Nein, es wahrheit.

The book is finished, locked. 700 pages, counting title page, table of contents, and index. For the coloring and picture book crowd, sorry, Bernie Wrightson wasn't available to do a graphic novel version of the prose, very sorry. There will be no photos. Unlike Bugliosi's Helter Skelter, this is the real deal, a real historical account, and therefore, a part of the primary record of the case. No, this is true crime writing done with honesty, rather than being written by some shady cop, compromised D.A., or some other banal, money grubbing piece of shit.

"What a ride!" Jeane once emailed me, from Chicago, at O'Hare Airport between flights. This was fucking depraved in the context of what we'd been saying back-and-forth and when I was certain she was out of her fucking mind and suicidal. No one will ever know what this woman has put me through, and yet, I still pity her and mourn her death, for she was human, and they, her prosecutors and the U.S. Courts let her die.

Let me make this clear: You do not know as much as you think you do about this horrible case, the one that left a woman hanging by the neck by her own hand. I will terminate any conversation and/or interview the moment I detect someone's assuming that some mythical government operatives murdered Deborah Jeane Palfrey, because not only is it not factually true, it's completely baseless. Not one individual with an asshole (what they see in the mirror every morning) and an opinion (that has no value) has presented any solid evidence that Jeane was murdered. Her longest running legal counselor during most of the proceedings, Montgomery Blair Sibley, doesn't believe this "She were suicided" theory either, at least last I checked. Blair had a great deal of direct contact with Jeane, and I think he knows very well that there were some telltale signs. Maybe we miss things, I don't know, but I didn't from the moment I spoke with Palfrey on the telephone, this was someone rocketing towards imminent death. The book will address all of this in extremely graphic detail. Expect to shocked. No one will ever be as shocked as I was when I looked at the entire case and my experiences being involved in it, working for more than a few months doing general research for Jeane, advising her occasionally, offering my opinion when she hit me with questions, very specific ones mind you, and you should feel lucky for that. This book drained me of the last vestiges of my youth, and a whole lot more, but it was worth it. For a brief moment, we all charged the castles, and I'm not fucking around when I write castles, because we have a system of them in the US. (And yes, we can thank the American South for a lot of this.)

This book is bigger than me, and so are its themes. They're eternal ones. Until you confront power directly as I and others have, you just don't know the feeling of ecstasy it can bring, of liberation, a feeling of incredible elation that can only be called freedom. You have to liberate yourself, and we have to liberate each other. We still have a choice in America: Is going to be democracy, or tyranny? Jeane's case collided with the war on terror, she was in the thick of it, I am convinced. This wasn't merely a sex scandal, this was very big, bigger than you can possibly imagine. I can only hope that this account will stand as a document of the case and the era it took place in, a piece of the puzzle, part of a mosaic of our shared history, because this is a story that affects everyone directly, first in our pocketbooks. It's also a political testament. To have been part of a historical event was everything rolled into one. In the beginning, was the word.

Some more observations on conspiracy buffs and the Boogeyman...

They--the ubiquitous "they"--see them everywhere, and they know the score, according to...well, to them. Above all others, they understand the "true" machinations of our civilization, never mind those silly academics-they're part of the conspiracy too if they don't agree with the conspiracy buffs. Which conspiracy theory? Take your pick. Isn't it really about crime, under the color of law and authority? Isn't that something you could actually try in a court of law, before a jury? Wouldn't going after politicians who are criminals by treating them as such work better? No, it's a conspiracy, because that's easier for me to unthink about.

The truth? Ultimate truth is unknowable, so the conspiracy gurus like the Alex Joneses and Alex Constantines of the world must be elves, pixies, faeries, and the Oracle at Delphi, atop mount Parnassus, telling everyone what they already know: that conspiracy buffs are full of shit, possibly nuts in many cases, and need to get a life and learn to be responsible citizens who really watchdog their government. Constantine claims that he once did. He might return to his good work, but like Alex Jones, it takes him all morning to get his coffee back from the toxicology lab. No, the ones that really get away with murder in our society are the business & finance sectors. But most of the cranks love them, contrary claims aside, because those CEOs believe most of the same things that the dopes do: the Libertarian credo of the lawless Frontier maverick (long dead in the real world, meaning it's alive-and-well on Wall Street and in boardrooms) who's entitled to do whatever he wants without any repercussions. That's not freedom for everyone else, it's negative freedom, negative "Liberty."

There are legitimate researchers, journalists, and historians out there who are doing diligent and thoughtful work that at least eventually gets some kind of a "peer review" (we won't dwell on the nano-thermite flap regarding the rickety WTC-7), and they should be thanked. Naming them here would be unfair, and anyone familiar with academic intelligence history and credible historiographical research (private and academic) into our political history knows wildly speculative crap when they see it. Many in the public today do not, and I lay the blame at the feet of educators and the individual. The mainstream media is also sorely to blame. Too many members of the public are simply not credible or rational thinkers, generally, and more standardized requirements for logic training would go a long way in ameliorating this problem. Americans don't stand on the international stage as especially rational thinkers, hardly. Many Americans have literally never written a thesis in their entire lives if they even know what it means.

Our domestic policies are a great illustration of this: on the one hand, many Americans don't trust their government (thanks partly to scandals like Watergate and Iran-Contra, but perpetuated by anti-government cranks who call themselves "conspiracy researchers," etc.), yet expect to receive social services from it. The prevalence of the myth of "the disappeared" gives this attitude an especially weird quality when one considers that many Americans don't want to pay taxes, but again, expect social services like Social Security checks, roads, bridges, power plants, drinkable water, and all of the things social infrastructure can bring. Still, according to some on the fringe, the government is totalitarian and "evil." That's a conservative argument, though not a traditional one. There are no real conservatives, but that's a theme for another time.

The fact is that even with all of the corruption, the bribing lobbyists, crony appointments, kiss-ass politicians, a mostly comatose and wrong-headed public, obviously unconstitutional legislation, absurd Supreme Court rulings, and the resultant scandals and cock-ups, they still have to deliver these social services because the social contract has to be served. Regardless of what anyone says, we're still a government of the people, by the people, and for the people, no matter how impaired these things might be at present. Classical liberal theory on servicing the social contract through the redistribution of wealth is a warning, not a threat, that if you don't manage your society wisely, you will reap chaos. If it is not, you can expect very serious drama indeed. What the conspiracy buffs and nuts are saying is that the social contract has been entirely forfeited, and that's not true by any stretch, especially compared to many other nations around the world where it's patently obvious that that's the case. However, were many of them to have it their way, yes, a cohesive society we can be proud of would be almost entirely null-and-void.

Without even understanding what the social contract is, conspiracy nuts say that we're already at the critical mass, that the government isn't delivering--or even that it should at all. Most of these people don't believe in traditional Western democracy nor the ideals of the French Revolution, meaning Liberty, Fraternity, and Equality. They're barbarians. They don't really believe in our most cherished American ideals of Liberty and democracy. What they believe in is selling you a t-shirt or a poorly researched and produced DVD so that they can turn a profit off of social discontent and sell you the anti-government line. Government is only as good as the people of a nation, and in that sense, it's not complicated. You must stay engaged. You must watch the watchers as a lifetime responsibility. If you want government services--rich, poor, or even middle-class--you must expect to pay for them, but you should also pay your fair share. When the top 500 corporations are often paying significantly less than a working-class individual, something's very wrong with the body politic.

But the conspiracy nuts--in-the-main--don't get this...or much else.

Misinterpreting events on purpose, so you don't have to!

The South Bend Tribune--and I'm not laying the blame entirely at their feet on this one--had an article today titled, "Teens taping fights: 'It shocks the conscience,' " a tale of teen bullying in South Bend (specifically between girls) and the recording of fights on cell phones and camcorders by other teens that are then uploaded onto the Internet for a variety of reasons that even the piece itself misses, or somehow ignores at its own peril. The reporting in the piece is generally very solid by all appearances and journalist Mary Kane Malone appears to have covered all of her bases, but as usual, the analysis and general thrust of it is all wrong, and that's the fault of a newspaper editor.

As a matter of fact, that's usually the case, but it also takes conglomerates reminding editors that they too have a mortgage to pay, so hyperbole it is.

I'm not going to name the names of the victims again and don't think that it was appropriate for the conglomerate-owned Tribune to list them but not their attackers. What is the precise hyperbole, or the hype of the article? This is incredible: the immorality of other kids standing by and recording the attacks/fights on their cell phones and posting them online, ostensibly to inflict more emotional harm and humiliation upon the victims. I'm certain most of these kids were acting in concert with the bullies, no argument there, but why is it a bad thing ultimately? The fact is that it's a good development regardless of the motives of most of the players.

Thirty years ago--and even as recent as fifteen--these acts of violence by children directed towards other children went unnoticed, they were rampant, and adults didn't want to deal with it anymore then than they do now--and that's the real heart of the article. People, especially authorities like principals, parents, police, and even juvenile professionals, don't want to deal with the issue of children inflicting violence upon each other. The trick is to change the subject or the focus:

The video of the fight had gone viral, the girl says, spreading from cell phone to cell phone. In less than a day, it seemed everyone in school had witnessed Chastity's humiliation. Teenage fights now include a new weapon: the camera phone. For parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials, the recorded fights provide a disturbing portrait of teenage violence that, until now, was only seen by those who witnessed it directly. "It shocks the conscience," said Capt. Phil Trent, spokesman for South Bend police. Parents of the victims say they are horrified at the gall of witnesses to flip out their phones and press "record" rather than intervene. But the kids? They call it entertainment. ... (The South Bend Tribune, 05.09.10)

This may or may not be true that it's "entertainment" and they're casting a blanket over the kids generally, as an entire demographic when there's no solid evidence--just a couple anecdotes--being proffered that the phenomena is widespread. Even if it were, how would they know why every kid recording an event was doing so?

But then, the article breaks down and admits that youth experts don't really know why the kids record the fights. Is that really the point? Again, from the article itself, this is the real point (my emphasis): "For parents, school administrators and law enforcement officials, the recorded fights provide a disturbing portrait of teenage violence that, until now, was only seen by those who witnessed it directly." Correct. Until very recently, the technology to record these events in a portable and easy manner was too expensive. Now, there's no running away from the problem since kids are unwisely (or very wisely) posting what is essentially incriminating evidence of children violently and criminally attacking other children. Before, this was impossible, and authorities could only rely on the hearsay of children, a morass of "he-said, she-said" recriminations that were once almost impossible to confirm, to corroborate. That's all changed now.

In short, many of these kids are doing the "right" thing, knowingly or unknowingly.

Some of these kids are alerting the rest of society that there are vicious sociopaths in our midst and showing us their actions. When it's done in the interest of society, of others, it's a very positive social act, a civic duty to report a crime. In the "wrong" hands they're also incriminating themselves and will probably be dragged into the tidal wave of civil suits that are likely to come out of these new technologies of easy dissemination, the power of the Internet writ large, as large as you can get.

"The (bullies) are basically making a recording of the evidence," providing a clear picture of who threw the first punch and how it ended, said William Bruinsma, director of the St. Joseph County Juvenile Justice Center. Police say a videotaped shoving match posted online might be handled differently than one that is not recorded. "The same shoving match, being turned into a form of entertainment by a third party on the Internet is enough to make parents, school administrators and law enforcement" take a second look, said Trent, the South Bend police spokesman. ... (ibid)

It's not about entertainment. It's about adults not wanting to deal with it, but knowing that they now have no choice in the matter. That's called fighting change. In the past it was easy because there was no way to document these behaviors. Now there is. So, yes, the kids have a "new weapon," alright: they can document acts of violence by other children, even under the guise of indirect participation. Indeed, St. Joseph County prosecutor Michael Dvorak "...said video can provide useful pieces of evidence when building a case." Yet, the Oklahoma state legislature has recently made moves that would make posting the footage online illegal and could likely pass it soon.

The article tries--vainly--to suggest through implication that there's an upswing in violence by American girls, something that it has to admit isn't the case from FBI statistics covering 1995-through-2008. You can almost hear the editor of the South Bend Tribune trying to argue their twisted logic and simply capitulating to the facts in the end since they were and are irrefutable, leaving the remnants of the their thought process (if you want to call it that) in the body of the piece. Missing the point is the entire point. Society-at-large has never wanted to deal with the fact that the genesis of bullying in many cases is child abuse, usually by adults, often by relatives. America is hardly the only nation with this problem, and denial is part-and-parcel of the behaviors surrounding the phenomena.

When the economy is already divesting adults of their rights, those of children don't figure highly either. However, children are a powerful moral symbol of the future, the canaries in the coal mine of where we're going wrong with the social contract and where we've been going wrong since time immemorial. Most importantly, the Tribune article commits the cardinal sin of blaming the victim: "But what might appear to be a clear assault on video could have an untold back story, he said: How can police be sure the victim was not the attacker a day earlier in an unrecorded fight?" They never care about that in other circumstances. The real issue is that they don't want to deal with the problem, the real heart of a very poorly-constructed article that carries a sadly commonplace logic in our culture, a culture in denial on most fronts. After all, nobody likes getting caught...

One last thought: should we embed journalists in our nation's schools? It's not necessary. Soon, very soon, the coverage of domestic violence will surpass that of the wars in the Middle East. Think about why.

http://www.southbendtribune.com/article/20100509/News01/5090310/1129/News

To the "spoilers" crowd: I was right, you're always wrong

WWW--Face the facts: you lost the election for Ralph Nader by voting for an unknown quantity, Barack Obama, a kiss-ass corporate lawyer. He was never going to do the right thing, unless you mean right-wing, meaning in the service of money and power. Ten year olds saw this shit coming, it wasn't hard to miss. No, you fucked up, all of you, because you go for the name brand first rather than looking at someone for what they really are. He's like Lincoln alright, not FDR.

But none of this really matters. The system is going to keep crashing, again and again, dragging your asses firmly down to earth, grounding you whether you like it or not. I'm the kind of person who's going to get a lot of entertainment value out of this, watching smarmy, spoiled assholes suffer for a change. God knows it's going to have been earned.

To my delight, you're going to learn the hard way: what the the social contract means; what a society is for; why we must work civilly through the legal system; that the free market system was always a tottering mess that was poised for eventual extinction; what "dumbshow" means; how "conventional wisdom" tends to be utter bullshit; why civic duty is supposed to be non-negotiable; how greedy and empty you are; how stupid you are; why you suck; how conceited you are; how you have almost no intellect whatsoever; why Johnny can't read; how you don't even know the very short history of your own country; what it takes to get you off your lazy asses.

It goes without saying that the vast majority of so-called conservatives fit this bill, but so do most mainstream Democratic voters. So you hated George W. Bush? Welcome to the club, but that doesn't mean you're not the same kind of slob, the same kind of drooling asshole. Nope, you are the same kind of asshole, quit fooling yourself.

Nader voters didn't spoil anything, it was assholes like you who think you can just pull a switch and everything's fine, fixed. History never, ever works that way, it's an endless struggle between the majority and concentrated power. There are no breaks in this, no respite, it's eternal, hence the term "eternal vigilance" coming from people like Thomas Jefferson and Paine, but not James Madison. Democracy isn't a microwaveable pizza. You spoiled the elections, not us. You should have voted for Ralph Nader, the best deal on-offer in the realm of third parties, since voting for Ron Paul is completely batshit crazy.

On the dumbbell parade (the 9/12) march numbers and your lazy asses

Washington D.C.--Was it 2 million, as many--uh--parade goers and their tax-cheat backers want us all to think? Nope. Not even close.

Reasonable estimates coming from the police and even the conservative Washington Times has it at around 70-75,000. That's not the real problem. The numbers don't mean anything, it's the sprawl of yelling zombies, spouting terms they never learned anything about in civics class: "Socialist!" Yet--and to underscore their extremism--Obama's in-the-pocket of big pharma and the insurance companies anyway. No, it's because he's black and that their party lost the election, the Republican Party, that other party of big business. Also, they're incredibly ignorant individuals who are easily swayed by the message of fear. That's what we call an idiot, incidentally, a fool.

And who's paying to cart all the tards around? The aforementioned big businessmen and women who declared war on the average person, and therefore, the social contract, long ago. America's sinking, but these morons are too stupid to see the man on the hill running everything into the ground. No, instead, it's the "niggers," the "faggots," phantasm-like "socialists" (yet they never refer to Sen. Bernie Sanders as one, and he is), "communists," and a lot of other terms that aren't applicable outside of science fiction and The Turner Diaries. What supporters (70% of the public, easily dwarfing these loud-mouthed dunces) of single payer are waiting for is beyond me, I guess they're all on Facebook fucking around...ahem. The fact is, these crazies at the town halls are the minority, they're just very loud and they have corporate backing in many cases, if not having been pushed there by these same faceless forces through propaganda. Yet, where's the majority? Something needs to be done, and done now about these yelling geriatrics and racists, these fools.

In other words, if you support single payer, you need to get off of your collective dead-asses and do this: go down to your congressional representative's office and hold a vigil, and not just for one day, for a long, long time if necessary. Write them and call them incessantly until they start doing what we--the majority--want them to do on health care. These jackapes are being scared and even paid to come out and threaten, yell, and intimidate the rest of us into apathy and silence and it's working. They are the minority, we are the majority, and we want socialized medicine. Period. There is nothing left to say after you know that statistic of 70%, and some stats are higher than that.

And young people: what the fuck are you assholes waiting for? Are you retarded? Stupid? I can assure you that you're not going to live forever. Just look at some of you coming back from the Middle East in body bags. And for what? Once again, to make some faceless investors richer. To do nothing about this and to just apathetically take it or buy into it is to be less than a slave. After that, one begins to deserve everything that flows-out of that arrangement. There literally are no words, because after that, widescale violence becomes inevitable with the collapse of the social contract, that agreement we all have to band together as a society to care for one another rather than to murder each other. What are societies for? I bet you cannot answer that question.

Now, that's how stupid you're all being by doing nothing. It doesn't get any lower than that.

But if you really want to get to the crux of this stupidity, it's the American South again, the old Confederacy of Dunces that was never able to function within a democracy and still isn't. If you look at the outlays of the elections since the American Civil War and the voting patterns that drag America into a jaded authoritarianism, it's the South doing it again and again and again. Stupid is as stupid does. We could very well end up with another Civil War, it will have been just as avoidable as the first, and the South will have created the majority of the mess once again. We're seeing the cost of this stupidity writ large and we will reap chaos and destruction from it if we don't start making this a participatory democracy. There's only one way to do it, we all know how, and it's time to get off our asses and into the town halls and the streets to counter these incredibly moronic assholes, there is no other way. Democracy isn't a microwaveable pizza. Do it, hit it, go, now. Quit playing with yourselves.

This whole deal is political theater to give you that golden opportunity to cop-out and do nothing--and I know full well you're all looking for it. Do it. Now. Go. Find your congressional representative's office this weekend and go to his office personally and tell them you want single payer. If they're not going to support it, tell them that not only are you not going to vote for them, but that you're going to campaign for their opponents, that you're going to tell all of your friends and family not to vote for them. Know someone who should run for office but hasn't ever bothered? Push them, get them to run as an independent who will support this agenda of single payer care for all. No excuses, do it. Do it now, otherwise you're also intellectually incapable of functioning in a democracy, and that's about as low as it gets.

Obama's in their pocket, it's about race, ignorance, unwarranted fear, and lost elections:

http://www.citizensforethics.org/file /20090904%20-%20Summary%20of%20Health%20Care%20Visits.pdf

Health care: where's my change?

The campaign trail--Where's my single-payer? 70% of the public wants it. After that, it's all confusion, lies, and political theater, there's nothing left to discuss. Enough of the smokescreen. We want single-payer, make it happen.

And to all these morons shouting everyone else down: we're on to you, and shut up and let the rest of us speak our minds. The president's so-called "deal" with the drug companies is a total sham, it will save a mere 2% on drug prices over ten years, something he's not willing to discuss in much detail. That's a honey deal.

Will he really allow the Bush II tax-cuts for the richest expire? As nutty as his decisions have been for the last few months, it wouldn't surprise me, one might be excused for thinking he and Congress were high. They just don't get that the profit-motive is what's destroying everything and that the public could use a break from unremitting social darwinist policies.

Sadly, President Obama is proving himself to be nothing more than another kiss-ass lawyer, for sale to the highest-bidder.

Postscript, 08.16.2009: This weekend, the White House is making their scripted move away from a public health care option. Why? Because they never intended to pass one. But no worries--the economy will just keep crashing, again and again. Then, at least, there won't be money for our bloated military and two illegal wars raging in the Middle East. Obama never intended to pass a public health care option, wake up, and regret you ever voted for him, because I didn't. Being naive isn't exactly being hopeful, is it? But ask any economist worth their salt, and they'll tell you that without any real leadership in reforming the economy, we're just never going to have a recovery. Believe it or not, I can live with that, so long as the rich lose it all too. I'm sure they will.

The health care "debate"

Washington D.C.--There isn't one. As a friend recently said to me (I'm paraphrasing him), "It's all political theater in Washington. This is a plutocracy. It's just fighting over who gets money from the lobbyists, the perks." I'd agree. With a solid 70% of the American public behind a single-payer health care system, the rest is just a game, show.

Some half-assed version of reform will make it through, the whole "blue dog democrats" issue is just another smokescreen, a diversion from the real power in the party in people like Rahm Emanuel (a creep and a corporate gangster if ever there was one), and while they're going to keep costs down for a time, it's not going to help fix the economy anytime soon. These morons are going to keep wrecking the system as their kind did in the 19th century when there was a depression ever few years. Then what? The economy--as we have come to think of it--is going to have that final crash where we really-and-truly do need another F.D.R. and there won't be one.

That's likely to come sooner, rather than later. This is a matter of Madisonian democracy versus Jeffersonian. Rule by a plutocratic elite, or actual democracy by the public. The new president is with the Madisonians.

While we keep watching the news turn into puerile entertainment at our expense, and we watch America becoming something unrecognizable, there is always another way: We the People. It's up to us to stop all the yammering over garbage issues like abortion, "9/11 was an inside job,""they're gonna take my guns away," and to recognize that no strong man is going to fix things and save (it never worked that way, not even with F.D.R.), look at what we all generally agree on that actually affects us directly, and push these idiots in Washington into a corner on health care, defense spending, the wars in the Middle East, global warming, and a host of pressing issues that can no longer wait for our attention. In other words, it's time to hit the streets, it's time to organize now and to demand very loudly that business-as-usual isn't going to cut it and that the party's over for the nihilistic clowns running our country into the ground.

A groundswell and widespread striking can do this.

The choice is ours and the time is now. To fail in these endeavors is to fail ourselves--and without putting America on some kind of pedestal--to fail humanity and to take the path towards doom and oblivion. That's it, there is no more left to say after that. The majority don't want the policies they're getting from Washington. To do nothing about this knowing you're hardly alone is completely irresponsible. If you want to convince yourself that because a few yammering morons are shouting down their fellow citizens at town hall meetings as evidence that you're isolated and alone on the issue(s), fine, you didn't need very much reason to cop-out. Your problem after that will be having to live with yourself, and rest assured, that problem will be your own. The time has come for America to grow-up as a nation.

The rest is just window-dressing to confuse and overwhelm you with a bunch of empty statistics and rhetorical flourishes that were skewed before the polling was ever conducted. The debate is a false one. There is no health care debate, it's one of the big lies.

"Twilight time" at Ford, with a dose of hope and wisdom

So I took my grandfather's old--old?!--2000 van cruiser to the dealer down the road for a recall fix (you don't want to know, but it includes the cruise control and the vehicle bursting into flames, even when it isn't running) early this morning, and it was almost what I expected: no customers, employees sitting around in the waiting room with me (cute girls!), salespeople and other staff walking around trying to look "busy" when it's obvious there's no way in hell that's going to be possible, and a few other of the depressing sights and sounds one might imagine walking into a car dealership in America these days.

Mind you that I took the van in just to have the recall work done, gratis (FREE). As you might expect, I waited while they did it and one the big-shots in the garage came back and asked if I wanted the whole-enchilada--check the brakes, blow out the transmission fluid, check the battery, change the oil, wash the van, kick the tires, etc., etc. . Naturally, I had my trusty credit card in-hand, the damage (to my finances) was going to be impressive, and it was!

After what seemed like at least a two hour wait (not bad), they were done with everything, no hassles, no worries. It felt great to finally have all this done, like a good early-morning dump, both invigorating and a little exhausting, but satisfying and a relief. Now, my van wouldn't suddenly burst into flames spontaneously on the highway or in our garage where it could spread to the house, maybe taking-out a few lawn chairs in the backyard, a squirrel, and maybe an errant opossum. That'll learn 'ya.

Ask any working-class American one of their greatest sources of frustration and anger besides their job or their boss, and they'll immediately home in on their car or truck. Frequently, it's an American-made vehicle like mine, a hand-me-down. For decades and decades--even back when Henry Ford was alive--the auto manufacturers were told by the public, by consumer advocacy groups, the government (but not much here), and everyone with a pulse, to make cars that were safer, more affordable, durable, got better gas mileage, and required very little maintenance. I know, I know--people need jobs, and I'm not going to begrudge that, but why not pay everyone properly? Wasn't that Henry Ford's idea?

Wasn't he an authoritarian nut, a Nazi-supporter? What does that make the latest brew of CEOs who have placed themselves on the extinction list as a class? They haven't believed that Americans should be paid a living-wage, never mind being able to actually afford their products. I know, that whole "logic" thing. The real problem, as usual, is the American obsession with work and the work ethic, a dysfunctional authoritarian division of labor, and greed. This no longer works...so?

Even the new president is overly-obsessed with work and it's a little worrying; but I feel assured that reality of current events is going to change him and his assumptions as it changes everyone else. More work is not always the answer, but a rethinking of productivity, wages, and the division of labor are. True, there is much work to be done getting a sustainable energy policy and economy (the same thing, really, something our intelligent president understands), but what after that? How will work be divided-up? Are we to tolerate more of the same old, same old regarding the policies of employers?

The president appears to be on the same page as working-class Americans here in his vocal support of the right to unionize, the right to collective bargaining that's implicit to a healthy democracy. This is all about the social contract, or what the Republicans and errant Democrats have debased it to. For every recall, every death caused by design-flaws done at the behest of profit and shareholders, and corporate executives, and for every breakdown that could have been avoided but was part of "planned obsolescence," the social contract was violated and discarded again and again. This was the fault of ownership and management, not the UAW, not any union, and not necessarily the consumer, although we have to make an exception with the SUV.

As I was signing the papers for the repairs and maintenance, a very smart, wise Black man shook his head in a chair across from us: "Yeah, Ford isn't going out of business...at least not right away. You know, if they would have just made cars that--maybe they wouldn't look great--didn't cost so much, but got good mileage and didn't need so much maintenance." He was an employee of the Ford dealership. His supervisor did nothing to contradict him, nothing at all. We all agreed, and I had a great talk with this man about the heart of all of this. Call me crazy if you like, but I've always had a greater rapport with Black Americans--they call it as they see it.

But today, at Ford, things have changed. Decorum has changed, and people are tired of towing-the-line for the big-shots, tired of keeping up appearances when it doesn't matter. I'd write that we need to do this and stop holding-our-tongues with employers when things no longer work, but that time passed long ago. Now comes the time to "fix" things, a time of incredible opportunities for working people...if they decide to be those squeaky-wheels that get oiled. We have an opportunity to rollback authoritarianism in the workplace like never before. If we fail to try we'll only have ourselves to blame.

Our children and their grandchildren will also blame us. They will be right. We can make things better, it's just a matter of will, the jaded-be-damned. Get moving, get organized.

The Indiana GOP's Laughable Obama Mailer on William Ayers

South Bend, Indiana--What do you do when your party has nothing to offer the public except more of the same corruption, pederasty, whore-mongering, ethical-lapses, and an unbending loyalty to the rich at the expense of the rest of the public? You keep beating the same drum, over-and-over again because you have no new ideas or agendas and never did. In that moronic indefatigable spirit, Indiana's GOP sent this piece-of-paper to me.

This isn't to say Barack Obama is perfect by a long-shot, but the connection to former Weathermen leader Bill Ayers is stretching things more than a little bit. The truth is, it's a blatant lie meant to squeeze the rest of that 9/11 fear out of a frightened minority of the public.

Recall that this piece is coming from someone who doesn't intend to vote for Barack Obama, but for Ralph Nader (a write-in, Madonna's...well, Madonna, though Mickey Mouse is a real person). That said, I don't have a problem with the majority of the Weathermen bombings, though the truth be known, their core leadership (people like Ayers and Dohrn) were all rich kids throwing a tantrum over their parents' war. Like their parents, they had--and probably still harbor--a lust for power, which they got a good taste of during their rampage.

But the United States was committing genocide in Southeast Asia at that time, violence against Black Americans over the Civil Rights movement was appalling and widespread, and the nation was in flames and divided as it had been during the Civil War. Today, one could argue forcefully that we're doing the same things in slow-motion in Iraq, and that the GOP is doing their best to neglect and disenfranchise Blacks. One would expect similar activitites as the Weathermen today, but welcome to the post-9/11 and Oklahoma City bombing world. Today, domestic terrorism is unlikely to come from a leftward-direction.

If you're an individual who sees these things for what they are--unspeakable crimes against humanity committed by our government for the benefit of giant corporations, you have some options.The choices are few and difficult: you could just try to go on with your life knowing what's really happening in another country in your name. If you have a conscience, this isn't going to be easy, but never underestimate the power of rationalization, it worked wonders in Germany under Hitler. One of them is what Ayers and the rest of them did during the Vietnam war, though I don't recommend doing so.

Another option is to back what's happening wholeheartedly, eventually becoming a party to the slaughter, if only indirectly. This is the easiest route, since most of society and its institutions are going to tell you constantly that this viewpoint is not only valid, but necessary for "the maintenance of our way of life." And isn't our way of life wonderful? You'll be rewarded for doing what's wrong in most cases, but it's even money you won't be punished...at least not by Americans.

Yet another option is to take the route of nonviolent civil disobedience to the war, not even allowing for the application of violence against property that serves the war's expediencies--property that makes the war possible at all, like supply-dumps, recruiting centers, military bases, defense research labs, defense contractors and their facilities, defense research labs at public universities, and-so-on. These were the kinds of targets that the Weathermen targeted, and their main goal was to destroy property only, not to target human beings. But they did want to instill fear and terror in those who supported and expedited the war in Southeast Asia, making them terrorists. They wanted to "spread the love," which I don't find morally wrong.

Ultimately, I don't advocate what Ayers and others in the Weathermen Group did during the 1960s-70s. They and a group that became the PLP (the ineffectual Maoist People's Labor Party) splintered the most effective progressive student political organizations, SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) America has likely ever known. That's not the issue. The issue is Obama's connection to Ayers, which is practically nonexistent. Times have changed, but the GOP doesn't appear to have noticed.

For example, the generation of new voters never lived through the red-baiting of the Cold War years, scarcely knows all the details of the 1960s, and doesn't really care at all. They just know things are fucked-up and that they don't make enough money to live on. No "socialism" there, just common sense by ordinary people. The kids don't want to hear about Bill Ayers. Neither do the majority of Americans who want to hear about what McCain and Palin plan to do to "fix" the economy and to stabilize it. Reform is in the air, but all candidate McCain can do is talk about Ayers. This is because he has no "plan" and no vision, and neither does the rest of his obsolete party (who said they were ever good? not I).

Imagine that: all the GOP has to sell is fear. That's not a good platform for needed change that the vast majority of the public now wants and is going to start demanding before long. But please, please keep banging that same drum until the bitter end. I know you will. In one week--at-minimum--you're going to lose a lot of seats in Congress. And, oh yeah: thanks Indiana GOP, I needed kindling to burn the rest of my trash out here in the country. Thanks.

If Bill Ayers was a threat to anyone during the 1960s-70s, it was himself and the rest of the Weathermen, a cop, and a janitor. He and his wife Bernadine Dohrn helped splinter most of the New Left, making it essentially impotent in-the-face of an escalating war under President Nixon. It's all reminiscent of what Pier Paolo Pasolini said about the student riots in Paris during the Spring of 1968. "It's an internecine struggle." said the radical Italian Communist, poet, philosopher, movie director, and general polymath. Pasolini was right about Europe--and unwittingly--about people like the Weathermen. Ayers and Dohrn came from privileged-backgrounds. While underclass radicals went to prison in the 1970s-80s, Ayers and Dohrn were allowed into academia. Maybe that's why they do so much community work today. They should for the rest of their lives, they owe us and their comrades in our prison system.

This Republican mailer below omits quite a bit. If you were ignorant of the facts--as most Hoosiers are--you'd think Ayers met Obama right after he stopped bombing and turned himself in alongside his wife in 1980. Obama was a blip at that time, a nobody.

Barack Obama a radical Leftist? Take it from someone who actually is: that's a laugh. If only he was a Fred Hampton, a Malcolm X, or a Martin Luther King Jr. The fact is, he isn't. If....

Breaking news (OK, it's old): "Obama girl" for Nader and ruminations on the Cult of Personality

The Campaign Trail of Hope(?)--Obama girl has changed her mind on Barack over the last few months, and she's not alone.

Neither major party candidate is addressing the current financial crisis in any substantial or concrete terms, just more of the same. For this reason and all the numerous others, it's time to build a strong third party movement in America, and it has been a long time coming.

Though attempts at this during the Great Depression didn't pan-out, the voice of the people was heard loud and clear through the protest vote. The message remained clear, even after being filtered through the tragically flawed "pundits" and "Populist" leaders of that time, like the Catholic Father Charles E. Coughlin, Huey Long, and Dr. Francis E. Townsend.

Coughlin was a Catholic priest who preached a kind of peculiar social liberation gospel out of Northern Michigan and had a radio show from which he railed against Wall Street after the great crash of 1929. Long was an utterly corrupt Governor of Louisiana (though he did deliver social programs better than most states, even bettering the federal government's) who was dead by an assassin's bullet by 1935, and Dr. Townsend was a retired Doctor who found himself 66 and destitute during the Great Depression. After a long period of lecturing for aid to the elderly, Townsend actually had some real success with the creation of Social Security for the elderly. Millions listened to his radio broadcasts on the economic crisis and the government's inaction, and sent his organization large amounts of money as they did with Long and Coughlin. But these weren't perfect men by any means.

The others succumbed to their own egos in some way or another and became what is commonly known as "demagogues," which is much like accusing someone of yelling fire in a crowded theater. You might cause a stampede. But were they rabble rousers trying to fan the flames of hysteria in-the-midst of the Great Depression and the government's inaction under Herbert Hoover? Yes and no, though--like everything else--it's down to one's political opinions and persuasion where you come down on their methods and rhetoric. The fact is, people were angry and confused just as they are today and wanted some voice of reason, or any voice, that echoed their concerns and offered proposals to fix the economy. Not being genius material, these very famous men were really just channels for the feelings and ideas of the public during hard times, lifted-up by the masses to address and convey what the public wanted.

After all, here are no supermen coming to save us, and the public is the solution. As then, we're trying hard not to learn this, but we might succeed despite ourselves in improving our lives when this all blows over. When we no longer need them, we discard the so-called "strong men," because we should.

Predicably, Coughlin tended to go with whatever the trends of the day happened to be at the moment on his radio show, a program that was heard by as many as 40 million at its peak. In some respects, the "radio priest" whose broadcasts and sermons originated out of Royal Oak, Michigan, resembles today's Michael Moore who uses the mainstream media to spread the message of a socially progressive agenda. But that's where the comparisons end. [Ed., 10.25.2008--Both men have roots in Canada. Coughlin was originally from there, while Moore has Canadian relatives.]

Charles E. Coughlin was the same kind of disappointing blend of Jew-baiter and hypocrite as many of the Populists of the 1890s had been (my own great-great grandfather possibly being one). To be certain, the radio priest was a reactionary fascist who made a fortune from his radio broadcasts against Wall Street and the rest of big business--and then promptly invested in it. The irony is that without much of his agitating--and the agitating of the other Populists and the Left--against the Roosevelt administration and Congress, a number of important pieces of social legislation might never have gone anywhere. Bad times open-up these kinds of opportunities, and nothing comes from power without a demand, even when the messengers are wrong-headed boobs.

Coughlin, who claimed to have confronted the KKK for their acts of anti-Catholic violence degenerated into--or was revealed to be--a rabid anti-Semite and a hypocrite, finally embracing Hitler and National Socialism in Germany by the late-1930s. He was far from alone in this, and shared this opinion of fascism with that of the business class of his day. One of them was the grandfather of George W. Bush. After Pearl Harbor, nobody wanted to listen to the radio priest anymore. His Union Party and the Populist convention that converged in 1936 couldn't agree on much, his popularity was waning due to revelations of his own large-holdings on the Wall Street he railed against, and with the assassination of Huey Long, the momentum for a viable Populist Party had stalled once again (an 1896 attempt had also failed). But then, there's the fact that change sometimes occurs on-accident, but that's life. Long was larger-than-life.

As should be clear by now, Huey Long ran the state of Louisiana like a dictator. Yet Long began what was the template for massive public works programs in the state and went as far as to levy heavy taxes on the oil companies drilling off the shores of the Gulf state. Imagine a politician doing this today, because you're going to have to. At one point, Long was both the governor and a senator of and to Louisiana. Many in and out of Louisiana thought he was a run amok demagogue who had to be stopped.

To say that Huey Long was flamboyant would be an understatement, and the governor used the medium of radio and speechmaking as well as Coughlin and FDR, if not better. Eventually, his growing power and fame would put him in an adversarial position with the president and many others. Ironically, the Louisiana governor was a longtime supporter of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, but his own aspirations for the White House severed the ties between them. In 1934, Long created the "Share-our-Wealth Society," a political organization that was supported by tens-of-millions like Coughlin's and Townsend's own groups. When Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama mentioned the term "share-our-wealth," he was referring to Long in an oblique way.

Long stated in an April, 1935 radio address:

Now in the third year of his administration, we find more of our people unemployed than at any other time. We find our houses empty and our people hungry, many of them half-clothed and many of them not clothed at all.
Mr. Hopkins announced twenty-two millions on the dole, a new high-water mark in that particular sum, a few weeks ago. We find not only the people going further into debt, but that the United States is going further into debt. The states are going further into debt, and the cities and towns are even going into bankruptcy. The condition has become deplorable. Instead of his promises, the only remedy that Mr. Roosevelt has prescribed is to borrow more money if he can and to go further into debt. The last move was to borrow $5 billion more on which we must pay interest for the balance of our lifetimes, and probably during the lifetime of our children. And with it all, there stalks a slimy specter of want, hunger, destitution, and pestilence, all because of the fact that in the land of too much and of too much to wear, our president has failed in his promise to have these necessities of life distributed into the hands of the people who have need of them. (http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/5109/)

It all sounds very familiar, even timely to our present crisis. Long was dead not long after the broadcast, and it had been hoped that he would be part of a coalition with Townsend, Coughlin, and other progressive groups fighting for social programs to fix a broken nation and economy. With the exception of Huey Long, none of these men ever held public office and were generally off the public stage by the end of the 1930s. Their dreams--and the dreams of the tens-of-millions of Americans who backed them--of a unified national Populist Party--were dashed on the rocks.

Yet, things changed in the several of the directions they had pushed, and they influenced the public dialogue for a badly needed social agenda during an unprecedented economic crisis. It wasn't just FDR or Congress that created the New Deal. It was the American people, speaking through these horribly imperfect men, who achieved the Social Security programs, the public works programs that brought people out of widespread unemployment and poverty, who created progressive taxation, who unionized the workplaces of predatory and exploitative employers, and who helped civilize this society in ways their ancestors would have thought unthinkable.

But where does Ralph Nader fit into this? Why should he run at all if he doesn't have much of a chance of winning?

Things change, and contexts change. We're in a threshold moment in our history where things are never going to be the same ever again. These moments hold incredible opportunities that must be acted on by the public if they want them to go in a constructive direction for all. Some of the infrastructure is already here with the internet, but we must begin rebuilding social-networks based on trust and friendship. The day of "me first, and only me" is coming to a crashing end, and only by banding together and helping one another will we come out the other end with a nation worth living in and defending.

"Obama girl" isn't a girl at all, but a woman. She's grown-up and understands that the two party system is going to fail us without some very hard shoves. For this reason, she--like myself and many others--will be supporting our most responsible public citizen, Ralph Nader. Because, you don't always have to "win," but you have to pressure the people in Washington endlessly to do what you want them to do for the good of everyone. Hint: you don't ask. Trust is important, foster it in yourself and others. Have someone else's back. Smile. Make a friend. Open a door for an old lady. Give people the right-of-way. Treat others as you would like to be treated. That's the social contract, and it's time to retake the political process in this country. Why Nader? Why not? People like Ralph Nader are here to push the politicians to serve the public.

The myth is that Nader's the "spoiler" of the 2000 election, which is a lie and holds an anti-democratic attitude that deserves no quarter. Democrats should remember that the Republicans are working hard to attempt stealing this election as they have done so for a very long time. But there's a catch: it has to be close. That's also not Ralph Nader's fault, but the fault of the electorate for choosing poorly, especially when they vote Republican, truly the party of crime and corruption.

Vote with your heart and your mind, but also with your conscience. Don't ignore the warning-signs of a candidate, and remember that you're going to hold them accountable once they're in office. The last eight years is the cost of apathy and indifference in these areas.


Postscript, 10.25.2008: The best thing to remember with Nader is that he's also a person-of-color, an Arab-American, and one of the finest examples of the positive-effects of immigration for America. His parents were Lebanese. I will be voting for another historically unprecedented candidate besides Obama. Who's done more for America? Obama or Ralph Nader? It wouldn't matter who it was--don't listen to me--a voter--and you're going to be out. That includes Ralph Nader, or anyone else.

Political labels: The Great Shell-Game

WWW--I know that there are many of us in America who are never going to see eye-to-eye. That's expected. That's not what this is about.

Words like "conservative," "liberal," "left," "right," "centrist," "Republican," "Democrat," "anarchist," "communist," "Libertarian," "reactionary," "socialist," "feminist," "pro-life," "pro-choice"--they don't mean anything anymore, especially when you have monolithic corporations lording over our lives.

They and their allies in the press and the media have used such words against the American public for over a century to divide us for the ends of concentrated, run amok wealth.

Why do they do this? Because, at the end of the day, we all want a better society that caters to our basic needs, and not the wants of the big guys, the big money.

I extend my hand out to everyone who wants to make this a more livable and tolerant society where the American people control the direction of this society, not a narrow-group of the selfish and the power-mad.

That's right: traditional conservatives, I am your friend. Republicans who understand this--I am also your friend. Communists too. Feminists, the Hispanic community, Black Americans, Jews, immigrants, the elderly, young voters, and-so-on. Democrats who get this, I am also your friend. The fighting amongst ourselves is beginning to end. Libertarians, and all of the rest--the same applies. We all have the same enemy, and it is Wall Street and globalization.

We owe it to ourselves, and to future generations to work towards a genuine solidarity with each other. We owe it to the world to be a good neighbor, and to stop meddling with the lives of innocent people thousands of miles away. Am I suggesting isolationism as part of our foreign policy? Absolutely. It has to stop. We owe it to the children, and we owe it to the spirit of the truth.

But besides all that, why should the public keep paying for a foreign policy they never asked for and isn't in their best interests monetarily? Any good traditional conservative would agree to this.

The greed and the dog eat dog attitudes must be dropped in this great nation, and the time for the great credo of beating our swords into plowshares has come. The great Populist call is being sounded once again, and it's time for the man in the street and in our rural communities to listen, to have that change-of-heart, and to act accordingly. We can make a better world, it's up to us. Let's roll.