District of Columbia v. Heller Will Tell Us a Whole Lot About Where We're Going

The following quotations, may not be recognizable (when you’ve had a chance to read what follows, and to consider both the quotes and what I say here, I’ll identify the quotes as to author, but they are unmistakably apparent as principles practiced currently by the United States’ government. They are paraphrased (even, in certain instances, stated verbatim) ever day by today’s leaders and government. They are rife in the legal argument that is my subject here.

“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach.” This one is not only oft-stated in the media, it is their privately published tactical doctrine, stated again and again in their inter-office and inter-agency communication.

“As soon as by one's own propaganda even a glimpse of right on the other side is admitted, the cause for doubting one's own right is laid.” You might recognize this at an utterance of George W. Bush. On the other hand you might think Carl Rove said it. Same difference – isn’t it?

“Demoralize … from within by surprise, terror, sabotage, assassination.” Fundamental with IRS, of course, but how far from this is “shock and awe?”

“How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think. No one watching television currently can fail to recognize this one (with so few these days able to read above the eighth grade level at which newspapers are written, it’s not likely the public would see it there), and the commercials-making industry has it for their general orders.

“I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the Creator.” Not much doubt that everyone who watches the Tee and Vee will recognize in this one our fearless leader (fearless with everyone’s life but his own, that is). The only way to be sure of something like this, of course, is to talk regularly with god – like George says he does.

“It is not truth that matters, but victory.” Especially if only I get to say what “victory” means.

“The art of leadership . . . consists in consolidating the attention of the people against a single adversary and taking care that nothing will split up that attention.” Standard politics these days, of course. Its masters are the leaders of every modern pressure group, from the militant feminists to the scoundrel patriots. And don’t forget the people who yell “racist” at everyone who opposes them for any reason.

“The day of individual happiness has passed.” John McCain wasn’t first with this one, in other words. Even the author of this one didn’t promise “whatever it takes,” or pontificate that “those jobs are gone” (suck it up, folks). On second thought, however, the original author of this quote did say his country would either win or cease to exist. Pretty close, what?

“The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of flowing passion, but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in others.” Yeah, I know that’s Barack Obama almost verbatim, but he wasn’t the author of the quote. Obama just seems to agree (says so many things so close) a whole lot with him.

“The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it. “ Pretty much the neo-conservative hymn, isn’t it? “Grab ‘em by the balls,” an old military associate of mine used to say, “their hearts and minds will follow.” Also the published dictum of the C.I.A. (Cuba? Fidel Castro? Chile? Salvador Allende? Need I go on?)

“The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category.” “The leader of genius” – remember?

“The very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence. “ This one, of course, I lived. Anyone who has dueled with the IRS will recognize the “M.O.” (modus operandi) here. Generally, though, this one is the objective and fair reading of U.S. history. Not many citizens of this country have lived their lives without having seen us make war on somebody; in fact, you could call it a précis of U.S. foreign policy.

“The victor will never be asked if he told the truth.” “Mission Accomplished,” anyone? George – not being a soldier, and never having been closer to a fight than leading cheers - just doesn’t happen to know what “victory” must “accomplish.”

Those are just a few of the scores of utterances one who pays as close attention as do I, and who has read and reads history as assiduously as I do, would recognize in the statements and practices of today’s “leaders.” I have another subject for today, one relative but worthy on its own merits of consideration. So interested am I as an historian, that I have just finished reading all of the sixty-six amicus curiae and two parties opposed in District of Columbia v. Heller, a civil rights case now before the U.S. Supreme Court. The matter, of course, has directly to do with the 2nd Amendment, and whether a citizen of Washington, D.C. has the right to defend his life and property.

“Directly,” I said. I, and the Supreme Court case itself, speak indirectly to a national crises even larger, even more lethal, to a nation conceived and dedicate as this one was. Heller – what a twist of fate that the name should have been that one – betrays both in the fact of its having come to pass and in the language of those who argue it the cancer that must eventually end the United States of America as the Land of the Free.

Anyone in a virtual prison who can yet insist that he is free only demonstrates to those outside both the character and the effectiveness of his imprisonment.

I speak, among other things, of the hideous idea which constitutes a common thread through all of the argument propounded by any of the attorneys - party or friend of the court; and at least in some degree, both pro and con - the insidiously evil idea that government is the origin, the grantor, of human rights.

District of Columbia v. Heller is in point of simple fact about the most basic “right” of them all, basic not only to human beings, but to all living things. That is the right of the organism to defend its life and thereby go on living. All living organisms are endowed by nature and nature’s god with means – means far too numerous to describe here - by which to individually defend their life. Only among Homo Sapiens – “Thinking Man” – however, can that right be called into question. Human beings - governments, in particular – alone presume to arrogate to themselves, either by means of greater strength in the form of muscle, size, weapons, or weight of numbers or by politics, economics, and law, the right to deprive one another of that most fundamental of rights.

Man alone, also, is capable of the thoroughly ignorant and demonstrably (the Prisoner’s dilemma, for one instance) illogical idea that depriving another of the right and ability to defend his life somehow enhances his own chances to go on living. Nowhere in any of the Heller argument is the point made better than in the amicus brief filed by GeorgiaCarry.org.

“The unfettered right to keep and bear arms was so commonly accepted,” the argument says, “that the Founders undoubtedly would find the instant case puzzling indeed. There was, however, a common exception:
“‘No negro or other slave within this province shall be permitted to carry any gun or any other offensive weapon from off their master’s land, without license from their said master, and if any negro or other slave shall presume to do so, he shall be liable to carried before a Justice of the Peace and be whipped, and his gun or other offensive weapon shall be forfeited to him that shall seize the same . . .’”

The GeorgiaCarry brief goes on to note that when President Andrew Johnson ordered General Ulysses S. Grant to disband and seize the arms of an independent militia comprised of black men, the New York Tribune of the time wrote that the proposed arms seizure. “. . . would be one of the most flagrant and despotic acts of usurpation . . . even Congress itself has no authority to infringe upon the right of the people to keep and bear arms . . . Nor can it without a violation of the Constitution, take away any man’s musket while he ‘keeps it’ for lawful purposes.”

Gun control, the brief observes, is the historic tool for enslavement. In fact, it is more than that: a person deprived of his right to defend his life is not only a slave, he is a human being reduced to natural status lower than that of an animal. There is no logical way to deny that, and salient by its absence from the entirety of the argument made by the District of Columbia is any such observation or mention.

Of course, logic has not been much used in U.S. law (in the words of Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience."). More, it is not often appealed to in any of the argument by either party to Heller, nor by any of the amici curiae (those – “amici” is the plural - who filed amicus curiae – friend of the court – arguments). Not many things speak more pointedly to the execrable state of our legal system than that one fact, and historians of the future will certainly note what has been the increasing absence of logic and effective reasoning in our courts and public discourse generally. Neither will historians fail to cite the devastating effect of this one social and societal anomaly.

District of Columbia v. Heller is there a case in point. I spoke yesterday of public and governmental stupidity as lethal to our way of life; today I will demonstrate an instance of that in the form of a case before none other than the highest court – and, presumably - the repository of wisdom in the land.

To begin with, “Petitioners” (District of Columbia) in Heller argue, as do all proponents of 2nd Amendment repeal and effective disarming of the U.S. public, that such is in the interests of public safety. The argument can only be recognized as an example of what a grandfather once warned me was the fundamental judgment one must make about those with whom he might be obliged to associate – stupid or evil?

First, are these people stupid? Is the mayor of Washington, D.C. incapable of the logic necessary to recognize the effect of the city’s guns ban on the horrendous rate of violence and violent crime there? Is he incapable of recognizing what any rational person would expect of “gun free zones,” too stupid to do the simple mental experiments necessary to realize?” Is he unaware of what has happened, almost without exception, wherever people have been legally authorized to keep and bear arms? Is he unaware of the horrendous rate of violent crime in his own city (even neighborhood)?

I don’t think so; nobody is that stupid. Not one of the people arguing for “gun control” – note the equivocation; it means interdiction of gun ownership - would knowingly subject himself to the danger of or to actual rape, maiming, or murder. All of these same people, I daresay without exception, speak from certain safety the common man does not share. Pretty typical of mankind, isn’t it?

I note, in that regard and parenthetically, however, that hundreds of thousands, even millions, of women like those whose attorneys argue for the Coalition of Human Rights Groups are somehow willing to walk defenseless into the arms of rapist-murderer predators. “Nobody is that stupid?” Some, obviously, are; and when one observes another behaving in a manner inimical to the subject’s own best interests, he must of course logically and objectively consider shear stupidity as the reason. But, to continue with feminist dogma and women affected by it as an example, all women who go about alone and dressed in the most sexually provocative manner possible aren’t stupid. As with any other matter the like, there may be a variety of reasons; but one is similar to that demonstrated by “petitioners” in Heller. I refer to indoctrination. Propaganda.

“Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” In fact, each of the quotes that lead this essay is a factor contributing to the surreal arguments made by Washington, D.C. and its apparently benighted mayor in the Heller matter. These are all dictums of propaganda, and the propagandist, and for a primer on the art of the Big Lie propagandist, one need only go to the Heller amicus brief filed by “Professors of Criminal Justice.” The brief argues that “The D.C. Gun Law Is an Effective Mechanism for Reducing Handgun Violence,” and, “There Is a Proven Correlation between (sic) the Availability of Handguns and Incidents of Violence.” It gets worse. For instance, “The Effectiveness of the D.C. Gun Control Law Demonstrates Its Reasonableness” (!!! – what planet do these guys inhabit?).

One might reasonably argue here that that last one demonstrates the Ivory Tower, where ignorance is bliss, safety I construed here earlier; but, for cat’s sake, this is an argument before the U.S. Supreme Court!

Propaganda, from the Latin “propagare” – pay forward or spread – and the same word’s gerund meaning (more or less obviously) “spreading” - is a deliberately contrived communicaiton aimed at comprehensively influencing and thereby altering the opinions and behavior of large numbers of people. Effective propaganda is all but always truthful in some sense – sense, of course, always trivial or irrelevant to the subject.

The propagandist never fails to cite truth favorable to his purpose; he is careful to hide everything else. Briefs filed in Heller are redolent with the smell of propaganda, but nowhere moreso than with this tactic of the propagandist. There is hardly available – as well read as I happen to be, I honestly can’t think of one - a better study of propaganda than that propagated (another term related to propaganda) by most of the organizations filing amicus briefs in D.C. v. Heller. A study of their publications provide a veritable compendium of the propagandists art, and the propagandist ploy most characteristic of their publications is the emotional one – like the almost infinitismally small number of children killed accidentally by firearms.

This one is trotted out in the brief filed by “National Network to End Domestic Violence.” Et al. – there are so many feminist groups listed on the brief that in counting them I kept losing track – to say nothing of getting double vision. Listen to the argument (one wonders if these friends of the court get some kind of catharsis from this kind of drivel): “Domestic Violence is a serous crime that leaves millions of women and children nationwide scarred both physically and emotionally.” And, “Firearms exacerbate an already deadly crisis” (wouldn’t want to repair to the old loaded words fallacy, now would we?). Oh, yes – and: “The statue plainly survives Constitutional scrutiny.” Nothing like positive thinking, is there?

“The life of the law has not been logic.” Remember?

From my point of view, however, no argument among them all is as strangely bizarre, as thunderously contemptuous of both logic and history as that holding that men who lived in the Eighteen Century United States did not intend that individual citizens should own – “keep and bear” – firearms. In order to sincerely believe that, you must be totally ignorant of the time, or life then, and of the people then. Or you must have been somehow propagandized – Hollywood and its balderdash version of history, for instance.

This one, the primary argument of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, et alius (six more) characterizes and sets the tone for the entire anti-gun argument. It characterizes, too, liberalism, feminism, and politicized extremism in all its several U.S. forms – religion included. The one word that might further sum it all up is: “oblivious.” There is the real world and there is the world that is the figment of their Ivory Tower-derived imaginations. The Ivory Tower of humanist, feminist, and elitist liberalism demands that all of U.S. society behave in the same manner as today’s bubble-headed feminist. Society should find a way for the individual – and by extension, society – to defend oneself against criminal assault (the criminal element that every society in history has had), without violence - violence done by firearms, especially, that is.

Like the sweet young thing to whom I had reference a moment ago, they would have society proceed to outrageously tempt circumstance, demanding concomitantly that wiser society – men, in particular – find a way (one acceptable to her, of course) to assure that it gets away with its vacuous stupidity.

Heller also provides clear insight into what history will identify as the root cause of our national demise. I refer in this instance to the amicus brief filed by the American Bar Association (now, all of the “amici” – friends – of the court slanted their argument toward their particular interest in the matter, interest in themselves instructive to the logician or historian, but this one is a “doozie”). The lawyers for the bar association argue that we’ve always done it this way (proving that U.S. lawyers don’t know a hell of a lot of U.S. history; apparently, history hasn’t been Justice Holmes’ “life of the law,” either).

Now we have some insight into why our legal system is in the shape it is (like all the innocent men in jail, for instance).

One – no, two, actually - “Table of Contents” titles from the American Bar Association brief draws particular attention: The first is “The decision below undermines the rule of law by failing to provide special justifications for abandoning consistent and longstanding precedent upon which legislators, regulators, and the public (whoo, boy – now that is a stretch!) have relied.” That one is followed by this one: “The determination required by the decision below would compound the disruption of the regulatory system developed in reliance on judidicial precedent.”

Arguments not unlike that one are being made every day to keep imprisoned men proved innocent of rape charges by DNA tests.

A fair translation of both is, “The government has always done as it damned pleases without public control in any form, so it should be permitted to continue doing so in the future.” For insight into the hell of a mess we’re in, and how we got here, read the American Bar Association amicus brief in District of Columbia v. Heller.

For insight into where we are headed as a nation, however, read the entire case. It’s all there, a rhetorical blueprint for the virtual prison government by corporation intends for citizens of the Land of the Free.

The quotations with which I lead this essay, of course, are those of another gun control apologist and exponent, Adolf Hitler.

War, Recession, Kids Who Are Savages, Mexico in the U.S. - a "Bad Hair Day?"

An e-mail received this morning reminds me of people I've encountered repeatedly since having begun studying the national discourse by way of subscription to dozens of Internet websites, publishing my own website, and by debate with the public. As subscribers here will know, I am simply flabbergasted, nonplussed to explain the all but impossible stupidity of the U.S. public. More, I am even more disconcerted at having learned that relatively few people in the Land of the free are significantly alarmed by it all. Neither are they concerned at the abysmal state of children mentally.

It all scares hell out of me, so much so that I am keeping my survival gear in a state of first-class readiness, training assiduously in the gym (for those interested, I hit twenty-two chin-ups last week), and practicing with firearms daily.

Parenthetically, and apropos of that last, this morning's paper reports that forty - that's forty - percent of teachers in Texas intend to leave teaching as soon as possible. Wife Rita, a teacher with forty-two years experience, is of the same mind. The reason? --parents and a nation who obviously care little about their children's minds or behavior. "No child left behind" may very well leave every child behind.

It may - it probably will - destroy the nation.

While the following may be apocryphal - I haven't "Snoped" it - I doubt it, I have heard similar, and for years, from not only the public everywhere (I'm reminded of the guy recently who when I made reference to the turn of the century, asked "When was that?" and the guy who said he isn't concerned about air pollution, global warming, and the like because mankind "will evolve to take care of it") but from officials at all levels of government. The public discourse, including the pontification of so-called pundits, analysts, and experts in the media, are full of this sort of non compos mentis utterance and assertion (try the global warming issue, for instance, the reasoning having to do with Iraq, the nation's economy, or any of the matter subject of the current political debates).

A report says that a Washington, DC airport ticket agent offers these examples of why our country is in its current state:


"1. I had a New Hampshire Congresswoman ask for an aisle seat on the airplane in order that her hair wouldn't get messed up by being near the window. (On an Airplane!)

"2. I got a call from a candidate's staffer, who wanted to go to Capetown. I started to explain the length of the flight and the passport information. Then she interrupted me with, 'I'm not trying to make you look stupid, but Capetown is in Massachusetts .' Without trying to make her look stupid, I calmly explained, 'Cape Cod is in Massachusetts ; Capetown is in Africa .' Her response? - click.

"3. A senior Vermont Congressman called, furious about a Florida package we did. I asked what was wrong with the vacation in Orlando. He said he was expecting an ocean-view room. I tried to explain that's not possible, since Orlando is in the middle of the state. He replied, 'Don't lie to me. I looked on the map and Florida is a very thin state!'

"4. I got a call from a lawmaker's wife who asked, 'Is it possible to see England from Canada ?' I said, 'No.' She said, 'But they look so close on the map.'

"5. An aide for a cabinet member once called and asked if he could rent a car in Dallas. When I pulled up the reservation, I noticed he had only a 1-hour layover in Dallas. When I asked him why he wanted to rent a car he said, 'I heard Dallas was a big airport, and we will need a car to drive between gates to save time.' (Aghhhh!!)

"6. An Illinois Congresswoman called last week. She needed to know how it was possible that her flight from Detroit left at 8:30 am and got to Chicago at 8:33 am. I explained that Michigan was an hour ahead of Illinois, but she couldn't understand the concept of time zones. Finally, I told her the plane went fast, and she bought that.

"7. A New York lawmaker called and asked, 'Do airlines put your physical description on your bag so they know whose luggage belongs to whom?' I said, 'No, why do you ask?' She replied, 'Well, when I checked in with the airline, they put a tag on my luggage that said 'FAT,' and I'm overweight. I think that's very rude!' After putting her on hold for a minute while I looked into it (I was laughing). I came back and explained the city code for Fresno, CA is ' FAT' - (Fresno Air Terminal), and the airline was just putting a destination tag on her luggage.

"8. A Senator's aide called to inquire about a trip package to Hawaii. After going over all the cost info, she asked, 'Would it be cheaper to fly to California, and then take the train to Hawaii ?'

"9. I just got off the phone with a freshman Congressman who asked, 'How do I know which plane to get on?' I asked him what exactly he meant, to which he replied, 'I was told my flight number is 823, but none of these planes have numbers on them.'

"10. A lady Senator called and said, 'I need to fly to Pepsi-Cola, Florida. Do I have to get on one of those little computer planes?' I asked if she meant fly to Pensacola, Florida on a commuter plane. She said, 'Yeah, whatever, smarty!'

"11. A senior Senator called and had a question about the documents he needed in order to fly to China . After a lengthy discussion about passports, I reminded him that he needed a visa. 'Oh, no I don't. I've been to China many times and never had to have one of those.' I double checked and sure enough, his stay required a visa. When I told him this he said, 'Look, I've been to China four times and every time they have accepted my American Express!'

"12. A New Mexico Congresswoman called to make reservations, 'I want to go from Chicago to Rhino, New York '. I was at a loss for words. Finally, I said, 'Are you sure that's the name of the town?' 'Yes, what flights do you have?' replied the lady. After some searching, I came back with, 'I'm sorry, ma'am, I've looked up every airport code in the country and can't find a Rhino anywhere.' The lady retorted, 'Oh, don't be silly! Everyone knows where it is. Check your map!' So I scoured a map of the state of New York and finally offered, 'You don't mean Buffalo, do you?' The reply? 'Whatever! I knew it was a big animal.'

"Now you know why the Government is in the shape that it's in!"

And as an aside here, I'll give you one guess concerning who the lady senator was (sixteen members of the U.S. Senate are women, and in the picture at the top here they are: Top row, Lincoln, Hutchison, Boxer, Clinton, Landrieu, Stabenow, Collins, Mikulski, Dole, Klobuchar, Murray; Bottom row: McCaskill, Feinstein, Cantwell, Murkowski, Snowe). There are seventy-four women in the comatose House of Representatives, three of them from Illinois, but only one from New Mexico. There is also only one congresswomen for New Hampshire. Ahem!

One might prepare his own list of examples where the stupidity of the U.S. Congress is concerned. For one recent instance, how bright would you have to be to know that you're going to be caught lying when you say something like Hillary Clinton's latest whopper, that concerning her having braved sniper fire? Or to expect people to find suspect (suspect, did I say - make that bald-faced, thunderously, obvious) her tale concerning how she learned to shoot?

How about John McCain's brilliant assessments of Iraq and U.S. occupation there. How do you "win" in Iraq?

And, of course, mentality of the public what it is, I dare not say anything about the other fellah, Obama. If I say anything positive about him, I've been negative about everyone else who's black; and I guess that means that should I say anything negative, I've paid everyone black a compliment - but I'm still a "racist" because I insulted a black guy. I'm too confused to talk about Barack Obama.

There are many root causes for how we came to be in the pickle we are, none better than abject stupidity both public and governmental. Invading Iraq was stupid, and the way we are proceeding there is stupid. The new - post WW-2, i.e. - U.S. way of conducting "limited," no victory war - war for "U.S. Interests" - is stupid (REALLY stupid). For a democratic nation like this one pretends to be to languish under the tax code we have is stupid. For the public to go on contributing to its own misery by continuing to drive at high speeds - consuming more gasoline, creating more demand, and raising prices - is stupid. To continue setting up shooting galleries - "gun free zones" - for the nation's psychotic nutcases is stupid (especially in a nation now dedicated to spawning, rearing, and otherwise providing for as many psychotic nutcases as possible). To leave the border between us and one of the most corrupt, rapacious and murderous societies and nations on earth - ever - is stupid. To protect people who are stupid - those who made loans to buy houses far beyond their fiscal means, for instance (and those who are up to their eyeballs in credit card or other debt, too) - from their own stupidity is stupid.

And to leave in office a president as obviously destructive of the Constitution he swore to protect and defend as this one is just, plain, STUPID!

Go down as you will the enervating list of our societal and national ailments today, you will not find one due to anything more than stupidity. When James. J. Kilpatrick, Steve Allen, Sidney Harris, and others the like first made note of what Allen termed the "dumbing down of America," they were reading the Biblical and proverbial handwriting on the wall for us. Jay Leno, Jeff Foxworthy, George Carlin, and the like make the nation laugh with people like the woman on Foxworthy's "Are You Smarter Than a Fifth-Grader" show - the adult female who thought Europe was a country, didn't know France was, and had never so much as heard of Budapest, the capitol of Hungary - but it isn't funny.

"Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader's" Kellie Pickler may run for Congress you know - lots of her sisters are already "serving."

IRS - Everything the Candid World Needs to Know About the U.S.

Yesterday once more, citizens of the Land of the Free turned Land of the Fee were herded to be sheared like the sheep they so resemble. On each April the fifteenth, the corporate rich government of the United States Shylock exacts its “pound of flesh nearest the heart,” destroying for the vast majority of the public any chance of economic ascendancy they, themselves, enjoy.

Income taxation, after all, is nothing more than an elitist economic device by which to re-distribute wealth. No one conscious and thinking is unaware of that simple, obvious, and incontrovertible fact. In an economy where any segment thereof operating in the stead of plebiscite government can spend at will, to pretend that taxation is anything but a device by which to redistribute wealth is logically and reasonably absurd.

And “redistribute wealth” means exactly what has been happening since 1945, and the end of World War Two. That the Internal Revenue Service has succeeded in doing exactly that is so thunderously, so tornadically, so historically, right-in-your-face, and knock-you-on-your-plebian-ass obvious that nothing could better demonstrate the mindlessly oblivious state of the public here in the Land of the Free.

Inundated and immersed in behaviorist-conceived, state-of-the-art dispensed technology, a nation three hundred million strong has been behaviorally conditioned and indoctrinated until it believes both viscerally and mentally what is naturally and rationally absurd, and behaves in a manner ineluctably and decisively destructive to its fundamental doctrine of god-given rights and self determination. “Free” and “freedom-loving” people rush like stampeded cattle not only to hand over to the herdsmen the fruit of their lives, in so doing condemning their progeny to lives of even worse virtual slavery, but to empower their totalitarian corporate masters to savage and enslave the rest of the planet.

And it is all happening in plain sight of its victims, who somehow hypnotized like the snake’s prey stand in a kind of stupor to watch fascinated as death approaches. In plain sight!

No nation in history, after all, has extended its brutally acquisitive and colonialist hegemony over so much of the world. More, even were it not so globally, so cataclysmically, apparent, only economic muscle derived from taxing the incomes of a public as productive as this one, and in the Brobdingnagian proportions such taxation has been done, could otherwise explain such historically unprecedented power.

The supposed taxation system of the U.S. is literally, actually, and obviously absurd. That a nation which purports what this one does to include a satanic avatar of the government like IRS holds both the nation and its people up for world ignominy, contempt – and, yes - hatred. Yet, in a nation pretending to be a democracy, it persists. That it does is not only a contradiction of proportions impossible to go unnoticed to a populace in natural mental state, it is a contradiction that shouts to the wide world the cowardice of the “American” people.

The stupefying, suffocating hypocrisy of the U.S. public beggars description, but nowhere could there be a more appropriate example than in recent disclosures concerning yet another truth concerning the Land of the Free, the Nation of Laws, Protector of Individual Rights, and historic humanitarian, that of torture by our government. After decades of disclosures concerning IRS brutality and criminality, with “corporate America” infamous for its Love Canal, the Ford Pinto tactic, the Karen Silkwood Affair, the Tobacco Companies conspiracy, and many, many more the like; with the siege of Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge, the immolation of the Branch Davidians at Waco, Texas, the fire-bombing of the Move Compound in Philadelphia, and literally dozens more the like, the U.S. public pretends that “water-boarding” is something new for the government by corporation ruling here.

Unbelievable!

The U.S. Tax Code is on its hideous Medusa face unconstitutional. Impossible to interpret uniformly – a fact demonstrated year after year, decade after decade, by courts, lawyers, tax consultants, and even the IRS itself – it is not legally enforceable, either as statue law or as a matter of contract, whether marine or otherwise. That courts, lawyers, tax consultants, congressmen, and senators know this – could not possible be unaware – yet permit to continue what has happened and has been happening in their full view puts once more the lie to everything the United States pretends to be.

The much-vaunted U.S. press and information media, too, has known for nearly a century. How many times have you heard them say what I have just said concerning the constitutionality of the federal tax system? CBS? NBC?, ABC? CNN? Fox News? The New York Times?

To expect that these same people, the sages and governors of the nation, will behave in any manner dissimilar toward other nations and peoples, or that they will demonstrate different behavior regarding any other issue so fundamental is plainly absurd.

For anyone who believes the government will stop illegal immigration and the staggering burden on the economy and legal system it represents, or believes that the government will protect its citizens from the torrent of vicious criminals pouring over the border with Mexico, let him look to Internal Revenue Service and its criminal depredations, and to the Congress that supposedly oversees it.

For anyone surprised at the impossible-to-believe (“the dog didn’t bark”) dereliction of duty represented by World Trade Center Attack, let him look to the oversight of courts, lawyers, tax consultants, and the congress regarding IRS. In the years 1985 to 1995, I personally forwarded to members of congress, to all of the major media, and to every possible source of assistance for the individual about to be destroyed (“the power to tax,” said Thomas Jefferson, “is the power to destroy”) evidence of rape, extortion to commit rape, embezzlement, wrongful appropriation of funds, and felony crime after crime – everything the vaunted media publishes about anyone and everyone else in the nation – and more.

Result? Nothing! Nada. Nichts. Zip. Bupkis (save it – a tape recording of a man boasting about the way he uses income tax liability to “get me some pussy” is impossible to interpret any way but the way it is).

For anyone surprised that the citizens of New Orleans continue to languish in the devastation of hurricanes Katrina and Rita, let him look to the congress, the courts, and the White House – and the public’s – oversight of Internal Revenue Service.

For anyone nonplussed and perplexed at the utterly asinine matter of Iraq, let him look to IRS, and the congress supposed to oversee it.

For anyone amazed and disgusted about “waterboarding” and the treatment of persons seized as terrorist s everywhere – look to cases like that of Kay Council of High Point, NC, 1988. Mrs. Council came home one night to find a note from her husband, Alex: ‘My dearest Kay - I have taken my life in order to provide capital for you. The IRS and its liens against our property have dried up all sources of credit for us. So I have made the only decision I can. It's purely a business decision. You will find my body on the lot on the north side of the house.’

There are more, hundred, thousands, of case histories like this one: “Jasper and Lucille Gates of Denver, CO received a letter from the IRS stating that they had overpaid their 1972 tax by $1,197. However, they never received a refund. Instead, in June 1974 they were notified, without explanation, that they owed $4,451. Soon another letter came, claiming the deficiency was $4,206. In October, the IRS claimed the Gates owed $13,700, in November it was $15,000. By October, 1975 the alleged deficiency had grown to $16,000 - all without explanation. Then, in August 1978, still without explanation or warning, the IRS seized the Gates bank accounts worth about $13,000 and their home worth about $100,000. They sold the home for $16,000. Mrs. Gates, in a wheel-chair, was evicted, the Gates' furniture and personal effects were thrown into the street. When the news media contacted the IRS, the U.S. Gestapo cited the Privacy Act, and refused comment.”

In my book, Letters to Aaron, the Hal Luebbert Story, I cited a number of examples (why were you never told – if Natalee Holloway, or Anna Nicole Smith and the like were news, why wasn’t Kay Council, or Mrs. Lucille Gates?). I told, too, about the young mother who was forced by an IRS agent to provide sex in order to prevent confiscation of her meager bank account and property.

If the U.S. Government, in the person of and empowered as is the Internal Revenue Service behaves like this toward Kay Council and Lucille Gates (and Hal von Luebbert), why would a rational – and, therefore, honorable – U.S. public expect them to behave more honorably concerning all these other matters?

The powerful mock the law. They mock the individual, whether singlely or en masse. A nation and public, however, that raises its grito concerning a judiciary, a congress and a president running amok, after having cravenly tolerated for decades the predatory outrages of the U.S. Tax Code and of Internal Revenue Service has no credibility; neither will it be heard.

The plain fact, using the archetypical rule of law that is the paradigm of the reasonable individual, is that no people having tolerated the U.S. Tax Code and the Internal Revenue Service has the moral strength or authority to protest anything else, much less any of today’s “issues.”

Feminism notwithstanding, the alleged victim who lives with and tolerates for decades her supposed oppressor, acceding to any and all of his demands, however outrageous, need not be surprised or indignant once she has cried “rape,” and everyone ignores her.

The rule of the reasonable person is based on atavistic and historical experience, not ethics, religion, or law.

"....preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots."

"Demagogue: One who preaches a doctrine he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." --H.L. Mencken.

Fascinated by human bias – particularly its behavioral causes and origins - I subscribe to as many as a dozen politically-oriented websites on either side of the Left-Right (or Right-Left) spectrum, some so biased that my choice of “left” or “right’ to go first in citing them here would label me as “conservative” or “liberal” there. Any agreement whatever with one of these points of view will result in labeling of the speaker by the opposite point of view as a member – almost invariably, an extremist member - of the opposition.

The fact, in that regard, is that I often agree with even extremists on some political issues. I sometimes agree with Media Matters, Truthout, Daily Kos, and others the like. I agree sometimes with Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama, and Nancy Pelosi. I even agree on occasion with Ted Kennedy. Hell, I even agree with Al Franken now and again. The human condition what it is, some people get it right, even when they’re trying to get it wrong.

I sometimes agree with The American Conservative Union, NewsBusters, Accuracy in the Media, and their like. I sometimes agree with FoxNews, Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter (agreement with the latter three always results in careful examination of my facts – to say nothing of my thought processes and mental condition). Like I said, no one can be wrong all the time – no one is that smart.

You see, the matter of bias has been a favorite subject – an avocation, even – since high school and my first investigations of news stories in the press (no television then, just the paper and the radio). My high school graduating class’ prophesy was that it would be I who tracked down the abominable snowman, a reference to my weekend and vacation expeditions – often hundred of miles by car - to check reports in the news. Interest in bias - and the truth, its victim – led me to what some consider an inordinate interest in logic, mathematics, statistics, and physics, subjects which proved almost always the best antidote for ideological prejudices and their fractious and factious spawn. A continual college student in classes taken in lieu of perhaps more pedestrian entertainment, I probably have more (a lot more, matter of fact) total classroom time in subjects related to logic, math, and physics than most PhD-holders in those subjects.

Bias, and its exposure for what it is, have always fascinated me. Why are human beings so uncomfortable with the truth? Why, as H.L. Mencken observed, does the public in the U.S. adulate the most obvious liars while detesting angrily, even violently, those who try to tell them the truth?*

I may have hit the nail on the head a few years ago, when I first observed in writing (I realized long ago, but this time I wrote it) that human beings seem to fear thinking, their own thoughts, more than anything else in the world. In an essay here (August 15, 2006), I wrote that people seem to consider thinking subversive and revolutionary. Thinking, I said, is always merciless to privilege, to established institutions, and to comfortable beliefs – everything, in other words, that the common man holds dearest. To society and government, thinking is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority and the “wisdom” of Man.

My answer then to my own “why?” question concerning thinking may explain bias, too. Bias must be about fear, the fear of thinking. Perhaps no latter-day (and, therefore, accessible) ideology better exemplifies the fear or thought than that of feminism. A recent article in the local paper is a case in point. “Rape Happens to Real People,” the article blazons, “police lieutenant (a woman) wants to show that victims are more than numbers.”

Typical of the genre, the essay must be searched assiduously and with care in order to find even a single example of objectivity. It is, in other words, archetypical of the word “bias;” but nothing therein is moreso than a high-lighted section entitled, “Common Myths About Sexual Assault.” Nothing here is original, all of it gleaned from similar publications (by typing whole phrases from the piece into an Internet search engine, matter of fact, one can arrive at each plagiarized quote).

The list of “myths,” in other words, is part of the mythology of militant feminism. Because the adherent wants to believe this stuff, they will not only refuse to think about it, they will tell you so emphatically.

The first of these supposed myths tells pedestrian minds like yours and mine that people believe rape victims “brought it on themselves by the way they acted/dressed/spoke.” The truth according to the article? “No means no. Always.”

The non sequitur is the writer’s, not mine. Sprinkled liberally throughout feminist thought and literature, the phrase, “No means no” seems to have become a militants’ slogan derived for the purpose of empowerment based upon woman’s societally-given sexual prerogative.

It’s such “feel good” stuff, I don’t suppose the author of “Myths” could resist using it.

In a manner similar to the way apologists for extremist Afro-American views never dare recognize by thought the incontrovertible fact that were it not for slavery, they in all probability would personally have been born and lived their lives in Africa, the feminists dare not think that were it not for male strength and the evolutionary political power derived from it, not only would rape never have been designated a crime, but the female would not have come to the historical place where she could acquire the political power by which she now successfully challenges natural male superiority.

“Common myths about rape” does not mention thought like that, either. At any rate, my response in a letter to the editor of the Victoria Advocate was:

“’Common myths about sexual assault,’ the article blazons. A rough count of the number of times that same slogan-phrase has been foisted upon the public since the rise of feminism would probably reach the tens of thousands, and the ‘common myths’ argument has itself become a myth.

“In discussing rape, or any feminist ‘issues,’ of course, one must immediately realize that feminist mythology is expressed in FemSpeak, that ‘true-because-I-say-it-is’ argot of the feverishly ideological and militant. All terms and expressions, in other words, have special, esoteric meaning.

“As a young woman whose rape charge sent four young men – one physically incapable of sex - to prison for forty years once told me several years after the conviction, ‘Maybe they didn’t know it was rape – that’s up to the woman, isn’t it?’ She didn’t say ‘No,’ it would appear.

“That, incidentally, was the same case in which a female juror later confided that in her mind any time a woman had sex with more than one man it had to be rape.

“The lady juror didn’t have to hear that ‘no,’ either, I guess.

“I happen you see, to have been a private detective who during the early seventies did a thoroughly detailed investigation of literally dozens of rape cases, investigation that included interview with the supposed victims several years after their ‘trauma.’ During one representative period, thirteen of fifteen rape cases I worked as an investigator for the defense were dropped or reduced to misdemeanor (“disorderly conduct”) severity, moreover.

“Here’s the truth, from one who took the trouble to do what was necessary to learn it objectively. First, half of the men in prison now for rape, were not guilty of what society commonly considers rape (another statistical evaluation made by myself personally in interviews with the public from coast to coast). The fact of DNA tests having freed more than a hundred men imprisoned on account of false rape charges is a stubborn fact, one reflecting powerfully on those “myths” the lady lieutenant cites (flaunts?) in the Advocate.

“Let’s have a look:

“’Myth #1’ (purported truth that how a woman acts, dresses, or speaks has nothing to do with rape): That’s not what men say. How many rapists has the lieutenant interviewed years after their conviction? How many men who were tempted to commit rape, but didn’t? The fact is that almost any male knows better than this old feminist “fact;” more, its self-serving, self-forgiving character – “that I was going ninety miles an hour with no brakes has nothing to do with my wreck” - is obvious.

Nothing irritates me more than this particular bit of feminist nonsense irrationality. Some years ago, I wrote about “Becky” an aerobics instructor in Denver who walked home from her classes still dressed in her scanty and form-fitting workout costume, though an area where a dozen rapes had then recently occurred. When the story broke that she had been raped, I wrote that one might also have expected that having learned of man-eating piranha in the local river, she would cover herself in blood before going swimming in the river to thrash about as energetically as possible. She could probably take great consolation from her feminist sisters insistence that her having been devoured was a crime of violence, not hunger.

“’Myth #2’ (purported truth that men are also victims of rape): Ahem! This one obviously requires some very special, FemSpeak interpretation. It will suffice perhaps to note that Viagra instructions caution that desire must be present for the product to be effective. Only in FemSpeak can armed robbery occur without arms.

Tell us, ladies - how many men, outside of prison, are raped?

“’Myth #3’ (purported truth that anyone can be a rape victim): This is called the ‘straw Man’ fallacy in logic (look it up). More, I’ve personally never heard this particular “myth.” It’s also true that anyone thinking could fill volumes with conditions under which a woman cannot be a victim of rape. I’ve never heard, for instance, of a woman having been raped while armed or in the charge of a bodyguard. Say for instance, ‘any woman wandering about alone at obviously – to one not demented by feminist ideology, that is - the wrong time and the wrong place, and I’ll agree.”

I note, parenthetically, that my clumsy “mouse” hand seems to have obliterated a paragraph, wherein I explained that the “straw man” in the “myth” argument supposes those who believe only beautiful women are raped. If anyone actually believes that, he’s even more biased than the authors of the Advocate article in question.

Notice that I didn’t mention stupidity, but it’s a possible reason – for both the straw man and the article’s author – too.

“’Myth #4’ (purported truth that 15 to 20 percent of rape victims don't know their assailant): ‘Ditto Myth #3.’ Does anyone wonder what the ‘truth’ cited in the article as related to this particular myth has to do with proving anything material to the question? And, what, pray tell, is a ‘dirty, old man’ (isn’t that all of us?).

“’Myth #5’ (that rapists succeed by means other than physical force): Yeah, like the young lady I mentioned above said, maybe the guy didn’t know it was rape – that’s up to women, isn’t it? Among the oldest principles of law, on the other hand, says ‘Unus testis, nullus testis’ – one witness, no witness.

“People lie when they have a reason – or hadn’t you noticed?

“’Myth #6’ (purported truth that wives and prostitutes - odious comparison, that - can be raped): Special FemSpeak interpretation again, what? Just – for all practical purposes - leaves the question of whether rape occurred up to the ‘victim,” doesn’t it? And, of course, ‘maybe he didn’t know it was rape’ – until I told him. And by what device of clairvoyance would society ever determine that rape of a prostitute means she simply wasn't paid?

“’Myth #7’ (that false accusations of rape are few [good grief - in what world does the author live?!]): I trust this means “most charges of sexual assault don’t take place,” etc. The “myth” as written here has a certain logic, one supposes, but I know of no instance in which a man raped a woman on account of her having charged him with rape.

“It happens, too, that I also happen to have first hand insight into this one. Of sixty-two insurance claims men I interviewed in 1977, forty-eight reported having been threatened with rape charges by women trying to make false insurance claims and extort insurance payments from the adjuster. Police records, as recognized in police department defensive regulations and practices, are replete with evidence of attempts by women to use false rape charges in order to gain advantage and evade arrest. The same is true of teachers and educational institutions. The fact, easily documented with research of public records, is that false rape charges have reached epidemic proportions (feminism, anyone?) in the U.S. It is also a fact that by using evidence documented by means of a tape recorder, I personally have been able to save myself from similar tactics four times - twice as a PI, and twice as a police officer (on two additional occasions, I was also able to stymie police ‘sting’ efforts intended to result in soliciting for prostitution charges). In several of the cases I worked successfully as a private investigator, women admitted having brought rape charges for the purpose of revenge (one, for instance, a student, charged with rape a teacher who had given her a failing grade), or to prevent traffic tickets.

“The fact is that nearly half of rape charges brought since the year 1975 have been false (police blotters across the country record the evidence in incontrovertible detail – for anyone interested and sincere enough to do the leg work necessary). As I said, false charges of rape have become an epidemic, one spawned almost entirely by feminism and the hysteria it engenders.”

Crystal Mangum, you know, has lots of company among persons who are able to bring false charges of felony crime without repercussion (gee, why do you suppose the lady lieutenant and the Advocate writer didn’t mention that singularly exemplary case?).

Now, it is unlikely in the extreme that the newspaper in question will print my letter. This is an “end justifies the means,” it feels good for feminists and it is therefore politically correct, subject, one where objective thinking is singularly taboo. The one fact mitigating the otherwise deleterious effect of journalism like this is the probably innocence of its perpetrators. Victims of the same ideology they espouse, the authors probably believe they are actually doing right. People defending mythology like that engendered by feminism, mythology like that blazoned in the “Rape Happens to Real People” article will say that lying for the purpose of rape prevention (how, by the way, does an article like “Myths” tend to prevent rape?) is a good thing. It isn’t.

It isn’t, and the trouble with fallacious reasoning like that, like most fallacious reasoning, is that it is cancerous, its own worst enemy; and, like bias, it inevitably finds itself “hoist on its own petard.” The lies and fallacious reasoning of the biased promoting their ideology are like erroneous numbers in a mathematical equation or column of numbers, seeming to proliferate as exponentially as viruses. They are suicidal.

Let me tell you what you’re thinking. It will make my point better here than anything else I’ve said (anybody remember Bill Cosby’s, “I told you that so I could tell you this”?). You’re thinking that I’m a misogynist, a guy who really does think women who are raped have brought their hurt upon themselves. You have just demonstrated objectively what I said at the outset here concerning those who are biased. No, I don’t dislike women, and - except as noted here - I don't believe women are to be blamed when they have been raped (I do know, on the other hand, that feminism is responsible for many – probably a majority – of women who by their credence in tripe like that dispensed by feminist extremists both put themselves in danger and/or rendered themselves defenseless against rapists).

“Rape Happens to Real People” is an example of something I detest, a statement that is illogical, or dishonest, or egregiously wrong otherwise, by someone with whom I identify and agree in principle. I, on the other hand, don’t care – certainly don’t want to see him silenced – when someone with whom I disagree says something erroneous or stupid. In fact, I exult in it. I have, for instance, often pointed out here that I seldom comment upon things coming from the liberal side of the political spectrum because people there seldom say anything with which I identify. More, I don’t care if what they say is wrong. I want them to keep talking, and as much as possible.

Yes, I know – thinking will do that to a person every time.

As wife Rita would tell you, I not only deplore the fact of scores of thousands of missing women, and the hideous statistics having to do with women and children raped in the U.S., I agonize over each new instance in the national press. I am literally furious with a male society that by its craven, boot-licking (high heels licking?), politically-correct cowardice in the face of militant feminism has condemned thousands of women and girls to the kind of oblivious stupidity that makes them walk right into the arms of their rapists.

I am equally disgusted with having to protect the women about whom I care particularly from feminist drivel like the authors of “Rape Happens to Real People” articles. I am damned sick and tired of having to worry while the several beautiful women in my charge as a husbanding man insist on account of utter nonsense like “Myth #1” to go out into the night alone and dressed in a manner they, themselves strive to make “attractive.” More, I have often had to be concerned about women I have never so much as spoken to, or am seeing for the very first time, concerned because of their circumstances and behavior at the moment. I wish I had kept count of the number of times I have waited, and obliged those with whom I happened to be to wait, while I watched to make sure a pretty and shapely, revealingly clad young woman makes it to her car late at night in the empty street or parking lot of a big city. Always, when the logical question comes to mind - how could she be so stupidly oblivious - the answer is always the same: feminism, and "Myth #1."

I guess I don’t believe “Myth #1.” I think, you see. Feminism, and the biased generally, ought to try it. Would that ever be an adventure!



*"The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth."

Petraeus; Abbott and Costello; "Who's on First" and a nation that doesn't "give a darn.

This past Saturday, I went to a going-away get together for the friends of another young soldier being ordered to Iraq - Frankie. Now, I said to wife Rita, we have to start worrying again for still another friend being ordered to risk - and if fate so decrees, lose - his life. "For U.S. interests."

Not, mind you, in defense of his county, but "for U.S. interests."

A few days ago, as I noted on my "Question of the Day page here," I made reply to a solicitation to the public from Florida Congressman Robert Wexler for questions to ask the General commanding our troops in Iraq, General David Petraeus. I sent a list of questions by return e-mail (to see them, go to the Question Page).

Of course, the questions were obvious ones, as obvious as the historically unprecedented stupidity of invasion and the bumbling, bumbling, pratfalling conduct of the "war" (for everything related to the matter, new definitions seem necessary). The questions were as obvious, in fact, as what the general would say - regardless of the questions. In fact, I said months ago- right here - what he would say today. Need I remind you? Click here, go to the Mongoose Trick Archives for September 26, 2007.

To paraphrase by way of analysis what the soldier said (does anybody remember George Bernard Shaw's "I never expect a soldier to think" observation?) the way all the media pundits and "analysts" do, the general said that because things are going so well, we need to maintain our presence - "surge" included - in Iraq. If things were going badly, we would still want to maintain our presence there.

If the Iraq government and its forces were perfect, and doing everything perfectly, that would be a reason to stay, If they were doing miserably (pssst - the way they are), that is also a reason to stay.

And, the general said - here's a revelation for you - there's no way "right now" to judge when we can start "orderly withdrawal" great military minds like John McCain keep pontificating about.

General, let's see if I understand (some more of that "analysis" we get from the great minds of the media):

Since we don't know what's going on, there's no way to predict what will happen - that about it?

Since every time we included Iraqis in anything - political, military, what have you - a big percentage of them stay home, sabotage something, or go over to the other side, we're not sure when they will be able to begin running their country the way we want them to. That about it? General?

Since neither you nor we have any way to know how many "civilian military contractors" - CIA army, that is - are in Iraq or what they're doing, there's no way to assess their effect; or, in view of history, even their intentions. How do you command an army when you don't know exactly who they are (which puts you pretty much in the same condition as the public, doesn't it?).

Which brings me to how one assesses progress, costs, or status quo and the price of beans when you can't so much as define "winning" and "losing." I guess to define oh, so abstruse terms like that, you'd need also to define "interests." You know: those "U.S. Interests" we keep hearing about - as in "U.S. interests in the region." We're fighting to protect "U.S. interests" in Iraq. Dammit, what ARE our interests in Iraq? I mean, if I'm supposed to build a house, don't I have to know what it's supposed to look like when it's complete?

I watched the TV today, listened to the whole, damned posturing rigmarole of congressional hearings and the general's "testimony." I can't stomach these people, but it's the most - and the least - I could do for Frankie, I said to myself.

When can we leave (when have we won, when have our interests been served, when are we losing, when have we lost, etc., etc., etc.,)? No matter how the question was phrased, whatever its form, the answer was always the same: well, then we'll have to "make an assessment" (but you and I, of course, won't know when or what it is, and . . . oh, to hell with it!). When Senator Joe Biden - among others - asked how we know when conditions will be right for withdrawal of troops - some or all - I was reminded of another routine like this one. It was enacted by a couple of guys named Abbott and Costello, and it's become known as "WHO'S ON FIRST?".

"Costello: I throw the ball to who?

"Abbott: Naturally.

"Costello: Now you ask me.

Abbott: You throw the ball to Who?

"Costello: Naturally.

"Abbott: That's it.

"Costello: Same as you! Same as YOU!!! I throw the ball to who. Whoever it is drops the ball and the guy runs to second. Who picks up the ball and throws it to What. What throws it to I Don't Know. I Don't Know throws it back to Tomorrow, Triple play. Another guy gets up and hits a long fly ball to Because. Why? I don't know! He's on third and I don't give a darn!

"Abbott: What?

"Costello: I said I don't give a darn!

"Abbott: Oh, that's our shortstop.

"Costello screams."


Costello screams, and that's pretty much where the nation is. Me, too . . .

MOCKINGBIRD and Destruction of the Senses Essential to the Body Politic.

The election fraud continues unabated, a made-for-television soap opera designed in the state of the art for propaganda. Of course, anyone still existing in a behaviorally unaltered state has only to compare the cynical charade with the blizzard of advertising that has come to be essentially all the broadcast media nowadays does.

But the vast percentage of the citizenry in the Land of the Free does not exist in an unaltered state, and that’s that. All people like my friends and I can do is make plans to abandon ship when the proverbial last minute comes. It won’t be long now.

Still, there has remained the problem of what to do about the kids and grandkids. It was with heavy heart, and after intense discussion with older friends – persons able to remember the time before Operation MOCKINGBIRD had hit its mind-controlling stride – that Rita and I have decided there is little chance to do anything about what their corporation-owned government has done to them and their future.

The kids – I speak, of course, of young, even middle-age, adults – simply cannot throw off their long since behaviorally-induced and habituated behavior. Like women watching a soap opera, they speak of the election campaign and its tawdry theater as though it were real.

I am reminded how a couple (three?) decades ago I stopped as was my custom for coffee at the 7-11 next door to my office. Attendants and patrons were talking excitedly about the news that “J.R.” had been shot. There was speculation concerning whether the victim’s wounds would be fatal, who the assailant had been, and more. The concern and emotion among the discussion’s parties was earnest and concerned, emotional - even worried.

Wrack my brain as I might, I could think of no one named J.R. Walking into my offices, I stopped at the front desk to inquire of Judy, my secretary – “Have you heard that someone named J.R. has been shot?” Of course, Judy said, everybody knew that - where had I been? Who the hell, I asked – annoyed now – was “J.R.”

It went on. J.R. owned such and such company, lived in Dallas, and was rich as Croesus. He had so many enemies there was no telling who had tried to kill him. J.R.

I’m an investigator by profession, so I know how to ask questions. How did Judy happen to know J.R.? I saw realization hit her pretty face. “Don’t you watch Dallas?” she asked. “Watch Dallas?” No, I said – no more than I watch, for instance Chicago, or Los Angeles, or . . .

“Hal,” Judy said, “it’s a TV show! Kind of like the daytime soap operas.”

Enough of that – you may have gotten the point. On the other hand, inundated and conditioned by what is certainly the most powerful mind and behavior control tool ever devised by the power-mad and avaricious mind of man – television – you may not.

There is, parenthetically, a relatively simple way to detect how far gone – or already lost – you might be. Consider this: If you really believe that the colossal, Brobdingnagian corporations who control virtually everything in the nation actually intend to let the public choose a president, you’re too far gone to help. If you really believe that from among candidates of the caliber – note, please, that I have mentioned nothing suggesting anything even remotely resembling leadership ability as a criteria; I speak merely of ability to survive in the real world – of John McCain, Barack Obama, or Hillary Clinton you can pick someone capable of the U.S. presidency, you probably believe in the Tooth Fairy, too.

You probably think the same corporate power structure that picked George W. Bush actually intended for him to control anything – himself, for instance. You might even think he does control something. Look around a bit. If you still think that, it’s probably too late for you. You still think it was Sue Ellen who shot J.R. (or was it?).

A long time ago – at least relative to the history of this benighted country, a man named Samuel Johnson made the famous observation that patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Times have changed. The last refuge now is the world of virtual reality – the Operation MOCKINGBIRD media.

The First Amendment to the Constitution says that “Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.” The Founding Fathers, of course, had no idea that anything like Operation MOCKINGBIRD would occur, or that the fabulously, unimaginably powerful would manipulate the press until it was destroyed or destroyed itself.

People – especially those pundits who invariably, anymore, tell us what we just saw and heard - are often heard to say that the free press is democracy's first line of defense against corruption and tyranny. It’s more than that, actually – a lot more. In fact, the nation’s press is both in a manner of speaking and operative fact a critical part of what amounts to the nation’s thought processes. The nation’s mind – its people and the democratic process – are as healthy and functioning for the good of the body it controls, the body politic, as its news and information media.

The news and information media, as a famous old motion picture theater newsreel used to say, is the eyes and ears of the nation. It serves as the public’s senses, without which, like the individual, little or nothing can be known; and, just as the individual mind deprived of sensory input goes crazy, loses its memory, and dies, the democracy deprived or its news and information media does the same.

An old adage known to most fighters is that a man fights with his mind. An electorate fights – rules and controls – its government with its individual and collective mind. To defeat him totally and to subjugate an opponent, the fighter must control – even destroy - the opponent’s mind. The same can be said – it is the tactical doctrine of the CIA and the corporate powers that created it – of government and its collective adversary – the public. To rule totally – in a totalitarian fashion now being urged upon us and demanded by government in the U.S. – government must control minds.

Operation MOCKINGBIRD – control of the public mind - was, is, therefore, the cornerstone of the new “conservatism.”

There’s always a word, or expression, isn’t there? It is always, no matter how repressive the regime, no matter how many are starving and living in squalor, no matter how many are being imprisoned, maimed or killed, the “people” who rule. Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the like are “conservative.”

They are also the voice of the media.

Oh, yes, there are others. Lots of them. The media may be – it is: lock, stock, and barrel – owned by the corporations (and only a few, at that) who own nearly everything else in the nation; it may have the character of all corporations – meaning it has only one purpose, profit – and it may be as averse to risk as any of its corporate masters. But journalists and reporters in our country strive every day, here and around the world, to do the work intended by their profession, their society, and their nation – to uncover and tell the truth.

They not only believe the truth will make their audience of the public free, they are willing to risk their lives in order to get the truth. In any given year, dozens, even scores, of journalists and persons engaged in finding and recording the truth are wounded and killed.

But no totalitarian-leaning government wants a free press, and government is despotic to the degree that it co-operates with a free press. That simple - the “fruit by which you shall know them.”

Were the media – the sensorium of a democratic nation – healthy, there would be nothing more necessary to say. The mind having felt its wounds, sensing its sickness, would take steps to recover. Ah, but here it is the mind itself that is sick. Confused and bewildered by deception, the mind knows neither its own state or that of its body. An Alzheimer’s patient, it is totally institutionalized, dependent upon its keepers for even the most basic life necessities.

Of course, the last thing the owners and operators of the institution that is the Land of the Free want is for the inmates – the euphemism here, further of course, would be patients – to recover from their dementia. Their corporate purpose, profit, after all, depends upon the “patients.”

So, were you still possessed of natural mentality, and a tactician, what would you – faced with a national media protected by the First Amendment – do? If I intended to take over a nation – the term for that in this case is “maximize profits” – I would first destroy the credibility of anyone who might blow the proverbial whistle. That is what – Operation MOCKINGBIRD – has done, and today, that is what the neo-conservative right wing is in the continuing process of assuring. So perniciously successful has the process been that however often a member of the U.S. Government is caught lying, cheating, or stealing, the effect is negligible, even advantageous. Depending upon his identification with one political faction or the other, he may use and sell drugs, prey upon children, accept bribes, or anything of corrupt character imaginable, and not only escape public opprobrium, but rise in political popularity.

All of it has been provided for and politically nurtured by the Operation MOCKINGBIRD and the media it controls. There is no disputing that historically – you have only to read the record of what has happened.

Destruction of the media as the sensory organ vital to the body politic has been on-going since the time of the industrial military complex coup d’etat in 1948. From the first suggestion that the news and information media was biased – the now accepted (repeat a lie often enough) "liberal media" – to today’s openly, blatantly apologists for scrapping of the U.S. Constitution (“fair and balance” Fox News, for instance), the media engages in Newspeak orchestration and outright falsehood intended to destroy the public’s contact with reality – create, that is, a national insanity not unlike that of nineteen thirties’ Germany.

Today, in fact, the once vaunted “free flow of information” exists only for those willing to assiduously pursue factual data concerning what is happening in the nation and world. While every state-of-the-art device is employed, none is a better, more easily discernible example of what has happened to than “national” news like the disappearance of a teenager from a small town in Alabama.

Of what national significance was Natalee Holloway? How would news and information services critical to the maintenance of a democracy equate her disappearance – receive equal stature, even precedence, over news the gravitas of a day in the Iraq war’s casualty count? Only with real effort, hours of research, phone calls, and the like every days is one able to learn concerning national events affecting his life and those of his family.

“Free flow of information,” indeed.

The fact is, the nation’s media has now become complicit in its own murder. I am reminded of Vladimir Lenin’s cynical promise that he would not only hang the capitalist U.S., it would lend him the money for purchase of the rope with which to do it. Stupidly arrogant – how does anyone who obviously can’t do simple, high school mathematics and statistics, erring again and again where anything mathematical is concerned, have the temerity to posture as “expert analysts?” Hyper-protective of their real interest, profit for the mega-corporations who own them, personally obsessed with individual and personal “perks” and career advancement, journalists and the media they crew have been as easily bought and sold by their corporate masters as their congressional counterparts have been prostituted by corporate lobbyists.

The success of CIA Operation MOCKINGBIRD not only turned the media into willing tools of the government and benighted the nation, it further crippled the media as a sensory device for the body politic, it destroyed the confidence of any citizen remaining unaffected by its behavior modification oriented propaganda. Behaving with its Newspeak “newscasts” exactly like those who swamp television broadcasting with acquisitive commercial messages, the media resembles nothing so much as P.T. Barnum, Elmer Gantry, and Sergeant Bilko – with Bill O’Reilly, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh in their tawdry steads.

The supposedly liberal media is no better, and the continual bickering between the two likewise supposed opponents is nothing more than a cynical Mutt and Jeff routine (often, more like Abbott and Costello – who’s on first?) designed to keep the public distracted from real trouble like our colossally corrupt and incompetent government.

Our much-vaunted media has now taken on the collective character of a used car salesman no one mentally competent would trust. Neither can there be better proof of the public’s staggering scholastic stupidity and pratfalling political dystrophy than the fact that it continues to enrich these swindlers by their patronage.

With the nation’s sensory organs, the media, deadened, the government is now free to wield and govern by means of the Big Lie. How, or instance, could an alert, competent, and knowledgeable journalist – much less the media as a whole - have been taken in by the ridiculous pack of lies that led to invasion of Iraq? How could a media that had been sycophantly ballyhooing – this time in order to justify for the government colossal spending – the national defense capabilities of space-based spy technology, fail to so much as mention it during the weeks, months, and years of inspections in Iraq?! How could any journalist have failed to consider the thunderously obvious implications of U.S. discovery by nineteen sixties’ technology decades before of missiles in Cuba?

How did the media miss any of at least fifty more indications of White House – and government – lying?
Well, now! How did the public miss it? Not once in all the time of the run-up to the invasion of Iraq did any of the bloggers on the Internet mention the obvious. Neither has anyone but yours truly mentioned since that you can’t build missiles guided or ballistic in your garage; neither do you mix up chemical or biological weapons mass destruction in your bathtub.

The Bush Administration’s claims concerning “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq were as patently, obviously false as its incompetence having to do with the attack on the World Trade Center and its kid-caught-with-his-hand-in-the-cookie-jar excuses in the aftermath. They were as false – obviously to even a bright eighth grader – as the excuses made by the same administration in the aftermath (the continuing aftermath) of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, the dithering and bloviating concerning the border with Mexico, and the Bush League’s utterly bald-faced lying concerning reasons for and the enactment of the Patriot Act and legislation the like.

Any journalist worth his salt could – as I could – go on and on. How about the spastic reasoning behind “No Child Left Behind?” How much intellect and reasoning power does it take to recognize as a corollary to “No Child Left Behind” “everybody waits until everybody catches up,” or “everybody is as educated as the stupidest – or laziest – among us”?

How did it all happen? I call your attention - and that of your short, oh, so, short memory - stories like that of “columnists” like the woman who was found to be writing propagandist pamphlets for the White House. Margaret Gallagher, in other words, is what is called a “CIA writer,” a practice instituted by Operation MOCKINGBIRD’s directors soon after creation of the taxpayer-funded program (anybody remember Lenin’s comment about the rope paid for by the people upon whom it would be used for a hanging?).

Then we have one Armstrong Williams. You remember him, don’t you? Supposedly a conservative Afro-American political commentator Williams was paid a quarter of a million dollars by the Department of Education to shill in writing and otherwise for the president's execrable “No Child Left Behind” boondoggle. Lenin again: the White House used our money to pay a guy to lie to us. Even worse, this guy would have done it all for nothing (check his Website).

Then, we have people hired and paid – your money, again – to pose as newsmen in order to serve up for the president or one federal agency wonk or the other the questions the government wants to answer.

And on, and on, and on – and still the public doesn’t get it. In the face of it all, with unadulterated truth from the press and electronic media as rare as hen’s teeth, and the presidential candidates just as truthful and real, the addled public believes we’re having an actual presidential election campaign, and that by participating we will actually affect our lives for the better.

How MOCKINGBIRD bewildered can you get? We'll see - oh, will we ever see!


http://www.armstrongwilliams.com/

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/27/politics/27columnist.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

http://blogs.usatoday.com/ondeadline/2007/10/fema-stages-fak.html