“Finance is a gun and politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.”

In the movie Godfather Part III Michael Corleone is trying to leave his mafia connections behind by moving his looted wealth into legitimate businesses. In a moment of candor Michael angrily tells his sister Connie, “The higher I go in society, the more crooked it becomes!”

With oil at $135.00 per barrel and gasoline approaching $5.00 per gallon, there has been a lot of Sturm und Drang among politicians over what is causing these prices. One thing is clear, explaining the entire mess as being due to supply and demand is simply insulting. The actual cause for high oil prices are many and involve a confluence of events that begin with that secret conference Vice President Cheney had with the energy industry during the spring of 2001. During those meetings Cheney agreed to rein in the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC). The CFTC is the federal agency that regulates oil trading. The CFTC in 2001 began exempting financial firms from rules that limit speculative buying. The CFTC has also waived regulations on U.S. investors who trade commodities on overseas markets, allowing them to accumulate large quantities of the future oil supply by making purchases on lightly regulated foreign exchanges. Oil futures are then bundled into securities and sold off to investors, mostly big banks and hedge funds.

After deregulating the oil futures market, Bush and Cheney conned the American people into the Iraq war and financed the war on borrowed money thereby weakening the dollar. Since oil is purchased on the international market in dollars, a weaken dollar drove the price of oil up. On top of all these high finance shenanigans, the Federal Reserve continued following it’s policy of low interest rates. Other central banks then drove up their interest rates in order to attract more investment in their currencies which further weaken the dollar. Then Saudi Arabia took a several hundred billion dollar drubbing in the United States sub-prime real estate market.
Finally, the Bush government is pumping millions of barrels of oil into the Strategic Oil Reserve (SOR). If Bush instead pumped out a million barrels per day over the entire summer, the SOR would by depleted by a mere 15% and oil prices would come way down.

Near the climax of the Godfather Part III, Don Lucchesi, interlocker of the Italian political establishment and the mafia, tells Michael Corleone’s bastard nephew Vincent Mancini, “Finance is a gun and politics is knowing when to pull the trigger.” In our America today George Bush and the political establishment are pulling the trigger but only a bang flag pops out.


June 2008

Hillary and Joe Lieberman

Traditionally only two political parties have dominated the competition for power in the United States . What most Americans don’t realize is that since 1985 a third political party has been vying for power and has actually won the Presidency of the United States. The American corporate media ignores this third party pretending that is is nothing more than a wing of one of the other parties. On the far right the Republican National Committee (RNC) dominates. In the center, because there are no viable left-wing social democratic political parties in the United States, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) rules the roost. In between, employing the strategy of “Triangulation” the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) has staked out its piece of the political landscape.

The present Chairman of the DLC is Harold Ford. Mr. Ford last year lost his bid to represent Tennessee in the United States Senate. Past DLC chairs reads like a whose-who of conservative democrats: Sam Nunn, Bill Clinton, John Breaux, Joseph Lieberman, Evan Bayh, and Tom Vilsack. Prominent national DLC members today include Max Baucus, Hillary Clinton, Kent Conrad, Byron Dorgan, Terry McAuliffe, John Edwards, Rahm Emanuel, Al Gore, and John Kerry. California DLC members are Juanita Millender-McDonald, Loretta Sanchez, Adam Schiff, Susan Davis, Cal Dooley, Ellen Tauscher, Gavin Newsom, Jane Harmon, Lois Copps, and Dianne Feinstein.

Paul Wellstone, criticizing the DLC said,"I'm from the democratic wing of the Democrat Party." According to Howard Dean, the present chair of the DNC, DLC operatives actively worked to sabotage his candidacy for the US Presidency in 2004. Senator Barack Obama opposes the DLC. In 2003, he discussed why his positions against NAFTA, the War in Iraq, and in support of universal healthcare were at odds with the DLC, saying that "...these positions make me an unlikely candidate for membership in the DLC. That is why I am not currently, nor have I ever been, a member of the DLC."

It was reported in the New York press last summer that Hillary Clinton quietly funneled money into fellow DLC’er Joe Lieberman’s successful campaign to become an Independent Democratic representing Connecticut in the U.S. Senate.
If Barack Obama becomes the DNC’s Presidential nominee, will he chose another DNC’er for Vice President or will he pick a DLC type? The answer to that question will tell us how unified the Democrats really are.

June 2008

P.S. Obama picked the DNC Joe Biden for his Vice President. After winning the election in November 2008, Obama stacked his cabinet and under secretariats with DLCer.

"an ass-kissing little chicken shit"

Robert Burns writing for the Associated Press in an articlepublish on January 5, 2007 confirmed “President Bush is putting the finishing touches on his new Iraq plan, reshuffling his military leadership in the war-torn country.” The President’s new Iraq plan known as the “Surge” would include an additional “...9,000 troops to be deployed to the Baghdad capital alone.” Gen. John Abizaid, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, and Gen. George Casey, the chief general in Iraq would be replaced by Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Pacific and Army Lt. Gen. David Petraeus, who headed the effort to train Iraqi security forces.

Writing in The Nation, Michael Klare reported on January 8, 2007 Gen. John Abizaid and Gen. George Casey were being replaced because they, “...had opposed an increase in US troops in Iraq and argued for shifting greater responsibility for the fighting to Iraq forces, thereby permitting a gradual American withdrawal....If engagement with Iran and Syria was even remotely on the agenda, Abizaid is exactly the man you'd want on the job at Centcom....if you're thinking instead of using force against Iran and/or Syria, then Admiral Fallon is exactly the man you'd want at Centcom.”

Nine months later Gareth Porter writing for Inter Press Service in an article titled “ Fallon Derided Petraeus, Opposed the Surge,” (9/12/2007) Porter writes Petraeus's superior, Admiral William Fallon, chief of the Central Command (CENTCOM), derided Petraeus as a sycophant during their first meeting in Baghdad last March. Fallon told Petraeus that he considered him to be "an ass-kissing little chicken shit" and added, "I hate people like that", Fallon further demonstrated his independence from the White House when he refused in February to go along with a proposal to send a third naval carrier task force to the Persian Gulf. Fallon also privately vowed that there would be no war against Iran on his watch, implying that he would quit rather than accept such a policy.
On March 11, 2008 The New York Times reported, “Adm. William J. Fallon, the top American commander in the Middle East is retiring early.”

On March 13, 2008 The U.S. Navy announced the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN 72) gets underway for a scheduled seven-month deployment to the 5th Fleet area of Operations.

May 2008

I Love Nuts

Fall is my favorite season of the year. Fall temperatures dip downward, the air gets dryer, and all the delicious foods growing over the summer are harvested and put on rainbow display in the markets. Fall triumphs in my favorite holiday, Thanksgiving, when family and friends gather. Thanksgiving doesn’t require presents to be exchanged or gaudy lights to be hung. Thanksgiving does softly encourage good food, good cheer, and good times to be shared by all. One of my favorite foods of the Fall season are nuts. Chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, Brazil nuts, every kind of nut, bags and bags of nuts, wonderful nuts, nuts, nuts!

While reading the letter section in the local newspaper last week I came across the opinions of Dennis Myer, Bill Welch, and Arthur Rice. I don’t know who these fellows are but they seem to be members of an ideological junta secretly meeting in a almond grove. Myers tells us our town should get rid of its zoning laws and let “property owners” (a euphemism for big Capitalist), ravage the country side in their pursuit of maximum profits because the abstract market place is far more important than the real live community and it’s “suffocating regulations.” Bill Welch, blows more smoke in our direction by skewering Limousine Liberals (as opposed to what, Limousine Reactionaries) for promoting government interference which may crimp the unfettered pursuit of profits by the “greed is good” Goebbelites. Arthur Rice, kicking up another pother, while at the same time running away from what passes as an intelligent argument and, instead, taking refuge in his delusions and sentimentalities, weeps copious crocodile tears because the “ultra liberals’ of Hollywood are responsible for 9-11, the collapse of the sub-prime market, the 9 trillion dollar national debt, religious fanaticism, and the disappearance of honey bees.

But if Rice bothered to read the publications and newspapers he accuses the rest of us of not reading, he would discover all of these troubles began when Hollywood’s Ronald Reagan and the cravenness George H.W. Bush got elected President and VP twenty seven years ago. Because Rice et.al. have blinded themselves by their own prejudices, they can’t see that by the end of that grotesque mediocrity known as George H. Bush’s term as President of these here United States, the Republican Party will have ruled this country twenty out of twenty eight years.

During the Fall I really hate it when I crack a nut open and find nothing inside.

October 2007

The Liberal Press

Essential elements of the liberal American press are hype, that is to say reporting without analyzing the pronouncements of elected leaders, framing all elections as horse races, and passing off fluff as news. So lets get real. The Dow Jones hit a high of 11,722.98 on January 14, 2000. The Dow Jones was finally able to exceed that number on October 3, 2006 when it closed at 11,727.34. The stock market has been flat for the last 6 years and 10 months increasing by 0.037 %. Where was all that speculative capital? A major part of it has been in the housing market. Now that the housing market has collapsed, capital is hold up in the stock market waiting for an opening in another market. Soon some other market somewhere will be invaded, pillaged, and left a tattered ruin.

The Republicans will retain control of the House and Senate. They will lose some seats but they will stay in control because the real agenda facing the nation requires the erosion of civil rights at home while the powers-that-be extend and firm up their grip on the rest of the world. Imperialism for the world and civil rights at home are incompatible because the same men are making both decisions and they are driven by power and wealth.

But, lets suppose the Democrats do take control of one or both houses. Have you heard anything from any national Democrat leader that tells you they will end the war? Remember in 1968 the American people changed horses in midstream on the promise of ending the Vietnam War and nothing changed as the war dragged on for 6 more years? Because Bush or Rice or Rumsfeld said it does not make it the truth. If you are trying to take over the world and suppress dissent at home, you are not going to be frank about that agenda, are you?

According to Bush, only 30,000 Iraqi’s have died since the invasion. But we now know more than 600,000 Iraqis are dead and Iraq is on schedule with the 2 million Vietnamese deaths during the Vietnam War. Comparing the Iraq War to the Vietnam War will arm the American people with information on the long standing murderous policies of our government. Instead we get the sexual deviancy of Congressmen Mark Foley . The Foley story is a diversion designed to deflect the attention of the American people much like a magician dramatically moves his right hand to draw attention away from the trick hand. The liberal American press entertains and tricks and is exceedingly profitable and not much else.


October 2006

Immigrants to America

Before I begin I have to point out that my mother is a post W.W.II German immigrant and my great-great grandparents on my father’s side immigrated to the United States from Italy in the 1870’s. Despite the fact that I was a fourth generation Italian American and a first generation German American, and despite the fact that I spoke German but I did not speak Italian, it was my Italian background that provoked anti-Italian remarks from my classmates at school and from stupid adults in my community. “What sound does sh*t make when it hits the wall?”Guinea, wop, dago, gumba, greaseball, and spic have always been part of my life in America. On the other hand, I have never-ever heard an immigrant make a disparaging remark about my heritage. The people who use words like wop and dago look exactly like the people I saw in the canyon this past weekend. So, as far as I am concerned, you anti-immigrant types are, at your core, and contrary to your self deceptions, bigots and racists.

The following are the myths then the facts about immigrants. Myth: immigrants don’t pay taxes. Fact: Every time an immigrants buys from a store, buys gasoline, and pays rent they pay taxes. Immigrants pay between $90 and $140 billion per year in taxes to the Feds, State, and local governments. According to the Social Security Administration immigrants paid $20 billion into Social Security between 1990 and 1998. Myth: immigrants come here to take welfare. Fact: immigrants paid at least $90 billion in taxes every year and take back $5 billion in public benefits. Myth: immigrants are a drain on the economy. Fact: According to the Federal Reserve immigrants net contribution (profits to business) to the US economy is at least $10 billions per year, they come here in prime working age, no public money has been spent on their education and according to a study conducted by the National Academy of Sciences, they will contribute $500 billion to Social Security over the next 30 years.

I could say something else to all you people bashers but I will refrain and simply point out: put that in your collective pipes and smoke it!

American Ruling Class

In the spirit of Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, and H.L. Mencken politics can be defined as the tactics of manipulating the many to act in the strategic interest of the few. In the United States the many and the few are usually defined along racial/ethnic lines. The practice of racial politics, however, does nothing but muddy the waters confusing the political tactic of manipulation with long term political strategy of control.

In the United States the economic system pervading every aspect of American society, informing virtually all human relationships is capitalism. With the exception of the very earliest hunter-gatherer societies, every past economic system including capitalism gives rise to social classes. Social classes are rooted in and differentiated by how much wealth each social class owns or controls. According to the Federal Reserve the wealth of the top one percent of Americans is greater than that of the bottom 95 percent. A Federal Reserve study dated March 6, 2006 reports that the consumer debt now exceeds 11.45 trillion dollars, the highest in U.S. history (not to mention the added tax burden on the lower classes by the Federal national debt of 8.5 trillion dollars).

It’s one thing to establish the objective existence of a small wealthy upper class but quite another to show if that upper class is a ruling class conscious of itself and acting in it’s own interests even if their upper class interest is diametrically opposed to the “national interest.” More than a century of academic and scholarly research shows conclusively that the American Upper Class is a Ruling Class. Thorsten Veblen’s 1899 study titled “Theory of the Leisure Class” which was responsible for introducing “conspicuous consumption” into the language is among the earliest works showing the connection between upper class and ruling class. Other studies of the American Upper Class as a ruling class include Ferdinand Lundberg’s “America’s 60 Families” (1938), “The Power Elite” by C. Wright Mills (1956), “The Protestant Establishment” by E. Digby Baltzell (1964), and G. William Domhoff’s study “Who Rules America” (1967, 1983, 1998).

The biggest fear the American Ruling Class faces is the loss of its ability to manipulate the lower classes should the middle and working classes become conscious of itself as distinct classes and begin to act in alliance for it’s collective interest. In other words, above all else the American Ruling Class fears a two sided class war. To suppress class consciousness by spreading “false consciousness” among the lower classes, the American Ruling Class uses it’s manipulative powers to divide and conquer by attacking working class ethnic immigrants (Mexicans), gays (Defense of Marriage Act), women (anti-abortion), flag burners, welfare, teachers, nurses, national health care, minimum vs. living wages , and all those who oppose the Iraq war where working class kids are dying by the thousands. So far class warfare in the United States has been a one sided fight. I suspect the fight may be joined sooner than many think.

Racist Immigration Policy

The century following 1820 may be divided into three great periods of immigration to the U.S. During the first period, from 1820 to 1850, most of the immigrants came from Great Britain, Ireland, and Germany. In Response to this wave of immigration the No-Nothing Party was organized. Their platform included, among other things severe limits on immigration, especially from Catholic countries, restricting political office to native-born Americans, mandating a wait of 21 years before an immigrant could gain citizenship, restricting public school teachers to Protestants, and mandating daily Bible readings in public schools (from the Protestant version of the Bible, of course).
In the second period, from 1850 to 1890, Ireland and China supplied a majority of the immigrants. Encouraged by “Nativist” political groups Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 which was the climax to more than thirty years of growing anti-Chinese racism. Racial tensions increased as more and more Chinese emigrated, took jobs no one else wanted, and created competition in the job market.
In the final period, from 1890 to 1920 the majority of the immigrants came from Italy and Russia. From 1900 to 1914 more than a million aliens entered the U.S. every year. John J. Simon writing in this months Issue of Monthly Reviews tells us, “Manhattan... in... 1902, was, like today’s city, a locus of great wealth and mean privation. The city’s ruling class were the confident arrogant leaders of the emerging American colossus. Lower Manhattan was headquarters for U.S. finance and industrial monopolies, J. P. Morgan and Standard Oil. The city was a manufacturing center as well. The garment, printing, shipping, and rail industries all needed cheap labor. New York’s population exploded with a flood of newcomers. southern and eastern Europeans poured into dormitory neighborhoods, the Lower East Side, Little Italy, and East Harlem to name a few, overcrowded, noisy, and fetid with garbage....The city was a cacophony of accents and dialects. One person in four spoke almost no English.”
In 1917 Congress passed an immigration law that imposed a literacy test and created an Asiatic Barred Zone to shut out Asians. After World War I a marked increase in racism and the growth of isolationism led to demands for further restrictive legislation. In 1921 and again in 1924 Congress created a quota system for immigrants where aliens from northern and western Europe who were considered racially superior than those from southern and eastern Europe were favored.
Despite Republican Party protestation to the contrary, American immigration policy has always been informed by bigotry and racism.

The Myth of the A-Bomb

On the 60th anniversary of the dropping of the A-Bomb on Japan the liberal press is again repeating the tired old myth that the American military was faced with the either/or choice of dropping the A-Bomb on Japan or invading Japan. According to the myth an invasion would have killed as many as a million American soldiers and maybe millions of Japanese. Thus the "humane" solution was to drop the Bomb. What did the military leaders of World War Two think about using the A-Bomb on Japan?

In his memoirs Admiral William D. Leahy, the President's Chief of Staff and the top official who presided over meetings of both the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Combined U.S.-U.K. Chiefs of Staff--minced few words: “The use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender. In being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children.”

The commanding general of the U.S. Army Air Forces, Henry H. "Hap" Arnold, said “The Japanese position was hopeless even before the first atomic bomb fell. It always appeared to us that, atomic bomb or no atomic bomb, the Japanese were already on the verge of collapse.”

On September 20, 1945 the famous "hawk" who commanded the Twenty-First Bomber Command, Major General Curtis E. LeMay said flatly the atomic bomb "had nothing to do with the end of the war." He said the war would have been over in two weeks without the use of the atomic bomb or the Russian entry into the war.

General Carl "Tooey" Spaatz, who in July 1945 commanded the U.S. Army Strategic Air Force and was subsequently chief of staff of the U.S. Air Force and Spaatz's one-time deputy commanding general, Frederick L. Anderson told Ambassador to the Soviet Union Averell Harriman, both men felt Japan would surrender without use of the bomb, and neither knew why the second bomb was used.

On the 40th Anniversary of the bombing former President Richard M. Nixon reported that, “General Douglas MacArthur once spoke to me very eloquently about it. He thought it a tragedy that the Bomb was ever exploded. MacArthur believed that the same restrictions ought to apply to atomic weapons as to conventional weapons, that the military objective should always be limited damage to noncombatants. MacArthur, you see, was a soldier. He believed in using force only against military targets, and that is why the nuclear thing turned him off. “
Fleet Admiral Chester W. Nimitz, Commander in Chief of the Pacific Fleet stated, “The Japanese had, in fact, already sued for peace before the atomic age was announced to the world with the destruction of Hiroshima and before the Russian entry into the war. The atomic bomb played no decisive part, from a purely military standpoint, in the defeat of Japan.”

Admiral William F. Halsey, Jr., Commander U.S. Third Fleet, stated publicly in 1946, “The first atomic bomb was an unnecessary experiment. It was a mistake to ever drop it.... the Japs had put out a lot of peace feelers through Russia long before.”

The commander in chief of the U.S. Fleet and chief of Naval Operations, Ernest J. King, stated, “...had we been willing to wait, the effective naval blockade would, in the course of time, have starved the Japanese into submission through lack of oil, rice, medicines, and other essential materials. I didn't like the atom bomb or any part of it."

In his memoirs President Eisenhower reported the following reaction when Secretary of War Stimson informed him the atomic bomb would be used: I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives. Again Eisenhower put it bluntly in a 1963 interview, stating quite simply: ". . . it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing."

August 2005

Modern American Imperialism

President Bush, British Prime Minister Blair, and the American national news media have portrayed the government of Iraq as a threat to their national security. Factually the terrorist attacks against the United States have not been linked to Iraq. Facts aside, the attacks instead have provided the Bush-Blair regime with an opportunity they cannot ignore. Most people believe Bush and Blair are making a grab for Iraqi oil. Controlling Iraq’s vast oil reserves will not only assure the American and British governments a nonstop flow of abundant cheap oil to not only pay for the war and force down the price per barrel of oil, but they can also control the flow oil to the rest of the world. This picture of Bush and Blair’s ulterior motives for invading Iraq, however logical, is incomplete. There is also a geopolitical and geostrategic dimension for invading and more importantly occupying Iraq.

According to a document allegedly circulating in Republican circles, “Desert Storm was about restoring the status quo ante. The 2003 war with Iraq will be about redefining the status quo in the region. Geopolitically, it will leave countries like Syria and Saudi Arabia completely surrounded by U.S. military forces and Iran partially surrounded....The conquest of Iraq will...represent the introduction of a new imperial power to the middle east and a redefinition of regional geopolitics based on that power....Every country bordering Iraq will find not the weakest formations of the Iraqi army along their frontiers, but U.S. and British troops (which) will be able to reach into any country in the region with covert forces...and...overt interventions as well. The United States will move from being an outside power influencing event through coalitions, to a regional power that is able to operate effectively on its own. Most significantly, countries like Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Iran will be living in a new and quite unpleasant world....”

A serious consequence of the American-British imposed no fly zone in northern Iraq is the quiet establishment of a de facto Kurdish state bordering south eastern Turkey. In an AP story filed by Louis Meixler reported in the Turkish Times (9/1/2002), Northern Iraq, according to Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu, was part of the Ottoman Empire for centuries. “It was an area which had been forcibly separated. Northern Iraq is under our safekeeping.” Six weeks later a report from Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (10/14/2002) stated, “Turkish Defense Minister Sabahattin Cakmakoglu says Turkey does not want a war. But, he said, if the United States intervenes in Iraq, Turkey may be forced to protect its interests. Turkey might well use military force to block formation of an independent Kurdish state in Iraq.” According to the alleged Republican document, Bush and Blair have bought Turkey’s cooperation in the war against Iraq by promising to hand over the oil fields around Mosul and Kirkuk. The deal allows Turkey to fatten up on oil and at the same time prevent an independent Kurdish state.

There is no question that Bush and Blair’s public excuses for attacking Iraq are simply nonsense. Additionally the American national news media has the resources to dredge up the truth but instead parrots the party line devolving from the fourth estate to the fourth branch of government. There is also no question that the American-British onslaught will kill hundreds of thousand of innocent Iraqis now and untold thousand of other peoples later. This may be a glimpse of the present and future of modern American imperialism.

February 2003

Where is Osama?

The amateurs, running U.S. foreign policy in the second Bush administration have committed a huge blunder in Afghanistan according to a commentary written by Eric Margolis in the L.A. Times last November 28, 2001. While Vladimir Putin was back slapping with George Bush II in Crawford, Texas, Putin had already put into play a new alliance with India and Iran. Putin’s goal was to check India’s arch enemy Pakistan, prevent Pakistan and the U.S. from constructing its Termez-Karachi pipeline across Afghanistan, and force western oil companies seeking to exploit the vast oil reserves in the Caspian basin to deal with Russia and Iran.

Margolis writes’ “...Washington fully expected to implant a pro-American regime in Kabul and open the way for the Pakistani-American pipeline. But, while the Bush administration was busy tearing apart Afghanistan to find Bin Laden, it failed to notice that the Russians were taking over half the country.”

“The Russians achieved this victory through their proxy--the Northern Alliance. Moscow, which has sustained the alliance since 1990, rearmed it after Sept. 11 with new tanks, armored vehicles, artillery, helicopters and trucks.”
“To the fury of Washington and Islamabad, in a coup de main the Russians rushed the Northern Alliance into Kabul, in direct contravention of Bush's dictates.”

“The alliance is now Afghanistan's dominant force and styles itself as the new ‘lawful’ government, a claim fully backed by Moscow. The Russians have regained influence over Afghanistan, avenged their defeat by the U.S. in the 1980s war and neatly checkmated the Bush administration. The U.S. ouster of the Taliban regime also means Pakistan has lost its former influence over Afghanistan. Russia has regained control of the best potential pipeline routes. The new Silk Road is destined to become a Russian energy superhighway.”

Clues to future events in Afghanistan can be found by looking closely at some of the top leaders of the Northern Alliance. According to BBC leadership profiles, three men stand out. They are: “General Abdul Rashid Dostum leader of Afghanistan's minority Uzbek community, The leader of the second largest party in the Northern Alliance, General Dostum directed the campaign to recapture Mazar-e-Sharif. In the years of Soviet domination, he transformed himself from a communist union organizer working in northern Afghan gas fields to the leader of the 20,000 strong Uzbek militia fighting on the Soviet side. “

Karim Khalili is the leader of the Hezb-e-Wahdat (Unity Party) which represents the Shia ethnic Hazara minority. Wahdat, according to the BBC, is the main benefactor of Iranian support.

Ismail Khan was the former governor of Herat. His forces captured Chaghcharan, the capital of Afghanistan's Ghor province, and, suspiciously, Herat near the Iranian border the day after Mazar-e-Sharif fell. The nearest Northern Alliance forces were more than 500 miles away in Mazar-e-Sharif.

With Russia and (perhaps) Iran controlling a great deal of Afghanistan because of Bush’s ineptitude, it is no surprise Osama Bin Ladan can’t be found. The national electronic news media, parroting U.S. intelligence and the Pentagon party line, insists Bin Laden is in the Tora Bora mountains, in Pakistan, or dead. However, Could Bin Laden and the Taliban leader Mullah Omar really be in Herat or even Iran? Betcha British intelligence knows.

December 2001

Ulterior Motives

Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican who represents the 14th Texas congressional district has recently written: “Ulterior motives have always played a part in the foreign policy of almost every nation throughout history. Economic gain and geographic expansion, or even just the desires for more political power, too often drive the militarism of all nations. Unfortunately, in recent years, we have not been exempt.”

The Vice President for International Relations for UNOCAL Oil Corporation, John J. Maresca, testified on February 12, 1998 the following before the House Committee on International Relations Subcommittee on Asia and the Pacific: “I appreciate your invitation to speak here today. I believe these hearings are important and timely, and I congratulate you for focusing on Central Asia oil and gas reserves and the role they play in shaping U.S. policy.”

“The Caspian region contains tremendous untapped hydrocarbon reserves, much of them located in the Caspian Sea basin itself. Proven natural gas reserves equal more than 236 trillion cubic feet. The region's total oil reserves may reach more than 60 billion barrels of oil. Some estimates are as high as 200 billion barrels. In 1995, the region was producing only 870,000 barrels per day.”

“One major problem has yet to be resolved: how to get the region's vast energy resources to the markets. (A) project...sponsored by the Azerbaijan International Operating Company (AIOC), a consortium of 11 foreign oil companies including four American companies -- Unocal, Amoco, Exxon and Pennzoil...(want to follow a) ...potential route south...across Iran. However, this option is foreclosed for American companies because of U.S. sanctions legislation. The only other possible route option is across Afghanistan, which has its own unique challenges.”

“The country has been involved in bitter warfare for almost two decades. The territory across which the pipeline would extend is controlled by the Taliban, an Islamic movement that is not recognized as a government by most other nations. From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of our proposed pipeline cannot begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders (read big banks) and our company.”

“In spite of this, a route through Afghanistan appears to be the best option with the fewest technical obstacles. It is the shortest route to the sea and has relatively favorable terrain for a pipeline. The route through Afghanistan is the one that would bring Central Asian oil closest to Asian markets and thus would be the cheapest in terms of transporting the oil. The 1,040-mile-long oil pipeline would begin near the town of Chardzhou, in northern Turkmenistan, and extend southeasterly through Afghanistan to an export terminal that would be constructed on the Pakistan coast on the Arabian Sea. Only about 440 miles of the pipeline would be in Afghanistan.”

In George Bush’s war cabinet we find V.P. Cheney, from Halliburton Oil Industry Corporation; Condolezza Rice who sat on the board of Chevron Oil and has an oil tanker named after her; Donald Rumsfeld former CEO of G.D. Searle and General Instruments, Pentagon contractors; and General Colin Powell author of the cowardly “Powell Doctrine” saying the U.S. should only attack when victory is guaranteed. While the National Electronic News Media sells antiterrorism to the clueless “nobodies, ” the ulterior motive is oil for the “Big Boys.” Surprised? Why?

December 2001

**** You

I was wondering how long it would take the invertebrates on the political right dwelling in the deep, dank recesses of their caverns to evolve a spine. Finally, in the pages of the our local newspaper four troglodytes knuckle dragged their way out and began pounding their clubs on the ground screeching and grunting their groundless and empty headed opinions about my view of this so called war on terrorism. One would hope that these “right” thinking cavemen could do better than rehash cold war ideological nonsense. But, like a played out uranium mine where one hopes to find some high energy ideas laying about, these trogs, instead, give us densely packed lumps of lead.

Among the many lumps of lead Dan Huston serves up, Huston writes the following,” Name one country we have invaded and occupied with our military, just the US alone....” Go back and read the list again (A Hundred Years of American Interventionism 11/16/2001 ), Dan. Dan goes on to write: “The action in Russia after WW I was a League of Nations intervention to distribute food and aid.” The United States never belonged to the League of Nations. The isolationist Republicans in the Senate never ratified our participation in the League. Dan then writes, “He mentions Chili (sic). The UN stepped in and conducted free elections, put the ruthless dictator out and the World Court still has him on trial at the Hague.” The UN never supervised any Chilean elections and the ruthless general Pinochet lives in splendor in his villa in Chile. Under Chilean law Pinochet is immune from all legal prosecution. Finally Dan ends his illiteracy with the following: “I will and will (sic) be displaying My (sic) American Flag-a proud veteran.” For a hand of bananas I can teach a chimp to wave a flag. If you are willing to do it for for free, Dan, go for it.

Ed Perry, who I have no quarrel with, wants to know my background. Aside from the fact it is none of your business and the only thing that matters are the ideas written, I will tell you this: In the 1970’s, I did two stints at the NATO School (SHAPE) in Oberammergau, Germany where we taught NATO commanders the efficient use of battlefield nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons (NBC for short). I met and married my wife in Germany, resigned my job, and we honeymooned by back packing across southern Asia including 10 days in Afghanistan. There were only two things we did a lot of during those four months. They were reading history and you can guess the other. We are still happily married and hopelessly in love.

Sorry about your humbling experience in Kashmir, Marc DuQuette. Everywhere I traveled in Southern Asia I found sincere people asking the same question everywhere. Why does your government hate us so much?

Next time, David M. Evans, read my letter instead of the column heading. That way you can avoid making such a bone headed error.

Mathew Macul writes, I am...one of those conspiracy folks who believe everything they read.” Sorry, Matt, not true. For example, I don’t believe a thing you or Dan Huston, or David Evans, or Marc DuQuette write. In fact, I also don’t believe the vast majority of the American electronic press. That’s why I prefer reading the world press to get a less bias and jingoistic view of this “war.” Matt then writes, “Those (me again) without their own ideas are usurpers of reality and just the sort of individuals whom Bin Laden recruits to perform his evil acts.” Matt, not only is that sentence meaningless gibberish, but to equate me with a Bin laden stooge requires that I again express a not so original idea of my own:" **** you!"

The Taliban Visits Houston

The English foreign correspondent John Pilger in a front page editorial published on 10/29/2001 in the Daily Mirror (London) wrote the following (excerpted): “The war against terrorism is a fraud. After three weeks' bombing, not a single terrorist implicated in the attacks on America has been caught or killed in Afghanistan. Instead, one of the poorest, most stricken nations has been terrorised by the most powerful - to the point where American pilots have run out of dubious"military" targets and are now destroying mud houses, a hospital, Red Cross warehouses, lorries carrying refugees.” “None of those directly involved in the September 11 atrocity was Afghani. Most were Saudis, who apparently did their planning and training in Germany and the United States.”

“The camps which the Taliban allowed bin Laden to use were emptied weeks ago. Moreover, the Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians.” “The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal.” “With secret US government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan.” “A US diplomat said: "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with that," he said.” “Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the administration of George W. Bush, which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it.”

“There is no war on terrorism. If there was, the Royal Marines and the SAS would be storming the beaches of Florida, where more CIA-funded terrorists, ex-Latin American dictators and torturers, are given refuge than anywhere on earth. New excuses, new hidden agendas, new lies. Before another child dies violently, or quietly from starvation, before new fanatics are created in both the east and the west, it is time... to stop this fraudulent war and to demand the kind of bold, imaginative non- violent initiatives that require real political courage.”
“The other day, the parents of Greg Rodriguez, a young man who died in the World Trade Center, said this: "We read enough of the news to sense that our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us.”

November 2001

A Hundred Years of American Interventionism

The following is a partial list of our government ‘s use of troops against dozens of independent nations all over the world. In the last 100 years, no other nation comes close to the interventionist record established by our government. The entire world is aware of our imperialism. The only people who are kept ignorant of our governments imperialism are the American people themselves. Do you still wonder why our government (not we, the people) are so dispised by so many?

PHILIPPINES/l898-1910(-?)/Naval, troops/Seized from Spain, killed 600,000 Filipinos.

CUBA/l898-1902(-?)/Naval, troops/Seized from Spain, still hold Navy base.

PUERTO RICO/1898(-?)/Naval, troops/Seized from Spain, occupation continues.

GUAM/l898(-?)/Naval, troops/Seized from Spain, still use as base.

NICARAGUA/l898/Troops/Marines land at port of San Juan del Sur.

SAMOA/1899(-?)/Troops/Battle over succession to throne.

NICARAGUA/l899/Troops/Marines land at port of Bluefields.

PANAMA/1901-14)/Naval, troops/ annexed Canal Zone from Columbia,1914.

HONDURAS/l903/Troops/Marines intervene in revolution.

DOMINICAN REP./1903-04/Troops/U.S. interests protected in Revolution.

CUBA/1906-09/Troops/Marines land in democratic election.

NICARAGUA/1907/Troops/"Dollar Diplomacy" protectorate set up.

PANAMA/l908/Troops/Marines intervene in election contest.

NICARAGUA/l9l0/Troops/Marines land in Bluefields and Corinto.

HONDURAS/1911/Troops/U.S. interests protected in civil war.

CUBA/1912/Troops/U.S. interests protected in Havana.

PANAMA/l9l2/Troops/Marines land during heated election.

HONDURAS/l9l2/Troops/Marines protect U.S. economic interests.

NICARAGUA/1912-33/Troops, bombing/20-year occupation, fought guerrillas.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC/1914/Naval/Fight with rebels over Santo Domingo.

MEXICO/1914-18/Naval, troops/Series of interventions against nationalists.

HAITI/1914-34/Troops, bombing/19-year occupation after revolts.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC/1916-24/Troops/8-year Marine occupation.

CUBA/1917-33/Troops/Military occupation, economic protectorate.

RUSSIA/1918-22/Naval, troops/Five landings to fight Bolsheviks.

PANAMA/1918-20/Troops/"Police duty" during unrest after elections.

HONDURAS/l9l9/Troops/Marines land during election campaign.

YUGOSLAVIA/1919/Troops/Marines intervene for Italy against Serbs in Dalmatia.

GUATEMALA/1920/Troops

TURKEY/1922/Troops/Fought nationalists in Smyrna (Izmir).

CHINA/1922-27/Naval, troops/Deployment during nationalist revolt.

HONDURAS/1924-25/Troops/Landed twice during election strife.

PANAMA/1925/Troops/Marines suppress general strike.

EL SALVADOR/l932/Naval/Warships sent during Faribundo Marti revolt.

URUGUAY/l947/Bombers deployed as show of strength.

GREECE/l947-49/U.S. backs facist in civil war.

PHILIPPINES/l948-54/CIA directs war against Huk Rebellion.

PUERTO RICO/1950/Independence rebellion crushed in Ponce.

IRAN/l953/CIA overthrows democracy, installs Shah.

GUATEMALA/l954/CIA directs exile invasion after new gov't nationalizes United Fruit company lands; bombers based in Nicaragua.

LEBANON/l958/Troops, naval/Marine occupation.

PANAMA/1958/Troops/Flag protests erupt into confrontation.

VIETNAM/l960-75/Troops, naval, bombing, Fought South Vietnam revolt & North Vietnam; more than a million Vietnamese killed in longest U.S. war;

CUBA/l961/CIA-directed exile invasion fails.

PANAMA/l964/Troops/Panamanians shot for urging canal's return.

INDONESIA/l965/Million killed in CIA-assisted army coup.

DOMINICAN REPUBLIC/1965-66/Troops, bombing/Marines land

GUATEMALA/l966-67/Green Berets intervene against rebels.

CAMBODIA/l969-75/Bombing, troops, naval/

OMAN/l970/U.S. directs Iranian marine invasion.

LAOS/l971-73/ "carpet-bombs" countryside.

CHILE/1973/CIA-backed coup ousts elected marxist president. 30,000 killed

CAMBODIA/l975/Troops, bombing/Gas captured ship, 28 die in copter crash.

ANGOLA/l976-92/CIA assists South African-backed rebels.

LIBYA/l981/Naval jets/Two Libyan jets shot down in maneuvers.

EL SALVADOR/l981-92/CIA directed troops/Advisors,

NICARAGUA/l981-90/CIA directs Contra invasions, plants harbor mines

HONDURAS/l983-89/Troops build bases near borders.

LEBANON/l982-84/Troops/Marines back Phalangists, shells Muslim positions.

GRENADA/l983-84/Troops, bombing/Invasion four years after revolution.

LIBYA/l986/Bombing, naval/Air strikes to topple nationalist gov't.

IRAN/l987-88/Naval, bombing/US intervenes on side of Iraq in war.

LIBYA/1989/Naval jets/Two Libyan jets shot down.

PANAMA/1989-?/Troops, bombing/Nationalist government ousted by 27,000 soldiers, leaders arrested, 2000+ killed.

SAUDI ARABIA/1990-91/Troops, jets/Iraq countered after invading Kuwait

KUWAIT/540,000 troops also stationed in Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Israel.

IRAQ/1990-?/Bombing, troops, naval/Blockade; 200,000+ Iraqi conscripts killed

KUWAIT/1991/Naval, bombing, troops/Kuwait royal family returned to throne.

SOMALIA/1992-94/Troops, naval, bombing/

ZAIRE (CONGO)/1996-97/Troops/Marines in Rwandan Hutu refuge camps,Congo revolution begins.

SUDAN/1998/Missiles/Attack on pharmaceutical plant

IRAQ/1998-?/Bombing, Missiles/Four days of intensive air strikes

YUGOSLAVIA/1999-?/Bombing, Missiles/Heavy air strikes against Serbia

“The War Against Terrorism Is A Fraud."

The English foreign correspondent John Pilger in a front page editorial published on 10/29/2001 in the Daily Mirror (London) wrote the following (excerpted):

“The war against terrorism is a fraud. After three weeks' bombing, not a single terrorist implicated in the attacks on America has been caught or killed in Afghanistan. Instead, one of the poorest, most stricken nations has been terrorised by the most powerful - to the point where American pilots have run out of dubious"military" targets and are now destroying mud houses, a hospital, Red Cross warehouses, lorries carrying refugees.”

“None of those directly involved in the September 11 atrocity was Afghani. Most were Saudis, who apparently did their planning and training in Germany and the United States.”

“The camps which the Taliban allowed bin Laden to use were emptied weeks ago. Moreover, the Taliban itself is a creation of the Americans and the British. In the 1980s, the tribal army that produced them was funded by the CIA and trained by the SAS to fight the Russians.”

“The hypocrisy does not stop there. When the Taliban took Kabul in 1996, Washington said nothing. Why? Because Taliban leaders were soon on their way to Houston, Texas, to be entertained by executives of the oil company, Unocal.”

“With secret US government approval, the company offered them a generous cut of the profits of the oil and gas pumped through a pipeline that the Americans wanted to build from Soviet central Asia through Afghanistan.”

“A US diplomat said: "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis did." He explained that Afghanistan would become an American oil colony, there would be huge profits for the West, no democracy and the legal persecution of women. "We can live with that," he said.”

“Although the deal fell through, it remains an urgent priority of the administration of George W. Bush, which is steeped in the oil industry. Bush's concealed agenda is to exploit the oil and gas reserves in the Caspian basin, the greatest source of untapped fossil fuel on earth and enough, according to one estimate, to meet America's voracious energy needs for a generation. Only if the pipeline runs through Afghanistan can the Americans hope to control it.”

“There is no war on terrorism. If there was, the Royal Marines and the SAS would be storming the beaches of Florida, where more CIA-funded terrorists, ex-Latin American dictators and torturers, are given refuge than anywhere on earth. New excuses, new hidden agendas, new lies. Before another child dies violently, or quietly from starvation, before new fanatics are created in both the east and the west, it is time... to stop this fraudulent war and to demand the kind of bold, imaginative non-violent initiatives that require real political courage.”

“The other day, the parents of Greg Rodriguez, a young man who died in the World Trade Center, said this: "We read enough of the news to sense that our government is heading in the direction of violent revenge, with the prospect of sons, daughters, parents, friends in distant lands dying, suffering, and nursing further grievances against us.”

Stirred-up Moslems

The following is from an interview of Zbigniew Brzezinski in Le Nouvel Observateur (France), Jan 15-21, 1998:

Q: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs ["From the Shadows"], that American intelligence services began to aid the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan 6 months before the Soviet intervention. In this period you were the national security adviser to President Carter. You therefore played a role in this affair. Is that correct?

Brzezinski: Yes. According to the official version of history, CIA aid to the Mujahadeen began during 1980, that is to say, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan, 24 Dec 1979. But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise: Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going to induce a Soviet military intervention.

Q: Despite this risk, you were an advocate of this covert action. But perhaps you yourself desired this Soviet entry into war and looked to provoke it?
Brzezinski: It isn't quite that. We didn't push the Russians to intervene, but we knowingly increased the probability that they would.

Q: When the Soviets justified their intervention by asserting that they intended to fight against a secret involvement of the United States in Afghanistan, people didn't believe them. However, there was a basis of truth. You don't regret anything today?

Brzezinski: Regret what? That secret operation was an excellent idea. It had the effect of drawing the Russians into the Afghan trap and you want me to regret it? The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border, I wrote to President Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war. Indeed, for almost 10 years, Moscow had to carry on a war unsupportable by the government, a conflict that brought about the demoralization and finally the breakup of the Soviet empire.
Q: And neither do you regret having supported the Islamic fundamentalist having given arms and advice to future terrorists?

Brzezinski: What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?

One last observation: The United States Government is giving safe haven to a known terorist. His name is Luis Posada Carriles and he has admitted blowing up a Cubana passenger plane after it took off from Barbados headed for Cuba, killing all 73 people aboard, including 57 Cubans. Carriles presently lives in Miami. Carriles is a personal friend of Jeb Bush.

Big Boys

After all is said and done, the Big Boys know how the world really works. The Big Boys know the world is divided into three groups and the Big Boys intend to keep it that way. The Money Men are practical men with their feet firmly planted on the ground fondling the change in their pockets. The Money Men fully understand the world revolves around money. Only money is important. Status, prestige, and power? All come at a high price. Without money everything else is background noise.

The Money Men buy the Practical Politician who in turn protects the interest of the Money Men. The Money Men and the Practical Politician are both motivated by money and together they slap each other on the back, light each others black cigars, blow acrid gray smoke skyward and refer to each other as the “Big Boys.”

If you are not a Big Boy then you are a Nobody. Nobodies can be mostly ignored unless the Big Boys need some help pursuing more money. Then the Big Boys pull out all the stoppers and manipulate the Nobodies with the promise of big money, grand patriotism, and any of a dozen off the shelf ever lasting life religions.

Stepping out of their long black limousines, the Big Boys swagger up to the array of microphones placed their by fawning “reporters” and with well rehearsed indignant bravado the Big Boys declare crusades, everlasting justice, and war. On cue, the Big Boys tell the Nobodies to begin waving their flags. The Nobodies respond enthusiastically. On cue, the Big Boys tell the Nobodies to hate for liberal reasons and some of the Nobodies enthusiastically wave their flags. On cue the Big Boys tell the Nobodies to hate for conservative reasons and the rest of the Nobodies wave their flags and give out rebel yells. On cue, the religious leader tells the Nobodies to pray for the Big Boys. The Nobodies simultaneously bow their heads and loudly murmur their prayers for the Big Boys. The Nobodies are now prepared.

Back at their high rise office penthouses or hide bound gentlemen’s clubs, the Big Boys wink and nod at each other while skillfully maneuvering their armies of capital. Poised on the brink of war the Big Boys are gambling with the lives of the Nobodies as they steal more wealth by building bigger and grander empires. For a brief moment, perhaps feeling the pangs of guilt or the fear of failure, the Big Boys hesitate. Just as quickly the feeling passes. Who really cares about Nobodies anyhow? When the war is over, so thinks the Big Boys, I’ll drive a bigger Mercedes, live with more prestige, and I will be idolized by the fawning press.

Behind the Marine Corps Memorial in Washington D.C. the names of the artist who built the Iwo Jima Statue and the photographer who inspired the artist are engraved in gold. Circling the statue the lie that became the truth will be found. Engraved in gold are the names of mostly foreign battles and wars fought over the many decades. The early wish of empire becoming the later reality of empire. What won’t be found, however, are the names of the brave and selfless soldiers who inspired the original photograph. Surprised? These grunts, as they were demeaningly called, did not come from the ranks of the Big Boys. These grunts had no status, had no prestige, had no power. And these grunts certainly had no money. There was no reason to fawn over them or immortalize them by name.

After all is said and done, and the proof is on every statue commemorating every war, the images are really the Big Boys stealing the courage and selflessness and finally the dignity of the Nobodies. After all is said and done, when money is all there is, there can never be dignity for Nobodies.

October 2001

American Presidents Writing on Christianity

George Washington said, "Being no bigot, I am disposed to indulge (humor) Christian ministers and the church." Washington refused to take communion, looking upon it as superstition.

The Treaty of Tripoli, negotiated during George Washington's administration stated in Article 11: "As the government of the United States is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...." The treaty was ratified unanimously by the Senate in 1797.

John Adams said, "The doctrine of the divinity of Jesus has made a convenient cover for absurdity." Adams signed the Treaty of Tripoli.

Thomas Jefferson, author of our Declaration of Independence said, "I have examined all the known superstitions of the world, and I do not find in our particular superstition of Christianity one redeeming feature. They are all alike, founded on fables and mythology. What has been the effect of this coercion? To make one half the world fools and the other half hypocrites. And to support roguery and error all over the Earth.... the Bible is a dunghill."

"In every country and in every age the priest has been hostile to liberty; he is always in alliance with the despot, abetting his abuses in return for protection to his own." "The serious enemies are the priests of the different religious sects to whose spells on the human mind its improvement is ominous"
"It is not to be understood that I am with him [Jesus] in all his doctrines. I am a Materialist."

"His [Calvin's] religion was demonism. If ever man worshiped a false God, he did. The being described in his five points is ... a demon of malignant spirit. It would be more pardonable to believe in no God at all, than to blaspheme him by the atrocious attributes of Calvin"

Writing to Jefferson on the 5th of May, 1817 John Adams declares. "This would be the best of all possible worlds if there were no religion in it." Jefferson replied: "If by religion, we are to understand sectarian dogmas, in which no two of them agree, then your exclamation on that hypothesis is just, 'that this would be the best of worlds if there were no religion in it' "

James Madison, author of the Constitution and Bill of Rights said, "A just government, instituted to perpetuate liberty, does not need the church or the clergy. During almost 15 centuries, the legal establishment of Christianity has been on trial. What have been its fruits? These are the fruits, more or less, in all places: pride and indolence in the clergy, ignorance and servility in the laity, and in both clergy and laity, superstition, bigotry and persecution."

Madison passionately objected to state-supported chaplains in Congress or in the military as well as the exemption of churches from taxation.

Abraham Lincoln said, "Christianity is not my religion. I have never united myself to any church because I could never give assent to the long, complicated statements of Christian doctrine and dogma which characterize their articles of belief." According to Mary Todd Lincoln, her husband,”... would never be baptized, never joined a church and never made any profession of faith.” Moreover she said: "My husband is not a Christian, but is a religious man, I think."

Dark Ages

The adoration of Jesus, the new god, by the Laguna gang of three, Jay Grant, Edward T. Graney, and Al Enderle and the exclusion of everything just and humane has blinded these philistines to the realities of history, their own holy book, and just plain common decency. Then in a twist of irrational zeal, in letter and column, this gang continues to press upon the people of our town a religious and political point of view which has its philosophical roots in the the Dark Ages.

Graney’s use of the bible to justify an atrocious philosophy of political morality is nothing more than blind hypocrisy. When Graney condemns that baptist preacher’s son and Blue Dog hypocrite Gary Condin and ex-president Clinton for their philandering, Graney exposed his ignorance of recent history. Graney conveniently forgets that christian-corporatist Newt Gingrich had two affairs while in Congress including one while Speaker of the House. He forgets christian-corporatist Henry Hyde, the leader of the impeach Clinton crowd, destroyed his friends marriage by sleeping with his friends wife. He forgets christian-corporatist Bob Livingston, the Louisiana Republican who was touted far and wide as Newt Gingrich’s replacement for House Speaker, had to withdraw when it was discovered he was sleeping with his wife and four of his secretaries. In past letters to the local newspaper Graney condemned Hillary Clinton and called Laura Bush a wonderful person and an example of morality restored to the White House. Tell me Mr. Graney, if Hillary had been speeding while drunk driving, ran a stop sign and broad sided another car killing its driver, would you be as kind to her as you are to Laura Bush? Clinton is a bad guy because he did not inhale that marijuana cigarette, but Scrub Bush is a wonderful man when it is known he snorted enough cocaine to blow up a dust storm in west Texas? Have you ever heard of the “shoe on the other foot test?” Your one-sided morality is based on bible thumping dramatics justifying the corporate capitalist destruction of our democracy and natural environment. Admit it Mr. Graney, what you and your fellow travelers really want is a christian-corporatist theocracy enforced by a new christian Inquisition.

Jay Grant and his fundamentalist/charismatic pals have deconstructed christianity to a set of mutually exclusive categories which are only asserted, never proven. In their philosophy of christianity there is no logic, no connection to natural history, and certainly no connection to humanity. Evidence for this warped and ossified thinking is provided by Grant in his weakly (sic) column where he writes Jews are a race rather than a religion, love of Jesus is greater than love of one’s spouse or family, evolution is nonsense, and women are nothing more than incubators. Grant’s religious philosophy is based on Calvinist greed and the primitive capitalist need to accumulate wealth as an indicator of a heavenly destination. Grant and his reactionary christian pals use their wooden ideas of love and life as a vehicle to promote hate, war, greed, and poverty. In Grant’s world view christian soldiers are sent out to defend a christian corporate state that will not provide a living wage or universal health care for its own people while invading and exploiting foreign lands peopled by poor non or “lesser” christians. It is Grant and his ilk’s brand of christianity which reveals the darkness of their, not our, collective hearts.

Turning to Al Enderle, I must ask the following: Mr. Enderle, do you really need to torture and mutilate the facts to gain christian converts? Does a christian end justify deceptive means?