool for controlling the masses by the Power Elites and their front offices. The people were told by the dictatorships that there would be no pie in the sky when they died and no replacement was offered for that spiritual sustenance.
Human Power Elites operate outside of moral and humanitarian imperatives. Power Elites have only the one goal of maximizing their power by any means and at whatever cost to mankind and nature. If the outcome is beneficent to masses, so be it. If the outcome is disastrous to masses, so be it. Elites attempt to operate with, and control the forces that, move men and mountains without regard to good or evil, however good and evil are defined by those who claim to know what is good and what is evil. Oligarchic and fascistic states are the ideal settings for Power Elites to function optimally. I use “fascism” to mean rigid autocratic governmental economic regimentation and suppression of political opposition. But Power Elites can and do function well at the opposite extreme of human political constructs, in near anarchic national or cultural configurations of any size. They are often the only regimented controlling force in such chaotic political and economic situations. The racist element of fascism is unimportant to Power Elites except as a tool to fulfill their destinies. The people and their surrogates who function in Power Elite frameworks are the strongest, the brightest, the most opportunistic, the most ruthless and the least humane of their contemporaries in every milieu. That is not to say they do not necessarily love their countries, their families and their dogs.
The perfect analogy for Power Elites, their position in the world and their modus operandi, is the game of chess. The pieces on the board are either black or white. They know who they are for and who they are against. And they never change color. They also do not set the rules nor can they change the rules of the game. They neither gain power nor lose power. And the pieces are always available for the next game.
The pawns are the masses, the peons, the foot-soldiers. There are hosts of them and they are expendable and have the least value. They go into battle and are sacrificed most readily.
The rooks or castles as they are also known are the builders and managers of the world, They are straightforward, can-do, engineering and science types. They are strong and their point valuation in the game is higher than the other functionaries on the back line.
The knights are the military. They are capable of moving short and long as well as long and short and to the sides. They are ponderous but when called into action, yield often unexpected results. Not only must they be fed but their horses must also be fed, a most expensive proposition.
Then we have religion’s bishops. How appropriate that they move at an angle to the truth of a straight up and down board. While you are concentrating on getting to where you are going in a straightforward manner, they attack you obliquely, unsupported by the reality of life.
The queen, in all her regal majesty, is able to move in sweeping manner up and down the board and able to go with the rooks and with or against the bishops. The queen is the most powerful player on the board because of her mobility, intuition and strong will.
Finally, the figurehead is the king, about whom the whole game rises and falls. When he falls, the game itself falls. He himself is weak but his power is immense because he is the apparent Power Elite. He is like the president of the United States or the Queen or King of England.
But how about the Power Elites? Where are they? They are not on the board. They are not either black or white – and they can change color at will and even become colorless. They are not displayed for all to see. They are hidden from the pawns, the rooks, the knights and bishops, from the queen and from the king himself. They are manipulators but are not themselves manipulated except by competing Power Elites.
“Manipulated” according to Webster is, “to manage or utilize skillfully – to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means, especially to one’s own advantage.” Power Elites move the pieces on the board of the world, unseen, planning and plotting, strategizing and devising traps into which may fall opposing manipulators. And when they move their pieces about the battlefields, the how, when, where and why of life and death are in their hands. In this game please note, as in chess, the manipulators only take; they never give. And win or lose, another game is set up and the manipulators continue according to their rules of the game. And those rules are hidden from the men on the chess board.
As an example, an armed force has tremendous power and is controlled by a political entity that has tremendous power that in turn is controlled by Power Elites. Building and maintaining an armed force requires the expenditure of huge sums of money. Those expenditures, as determined by political entities, especially in times of war, are the troughs at which Power Elites feed and grow ever more powerful.
It is not unusual that the party in power in any society is often believed to be the Power Elite. The expression, “The power behind the throne,” grew out of awareness that the throne was the apparent but not the real power in the kingdom. Power Elites quietly control the powers that operate the machinery ostensibly held and wielded by all of the individuals and establishments in a society. Power of the magnitude described here is not the engine of societies. The engine with all its bells and whistles and moving parts is the visible motor element of any society. Power is the unseen force directing and controlling the engineers who in turn control the engine that moves the train. No president, no dictator, no king or queen, controls power. They sit on their thrones at the pleasure of the Power Elites. They are all exposed and vulnerable to disenfranchisement, removal, and assassination.
Power Elites are, by definition, impervious to assassination. Power Elites are never crowned or elected. Power Elites are combinations of agreeing forces. They are embedded in interlocking directorates. In modern times at the upper levels of power, they appear as CEOs , CFOs, trustees of huge trusts, holders of shares in monopolies and multi-national corporations or other international conglomerates and organizations that are set up to manipulate each and every political, financial, military, and other entity that could maximize their power. Today, we see the transmogrification of the power structure through globalization. Power Elites have the wealth to play the shifting geography game. China, India, Iran, Brazil, and Russia, among other nations, are where the game is being played in the early second millennium. And the game goes on no matter who wins or loses or who gets jailed or killed.
Power seeks aggrandizement as part of its nature while it attempts to retain the apparent status quo of the society in which it is functioning. Power Elites do not wish to appear disruptive nor call attention to themselves. Power is at one and the same time revolutionary and extremely conservative. No ethics or morality is involved. Ethics and morality are humanistic concepts and humanism is the antithesis of power. Power must expand itself in whatever shape or form and by whatever means are available to it to accomplish its destiny to grow or be beaten back by other powers. In this ongoing struggle between Power Elites and their front offices, humanity is used and abused. After their idealistic establishment, power structures within communist and socialist states, by allowing power to determine human existence, elevated the mechanics of power to prevail over more humane, beneficial social systems.
The methods used to accomplish this magic elucidate one of the more fascinating examples of charlatanism. George Orwell’s, “1984,” explains the magic. Communist societies established on the ideological foundation of classless sharing and equality of the masses quickly degenerated and metamorphosed into stratified dictatorial nation-states with unassailable totalitarian Power Elites in control of all aspects of life and ready to do battle with other nation-states’ Power Elites. Capitalist powers rose up and worked assiduously to destroy the “Communist Menace” and “Godless Communism.” They succeeded in large measure because the idealism of socialism was undercut by the reality of a poverty-stricken non-socialistic life under dictatorships in closed two-class societies. Also, nothing replaced the dynamism and power of religion as a major tool for controlling the masses by the Power Elites and their front offices. The people were told by the dictatorships that there would be no pie in the sky when they died and no replacement was offered for that spiritual sustenance.
Human Power Elites operate outside of moral and humanitarian imperatives. Power Elites have only the one goal of maximizing their power by any means and at whatever cost to mankind and nature. If the outcome is beneficent to masses, so be it. If the outcome is disastrous to masses, so be it. Elites attempt to operate with, and control the forces that, move men and mountains without regard to good or evil, however good and evil are defined by those who claim to know what is good and what is evil. Oligarchic and fascistic states are the ideal settings for Power Elites to function optimally. I use “fascism” to mean rigid autocratic governmental economic regimentation and suppression of political opposition. But Power Elites can and do function well at the opposite extreme of human political constructs, in near anarchic national or cultural configurations of any size. They are often the only regimented controlling force in such chaotic political and economic situations. The racist element of fascism is unimportant to Power Elites except as a tool to fulfill their destinies. The people and their surrogates who function in Power Elite frameworks are the strongest, the brightest, the most opportunistic, the most ruthless and the least humane of their contemporaries in every milieu. That is not to say they do not necessarily love their countries, their families and their dogs.
The perfect analogy for Power Elites, their position in the world and their modus operandi, is the game of chess. The pieces on the board are either black or white. They know who they are for and who they are against. And they never change color. They also do not set the rules nor can they change the rules of the game. They neither gain power nor lose power. And the pieces are always available for the next game.
The pawns are the masses, the peons, the foot-soldiers. There are hosts of them and they are expendable and have the least value. They go into battle and are sacrificed most readily.
The rooks or castles as they are also known are the builders and managers of the world, They are straightforward, can-do, engineering and science types. They are strong and their point valuation in the game is higher than the other functionaries on the back line.
The knights are the military. They are capable of moving short and long as well as long and short and to the sides. They are ponderous but when called into action, yield often unexpected results. Not only must they be fed but their horses must also be fed, a most expensive proposition.
Then we have religion’s bishops. How appropriate that they move at an angle to the truth of a straight up and down board. While you are concentrating on getting to where you are going in a straightforward manner, they attack you obliquely, unsupported by the reality of life.
The queen, in all her regal majesty, is able to move in sweeping manner up and down the board and able to go with the rooks and with or against the bishops. The queen is the most powerful player on the board because of her mobility, intuition and strong will.
Finally, the figurehead is the king, about whom the whole game rises and falls. When he falls, the game itself falls. He himself is weak but his power is immense because he is the apparent Power Elite. He is like the president of the United States or the Queen or King of England.
But how about the Power Elites? Where are they? They are not on the board. They are not either black or white – and they can change color at will and even become colorless. They are not displayed for all to see. They are hidden from the pawns, the rooks, the knights and bishops, from the queen and from the king himself. They are manipulators but are not themselves manipulated except by competing Power Elites.
“Manipulated” according to Webster is, “to manage or utilize skillfully – to control or play upon by artful, unfair, or insidious means, especially to one’s own advantage.” Power Elites move the pieces on the board of the world, unseen, planning and plotting, strategizing and devising traps into which may fall opposing manipulators. And when they move their pieces about the battlefields, the how, when, where and why of life and death are in their hands. In this game please note, as in chess, the manipulators only take; they never give. And win or lose, another game is set up and the manipulators continue according to their rules of the game. And those rules are hidden from the men on the chess board.
Friday, March 14, 2008
THE IMPORTANCE OF IGNORANCE - Oh Lower Class, Your Ignorance is Foundational
PART ONE
When you are ignorant, you can be and generally are, happy with life as you know it. Ignorance is a major foundational element of all existing social and economic structures on earth. It is also the most hidden foundational element of all social and economic structures. It is also the most carefully tended to because if that foundation fails, the existing social and economic order of all societies would crumble.
All societies have classes, and that is good because the variety in humankind can then be used to the society’s best advantage. All economic structures have classes, and that too is good for the same reason. The mental and physical strengths and weaknesses of individuals can be utilized to best advantage for themselves and their societies and work-places. Communist theory proposed eliminating classes. The classless society was to obtain from each according to his ability and provide to each according to his needs. But that was only theory. In practice, communist societies, led by their “upper” classes, continued the practice of capitalist societies of rewarding strength and exploiting weakness. The “success” model of capitalist societies prevailed despite the theoretical attractiveness of the communist model.
Sharing equally in the benefits that earth bestows and sharing the benefits of ownership of the means of production and giving the best one could and getting an equal share of the benefits and wealth that was produced in that system, though seemingly a very natural and wonderful way of ordering a society, was not acceptable to history’s established operational orders. Empires are not built on cooperative models. They are built with a variety of power models in the society and in the economic structure of the society and the world. Intelligence is the basis of the power and ignorance is the basis of the weakness and in economic structures they are in constant conflict. The power of intelligence is overwhelming while to think of ignorance of having any power at all seems ridiculous, except in numbers. But it is like the power of one machine gun against thousands of bows and arrows.
It has been and continues to be an imperative of the ruling classes of the world to assure the continuation of ignorance. Education of children in the use of sub-machine guns, the wearing of explosive belts, and the denigration of normal schooling, continues ignorance. An example of nation-wide ignorance can be seen in the population of the United States accepting the paying their good money to insurance companies for health care, actually paying more than any other nation on earth and receiving twenty-fifth place in the Western World in the delivery of health care. Ignorance in the Moslem world of the very existence of Western mores and values is now leading millions of people into danger of war, and ignorance in Africa has lead to widespread disease.
The sad fact is that ignorance is an important foundation of societies and is used by Power Elites to retain, protect, and aggrandize their wealth.
More to come.
When you are ignorant, you can be and generally are, happy with life as you know it. Ignorance is a major foundational element of all existing social and economic structures on earth. It is also the most hidden foundational element of all social and economic structures. It is also the most carefully tended to because if that foundation fails, the existing social and economic order of all societies would crumble.
All societies have classes, and that is good because the variety in humankind can then be used to the society’s best advantage. All economic structures have classes, and that too is good for the same reason. The mental and physical strengths and weaknesses of individuals can be utilized to best advantage for themselves and their societies and work-places. Communist theory proposed eliminating classes. The classless society was to obtain from each according to his ability and provide to each according to his needs. But that was only theory. In practice, communist societies, led by their “upper” classes, continued the practice of capitalist societies of rewarding strength and exploiting weakness. The “success” model of capitalist societies prevailed despite the theoretical attractiveness of the communist model.
Sharing equally in the benefits that earth bestows and sharing the benefits of ownership of the means of production and giving the best one could and getting an equal share of the benefits and wealth that was produced in that system, though seemingly a very natural and wonderful way of ordering a society, was not acceptable to history’s established operational orders. Empires are not built on cooperative models. They are built with a variety of power models in the society and in the economic structure of the society and the world. Intelligence is the basis of the power and ignorance is the basis of the weakness and in economic structures they are in constant conflict. The power of intelligence is overwhelming while to think of ignorance of having any power at all seems ridiculous, except in numbers. But it is like the power of one machine gun against thousands of bows and arrows.
It has been and continues to be an imperative of the ruling classes of the world to assure the continuation of ignorance. Education of children in the use of sub-machine guns, the wearing of explosive belts, and the denigration of normal schooling, continues ignorance. An example of nation-wide ignorance can be seen in the population of the United States accepting the paying their good money to insurance companies for health care, actually paying more than any other nation on earth and receiving twenty-fifth place in the Western World in the delivery of health care. Ignorance in the Moslem world of the very existence of Western mores and values is now leading millions of people into danger of war, and ignorance in Africa has lead to widespread disease.
The sad fact is that ignorance is an important foundation of societies and is used by Power Elites to retain, protect, and aggrandize their wealth.
More to come.
Thursday, March 13, 2008
GOVERNMENT AS POWER ELITE PARTNER IN CRIME
Editor's note: The following article was published in The Washington Post the day after New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer allegedly engaged the services of a call girl at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. ma/TO
Go to Original
Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime By Eliot Spitzer The Washington Post
Thursday 14 February 2008
How the Bush administration stopped the states from stepping in to help consumers.
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
--------
The writer is governor of New York.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
Today's Truthout Features -------------- Bush to Skip Congressional Approval for Iraq Agreement Iraq Violence Sees Spike The Washington Monthly No Torture. No Exceptions. Robert Scheer Spitzer's Shame Is Wall Street's Gain UN Official Denied Access to Iraq Prisons Does GDP Really Capture Economy's Health? "Environmental Rights Are Related to Many Other Rights" Paul Rogat Loeb Did Clinton Win Ohio on a Lie? Eliot Spitzer Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime Obama Wins Mississippi Primary Norman Solomon Warfare and Health Care House Creates New Panel on Ethics Democrats in Florida Are Near Plan for New Vote House Democrats Reject Telecom Immunity Obama: Ferraro's Comments "Divisive," Out of Place HUD Emails Refer to Retaliation Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored? Steve Weissman Philip Agee and the CIA Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings Bill Moyers Journal Government Waste -------------- t r u t h o u t Home
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Go to Original
Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime By Eliot Spitzer The Washington Post
Thursday 14 February 2008
How the Bush administration stopped the states from stepping in to help consumers.
Several years ago, state attorneys general and others involved in consumer protection began to notice a marked increase in a range of predatory lending practices by mortgage lenders. Some were misrepresenting the terms of loans, making loans without regard to consumers' ability to repay, making loans with deceptive "teaser" rates that later ballooned astronomically, packing loans with undisclosed charges and fees, or even paying illegal kickbacks. These and other practices, we noticed, were having a devastating effect on home buyers. In addition, the widespread nature of these practices, if left unchecked, threatened our financial markets.
Even though predatory lending was becoming a national problem, the Bush administration looked the other way and did nothing to protect American homeowners. In fact, the government chose instead to align itself with the banks that were victimizing consumers.
Predatory lending was widely understood to present a looming national crisis. This threat was so clear that as New York attorney general, I joined with colleagues in the other 49 states in attempting to fill the void left by the federal government. Individually, and together, state attorneys general of both parties brought litigation or entered into settlements with many subprime lenders that were engaged in predatory lending practices. Several state legislatures, including New York's, enacted laws aimed at curbing such practices.
What did the Bush administration do in response? Did it reverse course and decide to take action to halt this burgeoning scourge? As Americans are now painfully aware, with hundreds of thousands of homeowners facing foreclosure and our markets reeling, the answer is a resounding no.
Not only did the Bush administration do nothing to protect consumers, it embarked on an aggressive and unprecedented campaign to prevent states from protecting their residents from the very problems to which the federal government was turning a blind eye.
Let me explain: The administration accomplished this feat through an obscure federal agency called the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The OCC has been in existence since the Civil War. Its mission is to ensure the fiscal soundness of national banks. For 140 years, the OCC examined the books of national banks to make sure they were balanced, an important but uncontroversial function. But a few years ago, for the first time in its history, the OCC was used as a tool against consumers.
In 2003, during the height of the predatory lending crisis, the OCC invoked a clause from the 1863 National Bank Act to issue formal opinions preempting all state predatory lending laws, thereby rendering them inoperative. The OCC also promulgated new rules that prevented states from enforcing any of their own consumer protection laws against national banks. The federal government's actions were so egregious and so unprecedented that all 50 state attorneys general, and all 50 state banking superintendents, actively fought the new rules.
But the unanimous opposition of the 50 states did not deter, or even slow, the Bush administration in its goal of protecting the banks. In fact, when my office opened an investigation of possible discrimination in mortgage lending by a number of banks, the OCC filed a federal lawsuit to stop the investigation.
Throughout our battles with the OCC and the banks, the mantra of the banks and their defenders was that efforts to curb predatory lending would deny access to credit to the very consumers the states were trying to protect. But the curbs we sought on predatory and unfair lending would have in no way jeopardized access to the legitimate credit market for appropriately priced loans. Instead, they would have stopped the scourge of predatory lending practices that have resulted in countless thousands of consumers losing their homes and put our economy in a precarious position.
When history tells the story of the subprime lending crisis and recounts its devastating effects on the lives of so many innocent homeowners, the Bush administration will not be judged favorably. The tale is still unfolding, but when the dust settles, it will be judged as a willing accomplice to the lenders who went to any lengths in their quest for profits. So willing, in fact, that it used the power of the federal government in an unprecedented assault on state legislatures, as well as on state attorneys general and anyone else on the side of consumers.
--------
The writer is governor of New York.
-------
Jump to today's Truthout Features:
Today's Truthout Features -------------- Bush to Skip Congressional Approval for Iraq Agreement Iraq Violence Sees Spike The Washington Monthly No Torture. No Exceptions. Robert Scheer Spitzer's Shame Is Wall Street's Gain UN Official Denied Access to Iraq Prisons Does GDP Really Capture Economy's Health? "Environmental Rights Are Related to Many Other Rights" Paul Rogat Loeb Did Clinton Win Ohio on a Lie? Eliot Spitzer Predatory Lenders' Partner in Crime Obama Wins Mississippi Primary Norman Solomon Warfare and Health Care House Creates New Panel on Ethics Democrats in Florida Are Near Plan for New Vote House Democrats Reject Telecom Immunity Obama: Ferraro's Comments "Divisive," Out of Place HUD Emails Refer to Retaliation Pentagon Report on Saddam's Iraq Censored? Steve Weissman Philip Agee and the CIA Spitzer Resigns, Citing Personal Failings Bill Moyers Journal Government Waste -------------- t r u t h o u t Home
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored by the originator.)
"Go to Original" links are provided as a convenience to our readers and allow for verification of authenticity. However, as originating pages are often updated by their originating host sites, the versions posted on TO may not match the versions our readers view when clicking the "Go to Original" links.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
THE AGE OF FUNDAMENTALIST SAVAGERY
Mankind’s history has seen a continuous stream of savagery. The forms of human bestiality have changed only with the tools of inflicting pain, maiming, and death. In every age there can be found the use and beneficiaries of applied, thought-out, savagery. From the club to the nuclear bomb, nothing has changed except the tools, the knowledge, and the intelligence of the process. The motivation for man’s inhumanity to man has been the acquisition, maintenance, and aggrandizement of power. The use of savagery by Power Elites of the economic world to obtain their positions seems almost normal and certainly expectable. The same cannot be said of the Power Elites of the world of religion and belief.
Powerful religionists, petty and eminent, religious institutions of all stripes in all places from gilded temples to remote island witch doctors’ hovels, and religious practitioners with overt pretensions of holiness, Godliness, ethics, and purity of intent, have all engaged in the practice of torture and murder.
Through the centuries and with the incorporation or theft of ethical and moral pretensions, religious leaders and institutions have masked their own savagery by supporting the savagery of patriotism in its stead. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake to protect a king and England but was found innocent after her death and elevated to sainthood by the ecclesiastical court that burned her.
Now, these pretensions of the practitioners of Allah’s words as set down in the Koran, have elevated human savagery to a new level. The world of the early second millennium has experienced and continues to experience the terror imposed by Islamic power seekers. Islamic power elites believe that their brand of religious fervor is more powerful than economic power. They are showing that ignorance, destruction, and fear, are more powerful tools than those of the non-Islamic powers. Their hope is to create nuclear weapons and use them. That will lead to a short term victory if they succeed in reaching that horrific capability. When the first bombs are headed toward Israel, the destruction of a country of seventy million people is assured.
Western power elites are trying desperately to convince Iran of the fallacy of their thinking. However, we see a struggle raging between various national power elites. Some, like Russia and China, are positioning themselves to benefit from a modernizing Iran and are opposing those not benefiting from close ties with Iran – the United States and some of the NATO countries. Two massive religious-economic struggles for power are going on at the same time, struggles for control of energy derived from oil and nuclear capability, and military strength through nuclear capability. The religious struggle is for the minds of the Moslem world. The economic struggle is over control of oil,
A replacement for oil to drive the world's vehicles and industries would take the air out of the ballooning struggle. However, the world has yet to find a viable substitute and develop it for use in time to replace oil.
It can be reasonably assumed that Iran will use atomic weaponry when it acquires the capability of doing so. If Iran is not convinced or coerced to enable and allow oversight of its nuclear program, Israel or the U.S. will blow their nuclear facilities off the map. The rationale for Iran’s savagery is anchored in fundamentalist Islam’s belief system and the nature of its education toward destruction, savagery, and bestiality. The destruction of New York City’s World Trade Center and the murder of its inhabitants was the shot that should be listened to around the world.
Powerful religionists, petty and eminent, religious institutions of all stripes in all places from gilded temples to remote island witch doctors’ hovels, and religious practitioners with overt pretensions of holiness, Godliness, ethics, and purity of intent, have all engaged in the practice of torture and murder.
Through the centuries and with the incorporation or theft of ethical and moral pretensions, religious leaders and institutions have masked their own savagery by supporting the savagery of patriotism in its stead. Joan of Arc was burned at the stake to protect a king and England but was found innocent after her death and elevated to sainthood by the ecclesiastical court that burned her.
Now, these pretensions of the practitioners of Allah’s words as set down in the Koran, have elevated human savagery to a new level. The world of the early second millennium has experienced and continues to experience the terror imposed by Islamic power seekers. Islamic power elites believe that their brand of religious fervor is more powerful than economic power. They are showing that ignorance, destruction, and fear, are more powerful tools than those of the non-Islamic powers. Their hope is to create nuclear weapons and use them. That will lead to a short term victory if they succeed in reaching that horrific capability. When the first bombs are headed toward Israel, the destruction of a country of seventy million people is assured.
Western power elites are trying desperately to convince Iran of the fallacy of their thinking. However, we see a struggle raging between various national power elites. Some, like Russia and China, are positioning themselves to benefit from a modernizing Iran and are opposing those not benefiting from close ties with Iran – the United States and some of the NATO countries. Two massive religious-economic struggles for power are going on at the same time, struggles for control of energy derived from oil and nuclear capability, and military strength through nuclear capability. The religious struggle is for the minds of the Moslem world. The economic struggle is over control of oil,
A replacement for oil to drive the world's vehicles and industries would take the air out of the ballooning struggle. However, the world has yet to find a viable substitute and develop it for use in time to replace oil.
It can be reasonably assumed that Iran will use atomic weaponry when it acquires the capability of doing so. If Iran is not convinced or coerced to enable and allow oversight of its nuclear program, Israel or the U.S. will blow their nuclear facilities off the map. The rationale for Iran’s savagery is anchored in fundamentalist Islam’s belief system and the nature of its education toward destruction, savagery, and bestiality. The destruction of New York City’s World Trade Center and the murder of its inhabitants was the shot that should be listened to around the world.
Friday, March 7, 2008
EXEMPLARY COMMUNISM BY POWER ELITES
Communist theory has become Power Elite practice. (Written in 2004)
They come together in a variety of places and forums to share their views on how best to achieve the maximization of their power. One such forum is the Bilderberg Society that is a current Western example of Power Elites composition and functioning. In that forum, the planned economy and equitable distribution of wealth closely resembles communist theory and practice. The real difference is that instead of eliminating private property, the system aggrandizes private property owned by the Power Elites rather than the laboring masses. Also, rather than operating under a dictatorship, the system operates as would a close-knit international family for the benefit of the family; a kind of Mafia without a Don and with all members as consigliore.
(Bilderberg Origins - The Biggest Secret Forum
Category: Society > Issues > Conspiracy > Global EliteAn archive of documents relating to the Bilderberg.thebiggestsecret.online.fr/secret_societies/bilderberg_origins.htm)
With the exception of special guest reporters, journalists are barred from Bilderberg meetings. The secret services of the United States and several European nations coordinate with local police to enforce a strict "no-go" area around Bilderberg venues such as the Turnberry Hotel in Scotland. Since the Group's first meeting in 1954, its security network has been specifically used to prevent reporters from sneaking into the forum.
Critics have suggested that the media have been slow to investigate and report on the Bilderberg because many corporate news executives and journalists are members of the Group. Like all other Bilderberg attendees, these individuals have agreed to remain silent about the meetings in spite of their responsibilities as high-ranking members of the national and international media.
"Guests of the Bilderberg Society are bound by the same rules as members of the Bilderberg Society -- not to write about the proceedings," the late conservative columnist William F. Buckley wrote six months after attending the Bilderberg's 1975 meeting.
Is it at all significant that world media is controlled or manipulated by Power Elites? Of course. Is it believable that they are influenced in important ways by the giants of Bilderberg? Of course. Some of the Bilderberg's past "guests" from the corporate media include:
News Corporation director Andrew Knight; Reuters CEO Peter Job; Henry Anatole Grunwald, former editor-in-chief of Time and Council on Foreign Relations member; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report, New York Daily News, and Atlantic Monthly, also a Council on Foreign Relations member; Robert L. Bartley, vice president of the Wall Street Journal and member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; Peter Robert Kann, Chairman and CEO of Dow Jones and Company, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Katharine Graham, owner and chairwoman of the executive committee of the Washington Post, also a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; Jim Hoagland, associate editor, of the Washington Post; New York Times editor and Council on Foreign Relations member Arthur Sulzberger; Former Newsweek editor Osborn Eliot; London Observer editor Will Hutton; Canadian press baron Conrad Black; Peter Jennings, anchor and senior editor of ABC's World News Tonight; Lesley R. Stahl, CBS national affairs correspondent; WETA-TV president and CEO Sharon Percy Rockefeller; William F. Buckley, Jr., editor-in-chief of the National Review, host of PBS's Firing Line and Council on Foreign Relations member; Prominent political columnists Joseph Kraft, James Reston, Joseph Harsch, George Will, and Flora Lewis; Donald C. Cook, former European diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and Council on Foreign Relations member; Albert J. Wohlstetter, Wall Street Journal correspondent and Council on Foreign Relations member; Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist and member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein; Hedley Donovan, Henry Grunwald, and Ralph Davidson of Time; Joseph C. Harsch, former NBC commentator and Council on Foreign Relations member; Bill Moyers, executive director of Public Affairs TV and former Director of the Council on Foreign Relations; Gerald Piel, former chairman of Scientific American and Council on Foreign Relations member; William Kristol, editor and publisher of the British Weekly Standard magazine; Toger Seidenfaden, editor in chief of Denmark's Politiken A/S.
Journalists and newspeople outside the Bilderberg's elite inner circle rarely pay much attention to the Group's activities, usually because they are unaware of them. In recent years, citizen media activists have had a small measure of success in getting the local media to cover Bilderberg meetings when they occur. These reports have little impact in the national and international media, but thanks to the Internet, detailed information from coverage by local and regional newspapers is now available to the public worldwide. Although underground information activists have managed to pierce the local media bubbles and gather useful information about the Bilderberg's meetings, scrutiny of the Group in the establishment press is still verboten.
(The above information was obtained from “Bilderberg media blackout,” an article posted on meta-religion.com. Google can also supply a wealth of information on the group. Forgive the pun.)
Here is a partial non-media guest list of the 2004 meeting obtained by WorldNetDaily – which includes Senators John Edwards, D-N.C. and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, Melinda Gates (wife of Bill Gates), David Rockefeller, Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, and even Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.
They come together in a variety of places and forums to share their views on how best to achieve the maximization of their power. One such forum is the Bilderberg Society that is a current Western example of Power Elites composition and functioning. In that forum, the planned economy and equitable distribution of wealth closely resembles communist theory and practice. The real difference is that instead of eliminating private property, the system aggrandizes private property owned by the Power Elites rather than the laboring masses. Also, rather than operating under a dictatorship, the system operates as would a close-knit international family for the benefit of the family; a kind of Mafia without a Don and with all members as consigliore.
(Bilderberg Origins - The Biggest Secret Forum
Category: Society > Issues > Conspiracy > Global EliteAn archive of documents relating to the Bilderberg.thebiggestsecret.online.fr/secret_societies/bilderberg_origins.htm)
With the exception of special guest reporters, journalists are barred from Bilderberg meetings. The secret services of the United States and several European nations coordinate with local police to enforce a strict "no-go" area around Bilderberg venues such as the Turnberry Hotel in Scotland. Since the Group's first meeting in 1954, its security network has been specifically used to prevent reporters from sneaking into the forum.
Critics have suggested that the media have been slow to investigate and report on the Bilderberg because many corporate news executives and journalists are members of the Group. Like all other Bilderberg attendees, these individuals have agreed to remain silent about the meetings in spite of their responsibilities as high-ranking members of the national and international media.
"Guests of the Bilderberg Society are bound by the same rules as members of the Bilderberg Society -- not to write about the proceedings," the late conservative columnist William F. Buckley wrote six months after attending the Bilderberg's 1975 meeting.
Is it at all significant that world media is controlled or manipulated by Power Elites? Of course. Is it believable that they are influenced in important ways by the giants of Bilderberg? Of course. Some of the Bilderberg's past "guests" from the corporate media include:
News Corporation director Andrew Knight; Reuters CEO Peter Job; Henry Anatole Grunwald, former editor-in-chief of Time and Council on Foreign Relations member; Mortimer B. Zuckerman, chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report, New York Daily News, and Atlantic Monthly, also a Council on Foreign Relations member; Robert L. Bartley, vice president of the Wall Street Journal and member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; Peter Robert Kann, Chairman and CEO of Dow Jones and Company, and member of the Council on Foreign Relations; Katharine Graham, owner and chairwoman of the executive committee of the Washington Post, also a member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; Jim Hoagland, associate editor, of the Washington Post; New York Times editor and Council on Foreign Relations member Arthur Sulzberger; Former Newsweek editor Osborn Eliot; London Observer editor Will Hutton; Canadian press baron Conrad Black; Peter Jennings, anchor and senior editor of ABC's World News Tonight; Lesley R. Stahl, CBS national affairs correspondent; WETA-TV president and CEO Sharon Percy Rockefeller; William F. Buckley, Jr., editor-in-chief of the National Review, host of PBS's Firing Line and Council on Foreign Relations member; Prominent political columnists Joseph Kraft, James Reston, Joseph Harsch, George Will, and Flora Lewis; Donald C. Cook, former European diplomatic correspondent for the Los Angeles Times and Council on Foreign Relations member; Albert J. Wohlstetter, Wall Street Journal correspondent and Council on Foreign Relations member; Thomas L. Friedman, New York Times columnist and member of both the Council on Foreign Relations and the Trilateral Commission; New York Times book critic Richard Bernstein; Hedley Donovan, Henry Grunwald, and Ralph Davidson of Time; Joseph C. Harsch, former NBC commentator and Council on Foreign Relations member; Bill Moyers, executive director of Public Affairs TV and former Director of the Council on Foreign Relations; Gerald Piel, former chairman of Scientific American and Council on Foreign Relations member; William Kristol, editor and publisher of the British Weekly Standard magazine; Toger Seidenfaden, editor in chief of Denmark's Politiken A/S.
Journalists and newspeople outside the Bilderberg's elite inner circle rarely pay much attention to the Group's activities, usually because they are unaware of them. In recent years, citizen media activists have had a small measure of success in getting the local media to cover Bilderberg meetings when they occur. These reports have little impact in the national and international media, but thanks to the Internet, detailed information from coverage by local and regional newspapers is now available to the public worldwide. Although underground information activists have managed to pierce the local media bubbles and gather useful information about the Bilderberg's meetings, scrutiny of the Group in the establishment press is still verboten.
(The above information was obtained from “Bilderberg media blackout,” an article posted on meta-religion.com. Google can also supply a wealth of information on the group. Forgive the pun.)
Here is a partial non-media guest list of the 2004 meeting obtained by WorldNetDaily – which includes Senators John Edwards, D-N.C. and Jon Corzine, D-N.J., Henry Kissinger, Richard Perle, Melinda Gates (wife of Bill Gates), David Rockefeller, Timothy F. Geithner, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Donald Graham, chairman and CEO of the Washington Post Company, and even Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition.
THE POWER OF RELIGION - Part Two
FUTURE REWARDS
The psychology of gambling and the psychology of religion would appear to have little in common. Yet both beliefs and their attendant monetary activities are strikingly similar. Donate to the church for the satisfaction of giving and donate to the casino for the satisfaction of anticipation. The psychology of both require a belief in a happy outcome. Both are obviously based on belief because neither outcome is provable until it occurs. Religion, a priori, is the less believable because its outcome of reward in heaven is not susceptible to proof while in gambling, the outcome is known with surety in the here and now. The brain believes that what one is presently doing will bring future reward. And the more strongly one believes in the future reward, the more willingly one parts with present valuables. The similarity extends to the odds of the transaction; the excitement of giving a pittance now may result in enormous returns in the future.
The difficulty with this argument lies in the general acceptance of the meaning of “proof.” The a-theist asks the believer for proof of the existence of god. The religious believer requests the a-theist to prove the non-existence of god. The real difficulty lies in the inability to agree on the nature of proof. The a-theist demands that the dictionary definition of the word be used to ascertain the truth of the matter. “Show me the evidence,” is the mantra. But the bible, or whatever the religionist believes to be biblical truth, IS the evidence. After all, the bible, being the word of god, trumps any man-made concoction. In essence, the believer says that god exists because I believe he exists and the bible is MY dictionary. The a-theist replies that belief is simply not proof and that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of anything, as demanded by the believer. All of which turns an argument into a non-argument. Belief is belief! Look up that word in the dictionary.
The importance of this discussion does not lie in the existence or non-existence of god. It lies in the money. The connection between religious belief and money has been firmly established through the centuries of mankind’s settled existence. “Give me your money and I will intercede with god for you – and I am an expertly trained interceder, so you can trust me.” This is why shepherds use crooks to lead their flocks and this is how the shepherds fleece their flocks.
The psychology of gambling and the psychology of religion would appear to have little in common. Yet both beliefs and their attendant monetary activities are strikingly similar. Donate to the church for the satisfaction of giving and donate to the casino for the satisfaction of anticipation. The psychology of both require a belief in a happy outcome. Both are obviously based on belief because neither outcome is provable until it occurs. Religion, a priori, is the less believable because its outcome of reward in heaven is not susceptible to proof while in gambling, the outcome is known with surety in the here and now. The brain believes that what one is presently doing will bring future reward. And the more strongly one believes in the future reward, the more willingly one parts with present valuables. The similarity extends to the odds of the transaction; the excitement of giving a pittance now may result in enormous returns in the future.
The difficulty with this argument lies in the general acceptance of the meaning of “proof.” The a-theist asks the believer for proof of the existence of god. The religious believer requests the a-theist to prove the non-existence of god. The real difficulty lies in the inability to agree on the nature of proof. The a-theist demands that the dictionary definition of the word be used to ascertain the truth of the matter. “Show me the evidence,” is the mantra. But the bible, or whatever the religionist believes to be biblical truth, IS the evidence. After all, the bible, being the word of god, trumps any man-made concoction. In essence, the believer says that god exists because I believe he exists and the bible is MY dictionary. The a-theist replies that belief is simply not proof and that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of anything, as demanded by the believer. All of which turns an argument into a non-argument. Belief is belief! Look up that word in the dictionary.
The importance of this discussion does not lie in the existence or non-existence of god. It lies in the money. The connection between religious belief and money has been firmly established through the centuries of mankind’s settled existence. “Give me your money and I will intercede with god for you – and I am an expertly trained interceder, so you can trust me.” This is why shepherds use crooks to lead their flocks and this is how the shepherds fleece their flocks.
Thursday, March 6, 2008
THE POWER OF RELIGION
THE POWER OF RELIGION
(Part One)
No other force in the history of human development has so entered the minds of the peoples of the earth as belief in a higher power. In the ongoing attempt to segregate “nature” and “nurture” in determining behavior, no single attribute comes closer to nature’s DNA than nurture’s inculcation of belief. The ideological attempt to conquer this phenomenon by communist countries’ pursuit of Marxian dogma has failed to eliminate the almost universal acceptance of god as real and active.
How has this powerful force been created and why has it continued through the ages to a time when communist countries created laws that prohibited observance of the belief in god, and the United States, the country that separated church and state, allows laws on the books of various states mandating the belief in god. Atheism as anathema has spread over the entire globe. How this has happened and continues to happen is easier to explain, easier to find the mechanisms for the expansion of religion, than why it has happened?
The clue to understanding the answer to why the belief in god and religion is propagated with the intensity required to achieve the huge success it enjoys lies in the Tennessee Constitution/Bill of Rights (Article 9, Section 2) which states: No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.
This is legalese for, “You’ll eat pie in the sky when you die.”
Here’s the full song:
Long Haired Preachers Come Out Every Night
By Joe Hill (A depression-era union organizer and atheist)
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
'You will eat, by and by,
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay -
You'll get pie in the sky when you die' - that's a lie!
And the Starvation Army they play
And they sing and the clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum . . .
Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out
And they sing and they clap and they shout
'Give your money to Jesus,' they say,
'He will cure all diseases today . . .
Working folks of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and it's wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
You will eat, by and by,
When you've learned how to cook and how to fry
Chop some wood, it'll do you good
Then you'll eat in the sweet by and by - that's no lie!
The message is clear; Work hard for the enrichment of others. The wealth you create by your work will never be yours. However, if you believe in god and a hereafter, you will benefit in that future state of punishment and reward. This concept is chillingly similar to the promise of seventy virgins to martyrs of Islaam who kill others as they kill themselves. Perhaps they will also get to eat pie before enjoying their heavenly sexual rewards.
(Part One)
No other force in the history of human development has so entered the minds of the peoples of the earth as belief in a higher power. In the ongoing attempt to segregate “nature” and “nurture” in determining behavior, no single attribute comes closer to nature’s DNA than nurture’s inculcation of belief. The ideological attempt to conquer this phenomenon by communist countries’ pursuit of Marxian dogma has failed to eliminate the almost universal acceptance of god as real and active.
How has this powerful force been created and why has it continued through the ages to a time when communist countries created laws that prohibited observance of the belief in god, and the United States, the country that separated church and state, allows laws on the books of various states mandating the belief in god. Atheism as anathema has spread over the entire globe. How this has happened and continues to happen is easier to explain, easier to find the mechanisms for the expansion of religion, than why it has happened?
The clue to understanding the answer to why the belief in god and religion is propagated with the intensity required to achieve the huge success it enjoys lies in the Tennessee Constitution/Bill of Rights (Article 9, Section 2) which states: No person who denies the being of God, or a future state of rewards and punishments, shall hold any office in the civil department of this state.
This is legalese for, “You’ll eat pie in the sky when you die.”
Here’s the full song:
Long Haired Preachers Come Out Every Night
By Joe Hill (A depression-era union organizer and atheist)
Long-haired preachers come out every night
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right
But when asked about something to eat
They will answer in voices so sweet
'You will eat, by and by,
In that glorious land above the sky
Work and pray, live on hay -
You'll get pie in the sky when you die' - that's a lie!
And the Starvation Army they play
And they sing and the clap and they pray
Till they get all your coin on the drum
Then they'll tell you when you're on the bum . . .
Holy Rollers and Jumpers come out
And they sing and they clap and they shout
'Give your money to Jesus,' they say,
'He will cure all diseases today . . .
Working folks of all countries, unite
Side by side we for freedom will fight
When the world and it's wealth we have gained
To the grafters we'll sing this refrain:
You will eat, by and by,
When you've learned how to cook and how to fry
Chop some wood, it'll do you good
Then you'll eat in the sweet by and by - that's no lie!
The message is clear; Work hard for the enrichment of others. The wealth you create by your work will never be yours. However, if you believe in god and a hereafter, you will benefit in that future state of punishment and reward. This concept is chillingly similar to the promise of seventy virgins to martyrs of Islaam who kill others as they kill themselves. Perhaps they will also get to eat pie before enjoying their heavenly sexual rewards.
Monday, March 3, 2008
ECONOMIC MATERIALISM VS. RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISM
Looking at history, it is somewhat possible to see the future. The undulating history of conflict between materialist driven Power Elites and their partners, religiously driven Power Elites, appears to be a human syndrome. And just as materialists use the tools of religion in their strategic and tactical planning, religionists use the tools of materialism for their planning. The great equalizer in the future battles of the worlds will be weapons of mass destruction. Iran in 2008 seems to be in the forefront of melding fundamental religious power with the latest nuclear weapon technology. Will opposing fundamentalist Elites be in the forefront of the coming battle of the worlds – or will it be materialism dressed up in masks of morality and ethics battling religions and religious fundamentalism which are also dressed up in the trappings of morality and ethics?
Three Power Elite models exemplified by China, Iran, and the United States provide insight into the continuing conflict. Materialist China suppresses religion. Fundamentalist Iran espouses religion. The United States combines materialism and religion. I predict that China and the United States will ally themselves against the forces of fundmentalism. Each side will attempt to gain allies from natural national constituencies. The winner of the war of the worlds? Materialism with lip-service to religion. They have many more atom bombs than the fundamentalists. The wealth of the fundamentalist states will go to the materialist nations. Fundamentalists will waste millions of bodies yet live to fight another day. Belief in god is impossible to kill. The destruction will be monumental and long-lasting. An outcome of that war will be that atomic weaponry will go the way of chlorine gas. Mano el mano will be the way wars are fought in the future.
Three Power Elite models exemplified by China, Iran, and the United States provide insight into the continuing conflict. Materialist China suppresses religion. Fundamentalist Iran espouses religion. The United States combines materialism and religion. I predict that China and the United States will ally themselves against the forces of fundmentalism. Each side will attempt to gain allies from natural national constituencies. The winner of the war of the worlds? Materialism with lip-service to religion. They have many more atom bombs than the fundamentalists. The wealth of the fundamentalist states will go to the materialist nations. Fundamentalists will waste millions of bodies yet live to fight another day. Belief in god is impossible to kill. The destruction will be monumental and long-lasting. An outcome of that war will be that atomic weaponry will go the way of chlorine gas. Mano el mano will be the way wars are fought in the future.
The American Revolution - A War Between Power Elites
It may appear odd and even antithetical, that Power Elites function at the highest levels of government in democracies. However, the very first democracy was founded by Power Elites. The United States was established by the new Power Elites of colonial America to replace those centuries-old elites of England. Wealthy colonists believed they could safeguard their status and impose their control over the territory and treasure of America. Those huge assets merited revolution and overthrow of the royal system of governance.
A new untried system of governance was established by the Power Elites whereby the owners of property could exert their collective will over the wealth of the united colonies. The unique nature of this new system was that it enabled all free men to participate in governing the country. That freedom was an outgrowth of the suspicious nature of the Founders and their concern that the variety and number of new Power Elites extant in the late 1700’s somehow balance themselves so as not to enable one or a grouping of any of them, to wrest power from the others. Thus were born political parties, a new concept that allowed competing interests to present their interests to the voting public, to compete for power. Thus, “Democracy.” George Washington was concerned about how power was to be controlled by the people. He thought that political parties were “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” Washington’s concerns were justified by the reality of the system. President Dwight. D. Eisenhower, chosen by the elite of his day, warned the American people of the dangerous power of “The Military-Industrial Complex.” It is reasonable to assume that he was removed from his pedestal by that same cabal and placed in a grey area of history books.
A new untried system of governance was established by the Power Elites whereby the owners of property could exert their collective will over the wealth of the united colonies. The unique nature of this new system was that it enabled all free men to participate in governing the country. That freedom was an outgrowth of the suspicious nature of the Founders and their concern that the variety and number of new Power Elites extant in the late 1700’s somehow balance themselves so as not to enable one or a grouping of any of them, to wrest power from the others. Thus were born political parties, a new concept that allowed competing interests to present their interests to the voting public, to compete for power. Thus, “Democracy.” George Washington was concerned about how power was to be controlled by the people. He thought that political parties were “potent engines by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the Power of the People, and to usurp for themselves the reins of government.” Washington’s concerns were justified by the reality of the system. President Dwight. D. Eisenhower, chosen by the elite of his day, warned the American people of the dangerous power of “The Military-Industrial Complex.” It is reasonable to assume that he was removed from his pedestal by that same cabal and placed in a grey area of history books.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
BIBLIOGRAPHY
I realize that reading the words, “Power Elite” so many times in much of the writing here mandates a broader understanding of the denotative meaning of that two-word phrase. To assist the reader in obtaining that understanding and also in defense against the reasonable accusation of sounding like a broken record, I shall provide a growing bibliography for this series of articles and observations.
The first book in the list is aptly-named, “The Power Elite.” Written by C. Wright Mills and published by the Oxford University Press, 1956, the book provides a well-written, documented picture of this phenomenon. Though girdled to a large extent by the formation, structure, and functioning of the power elite of the United States, it is none-the-less a seminal work of surprising strength and clarity that opens windows on the nations of the world. The bibliography that accompanies the Notes in the book provides strong supportive evidence not only of the veracity of the material but also shields people like me from feeling like obsessed one-note instruments as we try to analyze and explain the events of the past, the present, and the anticipated future.
"There is . . . an uncomfortable degree of truth in Mills' attack. . . . This book is so carefully documented, it deals with such real problems, it hits so many sore spots that it deserves to be read." This is book jacket blurb written by A. A. Berle, Jr. for The New York Times Book Review.
The book is still available for sale on Amazon.com and of course for reading, in most libraries. Today, there are 5,820,000 hits for "Power Elite" on Google. C. Wright Mills' work is still, after seven decades, atop the list of authoritative writers on the subject.
As I choose different targets for my arrows, I will try to accompany the essays with additions to the bibliography list. Secret societies of which there are uncountable numbers, have provided nests for the incubation of members of the Power Elites. Enormous amounts of research leading to enormous numbers of books on this subject, will provide source material for fuller understanding of how Power Elites came into being and how such groups were born and functioned within their spheres of influence. So, in preparation for further reading, I offer "A History of Secret Societies," by Arkon Daraul, published byKensington Publishing Corp. in 1987.
I hope to trace the generations of Bush family ties to secret societies from which significant numbers of Power Elite families climbed the ladder to their high positions in the United States. With this knowledge, it will enable American citizens of even the "Red states" to understand how George W. Bush, a person of low achievement in any sphere of life, a person without intellect, charisma, or language; an unread bumbler with a miniscule attention span and hardly the capability of being a ventriloquist's dummy (which he was for the various knees upon which he was positioned), became president of the United States of America. (Someone other than myself will surely write a yellow jacketed soft cover book titled, "Presidenting for Dummies.")
The first book in the list is aptly-named, “The Power Elite.” Written by C. Wright Mills and published by the Oxford University Press, 1956, the book provides a well-written, documented picture of this phenomenon. Though girdled to a large extent by the formation, structure, and functioning of the power elite of the United States, it is none-the-less a seminal work of surprising strength and clarity that opens windows on the nations of the world. The bibliography that accompanies the Notes in the book provides strong supportive evidence not only of the veracity of the material but also shields people like me from feeling like obsessed one-note instruments as we try to analyze and explain the events of the past, the present, and the anticipated future.
"There is . . . an uncomfortable degree of truth in Mills' attack. . . . This book is so carefully documented, it deals with such real problems, it hits so many sore spots that it deserves to be read." This is book jacket blurb written by A. A. Berle, Jr. for The New York Times Book Review.
The book is still available for sale on Amazon.com and of course for reading, in most libraries. Today, there are 5,820,000 hits for "Power Elite" on Google. C. Wright Mills' work is still, after seven decades, atop the list of authoritative writers on the subject.
As I choose different targets for my arrows, I will try to accompany the essays with additions to the bibliography list. Secret societies of which there are uncountable numbers, have provided nests for the incubation of members of the Power Elites. Enormous amounts of research leading to enormous numbers of books on this subject, will provide source material for fuller understanding of how Power Elites came into being and how such groups were born and functioned within their spheres of influence. So, in preparation for further reading, I offer "A History of Secret Societies," by Arkon Daraul, published byKensington Publishing Corp. in 1987.
I hope to trace the generations of Bush family ties to secret societies from which significant numbers of Power Elite families climbed the ladder to their high positions in the United States. With this knowledge, it will enable American citizens of even the "Red states" to understand how George W. Bush, a person of low achievement in any sphere of life, a person without intellect, charisma, or language; an unread bumbler with a miniscule attention span and hardly the capability of being a ventriloquist's dummy (which he was for the various knees upon which he was positioned), became president of the United States of America. (Someone other than myself will surely write a yellow jacketed soft cover book titled, "Presidenting for Dummies.")
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)