♦

he interesting thing to me about the latest move by Senate Dems in using the "Nuclear Option" is the pundits reaction.  Dana Milbank's column today is "Yes, but...yes, but" all over the place.  Milbank acknowledges the Republican atrocities but can't quite forgive the Dems going all the way to changing the rules.

There is an old but notorious joke which my brother brought back from Mississippi's U of M where he went to school.  Seems there's a little black man minding his own business and a bunch of white crackers come along and begin to harass him.   Finding he does not respond to their abuse, they challenge him to a fight. After some time he finally agrees, very quietly, to fight against their champion who turns out to be twice his size.  They bet big money on their guy and against the small black guy.  The crackers are smiling wide as the white bully advances.  But the black man lashes out and with one punch knocks the big guy clean out.  He turns to the white men and asks for his winnings.  But the crackers yell, "No, no, that wasn't enough. We really meant two out of three times." and stuff like that.

This second match they tie the black man's hands behind his back and then sound the bell.  As the giant approaches, the black man, left with only one defense, kicks the giant in the cajones and the guy falls to the ground convulsing.  The black man hops over to the white crackers and asks for his winnings; but once again the whiteys scream and yell and demand one more fight.

This time they bury the black man in the ground up to his neck and pack the ground tight.  Then instead of a white man they release 6 mad dogs to run at the black man's head.  But as the dogs run up to him he somehow is able to bite each of the dogs' testicles clean off and all of the dogs whimper and die.  But the white men keep their distance and shake their fists, yelling, "Fight Fair, Niggah!"

If you guessed that the white crackers represent the Republicans you would be getting my meaning..        

fter years of consideration, meditation and deepest mentations, I must at last, if I am to be honest, say that the GOP and the values of the vast majority of its adherents, admirers who so self-identify with its principles that they count themselves as one among many, beings afflicted with the painful conditions of poverty, and addiction, just as the poor do; in fact, the poor are so confused by their own lack of information, despite plenty of opportunities for access to important information which might bring happiness that they constantly walk this path harming themselves unable to stop.

Certainly they are not possessed of happiness now, and have little chance of finding it.  They are like beings who are tortured by so deep an itch that when they come to their moment of wealth, instead of enjoying it, they scratch the itch in so frenzied a manner (which in itself leaves little opportunity for and peace and joy.) But instead, the poor and the wealthy alike are fed wrong information by the moneyed conservativeist purview, who are the root cause of all problems on earth.

The problem is that in lifetime after lifetime they never find happiness and have no way of handling their misery other than with overindulgence.  Much as one would like to have compassion for them the reality is that drag down civilization.  Having accrued large amounts of wealth, they feel it is their right to therefore wreak their own reflection on the planet.  Unhappily their reflections are ugly and devoid of grace and goodness.

When most our paths have been smoothed, especially by wealth, based on what we know of samsara, or the Matrix, the smoother the pathway the more rot is crumbling the roadway from underneath, even as we travel.

So what is the answer?

As the Buddha said:
Stop doing evil.
Do only what is good.

And do not think that because you wish to do good things that the Universe will let you.  No.  It takes a million small things, before you are allowed near the big things.  Until they fully understand the terror of their situation they will continue to avoid it --- until one day they die and all of that energy goes to the moon.

SSI & Transitioning from Type Zero Civilization to Type One

e need to expand Social Security and not reduce it, nor privatize it so that Wall Street criminals who wait like jackals can devour it.  President Obama seems always ready to cut Social Security before the Republican Leadership even asks for it.  

He puts it right on the table.  

If he does it even one more time, I, for one, will be happy to see him impeached.  He seems always ready to dance to the tune of the War Profiteers.  (Doesn't anybody see war profiteering as a bad thing anymore?) The Military Industrial Complex is an abomination.  And those work work there need to seek more gainful employment.  Otherwise, they, too, the little guys are enemies of humanity.  

They are pawns in the corporate zero sum game of backward looking exploitation of planetary resources. They are why we live in what is now being called the Type Zero Civilization and the little guys who work for them are willingly participating in the ruination of this planet for all time.  

Renowned scientist Michio Kaku, who has written extensively popularizing advanced ideas in physics, discusses, in the video below, the three major stellar civilizations. What is a Type One Civilization; a Type Two Civilization through Type Three Civilization?  And where do we here on this planet fit in?  

Our global civilization exploits our own natural resources a million times faster than they can be replaced.  

We are therefore a Type Zero Civilization.  

We are not even close to being a Type One Civilization.

Please play the video and listen carefully as Kaku discusses the various stellar and interstellar civilizations. You will begin to see how today's orgy of greed for money and power is not merely holding back this country, but is criminally endangering our planet and destroying humanity's bid for survival.  

It is obvious that such an accomodation as Social Security is actually a step along the way toward the transition from a near-jungle mentality which some are pleased to call civilization here on earth, to a Type One Civilization.  And so is Solar Energy, Wind Power, Geothermal energy, and the like.  And the consumption of natural resources such as oil and coal for burning to create energy are a fool's way to a destitute planet.  

This old school animalistic King of the Hill, chest beating, sort of civilization is a long ago worn out model worthy only of being dropped into the sewer of the legion of already dead planets.

Take, for example, a criminal outfit such as BP who has already fouled one previously beautiful ocean, not to mention the other oil and gas and coal corporations, and tell me why they are they not in jail?  I know the usual answer.  They are the rich and powerful corporations; and people like me are considered outsiders --- to say the least, if not total lunatic fringe, wishing for Utopia.  

The problem is that there isn't any more time to waste indulging the conservatives their ancient and not very satisfactory vision of civilization.  We are so much closer to extinguishing the possibility of human life surviving on this planet than conservatives can imagine.  They think there is all the time in the world and even if we do fuck things up badly and we already have done, some ingenious soul of a scientist or conservative engineer will come along and fix everything.  

This is a foolish Utopian dream.

The time has arrived for the visionaries to step forward.  Only they can lead humankind into a sustainable  future.         

§

§

Click to Enlarge Image



Expand Social Security infographic via Democracy for America

Edward Snowden, Barak Obama, and the TPP

The Obama White House has confirmed that there will be no pardon for Edward Snowden despite the fact that he did the American people a big favor when he blew the Whistle on the NSA's secret surveillance of the American people.  White House officials are calling his actions unlawful and suggesting that he should come back to this country so they can brand him as a traitor and then murder him.  Just a little vengeance; that's all they want.  Seems awfully unreasonable of Ed boy to not give them their Dog and Pony Show.

Well, in a word --- no.

What the American people see is that Snowden really is a hero no matter how hard the Republicans try to paint him with the "traitor" brush.  No doubt should he return of his own free will, they will dig up many other and far more odious actions from his "past".  It is just the way they operate when they've been caught with their pants down and their hands in the cookie jar.  Look at the legislators who wear the biggest, and ugliest snarls on their public faces.  Most are Republicans.  Lindsay Graham, for one, can't seem to keep his mouth shut about just about everything anyway.  Then there's the ever treacherous Diane Feinstein, who is  ostensibly a Democratic Senator.  What a blessing it would have been for Americans if only Feinstein had been replaced in the last election by her much more liberal opponent.  Indeed, I think of Feinstein as a DINO, (Democrat In Name Only) the Democratic counterpart of the Republican RINO.

Given all of this, our Democratic president should have been, if not ecstatic, then certainly happy to have discovered the top secret programs which the NSA lied about so blatantly.  First, James Clapper lied to the United States Congress during their investigation of said surveillance, saying that there were no such programs; and when it was no longer possible to lie about it, then he lied about how very effective those secret programs which didn't exist really were.  And rather than being punished for lying outright to Congress, which carries a very heavy punishment and is properly called contempt, he's been kicked upstairs, instead, to a more responsible position, which, by the by, gives him total oversight of the secret federal agencies, such as the NSA, CIA, and the FBI, and more.

How do we know this?

Because we know that President Obama has promised him that position of Surveillance of the American People Czar.

Now, we arrive at the bigger questions; namely,

why did Obama make such a promise to Clapper.

And why does the president and the Congressional Republicans want to wreak vengeance on such a little guy by the name of Edward Snowden?

Could it be that they are, collectively, the traitors to We, The People of these United States?  Could it be, unthinkable as it sounds on the surface, the very traitor which they accuse him of being?

And how does the TPP, the Trans Pacific Partnership enter into this?

There will be more of this essay soon.

    

Who are the Republicans?

The IRS, who weighs heavily, and often with savagery, on the poor, whose tax burden is in excess of 11 % of their income, so that even the working poor, and the average husband and wife, each working at two or three jobs can never get ahead, and on the middle class, who shell out more than 6% of their income to the IRS, but the tax guys look the other way when it comes to making the rich pay up.  This is despite the fact that the rich pay less than 2% of their income in taxes, to begin with.  And the stalwart Republicans, the GOP, who now are holding the American people hostage, for the purpose of negotiating with Obama to take even more money away from Main Street to put into the hands of the 1% elites and on Wall Street.  The yokels are the step'n'fetch it boys for the rich ---

Ah!  the Rich, whose hideous tragedy is that they just don't seem ever to have quite enough money --- so would we all mind terribly looking the other way while they help themselves to ours --- just to make the likes of David A. Koch and his brother Charles, the Koch brothers, don'chya know, dry their their eyes of bitter tears and smile, darn ya, smile!

My fervent wish is that the people of America would stop making the Koch brothers and their pals, (for a list of their pals, click here so happy.  Simply giving up with a sigh, as my parents did, with a wispy smile and resignation in their hearts, saying, "Well, that's the way life is, what can you do?"

You can imagine that your children are starving and get off your ass and take charge of your life.  That's one thing you could do.  You could join with others who are oppressed and take charge of your lives.

Finally, since all you did when Occupy Wall Street was going was criticize them for being unwashed and wondering where they went to the bathroom, you could lend a hand.  And revive Occupy The Planet.

You could begin writing letters to the editors of your local newspaper's Op-Ed page.  And write with fire and poison in your pen!  Or you could donate to progressive causes which are online all over the place.

Or you could become a serf!  And your children and their children will thank you for being a piece of shit wimp!

Obama's War On Freedom of the Press

The Obama Whitehouse once again demonstrated that Obama is the enemy of democracy, an enthusiastic  violator of First Amendment freedom of the press, and a cocksucker of and for the plutocracy.  What it also says is that the skirmishes with the GOP driven House of Representatives, his battles with John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are nothing but outer theater.  A dog and pony show for the masses.

The release of Yemeni journalist Abdulalelah Haider Shaye has not made the Whitehouse happy.  Shaye has already served 2 years in Yemeni prison as a political prisoner.  His crime?

Telling the truth.

When telling the truth entails a blatant disregard for career and money, it becomes an act of Civil Disobedience in this money mad culture we now find ourselves in.  

More Agitprop Against Critics of Surveillance State

uth Marcus's current column, which, btw, The Oregonian gave pride of place today, on the Op-Ed page, is one of the, well, I was going to say worst, but on second thought, let's say most transparently propagandistic pieces of nonsense I've read in many a day.  "Snowden's No Hero"  the headline reads.  Marcus is no doubt aware that Snowden has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Wonderful idea! I'd say.

Speaking from her megaphone at the Washington Post, her article appears an arrow aimed at puncturing any such design.  What I see is the White House sending signals of displeasure at the notion that the same committee that made such a gross blunder when they awarded Obama that very award in 2008, might try to over correct by awarding it to a real hero.

As if to display her liberal creds, she uses Martin Luther King as an example of how a hero ought to proceed.  She quotes MLK extensively.  But she disregards the reality that civil rights concerning the black community was more than forty years ago and worlds away from this issue.  There is no model for how to be heroic in this era of very high-tek.  This world is dominated by the likes of Booz Allen Hamilton --- a giant hi-tech surveillance contractor who is accustomed to getting those no-bid multi-billion dollar contracts from the NSA.

Even here, the way to truth is to follow the money.  And the money leads directly to Booz Allen's door. And to Barack Obama's door.  Obama garnered well over a hundred and forty seven thou from Booz Allen alone. Not to mention very generous donations to Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney, and John Kerry campaigns among a host of other very well known politicians too numerous to name here. For an excellent discussion of the intimate, nay, cozy relationship between NSA and Booz Allen Hamilton, as well as both political parties, see the well documented article by David Sirota

"Simply put," Sirota says, "there are huge corporate forces with a vested financial interest in making sure the debate over security is tilted toward the surveillance state and against the critics of that surveillance state."

In describing heroic action, Marcus mentions Socrates, actually Plato's evocation of him in the Crito, where Socrates refutes Crito's plea to escape prison and death.  She mentions this as a way to show Snowden isn't really a hero because he is unwilling to hang around and accept a corrupt government's prosecution against him.

I have referred to the same dialogue, the Crito, to contrast the philosophy and actions of Ayn Rand with those of a real philosopher, namely, Socrates.  Rand railed against the philosophical underpinnings which helped to create Social Security and Medicare.  Then she availed herself of both at the end.  Rand was not a hero, by any stretch, nor even, when you hold her up to Socrates, a decent philosopher.  She was a hypocrite.  A nothing.  Not worthy of mention.

Marcus mentions Socrates, but avoids the name of Thomas Drake.  Drake did his best to alert the NSA and the CIA, and the FBI, and finally Congress about the threat of an attack on the World Trad Center on 9/11.  Thomas Drake was thanked by being fired from his job, his name deliberately smeared, and threatened with imprisonment, for his trouble.

The Real Criminal Class

he Psychology department at U of CA at Berkeley has added a big exclamation point to the long held poetic suspicion that the rich are rotten to the core and the poor are inherently more virtuous, more compassionate and more giving.  I must add that I have seen evidence of this sort of behavior and now this data merely confirms what we've all, folk wisdom people and poets and playwrights, always known. Now comes the latest and very conclusive results that the richer they are the more likely they are to steal candy from a baby.

Literally,

Steal candy from a baby.

Remember this is based on a thorough research study for nearly a decade.  But as far as I can tell, this experiment is far from the first study to show sad and dramatic differences in the ethical and moral differences between rich and poor.

And as far as I am concerned, there is the same difference between Republican and Progressive.  If you have a hard time with my findings you can set up your own experiments.  I have set up and completed my own research.  One cannot help but notice that Republicans are far more likely to lie, to cheat, and to bully, than Progressives.  Not that all Progressives are perfect models of virtue all the time, but the likelihood of a conservative evincing rude behavior among his or her perceived inferiors, whether they were actually inferior or not is huge.  This set of observations runs side by side with Lord Acton's famous dictum that "Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely." 

Strange.  You would think it was just the reverse.  That those with plenty would be more liberal and more virtuous while the poor would wish to conserve more stringently and not help out their neighbor.  But the American Taliban, the Evangelical Christians many of whom make up significant portion of the Tea Party, are the least virtuous, most hypocritical and un-Christlike, bigoted, slanderous and judgmental of any group in America. In other words --- rich conservatives are human trash.

And that is not to say that all Republicans are appalling snobs.  Mostly it seems to be the richest and the loudest.  The leadership.  The broadcast voices: The Rushes.  The Michael Savages.  The Lars Larsens.

Big Voices, tiny men --- moral midgets, really.

And by wealthy we are speaking of relatively modest income, such as one hundred fifty to two hundred thousand dollars a year.  A pittance compared to Wall Street banksters who pull down 20, 40 60, million a business quarter.

*  *  *  *  *

We cannot forget that we have a list of men of immense wealth, billionaires, who have chosen to act as a force for good at the very least in their community, if not the entire planet.  But  and really, though those who do add their names to the list of great generosity, the studies show they tend to live longer and to be healthier, and get a better night's sleep, and generally report happier lives, than their stingier colleagues, the rich are, nevertheless, rather slow to add their names.  

Why Clock Has Run Out For Obama As "The Good Guy"

on't get me wrong.  I voted for President Obama not once but twice.  He was so anti-Romney and Romney was never a possibility as far as I am concerned.  He leaned over backward to establish himself as a member of the elite.  The traitorous 1%.

He promised to dismantle PBS for Chrissakes.

That may have been the remark which finally tore it among voters.  Single parent moms, still on the fence, no longer able to sit their child in front of the tube to watch Sesame Street, would have heard that and run over to Democratic Headquarters to work the phone banks on behalf of Obama. Something they never would have done before that remark.

But now...

Obama has done nothing in this term to suggest that he is a free and independent agent, and not a puppet of the Fascist MIC (Military Industrial Complex) warmongers and war profiteers, among other giant corporations, GE, maker of weapons;  Haliburton, always waiting in the wings to slurp up those multi-billion dollar no-bid contracts, and then deliver a toxic or near toxic and dramatically inferior product to our boys on the front lines.  Lockheed;  Boeing;  Bechtel; it is a long ugly list and they all appear to have Barry in their collective back pocket.

The Drone assassination policy is beneath contempt.  It moves the president into the category of War Criminal.  ( "If the president does it it is not a crime."  Richard Millhouse Nixon) Actually it is a crime and Nixon was forced to resign for crimes which now look like patty-cake compared to the nasty shit BushBama has been up to.

The NSA AND FBI revelations of the past several months --- and really going back to the Bush Administration are going to need serious public conversation.  And that conversation, given that we are allowed to have it, may lead to the total dismantling of the Federal Government.  And it may end up with the voting citizens of the US having to write a new Constitutional Amendment, protecting citizen privacy, or else we toss the whole maghilla and start over from scratch   We can thank the Bush-wipes for initiating the process of shredding of Constitutionally guaranteed civil Rights.  But then too we need to throw out several traitorous members of the Supreme Court, as well:  Starting with Antonin Scalia, moving on (and downward) to Clarence "Ding-Dong" Thomas, but not forgetting Alito.  These men have consistently erred in their judgment and decisions.  And these were not merely simple-minded errors or lapses.

They show a consistent trend of sympathy toward dark fascist forces embodied in the current crop of Corporations who have committed the treason of buying off the United States Congress, and apparently --- the Department of Justice, the Supreme Court, and now there is little doubt, the presidency.

This last is truly crushing.  We seemed to have a friend on the side of reason, intelligence and up-rightness.  But we forgot something huge:

Obama's background as a racketeer in Chicago.

When his buddy-buddy bromance with Rahm Emmanuel, now, mayor of Chicago, threatened to be exposed, he cast off Rahm like a soiled pair of shorts.  There was an expose of their exploits on the Internet oh, about 3 years ago.  It isn't there now.  But it cast serious shadow on their adventures at a certain gay bath house.  And let us not get into how corrupt the politics of Chicago is, historically.  Suffice it to say that the office of mayor under Rahm is a touch and go affair.  Even given the scalding corruption of Chicago's City Hall, the voters in that city deem Rahm one of the worst mayors ever.

Yet knowing all of this I voted for Obama again.  I don't care if the two of them fucking lived in bath houses.  I care only about the welfare of this country.  And the gay/str8 duality or polarity has no bearing in foreign policy. Or domestic policy at that.  In fact, I would welcome a gay president with open arms.

But it seems a very difficult battle.  Here is a quote from Bill Moyers blog:

Simply put there are huge corporate forces with a vested financial interest in making sure the debate over security is tilted toward the surveillance state and against critics of that surveillance state.  In practice that means when those corporations spend big money on campaign contributions, they aren't just buying votes for a particular contract.  They are also implicitly buying those politicians rhetoric to push the discourse in a pro-surveillance, anti-civil liberties direction -- that is, in a direction that preserves the larger political assumptions on which the profits of the entire surveillance-industrial complex are based.
The overweening success of that pressure is exemplified by the title of yesterday's congressional hearing with the head of the NSA, Gen. Keith Alexander.  The hearing doesn't ask why Alexander lied to Congress or whether the NSA has engaged in illegal acts.  No, a Congress bankrolled by by corporations like Booz, Allen predictably calls the hearing "How disclosed NSA Programs Protect Americans & Why Disclosure Aids Our Adversaries"

The two lies, by now, have assumed the proportions of unspoken assumptions in the national discourse are these:  1. That surveillance by firms such as Booz, 1) protects Americans.  and 2) Ensure that anybody who criticizes that Security State is hurting Americans and Aiding and abetting our enemies.

Thus, it finally becomes clear why politicans have been so vocal making such outrageous statements about Edward Snowden.  Even more than the furor over the expose of the fact that the entire war in Viet Nam was based entirely on lies, by Daniel Ellsburg.  We can begin to understand that the most outspoken of these, Peter King, and John McCain, among many voices, including the Obama White House, the louder more scurrilous the invective, the more deeply that person is indebted to Booz, Allen and their ilk.

Do you see now why it is absolutely imperitive that the Federal government interfere with and ultimately through the classified provisions of the Trans-Pacific-Partnership assume the role of Big Brother.  And please feel free to question why such provisions are so classified!   Even Alan Grayson, who finally twisted enough arms that he was allowed to read through the highly classified documents of the TPP, was sworn to such secrecy that he would go to jail if he divulged a word of what he found.  Suffice it to say, he thought it so anti-public interest that he vowed to fight it all the way, tooth and nail, as is said.

So why is the rest of Amerika so easy to put to sleep.

Where is the fight?  

The Military's Humiliation: Railroading Bradley Manning

A Kangaroo Court is a "mock court in which the principles of law and justice are disregarded or perverted."  It is essentially where the defendant has already been deemed guilty and has little if any opportunities to object or defend himself. Merriam-Webster Dictionary.  

For a definitive demonstration of how corrupt our government has become, along with the NSA's data collecting of private citizen's communications, NDAA, (National Defense Authorization Act) and the equally infamous PPT (Pacific Partnership Treaty), we need only to view the "trial" of Bradley Manning.  The military has always been famous for its affinity for kangaroo court style of justice.  But in this trial with the entire world watching, the military seems downright proud of its stupidities, its mandacity, or lack of truth, and its perversion of real justice.

Whereas in real life anyone in a position of power would be embarrassed to allow it known how truly similar its court, lawyers and especially the judge is to Killer Klowns, the Manning trial officials strut their nonsense with aplomb.  As if they were genuine human beings instead of the pigs they actually more truly resemble.

The fact that Manning may have set off an unstoppable series of events in which Honest to Buddha's truth has come to be known to the American people instead of the entire multi-layered tapestries of lies we've become accustomed to.  In our blithe naive way.

After all, the public has been groomed to lay down and roll over by the corporations.  The fact that they might stand up and begin to demand change is threatening to our government.  And NO! The president is not our friend.  Barry is little more than the delivery boy for the corporate state.  When Monsanto et al says jump, he wants to know "How high?"  So naturally they hate whistleblowers.

But what they forgot is that Everything Changes --- all the time.  Especially when your aim is Profit at the expense of humanity, the planet earth, Truth, Decency, and the entire Universe.

I am here to tell you, if you didn't know, whatever happens to Bradley Manning, he is a hero to us all.  And to the corporate state.  And the military courts.  They will ultimately have to look at them selves in the mirror of history.  Let us hope that they care to see beauty and freedom and Justice.  And not rejoice at the sight of themselves as the envoys of the animal kingdom.

Spiders In Your Food

enetically Modified Foods.  The very phrase, which speaks of spiders' DNA being inserted into soybeans, or fish DNA into corn, to name two methods, strikes terror into the heart of knowledgeable consumers.  No wonder science itself, is losing its once inviolate name to draw back the curtain of ignorance, to reveal truth upon greater truth, is now being stained by "scientists" whose every work brings further betrayal upon humanity.

Eight bills dealing with the highly volatile GMO issue are about to be debated in the Oregon Legislature.  True, there was a big moment in California, when voters suddenly turned in upon their own best interest and defeated the motion to label GMOs.  But then too, there was Monsanto spreading huge amounts of money, buying everybody with the smallest amount of legislative power.  Not to mention the fact that the vote count was polluted and that issue, too, has never been satisfactorily resolved.  The polluters counted on time and distance to let the issue pass out of public scrutiny.

Monsanto is known to be extremely liberal in its buying of legislators and judges.  Beginning back with Canadian Farmer, Percy Schmeizer who attempted to sue Monsanto for polluting his crops.  The judge not only found for Monsanto but ordered Schmeizer to forfeit to Monsanto, his heritage seeds; seeds which had been cultivated for generations by his family.  Fortunately, Schmeizer had the good sense to fight the decision all the way up to the Canadian Supreme Court.  Unfortunately, Monsanto had not only fouled Schmeizer's crops, but had paid off every judge along the way to the Supreme Court.

The fouling of Justice is one of most tragic results of all this.

I am not so sure Schmeizer would have won were his case to come before the United States Supreme Court as the court is now structured.



It is simply not possible to be a thinking person, and do just a modicum of research on the subject of GMOs and still come down on Monsanto's side.  Consider: it is Monsanto, alone, which is responsible for the suicides of thousands of farmers in India.  That gross tragedy will have to be discussed in another essay.  Suffice it to say,  India has had to ban Monsanto from dealing at all in that country.  It is a sign of the corrupt era we live in that the American State Department has made sure that that story has never surfaced in America.  That is one of the more embarrassing stories posted on the whistleblower site, Wikileaks.  It also explains why so many at the top of the Obama administration want Julian Assange dead or alive.

If this vital issue should happen to lose in the Oregon legislature, we may soon be reading of bills in Congress which seek to protect the rights of rich people to buy legislatures and congresses.  Not to mention judges and newspapers.
      

Study shows: Wealth Lowers IQ,

n recent years, science and economic theory have learned several crucial points about the link between great wealth and low IQ.  First, great wealth seems to diminish intelligence or IQ.  And along the same lines, one of the important studies recently showed that very stupid people tend to be inordinately proud of their stupidity.  The Dunning-Kruger Effect.  The lower the IQ, the more the pride, and the louder and more persistent the braggadocio.  Did someone say Tea Party?

This explains a lot.

The Dunning Kruger Effect also works in reverse.  Very clever, skilled persons tend to be disconcertingly modest.  Especially about their own talents.  This does not seem to be false modesty.  Rather, it appears to plague one with self-doubt.

But for the moment, let's return to the correlation between IQ and Wealth.

It is the major thesis' of the 2002 book, IQ And The Wealth of Nations, by Richard Lynn, available at Amazon,  that a higher IQ is one of the main keys to earning great wealth.  But there's a big fat irony which then comes into play.  Having once accumulated this great wealth, one's IQ begins to diminish.  That's right.  The engine that got you there begins to fall apart.  And that is where the Dunning-Kruger effect enters.  John Cleese puts it in his own special way ::  "Truly stupid people will never know they are stupid." Why is it, do you suppose, that a truly stupid man never knows, and never will, that he is stupid, ox-like, and foolish in his pride.

Take your average Republican; a neo-con of today, for example.

I rest my case.

One thing which scares wealthy people, is that given a superior education and every opportunity, nobody can say with the least certainty from whence the next Einstein will arise.  If history is at all reliable, genius tends to arise out of poverty, just as easily, indeed, the advantage tends to reside with poverty, rather than privilege.    

The Bush Crime Family

know it is silly to still be fretting over the Bush Administration, but it really bothers me that this entire family, three generations of them, treasonous as the day is long at midsummer, got away with treason starting with Grand Dad Prescott's financial support of Hitler.  Prescott Bush was invested heavily in I.G Farben, who manufactured munitions and weaponry for Hitler's army.  

And then, George W. Bush, got so many of the Religious Right, the Evangelicals, especially in the flyover states, to support him.  And this support was not merely a casual sort of voter support of a candidate.  

No!  

This was loyalty such as we have not seen since peasants and knights loved and swore fealty to their king with a love that surpasseth understanding. This sort of thing is best illustrated by the woman in Ohio who said that if she saw George W. Bush take a gun and blow out her little boy's brains before her very eyes, she would still love that man. This huge support for a monster, who gave us torture, the illegal invasion of Iraq, is very disturbing. These Americans need to be shot for treason as well. With all generosity one might say, that such people did not know who they voted for.  That his appalling policies disgusted them. 

They could claim that the first time.

But they elected him a second time.

They are guilty and complicit as hell!    

But here is video in which a respected investigative journalist talks about what he found as hard evidence demonstrating the treasonous nature of the family.

Fascism and the Internet

he Federal Government is about to become your enemy.  The FBI has already shown itself to be working on behalf of the criminal banksters and against the 99%

1984 is the blueprint of a perfect society --- at least as far as the Fascists are concerned.  Why are the American people letting this happen?  View this video and do something about it or become a serf.