Albert Einstein

Albert Einstein 1879-1955

by Richard E. Noble

E = M C²

This equation showing a relationship between energy and mass or matter is everywhere. I see T-shirts and dolls and hats and placards, and notebooks and posters and calendars etc., etc., etc., with this equation or the man responsible, plastered onto it wherever I go. Whenever I see these ads, I wonder if the people wearing, holding or displaying them know what a controversial and plagued life the discoverer of this equation lived.
When Albert first proposed his equation and Special Theory on Relativity he was denounced from nearly every corner of the scientific community. He was called everything from a fool to a mad man.
Because of his scientific inclinations he was denounced as an atheist by most of the conventional, religious community throughout the world.
He believed in democracy but was also an advocate of socialism which put him at odds with most of the free capitalist world.
He renounced his citizenship to the country in which he was born. He was not only a hater of his country’s authoritarianism, anti-Semitism, and Nazism, but he was a staunch opponent to the notion of organized militarism, anywhere. He had nothing but disrespect for soldiering and men who would lock step behind one another in parades, and follow orders that challenged even their own conscience. He went so far as to champion an organization after World War I that encouraged young men all over the world to refuse to serve in the militaries of their nations - the theory being that if all young men refused to serve in their nation’s militaries, this would be the end to war.
He escaped anti-Semitic Germany and Europe only through the help of a wealthy lover of learning who established a school for advanced studies at Princeton University and nominated Albert Einstein as its first department head.
He was not welcomed to Princeton or the U.S. with a ticker tape parade either. In fact, he was greeted at dockside by women and mothers carrying signs labeling him as a Godless traitor and a coward, primarily, because of his pacifistic and anti-militarist positions.
From what I can see because of his political and religious inclinations, Albert Einstein spent the remainder of his life pretty much hiding out at Princeton and keeping his mouth shut. When asked to be the first leader of the new country of Israel he nearly had a heart attack right at the phone. Old Albert had gotten his fill of public notoriety, and who could blame him.
He sent a letter to F.D.R. warning about Germany and the possible threat of a nuclear or atomic bomb. Though he was a lover of peace, Adolf Hitler was even too much for Albert to swallow.
When Albert was on his death bed he was asked if he was afraid to die. He suggested that with his knowledge of the universe and observing Mother Nature from out his window, he saw nothing to fear.
I’m still looking out the window. Maybe Albert had a special, magic window or something. What the heck was he seeing out that window, I wonder?

OVER AND OVER
[Poetry]
By Richard E. Noble

I say the same thing over.
I say it over and over.
I say the same thing over;
over, and over, and over.

I say the same thing over.
I’m a lover, a rover, a drover.
I say the same thing over;
over, and over, and over.

I say the same thing over.
Sometimes I say “moreover”,
but I say the same thing over and over;
over and over, and over.

I say the same thing over.
I grow older, and older, and older,
but I say the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

I say the same thing over.
I say it as I grow older and older.
But, now, let me say “moreover”,
because I’m getting tired of saying the same thing,
over, and over, and over.

I say the same thing over.
I say it over and over.
I say it now bolder and bolder.
But, I say it over and over;
over, and over, and over.

I say it with a glance over my shoulder.
I say it peeking from behind a huge boulder.
But, I say the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

But, in conclusion, I would like to say
“moreover”, because, as you know, I have now said
the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

I’ve said it from behind my back,
and over my shoulder.
But, I’ve said the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

You don’t notice it, I suppose,
because sometimes I say “moreover”
But, really, I assure you, I’m saying the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

If you go back to the beginning
and read what I’ve said ... over,
you will find that I have said the same thing over, and over;
over, and over, and over.

Occasionally, I’ve said “moreover”,
but from the beginning to the end,
(I wouldn’t lie, my friend.)
I’ve said the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

I’ve said it when younger, and when older.
I’ve said it from behind my back and over my shoulder.
I’ve said it while peeking from behind a huge boulder,
but, believe it or not, I’ve said the same thing over and over;
over, and over, and over.

REINHARD GEHLEN

REINHARD GEHLEN

by Richard E. Noble

If you have never heard of Reinhard Gehlen, join the club. He was the head of the German Nazi secret intelligence service, eastern division. Believe it or not, instead of being hung by the neck until dead, or given the firing squad after World War II for his many crimes against humanity, he and his friends were incorporated into a new spying organization established in 1947 by the Truman administration - the C.I.A.; an organization which Harry Truman has since denounced.
Gehien had microfilmed his Russian spy records and buried them somewhere in the mountains in Germany. He negotiated with the invading Americans and attempted to trade his files, information, friends and connections, for his life. He not only saved his sorry butt, but got him and his friends put on the U.S. payroll. Two of his friends were a Doctor Franz Six, a convicted war criminal who was sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nuremberg trails. Benjamin Fenercz, a U.S prosecutor at Nuremberg, said that Six was one of the biggest “swine” in the whole mobile killing squad’s cases. Six served about four years and then was given clemency by the U.S. high commissioner in Germany, John McCloy.
John McCloy seemed to have a penchant for releasing and pardoning Nazi murderers, killers, industrialist and German arms manufacturers who were guilty of manufacturing weapons by working tens of thousands of slave laborers to their death. McCloy’s name keeps popping up in history books, most notably as one of the appointments to the infamous Warren Commission.
Doctor Emil Augsburg who ended up as a Porsche Agent by 1961, another one of Gehlen’s friends, was involved in mass murder and the assassination of German Jews.
It is interesting to me that while my dad, and possibly yours, was being laid off from his job shortly after World War II, the United States Government somehow found two hundred million dollars to employ 4,000 ex-Nazi murders to help Reinhard Gehien resurrect “the Org”.
Reinhard Gehien’s career is not a secret. I have, right here in front of me, the memoirs of Reinhard Gehlen entitled “The Service”, and another book entitled “Blowback” which highlights Gehlen’s career and the careers of many of his friends and associates. Reinhard along with being credited with the torture and murder of tens of thousands in his information gathering days, is said to have been one of the major influences behind the post war American anti-Communist paranoia, McCarthyism, and even the Cold War itself.
If you have been reading about American C.I.A. agents torturing woman and children in South America and elsewhere, and have considered it all a bunch of bull, you might want to take a look at the life of one of your paid government employees, Reinhard Gehlen, and some of his German Nazi friends in “the Org.” You might find the life and times of Allen Dulles, brother of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles equally interesting.
Oh, by the way, Allen Dulles the man responsible for the Bay of Pigs fiasco as the director of the C.I.A. and fired (retired) shortly thereafter by John F. Kennedy, was also an appointee to the Warren Commission. Funny, they just picked his name out of a hat, I guess.

To find out more about this book or to purchase, click on cover of the book at right on this page. Thanks

Hobo-ing America - An Excerpt

by Richard E. Noble

Topping Onions
Our first job was in Santa Rosa, California. He called it “topping” onions - he, being the man at the Farm Labor Bureau. Believe it or not, nearly every government employment office in the country has a Farm Labor Bureau or Department. He got quite a kick out of us; obviously two middle class, white Americans who were going to find out, for the first time in their lazy, privileged lives what real work was all about. He was actually laughing by the time we left his office.
“Here’s two people,” he announced to the room full of desk personnel surrounding him, “who are going to show the folks how to top onions.”
I suppose that he had good reason to be amused. I guess that we were asking a lot of non-migrant type questions. How much does one make an hour topping onions seemed like a reasonable enough question to me.
“Well, that depends on you.” He hesitated and then by way of explanation added. “The pay is according to how much you do - it’s piece work.”
“Oh, well how much on the average does a person earn doing this type of work?”
He smiled, leaned back in his swivel chair and ... laughed.
“Well, can a person make a living topping onions?” I said, regrouping.
“Lots of people do,” he said matter of factly.
“Do you know any people who perform this type of work?”
“Sure, plenty.”
“Well ... okay,” I said. He paused, still smiling, and staring at me curiously.
“Ah ... okay what?” he questioned.
“Okay - how do we get the job?”
He started laughing again. It didn’t seem that he was laughing at us. It was more like he was amused by my face, or maybe by the way I was answering his questions. In any case, we laughed with him. Then, seeing that we were quite serious, he started scrambling around his desk.
“Now let me just fill out a couple of these cards and you’ll have these ... ah ... jobs.” He said the word job, as if he had never heard it applied to this type work before. He laughed a little more as he busied himself with his clerical work.
Moments later we were off in our van with our hand drawn map to the onion field. When we arrived, we parked under an equipment shelter. We were really eager to go to work. We weren’t exactly in the position of Richard Henry Dana Jr. and his historical, “Two Years Before the Mast”. Neither Carol nor I would be returning to our studies at Harvard or Yale. We were working folk. All of the pennies that were in our saving’s account or pockets were the product of many anxious moments struggling with the minute hand of a punch clock, or boiling chicken necks and gizzards as opposed to slicing T-bones and fillet mignon. But, by our way of thinking, we had found the perfect way to make a living while on the road. Carol and I could both work - together and at the same job. We didn’t have to lie to anybody about living in our van, or how long we intended to stay in the area. We weren’t forced to get an apartment or a telephone, or pay electric bills, or shell out money for security deposits. All that we had to do was find out where and what they were harvesting and go there.
If, by chance, you don’t know what an onion field looks like, I’ll try to explain. One, there are no shade trees in an onion field; no pine trees - no weeping willows. There are no Coke machines in an onion field. In most onion fields there are millions of onions, and hundreds of Mexicans. This particular field was about twenty or thirty acres. Twenty to thirty football fields lined up in a row. No grass, though. No artificial turf either; just long, long rows of mounded up dirt; dry clumpy dirt ... dry, dusty and hot - a mini desert, if you will. Most of the football fields were devoid of people, but the first one was very busy. The majority of the people were on about the fifty yard line. They were all bent over at the waist, straddling a row of onions. They looked very busy, except for one man. He was sitting on a pail in the limited shade provided by an old tractor. I immediately presumed that he was the boss. He was wearing a large sombrero type, straw hat. It was obvious that he saw us standing there off in the distance, waving. It was also quite clear that he had no intention of rising from his comfortable position to come over to greet us into his labor force. But, why should he make a move to welcome us? He had a job. We were the ones who were unemployed.
We proceeded to march across this burning desert to confront Pancho Villa at the fifty yard line.
“Hi ... ah ... we were told that you had some positions available.” Pancho spread his knees apart; put his right thumb to his right nostril and blew heartily in an attempt to clear the left of dust, debris or whatever. He was successful, and nearly cleared my stomach in the process. He looked up at us and smiled. His upper front teeth were probably tucked away safely in his shirt pocket. He didn’t say anything, but bobbed his head interrogatively. I determined from this gesture that he didn’t comprehend my inquiry. I decided to rephrase. “We heard that you needed some onion toppers. The guy at the unemployment office sent us out.” I exhibited our little unemployment information cards.
“Oh? You wanna work?”
“Yes, we’re looking for a job. We don’t exactly know how to top onions, but ...”
“No problem,” he said, as he got up from his five gallon pail and proceeded to stroll off. Carol and I were both left there talking to ourselves, as Pancho casually wandered off into the distance.
“Should we follow him, do you suppose?” Carol asked, as we both stood there staring at Pancho’s gradually disappearing back. I wasn’t one hundred percent positive, but it did seem like the right thing to do. Momentarily, we were off, trotting eagerly behind our man. He seemed to be heading for an inactive tractor that had old sacks and plastic buckets strewn about it. Pancho’s pace was rather slow and leisurely, and Carol and I were shuffling and stumbling trying not to walk up and over his rear end. I suppose we were somewhat eager. I mean, here we were, Carol and Dick and the “Grapes of Wrath”, in the middle of an onion field, in “The Fertile Valley”.
He picked up a couple of buckets and then marched us all the way back to where we were in the first place. Then he stopped, turned and pointed across the field. The field was, of course, furrowed. Rippling mounds, of dusty, dry, clumpy dirt seemed to stretch forever into the distance.
“Okay,” Pancho said. But, he didn’t just say, okay. He said oh - then a long pause as if he were trying to remember the next syllable - kay ; oh ... kay. “Oh ... kay, you start here. You take a four row - two for you y two for su esposa.” Then he started to walk away.
“Hey, wait a minute ... wait a minute!”
Si’?”
“This is our first experience at onion topping. I don’t think that we will need four rows.” The rows appeared endless, and they stretched for miles. Four rows would undoubtedly take us the rest of our lives.
“You wanna dos linas, take a two.” He started to walk off again. I was rapidly getting the impression that this fellow didn’t think that we were going to be around too long. Two rows ... four rows, what did it matter? These gringos will be into their motor home before they pick one sack.
“Ah sir? Sir?”
I stepped up close to Pancho. I was a little embarrassed. Although I had eaten many onions in my lifetime, I hadn’t the slightest idea of what topping an onion entailed. Sounded like a very intricate process. I can honestly say that in my neighborhood of origin, I had never actually seen an onion in the act of growing. I observed some other workers in the distance. I could see that they were picking up the onions and doing something to them with their hands or with some kind of mechanical implement. They then tossed the finished product into a five gallon pail. What were they doing to them and what about the tools? I was rather apprehensive. Pancho didn’t seem very interested in us. We wanted this job. This job and others like it could very well be the solution to all of our problems, and the means for fulfilling our dream. We had organized our traveling to the point where forty dollars was enough capital to fund a week on the road. Forty dollars bought the groceries and paid for the gasoline for our vehicle. That was it. Gasoline and groceries were our only expenditures. We had long since learned how to avoid paying rent. We had no cable TV, telephone, electric bills, property taxes etc. Forty bucks covered the basics. Then again, if our van camper collapsed, weeks would have to be deducted from our new found freedom on the highways of America. As for health insurance, neither of us had ever had a job that provided such a benefit anyway. Minimum wage was over three dollars per hour - three dollars times eight hours equals twenty-four dollars. Now, we take the results of the above equation multiply it by two people - forty-eight bucks a day! One day’s work pays for one week’s freedom. Seven day’s work equals seven weeks of fishing off some ocean pier, or camping by some pristine lake. One month of work - that meant over one half year of playtime. Now that is more in tune with the way my God designed the world. My God liked people. He wanted them to have fun and enjoy life. This was it! Topping onions was God’s way of saying; “Okay kids, ENJOY!” So, as you can imagine, I didn’t want to offend my new boss, Pancho. I approached him cautiously, and respectfully.
“You see, sir,” I said softly, not wanting everyone within listening distance to be made aware of the fact that we were novices at topping onions, “as I tried to tell you when we first arrived, my wife and I have never done this before. In fact, we know very little about farm work at all.” Pancho stared at me with that universal, confounded look in his eyes. That look analyzed in terms of dollars and cents, registered - no sale! “The problem put simply is sir - unfortunately we don’t know how to top an onion. What does one have to do to an onion to have it in a satisfactorily topped condition?” The confused stare remained, but it was now enhanced by the addition of a gaping jaw. “In other words, if I could impose on you for just one moment. If you would take just one moment of your time and demonstrate to my wife and I the process involved, I am absolutely sure that in a matter of minutes we will have this onion topping under control. You may have to waste a minute of your time demonstrating, but I will assure you that we will definitely make it worth your while.” Obviously Pancho had never met a pair like us. It was virtually unimaginable to him that there were people alive and functioning on this planet who needed to be instructed on how to top an onion. He remained immobilized - strike two. “Listen, just show us how to top one onion, and you can go on your way, O.K.?”
“Oh... kay.”
I was never so relieved. I was beginning to think that we had to be experienced toppers, or have a job training completion card or something.
Pancho squatted down into a furrow. Coming out of the mound of dirt next to the furrow were a number of sprigs or straw-like protuberances. He dug with his hands around one of these sprigs, and low and behold - an onion. He pulled this big, fat, softball sized onion out of the ground. The onion, now in his hand, had these withered sprigs coming out of the top and a bunch of scraggly roots dangling from the bottom. Holding the onion in one hand, he pinched the sprigs with the other. Then twisted them until they were severed from the onion. Then he flipped the onion around and twisted the roots off in a similar fashion. After completing this process, he held the finished product up to Carol and me who scrutinized the result with smiles of enlightenment.
“That’s it?”
“Dat’s eeat, amigo.”
“You can be on your way my friend,” I encouraged eagerly. “This job is under control - no problem.”
“You fill two of these,” he said tossing a five gallon pail at my foot. “Put eem in da sacks.” Numerous burlap sacks were tossed about in the furrows.
“Ah. . . right - two five gallon pails makes one sack, and we get paid ... how much a sack?”
“You get paid at the end of the week at dee hotel een town.”
“No no, I mean, how much do we get paid for each sack?”
“Thirty cent a sack.”
“Thirty cents a sack! Beautiful! No problem. We just fill up the sacks, and leave them right there in the row, right?”
“In your row, man. You two leave deem in dis row here. Dis row.” He pointed to the furrow in which we had recently been squatting.
“No problem. We got it.”
Suddenly giving instructions on how to top onions seemed intriguing to Pancho. Probably never before in his life had he been required to give instructions to anyone on how to do this job. Though at first he didn’t think that he would, now he liked it. He bent down into the furrow again and scooped up another onion. “Like a dis.” He twisted the scraggly appendages off both ends of the onion again. “You see, like a dis.” He tossed the completed onion into the five gallon pail. He then dug out another onion. He kept repeating the process and displaying the completed onion to Carol and me before tossing it into the five gallon pail.
“No problem. I got it. Do you see how he did that Carol?”
“Yes, I see how he did that. I think I can ...”
“Well, okay. We understand Sir. We’ll take it over from here.”
“Like a dis, you see. Push a dirt like a dis. Get a onion. Twist a here. Twist a dare - into the bucket. You got it?”
“We got it. Thanks a bunch, I really appreciate your taking this time with us. You won’t be sorry.”
“Oh ... kay, and the bucket - dump a in the sack. You got it?”
“Right! Yes sir.”
“And da sack go over a here - in da middle of da row. You got it?”
“Si’ . . . yes sir . . . no problem.”
He got up and smiled. Then he grabbed a burlap sack up off the ground.
“No putta da sack over here.” He demonstrated by putting the sack in the next furrow. “No good over here. Like a dis here - only dis row. You got it?”
“We got it. Most definitely, we got it!”
“You putta over here; es no dinero. Over here es su dinero. Over here,” he shuffled the burlap sack into the wrong furrow, “nudder hombre gets dee money.” He laughed. “You get it?”
“Right! I’ve got to make sure that I put the sack in my row. If I put it over here, no money for me. I’ve got to put it right here in the middle of my rows.” I smiled at him and nodded my head affirmatively.
“Oh . . . kay; you got it.” He walked away, turning back every now and then to give us a semi-toothless smile. As he walked away Carol and I looked at the millions of sacks that were scattered about the rows that had already been picked. If there weren’t millions of sacks, then certainly there were thousands. Definitely a lot of full sacks - a lot of thirty cents-es.
“Carol, this could be it. I am definitely serious. There are enough onions in this field to keep us in petrol and beans for the next three years. I mean, how long does it take to pick a sack? Look here.” I grabbed the five gallon pail that Pancho had been tossing his demonstration onions into. “He nearly filled this pail already.” I could see by the look in Carol’s eyes, that she was excited. We were on the verge of breaking new ground. Maybe not as exhilarating as landing on the moon, but certainly of equal importance! A life in which two months of, admittedly, hard labor would set us up for ten months of folly and frolic; ten months of living like the big shots; ten months of touring and observing; ten months of scoffing at all of the suckers who broke their butts for fifty weeks, to get two weeks off. Can you believe it? Work fifty weeks to get two off? Here we would work eight weeks, and then take forty off. Could it be possible? Could this be eureka, the electric light of freedom! Thoreau said that man did not have to live by the sweat of his brow - simplify; simplify my friends!

This has been an excerpt from the first chapter of my book “Hobo-ing America”… e-mail me for more information about my books.

Mein Kampf Adolf Hitler

Mein Kampf - Adolf Hitler

Chapter 2 - Part 3

by Richard E. Noble
“…The leader who has to give up the platform of his general view of life because he has found that it is wrong... must for all future times renounce at least all public political activity…”
This is another big part of the Adolf philosophy. He leaves very little room for error. The problem here is not that one should or would resign when he is found in error, but that he would simply deny being in error in the first place. Adolf may have inherited some of this attitude from his Catholic upbringing. Later on, in this book, he admits to admiring the principle of the Pope’s infallibility.
I think here again it is not so important to Adolf to be right as it is to be adamant and decisive. Later on in his description of a good military commander he expresses the opinion that a good commander should never be afraid to give his commands decisively and firmly, and should never, ever waver in giving a command for fear that it may be wrong. Right or wrong, it is only, or most important, that a leader be decisive. Right or wrong, be bold, firm, and authoritative. This is a virtue understood only by the militarily inclined as far as I can see; and it does seem to be a tenant of all military principles of leadership. It is also another one of those animalistic impulses ... as the predator can smell fear, the masses will instinctively interpret indecisiveness as a lack of conviction, and an inability to lead. Adolf is very, very concerned with the principles of leadership.
“Apart from the trash of the modern development of art, which might just as well have been produced by a Negro race, the German was the sole owner and propagator of a truly artistic mind.”
Again, another one of those blanket statements where he slurs one category of people while bestowing undefendable attributes upon what he considers his own kind. This is almost too narrow and bigoted a statement to discuss but be it suffice to say that in the world of arts, entertainment, and music the black community has without doubt struck a chord that rings loud and true throughout the entire culture of our present world.
“I had always hated the parliament, yet not at all as an institution in itself. On the contrary, as a liberal thinking man I could not imagine any other possible form of government, for my attitude against the house of Hapsburg being what it was, I would have considered any kind of dictatorship a crime against all liberty and reason...”
This is beginning to appear as a technique to me. First state how you had always been a loyal supporter of something and then go on to give your case for defecting. At first I supported so-and-so or such-and-such until then I found out that he or they beat their wives, and molested their own children. I suppose that this is a standard technique used by all of us. It also could be that Adolf did not consider Monarchy as a form of dictatorship. Nevertheless, he explains to us that he is a loyal patriot in his heart. We could assume that he became “an accidental dictator” – he would much rather have become Germany’s King.
“… Parliament makes a decision the consequences of which may be ever so devastating --- nobody is responsible for it, nobody can ever be called to account ... Is it at all possible to make a wavering majority of people ever responsible?… Is not the very idea of responsibility closely connected with the individual? Is it practically possible to make the leading person of a government liable for actions, the development and execution of which are to be laid exclusively to the account of the will and the inclination of a large number of men? Or must not the task of the leading statesman be seen in the birth of a creative idea or plan in itself, rather than in the ability to make the ingenuity of his plans understandable to a flock of sheep and empty-heads for the purpose of begging for their gracious consent? ...”
And if after World War II, we were able to capture Adolf Hitler, how do we meet the demands of justice or proper responsible leadership and make him accountable for the horrors that he was directly or indirectly responsible? How do we make any government accountable and responsible for its devastating policies? Even if we stand him and all his supporters up against a wall and shoot them, how does this satisfy for the millions that were slaughtered because of Adolf’s mistaken ideas? Adolf seems to be saying that one head is better than two. Again, this may appeal to the emotional and those impatient to get things done their way, but that it is the best method for the governance of a people goes exactly contrary to the evolution of Western Civilization, and possibly all civilizations and governments as we know them.
Adolf s evaluation of the survival of the fittest does not apply to humans and individuals as far as I can see. One strong man is burnt at the stake by fifty weaklings. Ten strong men can be overpowered by one wise man and two hundred children. The strongest, acting as an individual, does not survive in human evolution. The group survives. Looking at the history of the human race, it does seem that it is not really the survival of the fittest but the survival of the most vicious, most dominant, the most determined to have their way at whatever the cost to the race as a whole. It certainly isn’t the survival of the smartest, or the kindest or the most loving. One might make a case for the survival of the mightiest, but this would be the mightiest in terms of power and number, certainly not the strongest individual.
When we look at governments and political systems what has survived is cooperative efforts of numbers, not individuals. Every government of every type that we have today is a conglomerate of individuals working together in some fashion. I don’t think that we have even one government that is a one man show today. All governments are interspersed with some form of democratic participation. Not that this participation is universal or representative of all of the people of any nation. Even Adolf didn’t rule his nation by himself. Without the support of millions of his countrymen he would have gone nowhere. So Adolf’s one strong man theory is a pure fantasy as far as I can see. It may sound good to those who have a problem with confusion or dissension, or who think that it is better to have the whole world march off in the wrong direction, than in no direction. But without any doubt it is often better to take no action, than act incorrectly. On the battlefield it may often be better to take any action as opposed to no action for the safety and preservation of ones individual life, but even this will not hold up for the army as a whole.
The world that we have today may in fact be due to the survival of the meanest and the ugliest; a world of Cane as opposed to the world of Able. A stronger dumb ape can kill the most brilliant man in the world (Archimedes). The most belligerent, hostile societies may have been destroying the most loving and gentile societies for centuries. How would we ever know? We being the products of the victors and not the prodigy of the annihilated?

Prescott Bush

Prescott Bush

“The American Axis” by Max Wallace

www.maxwallace.com

[The following is an excerpt taken from “The American Axis” by Max Wallace pp 349-350. I found this book researching my personal investigation into who financed Adolf Hitler]

“… One of the partners of the Union Banking Corporation, the man who oversaw all investments on behalf of the Nazi-affiliated owners, happened to be Prescott Bush, grandfather of the American president George W. Bush. Through the connections of his father-in-law, Bert Walker (George W’s maternal great-grandfather), who has been described by a U.S. Justice Department investigator as “one of Hitler’s most powerful financial supporters in the United States,” Prescott Bush specialized in managing the investments for a number of German companies, many with extensive Nazi ties. These included the North American operations of another Nazi front, the Hamburg Amerika Line, which was directly linked to a network set up by IG Farben to smuggle agents, money and propaganda from Germany. According to a 1934 Congressional investigation, the Hamburg Amerika Line “subsidized a wide range of pro-Nazi propaganda efforts both in Germany and the United States.” Both Walker and Bush were directors of a holding company, the Harriman Fifteen Corporation, that directly financed the line.
     “Shortly before the government seized the assets of the Union Banking Corporation, in fact, it had also seized American-held assets of the Hamburg-Amerika Line under the Trading with the Enemy Act. A few weeks after the government seized Bush’s shares in Union Banking, it seized the assets of three other Nazi front companies whose investments were handled by Bush – the Holland-American Trading Corporation, the Seamless Steel Equipment Corporation, and the Silesian-American Corporation. The paper trail indicated the bulk of Prescott Bush’s financial empire was being operated on behalf of Nazi Germany.
     “According to former United States Justice Department Nazi war crimes investigator John Loftus, who has investigated the Bush family’s considerable ties to the Third Reich, Prescott Bush’s investment prowess helped make millions of dollars for various Nazi-front holding companies, and he was well paid for his efforts. ‘The Bush family fortune that helped put two family members in the White House can be traced directly to the Third Reich,’ says Loftus, who is currently president of the Florida Holocaust museum.
     “In his own investigation, Loftus discovered a disturbing trail connecting the Bush family’s money laundering efforts to the Thyssens and their role in building up the Nazi war machine. He believes these connections deserve more scrutiny: ‘There are six million skeletons in the Thyssen family closet, and a myriad of criminal and historical questions to be answered about the Bush family’s complicity.
     “Fortunately for Bush, who was later elected a United States senator, his name never surfaced in the news when his Union Banking shares were seized by the U.S. government. The only media reference related to the seizure was a brief 1944 item in the New York Times announcing that ‘The Union Banking Corporation, 39 Broadway, New York, has received authority to change its principal place of business to 120 Broadway. The article neglected to point out that the company’s assets had been seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act or that 120 Broadway was the address of the U.S. Alien Property Custodian. If the news had been publicized, it might well have derailed Bush’s political career as well as the future presidential aspirations of both his son and grandson. According to Loftus, however, the potential scandal did affect the short term career plans of Prescott’s eldest son, George Herbert Walker Bush.
     “As the government investigation into Prescott’s Nazi dealings heated up, Loftus reveals, the eighteen-year-old Bush abandoned his plans to enter Yale and enlisted instead in the U.S. Army in an attempt to ‘save the family honor’. Meanwhile, Prescott Bush, in an effort to avoid potential government prosecution, volunteered to spy for the OSS, precursor of the U.S Central Intelligence Agency. These efforts at cleansing his Nazi ties appear to have been successful. He was never indicted. In 1951, Union Banking assets valued at $1.5 million were released back to the Bush family.

[Go to Google search and punch in Prescott Bush for more information on this subject.]

Plato 428-347 BC

Plato (428-347 B.C.)

by Richard E. Noble

Plato was a little, rich boy. And like a lot of other little, rich boys, he thought that he knew it all (think of William F. Buckley). If you believe in democracy, and the ideals of equality, and the principles on which the American Constitution is based, Plato is NOT your main man. In fact, most of the criticisms of democratic life, and the democratic political system that were spewed out of the mouth of Adolf Hitler centuries later, like vomit or invective diarrhea, were first laid down by Plato in his “Dialogues”, or his attempt at Utopian thinking, “The Republic”.
Plato is an aristocratic, elitist, totalitarian type who was run out of the country after his mentor Socrates was given his poison potion. Socrates was given his choice of poison potion or exile but basically chose to kill himself. He was old anyway, and his wife drove him nuts. Socrates liked (interpreting the writing of Plato) to get all of the little, rich boys in the neighborhood riled up about their personal greatness and superiority over the regular “common” democratic, mediocre shmuck.
Plato’s uncle, Critias, was the leader of an oligarchic party of wealthy elitist who preached against the Athenian Democracy, and established, for a very short period, one of the cruelest dictatorships of the period. When the Democracy was restored, Socrates was arrested, tried and found guilty of a lesser crime, side-stepping a granted amnesty, and Plato ran for the hills. He traveled around the world for about twelve years, “a sabbatical”, talking to Kings and Queens, other little, rich boys and dictator sorts everywhere. After things calmed down, he returned home and began re-agitating the system by way of education, being permitted that option from the privilege granted under a “democratic” system; a type of agitation that would certainly not have been permitted under the reign of his uncle, Critias.
Plato is most famous for his “Allegory of the Cave” in which he explains to us that our real existence is actually imaginary, and our imaginary existence is true reality. If you like Plato, you will love Descartes. You might also go on to cultivate an interest in Voodoo, witchcraft, and Black Magic.
Plato was really a dramatist and playwright. His “Dialogues” are basically plays. They are masterpieces of developmental logic, and often mis-logic. I loved reading the “Dialogues”, but pretty much gave up reading Plato after wallowing through “The Republic”.
Plato, like Confucius, got the opportunity to try out some of his political ideas. He nearly got himself killed by Dionysius of Syracuse, who then, had a change of heart and simply sold Plato into slavery. He was released and returned home by this benefactor who had purchased him.
At eighty-one he fell asleep in a corner at a party, and didn’t wake up.

A CHILD OF NIGHT

A CHILD OF NIGHT

by Richard E. Noble

The rain rushes and sparkles, in streaks past the bright, white street light globe.
Within its light, all is bright, and knowing and clean.
But beyond its gleam, all is dead, and black and red, and nothing is what it seems.

It wouldn’t be so bad, and he wouldn’t be so sad,
if it weren’t for the night, and the fright of the Devil by night.
Beyond every crack, and below every track,
it’s the Devil, THE DEVIL! the Devil ... He’s back.
And God doesn’t care because He’s combing His hair and fixing His gowns,
and counting the jewels that the angels have found.
So what can be done, but to run and to run, to cry and to scream
and to hide in the light of each street light beam.

If he had a friend, or maybe a dog, who would bark and would bite,
and maybe grab onto the tail of the Devil by night;
and fight, and bite, and grab onto the tail of the Devil by night,
he could make his way from beam to beam,
and run in the shade
that the rain drops made,
and get to the bakery for the bread and the buns, and the rolls with the creams,
and escape the evil of his devilish dreams.
But instead, he would have to go it alone, and deal with the dread
and the black and the red
and the bodies of all those who have ever been dead.

He longed as he ran and leaped from fright
over cracks and potholes in the street that night,
to see the ovens and the heat and the glow from the baker’s light;
like a halo at night, shining bright,
what a wondrous sight all powdery white,
with sugars and creams
and all the love and warmth of the street light beams.
Under his jacket, he would put his bread,
and with his hat he’d cover his head.
Then off he would go, into the rain and the snow
pushing and shoving for that street light glow,
and when he’d get home, he’d be safe and sound,
and all the Devils would be back in the ground,
and the cracks and the trees, and the shadows and the breeze,
and the rain and the fright,
and the hooting owls of night,
and the tears and the cold,
and the demons so bold,
with their braces of gold,
and their teeth of mold,
and the gurgling pipes,
and the sewers and snipes,
and the black and the red,
and all that's been dead,
and the buildings that sway,
and the noises that prey,
and the shadows that grow,
and the heels that click,
and the boots that clomp,
and the doors that bang,
and the signs that rattle,
and the night that fights against all that is right
… will be gone,
And he’ll be home and ready for bed.
And dear God, he’ll say, I made this day,
and I hope You’ll remember, the tears and the fears
and the years upon years, that you howled in my ears,
and that you won’t delight,
in the ghoul and the horror, and the evil of might
to take pleasure in the tears and the fright of a child of night.

March 7 County Commission

March 7, County Commission

By Richard E. Noble

[This entry is for all you aspiring journalists out there. This is a sample of what I get paid to write here in Apalachicola, Fl. Don’t laugh, this could be you one day.]

Hubert Chipman – Superintendent of Roads

Mr. Chipman and his County Road Dept. were once again very busy. Between February 17 and March 3, 1264 tons of lime rock were hauled to various locations throughout the County; 63 loads of debris were removed; 261 yds. of road material were hauled – sand, yellow sand, black dirt and asphalt; grass was cut along hwy 98 and Wilderness Road; miscellaneous tasks were performed in all areas of the County with considerable attention being given to the Carrabelle Ball Park; several roads were graded in both Carrabelle and Apalachicola; culverts and ditches received maintenance in all areas of the County; a new paved parking lot was constructed at the Apalachicola Court House and two buildings were pushed down; and dozens of roads about the County received maintenance and needed TLC.
     The ball park should be ready to go for the ‘07 season. Mr. Chipman explained that he would be meeting with engineers with regards to the Lake Morality Rd. project – it should be getting under way soon.

Dave McLain – Feasibility Study Update

“I am here on behalf of your oyster/seafood task force,” explained Mr. McLain.” Mr. Putnal who is a member of that Task Force recommended that we give you periodic reports to let you know what we are doing. The Task Force met on February 22 to get the results of the trip to Washington which was to seek funding that had been set aside for the (damage from) hurricanes from this past year. I am confident that we have been successful in getting their attention. Though we don’t yet know what the number will be, I am confident that we will have additional funding to help us with the recovery process. We also received a briefing from Lampel-Herbert, experienced consultants best equipped to initiate the OTTED study (Office of Tourism, Trade and Economic Development  - $75,000 grant to fund Study). The Oyster Harvesters Association will be briefed by a Doctor Otwell concerning post harvest treatment of oysters. The Seafood Workers Association has recently met and selected new officers and approved new by-laws. Mr. Putnal participated in that process as well. They will meet again on the 20th of this month to discuss the planning for re-laying. Finally, Sen. Lawson’s Bill to replace the Bag Tax with a line item appropriation in this coming budget  will have its second hearing before the Agriculture Committee and the legislature tomorrow morning at 9: o’clock (March 8th, ’06). I believe Chairman Sanders and Commissioner Putnal will join me and a couple of others up there to speak in behalf of this particular piece of legislation. Are there any questions?”
There were no questions. Mr. McLain then informed the board that he or Grady Leavins would be giving an update at least once a month.

J. Michael Shuler – County Attorney

“ … to advise the Board the Comp Plan Challenge hearing ended last week in Tallahassee. We do not expect a judgment regarding the matter until May of this year … I want to advise the Board that General Electric has filed a claim against the County and I will be responding to that complaint.” Due to the involvement of other Counties in the GE action which concerns the Weems hospital situation, the complaint is being handled in Gadston County. Mr. Shuler explained that he is requesting a change of venue. Ms. Sanders asked Mr. Shuler if it would be better to join in with the other Counties involved with the suit. Mr. Shuler suggested that it would not. “I am more comfortable defending a case against Franklin County in Franklin County if, in fact, I am successful in this change of venue … They want to do two things. They (GE) are asking to set aside as a fraudulent transfer, the transfer of the Hospital license from DasSee to Franklin County because they are saying that insufficient monies were paid (for the license by the County); and secondly they are saying that the County has acted as a joint tort with Dasee (in combination with DasSee). You will remember that the only reason that GE is after DasSee is because they loaned DasSee money to operate the hospital. As security for that loan they took certain collateral … The real issue that we are fighting there is the Hospital license. I think that the license has no value but it will take an appraiser to determine that.” The case at this time is being heard by Judge Renoylds in Gadston County. “They made a bad loan (GE) and they haven’t managed it well and I think that they have some finance officers that need to be fired.”  Also at issue is the County’s liability in relation to the debts of the DasSee corporation. The County, of course, assumes no liability but GE sees it otherwise.
     Mr. Mosconis pointed out that the hospital license was issued, not sold as a commodity. It was his opinion that this then disqualifies it as a commodity with a cash value. “This is just a part of their (GE) strategy to get some money out of somebody.” Mr. Shuler then went on to explain that the hospital administrator (Mr. Mike Lake) may have obtained this loan from GE with questionable security – the County had no say in the matter.
     The license is important for many reasons. One reason has to do with Medicare payments. These payments amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars and the Federal Government will not forward this money until this issue is resolved and they have a legitimate payee.
     “Also there is the Wilson vs. Franklin County case. They are seeking to do away with the public beach on St. George Island. This suit was filed by a William Wilson up in Tallahassee. He is represented by two attorneys. That case is pending. My motion to dismiss will have a hearing on March 27 and 28th. Hopefully the judge will see it our way and dismiss the law suit. They are asking the court to reform the plats of units 1, 2, and 3 – St George Island Gulf Beaches.” This would turn the beach between the lots and the Gulf over to the property owners rather than being a part of the County’s public access/beach area. There had been a previous action similar to this issue which has since been settled to the favor of the County. This case was concerned with sections of the public beach and certain street endings.
     Mr. Mosconis then expressed an interest in the County being able to recoup attorney’s fee and court costs on the  contention that people trying to claim ownership of public beaches is an issue long ago decided on by the State of Florida. He considered these suits to be of a frivolous nature. “To me that was a bogus law suit and they ought to pay our taxpayers from this County for the debt they made.” Mr. Shuler informed Mr. Mosconis that he had a motion pending dealing with that very notion.
“This Wilson case is Franklin County’s first class action law suit. Franklin County has now hit the big time. Lucky us!” Mr. Shuler then commended Alan Pierce and Mr. Ken Osborne for their positive roles in the Comp Plan challenge case.
The new ambulance contract was then discussed. It was concerned with duration, maintenance of equipment etc. “Probably the most important part (of the new contract) deals with the ambulance service leaving the community during a time of disaster.” Language was added to deal with that negative happenstance. Mr. Shuler then recommended the contract for approval by the Board. The contract was approved.
Mr. Shuler then provided the Board with a proposed sales tax plan that had been suggested to him by the Board in past sessions. The bill is to assure that the monies collected within the County would go directly to subsidize the hospital and not to any city or County general expenses. This was for the attention of the Board and will be discussed in greater detail at the next County Commission meeting. This idea will be put before the voters next November.
The next issue dealt with the Revolving Loan program which was set up several years ago. The Apalachee Regional Planning Council had been contacted to collect bad debts from a revolving loan program which was enacted several years past. The Council states that since their contract has since been terminated they have no obligation to collect any past debts or delinquent monies. It seems that they think this is the County’s responsibility – of course the County feels just the opposite. Ms Sanders said that she would bring the issue before the Council at the next meeting of the Council.

Toronto vs. Roux

Ms. Toni Taronto and Delores Roux had a rather atypical confrontation at this week’s Commission meeting. The debate involved the interpretation of zoning requirements with regards to a property on The Bay City Road. “This is on the same property which the property owners last year wanted to place commercial boat storage units in an area zoned for ‘Single Family Home Industry’ R-4,” said Ms. Toronto in a prepared statement. “With so many of the neighbors objecting to this commercial business in this zone, it is apparent that the owners have changed their tactics. Last year, in March, the owners applied for and received a permit to build a 525sq,ft. heated area house. The site plan showed an area for approximately 33 boat storage units. When neighbors objected before the County Commission, Chairman Sanders requested that before any permits on this property be granted, that she wanted it brought before the Board. Alan Pierce stated that he…would. On March 23, 2006 the property owners applied for and received a permit to build a second 528 sq.ft. house on the property … next to the existing one. When the first house was completed a sign was installed in front of the building. The sign advertised weekend and weekly rental. It is apparent that the owners intend to have these two units used as transient rentals for fishermen and/or short time visitors. According to the zoning code handbook, the intent of the R-4 zone is for single family homes which maintain and support home-related activities associated with fishing which occur in or near the Family residence and for certain cottage industries.” It is Ms. Taronto’s contention that this type usage does not conform to the R-4 zoning and would be more suitable to the C-3 commercial zoning. She is also extremely unhappy that “the neighbors” were not notified when new site plans were submitted and building permits were issued - as was promised. This property is said to contain 19 acres. Ms. Taronto wants to know if this means that there will be 19 of these rental units eventually on this property – and if so, is this within the zoning regulations. She thinks not; and would like a stop-order/ and or fine placed on this second property. “I request that these property owners and any future owners of this property, be denied any further permits for either transient rentals, boat storage units, or any other building or facility that is not allowed in this zone according to the handbook.”
     At the last County Commission meeting Attorney Yonclas, who was sitting in for Mr. Shuler, was assigned the duty of bringing to the Board a legal recommendation. Mr. Yonclas found that he could not, due to a personal conflict of interest.
     Mr. Shuler was then given the assignment. Ms Taronto asked if Mr. Shuler would also meet with the neighbors as Mr. Yonclas had agreed. He said that he would.
     It was at this point that local resident and long time business owner Delores Roux came forward to speak on the issue. “It seems strange to me that you would use the County’s money and the County’s time for a personal vendetta. I don’t see where this Board has anything to do with this. I’m Delores Roux and I am the owner of this property. This lady (Toni Taronto) is the wife of my brother – and she hates my guts! And that is exactly why she is here.”
     “Ms. Roux at the last meeting,” Ms. Sanders explained in a very soft-spoken, respectful manner, “the Board decided, at that time, to have Mr. Yonclas look at this and see if Mr. Pierce followed proper procedure in issuing the permit for your land. That is what we are looking at here – to make sure that Mr. Pierce did follow proper procedure on R-4 zoning.”
“Well,” Ms. Roux offered in a very sweet tone. “I think that all of you should be commended for your patience, your time and everything that you have done to accommodate this poor mentally deranged woman …” Ms. Roux had turned her head in order to direct her remarks to her sister-in-law. Ms. Taronto sat with her hand to her mouth, pink-faced in what can only be described as total shock and embarrassment.
“Thank-you, Ms. Roux,” Ms. Sanders interrupted. “Thank-you very much … but…”
“Would you, Mr. Shuler, hand this to the Chairman,” Ms. Roux requested of the County Attorney, holding out a package containing a tube of Chapstick.
“No, I don’t think I can do that,” Mr. Shuler responded.
Ms. Roux then tossed the Chapstick towards the area in front of Chairman Sanders.
“Thank-you,” Ms. Sanders said courteously.
“You are welcome,” responded Ms. Roux in a contained, controlled voice, “I really want to thank-you because I think that you, honey, have …..”
My boss says that it would not be appropriate to express Ms. Roux sentiment in her exact words. So be it suffice to say, that it was Ms. Roux’s vituperative opinion that Ms. Sanders was in need of a Chapstick to sooth her lips because of her overly accommodating, gracious, understanding, community spirit.
Mr. Mosconis suggested that this was more of a family disagreement and something that could not be settled by the Board. He felt that it was a matter that could best be handled by a civil court or by the parties between or among themselves.
Mr. Crofton suggested a Public Hearing on the issue or to have Attorney Shuler study the issue and return with a recommendation to the Board as Mr. Yonclas had been advised to do at the previous meeting.
At the previous meeting and at this meeting, Mr. Pierce stated that it was his opinion that there was no violation of the R-4 zoning code by Ms. Roux and that other action should be taken by Ms. Taronto.       Ms. Taronto asked that the County Attorney be asked to examine the zoning code with special attention to page 66 where R-4 zoning is clarified. “If you can not see a difference between residences and rental units, then that is not my problem,” she suggested.
“Alan do you have a recommendation?” asked Mr. Mosconis.
“The County does not distinguish between short term rental and long term residential use,” answered Mr. Pierce. “A house can be built in R-4 – a minimum lot size is 450 ft, the size of a small mobile home. The county does not have a standard on how long a person has to live there or whether the owner has to live in the residence. The city of Apalachicola does distinguish between short term rentals and permanent residences - and they prohibit that sort of activity in certain sections of the City. So people get confused sometimes about what is allowed in the City and what is allowed in the County. The County does not have any guidelines about the rental of residential property.”
Mr. Mosconis then pointed out that the rental of residences was a common practice throughout the County and a common practice out on St. George Island.
“This Board does a lot of things, but we do not mitigate family squabbles,” said Chairman Sanders.
Mr. Putal suggested that this type problem was not solvable on the basis that a person has the right to do as he wishes with his own home – whether he chooses to rent it or live in it is his business.
Mr. Crofton offered the opinion that it was the rental signs sitting outside of the residential units that offended him. Some of the Board members chuckled and suggested that Mr. Crofton pay closer attention to the roadside in his Island district on his way home to the Plantation.  
Mr. Shuler agreed with and supported the argument of Alan Pierce, but yet the debate went round and round. It was finally decided to ask the county Attorney  to give the issue one final examination and return at the next County Commission meeting with his legal opinion on the matter.

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn 1890 -1964

Rebel Girl

By Richard E. Noble

Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is one of those little girls who grew up to be a Jane Addams, or a Harriet Beecher Stowe, or an Emma Goldman, or a Susan B. Anthony, or a Mother Jones, or a Florence Nightingale, or a Margaret B. Sanger or a Rosa Parks, or a Sojourner Truth or - I suppose one could even say - a Joan of Ark.
All these little girls are either good or evil depending on your point of view.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn is not so well known as some of these others because she was an American Communist. American Communists do not get a lot of space in American history books, whether they are male or female. She was, first a Socialist, and then a Communist.
Ms. Flynn was an American, born and bread, Communist and proud of it. In “The Rebel Girl”, an autobiography, she puts it this way; “Many have written as ex-Communists. This second book will be the story of an active American Communist and one who is proud of it. No matter what are the consequences, ‘I will never move from where I stand.’ ... I feel it is important for me to set down here my personal recollections of this earlier part of the century, a period full of heroic struggles on the part of the working class, especially the foreign born. As the reader will see, the years 1906 to 1926 were full of ‘force and violence’ used by the ruling class in America against the workers, who gave their lives, shed their blood, were beaten, jailed, blacklisted and framed, as they fought for the right to organize, to strike and to picket. Struggles for a few cents more an hour, for a few minutes less a day - were long and bitterly fought. Nothing was handed on a silver platter to the American working class by employers. All of their hard-won gains came through their own efforts and solidarity.
“It was my privilege to be identified with many of these earlier labor struggles and the heroic men and women, particularly of the “Left” who made labor history in those days. I feel I have a responsibility to share my memories of them with younger generations and to make this record of their noble words and deeds. They were flesh and blood of the American working class. I hope that this book will help to encourage and inspire others to follow in their footsteps, not only along the path they made wider, smoother and clearer for us today, but to travel far beyond, towards the horizons they glimpsed - peace on earth, and an America free from poverty, exploitation, greed and injustice .
Except for a couple of words and phrases - i.e. working class, exploitation - Elizabeth sounds pretty American to me.
I picked up a copy of this book in the United States of America - at a National Historic Park in Lowell, Massachusetts.
Lowell National Historic Park is a preserved textile mill. You can walk around the streets of Lowell and go from huge mill building to mill building and see actual operating machines from America’s Industrial Revolution. It was quite an adventure.
I watched a movie while there about the New England Industrial Revolution and the establishment of the textile industry here in America, and specifically in Lowell, Lawrence (my home town), and Haverhill, back in the mid-eighteen hundreds. The story that was related was not very flattering to this country’s economic history or its industrial entrepreneurs. I have the strong feeling that if J. Edgar Hoover were alive and functioning at the FBI today he would be investigating the curators of this National Historic Park for their un-American propagation of anti-American propaganda. Some of the Capitalists who were pointed out in this film were actually portrayed as not very nice people.
Then I go to the little bookstore in the complex and pick out a book written by a “proud” American Communists who was alive and kicking until the year 1964. I mean she was a well read woman who was alive and knew all about the Russian Revolution, Lenin, Stalin, World War I, World War II and Korea - and even the beginnings of Vietnam - and she was still proud to be a Communist? Makes one curious doesn’t it? What did she know that I don’t know; or I know that she didn’t know?
There were many other books of a subversive nature on sale at that little bookstore also. I’m sure A. Mitchell Palmer, J. Edgar Hoover, Joe McCarthy and even Woodrow Wilson would not approve if they were alive and kicking today.
History speaks volumes, but it doesn’t speak on its own. It doesn’t explain the past - history provides the statistics, the figures, the numbers, the events and even the details - but we must be the interpreters. But before we can interpret it; we must read it; in some cases we must find it.
It wasn’t long ago that the only woman of any consequence in American history books was poor Barbara Fritchie; the only black man of consequence was William Carver (the peanut guy); the Indians were savages who met their enlightenment or were saved from their ignorance and savagery by the wondrous and magnanimous European; and now we have somehow returned to the notion once held by the Romans and Alexander the Murderer that peace on earth and good will toward man is established by the sword.
Today, I am being taught that Jesus Christ was actually a practitioner in this philosophy and will return one day to conquer the world with his sword - kill all the bad guys and make angels out of all the good guys.
But Helen Gurley Flynn was a Communist - and proud of it. She was tried under the Smith Act in 1952. The trial took place in Foley Square in New York. She was found guilty and sent to Alderson Reformatory in West Virginia in 1955 and was released in 1957. She wrote a book about her stay in prison, The Alderson Story: My Life as a Political Prisoner. Strange - one does not think of America as having Political Prisoners.
Her picture is on the cover of this book. She looks pretty, petite and tiny. She has the face of many a little Irish girl who sat on one side or another of me in the classrooms of my youth. She has the face of a nun. She was born in 1890 in Concord, New Hampshire. I first discovered her name while researching a famous labor strike that took place in 1912 in my hometown, The Bread and Roses Strike.
She was at first a Socialist and then an IWW agitator. She knew and was one of the big labor “troublemakers” of her time. She was an associate of Mother Jones, Big Bill Haywood, Vincent St. John, and Eugene V. Debs, among many others. She was one of Teddy Roosevelt’s, Undesirable Citizens. She gave speeches around the nation to burley truck drives, mine workers, mill workers, and railroad men. She was exciting crowds in Lawrence, Paterson, Pittsburgh, and the Mesabi Range. She was fighting for free speech in Montana and the Constitution in Spokane. She was in and out of prison while at the same time, being a girl, falling in love and having a baby.
When I read about girls like this Elizabeth Gurley Flynn, I wonder where they have all gone. For that matter, I wonder where all of the champions of the Common Man have gone - male and female.
Today is full of a brave new world of defenders of the fat and sassy, the well off, the elite and obnoxious, the rich and the I-want-to-be-richer. The psychiatric counseling in today’s world is for those who suffer “irrational” guilt from their overindulgence in one thing or another. “Tell me,” asks the Psychiatric therapist, why do you feel sorry for the poor, do you somehow feel that you are the cause of poverty?” As far as I can see, this country seems to be packed to the brim with the same old social abuses - poverty, slums, addictions of one type or another, child abuse, people abuse in general, lack of health care, violence and crime, dysfunctional families, and social disorganization of one type or another; yet nobody seems to be all that concerned. Even our literature is primarily escapist fantasy or works lacking in any consequence or socially redeeming value. Is it that the human race is simply tired of trying to make the world a better place?

Christianity

Christianity

by Richard E. Noble

I was born a Christian, raised a Christian, and have lived all of my life in highly Christian areas, and in, for the most part, what the world would consider a Christian Nation. But still I have trouble in defining what a Christian actually is.
Most reference books will inform you that a Christian is a person who follows the teachings of Jesus. But I can not consider this a true definition. People claiming to be Christians range all the way from pacifist (Quakers), to barbarian (Nazis), and every stage of development and opinion in-between. What Jesus may or may not have preached is almost indiscernible when viewed from the perspective of the various teaching of all of the various sects claiming to be Christians. So disregarding the various interpretations of the teachings of Jesus, what unifying quality would all of the various Christians agree to?
I think all Christians would agree that Jesus was God - or is of a Divine Nature. I don’t know for sure, and there may be Christian sects who follow the teachings of Jesus but who do not believe in the divinity of Jesus, but if there are, I am unaware of them. If I am not mistaken Albert Schweitzer was such an individual. He wrote a very interesting book, entitled: “In Search of the Historical Jesus”. Albert’s conclusion was that the historical record was much too obfuscated to find any accurate evaluations. He further concluded that Jesus was not God and had made no claims to being God that could be corroborated, historically. Yet Albert went on to live his life in accordance with what he believed to be the philosophy of “love” as proposed by the “prophet” Jesus. But I think most would agree in today’s language a Christian would be a person who devotes himself to the notion that Jesus Christ was Divine, the Son of God, and a God, himself
So then I wonder, is this the belief or opinion of the majority of the World?
It is not. The majority of the world does not believe that Jesus was God or that he was of a Divine Nature.
That is shocking, isn’t it? In fact, did you know that the early Christian Church argued and debated over this very notion for quite some time. It was still being debated in the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries. There was Nestorius and Saint Cyril. There was the Council of Ephesus and the Council of Chalcedon where they were arguing over the human and divine coordination of Christ. The entire authenticity of the Bible, New Testament and Old, is challenged by Tom Paine in his “The Age of Reason”. To think that most of the population of the world does not believe in this, the most fundamental of Christian beliefs, is difficult to come to grips with.
Most of China, over one billion people do not believe that Jesus was, or is God.
India is mostly Hindu or Buddhist and they do not believe that Jesus was or is God.
The Arab world is mostly Islamic, and they do not believe that Jesus was or is God.
Japan and Russia are not Christian nations. Shintoism prevails in Japan and supposedly atheism in Russia.
Jews, of course, have never believed that Jesus was Divine, or a Savior for that matter. And Jesus was one of them. Jesus was or is a Jew depending on who you ask.
From the perspective of the peoples of the world, then, if you are a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus, you are the member of a minority religious, cult group. Your group may be the largest of any such group, but nevertheless, a minority when placed beside all of the other beliefs of the present world. When you take a particular sect of Christianity (Baptist, Methodist etc.) the figures placing you in a minority opinion become even greater. In a good many parts of the world today you would be considered strange and your beliefs odd; you would be labeled as different, an outsider.
Christians like to take heart that, as a whole they represent the largest single belief in the world, but yet in truth they are still a minority of the peoples of the world, and if all of the different Christian sects are assembled in a room to discuss for example, the Christian Bible - traditionally or Historically, they have ended up killing one another.


1 History of Western Philosophy Bertrand Russell pp 366-375.

Banking and Money

Banking and Money

by Richard E. Noble

Despite comments to the contrary by John Kenneth Galbraith in his book,” Money: Whence it Came and Where it Went”, I have found Money And Banking very perplexing. Mr. Gaibraith said that money was very simple and that anyone could understand it. I don’t think so. Not only that, I have come to the conclusion that the whole Banking thing was a scam, almost, from the beginning. Let me explain my confusion.
In the beginning, there came about the first Bank. This first bank was basically a vault. People who had accumulated large amounts of gold, and silver got tired of trying to hide it under the floor boards of their cabins, or in a secret place behind the fireplace. So, when they heard that some guy had opened up a Bank where they could put their gold and silver and have it guarded and protected, they were very pleased.
These wealthy people with surplus gold and silver took their money down to this Bank and “deposited” it. The Bank owner gave these people a receipt. This receipt was a certificate of deposit. It affirmed that “So and So” had “X” amount of gold or silver stored in this Bank. Up until this point everything seems to be on the up and up.
The people who had the receipts began to trade these receipts as if they were actually gold or silver. This became accepted as legal and legitimate by most people. To have this certificate of deposit in your possession was as good as having the actual gold or silver. Up to this point I think everything is still legitimate. This next evolution is where things begin to go haywire.
The man who owns the Bank has a bright idea. He thinks that it is a shame to have all this gold and silver sitting in his vault when there are so many good, trustworthy people out there in the world who could put it to good use - and would be willing to pay for that opportunity. He talks with his certificate of deposit holders and suggests to them that if they would be willing to loan out their accumulated assets, instead of paying a service charge for the privilege of having their gold and silver protected in his vault, they could actually receive a dividend.
This is, in my opinion, where everything goes coo-coo. Without getting into the obvious problems involved in the recording of assets and debits and who has what, and just sticking to the basic principles involved, I see a big problem here.
The problem stated simply is this: Mr. Jones has deposited, $1,000 in gold. He has a certificate to prove it. Mr. Smith has borrowed Mr. Jones’ $1,000 and he has a loan contract to prove it. But the Bank now has nothing in its vault but a promise. Now this all would have been okay if Mr. Jones understood that until his loan was paid back by Mr. Smith, he didn’t have access to his $1,000 anymore. But as we all know, this did not turn out to be the eventual case.
So, as time rolled on and people deposited money and others borrowed that money, the Bank recorded assets into the millions, and all the while it could really not have a cent or an once of gold in its vault. The Bank could have nothing but a ledger full of promises and no gold at all. When you think about all of this it begins to sound like that old Abbot and Costello routine - quick here’s two tens, gimme a five.
So, was all of this legal?
Well, legal or not legal, most people didn’t really understand what was going on. And because of this lack of understanding, we had Jimmy Stewart standing on the top of the counter at his local bank trying to explain to the bank customers that there was nothing wrong in the fact that the bank had no money to give to its depositors.
In the movie everyone understood what Jimmy was saying, but in real America nobody got it. They called this phenomena “The Bank Run”.
The Bankers tried everything that their cleaver little imaginations could come up with, but nothing seemed to work - the people still didn’t get it - and one might ask: What was there to get?
Banks got together and formed coalitions. They each kept a percentage of their deposits in reserve and if one of their coalition experienced a run - they ran to its rescue with bags of money in temporary loans. This worked for awhile for small runs, but when large numbers of people began to panic about the whereabouts of their life’s savings, whole coalitions were bank-rupted.
So, at this point, we have a good many problems with Banks. This problem could have been solved by not allowing banks to loan out other people’s money; or by turning a bank into some sort of investment fund - like the stock market - where the risks were explained to the depositors and they were given the choice to participate or not participate. I would have to say that what the banks were doing if not illegal, it was certainly morally suspect. They were promoting the unsubstantiated notion that they had people’s money when, in truth, they did not. This is similar to the well known Ponzi scam today. There was another guy by the name of Say – but he was not as obvious as Ponzi.
Ponzi’s idea was to get people to invest in him today on the promise of a large return on their investment tomorrow. The fact is that he had no investment program whatsoever and he simply manipulated the large sums of money coming in with staggered payments going out. As long as more money was coming in than was going out, Ponzi was rich and his investors were happy. The whole thing became a matter of book keeping.
Now you might say that the bank is not a Ponzi scam because it has legitimate investments. This is true, but if those legitimate investments prove to be unreliable then you have the same situation as with Ponzi, nevertheless. Then we have borderline elaborations on Ponzi - gold mines out west, swamp land in Florida, the Panama Canal fiasco, and last year’s failed corn crop.
Banks have gone out of business, over the years, because they were outright Ponzi scams with no investments at all; because they made false claims about their investments; because they made legitimate investments that failed. But the problem that bothered bankers was not the morality of their initial idea but what to do about banks that made good investments but were driven out of business by a sudden lack of confidence on the part of their depositors - the bank run. How they could  have their cake and eat it too. Clearly a bank could not loan out its money to entrepreneurs and still have it on hand to return to its depositors on demand.
Now, it is at this point that the system has become an impossibility. It clearly and simply does not work, and there is no solution. You can not loan out the money and still have that money readily on demand for the depositors. This is impossible. One thing can not be in two places at the same time.
But, this slight-of-hand idea was so advantageous to society because it provided money for investment, expansion and growth, that those involved in profiting from this idea wanted to devise an acceptable method for promoting what was clearly an impossibility. And thus has evolved today what we call the central banking system - and here in the U.S. - “The Federal Reserve”.
So far this system has served to perpetuate and impossible idea. For example, if when Mr. Ponzi had run into his short fall - the point at which his payments going out were greater than his payments coming in - J. P. Morgan or the Rothchilds saw in his scam enormous long term potential and therefore decided to loan him money to carry him over his temporary cash flow problem, the Ponzi scam may have continued indefinitely. But, it would have finally collapsed when Ponzi had finally reached the saturation point. That point being when there was just not enough money available in the world to make the interest payments on all of his promises. In effect Ponzi’s system was a “Designed to Fail” system.
The Central Banking System is similar but much more sophisticated and self perpetuating. The Central Banking System does not create money from nothing as many people suggest. If it did then this system would self-destruct when the supply of money exceeded the worlds ability to absorb the funding. Would this ever take place considering expanding populations and expanding economic growth throughout the world, and product diversification and artificial demand creation for “wants” in addition to needs? Maybe not.
Inflation is simply the release valve on this money generating steam boiler. If the supply of money comes onto the world faster than the population and the various demand growth factors - you will have inflation. If inflation is allowed to grow too fast or without proper regulation then the bubble of public confidence could burst and economic collapse would be the result.
But this is not the situation which exists with the Central Banking System concept. This present system is based on debt creation. Governments borrow via a system of notes and bonds which are handled for a fee by their Central Banking systems. The central banks collect the vigorish. They handle the sales for the government for a fee - vigorish.
As I see it this system has more potential points of destruction than does the politically unappealing Creating-Money-from-Nothing System. This system can also destruct from the same causes stated in the non-debt creating system mentioned above. But in addition to this possibility this debt system can also self-destruct from other factors.
It can also self-destruct when and if the interest payment on the created debt obligations becomes greater than the government’s money supply sources. This would be much the same as if your basic payment on your credit card exceeded your income.
Will that ever happen? I don’t know. The inflation safety valve would compensate or, as above, explode due to lack of public confidence. And, of course there is that same notion of infinite world economic expansion as mentioned above. And then, of course, the government can simply keep creating more and more debt even to pay impossible debt.
How long could such a process go on? I don’t know. But paying debt with added debt can only go on for so long, before something negative would happen.
The vigorish could also become a problem. In other words the Central Banking fee could become so bloated as to create a debt problem in itself. In other words, the cost of the loan transaction could eventually outweigh any gain from creating the debt in the first place.
An added problem with the Central Banking System is that it has been partnered by the various national governments of the countries who have such systems. Which may be every country in the world as far as I know. So instead of the banking system backing itself up via a conglomerate of banking institutions and becoming the bank of last resort for all banks - as is the claim - the government becomes the bank of last resort. The problem here is that in such a system if the bankers decide that they are tired of making money “the old fashioned” way and they would rather do it the easy way. They can simply steal their depositors funds, and loan them out by fraudulent and deceptive transactions and then petition the treasury to fund them out of their financial difficulties.
To put this simply, if an unscrupulous banker or group of bankers can figure out a method of divesting their banks of its capital yet still create what appears to be a legitimate paper trail of investments, they can double their personal wealth rather cleverly, simply by ripping-off their Federal or National Government.
The same thing can be done on an international basis via the IMF and the World Banking System. And I am of the opinion that this type of thing has already been done several times over - not only in the historical past, but in the recent past. And it can work both ways in a world system. Not only is it possible for the world banking system to bankrupt individual nations if it so chooses; it is equally possible that cleaver national bankers can swindle the world system.
And what is the answer to all of this?
I don’t know.