Coulter's War: Ann Coulter acknowledges the covert NeoCon war on Americans

What was that sound on the phone just now? A NSA goon slurping his coffee? We are all wondering if that is static we hear on the line today or Big Brother. And we have also learned that Big Brother has a sister, and her name is Ann Coulter.

In her most recent rant Ann Coulter, not satisfied with the blood bath going on in Iraq and the violations of individual rights perpetuated by the Bush Administration, calls for open war between Republicans and, evidently, everyone else on the face of the Earth and questions the masculinity of Republicans who fail to hit the barricades in behalf of the NeoCon agenda. This is ironic since more every day have gender questions about Coulter herself. So in the name of transparency in media I have a proposal to answer those questions for all time. More on that in a moment.

Reading too much Coulter is emotionally debilitating but I hung on long enough to get the real point. Coulter is finally admitting that the NeoCons have long been applying the techniques of war to the political process and, their days numbered, are now frantic to send the Real Republicans, to take up their weapons and throw themselves into the battle against NeoConism's enemies. Ann is trying to counter the hasty retreat of so many who once trusted them by questioning their manhood. This makes her own gender a legitimate question.

Coulter's trembling finger was pointed at the Democrats as she said, “For a political party that grasps the concept of victory against foreign enemies, Republicans can't seem to grasp that concept when it comes to domestic enemies. Instead of taking a page from Sun-tzu's "Art of War," when it comes to fighting liberals, American conservatives prefer the Jimmy Carter unconditional-surrender strategy.” In her new book she evidently suggests a 12 step program for those Republican Men reluctant to die maintaining her lucrative constituency.

For Coulter if it is not a NeoCon it is a liberal. This does keep things simple for her.

The liberals are never that organized or effective.

Coulter starts her screed with slams, only moderately amusing, against the Kennedys, Patrick and Old Teddy. As she careens on you can almost see the white froth dripping from her lips. She manages to position Rush Limbaugh as a martyr to drug laws, characterizing Rush's prosecution for the illicit use of prescription drugs as political persecution. Who was it who has continued the Drug War Atrocities? Perhaps Ann should check her facts. NeoCons never met a war they didn't love.

We all know that Coulter is very much in favor of the continuing debilitations of the War on Drugs, an activity that lines the pockets of the greedy and grasping all the way from the White House on down.

The leadership in both the Democratic and Republican Parties are all for the largess they realize from that war on us; this is not a partisan issue and far more us, the people, versus all of the leadership from both parties and their corporate cronies.

In a sick way Coulter's rant is actually rather funny. It is as if in 1941 Adolph Hitler, the SS standing firmly behind him, decided to pick a fight with a local Kindergarten class. Nothing the Democratic Party has done has even been an effective defense for longer than I can remember and Ann herself has apostatized them as too wimpy to be believed. This is not inappropriate.

I once bought the fiction that there was a Vast Left Wing Conspiracy when I was active as a Republican, I was chagrined to discover that the worst I could find were individuals with doubtful ethics, non-existent personal morals, and short range personal agendas that went no further than the next election or even their next lobbyist funded jaunt. If they are larcenous at least they are not efficient about it.

Joe Conason was right. The Democrats steal less.

It was a hard truth to acknowledge but the fact is that the Republican Party was the first fatality in the present War on Americans launched by the NeoCons and supported through the amazing vitriol, lies, and misdirection, of such as Ann Coulter and John Fund. Ann does the screaming, Fund does the scheming.

Real Republicans are still twitching, but those among them who have kept their ideological grounding intact are now beginning to understand who stole freedom.

Karl Rove perfected his use of the myriad of bureaus and institutions along with his application of policy as a profit center to augment the donations from corporations while still flexing his flabby muscles down in Texas.

The war against Americans has been covert up until now and really, it is nice of Coulter to bring the truth out in the open. That admission is a sign of NeoCon desperation.

Was Clinton a womanizer? Yep. That made him eminently attackable and attack the NeoCons did through such institutions as the Wall Street Journal and the practiced offices of John Fund who has spent the last thirty years grasping for the gold ring of wealth and power, using the weapons of deceit, manipulation, and war to create himself as someone he never was. (Catch the Interview) Coulter has described liberals as 'girly' since 9/11 and has consistently used 'boys' instead of men and 'girls' instead of women. Why is that? Could this focus originate in her own gender confusion?

The gender bent of Coulter's rant also brought to mind another story that is picking up steam through the diligent efforts of Dan Borchers, a Conservative Republican who has voiced many questions about Coulter.

Is Ann Coulter a female? While the answer would appear to be obvious; she is after all, blond, curvy, and attractive, real affirmation is not in evidence. Coulter is a fag hag, her best friends are gay. She has never married or evidently been in a long term relationship and she has had no children and is nearly menopausal.

So is she or isn't she female? Rumors includes the titillating piece of gossip that she might not really know herself. Coulter could have been born with both and had her parents pick wrong. It happens. That would explain the hysterically violent tone in her writing and other signs noted elsewhere. So how can Coulter prove her gender?

I suggest that we turn to the Daughters of the American Revolution. They can oversee a DNA test that will settle the question This is appropriate because Ann is a member of that rectitudinous body and if the lovely Ann is not really female the DAR would certainly want to know that so her membership could be shifted to the Sons of the American Revolution. That would made for interesting meetings.

Inquiring minds want to know and all it takes is a swab from the inside of the mouth, not nearly as intrusive as Ann's rhetoric I might add.

Now, about the balance of Ann's article aimed at selling her book and stoking the fires of Republican Manhood. Perhaps if the test proves what so many believe Ann can be the first to sign up for her own course on Manhood as she leads her own militia of macho renewed Republicans over the top, if any can be enlisted in 'her' campaign.

Historically, real men declared war before the hostilities began. In this, as in so many things, the NeoCons are 'different.' But what can you expect from NeoConning cowards who have never faced the real thing?

Catch the interview of Melinda Pillsbury-Foster by Gene Gaudette this Friday at 4PM, PDT on BBSRadio.com. Melinda, the host of the Spiritual Politician, will turn the mike over to Gene for an interview on The Real John Fund.

Boobs, Panties, and Courage: How honest elections could change Alabama

A woman's voice for freedom in the birthplace of Rosa Parks and Helen Keller.

As Americans deal with the issue of honest elections, feeling for good reason, that an honest election may well be an impossibility today, the citizens of Alabama are confronting the most interesting and provocative choice that has faced them for a good long time.

It is happening in the race for governor of the Camellia State.

The Civil Rights Movement started in Alabama, where Rosa Parks made her stand. So conflict over the issues of individual rights hold place in the minds of its people. A generation ago the issue was the vote for Black Americans. Today the issue is still elections and the individual rights that either die from the steady encroachment of government or are sustained and renewed through the action of courageous individuals.

As with Rosa Parks, Loretta Nall got a wake up call on the nature of government and took action. Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus, Loretta Nall defied the powers and then had the audacity to refuse to back down. After writing a letter on the issue of drug legalization Nall's house was raided. Nall, refusing to be intimidated, came outside to photograph the black helicopter hovering overhead. Standing trial before a judge she was convicted of simple possession of a tiny amount of pot and paraphernalia; she has appealed, the only way she could have a trial by jury. She and her supporters expect that she will be exonerated.

But that did not end her physical confrontations with despotism in Alabama. While visiting her brother at the State Correctional Facility both she and her mother were forced to have their underclothing checked by the Commissar the Panties Believe it or not, Alabama has determined that not wearing panties under your pants is cause to deny visiting privileges to the mothers and sisters of those they incarcerate. Loretta came away determined that bureaucrats would learn that they are hired hands, working for the people. After that, the twin issues of the panties she does not wear and the plenitude with which God endowed her, became campaign issues and fundraising opportunities to this plucky activist. As America's original revolutionaries learned, you use what you have to do the job.


Loretta Nall is not your typical gubernatorial candidate in any way. Along with being well endowed she is articulate, focused, dedicated, and honest. George W. Bush is not what the Founders had in mind when they created the office of President of the United States. Loretta Nall,is the mother of two; her husband stays home and she works to support them. Her formal education ended with a GED; she married when she was 16. She is a long time activist for individual rights. She is as different from the power elite now infesting government, especially Washington D. C., as is possible and nothing about her is as different from the D. C. Elite as her values.

She describes herself as 'dirt poor.' Certainly she is far from wealthy; she did not come from a family that could routinely buy of judges and viewed the public coffers as her own personal piggy bank. She has never owned a football team.

Loretta has always worked for a living, something George W. Bush doesn't really understand. His core constituency is Mega Corporations; Nall's is, well, Alabamans. The economy of Alabama lags behind that of most of states. Alabama's people are, according to Ms. Nall, characterized by their wish that government, particularly the Feds who inflicted Reconstruction on them and theirs, should jump in a hold and pull the top in after them. Running as a Libertarian, Ms. Nall sees her fellow Alabamans are people who really want to do the right thing – when government does not make that impossible. The values of most Alabamans, good Christians, are very different than the values asserted through their government.

In a recent interview Loretta Nall commented, 'If what Jesus wanted was for us to live our beliefs, and if you live by what He did and said, you have to stop using government to push people around. Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence that our rights are there before government. Therefore how can government tell us what to do in every part, or any part, of our lives, as long as we do the right thing towards others?” A novel idea. Ms. Nall, an atheist herself, firmly believes that the original message of Jesus, to use only persuasion to get your way; offer loving support to everyone, remains true today.

Nall's activism has been in the area of drug legalization and she has been all across the country speaking out on the right of the people to use marijuana as a medicinal aid – and to smoke it if they choose.

Americans have more questions about government every day.

Americans all over the country are beginning to question both the two party system that has delivered them choosing the lesser of evils and to a government that has converted them from individuals possessing there inherent rights enunciated by Jefferson to 'economic units' dependent on the will of an all powerful government.

If the electoral system in Alabama is as honest as it should be, and the people speak, then the people may well choose a very different exemplar of American values to lead them. Loretta could be Governor of Alabama. Loretta understands the problems that the people of Alabama face today as no other candidate could.

Such an election would be revolutionary. But for the people to make their will known the vote must be honest. All Americans are now asking themselves, in the face of the many assaults on the electoral system, if an honest election is even possible. But while the people of Alabama admire courage the political establishment there is grouped among those who want to win at any price.

Until the 1970s all you had to do to become a political party in Alabama was to call the Secretary of State's office and ask to have the name of your party placed on the ballot. That remains true today. In Alabama you can still have a party but you can't run candidates; they are happy to list your selection. But unless you fulfill the ballot access requirements that have become increasingly onerous since the first time someone but a Republican of Democrat actually won you must petition for every candidate for every election.

Alabama's political establishment is like that. This is the state that also shaved a few numbers off Pi to make it come out even.

Asked to comment on ballot access for the gubernatorial race in Alabama Richard Winger, the most prominent expert on the subject said, “Alabama is the worst state in the country for all state wide races for third party candidates.”

Alabama changes the rules every time a different political party looks like it is again going to crack into the Good 'Ol Boys Club. The changes are rammed through the legislature with no debate and with no consideration of 'fairness' or the access guaranteed by the Constitution. Since the 70s the percentage of signatures to place a new party on the ballot has risen from 1% to 3% of the voting population with the time requirement shortening until it is nearly impossible. This is a foot ball game played in Alabama with the goal post for the opposition to be located in California.

Ms. Nall and her supporters are determined, however. Her campaign headquarters receive more calls than can be returned from Alabamans registered in the major parties who hope they will have the opportunity to vote for her instead. Alabamans, like all Americans, are searching for honesty and for the hope of freedom in a world gone mad.

Now we are awaiting word that Alabama has dispensed with voting machines and, in an attempt to save money, will instead call the White House to find out what outcome they would like to see declared.

Ms. Nall will be a guest on the Spiritual Politician this Friday, May 5th, at 4pm PDT at BBSRadio.com to talk about her race and the state of freedom in America today.

How the Libertarians lost Liberty: John Fund, Justin Raimondo, and the history of the Libertarian Party

In Justin Raimondo's article titled, John Fund vs. the Truth, online yesterday morning at antiwar.com, Justin illuminates the many failings of Fund, former WSJ editorial page editor and now columnist for that increasingly questionable publication. If you examine the publications that have been used as tools for planting opinion and values useful to NeoCons for the past 50 years the WSJ will always be high on the list.

In the first paragraph of his article Justin links to an article by John Connelly titled, Sex, Lies, and the Tape, from 2001 which recounts the story of Fund's involvement with my daughter, Morgan Pillsbury and includes a transcript of the tape Morgan made to persuade me that she was telling the truth about their relationship in autumn of 1999. I had refused to believe her since her own veracity had proven to be questionable. I thought I could trust John, at least personally. I also thought that both Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo were my friends. Wrong on all counts.

The tape proved that everything Morgan said about Fund was true. So while I was caring for my son, still recovering from two near fatal brain injuries, I had to deal with John Fund. Life does not stop while you deal with more crises.

Morgan was having problems recovering from the abortion. Fund refused to help her. He refused to take my calls and bounced my e-mails. I faxed him a letter since I knew the WSJ had only one central fax number. The letter was probably copied several times before it reached his office. He unblocked. Fund then told me his behavior had been wrong and he intended to marry Morgan after the 2000 election. It could not be before then because They, meaning the Clintons, were out to get him. What he wanted was to shut me up. Their relationship continued and generated a stack of e-mails about 15 inches thick. Morgan printed them out to show me and read me some of them. It was a strange relationship, no doubt. Try telling your child, once grown, what they should and should not do.

The article Connelly wrote in 2001 had originally been intended for Talk Magazine. It ended up on Weasel Search because of threats from Fund's attorney. Over the next years Fund persuaded such journalistic giants as Eric Alterman, Gail Heriot, Wendy Mac Elroy, and then the Gimpy Jogger from Sacramento to support him by attacking Morgan and myself with articles written without ever calling to check a fact. Fund has been working his way down the food chain of the world of journalism. Given the present long term prospects of the NeoCons I expect the next attacks to come from his local Aryan Brotherhood Chapter's newsletter. One of Fund's childhood idols was Adolph Hitler according to one of his oldest friends. That is another interest Fund shares with many NeoCons. To be fair, Fund also has a life long interest in Star Trek and Star Wars. His first job was organizing those conventions. That was probably his most relevant training for his future career.

Fund has also used both the carrot and stick treatment to kill other articles set to appear in such magazines as Elle. The journalists involved received far better paid positions as soon as the stories were killed, one at the WSJ; amazing coincidence!

Fund's behavior launched a chain of events that would eventually cause him to be fired by the Wall Street Journal. I have never turned tail on a fight over principle or for the people I love and I never will. It began because of Morgan but later I realized much more was involved.

The WSJ knew the truth about Fund even as they ran interference for him over the years. They had their reasons.

I had met and dated Fund while I was Southern California Vice Chairman for the LPC in the early 1980s. He had met Morgan and my other children while she was still a small girl. The romantic aspect of our relationship had ended in the mid 80s; I married someone else but I thought we were friends.

This is where the personal story becomes useful for understanding both the NeoCons and the problems we face in evicting them from power. Writing about these events would be pointless if there were not lessons still to be learned.

All human activity provides invaluable insights into the character of those with whom we live and must work. Overlooking these insights extracts future costs. But it is vital that we know the truth about those with whom we deal. I have long since stopped expecting anyone to help; but neither do I ignore the obvious.

This is what forces me to take both Justin Raimondo and Eric Garris to task for their own judgment in covering for John Fund, for their questionable journalism, and for their lack of personal ethics. I have known both of them for a long time.

I met Eric at the LPC convention in Burlingame in 1975. We discovered we had both graduated from Venice High School. I met Justin Raimondo at the 1981 National Libertarian Convention in Denver, Colorado when Eric introduced him to me. Over the years I watched their activities. It was clear that they had some things in common with John Fund. In the tiny world of Libertarianism they were living out their desire to relive the protests of the 60s. They always wanted to be the most radical. Their internal caucus to the LP was, in fact, the Radical Caucus. But that should raise the question of what 'radical' actually means.

Is 'radical' just loud and obnoxious or is radical effective change in the desired direction?

They had cut their teeth on the Anti War Movement back when Eric was a teenager. But to be anti war is not necessarily to be for peace and the methods they used politically within the LP created far more chaos that consensus. Their endeavors spun off factions like a rabbit breeds. What nourishes the ego rarely nurtures liberty; they are clearly living out an early fantasy at antiwar.com. For me the point is a society that uses honest persuasion, not deceit and manipulation. I am convinced you can not use deceit, manipulation and violence to achieve that goal. I never agreed with their tactics though I believed them to be friends.

Towards the end of his article Justin retails a story on Fund that reveals that Fund lied about his candidacy for the school board in Sacramento in the late 1970s. During the campaign period Fund gave reports on his campaign's progress at a local Libertarian meeting. Fund pointed to it as a model for Libertarian campaigns and tried to claim credit when the two way race was lost, telling other Libertarians he had gotten 46% of the vote. He had never filed papers. Garris discovered this and confronted Fund, who cried.

Presumably, out of sympathy, Garris kept the story quiet and failed to make this known in Libertarian Party circles. I was a state officer then and had never heard the story until yesterday morning. In fact, Fund told me about his 'successful candidacy' in the first conversation we had in 1981. The next year Fund was hired as Executive Director for the LPC. Eric evidently failed to disclose these facts to those hiring Fund, either.

That was 1982. Later that year, using his augmented resume, Fund moved to the East Coast to work for Evans and Novak and to increase his income he began ghost writing for the Star. Fund first told me and then, obviously worried, asked me not to tell anyone. In the same conversation Fund urged me to register to vote multiple times, telling me he did this himself, since this allowed him to claim membership both as a Republican and as a Libertarian. Fund had already started his investigative endeavors in the area of ballot fraud.

John Fund has used lies all of his life and is expert in persuading others and presenting a slightly pathetic front when it is useful. He also has learned other forms of deceitful behavior to get his way and formulated a consistent strategic approach to enable him to cover up his own bizarre behavior.

Consider the effect Fund's success must have had on Eric and Justin. When Fund was climbing his way to the top both Eric and Justin were scratching to made ends meet in their attempts to be professional, and compensated, activists. The whiny little dweeb had out done them.

Justin styles himself as a journalist. But this article does not adhere to journalist standards.
Justin noted that Fund spent much of the '90s rolling in the muck of Monica-gate but the link goes not to the many attacks orchestrated by Fund on the White House, beginning with the attacks on Vince Foster through White Water and Monica to the articles accusing Blumenthal of spousal abuse, but to another article about Fund's relationship with my daughter. This one, written by Lloyd Grove, appeared in the Washington Post in early 2002.

Two questions came to mind. Why would Raimondo have used this link instead reporting on Fund's work as a political operative with the Wall Street Journal? Why would he use an irrelevant link that points to me and my daughter? For the record when this erupted I contacted many old friends in the Movement asking for advice. I also contacted Eric for advise. He told he he sympathized with Fund.

Eric Garris is editor of antiwar.com. Justin Raimondo is that journal's most prominent writer. Presumably, Garris read this article in advance of its posting. The article by Justin Raimondo is the first 'outing' of Fund by two Libertarian Insiders who also admit to knowing he was a NeoCon as early as the mid 1990s except for what I have written myself. That has been a lot.

If Fund was to be outed, why did they wait until it is clear that the whole NeoCon Cabal is in serious trouble? As you read Justin's article you can put several possible constructions on the content and timing. Either Raimondo equates Monica's clearly consensual relationship with Clinton, however inappropriate, with a case of domestic violence, or they have decided that because of the development of events their early knowledge is best used now. Morgan and I are thrown in as convenient color, useful to titillate but ideologically irrelevant. After all, what do women matter?

Why would two men, presumably concerned for the rights of all individuals do this? Why if they had belatedly decided to note I was right would they fail to contact me? Perhaps it is the culture of the LP itself. Perhaps it is the characters of the two individuals involved.

The Freedom Movement is curiously schizophrenic on a variety of topics, and women and their rights are among those issues. If you examine the list of Libertarian heroes who have worked for the emancipation of individuals notably absent are such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Alice Paul. All of these women were effective. Alice Paul originated the practices of civil disobedience later used by Mohandas K. Gandhi and is so credited in his autobiography. Paul's organizational genius gave women the right to vote in 1921.

But present and accounted on Libertarian Hero lists are such NeoCon flacks as Wendy Mac Elroy. Mac Elroy positions herself as a feminist but, by definition is actually a masculinist. Mac Elroy owes her gig at Fox to her article slamming both Morgan and myself, again without checking with either of us. I have known Mac Elroy as long as I have known Eric and Justin. The hope of profit is a powerful motivator.

The definition for 'feminist' is one who works for equality between the genders. If you endorse the use of the State in its present form this leads you to the use of legislation to enforce outcomes. If you endorse the original mission statement written by Jefferson you believe that the State should have made no laws relating to personal behavior or individual rights. That interpretation would have freed slaves and given women equal standing at the time of the Constitution. If you are a Libertarian, presumably, you want everyone to have the same standing under law.

But never expect slave-owners to voluntarily accept the emancipation of 'their' property without kicking up a fuss.

It is well known by those in the Freedom Movement that women are very scarce in their ranks. Most activists complain about this both because they want them around to work, though be quiet, and to date. Why would women join an organization that ignores their right to equal standing under the Constitution?

Justin, and Eric, missed several points; having, until the War in Iraq, made their livings as professional activists of a movement that has disconnected ideology from reality, that is not difficult.

There is plenty to say about what Fund did during the Clinton Administration, and if Justin meant to use my insights, presumably routine journalistic protocols would necessitate his getting in touch with me directly. He did not, even though through my own blog, How the NeoCons Stole Freedom, I am readily available. If Justin had communicated with me I would have been delighted. I have forgiven their behavior many times before. I would have shared the many insights I have gained and shown him interesting documents that were formerly the property of John Fund. I would have told him about my conversations with William Bennett's dominatrix. We could have talked about NeoCon tactics, of which I know much. None of that happened. No e-mail appeared; the phone did not ring. As indicated, this is not the first time Eric and Justin have disappointed such ordinary expectations. I was not surprised when Lew Rockwell, a longtime Libertarian friend, sent Justin's article on to me.

I started studying organizational dynamics and the strategies of war as applied to politics when I formally left the LP in 1988. The NeoCons can all be identified by the observable fact that they use the same strategies over and over again. What is true for Rove is also true for Fund. When you understand their organization you see how they have learned from each other.

Justin is wrong about Fund's importance. I would once have agreed with Justin, but I changed my mind, having studied the indicators. Working as an independent political operative and entrusted with writing the book explaining the strange outcomes of the elections in 2000 and 2004 Fund, is a real insider in the same league as William Bennett. But I see no indication that Bennett 'runs' a string of other operatives, which is what Fund clearly does. Fund and Matt Drudge invented out of whole cloth the rumor that Blumenthal beat his wife having found an article about another Blumenthal who did.

John got drunk one night and confided this in Morgan when the law suit settled. All in all the NeoCons had done well out of the attack. Many well intentioned Republicans and Libertarians contributed to the Drudge Defense Fund. The NeoCons understand about making it pay.

Fund learned directly from Karl Rove if the similarity in tactics means anything.

In Fund's case he uses virulent attacks, invented 'facts,' planted stories that are manufactured, and when caught either 'confesses' with teary eyes or finds someone to blame. Failing that he engages in covert personal attacks made in 'confidence' and with many sighs and tears. Those to whom the 'confessions' are made tend to be sympathetic. This obviously worked well on Garris in the late 1970s. I suspect, but I cannot know, that Garris's unhelpful position when I called for help came from the hope he still might profit from his 'friendship' with Fund. Garris is very pragmatic. Perhaps Garris felt that Fund 'owed' him for his silence on the matter of the election. The timing of this article does not change my opinion on any of the parties; the NeoCons, including Fund, are in trouble and now is the time to talk if there is profit to be made from that material.

Fund is a political operative working independently and at will. He is routinely briefed by the White House.

In the first years of the Clinton Presidency Fund called me up several times to plant stories. One was about the black love child Clinton refused to acknowledge. Later, Fund called me up to tell me about the tattoo Paula Jones could identify on the Presidential genitals. None of those stories turned out to be true. But Fund clearly wanted them repeated, and, at the time, I was living in Santa Barbara and active in the National Federation of Republican Women; any such rumor repeated, by me, would have been circulating nationally in a matter of hours.

I had by then begun to wonder about Fund. His unwillingness to examine the scandals involving Hillsdale College about which I informed him while my youngest daughter, Ayn, was a student there from 1993 – 1997 were of grave concern.

Fund, by his own report to myself and Morgan, privately claimed credit for Vince Foster's suicide and engaged in barrage after barrage against the Clinton White House. This was clearly part of a strategy to burnish the NeoCon political position; Fund had been closely involved with planning for the Contract with America in 1994. You can track the attacks Media Matters article dated Thu, Jun 2, 2005 here on some issues. Even after Clinton was out of office the attacks continued. On January 15th 2001, an article commenting on the virulence of a WSJ editorial of January 5th 2001, demanding an indictment of Clinton, appears in the World Socialist Web Site.

Those are the links that should have been in Justin's article.

The reasons the attacks continued are personal for Fund. He does not like to lose and that I know well.

No one ever called and asked me to confirm or deny any fact or comment before publishing. I hope that changes. I am not expecting it. After so many years of having Fund use any means to destroy my credibility I have come to see people's motivations far more clearly and dispassionately. A is still A.

I have always offered to document what I say, many records, including the letter proving when Fund was fired from the Wall Street Journal, exist. Fund left that letter on the floor of Morgan's apartment in New York in the winter of 2002. She had then left him; he hunted her down and moved in with her. Morgan has reams of papers and other tape recordings.

For the record, if called to testify regarding the domestic violence, I would testify under oath tothe following: I saw Morgan's injuries, bruises and blood, and twice heard her being battered over the phone. Fund bellows when he batters. Eric was not interested in the police reports.

What each of us do, and fail to do, has consequences. The consistency of behavior over time, something we think of as modus operandi, are like finger prints of the soul.

When Fund sought the job of Executive Director for the Libertarian Party of California Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo knew about his having lied. It was then in the immediate past. For any other organization this would have disqualified the potential employee. Presumably, they wanted the LP to have the best possible Executive Director. Why then did they remain silent? That is a question they should answer.

Let us consider what the Libertarian Party was in 1982 and what it is today.

Today, the Libertarian Party is as dead as a door knob as a tool for political change. What happened to the LP has happened to other movements and organizations with the potential for change over the last century. Some of it was done to them; some they did themselves. Over and over again movements for change and reform have been extinguished or misdirected. The means through which such organizations are marginalized bear close examination.

Always follow the money and power because greed does not lie.

The potential and power the LP represented in the late 70s and early 80s was sucked into the service of the then still unidentified NeoCon Cabal. Not surprisingly, John Fund was one of the political operatives who made that conversion possible. I suspect from his excited phone calls through that period that his potential was recognized by Novak, leading to his placement at the WSJ and then his apprenticeship to Rove. Along with serving as a political operative he also worked as a recruiter, finding eager and talented Libertarians who could be hired on and converted.

Fund was not working alone. The Freedom Movement began with ideas intended to return control to individuals. Those ideas, including privatization, deregulation, outsourcing and others, were intended to allow individuals more choice and ensure accountability for all of us. Instead, accountability and profit were decoupled and the resulting policies, garbed in the original rhetoric, were sold to Congress through such outlets as Cato Institute.

Edward H. Crane, III told fellow Libertarians at the National Convention in 1977 he was going to D. C. to get rich. He meant it. He found someone interested spending hard cash to redirect the power of Libertarianism, Koch Industries. Koch Industries remains the prime funder for that think tank still today and has been a partner for Halliburton since Vietnam. Today it continues to profit, providing substandard contracting to both Federal and State governments on a basis that marks them as very special providers.

This was a very conscious venture and exactly parallels previous take overs by the same interests in the early days of the United Nations, the Environmental Movement, and in early libertarian ventures such as the John Birch Society.

Fredrick Koch, then owner of Koch Industries, was on the board for the JBS and in that generation William F. Buckley did the dirty work of marginalizing that organization. Koch's role has never been examined but should be. Koch had had questionable dealings with the Soviet Union during WW II and his focus was far more on profit than on ideology.

Buckley also launched attacks against two other major forces then formulating opinion in the Conservative Movement, Murray Rothbard, an eminent Austrian Economist, and Ayn Rand, the author of Atlas Shrugged. Both of these thinkers would become foundational influences in the new wave of libertarianism that flowed out of the failed Goldwater Campaign.

Rothbard, a founder for Cato, was illegally fired from that position in 1981. Today he is not even mentioned in their history.

At the time those of us involved in the Movement assumed this arose from a personality conflict. Many people conflicted with Ed Crane. What has emerged since tells a very different story. The principles of Austrian Economics as enunciated by Rothbard, made his work the worst possible tool to carry out their plans. Instead, you see the public rise in stature of Milton Friedman, whose ideas allowed the manipulation of the economy through policy.

If the clerk always shorts your change you had better conclude it is not an accident.

The Libertarian Party became vulnerable because its message was no longer backed by the gold of action but its rhetoric held a promise for which Americans still hunger today. But then it was only rhetoric and so the LP was vulnerable to the host of parasites who flooded in to live off the twitching corpse that had held such promise. Such 'activists' as Michael Emerling Cloud and a host of others made a living while freedom died.

No human organization can expect to be immune from causality. If there is profit and power to be had without accountability then the least ethical will show up and hire on. While Libertarian leaders claimed they could live productive lives without government they failed to install Discernment 101 and Justice 100 in their own organization, refusing to see the chain of events that made the present failure inevitable.

Ignoring history, they have recycled failure.

Stupidity will always be its own reward. Today the LP is a social club rattling around in the structure of a political party and most Libertarians, like deer-in-the-headlights, have no idea what went wrong.

Directly, you can thank Ed Crane and John Fund, who sold out for straight profit and power, and the host of hired hands who turned off their discernment in the service of their 401Ks. Indirectly you can thank such as Eric Garris and Justin Raimondo who have historically been very willing to ignore the inconvenient facts when it looked like there might be profit from power in the offing.

Freedom is the one thing you can not have until you give it to everyone. If you really believe that government is not the answer then stop talking and build a real alternative.

Get off the Grids. Organize Locally. Build Coalition.

As Susan B. said, "Failure is Impossible." She took the long view and so do I.

The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire: What one man saw and learned

On April 18, 2006, San Francisco will commemorate the centennial of the San Francisco Earthquake and Fire, an event that leveled that city. The number of people who died has never been more than estimated. The other loses of various kinds ran into what today would be billions of dollars.

On that first day this photo was taken from the St. Francis Hotel, showing the city in flames. Less than 24 hours later the St. Francis would also have been gutted.

Behind that crumbling facade of human invention stood a man with an active, analytical mind. One man taking action would change what others refused to see because of those tragic days. Arthur C. Pillsbury would capture in film a lesson that would change all of our lives. The sound and sight of a city burning awakened him to a human truth.

The accompanying photo went out around the globe, carrying the enormity of the event to human eyes. As catastrophic as that event was it vanishes into nothingness compared to the specter we face today from our own government.

Some disasters are natural; some happen because of what we fail to understand.
The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire was an event that began as a natural disaster. The plates of the Earth slipped, readjusting themselves and for hundreds of miles the resultant impact was felt. But that devastation and loss passed the boundaries of what is natural, multiplied by the corruption of San Francisco's government.

San Francisco had no disaster plan because the corrupt city administration was far more interested in continuing to enjoy the graft and privileges that come with power. Emergency workers were untrained; the preparations that had long been asked for had never been enacted. Many buildings blown up to create fire breaks simply burst into flame, spreading the conflagration and destruction. Both looters and the innocent were gunned down by the military contingent that would never be held accountable. The corrupt officials also evaded liability.
Accountability is something government learned to avoid early on.

San Francisco survived. Eventually sanity returned and the people came together to rebuild. Sometimes even in the face of completely incompetent care the patient lives.
The image above was taken by Arthur C, Pillsbury on that first day. It was a day that changed his life's focus.

Pillsbury had just left his job as the photojournalist at the San Francisco Examiner to start his own photography business, the Pillsbury Picture Company, a month before. For the next weeks he caught the immediacy of events as people struggled to survive and save what they could from the consuming flames. His developing facility, located in Oakland, was the only one functioning. Orders poured in from across the globe.

Later the same year he used the profits from the San Francisco photos to achieve a long time goal and bought the Studio of the Three Arrows in Yosemite.

Pillsbury was an engineer who majored in Mechanical Engineering at Stanford He had invented a specimen slicer for the microscope and circuit panorama camera before leaving college. He was not the kind of guy to settle for systems and tools that did not work as expected.
In Yosemite he found other systems that were failing to do their jobs.

The Cavalry, then in charge of the Park, had long made a practice of mowing the meadows to provide fodder for their horses. Pillsbury noticed that the number of wild flower species was decreasing every year in those areas and also that the Cavalry was not concerned. So, applying his skills as an inventor he built the first lapse-time camera to be used with plants, producing the first motion picture image of a wild flower gracefully raising its head to the sun. By than he had been showing and narrating nature films for two years.

Now the wild flowers could speak for themselves.

That first lapse-time movie was made to persuade those in power to do the right thing and stop the mowing and move towards conservation.

Arthur C. Pillsbury believed that all people need is the truth. If they saw the reality, he believed, they will choose to do the right thing voluntarily. He was right about most people, most of the time.

After seeing the film those in power stopped the mowing the same day. The year was 1912.
Most of us do the right thing if we know what that is. But sometimes failing to do the right thing is not a mistake; sometimes there is another agenda. Pillsbury assumed that when those in power must be mistaken or lack understanding or simply be too lazy to care. Those were possibilities that made sense to him; but that was an incomplete understanding. When those in power are acting on another agenda they cannot be changed with the truth.

The photo Pillsbury took that you see here, one of hundreds, shows both the power of nature unleashed on a city and the power of corruption by government unchecked. Most people did not understand the risk they faced, having delegated that work to the city government.

Pillsbury learned one essential lesson from what he observed. He decided to make sure that the people themselves had direct access to the information they needed. In 1912 he invented the lapse-time camera to connect people to the world of wild flowers, which had been overlooked even by such conservationists as John Muir. Muir's energies were focused on saving the Hetch Hetchy, a battle he lost.

Pillsbury kept working. He began lecturing and showing his motion pictures. Eventually he would speak at every major town forum and every university of note, including MIT. He expanded his lectures every year, adding new films and insights. He was determined that the miracles of the natural world be understood, that their truth be accessible to everyone.
In 1927 Arthur Pillsbury completed the invention of the microscopic motion picture camera. Seeing the world beyond the scope of the human eye awakened people to another aspect of nature. After that time there was an explosion in related research.

Pillsbury went on to build the first X-ray motion picture camera and the underwater motion picture camera opening up more new vistas. Pillsbury refused to patent his inventions. He wanted their use to become common to all of us. He had solved the problem he identified during those hideous days when San Francisco burned.

Arthur C. Pillsbury died in Oakland in 1946. The scope of human vision had expanded, thanks to his inventions and tireless lecturing. He had made nature visible as it had never been before but that was not enough. He had not calculated for the impact of those greedy for money and power.
Government had not changed; it continued an upward trend for control coupled with the corruption. Those who profited through generations came to accept this as their prerogative.
We need to see government for what it is; a system that has been converted from service provider to wealth source for those who control it.

Disaster is endemic to all politics and for the same reasons. Coupling a lack of accountability with the temptation to take always draws those inclined to steal.

Katrina has illustrated just how bad it can be within our own shores; Iraq has demonstrated how bad America can be when the tools of corruption are applied internationally. These are not examples of incompetence, rather they illustrate sophisticated schemes for converting the institutions of government into profit centers for those holding power.

Government is efficiently doing exactly what those in power want it to do.

Our Founders did not expect this government to last 20 years. They viewed the government they established as a kind of model needing beta testing, expecting it to operate within a set of defined and limiting principles.

Government is not supposed to be doing anything we can do ourselves. In the Bill of Rights Numbers 9 and 10 make that clear. So why did government steadily take over jobs being handled privately?

For the same reason bank robbers rob banks. That is where the money is.
We are unused to the idea that we can examine government and change the tools we use to carry out what we want done. But that right is ours whenever we choose; that is enunciated in the Declaration of Independence.

The present state of government would have shocked our Founders.

Consider what life looked like to Founders at the turn of that century.

Our Founders lived and died in a world of small shop owners, farmers, and craftspeople. Homes and businesses provided for their own needs. Innovation came with its own rewards and problems and people learned by seeing what worked and what didn't. That is the classical form for the transmission of human wisdom, used even by chimps with no governmental intervention.

The tools for government the Founders assembled assumed a population that controlled most of the infrastructure directly through town government and through the people's power of purchase. Corporations did not exist in their present form. Our Founders failed to see the ramifications of allowing legislation that brought the actions of individuals under the control of government. They were imperfect as are all of us. They did not hand us a finished product but one that needed to be tested and repaired.

But some things they did right.

Until the end of the Nineteenth Century all school children studied the Bill of Rights and read the Federalist Papers. They knew, therefore, what their rights were supposed to be. Understanding the operating principles, as we can see, is a critical factor.
When people know it is much harder to delude them. But politicians were persistent. They had a lot to gain.

Katrina illustrated a lot of things about government today. It took a week from the time the storm hit to announce plans for redevelopment; people were still awaiting emergency help but 'gentrification' of the area was already planned. Today families who have tried to return have been refused access to their homes and property. If you watch what those in power do, instead of believing their rhetoric the truth seeps through. Government consumed through taxes the resources that should have protected New Orleans.

What has been proved is that Americans would have been better served to keep the FEMA money within local areas to fund local emergency services. Because every level of government above the local was more corrupt in New Orleans last year there was none of the oversight residents expected and believed they had paid for. Those funds went into other pockets.
Big government did not come into existence because the people could not find ways to handle their problems as the country grew and the complexity of their society increased. It came into existence because those in government were greedy and the citizens were both too trusting and did not understand that government is just a contracting service center; that knowledge had been withdrawn.

So what can we do to clean up this mess?

Their system has been designed to create our perpetual and inescapable dependence. We can change that.

Get off the Grids – there are a lot of them and they include energy, oil, credit, the monetary morass, our health needs and so on. The good news is that this can be done. The means are out there, waiting our use. Despite the persistent and devious attempts to keep us nailed in place human innovation has made the exits available and affordable.

That is probably hard to believe, but it is true. The depth and scope of human innovation and our ability to work together can solve problems that would destroy lesser species. That points us back to a world that would have made more sense to our Founders, one where community and conscience are central.

Organize Locally – Many of the organizational tools we need already exist and have been in place for generations.
The original plan was built on the idea of communities working together to ensure their needs were met. In the last 200 years Americans have learned how to work together on the local level. They can apply those skills to new tasks.

Most of us spend far more time working in the Little League, Lions Club, Elks, Rotary, Soroptomists, churches, and other groups that spend their time doing good than we do paying attention to government anyway. You often see this criticized as a cause of the problem. Actually, it shows that most of us know what really matters by voting with our own time and resources when confronted with the morass of government.

The same organizations that help the homeless, funded locally and staffed with volunteers, can undertake the other work we need done to ensure the continuation of the social safety nets we all want in place.

Build Coalition – When you look at the distrust and resistance that came with the team mentality of politics you have to wonder why it mattered in the first place. People registered as Democrats, Republicans, Green, or Libertarian who focus on making their communities better have more in common with each other than they do with those in positions of power within their political parties. All politicians, with just enough exceptions to prove the point, are more vested in acquiring power and cash than in eliminating the means by which power and cash are accumulated.

The San Francisco Earthquake and Fire shattered lives, destroyed property, and raised a challenge to the people of San Francisco that they heard and answered. We need to remember that. Today's challenge is far greater but despite the predations of government and their core constituency, mega corporations, we have many more resources in the battle we face that did our Founders. Generations of American innovation is there, like a vast and untapped bank account, ready to work.

The greedy already know what the real game is. It has been going on for a long time. The rest of us need to get busy making sure that alternatives are available.
Once you see the Emperor's new clothes there is no going back.

Disasters of the natural kind happen. But we don't have to accept human government as an act of God, we can change course.

The American Revolution has taken a hiatus. Ours started in 1775 with the Shot Heard Round the World on April 19th.. That revolution, intended to replace government by monarchy by governance through the tools chosen and controlled directly by the people, remains to be finished.

We, the people, retain the right to change government to secure our inherent rights and together, moving past the chasms that divide us, it can be so. That was the original vision for America. It is time to finish what well intended people began.

Arthur C. Pillsbury would be glad we figured it out.

One copy of the photo above has been donated to The Community Resource Project, an organization presently forming to ensure that off grid alternatives become available to mainstream Americans. You can view that auction on e-bay. For further information contact: thecommunitysite@yahoo.com

A Guide to Understanding the NeoCons: How the NeoCons use sweet charity ­ and how to stop them.

The recent dust up regarding the MZM and the White House is being treated by the media as a singular event, an example of corruption where the White House dropped some stitches by allowing individuals to occupy positions where there was potential conflict. How charmingly naive of those who populate the Print and Ether Estates. You have to expect this of the media; they, along with most Americans, see what they are most comfortable seeing. But the failure to understand the functional behavioral strategies illustrated by this latest dropped stitch on the part of Bush, Rove and Co. leave those of us who depend on understanding these dynamics at even further risk.

You would think that the mounting price tag of this Administration would have caused some one to consider how it is happening. The 'business' done by manipulations through government produces monumental amounts of money, redirected from honest commerce to dishonest profits. But in fact, while I have been patiently waiting for someone to point this out I am now tired of waiting and so will do it myself. The Ominous Parallels, with no apologies to Leonard Peikoff, the author of the book by the same title, are to frightening to be ignored. The only was to avoid the consequences is to understand what is happening and what changes of infrastructure will work to disallow this mounting trend to continue.

All of us learn best through watching and copying behavior. That is the medium responsible for the success of the NeoCons. As a behavior seen on the playground is picked up and used quickly so happens in the boardrooms and bedrooms of life. Deceit, manipulation, and the use of force are now endemic to politics and the most profitable edge of business in America. The same strategies are destroying the basis for individual lives and our families.

Ideas are powerful weapons.

All organizations and policies are human tools which can be used in any way the wielder wants. You can take a hair dryer and poof up your do for the prom or you can assassinate your inconvenient lover by plugging it in and dropping it in the tub while she marinates in the suds. It is not the device that is dangerous it is the intentions of the one using it.

Any organization, for profit, nonprofit, or public can be used to accomplish ends that are not spelled out on the packaging. The NeoCons know exactly what they are doing. They have been doing it for going on three generations now.

We must accept that what we are seeing is not accidental or coincidental.

The strategies used by the NeoCons come in several variations, each a natural evolution from the first. While the NeoCons and their ilk are not terribly bright they can see some of the obvious extrapolations.

A little history:

The first use of this kind of infiltration that can be tracked for later application occurred in the aftermath of World War II. That wave of organization based manipulation occurred through the CIA when it used the then newly formed National Student Association to manipulate opinion in Europe.

Hundreds of students were enlisted by the CIA and were instructed on becoming covert agents. This cadre were used in Europe and in the United States. The cadre was used to carry out the ensuing cold war disinformation campaign of the late 1940's and 1950's. This came to light during congressional hearings in the 1960's.

It was relatively unsophisticated. But obviously many people, some sincere and well-meaning and some simply recognizing the powerful potentials, took those lessons on with them through life. Infiltration of organizations for the purpose of assessing potential threats to National Security are a spin out of this as well. The technology of using organizations was in full flower and sophisticated by the late 60s, having been honed internally to National Security during the Vietnam Conflict and the ongoing Cold War.

As people cycled through the CIA and encountered these strategies in operation the means for using them became commonly known in those circles of affinity. Then their use moved outside of government, probably through individuals moving into security and management positions in corporations. This is a common and lucrative move for individuals looking for more for their time.

The use of these strategies within the United Nations began in the late 50s.

Using ideology as a means of manipulation was already in the tool box along with other forms of manipulation and deceit, verbal and iconic.

The time and focused energy that went into perfecting these tools must have been enormous. That level of sophistication was about to be demonstrated.

We will begin with the heartrending example of the original Earth Day and the organization that has been withstanding the assaults of the PetroElite for going on 40 years now.

The targets never even saw them coming.

A very nice group of people including Margaret Mead, the woman who was so amusingly mislead as to the habits of Samoans by believing their manufactured stories, went on to see the real need for a group to bring public awareness to the question of efficiency in energy use and conservation. One man in this group, John McConnell, thought long and hard about what he wanted to convey to people around the world and in 1969 began working on the idea of Earth Day in the mid 60s.

Earth Day, as outlined, was to take place at the moment of the Equinox. McConnell saw that this moment must be universal, not about humanity but about the Earth itself. The happens twice a year. It is celebrated as Earth Day around March 20 - 22 each year. At that moment the Earth reaches balance and tips towards summer in the Northern Hemisphere and winter in the Southern.

The Moment was first recognized by the City of San Francisco the first Earth Day in 1969. The Moment continues to be commemorated by the ringing of the Peace Bell at the United Nations. The theme is always Peace, Justice and the Environment.

You most likely have never heard of it. You probably celebrate the day in April that was orchestrated by Dennis Hayes, a pimpled-faced tool of the PetroElite. If you visit their related sites you will see that you are carefully herded away from any source with technologies that would discourage your continued use of oil as a fuel source. If you are old enough to remember the cultural expectation of the 70s you probably remember that most people expected solar energy to become a substantial alternative to oil as a source of power. That did not happen because of the successful redirection and because along with that the PetroElite bought up the solar patents then marking the edge of that technology. The devices were never actually produced.

The funding for this came from oil companies through other nonprofits they established to steal the media and the public face of environmentalism. The original organization, still run by one of the original founders, Helen Garland, continues to ward off take over attempts by sleazy types associated with - Maurice Strong.
That is an illustration of how it is done.

OK. Now we get into the meat of the thing. There are two main lines of attack using organizations.

Use No. One *Redrawing the Playground*; funding from corporations.

In this approach you redirect the dialog on opinion, inserting useful policy intended for use in future disinformation campaigns. Policy is determined by what you know you will be doing. You choose issues because, like Rove, you know which of your 'core constituents,' you are marketing for.

Ideas are just tools. It is dead easy to use them like that blow dryer once you get over the idea you need to believe in the actions they represent.

Along with taking over or starting organizations to create a 'front' another essential component for Redrawing the Playground are public relations personalities. These are most often drawn from the ranks of the young and hungry; willing to do anything for the money and prestige that will flow into their lives. This can be a role for a life time. Likely candidates for this sort of position include the less than independently successful off spring and other relations of prominent people.

Sometimes the organization used is dictated by the PR Icon; sometimes it is constructed for the purpose. And example of this is the placement of Robert Kennedy, Jr. where he has no earthly reason to be. I am sure his relations were relieved to see him gainfully employed.

To shift public awareness on issues NeoCons use existing organizations, or build their own organizations for the purpose. If it is a think tank it then churns out 'policy' and 'opinion' papers that shuffle the facts, build and then cross reinforce specious arguments, use attacks on the basis of personality, and place 'experts' on the subject who are being paid through - the organizations. You buttress their reputations by having the 'experts' 'pundits' write books. You drive up sales of the books by buying huge amounts and giving or selling them through a circle of the same organizations.

Some of these pundits, for instance Ann Coulter, become icons, helping you change the opinion and cultural make up of your organizations, for instance, the Republican Party. Look for the faux websites that work to redirect traffic and bleed off available funds intended to enact change.

Use No. Two *The Playground as Profit Center*; funding your projects from the public pockets.

This phase is the 'died and gone to heaven' portion of the strategy. Before the Corporations had to shell out their own money to provide cover for the policies they wanted adopted into law. Now that source for funding is decoupled and the whole structure is directly attached to the funding sources that come through government. Wow. This is a heady moment for the NeoCon. For them it is like a perpetual ATM machine with an unlimited credit line.

The whole is buttressed and reinforced by the linking structure of nonprofits serving as holding tanks for pay-offs to pundits and other bogus experts and to provide the essential iconic front. These are a recycling of those well known arguments from authority that can be summed up as a loud and empty, “because I said so!!!” Please refer to any elementary level book on logic.

In the case of the NeoCons they have also cobbled on a structure of 'religious institutions' for the same purpose. These pay off the 'leaders' who guarantee their political base in the same way pundits are paid through nonprofits but instead of the cash coming from the PetroElite through nonprofits it comes through the pockets of tax payers.

That is an outline of the strategies used as tools by the NeoCons. Start looking around for examples, they are thick upon the ground and many are now soaked in blood and oil.

And now we return to the issue of those bad placements in MZM. If you turn down the volume on the covering rhetoric exuded by the NeoCons, both visibly in the administration and as covering fire in media and elsewhere, you will start to correlate their frequent insertion of wordage with policy they then push. You will also notice that they are telling you very plainly what they are really about; their actions, as opposed to their wordage, are reliable indicators.

Placing operatives of various kinds in positions intended to support what we think of as the proper functions of government is a clear extrapolation of the previous strategy that enhances their control. That is why these individuals were there. NeoCons make mistakes but this is not the kind of mistake they make. The real mistakes come in the form of miscalculating how far they can do at a given time and in misunderstanding things like the laws of physics; they are not wonks in those disciplines.

Further uses of pundits still in play:

After Bush II stole his way into office using the then in beta test mode Diebold End Run they realized that the question of election fraud would be raised. Early in 2000 John Fund began work on a book intended to provide the covering fire on that issue. Of course it blamed liberals. Since I am a Republican and former Libertarian I used to assume that there actually was a Vast Left-Wing Conspiracy. Then, when I realized what was happening, I hoped there might at least be some folks there who had a clue. Life is full of disappointments. But having once been a Brownie Leader and also a Libertarian Political Organizer I knew that every problem is also an opportunity.

The infrastructure of government does not work; at the best of times it costs too much applied to the services it provides when compared to obtaining the same services through alternative nonprofit and for profit organizations. That is the bad news. The good news is that America has grown alternatives without even thinking about it and with some relatively modest modifications we can handle everything we actually need locally.

Any dependency on grids that lead through government are fatally flawed but can be replaced through local action. Get out your Yellow Pages. The original game plan for America said that government was only to handle those things we could not do ourselves. As a working adjunct to that wisdom I would point out that resources held by government belong absolutely to us. Also, they incorporated and I do not possess any piece of paper saying I own stock. The same is true for the FED. When you clear away the specious arguments of sovereign immunity and return to the correct interpretation of liability this is not rocket science.

We are all on grids constructed with deceitful intention by that nasty collusion between government and mega corporations. These include energy, credit, our monetary system, justice, and social services. Social Services we are mostly handling as needed locally anyway.


Freedom is still the destination. Recognizing the flaws in the tools we are using now, government chief among these, is a major step towards change. See what is wrong and why: Identify better tools that have been tested through time; Start using them.

Get off the Grids; Organize Locally; Build Coalition

Saving the World and our Wallets from the NeoCons

As the joke goes, when three wolves and a sheep vote we all know who is going to be dinner. How does that work when there are millions of sheep and only a few thousand wolves? That in a nut shell is government today. It is time the sheep reconsidered how the game is to be played.

While this administration might have stopped casting hungry eyes on the profit potential of Social Security that is no guarantee that the fingers connected to those eyes might not still be twitching. Since they have spent us into unprecedented debt soon it will be impossible to continue their predatory behavior without continuing to open new vistas for their avaricious gleanings.

Although the Dubai Ports Deal failed it is well to remember the enthusiasm Bush and his cohort of NeoCon Counselors viewed what looks like the mistimed garage sale of America's property.

This will probably not reoccur before the elections this autumn – but after that all bets are off and public goods of all kinds can be assumed to be up for grabs. Outright sale is only one means for milking assets supposedly owned by the public. Look for bank shots through the cohort of clutching corporations and financial institutions who comprise Bush's 'core' constituency.

But only sheep chew placidly while the shepherd is inside sharpening his knife. We need to think about saving the assets.

We already know through their long ogling of Social Security that it is on their menu. That plan has been percolating through their calculations for a long time. In fact, since 1977 when a 20ish young man declared he intended to go to Washington D. C. and get rich. The man's name was Edward H. Crane, III. Don't pause to wonder if he is any kind of old money. He is not; but his eyes have ever been on acquiring that status. Ed had a vision of himself as walking the halls of power and to accomplish that he needed something to sell. He had also been involved in Libertarianism, the then newly fledged movement that spoke its determination to return America to its individualist roots, reinstalling all of our freedoms. Ed looked over the assets there and decided to become an intermediary for selling those ideas to corporate interests and to Congress through what is known as Cato Institute. To make that attractive and acceptable to Libertarians he used the rhetoric of freedom as cover.

One of the first papers written by the original cadre at Cato for the presidential campaign of Ed Clark, a candidate for the Libertarian nomination in 1980, was the privatization of Social Security. The idea was greeted enthusiastically by Libertarians who naively assumed this would give Americans control of their money and allow for retirees to enjoy far larger retirement incomes. But that is not how the application of policy works when you want to sell it to the greedy who view government as an elegant way to separate the sheep from their hard earned money.

The amount of money under discussion was enormous.

If on the one hand you allow government to keep the money it has stolen through the misappropriation of Social Security while transferring the money still to come to financial institutions for 'investment' owned by your friends, then you might be working with chumps but it is not chump change.

Reselling the ideas of freedom to the greedy made Edward H. Crane, III a wealthy man.

Decoupling accountability, either from government or from corporations, from profits while selling the ideas using the rhetoric and cover of freedom reborn became the formula for success for all involved. Now, that is sleazy.

So what to do instead?

The fact is no one's retirement is safe if it controlled by government. They are not to be trusted. But in the last over 200 years America has birthed institutions by the dozen most of us trust with our lives, adding infrastructure to those already existing that have proven to be reliable. You probably belong to one yourself.

You may be an Elk, a member of that Benevolent and Protective Order that opened their hearts and wallets to fund the first hospital for American Veterans in 1918. Yep, that wasn't the government either. You may be a member of Rotary International, Soroptomists, The American Humanist Society, or any of an incredible number of organizations run mostly by volunteers who are the backbone of good works in America.

This also includes religious and spiritual organizations of all kinds. Churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, all of these present opportunities. Each of us should be able to judge for ourselves how trustworthy our own might be for the purpose. I have friends who are Mormon, Catholic, Congregationalist, and Muslim who say they know they can trust their own church with their retirement. I am sure there are many others.

What to look for in any organization is the internal values regarding responsibility, accountability and how long individuals have been volunteers invested in making their own mission work.

Institutions organized along these lines possess the essential attributes to handle large amounts of money honestly and to do so while keeping the costs minimal; they had to do that to be successful in the first place. As volunteer organizations the motivation for moving up and donating even more time is dedication to the Mission of the organization. Most of those who work at the National or International level have been socially and emotionally invested in that organization for a life time. Their 'profits' and not calculated in dollars but in knowing the work is done and done right. They want to leave a legacy of love for future generations. Can they meet that challenge? If their members ask them to they probably could.

Allowing the transfer our retirement plans from an institution, government, that has proven entirely unreliable to institutions who have proven their worth over generations is only common sense. We can't make them do it but their record of civic responsibility would make it likely they would offer that service to their own members.

This would be a win in many different ways. Ensuring that the transfer of funds into these trusts opens up another opportunity to change how government 'works.'

Money handled by these organizations creates a market in investment managed and controlled by organizations who are conservative, canny, and trustworthy. Different organizations and churches could handle this each in their own way, reflecting the vision of their own members. This area would develop the latent potential still to be developed in volunteer organizations that are controlled by their memberships at the most local level. These organizations already do good; this would allow them to do more.

At the same time removing what proved to be an irresistible temptation to those in government would reduce that well documented impulse to steal. Removing attractive nuisances from the morally impaired is only responsible. And Edward H. Crane, III would have to figure out something else to do for a living, eventually. For a while he will doubtless continue his campaign to repackage despotism as freedom and sell it to the credulous and greedy.

Now, how to pay for this. Collusion to engage in theft is a crime. The attempts to hold up a banner of 'sovereign immunity' by those in government must finally be ended. Government is not sovereign; the only sovereignty mandated by America's Mission Statement is that accruing to each individual. A liability has been created by those who allowed Social Security to be converted from a trust fund to a source of funds. They are as individuals absolutely liable. The corporate interests who cooperated are liable; and penalties should be exacted in full measure.

Government is no more sovereign and immune than is your plumber when he screws up the repair of your toilet. Our justice system also needs reforming; a system for justice is intended to ensure that those doing wrong are held accountable. It is time to do that to government and its minions.

Americans face a challenge that holds both hazard and promise. We faced a similar threat at the beginning of the Revolution and at the beginning of WWII. It is always individuals working cooperatively for a common goal who change the world. America was built on those principles and it can be rebuilt the same way.

The naked politicos waltzing around DC in their sheepskins are the past. The future belongs to us – if we choose it.

Get off all the grids, organize locally, build Coalition.
Freedom is still a good thing.

The Shots Heard Round the World were not a government operation

Americans need to understand their own history

As the harsh storms of winter subside we approach the 231st anniversary of an event in American history that can provide insight and direction badly needed today. On April 19, 1775 The Shot Heard 'Round the World marked a clash of arms over a small bridge standing astride the stream at Concord, Massachusetts. We have all seen the statues and some of us have heard the poetic paeans to the event that took place there.

To this day no one knows who fired the shot but the unfolding clashes shocked the British Crown and set the stage for the first nation on Earth who proclaimed the principle of universal freedom in July of the next year.

This was not a government operation.

Perhaps the best lesson to be drawn from those events, which we have allowed to be obscured through the misted lens of time, is that this marked a moment when the people did it themselves and in so doing confounded the greatest power then existing on Earth; a power comparable to our government today.

The colonists standing at Lexington and Concord were routed; they had been standing in battle formation, as soldiers did back then. After that initial few rounds of fire they rejected the conventional approach to war and took to the woods, spontaneously conducting a guerrilla action as the Red Coats marched back to Boston. This example of spontaneous order shows a strong bent for innovation and rejection of strategies that fail. Software wonks would understand completely. Now that is a learning curve to applaud but it is not the best part.

The alarm that had gone out through the night time activities of Paul Revere and Dawes had been delivered.

At that point in time the British Empire had 8,000 men under arms across the globe. A far smaller number were serving the Crown in New England. That, the Crown felt, was entirely sufficient.

At the end of the day 10,000 Americans were marching towards Lexington and Concord, muskets, knives, and hammers in hand, prepared to kick some Red Coat Butt. Women who saw off husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons, prepared to keep the home fires burning and everyone fed.

Total mobilization included everyone.

When the people decide to do something it gets done. No government could have organized these events, they came straight form the minds and hearts of the people.
The year before the colonists had nearly been caught with their pants down when another expedition of the Crown had narrowly been thwarted in its plan to confiscate the munitions being gathered in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. War was coming. The Crown had cut off their supply of munitions. After the Capture of the Fort William And Mary at Portsmouth, the colonists were determined to be prepared.

The months leading up to April 19th and the Bridge had been filled with preparations that included not only ensuring that an early warning system was in place (Revere and Dawes among others) but that the crusty colonists understood the issues. Committees of Correspondence comprised of people from every town had been discussing the causes for the conflict and what we would think of today as the Mission Statement for what would be America. They had built agreement through persuasion and discourse. No one voted for war.

When the broadsides came out from Philadelphia bearing the words of the Declaration of Independence that next year this population knew what they meant.

This was an amateur operation from the beginning. They had few resources, limited munitions, and no central organizing structure. That is doubtless why it worked. They had to be inventive and be prepared to acquire expertise they lacked.

The year after the Declaration was signed, July 4, 1776, they had cobbled together an army of the same people but their lack of experienced generals made those first months of action a disaster. George Washington looked like a general but he had no training in the strategies and practicalities of war. Fortunately, he also knew how to innovate and was modest enough to see the need.

That long nasty winter at Valley Forge was not what you think it was. Men were not dying of disease and creeping away; they were having an intense round of training exercises that included training Washington to lead the troops. The trainer was Baron von Steuben, an officer with Prussian General Staff training. Soldiers who went through those winter months at Valley Forge tended to end up officers themselves.

I went in to the DAR on Benjamin Pillsbury, who went through training at Camp Valley Forge and was commissioned a lieutenant.

There were no bureaucrats and it all worked fine.

America is not a nation like other nations. The vision that gave the colonists the motivation to throw off the chains of the British Crown were both spiritual and civil, evoking that mission statement from Thomas Jefferson penned in the Declaration of Independence that coalesced support.

They were all investing their lives, fortunes, and sacred honors, not just the ones who signed.

Unlike the early Greek and Roman writers who had applied the concepts of democracy and rights to define what was actually an oligarchy where only a tiny minority of people exercised power, the American Vision proclaimed that each of us possessed the same inherent nature, which included the right of autonomy, before the existence of government of any kind.

Government was, in that view, a service center, providing only those services that the people could not provide for themselves. The colonists were practical people who would never have paid for the padded privileges assumed by later generations of government officials.

It was the Yellow Pages approach to government and if today government was limited to what we can't find either in the local Yellow pages or do locally through charity there would be legions of bureaucrats looking for jobs at MacDonalds. A satisfying image.

You might sit down and make out a list of essential services and leaf through your local yellow pages. If the service is there and you need it then government should not be involved according to the original game plan.

Even two generations ago government spent most of the money it takes from us on its own infrastructure while creating an attractive nuisance by dangling unearned wealth in the eyes of the least ethical. A seat in Congress can, in less than ten years, turn a down at the heels political science student into a multimillionaire and these ethically challenged individuals are not being paid off for their good looks.

Unfortunately, those immediately following the Revolution believed they needed a government something like those with which they were familiar in Europe. That was a mistake and today the bill for that mistake and others accounted for in the compound interest of 12 generations of power gone amok, is demanding to be paid.

I know what the veterans of the Capture of Fort William and Mary would have thought; I know what those 20,000 early Americans would have said as preparations continued on the home front while the men marched off to war carrying their own muskets. “Fire”, would become “fire them!”

It is local organizing and innovation that does the job every time.

Most of us who are involved in local charities understand that the needs of those living on the edge of poverty are steadily rising as mega corporations and government, those long time bedfellows, continue to eat us alive.

This is not due to sloth or laziness on the part of those in need. The real needy in America could each be millionaires on what we spend on government. Any of us can find ourselves in the position of facing circumstances we could never have anticipated. The reasons are many; the effect is to place a heavier burden on those within the community who are the last line of defense against hunger, cold, and death. After several generations when Americans have assumed that these safety nets were being handled by the morass of government agencies well funded for those purposes the real relief of need remains in the hands of local activists working as volunteers.

This is true in Santa Barbara where Unity House feeds and trains more needy for less than the multitude of agencies heavily funded by government; it is true in small towns across the country and in urban areas. It is most probably true where you live, too. Americans are used to getting the job done , whether that job is feeding the hungry, searching for missing campers, or ensuring their own freedom. Ultimately that is how this present encounter with a State gone amok will be resolved.

You can almost hear the voices of those early Americans, cussing about the waste and pomposity of the government that confronts us today.

It is time to reboot America's government. The people can do it themselves.

Get off the grids: Organize Locally; Build Coalition. It is time to finish the Revolution

The Forbidden Sign: Republican Woman, DAR Member - Terrorist Threat?

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How can it be that a long time member of the National Federation of Republican Women and member of the Daughters of the American Revolution could be Threat To National Security? This came as one of those moments when you are sure they must be talking about someone else.

This was especially shocking to me since I seem to be the Threat. I was very surprised that my blog had elicited so much attention from the Powers That Be this morning. I learned about this when a friend called me and said her attempt to get on and read my latest scribble was been greeted with the warning, 'FORBIDDEN!!!!' Other calls came in rapidly.

And I have been having so much fun writing about my experiences and insights and sharing my graphics.

Of course, the thing one needs to ask is what the NeoCons mean by 'National Security.” Their definition has nothing to do with bombs or bellicose behavior of any kind really. Rather, it goes to the issue of keeping most people from understanding what is going on so they can do something about it. This is the Mushroom Principle, keep them in the dark and feed them fertilizer.

I like people to share and I like sharing my own insights.

The first hand insights came along with the experiences life sent my way while raising children, volunteering as a room mother, Brownie Leader, Cub Scout Den Mother, and (this following activity calls for a very similar set of skills) writing and doing political organizing for the Libertarian Party and then for the same National Federation of Republican Women. I include the nice picture of myself with Laura Bush having Tea at the White House and myself at the table at the Cato Institute Gala in Washington D. C. in 2003 sitting next to Heidi Smith, then the President of the National Federation of Republican Women. As you google you will also notice I donated to No Child Left Behind.

Not your usual profile for a terrorist.

Google, which acquired Blogger, the place where my sites are hosted, did not even write me an e-mail before dragging out the barriers and cutting me off. And I thought we had a relationship. Very sad. Like I said, some of my friends starting calling and complaining and voila! It was back up.

I had warned that there would be dirty tricks afoot in a recent blog. So if this happens again you can still go look at my articles by googling (ironically) my name. Also go to American Politics Journal and OpedNews and Freedom's Phoenix. I am told on good authority others will also be carrying them soon.

Just shutting down sites is one of the more efficient ways to keep the opposition quiet.

What could I have said to upset them? I suspect their reaction came more from concern for what I was going to say next. Thankfully, shutting down my site will not prevent anything like my free speech, guaranteed under the First Amendment, from happening. I will keep using the First Amendment even if they revoke it.

Thanks to a newly started on line Radio Station, BBS, TNT News, I will not only keep on Blogging but also be able to talk to people on line and on the air.

As I pointed out before this administration of grown larger, plumper and balder but not grown up social misfits are very upset that despite the fact they have managed to ice every branch of government from Congress (preventing those nasty impeachments) and the Supreme Court (must not let there be oversight as to the Constitutionality of such questions as the Patriot Act) and the Electoral System (Strauss SAID we could cheat!!) people keep talking and complaining and exchanging information.

Really, if you close your eyes and just think about what they are doing it is obvious no one should trust them with even a cork pop gun, much less a hunting rifle or, for gosh sakes, nuclear weapons. Ethically I would be concerned with trusting them in preschool. I know, I had a lot of kids.

If I was sending them out to sell Girl Scout cookies I would figure they would eat most of the cookies themselves.

The events that put me in the middle of this mostly related to my daughter, Morgan Pillsbury. Morgan showed the bad judgment to become involved with one of these plumped up reprobates named John Fund. It was bad judgment on her part, and I am not defending her on that. But John was far worse because his behavior was even less conscionable than hers. No matter what, beating someone you out weigh by 150 Lbs. is not nice. Nice is a very important attribute in anyone. I suspect that there are no nice NeoCons. Sad thought.

That matter, which John and his NeoConning buddies have managed to dodge, is now coming up to another court date and the timing is bad for them because John is one of their most trusted Political Operatives.

I have lost any trust in our justice system; Robert Morganthau, District Attorney for Manhattan, dropped the criminal case when by law he was not permitted to do so. Regrettably, I was forced to conclude that the NeoCons 'hold paper' on Morganthau, who usually does the right thing in cases of domestic violence.

Holding paper can mean they have a video of Morganthau having sex with a model or a cockatoo or some other nasty thing or that he has tax problems, or any of many different forms of coercive pressure. Holding paper covers all of them. Someday I suspect we will know what was going on there.

Sometimes I wonder what they could have been thinking when they decided to help Fund. Not at all bright.

What did they expect me to do? What kind of a mother and human being would I be if I did not defend her when, on this occasion, she deserves defending?

Defending ourselves and our families will most likely become an issue for all of us.

This is an interesting time in the NeoCon game plan. While they have iced the usual means for protest the Internet remains a weak point for them. Their attempts to control the exchange of information and insight and commerce remain largely unsuccessful, though we must anticipate continued attempts through corporate biggies like Google and AOL. That continued conduit for information has allowed significant numbers of Americans to find out directly from Europe and other places around the world what is happening. This is in large part responsible for the rapidly deteriorating popularity of this Administration, along with the increasingly blatant moves to seize control of American property on their part, for instance the Ports Sale.

The NeoCons are doubtless thrashing around right now, unsure which direction to take. They are in the latter part of a long range campaign and the components for their campaign to control America is now encountering realities they did not anticipate. Europe is growing alarmed at the high levels of radioactivity swept in from Iraq from the Depleted Uranium used by us there in munitions; Americans are coming back from that war with symptoms now understood to originate from that source. The credibility of this Administration is suffering to such an extent that they may well decide to speed up a more oppressive domestic agenda. Americans need to be distracted and their campaign to reawaken concern for National Security is faltering. Any Terrorist attack occurring at this point could well solidify opposition instead of increasing support.

They have already allowed inferences of their long term plans to slip; The publicity campaign last year regarding Avian Flu, in retrospect, indicates a likely possibility the release of that plague was intended to distract Americans while radically decreasing the population. Actions speak louder than words: why did they broadcast samples of the disease, which still has no known cure, all over the world except to create cover for themselves? It is not that the NeoCons are not aware of environmental issues, just that their plans in that regard take a very different direction, shall we say. As a long range plan this goes along with their science fiction mentalities; as Straussians there would be no reason not to follow such an agenda.

But the masters of political intrigue and now confronting a very different reality.

The NeoCons have moved from the application of political tactics, something they have studied in detail and understand well, to a dependence on their own far less reliable understanding of technology, not their strong suit; While they doubtless consult real experts one wonders if they are entirely frank regarding their desired outcomes. Experts are generally good at letting you know if you explain all of the variables, but lacking that, the miscommunication could be huge.

The present DU toxicity levels in Europe would lead us to conclude that the NeoCons are failing to foresee even the short term consequences of their own plans.

So controlling the Internet – and our access to inconvenient information - has to be high on their priorities.

Therefore blogging and surfing for reliable information is a matter of self defense.

So keep on Blogging. I always told the Brownie and Cub Scouts to be prepared;
Get Off The Grids: Organize Locally; Build Coalition.