Short Takes -- November 9, 2006

Today I'm inaugurating what I hope will be a daily morning news update. The longer essays will be published in the afternoon, hopefully on a daily basis, as well. If you've enjoyed what you read here, please let others know. Sometime soon -- hopefully before Thanksgiving -- I'm going to have some pretty exciting news about a new media venture I'm involved in.




The Sound of Someone Who's Sold His Soul, or "Now He Tells Us"

"There hasn't been any ideology in the Republican Party, any conservatism, for at least two to maybe four years," grunted the self-described national "Truth Detector" yesterday from near the bottom of the Slough of Despond. "[In] looking at what happened yesterday, it wasn't conservatism that lost [in Tuesday's mid-term elections]. Conservatism won when it ran as a Democrat. It won in a number of places. Republicanism lost."

There are those of us who have understood that the Republican Party has been barren of conservative principles for decades; we were neither surprised by, nor upset over, the well-earned butt-whipping the GOP took on Tuesday.

But then again, unlike Rush Limbaugh, people of that description haven't made a career out of being well-paid lickspittles for the Republican establishment.





"Now .. people have been asking me how I feel all night long,""continued Limbaugh, performing a familiar aria in the key of "me." I got, `Boy, Rush, I wouldn't want to be you tomorrow! Boy, I wouldn't want to have to do your show! Oh-ho. I'm so glad I'm not you.'.... The way I feel is this: I feel liberated, and I'm going to tell you as plainly as I can why. I no longer am going to have to carry the water for people who I don't think deserve having their water carried. Now, you might say, `Well, why have you been doing it?' Because the stakes are high. Even though the Republican Party let us down, to me they represent a far better future for my beliefs and therefore the country's than the Democrat Party and liberalism does."

You're not "liberated," Rush; you're utterly and permanently discredited. Had you made any effort at all to goad or shame the Republican Party into mimicking conservative behavior, you might enjoy a particle of credibility right now. As it stands, however, you're exposed to the public in the full, porcine malignity of your narcissism and opportunism. (I should also underscore the delerious self-preoccupation of someone who could say, with a straight face, that his "beliefs" that those of the country -- all 300 million of us -- are essentially identical.)

You're a whore, Rush; an Oxycontin and Viagra-addicted whore. Just own it.

And then go away.

Behind the Gates Appointment: The Bush Regime in Receivership

With the Republicans losing their political monopoly, there's been a slight but significant shift in the constellation of power in Washington. As Newsweek's Howard Fineman puts it, "a coterie of commercially minded globalists (as opposed to those ideologically minded globalists, the neocons)" are taking the bankrupt Bush regime into receivership. This is signified by the appointment of Robert Gates to replace Donald Rumsfeld at the Department of "Defense."

Gates is a veteran utility infielder for the Power Elite, a careerist in the national security state who has played a hands-on role in some of the seamier dealings of the past quarter-century. At the CIA, he was an apprentice to William Casey, a veritable Sith Lord. He was accused, plausibly, of being one of the Company Chefs who "cooked" intelligence on the Soviet threat in the 1980s to justify the immense arms build-up that supposedly bankrupted the USSR and "ended the Cold War" (which in fact could have ended any time the West decided to stop propping up the Soviet Bloc economically).

Gates was implicated in the Iran-Contra operation, and has been accused of participating, on behalf of Casey and the Reagan campaign, in backchannel talks with the Iranians in 1980 intended to prevent an "October Surprise" release of American hostages prior to the presidential election. The former charge is more plausible than the latter. But the most important charge against Gates is that he was involved, during the 1980s, in assisting Iraq's arms build-up.

"Under CIA Director Casey and Deputy Director Gates, the CIA authorized, approved, and assisted [Chilean arms dealer Carlos] Cardoen in the manufacture and sale of cluster bombs and other munitions to Iraq," testified former Reagan administration National Security Council staffer Howard Teicher in January 1995. Rather than following up on Teicher's disclosures, the Clinton administration -- which was top-heavy with people drawn from the same Power Elite that dominates the Bush regime -- "suppressed [his] affidavit and attacked Teicher's credibility," recalls former AP national security correspondent Robert Parry.

Here's the difference between Rumsfeld and Gates, where the build-up of Iraq's arsenal is concerned:

Rummy shook Saddam's hand; Gates delivered the goods.




Buh-bye, Leslie. Don't get your robe caught in the door on the way out.




Dere Go De Judge -- or, as Hall and Oates would say, She's Gone

Reason was restored to the throne, and some semblance of judicial competence may soon be restored to Utah's Third District Court, as a result of Tuesday's retention election in Utah: "Judge" Leslie Lewis became only the second district judge in the state's history to be removed by majority vote.

In the theater of her undistinguished little mind, "Judge" Leslie was the star of her own series on the "Lifetime: Television For Women Who Hate Men" cable network. She became properly notorious for a February recusal hearing during which she expatiated at length on her aversion to hunting, and then contrived a situation in which she had a spectator handcuffed and jailed for the supposed offense of leaving her courtroom.
Go here for more details; go here for a video of the incident.)

This was the most widely publicized of numerous incidents in which Leslie displayed her consummate lack of professionalism, discipline, or judicial temperament. Leslie was saddled with the sobriquet "Ex Parte Girl" for pulling stunts like this one described by Salt Lake City's Deseret Morning News: "A local defense attorney spoke up about a situation in which Lewis, during a phone conversation, offered to take 10 years off a convicted sex offender's 30-year prison term, but told the defense attorney not to discuss the matter with prosecutors. If true, such an action violates the code of professional conduct that governs judges."

Leslie's well-deserved fate may have been sealed by pre-election publicity of a custody hearing earlier this year in which she made critical comments about the Mormon practice of baptizing children at age eight. "The child is too young," ruled Leslie of a dispute between divorced parents over baptizing their eight-year-old daughter. "The child will make the decision when she is twelve."

"And may I add my own personal story," Leslie continued, using -- as was her wont -- her courtroom to conduct some kind of personal therapy session. "That same thing [baptism at age eight] was done to me and I have resented it lo, these many years." Of the child at issue, Leslie concluded: "I doubt she will be favoring an early dunking. What's the rush? Are they afriad the child will change their mind when they are nine years old?"

As it happens, I don't disagree with Leslie's view of the practice of baptizing children at age eight -- but her Oprahesque tendency to view matters of this sort through the lens of personal psychodrama did illustrate, redundantly, that she had no business on the bench.

Today's anniversaries: Kristallnacht, 1938; Berlin Wall comes down, 1989.

The "Wave" That Wasn't -- And The One That Was (UPDATED)

In a mid-term election that, nation-wide, was double-ply, wall-to-wall ugliness for the Republicans, I find something incredibly significant in the contrasting results from two congressional races.


The first was the easy victory of Representative Ron Paul in Texas, a Republican In Name Only in the best sense of that expression: The sole statesman in Washington, Rep. Paul's loyalty is to the Constitution. In Shane Sklar, Dr. Paul confronted a Democratic opponent who did everything possible to disguise himself as a crypto-Republican of the Bushified variety.

Sklar was actually favored over Paul by the National Rifle Association.




"Cheney's got a gun ...
the whole world's come undone..." (My apologies to Steve and Joe)



This isn't because Dr. Paul favors any restrictions on the individual right to own firearms; he doesn't. It's because he did not favor, on constitutional grounds, federal pre-emption of anti-gun liability lawsuits, which was a measure the NRA actively supported. Gun Owners of America – which, unlike the NRA, is not a concubine in the GOP's seraglio – gave Dr. Paul an “A+” rating.

Early returns projected a landslide victory for Paul, who claimed something north of 60% of the vote on a night many Republican incumbents spent on tenterhooks – or making plans to seek a new job on K Street.

By way of explaining his victory, and defining his priorities, Dr. Paul told the local paper, “I'm always working to shrink the size of government,” and expressed hope that the new Congress would find a way to “wind down the war.”

Meanwhile, over in Arizona, 12-year-incumbent J.D. Hayworth – a Fox News and GOP rant radio favorite who had made immigration the centerpiece of his re-election effort – appears to have lost a close race to Democrat Harry Mitchell, who (in the words of the East Valley Tribune) “appeared to be riding the wave of voter discontent with the status quo....”

Remember that expression, “riding the wave.” We'll return to it anon.

Arizona has been under a state of emergency since last year because of the breakdown of border enforcement. Many state residents along the border with Mexico are literally under siege. About a year ago, Hayworth – with the enthusiastic backing of the GOP-aligned conservative media establishment – published a campaign manifesto entitled Whatever It Takes: Illegal Immigration, Border Security, and the War on Terror.

Among Hayworth's recommendations were the creation of a border security fence and, if necessary, the militarization of our border with Mexico. One of Bush's most dutiful supporters in the “War on Terror,” Hayworth complained that the president didn't display the same “moral clarity” in dealing with border issues, most likely because of the malign influence of Karl Rove.

Hayworth, it seems to me, was one of the most visible congressional “heels” in the Rove-orchestrated immigration “angle” (to use the argot of professional “wrestling” I discussed earlier this year). The congressman obviously had no principled objection to the implementation of police-state measures to deal with immigration; after all, his view was that we had to do “whatever it takes,” which is a pretty open-ended formulation. And he was obviously convinced that this view would be shared by voters in a reliably Republican district in a state where illegal immigration is a crisis.

And he was wrong.





We did see a “wave” last night – a tsunami of voter revulsion over Republican corruption, profligacy, arrogance, and militarism. This was not a mandate for the Democrats; it was an indictment of the Republicans. The long-suppressed gag reflex of the electorate kicked in at last, and voters rediscovered the necessity for divided government, or what the Founders called “checks and balances.”

I'll have more to say later today about the returns, particular regarding some very interesting ballot measures....

Point of personal privilege --

My goodness, who saw the anti-Republican wave coming?

Well – I don't want to feed his already well-fattened ego, but this guy did:

“Unless your Congressman is named Ron Paul, he doesn't deserve to be re-elected. On at least one occasion during the last congressional term, every member of the House of Representatives – Dr. Paul being the sole exception – violated his oath of office by voting in favor of unconstitutional legislation.... If you're content to settle for [the record compiled by the Republican majority] -- if you believe that unchecked profligacy, open-ended foreign war, and canine subservience to a lawless executive should be rewarded -- then by all means, vote Republican this November.”

As I've noted previously, I was fired by The John Birch Society a few weeks ago, in large measure because I persisted in publishing views of the sort reproduced immediately above that set me at odds with the organization's “Ride the Wave” strategy.

By late Spring it was clear to me – if not to Alan Scholl, the JBS's head of Campaigns and Mission – that wedding the JBS to the GOP was not only a betrayal of the organization's constitutionalist principles, but also a disaster from a strategic perspective.

Alan described the “Ride the Wave” strategy in some detail during a phone call last June 23. It amounted to this: Downplay (to the point of invisibility) opposition to the war in Iraq, the creation of a wartime presidential dictatorship, and rampant GOP corruption, while throwing the organization into an immigration crusade that was essentially a cynical White House-approved political gambit intended to preserve a Republican congressional majority.

Well, it turns out that what Alan believed was a Republican “wave” was merely water circling the bowl as the GOP majority was flushed down the commode.

In this fashion the JBS missed a singular opportunity to make itself relevant by taking a stand that would have been both principled and prescient – and, remarkably, popular as well.

I hope that the JBS can regain its institutional independence, and redirect its efforts into an unstinting defense of liberty under law. But this will require new leadership where defining the organization's mission is concerned.

Alan, step aside. Find some other role in the organization. You're the one who made the call to “Ride the Wave,” and it was tragically wrong, for both the JBS and the country. Do the honorable thing.

(And for the record, this the last time I intend to address this subject for public consumption.)

UPDATE-- Neo-Conning the JBS

Honestly, I don't want to keep picking at this scab, but this kind of thing simply can't go without a challenge.

Shortly before I was fired, Alan Scholl complained to be in a phone call that some of what I had written here in Pro Libertate was off-putting to "neo-cons and others we want to bring into the movement."

Heaven fofend that I would give offense to people with an apparently limitless appetite for bloodshed, aggressive war, and other varieties of "creative destruction."

One of the most potent clues that someone is under the influence of the neo-Trotskyite warmongers called "neo-conservatives" is the use of the expression "Islamo-Fascism" or its variants. This deceptive coinage, ignorantly circulated by some and knowingly propagated by others, reeks of the Popular Front sloganeering engaged in by the founding generation of "neo-cons" before and during World War II. This is particularly the case where we find the term "Islamo-Fascism" (or its variants) deployed in the course of accusing some individual or institution of "appeasing" the same.

So it was something of an unpleasant surprise to when, visiting the JBS News Feed in search of information and insight, I read the following comment regarding the display of "Muslim Propaganda" on a plaque displayed at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute:

"What's the motivation behind the plaque? Given the precarious situation the Oriental Institute finds itself in with regard to Iran, it may be trying to appease that nation's Islamofascist regime."

This museum-quality specimen of neo-Trotskyite war rhetoric was written by ... you guessed it, Alan Scholl, director of Campaigns and Mission for the JBS.

The "precarious situation" alluded to involves a lawsuit by victims of an Iranian-backed terrorist in Israel, which resulted in a $423 million award that Iran has no intention of paying. Some attorneys have suggested that Iranian-owned artifacts in the U.S. -- of which the Oriental Institute has a unique collection -- could be seized in lieu of payments. This has prompted concerns on the part of the Institute that the Iranian government might simply reclaim its artifacts. Hence the supposed motivation for "appeasing" Tehran: "Could the posting of the Islamic propaganda plaque by the Oriental Institute be a move by museum staff to appease the Iranians?"

In writing this commentary Alan drew on a piece written by Diana Muir, whom he identifies as an "historian." True enough, Muir is a well-established historian and author, as well as a "professional book reviewer." More to the point of this particular matter, she is also an officer of the Boston-Israel Action Committee (BIAC) and an activist and protest organizer for the Jewish Action Task Force (JAT). She also liaises with the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA).

Working with and through those groups, Muir spends a great deal of time scrutinizing books, news reports, and various academic fora in search of "anti-Israel bias," and pressuring news outlets and academic institutions to suppress the same.

There's nothing at all wrong with taking action to counter what one honestly regards as media bias in any form, about Israel or any other subject. As a member of the JAT, however, Muir is quite literally on call, every day, to defend "Israel" -- meaning the Israeli regime, not the Israeli people. As I've pointed out before, to support the former is emphatically not to be a legitimate friend of the latter.

JAT members "pledge just 10 minutes a day to help counter anti-Israel actions and misinformation and to get the truth told about Israel," explains the organization's recruiting pitch. "You receive email messages that give you tasks that normally can be completed within those 10 minutes. Sometimes there are several tasks to choose from...."

Muir's role with CAMERA is to be a deniable asset organizing protests and pressure campaigns against "anti-Israel" media outlets. This was explained in a confidential message circulated to CAMERA's "e-mail team"

"Please do not forward this to strangers or potential anti-Israel activists," the message began. "Forward only to people you personally know to be friends of Israel."

"Many members have asked if we have heard how the May 14 nationwide day of protest against NPR [National Public Radio] went," the message continued. "The protest organizer, Diana Muir of BIAC (Boston-Israel Action Committee), has shared the following reports from people in 22 cities who participated in the nationwide day of protest against NPR's skewed reporting...."

Once again, there's no shortage of bias in the media and academia to protest, and NPR is certainly a worthy target. But this is a clear instance of an organized effort to pressure the media on behalf of a foreign regime -- and it's just as pernicious as anything the Iranian government has purportedly done to pressure the Oriental Institute into allowing "Islamo-Fascist" propaganda to sully its sacred precincts.

Here's how someone committed to the non-interventionist perspective the JBS used to espouse would deal with this matter:

Let partisans of Israel and Iran pitch their intellectual wares as they see fit; we're not taking a side. Our objective is to defend the national independence of the United States and the individual liberties of American citizens, and to that end we follow Washington's wise admonition to avoid passionate attachments to any foreign interest.

Obviously, Alan Scholl takes a different view. As the individual setting the priorities for the JBS, Alan is quietly trying to find a spot for the Birch Society behind the neo-Trot drum majors thumping away for war with Iran.

It's not just that Alan regurgitated Diana Muir's criticism of the Oriental Institute's "appeasement" of Iran; in yesterday's News Feed (November 7), addressing nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, Alan cited some experts who believe that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other nations are playing catch-up with Tehran. He then opined:

"A more chilling possibility is that nuclear weapons programs in other Islamic nations, instead of intended as a response to Iranian ambitions, actually share a parallel purpose with the program underway in Iran. That disparate Arab nuclear programs should be viewed as driven by a pan-Islamic nuclear ambition is suggested by the anti-Israeli orientation of the nations involved. Iran, for instance, has openly called for the destruction of Israel."

Yes, the prospect of an Islamic nuclear weapons capacity is the stuff of nightmares. But Alan carefully avoids two very relevant questions: Why should Israel assume that it has a right to a regional nuclear monopoly (implicitly enforced by Washington)? And what role did the U.S. invasion of Iraq play in prompting other Muslim nations -- who have been targeted for "liberation" by the same gang that brought us the war in Iraq -- to seek a nuclear deterrent to Washington's aggression?

Neo-cons don't ask those questions. If they had their way, nobody else would be permitted to, either, since skepticism of that sort undermines their plans to conduct humanitarian bloodshed throughout the Middle East. On the available evidence, it would appear that Alan Scholl shares those priorities.

Reich Here, Reich Now

If a morbidly obese man is a year away from a heart attack, but choking on a piece of steak right now, which should be our immediate course of action: Should we pester him about changing his diet and getting more exercise, or apply the Heimlich Maneuver right now?

The answer is obvious, as is the reason why this rhetorical question serves as a perfect Election Day metaphor.

Yes, the process of restoring some semblance of liberty through the rule of law will require long-term treatment of the deeply entrenched corruption within our body politic. Whether this can be done at this late stage of our decline into outright despotism is a question I'm hardly competent to answer.

But any progress will require, first and foremost, that we deal with the most acute threat to what remains of our liberties: The emergence of an unabashedly totalitarian Republican ruling elite that emits the unmistakable aroma of Fascism.

Assuming that the GOP's fortunes aren't favored by Diebold, as it were, the Republican death-grip on the political system will be loosened, at least somewhat, by tomorrow.

Thank God.

Of course, there's always the possibility of a lame-duck session of Congress.

And we shouldn't assume that the “Democrat” brand through which the Ruling Party retails some of its programs would be any better, were it to achieve the same political dominance that its “competitor” presently enjoys.

The case made by the Bush-led GOP for preserving the Republican majority seems to be nothing other than this: As long as we're “at war” -- and this will continue into the foreseeable future – One Party Rule is a patriotic imperative.



The Wee Decider made that point explicitly yesterday in a campaign speech before a throng of auto-lobomotized Bu'ushists in Pensacola.


"As you go to the polls, remember we're at war," commanded the Bushling. "And if you want this country to do everything in its power to protect you and at the same time lay a foundation for peace for generations to come, vote Republican."

Statements of this sort help explain the bizarre difficulty Bush displays with the English language: Clearly, his native tongue is Orwellian.

Assuming, once again, that a Democratic congressional majority, or plurality (with a Democrat majority in the House and the Senate still under Republican control) emerges as a result of today's elections, the Brownshirt wing of the Republican Party – which, to be blunt, seems to be the only fully functional wing – will be given a handy rationale for the failure of the war in Iraq.

We can expect that the GOP's media auxiliary, having execrated the mainstream media for supposedly ignoring the “good news” out of Iraq, will perform a lock-step pivot and start describing the debacle in detail, while insisting that this is the fault of those who “stabbed us in the back” -- not a failure on the part of a president and party who have faced no significant opposition since November 2002.

Charles Featherstone offers this perceptive analysis:

“What I've seen on the web tells me that some [Republican leaders and apologists], at any rate, are willing to blame the media and Democrats exclusively for the defeat. How that works mechanically, especially given how little power they have in determining policy, is anyone's guess. But we are talking about magical thinking after all. It also means that Republicans, if they take this line of thinking to its logical conclusion (and thankfully most of them don't), are going to demand something akin to one-party authoritarian government the next time they wage war. A government with the power to keep all possible secrets, detain all possible opponents and control all domestic media. Why do anything less if success in war – and thus the future of civilization itself – hinges on it?... Which means the next logical step is the rack and the inquisition – `Do you support the war? Do you love and trust your leaders?' --and torture and death for those who do not. That is, after all, what the state does when it demands the allegiance and support of all its citizens.”


Featherstone's assessment is contingent only on the continuation of the war in Iraq through the rest of Bush's reign, and into that of his successor. The Democrat Party leadership, unfortunately, has repudiated the “cut-and-run” option. It has become committed to “victory” in Iraq. In a curious way, the Democrats have dusted off Michael Dukakis's 1988 campaign theme: The election is about competence, not ideology.

When we're mired in a war we shouldn't have fought, and continuing the war actually exacerbates the threat, cutting and running is the only rational course of action. Since we're looking down the barrel of immediate bankruptcy and financial ruin, a radical – and immediate – change of fiscal policy is imperative. And Americans of all backgrounds should be able to appreciate the need to blow up the foundations of the Garrison State and wartime dictatorship that have been laid during the past five years.

So we'll have plenty to do, and lots to talk about, no matter what happens at the polls today -- but first, we need to get that chunk of gristle dislodged from the trachea of the body politic....

Now, Can We Prosecute Saddam's Unindicted Co-Conspirators? (UPDATED)

Saddam's conviction and death sentence represent the last full measure of his usefulness to the Power Elite that sustained and exploited him from the time he came to power. Of the myriad crimes he committed against his subjects, international peace, and God's law, Saddam will swing for a 1982 massacre of 148 people in a Shi'ite community.

It was over a year after that atrocity that the incumbent Minister for Aggression Against Small Countries Donald Rumsfeld met with Saddam as an emissary of President Ronald Reagan.

It was after the crime for which Saddam faces the death penalty that the Reagan and Bush administrations, working in collaboration with Kissinger Associates and a shadowy network of financial cut-outs, aided Saddam's war effort against Iran, in which Iraq was the aggressor.

In 1987, about five years after Saddam presided over the massacre that prompted today's death sentence, The New Republic -- a consistent supporter of military action against Iraq since 1990 -- published an essay entitled "Back Iraq," which urged Washington to offer Baghdad material and strategic support against Iran (which had, in fact, been Washington's policy since the beginning of the decade, although it offered occasional support for Tehran as well).

"The American weapons that Iraq could make good use of include remotely scatterable and anti-personnel mines and counterartillery radar," wrote the co-authors of that piece. "The United States might also consider upgrading intelligence it is supplying Baghdad."

The authors of that essay were Laurie Mylroie and Daniel Pipes, who have been unstinting supporters of the ongoing Iraq war and a larger campaign against "Islamo-Fascism."

In 1987, Iraq attacked the U.S. Stark, which was part of a U.S. naval convoy protecting Kuwaiti oil tankers in the Persian Gulf. The following year, Saddam's regime allegedly used poison gas against Iraq's Kurdish population, an attack that has iconic status as an illustration of Saddam's murderous depravity (we'll leave aside, for the nonce, the fact that Iran has been plausibly accused of that attack).

Roughly two years later, after the Iran-Iraq war was over, the first President Bush issued a national security directive (NSD 26) intended to continue and expand existing military and strategic cooperation between Washington and Baghdad. This continued, incredibly, up to the very beginning of the 1991 Gulf War.

Saddam is a modern ruler in the worst sense of that expression. Although cloaking himself now in the metaphorical robes of Muslim piety, it was Josef Stalin who provided his model of governance, at least in an aspirational sense. Saddam was cruel and brutal, but he never amassed powers akin to those exercised by Stalin, or used the powers he had to regiment the daily life of his subjects; he was content to liquidate those people -- individually, or in groups as large as he deemed necessary -- that threatened his hold on power.

It is those for whom Saddam acted as a subcontractor -- the architects of the Glorious Global Democratic Revolution -- who lust to re-order the lives of millions through the use of lethal violence.

If Saddam deserves to experience the long drop to the end of the hangman's rope, he should be joined on the scaffold by those who gave him the material means and political support to commit his crimes, as well as those who are exploiting the memory of those atrocities to advance their own murderous designs.

As Gilbert and Sullivan put it in the Mikado: I've got a little list...

And it's not as if the architects of this war weren't warned about the likely outcome --

"The U.S. government conducted a series of secret war games in 1999 that anticipated an invasion of Iraq would require 400,000 troops, and even then chaos might ensue," reports the Associated Press, citing documents made public on November 4 via a FOIA filed by the National Security Archive.

The "Desert Crossing" wargames "looked at `worst case' and `most likely' scenarios after a war that removed then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein from power. Someare similar to what actually occurred after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003...."

Among the anticipated consequences, according to AP's summary, were an inflammation of "Iran's anti-Americanism," the alienation of Arab governments in the region, and growing friction with "many coalition partners." From this it would be reasonable to extrapolate an upsurge in militancy throughout the Islamic world, and a corresponding increase in terrorism.

All of this was known by the policy-makers who manipulated George W. Bush -- a callow, self-enraptured, arrogant, incurious little twit with delusions of divine destiny -- into committing the United States to a war of choice against Iraq. Which is to say that those people chose the outcome we're now seeing.

The most conspicuous representative of that cabal, the man actually running the executive branch, was asked by ABC's George Stephanapolous how he would react if a Democrat-led Congress issued a subponea for him to testify about Iraq and other matters.

"Probably not," replied Vice President Cheney, who clearly believes that accountability is for lesser breeds, rather than exalted beings like himself who live beyond the law.

In this, as in so much else, Cheney and the repellent people he represents are immeasurably worthier than Saddam of the fate decreed for their former Iraqi subcontractor today.

What The Regime Does to "Great Americans"

Since the group has an absolute or totalist vision of truth, those who are not in the group are bound up in evil, are not enlightened, are not saved, and do not have the right to exist.... One outside the group may always receive their right of existence by joining the group.... The group is the "elite,” outsiders are "of the world,” "evil,” "unenlightened,” etc.

Item #8 in Robert Jay Lifton's “Eight Criteria for Thought Reform,” a checklist of cult characteristics


Anyone who has endured more than a few minutes of Sean Hannity's daily assault upon reason will be familiar with the verbal handshake – perhaps “reach-around” would be a more appropriate description – by which the Hannitoids* identify each other: “You're a great American.”

It is never explained what these people did to distinguish themselves as “Great Americans,” but no explanation is necessary: By virtue of their blinkered devotion to the Dear Leader and his vision, they have become part of an anointed elite. They need not actually accomplish anything; their membership in Sean's little cult is sufficient proof of their “greatness.”

Army Specialist Alyssa Peterson


Colonel Ted Westhusing


Army Specialist Alyssa Peterson, by way of contrast, was a Great American of the traditional sort. The same was true of Colonel Ted Westhusing. Like thousands of other American servicemen, Spec. Peterson and Col. Westhusing died in Iraq. Like an unknown number, however, both of them took their own lives as a result of mortal disgust over what the regime was forcing them to do.

“I cannot support a mission that leads to corruption, human rights abuse and liars,” protested Col. Ted Westhusing in a letter he wrote to his family last June. “I am sullied. I came to serve honorably and feel dishonored. Death before being dishonored any more.”

Not long after writing those words, Col. Westhusing (about whom I have written before) – a West Point graduate and Special Forces veteran, a devout Catholic husband and father – used his service pistol to take his own life. This took place less than a month before the 44-year-old Colonel was to end his tour of duty.

Westhusing had become distraught to learn that the contractor for which he worked, Virginia-based USIS, had been implicated in many serious crimes – from embezzlement to murder.

“A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal – or tolerate those who do,” according to the moral code Westhusing had learned at West Point. An Army psychologist who reviewed Westhusing's e-mails following his suicide determined that the Colonel simply took that moral code too seriously, contending that Westhusing “had placed too much pressure on himself to succeed and that he was unusually rigid in his thinking.”

Westhusing's commitment to “moral clarity” -- a virtue hymned by neo-Trotskyites, and studiously avoided by them – made it unbearable for him to be party to a huge and hideous crime against Christian decency.

Col. Westhusing was a faithful and devoted Catholic, and almost certainly believed that “the Almighty hath set his canon 'gainst self-slaughter.” I cannot imagine the abyss of dejection into which he must have fallen before taking his own life – assuming that it wasn't taken from him by the corrupt contractors with whom he worked, as some people suspect.

Like Colonel Westhusing, Spec. Peterson was devoutly religious, a one-time Mormon missionary from Flagstaff, Arizona. She had what one friend described as an “amazing” ability to learn languages, an aptitude that helped her learn Arabic at the Army's Defense Language Institute. Like Col. Westhusing, Spec. Peterson volunteered for duty in Iraq, where she was sent to help interrogate prisoners and translate captured documents at an air base in Tal-Afar.

And, like Ted Westhusing, Alyssa Peterson was driven to suicidal depression as a result of the role the regime forced her to play in Iraq.

The military bureaucracy, as is its wont, tried to bury the truth about Peterson's death. Reporter Kevin Elston, presently with Flagstaff public radio station KNAU, exhumed the details through diligent forensic journalism of a sort rarely practiced anymore.

“Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners,” reports Elston, using what is now recognized as a euphemism for “torture.” “She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokesmen for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.”

Immediately after lodging her objections, Alyssa was reassigned and sent to suicide prevention training; her suicide note (which has yet to be released; Elston saw a declassified paraphrase) took ironic notice of the fact that the “prevention” training actually instructed her in the best way to kill herself.

After doing what it could to conceal the circumstances surrounding Spec. Peterson's suicide, the Pentagon continues its campaign of obfuscation: It now insists that there may have been no connection between her objections to torture and her decision to kill herself. Unfortunately, the only person who could clarify the matter -- an intelligent, capable, exuberant young woman for whom suicide was entirely out of character -- is no longer among the living.

And the same bureaucracy continues to dispatch soldiers with severe psychological problems -- including clear warning signs of suicidal impulses -- to combat roles in Iraq.

Like Ted Westhusing, Alyssa Peterson was an intelligent, self-possessed individual of strong moral convictions and exceptional achievement. What did she see that deprived her of the will to live?

If the Regime has its way, we will never know for sure. As the tyranny under which we now live ripens, and its abuses of power become more overt, we'll likely be exposed to at least some of the horrors that drove these incontestably Great Americans to suicide.

Do the Hannitoids even care about what the Regime is planning for us? The cult's rank-and-file neither care, nor understand. Their chief evangelist has bigger worries, having sold his soul in a buyer's market.

*A "Hannitoid" is best described as a severely infected polyp in the descending colon of the body politic.

There Go De Judge? Let's Hope So

A little more than a week from now, if Jesus tarries* and Utah voters are wise, Judge Leslie Lewis will be out of a job. Utterly devoid of judicial temperament or corresponding intellectual endowments, Lewis, who has afflicted the state's 3rd District Court for several years, has been targeted for recall by a citizen's group outraged over an incident last February in which she ordered the arrest of a courtroom spectator for leaving the room.

The spectator, Kent Jacobson, was on hand for a hearing involving his brother Michael, who was accused of (and later found guilty of) a poaching-related offense. Little Miss Lewis (hereafter referred to by her given name, as is appropriate in dealing with any other ill-behaved child) is apparently one of those misguided people who view nature through a Disney filter: The wild is a joyous realm in which anthropomorphized animals gambol about, speaking English and playing soccer, and every hunter is a heartless bipedal predator bent on slaughtering Bambi's Mother.

Because of her strong feelings about hunting, Leslie recused herself from the case, but like any other termagant unduly infatuated with the sound of her voice, she had to say her piece before doing so. This she did at great and (owing to the fingernails-on-a-chalkboard quality of said voice) excruciating length, mocking and ridiculing not only the accused poacher, but hunters in general.

“I have a prejudice concerning deer hunters and people who kill deal and transport deer that have been shot,” Leslie sniped, according to a transcript of the incident. “Have you ever actually looked at a deer when they're alive?... And it doesn't bother you that you can see its heart beating?... I'm asking you a question, I expect an answer.”

No doubt acting on an impulse shared with others in the courtroom, Kent Jacobson, heaving a weary sigh, left the courtroom – which was an act of gentlemanly restraint in the face of Leslie's arrogant, juvenile provocation. In a fit of childish pique over the fact that a member of her audience was leaving in disgust, Leslie directed a taunt at Mr. Jacobson: “Are we boring you?” When Jacobson left the room without replying, Leslie sicced the Bailiff on him.

“Now, why did you feel the need to make such an explosive and clear indication of your displeasure or boredom at being here?” Leslie upbraided Kent Jacobson, once he had been dragged in front of her.

Bear in mind, that 1) Leslie had asked Kent a question, and 2) that she had just ordered Kent's brother Michael to answer a previous question. Like any rational adult, Kent proceeded to supply an answer.

“OK, it's not just the displeasure of being bored here,” he began, offering a fully responsive answer to the question just asked by the snitty, arrogant little girl play-acting the role of a judge. “The problem is, we have just as much rights of going out and shooting deer as you have the right...”

Following some brief cross-talk, little Leslie ordered that Mr. Jacobson be arrested – for the supposed offense of answering a question he had been asked in court.

“Put him in custody,” snipped the little caniform female to the Bailiff, before directing some more trash-talk at Mr. Jacobson. “I'm not going to argue with you, and you have no business chastising me, sir, and I did not make a comment you have any right to correct.... I don't want to hear a word from you. You and I are not in the same position, we are not having a dialogue.”

“I was bored,” mumbled Mr. Jacobsen as the Bailiff took him away.

“You're bored?” mocked little Leslie from the bench. “Let's see how you feel in the holding cell.”

At this point, if this incident had taken place in a self-governing community in a free country, one of two things would have happened: Either the Bailiff would have refused to carry out this patently illegal arrest, or the spectators in the courtroom would have interdicted that arrest. But the Bailiff obeyed the illegal order, and the spectators passively permitted Leslie to commit the crime of false imprisonment.

(Click here to see a video recording of this incident.)

Leslie's little tantrum reminded me of a similarly repellent episode that took place about a year ago.

In October 2005, the then-CEO of the company that until recently employed me was forced to resign. As he left the office, carrying a company-purchased laptop computer, the former CEO was gently and respectfully accosted by a meek but dutiful company officer, who had to check to see if any of the company's proprietary information was still on the laptop. This is called “due diligence,” just as Kent Jacobsen's composed and polite comments to Leslie is properly described as “answering a question posed by a judge.”

According to several eyewitnesses, the ex-CEO whirled on the company official (who may be the most unassuming person I've ever met) and hissed at him: “I can still fire you.”

That's what was on the tip of that guy's brain, as it were, as he was resigning his position. He was not thinking about the company's future, or dwelling on considerations of his family's financial well-being; he was entirely preoccupied with the thought that he was losing the ability to fire people.

I suspect that similar fleeting impulses ricocheted around in Leslie's uncluttered mind as she dealt with Michael and Kent Jacobsen. Because of her irrational aversion to hunting, she was going to miss out on sending someone to jail – unless, of course, she could provoke Michael into doing something that could be construed as contempt of court. Michael didn't commit that offense. Neither did Kent, as the record reflects; he was, after all, trying to answer an open-ended question posed by the silly little girl playing dress-up in judicial robes on that occasion.

But Leslie was determined to send someone to jail, if only to demonstrate that she was “not in the same position” as the hoi polloi on hand to witness her descent into pure, unalloyed adolescent spite.

Kent Jacobsen spent several hours in state custody. That is an atrocity, a form of kidnapping – and it is the defining offense of what has been a hugely embarrassing judicial career. Leslie is as unqualified to be a judge as she is to be a pole dancer, although in the latter career she would have inflicted less damage on society.

Repulsive as her behavior is, Leslie is merely a symptom, in much the same way that an acutely painful rectal itch might be a warning sign of a potentially fatal cancer. The key to understanding why this is so can be found in two things: Leslie's arrogant statement that as a judge she was “not in the same position” as common citizens, and the obedience rendered to her by the Bailiff and the courtroom spectators.

As Roger Roots points out in a thought-provoking historical survey published by Seton Hall Constitutional Law Journal, our present system of “law enforcement” is based on collectivist premises entirely foreign to our constitutional system and common law heritage.

“Under the common law, there was no difference whatsoever between the privileges, immunities, and powers of the constables and those of private citizens,” writes Roots in summarizing his findings. “Constables were literally and figuratively clothed in the same garments as everyone else and faced the same liabilities – civil and criminal – as everyone else under identical circumstances.

Until the late 1800s, “police were a sanitation and repair workforce more than a corps of crime-fighting gun-slingers,” he continues. “Sheriff Wyatt Earp of OK Corral fame, for example, repaired boardwalks as part of his duties.” It wasn't until the dawn of the 20th Century that American communities alienated the law enforcement role – once carried out by Sheriffs, their deputies, and deputized posses of citizens – to professional police officers endowed with exceptional powers and prerogatives.

The most provocative finding in Roots' study, and the one most relevant to the incident in Judge Leslie's courtroom, is the following:

“Nothing illustrates the modern disparity between the rights and powers of police and citizen as much as the modern law of resisting arrest. At the time of the nation's founding, any citizen was privileged to resist arrest if, for example, probable cause for arrest did not exist or the arresting person could not produce a valid arrest warrant where one was needed..... [As recently as a century ago, police officers] who executed an arrest without proper warrant were themselves considered trespassers, and any trespassee had a right to violently resist (or even assault and batter) an officer to evade such arrest.”



"You're out of order! This WHOLE TRIAL is out of order!"



Under that standard – assuming that Roots' findings are reliable – Kent Jacobsen would have been fully within his legal and constitutional rights to resist the arrest order issued by Judge Leslie, and the courtroom spectators would have acted properly had they taken action to prevent Kent's arrest.

It should be remembered that the kind of outrage inflicted on Kent Jacobsen is hardly uncommon; in fact, summary execution during unjustified arrest is becoming distressingly common.

To cite just two examples:

*Last February, 43-year-old Michael Kreca was murdered by San Diego police when the mild-mannered, non-violent tech writer refused to submit to an utterly unjustified arrest. Kreca had been walking in Sorrento Mesa when he was accosted by two officers who claimed to have had heard gunshots. Kreca, who was carrying a firearm (as any rational person would when walking alone in San Diego) told the officers he had not been shooting and hadn't heard gunshots. He consented to a body search that turned up a 9mm pistol in the waistband of his baggy clothes.

One officer, Samantha Fleming, told Kreca that she was going to handcuff him “for her safety,” according to an official report. “No, you're not going to do that,” replied Kreca. “Let me go; I want to leave.” As he tried to leave, the other officer – Sergeant Elmer Edwards -- placed his gun against Kreca's chest and fired twice, killing him.

What a hero.

The official inquiry ruled that Sgt. Edwards “acted within the law,” since California statutes permit police “to use deadly force to protect themselves and members of the public from serious injury or death” -- which means, in practice, that police officers in that jurisdiction can murder civilians without consequence, unless said citizens are members of a protected minority class.

*Just yesterday, police in Jerseyville, Illinois killed 17-year-old Roger Holyfield, a youth who apparently suffered from emotional problems. Someone had called the police to complain about Holyfield's behavior: He was carrying a Bible and a cordless phone and shouting “I want Jesus!”

The troubled youth reportedly suffered from bipolar disorder, and from my admittedly untrained perspective, that seems like a plausible explanation. (“Religious preoccupation” is a common symptom of bi-polar disorder.) Rather than being treated as sick person needing treatment, the young man was treated as a threat to officer safety: He was surrounded by a scrum of police and Tasered twice when he became “combative.” Rushed to a nearby hospital, Holyfield became unresponsive; he was medevaced to Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis, where he died.

According to an eyewitness, four police, two State Troopers, and a plainclothes officer were deployed to deal with the supposed threat posed by one sick teenager armed with a Bible. Another commented that there were more than enough men on hand to subdue the youth without shooting him twice with 50,000 volts of electricity. Another witness contended that the police had acted properly: “[Holyfield] was struggling, he was resisting. [The police] did what the could to hold him down.”

Really? Seven tax-fattened heroes did everything they could to avoid using a consistently lethal “non-lethal” weapon on a sick, unarmed, non-violent teenager? Or did they simply do what was convenient, in the serene confidence that they wouldn't be held responsible if that young man died?

All of these episodes illustrate the often murderous impunity enjoyed by those who have been given a state-issued license to kidnap and kill other human beings. That license needs to be revoked immediately, from as many of those people as possible – and evicting Leslie Lewis from her judicial post in Utah would be a splendid way to begin.

*When I use the expression “if Jesus tarries,” I'm not being profane; I'm expressing frustrated impatience.


Oh, and my apologies to Flip Wilson, as well as his brothers Fetch and Scrud (that's an allusion to Utah's disinctive patois, of course.)

Is Real Money "Illegal"?

[Publisher's note: The following essay is adapted from an article I wrote for The New American and submitted for publication on October 2 -- the day I was fired. I actually completed the first draft two hours after learning about my termination; while it was clear to me that it would not be published, I still had an assignment to complete and I've always regarded deadlines as sacred.

What follows is essentially the same piece I sent to the magazine on October 2, with a few minor edits for clarity and one small section added to bring the story up to date.]

Is Real Money "Illegal"?

The Feds insist that the privately produced Liberty Dollar – silver coins or storage receipts redeemable for gold or silver on demand – isn't as genuine as federal reserve notes backed by nothing.


Although people are understandably, and often excessively, preoccupied with money, most people cannot specifically define what it is. Is it paper currency? Is it coins? Is it checks, credit cards, or other negotiable instruments? Should we consider the electronic impulses recorded in our checking and saving accounts as “money”? And why do people accept any or all of the foregoing in exchange for goods and services?

In recent weeks this question has been complicated because of a warning issued by the US Mint regarding the growing use of “Liberty Dollars," privately issued currency produced by an Evansville, Indiana based group called the National Organization for the Repeal of the Federal Reserve Act and the Internal Revenue Code (NORFED). The organization claims that there is a total of $20 million in Liberty Dollars presently in circulation.

NORFED -- founded by Bernard von NotHaus, the former mintmaster of the Royal Hawaiian Mint -- has struck coins made of pure silver, using silver “blanks” produced by the Sunshine Mint in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho. The Sunshine Mint is reportedly the same facility that produces all of the blanks used by the US Mint to create its collectible coins. It also provides safe, audited storage for the gold and silver used to back Liberty Dollar notes, which are very attractive, multi-colored storage receipts, each of which is infused with a computer-readable strip that makes counterfeiting extremely difficult. The notes, which do not advertise themselves as legal tender, are redeemable on demand in gold or silver.

The coins, as well as the metal-backed notes, are distributed through a national network of Regional Currency Offices (RCOs), and accepted by merchants who advertise their willingness to accept them in barter for goods and services. Many other businessmen who are not part of the Liberty Dollar movement have been willing to accept the beautiful silver coins (called “medallions” by RCOs for legal reasons) as well.

Many see the Liberty Dollar as a healthy hedge against inflation and a splendid example of mutually beneficial barter. The Feds, however, are trying to convince the public – through insinuation, not through formal prosecution – that NORFED is engaged in fraud.

"We don't want consumers to be fooled," insists U.S. Mint spokeswoman Becky Bailey. "The United States Mint is the only entity that can produce coins."

This isn't true, of course, since many companies produce beautiful gold, silver, platinum, and palladium bullion coins. What Ms. Bailey apparently meant to say was that none of these companies has the government's permission to circulate those coins as money. But government's permission is not required, where the transaction takes place between fully informed parties -- sellers willing to accept privately produced coins or storage notes for precious metal, and buyers with sufficient specie to pay the asking price.

Real vs. “Real” Money

Under federal law, the U.S. Dollar, in various denominations, is defined as “legal tender,” meaning that it must be accepted as payment for “all debts, public and private.” Since August 15, 1971, when President Richard Nixon severed the last links between the dollar and gold, the Federal Reserve Note (FRN) has not been backed by precious metals or commodities of any kind. Its value is provided by the “full faith and credit” of the U.S. Government – which means, in practice, that people accept it in payment because the federal government forces them to.

This is a relatively recent development in our nation's history, the result of a process that began with the creation of the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and continued until our “money” was completely divorced from precious metals in 1971.

Until 1965, minted US government coins in circulation contained at least some precious metal; that is no longer the case. Contemporary dimes and quarters are made of a nickel/copper alloy that is worth less than the face value of the respective coins; even the lowly penny, once made from copper, is now composed of zinc.(Curiously, however, the nickel coin presently contains six cents' worth of the metal, but this anomaly likely won't last much longer.)

The U.S. Constitution specifies that Congress has the power to "coin" money, and to punish counterfeiting; it also specifies that no state can "make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts" -- a prohibition that applies, in principle, to Congress as well, since nothing in the Constitution authorizes the creation of paper money, let alone fiat currency.

The Founders, remembering the disastrous experience of issuing the fiat “Continental” currency during the War for Independence, inscribed the principle of hard money in the Constitution. In 1792, Congress passed the Coinage Act, a measure defining a “dollar” as a specific quantity – 371.25 grams – of silver. For most of our nation's history – the span of 130 years between 1787 and 1913 – gold and silver, as well as notes redeemable in the same, issued by governments and private banks, were money.

However, despite the unambiguous language of the Constitution and the 1792 coinage act, as well as the balance of our national history,a federal statute criminalizes the use of gold and silver in transactions as a form of “counterfeiting and forgery.”



REAL money -- silver bullion coins and bars. Use it instead of the regime's officially sanctioned counterfeit, and you may go to jail.


Chapter 18, section 486 of the United States Code declares:

“Whoever, except as authorized by law, makes or utters or passes, or attempts to utter or pass, any coins of gold or silver or other metal, or alloys of metals, intended for use as current money, whether in the resemblance of coins of the United States or of foreign countries, or of original design, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.”

According to the US Mint's Becky Bailey, using Liberty Dollars, or any other form of gold or silver coin, “as legal tender is a violation of federal law.”

I asked Bailey to consider a hypothetical question: If an individual went to a local diner and offered a Liberty Dollar in exchange for a meal, and the proprietor agreed to provide the service on those terms, “is that transaction a crime?”

“Yes,” she replied. “I'm not an attorney, but our legal team has looked this over carefully, and they're convinced that exchanging gold and silver medallions for goods or services as if they were real currency – including in barter – is a violation of 18 USC section 486.”

Pointing out that the U.S. Constitution authorizes only the use of gold or silver as legal tender, I asked: “How can it be a federal crime to use the only legal tender recognized by the Constitution in private transactions?” She immediately became very defensive.

“Look, do you want to debate the legal and constitutional issues?” she asked with some asperity. Assured that I was only asking her to explain a factual contradiction, Bailey insisted that the issue was moot, since “we did go off the gold standard.”

“U.S. Attorneys are receiving complaints and phone calls from merchants and local authorities across the country about the use of the Liberty Dollar medallions as currency," she continued. "We don't want consumers to be fooled.”

Are prosecutions forthcoming? I asked.

“We're not an enforcement agency,” Bailey replied. “I don't know if law enforcement agencies are planning to prosecute. But we're convinced that the use of the Liberty Dollars is a violation of federal law.”

The U.S. Secret Service, which is the agency in charge of investigating counterfeiting, offers a view much different from that expressed by Ms. Bailey. Kevin Miller of the Secret Service's field office in Spokane, told the Missoulian (.pdf)last year that using the Liberty coins is perfectly legal when they're accepted voluntarily.

“It's kind of like Wally World coins or Disney dollars,” Miller opined a year ago, referring to scrip or tokens used at amusement parks. “The merchant can accept them, just like bartering. But it's not considered counterfeit because there's no U.S. Obligation.”

More recently, however, federal prosecutors have been making threatening noises similar to those made by the US Mint's Becky Bailey.

"Although we haven't had any of these types of cases in Montana yet, the statute says using one of these coins as legitimate money could be a crime," assistant U.S. Attorney for Montana Kurt Alme tolde the October 15 Missoulian. "It looks like if you make or attempt to pass a coin of gold or silver as current money it's a crime."

There it is: In the land of fiat -- that is to say, phony -- money, using the real article is a crime.




Bogus money, valuable trinkets: The Federal Reserve Note and federally issued coins have less intrinsic value than the pewter medallion on the left -- a Bronze Medal I won in a wrestling tournament a few years ago -- and the plastic "coin" one of my children received at a church activity involving Bible study. At least those items reflect honest effort and achievement.


How is anyone injured by accepting silver or gold instead of a debt instrument or a worthless slug?

The Missoulian takes a stab at answering this question by insinuating that the Liberty Dollar is overvalued and thus a form of fraud.

"The Liberty Dollar coins are made of 1 troy ounce of 0.999 fine silver and have a face value of $20," notes the paper. "But the coin's face value soars above market prices for the same weight of silver, which is currently about $10.45 an ounce." (As this is written, the spot price of silver is north of $12.00 an ounce.)

Once again, if both parties to the transaction are fully informed and willing, what injury results? And besides, this critique of the Liberty Dollar doesn't disclose the "market price" of gaudily decorated rag paper, or why we should be forced to accept little rectangles of the same as if they had some innate value.


No such thing as bad publicity

For their part, NORFED and the Liberty Dollar campaign perceive the recent attention from the US Mint and the mainstream press to be an intimidation campaign that appears to be backfiring.

“What the US Mint asserted in its press release, and what was picked up by various news outlets – from USA Today to CNN and CBS, with some of it ripping into local coverage – was nothing more than a handful of vague allegations and insinuations of fraud,” Michael Johnson, Executive Director of the Liberty Dollar campaign, told me in a telephone interview.

“We've been around for eight years, and in that time we've made repeated inquiries to the Treasury Department, the Secret Service, and several other federal agencies. To date, we've received no notice of any kind from any government agency that anything we've done is illegal or unethical. They've not contacted us, they've not approached us in any way. Our chief legal counsel in Washington has tried to communicate with the Treasury Department's legal counsel. But they literally won't even return our phone calls.”

If the intent is to scare people away from the Liberty Dollar movement, the campaign may have backfired.

“I think the Feds gave us about $40 million in free publicity with their attacks on the Liberty Dollar,” commented Matthew Pitagora, who operates a Regional Currency Office (RCO) out of his Evergreen Valley Water Company in San Jose, California.

“What we're doing isn't just an effort to promote the use of real money through private barter,” Pitagora told me. “It's also a First Amendment campaign to inform the public about the destruction of their wealth through the use of fiat currency, and hopefully to energize the public to petition our elected representatives for a return to legal, constitutional money – gold and silver. So when the Feds resorted to what I consider attempted information terrorism – trying to scare our customers away – it really worked to our benefit. Millions of people who didn't know about the existence of a legal, constitutionally sound alternative to the worthless FRNs [Federal Reserve Notes] now do, and that will certainly help our efforts.”

USA Today and the other media outlets that republished the US Mint's press release were acting as stenographers rather than journalists, dutifully retailing what they had been fed by the Feds. The media had been given an opportunity to hear and report NORFED's side of the story earlier.

“In early August, Mr. Von Not Haus and some of his associates held a press conference outside the Federal Reserve's headquarters in New York,” recalled Michael Smith to The New American. “They held up a giant `debt balloon' to illustrate the impact of inflation in driving our nation into incipient bankruptcy. The message was: the dollar is headed for collapse, you'd better move to protect your personal wealth – and the Liberty Dollar is a good way to go.”

The press conference received no coverage at all in the mainstream media. However, Smith suggests, “the negative coverage of Liberty Dollar triggered by the US Mint's press release could have been a response to our efforts to raise our profile. If that was the intention, though, it didn't work out quite the way they had planned, because we're doing about double the amount of business now that we were before” the hit piece appeared in USA Today.

For now, explains Pitagora, “we'll keep circulating the Liberties. I take them here at my business. When people are interested I'll give them to customers in change, which means that I'm actually giving them back something more valuable than the FRNs they use to pay me. That's a great feeling.”

Rented Thugs

What stuck in the minds of these men who had become murderers was simply the notion of being involved in something historic, grandiose, unique ("a great task that occurs once in two thousand years"), which must therefore be difficult to bear. This was important, because the murderers were not sadists or killers by nature; on the contrary, a systematic effort was made to weed out all those who derived physical pleasure from what they did.... Hence the problem was how to overcome not so much their conscience as the animal pity by which all normal men are affected in the presence of physical
suffering. The trick used by Himmler — who apparently was rather strongly afflicted by these instinctive reactions himself — was very simple and probably very effective; it consisted in turning these instincts around, as it were, in directing them toward the self. So that instead of saying: What horrible things I did to people!, the murderers would be able to say: What horrible things I had to watch in the pursuance of my duties, how heavily the task weighed upon my shoulders!

Hannah Arendt, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil

If you have tears to shed, let them fall like rain for Lt. Ackley of the New London (Connecticut) Police Department. This noble paladin of public order was victimized during the September 22nd arrest of protester Lauren Canario, whose supposed crime was to sit placidly reading a book on the front porch of a home that had been seized by the New London Development Corporation (NLDC).

Canario, who has twice been forced to undergo psychiatric evaluation, is currently being held at York Correctional Institution on $5000 bail. She was arrested last year and held in irons for the supposed crime of trying to participate in a City Council meeting held to discuss eminent domain seizures of property in New London.

According to Caleb Johnson, who called Lt. Ackley, the officer “told me he has been victimized by her, as he has been forced to carry her where they want her to be, resulting in him hurting his back.”

Hey, butch it up, hero. Ditch the donuts and do some deadlifts and good mornings. If you're serious about working as a rented thug for the local affiliate of the corporatist state, chances are you'll occasionally have to do some hands-on heavy lifting – heavier, in any case, than lifting a pen to scribble an extortion note (sometimes called a “traffic ticket”) when you're shaking down local motorists on behalf of the folks who slop your trough.

As it happens, Lt. Ackley had some help lifting and carrying the non-cooperative, non-resisting protester. It really shouldn't take two burly gendarmes to lift one small-boned, middle-aged woman.

The NDLC is, in a specific sense, a fascist entity: A public-private partnership (with both the local government and the federal Department of Commerce) that employs state power on behalf of a private cartel.

As the Institute for Justice recounts, in 1998 the City of New London “handed over its power of eminent domain—the ability to take private property for public use—to the New London Development Corporation (NLDC), a private body, to take the entire neighborhood for private development. As the Fort Trumbull neighbors found out, when private entities wield government’s awesome power of eminent domain and can justify taking property with the nebulous claim of `economic development,' all homeowners are in trouble.”

The beneficiary of this seizure was the politically connected pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, which insisted that by using the power of eminent domain to raze the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, it could expand the city's tax base – thereby serving the “public good,” which in this case is defined as “evicting law-abiding home owners in order to keep the local political parasites knee-deep in donuts and whores.”

The Supreme Court placed its imprimatur on this doctrine in its notorious Kelo decision. In its origins, the NLDC is the type of “improper or wicked project” Madison referred to near the end of Federalist essay number 10 – meaning that the seizure of the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, unjust and abominable as it is, would have been a matter to be dealt with at the state level, rather than the federal level.




Or so I thought – until I discovered that the NLDC is a “partner” with the U.S. Department of Commerce. That which the federal government subsidizes, it controls. I pointed this out earlier regarding the Bush regime's claim that any local law enforcement agency receiving a “homeland security” subsidy – however modest – is effectively federalized.

The same principle should apply when citizens seek redress for government abuses, such as those committed by the federally supported NLDC. The problem, of course, is that it's almost impossible to imagine any federal court siding with the people against the political class, including favored corporate entities like Pfizer. State and local authorities, including the police, aren't going to abandon this racket, especially when they have the Feds at their back.

This is why Lauren Canario and her husband moved from Las Vegas to New London to join in a peaceful protest movement against the expropriation of Fort Trumbull residents. Are they “outside agitators”? That's a question to ask their new neighbors.

Is “civil disobedience” of this sort necessary and proper? It makes a good counterpoint to ballot measures in several states intended to pre-empt similar fascist applications of eminent domain elsewhere.

Should those measures pass, they will immediately be challenged in court by agents of the corporatist state, and the war of attrition on property rights will continue – and most likely escalate. Which will mean more work for the likes of Lt. Ackley.

It may seem uncharitable at best, and demented at worst, to compare the self-pitying Lt. Ackley to similarly self-absorbed officers who carried out the murderous decrees of the Third Reich. But bear in mind that the Lt. Ackleys of today are also enforcing fascist policies, albeit with more deference to their victims (for now, at least) than was displayed by their German and Italian forebears. The key distinction here is one of degree, not of kind.

The Romney Candidacy, or Will The Saints Go Marching In? (part 2)

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign has attracted predictable support from his fellow Mormons, including critical covert help from the upper echelons of the Mormon leadership in Salt Lake City. What is somewhat surprising is the help Romney is receiving from Evangelical Christians, who historically have regarded the Mormon Church as a non-Christian cult.

Rev. Gregory Johnson of Lehi, Utah, is director of a ministry called Standing Together, which describes its mission as “service, prayer, and strategic evangelism,” as well as “building bridges of relationship and dialogue” between Evangelicals and the Mormon Church.

He is also a key player in Mitt Romney's outreach to evangelical Christians.

“Mitt Romney is as evangelical as any evangelical governor I would hope we could have,” Johnson insisted during a May address to a group of pastors in Massachusetts, although he conceded that in a head-to-head competition with an electable Protestant conservative, “I just feel Christian conservatives will vote for their own kind.”

In recent years, Johnson -- a former Mormon -- has been doing what he can to narrow the divide between mainstream Christians and Mormons. He has teamed up with Robert Millet, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, to conduct a series of joint appearances throughout the Rocky Mountain West.




The Johnson-Millet presentations are intended to advance a model of “dialogue” between Evangelicals and Mormons that places the priority on building personal relationships, rather than vindicating doctrinal truth (as one is given the wisdom to understand it).

Last February, after attending a Johnson-Millet event in the Boise area – months before Johnson made his remarks in Massachusetts -- I commented to a friend: “This is helping to lay the groundwork for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign.” I shared that assessment a few days ago with a local Protestant minister who is a critic of Johnson's outreach to the Mormon Church, and received this nuanced response: “I don't think Standing Together and the Johnson-Millet dialogues began with that intention, but they certainly serve that purpose.”

Standing Together was instrumental in arranging a November 2004 speech at the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City by Ravi Zacharias, an evangelical apologist of considerable note. While acknowledging many of the key distinctions between Mormonism and Bible-based Christianity, Zacharias' address – in keeping with the approach favored by Johnson – tried to emphasize what were presented as points of agreement.

Also on the bill that evening at the Tabernacle was Richard Mouw, president of Pasadena's Fuller Theological Seminary, whose speech was actually more important than the one given by Zacharaias. In his address, Mouw presumed to speak on behalf of the entire Evangelical Church in apologizing to Mormons: “We evangelicals have sinned against you [by] seriously misrepresenting the beliefs and practices of members of [your] faith.”

One evangelical leader complained to Terry Eastland of the Weekly Standard that Mouw's speech was “everything a Mormon could dream of to make Mormons theologically legitimate.”

Mitt Romney and his handlers have almost certainly been taking notes. During an interview on “The Charlie Rose Show” last June 5, Romney decanted a pretty good version of the gospel according to Johnson and Millet when asked about his Mormon beliefs: “I'm a religious person, and I believe Jesus Christ is my Savior.... But then as you get into the details of the doctrines, I'd probably say look, time out; let's focus on the values that we share.... [I]f you have doctrines you want to talk about, go talk to the church, because that's not my job.”

Romney served a full-time mission to France, he's been a Bishop in the Mormon Church, and he's well acquainted with the Mormon maxim that “every member [should be] a missionary,” so his answer was as disingenuous as it was politically serviceable.

As the Boston Globe reported a few days ago, the spine and nervous system of Romney's presidential campaign is built on a nation-wide network of Mormon fundraisers and volunteers, with church leaders all the way up to Mormon Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley in the loop. The initiative, employing language that savors strongly of the Standing Together approach, is called Mutual Values and Priorities (although Romney aide Spencer Zwick claims MVP has been abandoned).

In creating MVP, Romney's campaign consulted with Mormon Apostle Jefferey Holland, a former President of Brigham Young University, about its plans to mobilize graduates of BYU Business School. Holland “has handled the initiative for the church and hosted a Sept. 19 meeting in his office in church headquarters with one of Romney's sons, a paid political consultant ... and one of the governor's major donors,” reports the Globe.

And Holland, interestingly enough, has been in contact with Gregory Johnson. That was one of two interesting disclosures made by Johnson during a meeting last Wednesday with some of his critics from the Evangelical community. The other disclosure was that Johnson had received a phone call from Utah Lt. Governor Gary Herbert, who asked the minister “how do we deal with the perceptions” of Evangelical Christians that could impede the Romney campaign.

So it appears that the Romney campaign is turning to Johnson – and like-minded Protestant figures – to fine-tune its pitch to Evangelicals. That pitch is nicely summarized by Robert Millet, Johnson's tag-team partner in the Mormon/Evangelical “dialogues”: “[Romney] will have to make the point that if you want to understand me, look at 21st century Mormonism and not its anomalies” -- meaning polygamy, the 148-year ban on ordination of black men to the church's lay priesthood, the “blood atonement” doctrine, and the theocratic teachings and practices that supposedly ended when Utah achieved statehood in 1896.

At the same time the Romney campaign is positioning its candidate as an exemplar of “21st century Mormonism,” it is building a Mormon campaign infrastructure that hearkens back to the 1844 presidential candidacy of Mormon founder Joseph Smith, and the theocratic system he had devised shortly before he was murdered in June of that year at Carthage Jail in Illinois.

In 1842, Joseph Smith organized an esoteric body within the Mormon priesthood leadership called the “Council of Fifty.” Known variously as the “Anointed Quorum,” the “Kingdom of God,” the “Council of the Kingdom,” or the “General Council,” that body was styled as the curia regis, or King's Council, for Joseph Smith as the “Prophet, Priest and King” of a global theocracy. Joseph Smith was ordained to that position in a special conference of the Council of Fifty on April 11, 1844 – about two months prior to his death.

“I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the world,” Smith declared publicly roughly one month after his secret coronation. The presidency would have been useful to that end, had Smith been elected. But by Mormon reckoning, by aspiring to the White House Smith was actually seeking an office beneath his station. “You are already president pro tem of the world,” wrote Mormon Apostles Lyman Wight and Heber C. Kimball in a June 19, 1844 letter to Smith.

Perhaps the most provocative title given to the Council of Fifty came in an April 18 statement Joseph Smith claimed was given by revelation from God: “Ye are my constitution.” Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt explained the import of that declaration to his comrades, telling them that “here in this Council we have a living constitution not a written one – which we must conform to.”

In 1844, nearly all members of the Mormon Church lived in Nauvoo, Illinois. At the time a city larger than Chicago, Nauvoo was ruled by Joseph, the city mayor and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, the largest private militia in the country. Most Mormons were unaware of the extent to which Joseph and his Council – which was organized along Masonic lines, and included several powerful non-Mormons – aspired to obtain and exercise political power.

Although he publicly spoke the language of “Jeffersonian democracy” and “protection of person and property,” Smith's private political machinations were highly authoritarian and conducted through oath-bound, esoteric channels.

Yale-trained Ph.D. historian D. Michael Quinn, who enjoyed unprecedented access to Mormon Church archives, notes that Joseph's ruling Council was bound by multi-layered ritual oaths of secrecy, and “nearly every member” of the body “was a Freemason.” One-third of its membership was drawn from the Danites, a violent, secret society created during the Mormon Church's violent struggles with its Missouri neighbors in the 1830s. Although described as a self-defense organization, the Danites were deeply involved in plunder, harassment, and other violent crimes against non-Mormons. Its members were bound by an oath “never to reveal the secret purposes of this society.... Should I ever do so, I hold my life as the forfeiture.”

Comments Dr. Quinn, who could be considered the Carroll Quigley of Mormon historiography:

“In the Spring of 1844 Smith gave the public only an indistinct foreshadowing of the new world order he was formulating in his secret meetings with the Council of Fifty.”

That “new world order” would feature many of the most obnoxious elements of the post-Constitutional regime under which we now live. As set out in his campaign manifesto, Views of the Powers and Policy of the Government of the United States, Smith supported, among other things:

*Creation of a central national bank with branches in every state (not unlike the Federal Reserve): “let Congress shew their wisdom by granting a national bank, with branches in each state and territory, where the capital stock shall be held by the nation for the mother bank....”

*The expansion of the United States to include Canada Mexico, in an arrangement akin the proposed North American Union: “let the union spread from the east to the west sea; and if Texas petitions Congress to be adopted among the sons of liberty, give her the right hand of fellowship; and refuse not the same friendly grip to Canada and Mexico....”

*Giving the president power to intervene militarily within individual states, at his sole discretion, to deal with threats to the civil rights of minorities (an abuse of federal power that has become commonplace in the post- “Civil Rights” era):”Give every man his constitutional freedom, and the president full power to send an army to suppress mobs; and the states authority to repeal and impugn that relic of folly, which makes it necessary for the governor of a state to make the demand of the president for troops, in case of invasion or rebellion.”

But Smith's vision was not limited to the United States, or the Western Hemisphere.
The slender book Joseph Smith & World Government by the late Mormon historian Hyrum L. Andrus (who taught in the religion department at Brigham Young University) outlines what its author calls "Joseph Smith's concept of a new world government.”

According to Brigham Young, Smith's chief disciple and successor, the Council, as the theocratic government of "Zion," "is the only true form of government on the earth." What of our constitutional republic? It was merely "a preparatory development necessary to the later establishment of the Kingdom of God," meaning the Mormon theocracy, according to Andrus.

When the theocracy was fully installed, wrote Mormon Apostle Parley P. Pratt, "the kingdoms of this world will be united in one.... O America! how art thou favored above all lands!... Within thee is the Kingdom of God [meaning Joseph Smith's covert theocracy, the Council of Fifty.] Thou wast chosen to prepare the way! It must increase, but thou shalt decrease!"

How is the Mormon theocracy to obtain the political power to which it is supposedly entitled?

According to Andrus:

"To establish the Kingdom of God in its political power, the Constitution of the United States was to be brought into association with Zion's [the Mormon Church's] religious and economic society in such a way as to grant the appropriate priesthood councils in Zion the power to nominate men to political office.... [T]he Church, with its priesthood authority, was the body out of which this political organ was to be developed...."

This sounds more than a little like the role played by the Mormon leadership, and prominent elements of its lay membership, in quietly supporting the Romney candidacy. This is entirely understandable, since Mormons, like every other constituency, has a predictable interest in supporting and promoting their own. This sense of political identity is particularly strong among Mormons, however, in part because they have long been taught an eschatological view in which the “Elders of Zion” -- Mormon priesthood-holding men – would step in to rescue our country at a time when our Constitution would hang “by a thread.”

With the current crop of 2008 Republican presidential contenders devoid of a conspicuous conservative favorite, Romney (who is not a conservative; he only plays one on TV) is, for all intents and purposes, the default favorite of the Christian Right – assuming that Gregory Johnson, Richard Mouw, and others of their persuasion succeed in neutralizing Evangelical concerns about Mormonism.

And I venture this prediction: If the Republicans lose control of the House on November 7, Romney will be the 2008 Republican nominee. Christian Right leaders accustomed to a “seat at the table” of political power will wrestle with their collective conscience, and win.