Why the 4th of July is Still Worth Celebrating

My family has been celebrating the 4^th of July with a reading of the Declaration of Independence for a long time now. I am descended from many families; all of them include individuals who participated in the American Revolution. My application to the Daughters of the American Revolution used Benjamin Pillsbury, who served at Valley Forge.

The stories you hear about Valley Forge were designed to keep people away from the training camp being run that winter. General Washington was getting some professional pointers from Baron Friedrich von Steuben This is reported as training for the soldiers but it was Washington himself who most needed it. The General's record up to that point had not been stellar. Training in strategy and tactics at the level practiced for war at that point in time was not available in the Colonies. Personally, I think it showed a lot of courage on Washington's part to admit he needed help and then make sure he got the best available.

After the Winter of Valley Forge General George Washington improved dramatically as a commanding officer.

It would be a long war anyway.

Lt. Pillsbury was a homesteader in New Hampshire when it was still the frontier. The town he helped found, Sandown, NH, contains the oldest still in use Meeting House in New England. Benjamin helped build it.

In the generations following the Revolution celebrating the 4^th included food and fireworks, but it went a lot deeper. That is where we need to go again.

Then, some member of the community, and communities were small then, would stand where everyone could see and hear him and begin, “

IN CONGRESS, JULY 4, 1776
The unanimous Declaration of the

thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.”

The Founders knew that what people in other parts of the world thought of them mattered. They intended to become part of that larger community as a people, using government in a revolutionary way. Government would not be master, but their agent, the contractor who carried out some work for them, with proper oversight, naturally.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is the Bedrock of American Thought. All people are born possessed of God-given, inherent rights. Government has no control over the actions of individuals as they peacefully carry out their lives.

“ — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,”

Government is whatever the People DECIDE it will be. End of story.

“ — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”

And if we need to have another Revolution or use any other means to bring government into alignment, that is our absolute, God-given right so be it.

“Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

Just because we like the style of architecture does not mean we can't do a really drastic retrofit and evict the management. We will put up with a lot but there is a limit to our patience. The power is ours, always in the people.

“ — Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.”

That preamble, the Mission Statement and Principles of Operation for what the Founders were about to carry out, ran to 356 words. Terse and to the point. Those assembled laid it out for all of posterity, and the Bill of Particulars was 655 words. I wonder how many Bills that pass unread through Congress are that short? But the Founders were not benefiting from lavish retirement plans; they are not getting junkets from Corporations.

After outlining their reasons for Independence the Founders went on to document their many attempts to achieve redress without this most drastic step. That section is just 326 words.

The Founders put it all on the line; they acted transparently, declaring for the entire world their intentions, their principles, and their reasons for the action that they took that day. They declared for a freedom many of them would not live to enjoy. The Declaration closes with, “— And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.”

The reason that the Declaration of Independence should be reread at least once a year is to remind us and our posterity that what was necessary once could become so again. The generations coming after the Revolution grew up hearing the stories and understanding the costs exacted from people they knew as parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and neighbors. They saw bullet holes and they decorated the graves of those who fell in battle and were killed by British soldiers. For those who lived through it the Revolution was very personal.

Myself, I have been compiling my own Bill of Particulars for some time now. The list grows every day. Th fact is, we would have changed the government before now if not for the many frauds used by the corrupt to hold onto power. Stolen elections, falsified disasters, phony wars, lies, and larceny, they have done it all.

This 4^th of July take some time. Gather together. Read the Declaration in its entirety. Consider your own Bill of Particulars. If you send it to me I will begin a compilation that may well be needed in the not too distant future. themelinda@gmail.com. Lt. Benjamin would understand, he participated in the Exeter Revolt, the first insurrection after the Revolution.

America is a vision as yet unrealized. That vision for America is one that speaks the power of individuals, a power that comes from our inherent, God-given rights. It is a vision that rejects the use of government to meddle in our lives, given to us by God, never by government.

This 4^th of July read the Declaration. What the People did once can be done again, and we will.

Iowa's Ed Failor, Jr. Pimps for the NeoCons: June 20th, Try-Outs for Corporate Presidential Candidates

Edward D. Failor, Jr., Executive Vice President of Iowans for Tax Relief, and those working with him on the Presidential Forum to take place on June 30^th are feverishly ignoring Congressman Ron Paul, the breakout Presidential candidate who is now in undisputed control of the Internet. They obviously fear Paul's participation in the otherwise lackluster line up of candidates to appear at their forum, put on by Iowans for Tax Relief and the Iowa Christian Alliance. Like so many defective Ken Dolls the other candidates mouth slight variations of the NeoCon Line. In effect, the forum is free advertising for approved candidates orchestrated to keep dissatisfied Republicans in line.

Edward D. Failor, Jr. is determined to make sure that the only real Republican candidate, Congressman Ron Paul, remains as little known to his natural constituency as possible.

Candidates will be given time at the podium to spout. Those spouting will be Senator Sam Brownback, Congressman Duncan Hunter , Mike Huckabee, Governor Mitt Romney ,
Congressman Tom Tancredo and the Honorable Tommy Thompson. A short perusal of Failor's Googles reveal that he is Senior Advisor for Iowans for John McCain and also has donated to McCain's campaign. Yesterday there were more candidates confirmed but the likes of Guiliani and McCain are melting like the Wicked Witch in the Wizard of Oz. Things are changing rapidly on the IFTR website; Failor's thumb-fingered approach is not making him any friends outside the beltway.

Failor keeps trying. Recently he was briefly interviewed on Mickelson in the Morning, a Talk Radio Show airing on Station WHO out of Des Moines, never managing to explain why the sponsoring organizations would exclude Paul and include such non-starters as Tommy Thompson and Duncan Hunter. A piece of advice Rove should have issued: Have your story straight BEFORE the media calls.

Real tax relief for embattled Iowans has been slow in coming, something well known to those living there to whom taxes remain a real issue. This appears on a site in Iowa, "Iowans for Tax Relief" has a name that, “ belies its purpose. It supports special interest carve-outs and corporate welfare tax subsidies that shrink the tax base and raise the rates on the rest of us. It also refuses to even consider eliminating the deduction for state income taxes in exchange for lower rates” according to Roth CPAs, an accounting business in Des Moines. The article goes on to say that a better name for the group would be, “ "Iowans for Special Interest Loopholes and High Rates."

Given their attitude towards Ron Paul, long known as the Tax Payer's Best Friend, this should surprise no one.

The two organizations in charge, Iowans for Tax Relief, and Iowa Christian Alliance, actually illustrate in a microcosm what has happened to America during the last 40 years.

It is a story all of us should know.

It began with a small, pimple-faced group of Young Republicans filled with more unrequited testosterone and ambition than brains, fraught with that low cunning that is so evident in children of Kindergarten age. At the same time across the South, sitting and scratching, there were a cadre of white men who had never made it in life. Science was too exacting; business demanded they provide value. They were in the habit of doing what earlier generations of similar men liked doing, sitting around thumbing through their Bibles and inventing rationalizations and justifications why they were superior to those uppity blacks and why women should stay home and tend to their needs.

If the two groups above had grown out of it things would be different today. That did not happen. Instead, those acne enhanced Y Rs, Karl Rove, Jack Abramoff, Ralph Reed and Pat Robertson, went on to entice those Yellow Dog Democrats into the Republican Party while at the same time the subset of Reed and Robertson found funding that enabled their marginalized Armageddonist oriented churches to move into the main stream. One of them, or perhaps in happy cooperation, they wrote the plans for taking over the Republican Party, putting their plans into action in Texas in the early 90s. They cheerfully issued instructions on how to do this along with outrageous propaganda containing the same revisionist history that would have so astonished the Founders.

Their friends, using those now empowered Yellow Dog Armageddonist Republicans began a campaign that used revisionist history like a club to remake American understanding of the foundations on which America stands from A to Z. Beginning with the absolute barrier erected by the Founders between Church and State they began their campaign to reverse the progress of Americans towards equality and social justice through a Constitution founded on English Common Law for a bastardized Biblical interpretation as the law of the land. That, they could make mean anything.

Today dozens of members of Congress actually cite the specious babblings of such opportunists as David Barton who has become a multimillionaire selling books that are constructed from revisionist history devised from various sources over the last 200 plus years. Obviously products of the same American schools that stopped teaching the truth about American's Founding documents over a century ago, those elected to Congress credulously accept the painfully constructed arguments that attempt to document a unanimity that never existed in American thinking and install one form or other of Armageddonism, a set of cranky marginal mythologies based on the fantasies of a small group of English and Southern preachers, as history.

It is a mythology with no relationship to the truth

Coming from widely divergent spiritual viewpoints the original four main cultural and religious groups that made up the Colonials slowly changed their thinking over that 200 years prior to the Revolution moving towards diverse understandings of our spiritual nature. The common element was the move to see the individual as possessing a one on one relationship with God, this becoming the basis for rights expressed in the Declaration of Independence.

The foundation of American government is that only individuals possess sovereignty and so rights, this the gift of God.

The book written by Chris Rodda titled, “Liars for Jesus,” reveals in painstaking detail the original documents in their unaltered form, putting the events in a time frame that shows what actually took place. The separation of church and state was an absolute in the minds of the Founders, who coming from different and conflicting Christian beliefs could not have done otherwise.

Barry Goldwater and generations of Americans who knew the Republican Party as the defender of small, local government, low, local taxes, and individual rights would not recognize the Frankenstein monster that today is the GOP.

The world according to Bush and his Rovian Brain performed an about face that has lead to millions of deaths, our ongoing subsidies to Israel, an obscene surge of profits for Big Oil, Mass Munitions, and the ongoing evisceration of the Constitution. The ongoing gorge that makes Willie Wonka look like an aesthetic is now in overdrive, leading to the exclusion of Ron Paul from a forum in which, if Republican values still existed, only he should be entitled to participate.

Ed Failor doubtless expects to be well compensated for the service performed. He probably hopes to get to be Karl Rove's assistant at the Bush Library at SMU.

However, many Republicans and others who never imagined they would ever be Republicans aren't having it. Perhaps the most astonishing component of the Ron Paul Revolution is the strong cross over of individuals who are inspired by Ron Paul and are determined to return the Republican Party to its previous vision and by so doing give America the means to change course.

In Iowa a group calling itself Ron Paul Republicans are beginning a registration drive intended to restore the heart and mind of the GOP. That is one thing Ed Failor has accomplished however unwittingly.

The interim Ron Paul Republican chairman for Iowa is Ben Olson, a life long Iowan farmer who has long admired the Congressman.

Change is in the air in Iowa; from there hope could spread across the heartland renewing us as a nation. It can happen because Americans remember how to do it themselves and this revolution will take control back to the roots of freedom.

What Ben Laden, Bush, GE and Tammy Faye Baker have in common

What do Osama Ben Laden, George Bush, the Board of Directors for GE, and Tammy Faye Baker have in common? The answer is not their choice of eye liner.

They all profited, or are still profiting, from genocide. Of the group the only one who objected to what was going on, and not for the reasons that would strike Americans as appropriate, was Osama Ben Laden.

The conflict in the Middle East is escalating as the tides of death rise throughout the region. This is the ugly reality that America has tolerated. It is an ongoing genocide that began in Palestine in 1948 and which has continued, an open secret to which Americans remain largely oblivious, as children are used for target practice by Israeli soldiers and peace workers are mangled.

There are more questions than anyone can answer in one interview, more questions than can be answered in a life time, most likely. But the broad strokes are here and those provide the mapping for the territory we will be exploring.

It has been claimed by many that Palestinians celebrated when they heard about the attacks on the Twin Towers. Not only was this untrue, it was an intentionally fabricated lie rolled out using film from an event years before almost immediately. Our anger stilled potential protests and the questions we should have then asked.

For the last more than 50 years America has poured money into Israel, more money than is received in foreign aid by all other countries combined. America pays for Israeli weapons that Israel then uses to kill Palestinians, using those Palestinian children for target practice.

Israeli's today live a prosperous life style; Their economy continues to prosper. Americans who subsidize them through taxes experience economic downturns from every direction.

Nothing about American foreign policy and Israel makes sense, least of all the eradication of a country to make way for the condos and clubs that are displacing the rightful owners of the land that in 1948 was Palestine.

But if you take into account the flow of funds through the fingers of the avaricious it all makes perfect sense. When you understand the who, what, why, and how they all profit the pieces come together like a jig saw puzzle. You need to know because every day your life is impacted by those lines of greed and their greed increases faster than we can produce money for them to steal.

You thought these issues were unrelated. You were mistaken. The world is fraught with congruence, most of it leading today to the pockets of around 28,000 individuals.

Evangelical Christians have cooperated in this annihilation of human life and with the stripping of property from families that lived and worked on the land for hundreds of years in many cases. They do so because their eyes are firmly fixed on Heaven, where some portion of them believe that they will see Jesus Christ descending at any moment. Most of the faithful really believe that. Those who collect their offerings every Sunday mostly do not.

Where did these people come from? Who is responsible for their odd set of beliefs? The answers are horrifying, but interesting.

The several factions of theologically based post and pre millennialists have managed to make their followers believe in a revisionist Bible; they claim to have discovered their solemn absurdities at a time when the world is headed in the direction of piercing the veil of ignorance that has both frightened and intrigued humanity for uncounted generations. It is as if a subset of the most intellectually challenged of the American culture decided that if the unvarnished truth meant they would lose their power then they would simply cancel science and all other provable truth.

At the same time Americans and the rest of the world was moving towards an enlightened sense of spiritual connection these folks were looking for the reverse gear.

Ideas most Americans had rejected, for instance the idea the world was flat, that we did not actually land on the Moon, among others, didn't even make them blink. Given how their minds work tossing ideas like the separation of church and state in the dust bin was easy.

Economically and socially their beliefs were marginalizing them, making them unable to compete in the larger world. There is a logic to ideas when they are allowed to make their outcomes seen in life. Most of them were and are white men who regretted the final installation of civil rights for Blacks in the South; they are determined not to let women escape their grasp. They harken wistfully to a time when sitting around theorizing did not bring them face to face with the need for objective proof. They were looking for a way out. Their exit came with dollar signs from Big Oil using the only medium available to them, theology.

This low end trailer park trash, who spent their time scrunching up their faces to redefine words translated any number of times from languages having a culture of which they were entirely ignorant, were capable of any self-serving delusion. Those who funded them from those corporations simply nodded and wrote the checks. They understood what they were buying, having also purchased Palestine for hysterical Zionists as the perfect medium for injecting themselves into the Middle East, in close proximity to all that lovely oil.

They needed desperately to control the political direction of America.

Politics entered the equation with Karl Rove, Ralph Reed, Pat Robertson, Jack Abramoff, and the cadre of other Young Republicans who decided in the 70s that the way to hold on to control of a GOP, that was then moving towards responsible social and environmental policy, was to change the party's demographics.

They looked around and found some likely candidates in the marginalized Yellow Dog Democrats who inhabited low end Southern Churches, the same people who seriously listened to the theologizers who sat around redesigning reality to suit their fantasies.

Money can accomplish a lot when you are inherently deceitful and have no discernible ethical or moral qualms.

Suddenly big infusions of cash and an abrupt shift in party allegiance had accomplished what most people thought impossible. The source of the money was major corporations who were getting what they paid for. The intermediaries were their new NeoCon employees. We can be sure they were well compensated.

And so time and social progress reversed itself through the lead provided by Rovian, Reedian, and Robertsonian acolytes of fantasy land and the retreat to a bizarre Antebellum South began.

Now you see it.

These same people today own their own jets, multiple residences, and hob nob with Presidents – who they put into office. They indulge their own fantasies as we watch a genocide play out in Palestine and the price of war in the Middle East rises in a wave of Corporate orgasmic excess that the world will never forget.

At home the pumping sound of American blood provides a counter point that marks the flow of funds.

The bottom line of human action is always either sex, power, or money. The three are really interchangeable for most of those involved.

The TheoCons provide the political matrix through which that 180 degree turn away reality took place. They did it with a mythology that worked on the uneducated and credulous, which too polite liberals treated kindly because they pitied those who were so obviously, they thought, retarded.

We will begin unwinding the story and naming the players Friday, at 4pm Pacific Time on the Spiritual Politician on BBSRadio.com with Col. David Antoon and Tammy Watts, who between them have spent decades studying the issues.

Mom, is George Bush a terrorist?

“Mom, is George Bush a terrorist?”

Sometimes an unexpected question really clarifies one's thinking. This afternoon I experienced one of those moments. My son, Arthur, asked me the question while I was busy tapping away on the computer. I paused; this also happens occasionally.

Arthur, continuing in the absence of my tapping clarified that he was not saying that George Bush lurked in airports with bombs strapped to his torso or any other part of himself. He meant that George Bush, by enabling the rape of America by corporations, terrorized him and everyone else. Arthur listens. In 1997 Arthur had a motorcycle accident that changed a lot of things for him. Along with discovering his relationship with Jesus he pays attention to politics. Life is what happens when you were making other plans, we all know that.

I had been looking up the wording for the Executive Order recently signed into operation (I can't say law because it clearly conflicts with that.) I found it smack dab on the White House page, in front of God and everyone.

NATIONAL SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/NSPD 51

HOMELAND SECURITY PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE/HSPD-20

Reading the longish text made it clear that the author was doing all possible to obfuscate the Order's real intentions. I found these to be especially interesting.

“(a) Ensuring the continued functioning of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government;”

Three Branches? Since Congress is not prepared to oppose Bush, something made clear after the vote this last week on funding the operation in Iraq we now know for sure that Congress is firmly in the pocket of the CorporaState. The Supreme Court has been frozen solid for a while now. The 'unitary executive theory' (read this monarchy) has been effectively established. Bush and his NeoCon cohort are very practiced at pretending all is normal, so they cite the comfortable, familiar terms; Three branches, two clipped off at the roots.

“(b) Providing leadership visible to the Nation and the world and maintaining the trust and confidence of the American people;”

Trust and confidence? Do they ever let George Bush look at his popularity ratings? I wouldn't trust him to take care of my dead cat's ashes.

“(c) Defending the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic, and preventing or interdicting attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;”

The Constitution clearly needs protection FROM Bush and his friends, which includes the corporations who employ him. I say that and I am a member of the National Federation of Republican Women, for gosh sakes. Imagine what a liberal would say.

“(d) Maintaining and fostering effective relationships with foreign nations;”

Like our relationship with Iraq and Iran perhaps?

“(e) Protecting against threats to the homeland and bringing to justice perpetrators of crimes or attacks against the United States or its people, property, or interests;”

Great! When do the impeachment hearings begin?

We only wish.

But people do tell you the truth – if you ignore what they say and watch what they do. Turn down the volume, I told my kids, and the truth becomes blatantly obvious. Then you notice their eyes gleaming with avarice when they look at your purse or flicker over the silver. Congress told us about themselves, we were confused by their pretty rhetoric.

Along with the Executive Orders Bush has other things he likes to play with.

Item: Bush employs Blackwater USA. This private mercenary provider begins installing bases across the country. Lots in place right now. These are the people no one likes to mention in Iraq, the same people who turned a disaster in New Orleans into a combat zone. This is actually illegal. By Federal statute you cannot outsource military functions. Blackwater is a criminal enterprise therefore, not that this seems to bother Bush Co.

Their mission statement reads,

“VISION
To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.

MISSION
To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.

Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the very best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.”

They sound like Boy Scouts, don't they? Remember what I said about rhetoric? Ask the people from New Orleans or Baghdad. Blackwater is building detention centers in the United States today. These are reported to be nearly ready for occupation. So who is going to occupy those cells? Like Arthur said, the terror is now entirely domestic, meaning Americans are scared of George Bush; he is a lot closer and has far more power than Osama bin Ladin. The talk about terrorism from abroad grows thin as we consider what is happening here in America.

Programs such as the TV series 24 and other screaming media events suddenly give us pause. Those who sell hate have an agenda; that agenda is to distract us from the pea and the shell. It is a conjuring act.

Ron Paul, Republican candidate for president said blow back is the real reason America is hated. You could feel the shock waves when those fatal words were uttered. Some truths are too potent to be named in public. Rudy Guiliani evidently had never heard of such a thing though reprisal is far older than the feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys, who only recently buried the hatchet after a century of death.

Blow back makes a lot of sense even if you haven't read the Congressional reports from the CIA. As one of Ron Paul's supporters said, “...maybe its not as simple as they kill us because they are evil and we kill them because we are good. You know, maybe a lot of people just aren't buying that any more.”

People do seem to be looking for something different.

Ron Paul is an unusual candidate because of what he does not want to do. That includes, “I don't want to run peoples' lives. I don't want to run the economy. I don't want to police the world. I just want to uphold the Constitution and protect your liberties."

Those words and Paul's votes against the war in Iraq speak a truth that resonates with many. Bush's present actions are alarming. This Executive Order clearly anticipates an event that would give Bush even more power and Bush has demonstrated an avid appetite for ever more power that he does not hesitate to use. If there is an 'incident' most of us are going to assume that the planning took place in Karl Rove's office.

Item: Bush and his administration are rather noticeably unpopular with everyone except, perhaps, Karl Rove, John Fund, Rudy Guiliani, and Barbara Bush's dog Millie.

If you are a REALLY unpopular president and you think it likely no one is going to be willing to pardon you for clearly treasonous actions you might decide not to leave office. You just put off the Presidential Library and keep the coloring book to finish later. In that case the talk about canceling the election or the 22^nd Amendment makes a chilling kind of sense.

Blackwater. Torture. Cells conveniently located. Executive Orders. Incident. “Thanks Karl, I really needed that. Now we don't have to worry about moving, either.”

“Mom, there are guys in black breaking down the door.”

Perhaps it is time to consider reregistering Republican and electing Ron Paul president. When the unthinkable is happening what you thought was impossible becomes the only option.

Hugo Chavez: Socialist? George Bush: Socialist!

Charges against Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez have been leveled for years. These include, “Chavez has won a loyal following among the poor through multibillion-dollar social programs including subsidized food, free university education and cash benefits for single mothers. " Shocking crimes against humanity, right? Almost up to the Abu Ghraib level. And now that nasty Chavez is talking about, gasp, nationalizing the oil leases of Exxon-Mobil. Where will this madman stop? You can almost see Bush getting out his road map and squinting down at it, tracing the route through Mexico. Wrong turn there, Georgie, that is the way to Canada. Think towards your non-extradition hide out in Paraguay.

The quote continued, "Chavez insists he is a democrat and will continue to respect private property - though he has boosted state control over the oil industry and has said he might nationalize utilities.”

As Jon Stewart and other prominent American critics point to Venezuela and the actions of Hugo Chavez, re-elected by an overwhelming majority to the office of President, accusations that Chavez is, gasp, horrors, a socialist, also abound.

Ignorance is so exasperating, especially from those who should know better. Chavez himself makes this mistake, using the dreaded“S” word. How could they all be so wrong? But wrong they are. Chavez is not a socialist, but socialists lurk all across the United States and it is time to expose them.

Let's begin by defining our terms. What is a socialist? Thanks to the Internet, this is a question easily answered.

“An "economic, social and political doctrine which expresses the struggle for the equal distribution of wealth by eliminating private property and the exploitative ruling class. In practice, such a distribution of wealth is achieved by social ownership of the means of production, exchange and diffusion." (7)


The programs provided to poor Venezuelans are funded through income generated through the Venezuela Petroleum Corporation, a corporation owned by that nation. Venezuela nationalized the petroleum industry in the mid 70s, long before Hugo Chavez had anything to say in the matter. The programs he provides pay for education, housing, subsidies on food for the poor, and aid to single mothers. The list may strike you as familiar; America funds similar programs, the difference being that here they are funded through the seizure of private property through taxation. Is America therefore a socialist state? The short answer is yes, we are – though we carefully disguise this fact through rhetorical flights of fancy that employ the images of a free people who are still handling social needs locally. We all actually know that these programs were seized by the Federal Government beginning in the 1920s and then the taxes collected explicitly to fund such programs as Social Security were cheerfully converted to making the State even bigger and more oppressive. The term for this is Bait and Switch. Those who have encountered con men before will understand.

What Chavez is doing in Venezuela is not socialism. He is taking the money generated from something no one earned and using it to improve the condition of those who otherwise would continue to exist in poverty. This is artful use of found money. The oil will not last but the benefits of education and better infrastructure will last, lifting Venezuela out of the condition that has existed since Europeans arrived to begin grabbing and selling off their resources.

The source of the money matters. Today Alaskans receive money from the State of Alaska as a share of the money generated by the Alaskan oil production. Is Alaska a socialist state? No, because it is found money shared out as those in the State agree is best.

The definition of socialism hinges on the source of the wealth. It is not socialism when the property is 'found' and not the product of those who happen to be in possession. Private property is that property that is the creation of an individual using their energy, intelligence, and innovation. Such property is justly earned when it is acquired without deceit, manipulation or violence. Property not justly earned is stolen, by definition. No one who knows the history of the oil industry can have any illusions about how their wealth was acquired. All oil is stolen property, pretty much.

Naturally, as a life-long Republican and Libertarian I am opposed to socialism, but this is not socialism. It looks like spending the money on one good, services for poor Venezuelans, instead of other potential goods, for instance secreting the money in a Swiss bank account or buying their own private islands. Hugo Chavez was duly elected as CEO of this country; it is difficult to see why it is any concern to anyone else; the people of other nations do not owe us an explanation of what they do with their own resources.

Additionally Chavez reportedly is investing significant R & D money to ensure that an alternative to the use of oil becomes available to Venezuelans so they will not be caught up short. Hard to argue with this kind of forward thinking.

The oil was under that chunk of real estate before anyone now living was there; before they were never HUMAN. But as individuals who live on specific pieces of land we all understand that living someplace may bring hazards or rewards for which we are not responsible. Naturally occurring events are defined by insurance companies as, “Acts of God.” Living in Pompeii in A. D. 79 turned out to be hazardous. Living in an area that experiences subsidence due to the extraction of the underlying reservoir of oil may also prove to be hazardous but a human element of causality has been introduced. We know that oil is a naturally occurring substance. Extracting it from the layers of the Earth in which it is found may have a long term impact not now understood and subsidence of the land covering it is always a possibility. Its extraction is cheap; selling it turned small bands of Arabs without two camels to rub together into an international power, all through the accident of location. However, location, occupying the land where the oil is being extracted, does make those living there vulnerable to the potential problems of subsidence, toxic spills, and potential incineration, for instance if the oil blows up, which has been known to happen.

Curiously enough, those living there, for instance in Venezuela before that industry was confiscated by the government, benefited least from the presence of the potentially harmful oil being extracted. As a matter of tradition we observe the practice of ceding control of resources to those with a valid claim on the land where those resources are located or, at their option, to the government who orders the business of the people who entrust them with governing. The oil therefore seems to belong to all of the people who live in Venezuela although for a good long time only a small percentage of those people were allowed to profit from its presence. Should those who got the lion's share for so long make restitution? Probably. But that is up to those involved. Perhaps other residents of Saudi Arabia should take note of this curious oversight.

If someone is going to assert a right to profit from pumping oil, which arguably belongs to everyone occupying the land under which the oil sits, then you would think that those individuals would recognize an obligation to ensure that those who do not profit would not pay the costs of potential liabilities, such as having their children incinerated by faulty piping necessitated by the transport of such oil, as in the case of Koch Industries. But in fact those who are most likely to profit from pumping out oil are likely to demand that those in power, for instance Congress, cancel any potential liability if damage is done. In America, oil companies often pay those in Congress to zero out their potential liabilities, for instance in the case of the Liquid Natural Gas they are so eager to import.

Responsible capitalism and private property means accepting full liability for costs extracted from those who do not directly benefit from profits. Alabama recently received a 3.5 billion dollar judgment against Mobil-Exxon for diddling on royalty payments. Presumably, if a corporation can be held liable for cheating in its bookkeeping it should be liable for other damages even to the full extent of the damages done.

Hugo Chavez thinks he is a socialist. He is wrong. But the case can be made that BushCo and their core constituents are a new species of socialist as yet unidentified. Is it socialism when you are stealing all the marbles and using rhetoric to disguise the fact? Perhaps what we need to a simplification of the language that ignores the rhetoric employed and only notices the actions and outcomes.

Transfer of wealth from the many into the pockets of the few using any existing rhetoric = Criminal Class

BushCo funds programs through the confiscation of private wealth; they use legislation to dictate their own 'social agenda,' and they have been working on wresting away control of the means for real production for generations. Eliminating the use of words like, 'socialist' makes this clearer to all of us. Remember, they pretend to do the right thing for us to amass the goods. Words lie; Actions speak truth. Or as the Bible says, “By their fruits shall you know them.”

Right now BushCo would just love to invade Venezuela. It is close, they have no expertise in military arts, unlike Iraq; and all that lovely oil is there for the taking. Perhaps Hugo Chavez should contact Lloyd's of London about Invasion Insurance. If I were him I would have already called.

Getting Reality in Pundits and Presidential Candidates

As the Bush – Rove Meltdown continues the pundits and other well paid operatives who have been providing services to the NeoCons on a long term basis are left looking wildly around for opportunities that offer them lucrative exits from the perception they have been, well, operatives. Forget loyalty, the only allegiance they swear to has dollar signs. One of these, John Fund, has recently been busy distancing himself from the NeoCon Cabal, edging away like an overweight crab. His attempts are boorishly obvious and so deserve a slight drubbing, which we here provide.

Fund took the opportunity to distance himself from former long time friend and drinking buddy John Doolittle in his trudge 'on the Trail' of politics with, “Doolittle, Too Late,”How a Reaganite idealist lost his way.” Admitting his long relationship with Doolittle Fund takes Doolittle to task for Doolittle's lavish grazing in the folds of such lobbyists as Jack Abramoff. These recently causes the Doolittle home computer to be carried off by authorities; According to Fund, “two months after taking office, the ostensible reformer (Doolittle) teamed up with Democrat Maxine Waters, a left-liberal firebrand with whom he'd served in the Legislature and who went to Congress in the same election as he did. Together, the two proposed a wish list of new perks that would make even European Union bureaucrats blush.”

Fund goes on to say, “When word of the Doolittle-Waters memo leaked to the papers, the freshman Republican reacted with indignation that Democrats in the House leadership had blown his cover. But Mr. Doolittle continued to behave like a perkoholic.”

Indeed. One wonders why it took so long for Fund to notice. Fund continues on, denouncing his erstwhile friend as a “Reaganite Idealist.” That is probably indicative of what Fund thinks of as an 'ideal' job, that being making lots of money by selling phony rhetoric and eating lunch in the Congressional dining room. Doolittle did that; and doubtless also made more lucre than Fund. Dragging Reagan into the mix is a shabby attempt to hide behind the Reagan mystique, something that NeoCons are likely to do since some of us are still squeamish about throwing things at dead people.

Note: John Fund was NOT invited to the Reagan Funeral. There were reasons for that.

Doolittle is a blatant thief who has been busy lining his own nest for years. Fund could hardly have been unaware of this for the last many years. But now outing Doolittle could be used to say, “See, I can out my own!” Who is dim enough on the Left to believe that remains to be seen.

For someone who spread stories about the strange tattoos located on the Clinton anatomy in the early 90s it is even more indicative of the growing desperation of the NeoCons that Fund said about Bill and Hillary Clinton on Good Morning America on the 23rd.

"What makes Bill Clinton special is he wouldn't just [be] viewed as the the spouse of a president, he would be viewed as a…former world leader in his own right," emoted the Fund.

Wow! A kind word for those demonic Clintons from the guy to lead the charge in Project Arkansas and bragged about inciting Vince Foster to suicide. Major hopes for amnesia on the part of those on the Left. That does spell desperation time. The source of that desperation comes from the lackluster field of Republican candidates for President, making the Clintons look good to Fund.

The following snippet shows just why the Fund is despondent – and why one should be careful about what one says in public. “”Overheard... John Fund

“WSJ columnist John Fund was talking very loudly on his cell phone this morning on his way to the Rosslyn Metro.

He spoke of Mitt Romney: "Looks good, gives a great speech... But he's terrible in a crisis. Look at the Massachusetts health care plan."

Romney can't be counted out, according to Fund. Neither can Fred Thompson.””

Fund knows that McCain would not be welcoming to him. Fund is the operative who spread the rumor that McCain had a black love child in 2000, destroying McCain chances of the Republican nomination. McCain hunted him down and offered to kick his butt at the WSJ offices in New York.

Well, if those wannabe presidential types all look bad to Fund for various reasons (They look bad to us, too, but for different reasons!) Fund might be desperate enough to inch in towards a Democrat who acts enough like a NeoCon for him to feel at home. That would describe Obama and Hillary, Edwards and several others.

Fund would be happy to spend time on the minority side looking for opportunities to be useful to yet another round of NeoCon types, replacements for the present cadre of Big Oil and Big Greed Corporations who are running America into the ground. Money, after all, remains green no matter who writes the check and pundits such as Fund certainly will do whatever is possible to continue on the payroll. But why would Americans find this whole set up attractive?

Why, for gosh sakes, are we letting these turkeys set the rules? American voters are supposed to do the hiring and the firing. Which of us did not have to fill out a job application? Have a background check? Professionals – and presumably anyone who wants to be President of Vice-President is a professional – are normally BONDED.

Perhaps Americans should get smart and take a long hard look at the applicants before primary day. Get Reality, in fact, get the Reality Caucus. It's about time.

The Bush Legacy of Death

Written for the Iconoclast

Thanks to George W. Bush children and young people in Iraq never have a 'normal' day, a day when they can feel safe and go about their lives. Every day in Iraq children, young people, women and the elderly along with good, decent, men simply trying to survive are snuffed out horribly. Their homes are invaded, going to the grocery store is fraught with fear; they live with one hour of electricity a day. That is how it is. When their loved ones are shot there are no counselors and George Bush, the man who did this to them and to us, leads no memorial service.

Now, more than ever, we need to remember what is happening to a country Bush decided to invade to alleviate his feelings about his father and help out his friends who wanted to ensure that the flow of profits from the lives and blood of Americans would continue. Bush and his friends have made violence an ordinary part of our lives. Children are dying of Bush Greed in Iraq every day.

BAGHDAD, 29 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - The Iraqi government, the United Nations and NGOs have condemned an attack against a girls’ school in Baghdad that left five students dead and more than 20 injured on Sunday. Parents, students and teachers were left horror-struck after the incident.

“BAGHDAD, 29 Jan 2007 (IRIN) - "I’m 11 years old and an only son. I’m a pupil at Mansour Primary School in Baghdad. Lately, I have been feeling very lonely in my class. This week, I was the only student in class because all my classmates didn’t come to school for various reasons.

Since last September, three of my classmates have been kidnapped and two have been killed. One was murdered with his family at home and the other was a victim of a bomb explosion a month ago.”

Those are children younger that those who died at Virginia Tech. Bush's war killed them. They bleed red and Iraqis love their children, too. Before we invaded Iraqis viewed America as a place of hope. That was true of us, too. Many things have changed and many truths are now obvious there and in America if you open your eyes.

The housing bubble has popped. Foreclosures of homes are rising every single day. Last summer 130 old people died in Central Valley of heat, not because there was a loss of electricity but because they could not afford to run their air conditioners. Veterans are living on the street, denied medical care we owe them. America is bankrupt in all directions, drained by the Bush Administration. The oppressive presence of government, the rules followed by the police, the installations of Blackwater paramilitary being build near San Diego, supposedly for service in Iraq. Many fear their mission will be within the US.

The logic of Bush, his core constituency, and the National Church he has raised up against all the principles on which America was founded has created this world.

In America today we are inundated with hate talk from Bush and his NeoCon placements as they carry out a campaign that demonizes Muslims. The TV series, “24” injects ideas about Muslims that are absurd. Manipulating public opinion has become accepted in an American media that is entirely owned by corporations. 401Ks trump truth for most commentators and reporters. Americans watch Fox while in Europe such insightful films as, “The Power of Nightmares,” pose the questions and provide answers that make sense. The film is available at YouTube. All Americans should view it; few probably will. As our economy dissolved, drained by Bush and his friends, from the PR arm of the corporations, the mainstream media, we hear only hype and hate larded with the photo ops intended to still protest and divide us.

In the midst of this Bush appears looking 'presidential' to lead prayers at the memorial service for the 32 slain at Virginia Tech. The man who cannot remember the names of dead soldiers when he meets their grieving families gets dressed up and goes out for a photo op. You can almost imagine the discussion of timing in which Karl Rove doubtless weighed how this was to be played. “It will be a sympathetic audience; no one will make cat calls there – the President will love it.”

Of course, this still leaves 32 people dead and the media chasing their tails endlessly quoting each other and looking for causes that do not implicate those in power. They always manage, mostly by ignoring the logic of the policies that are steeped in violence and used to profit the Bush Core Constituency; a job is a job, after all.

Violence is evidently acceptable when carried out by those in power. Policy is assessed on the basis of how much money it generates for those in power, not on whether or not it provides the services Americans have a right to expect from the taxes they pay.

Do you remember the week after September 11, 2001? There was an outpouring of sympathy from people around the world. Offers of money, food, blood, woven with compassion came to us from people of all faiths and places. We came together. All across the country people dropped what they were doing and took action. There was a true power in the people then. It was a moment of time when nearly all of the world came together because we all understand the depths of loss when we lose people we love in ways we cannot explain.

In the White House there was jubilation because there was an excuse to invade Iraq. At a moment when a tragedy could have been converted into the peace we all yearn for those around Bush were busy planning out the Patriot Act and looking over invasion plans and doing the positioning for the hate campaign against Muslims that continues to this day.

Policies to lower the costs of providing promised benefits to the veterans who would be returning, injured and in need, were being formalized. “Wait them to death,” the policy now being followed, still present from Vietnam and the Gulf War was in place before a single soldier was deployed. The “No Child Left Behind,” program that converted schools into places where children are forced to regurgitate factoids instead of learning to think carried out yet another policy. Thinking Americans are a threat to Bush and his Theocratic National Church.

And in Blacksberg, Virginia families grieve for those they love, trying to make sense from horror. The coming days and months will be brutal as they continue to search for the inner peace that evades all of us. Each life lost diminished us.

Seung-Hui Cho referred to the Columbine gunmen, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as martyrs. Cho's life was evidently one of loneliness and emotional isolation. His family worried about him; the school he attended did not provide any aid for his speech problems. Such programs are less common now as funds are cut to pay for the War in Iraq. Unlike the Bush family Cho's parents could not pay for therapy. They came to America seeking a better life and by all reports were honest and hard working.

Seung-Hui Cho brought with him the problems that would marginalize him socially and drive him to violence against people he did not know and then against himself. The danger signs were present and ignored by those in the schools he attended.

Why would Cho see Harris and Klebold as figures to be emulated? Was Cho a monster? Is it more monstrous to strike out in rage or to use the institutions entrusted to you to kill and steal for yourself and your friends? Who is the greater monster, Seung-Hui Cho or George Bush? Ask those grieving and bleeding in Iraq; ask the families handed a flag in payment for a child, father, husband, wife. Ask the elderly woman who died, fried to death in the swelter of heat in Central Valley. Ask yourself and take action.

April 22, 1970 – Oil Day: Wake up and smell the fumes.

Written for the Iconoclast

The National Geographic, Vol. 138 No. 6 December 1970 - “We are astronauts, all of us. We ride a spaceship called Earth in its endless journey around the Sun. This ship of ours is blessed with life-support systems so ingenious that they are self-renewing, so massive that they can supply the needs of billions.”

But for centuries we have taken them for granted, considered their capacities limitless. At last we have begun to monitor the systems and the findings are deeply disturbing.”

Scientists and government officials of the United States and other countries agree that we are in trouble. Unless we stop abusing our vital life-support systems they will fail. We must maintain them or pay the penalty. The penalty is death.”

A successful take over of the then nascent environmental movement by big oil began during the months from late 1966 until the end of 1967. At that point in time the issues of clean water and accountability for those who pollute were non-partisan, the present partisan divisions did not exist. Clean air and water were things that everyone agreed were necessary; liability for polluting must be exacted. “If you pollute, you pay,” was the first point on the agenda intended for consideration at the 1972 Stockholm Conference for the Environment according to Helen Garland, an early activist. That agenda changed in the back halls of the United Nations before the conference was gaveled into order.

It was a change that alarmed and bewildered people like Garland, representative to the Environmental Movement at the UN in 1971. John McConnell, originator of the real Earth Day said, “the agenda of Peace, Justice and the care of Earth, were sidelined for something very different.” Howard Baker, Jr., a Republican Senator from Tennessee, headed the first Environmental Protection Agency. Clean air and water seemed as imminent as social justice.

The forces that changed our direction are one in the same, Big Oil.

The bottom line for oil companies was to ensure that their profits from the only thing they had to sell continued. In the last 30 years, that has come to trillions from those continued sales by Big Oil, today amounting to one quarter of the entire GNP for the entire globe. Additionally, oil companies have received from “US federal government energy subsidies and incentives over the past 50 years – $644 billion. It shows that the federal government has subsidized the energy industries – nuclear, coal, oil, natural gas, renewables – using different budget and off-budget funding techniques.” This is according to The International Journal of Global Energy Issues.

Money talks and motivates. The losses to Big Oil if the original agenda for the environment had been enacted would be literally incalculable. Ensuring that did not happen was not a conspiracy, it was simple corporate policy.

According to Helen Garland, one of the original surviving founders of both the Earth Society and its present CEO, the wording for the first reference to the conference on the subject in the records from the United National Library on the environment changes over the three year period from 1967 – 1969. In 1967 the subject is clearly, “Pollution.” The point is obviously the impact of human action on the earth in specific locations. The next year the wording has changed to, “Environment.” This term redirects the focus from both the liability and accountability for specific human action to a broad category with no specific focus. A year later it has changed again, the text becoming "Human Environment." This term bifurcates what is actually a closed system, dividing humanity from the Earth. To win you must divide your enemy. “The enemy” the oil companies confronted was very direction of humanity for a clean environment and social justice.

By 1972 the Environmental Movement, now firmly under the control of Big Oil, first by the careful reworking of the agenda and resulting laws and the hijacking of what had been intended to be the yearly focus of that movement, Earth Day, was complete.

The hijacking of Earth Day had been accomplished through an overt show of public relations muscle, powered with 4 million dollars fed into the hands of Dennis Hayes, a sallow undergraduate who got the name, “Earth Day” from John McConnell and the older generation of environmentalists that included Helen Garland and Margaret Mead.

The conception of one day to highlight the agenda of, “Peace, Justice, and care of the Earth,” had been carefully thought out to encapsulate the whole agenda for that movement. The moment chosen, the second of the Spring Equinox, marked the moment of time when the Earth shifted between summer and winter in its Southern and Northern Hemispheres. The term was first used when the idea was presented by McConnell to a few members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and other community leaders early October 1969 at a UN meeting.

Today, if you visit the site for the April 22^nd Earth Day you will find much rhetoric but nothing that enables you to easily or inexpensively accomplish what those aware of the issues in the early 70s expected; the ability to get off the grid of energy dependence. The original idea of accountability is nowhere in sight.

Big Oil had found a useful tool with Richard Nixon. Nixon's tenure in office, January 1969 to August 9, 1974 overlays many of the events that so impacted the cited changes in the Environmental Movement. According to Garland Nixon assured environmentalists that clean air and water were priorities. Jimmy Carter, with a strong background in engineering and economics, was elected in 1976, and represented a problem for Big Oil. Big Oil removed him from office through the simple expedient of sharply increasing oil prices during the critical period of the election.

The original wording for the Clean Water Act, passed in 1967, is today unavailable as is the poll of Americans done by Senator Baker that was published but never distributed around 1968. According again to Helen Garland these laid down standards and expectations that were then rewritten by Maurice Strong, an ambitious oilman from Canada who moved into the United Nations through a series of introductions, first serving, from November 1970 until December 1972 as Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. After a long and lucrative career at the United Nations Strong went on to involvement in the Food for Oil debacle and from there to Peace University in Puerto Rico, where he used that institution to train paramilitary. He is now reported to be working in China.

After the initial take over the work of vilifying the United Nations and environmentalism guaranteed that the chasms of distrust would reinforce the divides first forged among Americans in the early 70s. Those who did the work profited mightily, many finding careers in politics and nonprofits funded by Big Oil.

Today a new generation of environmentalists and innovators are taking stock and coming together to provide the means for Americans to get off the grids of dependence. John Sturbine, a businessman and investor, and others from that earlier movement, including Helen Garland, are founding what they call The Earth Project, intended to make off grid alternatives cheaply available. Included among those involved are a non-oil engine for automobiles, a technology for reducing the cost of energy in homes by one half and a boat design that also eliminates the use of petroleum.

Sturbine said for this article, “there is no limitation to human innovation; Americans could be off the grids entirely in three years.”

The CorporaState that Ate America

What would Thomas Jefferson say to those who evoke his words to install fascism in America today?

“Why can't you see?

We just want to be free

To have our homes and families

And live our lives as we please.”

Dana Rohrabacher

West Coast Libertarian Troubadour (1973)

(From David Friedman's, “The Machinery of Freedom.”)

Today is the 264^th Anniversary of the birth of Thomas Jefferson. A lot has happened in America in those years but most importantly a lot is still happening that Americans fail to understand. We need to connect ALL the dots.

In California a Federal Maritime Officer, Lt. Eric Shine, is fighting charges he is depressed; although they have argued he is employed within the proceedings they refuse to pay him or give him his benefits; that means he receives none of his due medical benefits or legal aid. Catch-22. Very useful to those suing him, which includes the US Government, Homeland Security, and the US Coast Guard. The powers that be pretty much ignored Shine and the charges he had leveled of toxic waste dumping, graft, and corruption until he began to write letters to Congress. They then slammed him with continuous litigation and decided he was depressed. If he wasn't he should be.

Who 'they' is goes to the Dot question. If the US Government, Homeland Security, and the Coast Guard weren't enough Shine has gotten the attention of others who are perhaps even scarier. One of these is The Carlyle Group and their friends and associates. This included George W. Bush for a while; the senior Bush is still believed to be associated.

The Carlyle Group, a corporation that handles investments for the well connected, including alumni of the Reagan, Bush Administrations and Saudi Princes, acquired General Dynamics, for which Eric Shine's father worked as Vice President of Engineering in 1992. Seeing what was happening to America 's military through the acquisition of General Dynamics in that year gave Eric the insight he needed to understand what was happening to the Merchant Marine. At the time Eric had no idea how 'Six Degrees of Separation' the world really is.

The Carlyle Group acquired General Dynamics, which produced electronics for the military, in 1992. They purchased the electronics division, located in San Diego, according to William E. Conway Jr., a Carlyle managing director, in an, “all-cash deal was for less than $100 million.” Carlyle Group, named for the hotel where the founders met, was founded in 1987.

Moving from investment in restaurants Carlyle Group began assembling a portfolio with a very different focus at the beginning of the HW Bush Administration. General Dynamics was expected to make $300 million when it was acquired, according to Conway . According to a specialist in the market consulted for this article that price was, “a steal.” We will follow those dots in a later article.

According to the Wikipedia, “Carlyle deals in the following industries: Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Consumer & Retail, Energy & Power, Healthcare, Real Estate, Technology & Business Services, Telecommunications & Media, and Transportation. The Carlyle Group's investments are focused on East Asia, Europe and North America, with most investment money coming from the

United States (65%), Europe (25%), Asia (6%), Latin America, and the Middle East . Defense investments represent about 1% of the group's current portfolio — though this translates, for example, into a 33.8% ownership of QinetiQ, the UK 's recently privatized defence (sic) company.”

A shiny new Ensign in 1991, Eric Shine began what he assumed would be a career carrying out the duties of an officer in the Merchant Marine and Naval Officer. As part of his training he had become familiar with the statutes and regulations that had governed the existence of the Merchant Marine since 1791. Shine had not yet heard the term 'privatization,' it would soon become frighteningly familiar to him.

The term, 'privatization,' as it is used by those in power today bears as much resemblance to the original as Anna Nicole Smith does to Mother Theresa.

The term, 'privatization,' was first used by Dr. Robert Poole, founder of Reason Foundation in his book, “Cutting Back City Hall,” in the mid 70s. The idea of converting services provided by government into services provided through private, for profit business, became a byword for efficiency over the next three decades. But efficiency had not been the point. The issue was giving people back control of their own lives.

The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. The idealism of the 70s was harvested for the benefit of the greedy.

The issue of privatizing began with trash collection, proposed by Bob Poole and then Social Security. was first posed for a position paper written for the campaign of Ed Clark, Libertarian presidential candidate, in 1979. The 'white paper' later appeared in much the same form under the sponsorship of Cato Institute, founded in 1977 by Edward H. Crane, III, Charles Koch, and Murray Rothbard. During this time things changed. Ideas are useful tools for achieving your goals; this idea proved to be fertile ground.

In 1981 Rothbard, a stalwart Austrian School Economist, was ousted from the Cato Board. In his newsletter, Libertarian Review, Rothbard said Cato, "revealed its true nature and its cloven hoof. Crane, aided and abetted by Koch, ordered me to leave Cato's regular quarterly board meeting, even though I am a shareholder and a founding board member of the Cato Institute." Austrian economists do not approve of Congress fiddling with the economy.

Cato began providing regular briefings for Congress on how to minimize their costs and optimize their profits in the 90s when the Contract on America swept into office.

Privatization and outsourcing had found applications that lead to consequences none of the Libertarians who had originally supported the ideas expected.

Lt Eric Shine had seen continuous and troubling violations of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 through the first six years of his career. Shine had witnessed blatant dumping of toxic waste, violation of safety regulations, and other wrong doing. Because he was doing his due diligence, ironically Shine gained a reputation as a trouble maker. He persisted in reporting these through avenues that had been truncated, leaving active Federal Maritime Officers with no recourse. It was as if the rules he had learned had been canceled.

Congress had mandated that at majority of American shipping must sail under America 's flag. They had done this to ensure that ships would be available in time of conflict and peace so that standards for safety and the wellbeing of the seas and our nation would be maintained. These ships, Congress said, would be manned by Officers of the US Merchant Marine. When Lt. Shine began his career the 10,000 ships under the US flag at the close of WWII had shrunk to less than 200, reducing the protections to America intended by Congress and the jobs available to Federal Maritime Officers.

In 1998 Shine began work in Hawaii for the Navy. What Shine saw at Pearl Harbor was the application of American ingenuity to the dissolution of the Navy Installation that had been a hub of strength for decades. Under the mandate of privatization services were being transferred to private companies. Graft, corruption, and thievery were systemic. Serving as a project engineer Shine could find no one who would listen to his objections. There was too much money to be made by remaining silent. Privatization and cost reduction were the rhetorical devices that filled the air.

What Shine was witnessing was the birth of the Corporation as its own nation in its nascent form. Having extended corporate leverage through the use of government to wage war, to realize profits through war and through income streams flowing into their pockets from Americans, Corporations were now looking at how to further their portfolios by clamping Americans into place forever. The means were the various Grids that had become the core of their holdings; Aerospace & Defense, Automotive, Consumer & Retail, Energy & Power, Healthcare, Real Estate, Technology & Business Services, Telecommunications & Media, and Transportation,

The next step was to bolt in place those missing links to nationhood. Corporations, including those owned by Carlyle, have now begun to assert extraterritoriality, ignoring laws through manipulation, payoffs, and restructuring. American maritime law says that foreign ships cannot engage in commerce between two American ports; they corporations are now chipping away at this limitation. The rules exist only for others and where they augment profits. Sea Launch, a ship that puts satellites into space, harbors at Long Beach and has extraterritorial status. Corporations have become nations, with all the power and money and none of the accountability. Anyone who got in their way would be toasted.

In 2001, Lt. Shine filed a grievance in the hopes someone would finally listen. Again he was ignored. Then, he began writing letters to Congress and the reaction was swift. Shine was astonished to find himself detained charged with being 'depressed.' He had not been aware that even if he was depressed this could be deemed a cause for denying him medical benefits. For the CorporaState the rules are made anew every day as needed.

Why would Eric Shine persist? He could have gotten on the Corporate dole, accepted the lavish stipends offered from his probably intentional placement with the military industrial complex. That goes to who he is. The answers are in his origins.

Sally Shine, now 80, remembers her son, Eric, “as a good boy,” who, “made her proud.” “Eric,” she said, “was president of his graduating class in High School.” Eric Shine was poised to live a life of accomplishment when he graduated from King's Point, the Academy for the USS Merchant Marine in 1991. Life is full of surprises.

One of five children from a close-knit and loving Catholic family, he had attended St. Columba School in San Diego, moving on to what is now Cathedral Catholic High School while participating in the local scouting program with Troop 272. Shine was the first member of his troop in a long time, according to his mother, to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. His Court of Honor was held February 15, 1977. During the Court of Honor the Scout receiving his Eagle Badge renews the oath taken when he became a scout; that oath includes the promise that of, “Living honorably reflects credit on his home, his church, his troop, and his community.”

In the experience of those who know him best, Eric Shine takes life seriously. He did so when he chose as his Eagle Scout Project to organize donations of food and clothing for a poor village in Mexico and he did the same when, as newsletter editor at King's Point, he insisted on publishing an article that uncompromisingly told the truth, despite pressure to do otherwise.

Those were the values he had learned and then lived. Those values stayed with him when he went on to a career in the Merchant Marine. Career was another thing the Shine family took seriously.

Eric's father attended West Point, as many other family members, going on to a career with General Dynamics for 30 years. He retired as vice president of engineering and director of ethics. Hard work and doing the right thing were values strongly inculcated in the Shine home. Eric was sure that this whole thing could be cleared up if he just persisted.

Each of us sees the world through our own place in that world, and Eric Shine began his career in the Merchant Marine hearing from his father about General Dynamics, where the elder Shine had spent most of his life, and about doing the right thing. Unfortunately, that does not square with the birth of the CorporaStates.

The stark images of returning veterans at Walter Reed Hospital and elsewhere are still alive in the minds of Americans, demonstrating what privatization and 'cost reduction' really mean. Those and other techniques for lowering costs have been used since the Vietnam War with deadly results. Veterans needing treatment and benefits were, and are, forced to wait while their symptoms are dismissed as 'emotional problems.' Those in need are simply waited to death. Dealing with Shine was just a matter of using the same methods that worked to lower other costs.

According to Philip Meskin, founder of the Veteran's Party, the treatment meted out to Shine exactly parallels the treatment of Veterans after all American wars since Vietnam .

“Same old business as usual,” he said. Meskin, added that, “300,000 veterans died after the Vietnam War of Agent Orange and other diseases related to cancer, cell degenerative conditions, and other undefined causes.” “They were depressed, too,” he said wryly. Social workers are notorious for rendering opinions that deny benefits to veterans based on such causes as 'depression.' “There are no limits to what they will do to cut costs. They let people die every day,” said Meskin.

So the same technique that eliminates costs in caring for veterans can in the case of Shine make it impossible for him as a whistle blower to find help.

So many are involved. So many, like Dana Rohrabacher, who were once singing the praises of freedom, have found cozy lives elsewhere. Following the money, connecting the dots, always brings us the answers, however unpalatable those may be.

Next week Lt. Shine will face yet another round of court dates, again without counsel. Detained without pay, he is now without any resources – but he continues to speak out. Eagle Scouts don't give up and Shine is no quitter. One man left standing against the CorporaState, unless others help. David and Goliath was nothing to this.

Happy Birthday, Thomas Jefferson!

(To contact Lt. Eric Shine go to his website. He will be grateful to hear from you.)