Friday, June 29, 2007

Aristotle

Aristotle (384-322)

By Richard E. Noble




Aristotle was even richer than Plato. He came from money, married money, and was given money. He was loaded. This guy had more money than Ross Perot, and The Donald put together.
He liked books, read constantly, and had one of the largest libraries of the day. He is credited with the publication of over a thousand volumes himself. He wrote something on everything. He was the Isaac Asimov of the neighborhood. The only problem is that just about everything that he wrote about, or supervised, on whatever subject, was wrong. Socrates is called the Father of Philosophy, and Aristotle is called the Father of Science. You can read Socrates and learn about philosophy, but don’t read Aristotle expecting to learn science.
Aristotle studied under Plato for either eight years or twenty-eight years, depending on who you read. Everybody seems to agree that Aristotle had a period of sowing wild oats before he settled down; they disagree on how long it lasted. After Plato died Aristotle expected to become Dean of Plato’s Academy. It didn’t happen. He wasn’t a “local-yokel”. So Aristotle split.
This king Hermeias invited him to come and help govern his little province in Asia Minor. Aristotle did a little better than Plato in his attempt at government. Like Plato he got bounced, but Hermeias didn’t try to kill him, nor did he sell him off into slavery as happened to Plato. Hermeias told Aristotle to move on, but he must have liked him, because he paid him to take his adopted daughter Pythias along with him. And he paid him well, too! Then, of course, we have no photos of Pythias either.
Aristotle was then offered a job by Philip of Macedonia, to teach his young, epileptic, homosexual, alcoholic, uncontrollable, belligerent nitwit of a son, later known as Alexander the (not so) Great. It didn’t really work out. Teaching Alexander the idiot how to think was about as easy as teaching Helen Keller how to shoot pool. But nevertheless Philip ended up donating about 4,000,000 to Aristotle’s cause. Aristotle must have had something or Philip was drunk once again when he signed the check. Aristotle then went back to Athens and opened his own Academy, the Lyceum. The school obviously attracted a lot of other little rich boys, and did well, but his association with Philip and Alexander would come back to haunt him. Needless to say Alexander and his “Paw-paw” were not well loved.
After His daddy’s death Alexander kept conquering everybody. He liked hanging and crucifying people too. He hung Aristotle’s nephew, Callisthenes, because he refused to recognize Alexander as a God. In any case, Alexander got into a drunken brawl one night and was killed. This was great for the world at large but not so wonderful for Aristotle. He had always defended Philip and little dysfunctional Alex (4,000,000 buys a lot of good will), so when the people of Athens revolted, they reasonably decided to kill Aristotle.
Aristotle wisely decided to leave town. He didn’t want to let the citizens of Athens “sin” against philosophy once again as they had with Socrates. But nevertheless, it is claimed that he made a cup of his own Hemlock, and killed himself anyway.
Before he died, he freed all of his slaves. Since he was a confirmed elitist, aristocrat, and defender of the supremacy of “some” over the “many”, I wonder why?

Tuesday, June 26, 2007

James Carville

James Carville

By Richard E. Noble

I’m sure that you all know James Carville. Mr. Carville is a left-wing apologist for the Democratic Party. He was in the Clinton administration. He is a bald-headed, rather blunt, outspoken guy. I read one of his books a while ago and I thought that he did a rather good job in explaining why he was a Democrat and a supporter of the Democratic Philosophy. But I no longer take Mr. Carville seriously. The reason that I no longer take Mr. Carville seriously is because a few years back he married Mary Madalin. Mary Matalin is a right-wing apologist for the Republican Party.
Now I know what you are thinking. You think that I am a bigot or that I take my politics too seriously. But that is not the case at all. My opinion is not based on politics; it is based on simple, unadulterated common sense.
James Carville married Mary Matalin when he was a mature adult - not when he was a youth still in the processes of social, physical and political maturation. He was a full grown mature adult Democrat. His wife was also full grown and ... Republican. They have no excuse for this type behavior.
There are people living in this country who think it a perversion for the members of different races to “intermingle”. There are others who consider it a perversion for members of the same sex to marry. Well, it is an equal perversion for Democrats and Republicans to interbreed. This is clearly overstepping the bounds of the sanctity of Philosophical integrity. Anyone who believes in and cherishes Philosophy knows that Democrats and Republicans can not marry. I mean think of the psychologically disfigured children that must result from such a union? This is pure and simple child abuse. These type people should be locked up and the key thrown away. This is criminal and socially irresponsible - not to mention a complete bastardization and mongrelizing of cultural, Philosophical genetics.
Being a Democratic or a Republican is not a learned or thought out phenomenon. It is genetic - it is pre-determined by Creation. It is a part of the maturation process. You don’t evolve into a Democrat or a Republican - you are born that way. It is like the color of your skin or your physical structure as a male or a female. You do not choose to be a Democrat or a Republican you are born one or the other - whether you realize or understand it or not. Living in a household of mixed political parentage only confuses the poor little Democrats and Republicans. The poor little half breed Repubocrats end up cheating on their wives while wearing bow ties or trying to find charitable investments on the stock market. They go through life trying to rationalize the notion that GE or DuPont are “green”. The poor little things wander around bowling alleys looking for collectibles or trying to establish nude stamp collections. It is worse than being an Idiot Savant.
Many Republicans go through life thinking that they are Democrats and many Democrats live just the opposite type of confused misguided existence. This type confusion is much worse than what is termed as a “sexual identity crisis”. It is much worse than “passing for white” in the black community. It is a complete disconnect from what Creation intended and those that live in this state cannot be saved. Unfortunately they will not go to heaven; they will never see their Creator and their life here on earth will be a living hell and furthermore they will not be allowed to pass “go” nor will they be entitled to collect two hundred dollars. In fact living life as a Democrat when you were born a Republican is Hell right here on this earth and vise versa.
Obviously Mr. Carville and his bride don’t know what the heck they are and really shouldn’t be listened to by anybody with any common sense.
Now once again you say to yourself; Well, I’ll bet that this man writing this article is not always in agreement with his wife. So what the heck is he talking about?
That is very true, but I have a justifiable excuse. When my wife and I met, we were both lost in the throes of sexual delusion. We were not mature; our maturation process was not completed. We had never given a second thought to our innate genetic propensities – other than ... you know what. My wife has “learned” to disagree with me for her own health and psychological protection, just as I have learned over the course of thirty years that she is basically a child, as are all women, who should be basically seen and not heard.
But we didn’t know this when we first met. My god how stupid could one possibly have been? Do you think that my wife would ever have married me if she knew then what her life would be from that day forward? Do you think that she is a complete fool? Why do you think that they demand in the wedding ceremony that the two sexually intoxicated volunteers agree to take vows demanding loyalty in the future? This has been going on for a long time. The people in charge of these things know what is happening.
Mr. Carville and Mary Matalin, being mature adults, knew from day one and they moved forward and even went so far as to reproduce. This is a total horror story. Their children will no doubt one day be the subjects of a special 48 Hours. I have no doubt.
So, in conclusion, it is one thing to listen to and take advice from people who have done their best to promote a delusion of sanity to others when underneath they are truly as nutty as a bud bug – the Clinton’s or Bush’s for example. But when two people display for you - right before your own eyes their complete and unadulterated instability and mental degradation - why would anyone in their apparent right mind listen to these people?
I am happy that these two have been able to provide for themselves and they have not become a burden to the state or the taxpayers but shouldn’t they be doing something as an occupation in this society that is not detrimental to the public good?
I suppose if we can have some of the people that we have had as presidents of this United States we can have a few more loony-toones as TV political advisers and analysts - what additional harm could it possibly do? I mean they aren’t the crazies who are actually making the decisions - they are just commenting on the decisions made by the crazies in charge. And what is more important is that we don’t really have to listen to any of them. Unlike US Presidents, dictators and other various tyrants we can ignore what the Carvilles and others of their ilk have to say without losing our citizenship or subjecting our future to torture, imprisonment, starvation, water-boarding or being hit by a semi-guided missile or anything like that.

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Capitalism

Does it really Work?

Or Is It Socialism in Disguise

By Richard E. Noble

I am, and always have been a born and breed Capitalist who has done his best to pursue the American Capitalist dream of financial independence and hopeful luxury.
I believe in my rights as an Individual; I believe in democracy and in the Bill of Rights; I believe in my right to own property, to start my own business, to have money in the bank and to get rich - if at all possible. BUT, I don’t believe that people anywhere should starve to death or that anybody anywhere should work for nothing. And I especially don’t believe that the above such things should happen to other people because of my aspirations to become a wealthy Capitalist. I want everybody to live a comfortable life in a just man-made rational Civilization.
I don’t trust government - any government. But I have a dilemma - I don’t trust businessmen either. I have been in business. I consider myself a business-mined type person. And to be totally honest with you, I don’t trust business any more than I do government.
I have never worked for a boss who I like or admire. And the really sad part about that last sentence is that I have been self-employed for the greater part of my working career. When my wife was in my employ she went on strike several times and quit on multiple occasions. She orchestrated both walk-out and sit-down type strikes. She never resorted to picketing but I did think of locking her out several times. We finally negotiated a verbal contract that we both could agree to and live with. I was not entirely happy with the final agreement but neither was she - and, of course, this is what makes for a truly happy marriage. I only wish that I had been smart enough to negotiate such a contract when we first got married. But as you all know, love is not having to negotiate a contract. So where does that leave me? In my opinion that makes me a typical American. I think that is what being an American is all about - not trusting anybody.
I have been studying and reading about Capitalism ever since I can remember. But before we get into that, let’s say what I think Capitalism to be.
Capitalism is where the means of production along with the natural assets of a nation are owned by people - individuals. Corporations? Stock holders?
Capitalism had its birth in the Industrial Revolution - as I understand it. Before the Industrial Revolution there was no such thing as a “Capitalist”. There were rich people and Kings etc., but no Capitalists.
Capitalism, via industrialization made possible by individual invention and personal investment changed the economic world. It changed the whole structure of things. But has it been successful - did Capitalism work?
I don’t think so; and I’ll tell you why. It might take me a few pages here but bear with me.
Let’s start out with one of the first major Industrial enterprises - the textile industry.
The textile industry started here in the U.S. in the northeast in the early to mid 1800s.
It began rather surreptitiously with some of our enterprising citizens going over to England and stealing what they could of British ingenuity. But it was for a good cause - they wanted to get rich. Actually their intentions were more noble than that. They wanted to get rich and they wanted to screw the British. All in all though they were well intentioned, most of the early pioneers in the U.S. textile industry were good, conscientious Christian types. They wanted to make the world a better place. I think one of the very first entrepreneurs was a wealthy Quaker and he offered to give the entire mill to the British citizen who knew the industry well enough and would stab his homeland in the back and come over here and set up what he had learned over there. This was against the British Law at the time and any man who did so was considered a traitor. Getting rich was not against British law; they just wanted people to get rich in England only. The penalty was death. But one man did the dirty deed nonetheless. He is in our history books but I don’t think he got even honorable mention in the British history books.
In Lowell Massachusetts the first textile mill employed mostly women and it was designed to be spiritually beneficial and uplifting to all the poor farm girls who came to work there. And for awhile they say that it was. But then as the Capitalistic system dictates, one free enterprise led to another free enterprise and pretty soon we had not only women working at the mills but children also. Pretty soon the local farm girls had enough and the mill owners began to import immigrant laborers from overseas. And as the foreign laborers flowed in, the wages got lower and lower; the working conditions got worse and worse; the housing became deplorable and all these people began dying - the workers that is; the owners and investors became extremely wealthy. A few foremen and some higher-ups got some pretty good wages also. But all in all things got so bad that social upheaval erupted. Police and militia had to be called in and lots of folks were machine-gunned, murdered and killed. Overall from the Society’s point of view, I would say the textile industry was not working.
Now the few people who owned the textile mills disagreed. They had arguments very similar to the tobacco industry of today. They denied that working in a textile mill was hazardous to anybody's health - even though most textile workers were dying before the age of thirty; even though children who started working in the mills at nine or ten were dead before they were twenty or twenty-five.
The bi-products of the textile mills were air pollution, water pollution; housing shortages, overcrowding; poverty; disease; and overproduction. But on the other hand, a man of modest means could buy a pretty neat suit of clothes at Brooks Bros. for a reasonable price and the ladies could buy some nice calico prints cheaper than ever before.
In any case, for better or worse, the textile mills spread all over the northeast and then the midwest. When they had finally worn out their welcome in those areas they left. They didn’t pack up and leave - they just left. They left all the pollution, all the garbage, all the disease, all the destitution and poverty, all the dead bodies; all the dying people - they even left miles and miles of old redbrick buildings. They took most of the machinery but they left the rest for the taxpayers or the society or the community or whoever it is that is left when these people go. They took the profits and their fortunes - and they left. And now they were “Capitalists”.
At first they just went a little further south - but they did the same thing there. And after awhile most of them left the South and went even south-ER. They went to South America.
In South America they conducted their business exactly the same as they had done in North America.
Today they are all over the world - in Asia and in China - everywhere. And the same thing that happened in North America in the 1800 is happening over there.
But on the other hand we can all buy T-shirts and underwear at a very reasonable price.
The question is as Dr. Phil would say - Is this working for you?
Well, it is working very, very well for a few; it is working very well for some others; and it is working well for a good many others; but then it is working poorly for several millions of others and it doesn’t look like it is ever going to change or be any different. Is this a “good thing”?
In the United States of America I would say that the Textile Industry was a failure. It didn’t work. For one thing, it is gone; and it left a mess. The individuals and stock holders of that industry took the profits and the taxpayers and the citizens of the United States paid the costs. It was Capitalism for the owners of the textile industry but it was Socialism for America. We the people socialized the cost, while they, the Robber Barons, Industrialists, and super wealthy Capitalized the profits
Now let’s look at another Industry - the mining industry.
I don’t know if mining in America began with the 49ers but it seems like a good place to start. Nothing could have been more egalitarian than a mule and a bearded Gabby Hayes type prospector setting off to find his treasure. This led to a lot of “regular” guys becoming very wealthy. It also led to a lot of regular guys getting killed, beaten, robbed and whatever - but that has always been the romantic part of the American Spirit of freedom and independence - so what the hell.
But somewhere along the line mechanization, invention, organization and the Capitalist and Industrialist - and bankers - got into it. It wasn’t long before Gabby Hayes and his mule were a part of the nostalgic past and punch clocks, foremen and business mangers had taken over the pits and holes of the wild Wild West and elsewhere.
It wasn’t long before everything that I just attributed to the textile industry was now part and parcel of the mining industry - only worse.
The miners were of the independent, rugged type and they didn’t just wander off someplace and die peacefully - they fought back. Colorado was a war zone. Utah and Idaho weren’t much calmer. The mine managers had the militias and the federal troops along with the governments and the legal system - but the miners had courage, blood and guts.
The mine owners couldn’t just move their operations south or to another country - so they fought it out. They killed, framed, murdered, lynched, castrated, slaughtered and starved a good many troublesome miners to an early grave. They bribed, cheated, finagled and infiltrated the Governments - local, state and federal. And eventually they got what they wanted.
They got the land from the government basically for free; they got the gold, silver, copper, coal, and whatever out of the ground at the cheapest possible labor cost; they had no obligations to the land, the environment, the streams, the rivers, the mountains, the hillsides, the country or to the people of the United States.
But even so, eventually most of them left the United States and brought their same tactics to foreign lands where the people were less sophisticated and could be duped more readily. Today these industries are busy doing the very same things in Bolivia and China that were so successful for them here in the U.S.
Strangely enough the people who did these horrible things here in the United States are dead and buried and many of the folks who are carrying out the dastardly deeds of these ancient entrepreneurs are not even descendants. They are a new breed of like minded modern day folks - often homegrown in their own nations.
The descendants of many of the murders and killers who had loyal everyday patriots machinegun everyday people right here in America - are now involved in philanthropic trusts, building libraries and funding institutions of higher learning - and some are even running for the Senate and the presidency of the United States of America. And so it goes.
But philosophizing aside, the bottom line is once again, the people of America were left with the pollution and the holes in the ground, the bad memories and the dead bodies, and the managers, investors and Capitalists got the profits. The American Businessmen “capitalized” while the American People socialized.
From an “individualist” point of view I suppose one could say that this “capitalization” or privatization of natural resources worked. Some individuals did become very, very wealthy. But from a national or democratic perspective; form a societal or national perspective, I wouldn’t say that “we the people” did all that well. I would have to say that mining as well as the textile industry was a failure. They provide few in America with a living today and we the people are still paying for the cleanup or worse yet living with the pollution and ill health effects that these industries left as our “legacy”.
Strangely enough we all - 300 million of us still wear socks and underwear and we still can buy copper tubing at the hardware store - it is just that fewer Americans make any money from the deal. If you use the patriot’s war analogy we could say that all those working people who fought, were starved and died for your right (and my right)to earn a better living here in the U.S.A. - gave their lives in vain.
Let’s quickly review another industry - banking. Banking is a business and it could be considered one of capitalism’s prime movers.
Banking started off very primitive. In the beginning banks were just that - they were banks. They were vaults and safes situated in secure buildings where people paid a rent for the privilege of having their gold or silver watched over under armed guard. There was no trouble with a bank being a bank; it was when banks got into “banking” that the industry began to stagger.
The problem came with the notion that a banker could have his cake and eat it too. It was not with the idea of being a “savings” institution that brought on the problems. It was when the banks became “savings and loan” institutions.
Even good old Jimmy Stewart was hard to believe when he tried to explain to people in the movies that their money was there in the bank when it really wasn’t.
It wasn’t disgruntled employees that wrought havoc by picketing and striking the banks - it was the bank’s customers. They called this type of uprising a “bank run”. People ran down to the bank and said; “I want my money.” This wasn’t all that problematic until lots of customers started showing up at a particular bank at the same time. Very quickly the bank in question was forced to refuse the depositors their money and lock their doors. They could not return to the depositors the money that they had loaned out to their clients because they didn’t have it any longer! People just didn’t understand this.
The first solution that banks devised to deal with this problem was to form co-operatives - a number of banks joined together. They pooled their reserves and when one of their member banks had a “bank run” they rushed cash over to their aid.
But if a run persisted and spread into a “panic” - the party was over and once again everybody had to “lock out” their depositors.
Banking co-operatives got bigger and bigger but so did the runs and panics. Finally during the Wilson administration the bankers got the government involved. Mr. Wilson was a college professor but he admitted that he was no banker - but nevertheless the American people ended up with what was called a Federal Reserve System.
Suffice it to say, it was not only President Wilson who didn’t understand the Federal Reserve System because in 1929 the whole thing came tumbling down - Federal Reserve System and all. The banking industry collapsed - it failed. The financial heart of the capitalistic system flopped. Once again the capitalist idea had failed.
The catastrophe was finally solved by adding to the Federal Reserve System the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. This informed the customers who deposited their money in a bank covered under this program that even if your bank doesn’t have your money when you want it - we will give it to you. “We” being the Government ... you and I ... the taxpayer. In more political terms, the banks were socialized.
And even today we had two of the biggest socialistic bailouts in our history - the Savings and Loan disaster followed by the Commercial Bank disaster. We even bailed out Mexico and Japan and if we don’t continue to bail out the banking systems around the world, the whole system could have a total collapse. Every banking system in the world including China and Russia, are tied into the “Dollar”. Now I’m not complaining about this socialism, I would just like to know what “we the people” are getting out of all of this. It looks to me like we are getting lower wages, fewer jobs, higher taxes, inflation of our everyday costs, more poverty, more homeless and Wal-Mart - and Wal-Mart is the best part.
So once again we have an industry that keeps the profits when things are going well and “we the people” absorb the loses when things go wrong. In fact, they charge us (the people of the U.S.) for the privilege of borrowing our own money from them. It is a real good business. Many very, very smart people love the banking business.
I personally don’t mind that we keep this industry solvent and secure but shouldn’t “we the people” get a kick back here, there or somewhere - as opposed to paying a service charge?
Next let’s take a gander at the railroad industry.
In most of our history surveys we will read briefly about how the railroads opened up the West; how the railroads built towns and communities; how the railroads built factories and technology and on and on and on. But the deeper one delves into the history evolution and eventual demise of American railroads - the bigger the horror story grows.
Some historians are truly optimists - they almost always see the glass as full to the brim. I can imagine the historian of a thousand years in the future writing about the Nazi Holocaust and pointing out its advantages to curbing the over expanding population growth and all the new discoveries that were unleashed in the gas and pesticide industries - not to mention, oven technology.
But let’s try to call a spade a spade here - railroads must go down as one of the most corrupt endeavors in American History. The land grab alone by the railroad barons was off the charts. These guys were given enough land around their proposed railroad tracks to start whole countries. Almost all history books will mention this fact.
In relation to their workers they are right there with the textile and mining industries. Workers were killed and maimed on a daily basis by the hundreds. They were used as long as they were strong and healthy and then discarded - to be picked up by charity and the good will of their fellow workers.
The railroads competed themselves right into the ground. They had more dirty bond issues, stock market crooked deals, inflated shares and unscrupulous financial chicanery and political corruption than one could list. On top of everything else they were totally subsidized by the government and for the most part, they still are today. Without further ado or elaboration I think it could be objectively stated that the railroad industry was another capitalist failure. It was more than a failure it was a disaster. Just start reading about it and find out for yourself - don’t take my word for it. It is all over the pages of your own history books. Even the laying of the railroad tracks was an abortion for the workers involved and the taxpayers. When you read historians that can fluff over all these things you realize how brainwashed we all are.
If it weren’t for the government (socialism) from the beginning to the present day - the railroads would never have come about. And what did “we the people” get out of it? We got miles and miles of dilapidated track stretched across this country; we got old abandoned depots; we got below sustenance wages; we got thousands of dead and injured workers, woman and children; and a modest amount of multimillionaires - most of them the exact same folks who prospered from the banking, textiles, and mining.
Once again while the capitalists capitalized the profits, the American people socialized the costs. We paid for their losses, we paid bonuses for their inadequate tracks; we paid for their cutthroat competition. We paid to get them started and we paid for the clean up when they were done. My God! The American dream!
Where do you want to go next? How about steel? how about oil? how about insurance? how about pharmaceuticals? how about health care? what about automobiles?
Steel and automobiles and oil have been traditional failures in the classical manner that I have just described above.
Insurance, healthcare and pharmaceuticals are failures in the making. They are failing right now and my guess is that they will be bailed out in the same old, well-fare (welloff-fare), socialistic manner of the past - “we the people” and the population at large will pay through taxation and inflation while these industries will skim off the profits and leave the losses and the social consequences to us.
At this moment I really don’t see any alternative to socialism. Socialism is what is. It really cannot be denied. It is the a priori fact of the matter. But we should do it all the way not just in the well-fare tradition; “we the people” should also share in the profits as well as the costs and the losses. I would be in favor of a better idea than socialism - but I haven’t read about any such thing nor have I been able to think up an improvement.
Communism is not good and as we have seen around the world, it is not working. I have read many books offering various alternatives. But when you study these alternatives they are invariably socialist in nature. The so called capitalist alternative invariably amounts to a good life for the few at the expense of the many - here and around the world. It is like socialism is the capitalists security blanket or “idea bank” of last resort. It seems that what we here in America call Capitalism is really a bad joke – and the joke is on us.

Monday, June 18, 2007

“Hegemony or Survival”

By Noam Chomsky

Book Review


By Richard E. Noble

Noam Chomsky was a professor of linguistics and philosophy at MIT before he retired. He is in his seventies today. In his younger days he was and anti-war activist.
There seems to be two types of individuals that all governments hate whether these governments are Communist, Socialist, Fascist, Totalitarian, Dictatorship or Capitalist - those that propose perpetual peace and who actively campaign against war and the military and those who fight for the rights of workers and working people and/or minorities. Mussolini’s fascist Italy and Adolf Hitler Nazi Germany and even labor conceived Russia and China, all outlawed labor unions as a first priority.
Mr. Chomsky it seems is both of the above and consequently he is not liked by this country’s government.
He is often adopted by those countries that are negative to U.S policies but if he went to live in any of those countries it would be only a matter of time before he found himself in one of their prisons. And I am sure that he realizes this fact.
He seems to be very well informed on politics, foreign policy, economics and history along with business and trade relations.
Mr. Chomsky I would say is from the Marxian school of economic thought. And like Karl Marx he comes to his explanations via certain dogmatic presumptions of his own. He doesn’t favor Capitalism and he is not very supportive of the powerful or the corporate established order. Whatever the Capitalist world does he presumes the worst possible motivation and begins from that point and follows his intuition down hill from that point forward.
This book was published in 2003 and unfortunately just about everything that Professor Chomsky predicted then is the established fact of today. And that is somewhat scary.
My first problem with the book was the word “hegemony”. I had never heard of that word. The word hegemony means - dominance, leadership, authority etc.
So the book is about the United States of America’s quest for global leadership. The sub-title says “America’s Quest for Global Dominance”.
So is that a good thing or a bad thing?
To Mr. Chomsky it is a bad thing ... a very bad thing. He makes a very good case to back up his opinions and he provides about 50 pages of notes and references at the back of the book. On the last page of the book is what appears to be an ad for the American Empire Project. Which is a project started by writers, authors, historians and such who are NOT in favor of the United States of America pursuing an Empire.
One thing that I noticed in Mr. Chomsky’s writing technique - and this may be just a quirk of mine and of little interest to anyone else - is a tendency to quote anonymous sources. For example, Mr. Chomsky may say, “and a prominent and well respected Ethiopian diplomat said ...” and then in quotes he relates this prominent Ethiopian diplomat’s statement. I thought that was kind of humorous. I don’t really like that technique. I can understand this technique if in quoting this man you may put his life or even his political future in jeopardy but this didn’t always seem to be the case. So why not just quote the gentleman and give his name or just paraphrase or simply put what this unnamed individual had to say in your own words instead of quoting unnamed people? Why use quotes to reference nobody at all? I skipped over this the first time that I noticed it but after seeing it done several times I began to question the results of such a technique. I really don’t think that the impression this technique leaves is positive on the reader - not on this reader anyway.
One of the main contentions of this book is - I guess one would say - hypocrisy. Mr. Chomsky elaborates on the point that one man’s terrorist is another man freedom fighter.
He brings up a point that was better established in Howard Zinn’s personal accounts of the evolution of his radicalism. Howard in his young adult life participated in the art of dropping bombs from high altitudes onto indiscriminate unknown populations during WWII. Howard after reflecting upon this past duty in his later years came to the conclusion that such an activity was not very “nice” ... or moral or decent. He suffered severe guilt and remorse due to his participation in this activity and thus became an anti-war activist or war resister.
I first read about this notion in researching the armament industry. Believe it or not there was a time in the history of war when people were concerned about the morality of killing non-combatants or civilians during a military encounter.
When the idea of tossing a bomb out of a WWI by-plane came into practice many parts of humanity were shocked. How could anyone just throw a bomb out the window or over the side? What if it landed on a farm house or a barn or on a church or on a group of small schoolchildren? Could not such an action be considered an act of terrorism as opposed to an act of war or self-defense?
Adolf Hitler and his antics in WWII pretty much put a stop to this kind of sentimentalism. And now after Hiroshima and Nagasaki very few Americans even recognizes the legitimacy of such an argument.
But Mr. Chomsky returns to this theme again and again and again. He consistently points out U.S. and the Free World’s double standard on this issue. He suggests or admonishes that when “we” do it; it is fine, but when the other guy does it is an atrocity. Once again he makes a very good case - even going back to George Washington and the Iroquois Indians.
Adolf Hitler in his Mein Kampf was also very prone to point out America’s genocidal tendency when it came to the American Indian. The difference being that Adolf was pointing out U.S genocide as one of this country’s positive attributes. As we all know today Adolf viewed genocide as a reasonable and appropriate tool for purifying the world and its human miscreants and defectives.
Mr. Chomsky describes America’s past in a highly different and extremely negative perspective. He is scathing and unapologetic in his criticism. He is logical and intellectual. You will find no patriotic disclaimers in this book.
But strangely enough Mr. Chomsky does say some favorable things. He seems to indicate a feeling that moralistic humankind is progressing. He points out the speed at which an anti-war movement was mounted in the U.S. and around the world with America’s most resent expedition. One gets the subliminal message that he actually does believe that goodness and peace-loving people will eventually triumph over hatred and war and the seeming multi-national Military Industrial Complex. Why else would he have written this book in the first place?
In one area I am even more of a cynic than he is. Mr. Chomsky feels that the war in Iraqi was primarily due to the America’s need to dominate the Middle East’s oil reserves.
I believe that oil was merely a secondary issue. The re-establishment of war as a viable diplomatic tool thus providing economic stabilization to a massive home war industry, I feel was first. Iraqi was an acceptable choice but anywhere would have been sufficient. Mr. Bush’s job and duty to his supporters and backers is already a success whether this war is won or lost. Victory is inconsequential. The military Industrial Complex here and abroad has been salvaged and sustained. War will continue to be the business as usual for today and for many, many years into the future. The precedent has been reset and the world mentality has been adjusted accordingly – once again.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Valedictorian

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

In our little local newspaper, the Franklin Chronicle, there was a story on the front page last week. It was about a little girl who just graduated from one of our tiny little High Schools.
Her picture was on the front page along with that of her proud mother. It was a neat little story. This little girl had graduated first in her class. She was the Valedictorian.
She had a grade point average that was ludicrous. I mean on a possible 4.0 she had 4.5 or something. How the hell can that be? Well she not only completed and excelled at the regular high school stuff but she took preparatory college courses in her “free” time.
It was noted in the little article that she had received a couple of “scholarships”. She got a $1000 dollars from the local old ladies do-gooder society, and $500 from the coke machine fund that comes from the coke machine in the school cafeteria and $25 from the Mayor or something.
I didn’t think much about the story until the next morning when my wife and I decided to go down to the local greasy spoon for some biscuits and gravy.
The little girl that waited on us looked a lot like the cute little valedictorian whose picture was in the paper. My wife asked her if it was she. It was.
Now that didn’t upset me either. Why shouldn’t the local valedictorian be working and delivering grits and gravy to the likes of me and the wife? It is good for kids to work and have jobs.
But as I sat there I began thinking - a lot of it about myself and my family - but I’ll get to that in a minute. The first thing that I thought about was that the article made no mention of the little girl’s father. So I don’t know maybe it was just a glitch or sloppy reporting on the part of the paper. That is not uncommon. I work for the Chronicle so I think I know. But let’s not get into that.
As we chatted affably with the little girl my wife whispered; “You would think that the local Valedictorian would have a scholarship to FSU or someplace?”
It seems that she was going to be attending the local Community Collage. She was studying nursing. Nursing? Does America need nurses? Dahh … I guess!
This brought me to my own family and my personal career. My older sister was Salutatorian from her High School. Our local Massachusetts High Schools had ten times the graduating class as this little Florida community. My sister, who was also a working high school student, got no collage scholarships. Back in those ancient times girls really weren’t expected to go to collage anyway. My sister never mentioned this “slight” but I have often thought about it. For the most part of her life as a single mom, she has worked not one, not two but three different jobs in order to survive.
My older brother was Valedictorian of his graduating class. He, like this little girl, had an impossible grade point average because he passed exams for classes he never even enrolled in. He had the highest grade point average in the history of this high school. He got no offer from colleges either. He was offered scholarship but not because of his academic achievements. He was also an athletic high school superstar. But he turned them down because he was too practical and realized that he was never going to make it to the Boston Celtics. He worked his way through a couple of years of college on a special “work-release” program at North Eastern University.
I didn’t do all that well in high school but I did get to a Community College and at the end of my first year I was first in my class. I went to the financial aid department and spoke to Dean So and So. When I told him that I had spent my entire life savings on my first year at college, he told me to go to the local bank and get a loan. I was also the child of a struggling single mom - my dad had died when I was just turning into a teenager. I took this comment by the Dean of “Who gives a shit” as a total lack of interest on his part so I dropped out and got a job driving a truck.
When I had saved enough money I went back to that same Community College. It was a two year school and when I finished, I was once again first in the class. Via this great achievement I received no offers to other universities. I then applied for a college loan as I had been advised previously. I needed at least $3000. On the first week of admissions to the local collage I was called to the student loan department. I was informed that though I was not granted the $3000 that I had applied for - I was granted $300. I told the nice lady to give the $300 to an applicant whom they felt more deserving and I dropped out of college and got a job.
As you can probably understand, I have always been rather skeptical about this Nation’s supposed commitment to “Higher Education”.
My wife says that my attitude is just sour grapes and my story is ancient history. She says that anyone who wants to go to college in the U.S. can do so if they want to. I say BULLSHIT!
But don’t get me wrong, this little girl downtown wasn’t griping. She was as happy as a Lark. She was all smiles and as proud of herself as could be. And as for me all this stuff is all over - way over.
But I know how I felt way back when. I had given it my best and no one gave a flying flip.
So what do I expect? Do I think that this little girl from Carrabelle or Apalachicola should be going to Harvard or Yale because she was first in her graduating class of fifty?
No, I guess not. But doesn’t she deserve something? You know from the greatest nation in the whole world - the nation that “believes” in its children and thinks that education is the salvation and cure for all of mankind and blaa, blaa, blaaa?
I left the kid a two dollar tip ... my wife made me put down another buck. And so it goes.

Thursday, June 14, 2007

Back to Modern History SourceBook
Modern History Sourcebook:
Benito Mussolini:
What is Fascism, 1932


[I just stumbled onto this - I found it interesting and thought maybe some of you out there might also. R.E. Noble]

Benito Mussolini (1883-1945) over the course of his lifetime went from Socialism - he was editor of Avanti, a socialist newspaper - to the leadership of a new political movement called "fascism" [after "fasces", the symbol of bound sticks used a totem of power in ancient Rome].
Mussolini came to power after the "March on Rome" in 1922, and was appointed Prime Minister by King Victor Emmanuel.
In 1932 Mussolini wrote (with the help of Giovanni Gentile) and entry for the Italian Encyclopedia on the definition of fascism.

Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it. All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into the position where they have to make the great decision -- the alternative of life or death....
...The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...
...Fascism [is] the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....
...Fascism denies, in democracy, the absur[d] conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress....
...given that the nineteenth century was the century of Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be expected that this will be a century of authority...a century of Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State....
The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
...The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be the individual, but the State alone....
...For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; and renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the aspirations of a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice: this fact explains many aspects of the practical working of the regime, the character of many forces in the State, and the necessarily severe measures which must be taken against those who would oppose this spontaneous and inevitable movement of Italy in the twentieth century, and would oppose it by recalling the outworn ideology of the nineteenth century - repudiated wheresoever there has been the courage to undertake great experiments of social and political transformation; for never before has the nation stood more in need of authority, of direction and order. If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time. For if a doctrine must be a living thing, this is proved by the fact that Fascism has created a living faith; and that this faith is very powerful in the minds of men is demonstrated by those who have suffered and died for it.


This text is part of the Internet Modern History Sourcebook. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts for introductory level classes in modern European and World history.
Unless otherwise indicated the specific electronic form of the document is copyright. Permission is granted for electronic copying, distribution in print form for educational purposes and personal use. If you do reduplicate the document, indicate the source. No permission is granted for commercial use of the Sourcebook.
(c)Paul Halsall Aug 1997
halsall@murray.fordham.edu

Wednesday, June 13, 2007




The evolution of the slave,the peasant,the fudal surf etc. is today's working class. Read more on the evolution of America's working class in my book "America on Strike." Thanks.



Slavery

Historical Essay

By Richard E. Noble

Slavery is not Black and White. If we credit the Bible with accurately recording the History of the beginnings of Mankind with God’s creation of the Garden of Eden and Adam and Eve, we have here in this Creation the true beginnings of the philosophy of slavery.
If you are not a true believer then you should clearly recognize here the psychological inclination of Man in creating a “fable” (dogma) establishing Man’s slave-hood.
The story of Creation posits Man into existence arbitrarily. Man’s behavior is then determined by God negatively, and God then casts Man from the Garden into a life of servitude. As a punishment for his sin of disobedience he will be forced to work for his bread, his bride will reproduce in pain, and Adam and Eve and all of their descendants will live under the influences of shame, pain, suffering, mortality and infinite damnation. God is the Master and through this biblical interpretation of justice, man is His slave, to be used or abused accordingly.
Both Saint Augustine and Saint Thomas Aquinas accepted Slavery as the natural state of mankind. They further elaborated and granted to the slave owner the right to beat and discipline his slave or slaves. Theology has since its beginning supported and enforced the principle of man’s servitude to God. Man must kneel, bow down, and beg forgiveness before his Heavenly Master. By most Holy standards nothing will buy his redemption short of total submission. The Holy Roman Church supported the God granted power of Kings, Feudalism and even conventional slavery right up to fairly modern times.
Leaving Theology and entering into the realm of Philosophy we have both Aristotle and Plato supporters of the natural and biological determinism of Slavery. There was an obvious order among men. As the Bible proclaimed Hard Work the wages of sin rather than the sign of a man’s strength, determination and courage, so too, did the philosophers designate work as the consequence of biological inferiority. Thinking and philosophizing was doing the work of God, according to Aristotle and Plato. Physical work (mechanics/making of war machines) was a job for the biologically inferior. Plato went so far as to say that you wouldn’t want your daughter to marry a Mechanic.
Grotius justified Slavery as an acceptable consequence of victory in a just War in the place of death, and also in exchange for subsistence. Guaranteed life-long support and subsistence, even as a slave, he believed to be of greater value than hire by the day.
Hobbes supported Slavery by consent, and as a justifiable consequence of War.
Bodin admonished that the slave could be interned only as the consequence of a Just War.
It wasn’t until John Locke that Slavery was categorically condemned. John said that slavery was not justified by war, conquering, or consent. No Gentleman should participate in such a disgraceful practice, proclaimed John ... but then on the other hand with regard to black slaves in the colony in Virginia he changed his tune. They were the captives of a just war and consequently could trade their freedom in return for their lives.
Finally it is Montesquieu who states that even in war the victor has no right to murder the conquered in cold blood, nor does any individual have the right to sell himself into slavery. Civilization has not yet reached up to the moral standards of Mister Montesquieu.

Sunday, June 10, 2007

Mein Kampf

Chapter 8 Part I

By Richard E. Noble

“...in the measure in which business rose to become the determining master of the state, money became the god whom now everybody had to serve and to worship...”
And what was the God that Adolf worshiped? He certainly wasn’t immune to any of the trappings of money or the power that follows with it.
‘Money’ it seems is another scapegoat. In a real sense money is a neutral or no-charge particle. It can be used positively or negatively. The human being has the problem with it. Why is there such hatred from the poor towards the wealthy? Why is there such a bitter disdain from the wealthy towards the poor? Are we again dealing with ‘ego’?
From my perspective, as long as I am able to pursue the things that make me happy, or provide me with joy, I feel fulfilled. Is the evil that is most associated with ‘money’ actually the lack of restraint upon the human competitive instinct? We are a competitive beast and we seem to be intensely competitive over anything. We challenge one another in play, in work, in love, in child raring, in our beliefs, in our hatreds; we are competitive beasts in thought and deed. Is not what we call ‘War’ simply unrestrained competition? We challenge life itself, and isn’t this once again man’s discontent with the basic life situation? Some of us must push life to its very limits just to show how brave we are. In our competitiveness are we not challenging death, our innate fear, and our lack of understanding for: why are we here; where did we come from; and where are we going?
Adolf Hitler is without any doubt a very competitive beast. At this point he has lost in the contest (WWI). Losing has caused such an insult to his competitive pride that he is attempting to rebuild himself and his followers. He is telling the losers that they could have been winners if they had only done such and such or acted in this or that manner - and it is working. His followers and those of his defeated nation are so starving for praise that they are willing to believe almost anything. Even that they are a super race chosen by God to rule the world. One still must wonder if there isn’t an elitist history ingrained in the German character. In other words which came first, Hitler and his elitist notions and speeches, or an elitist thinking German who was simply waiting to hear someone tell him what he already knew? We know that his talk of Jews was not his creation and that the German people were well tuned to hear, believe and act upon these type words. Adolf was telling these people what they wanted to hear.
But an even bigger question is, Are we all basically elitist at heart? Is our own country and society elitist?
Do not all religions claim to be God’s favorites and chosen? Does not almost everyone believe that in this universe God has designed a personal plan for him or her? If we do not believe this, do we not hope it? And if someone were to tell us that our nation is the greatest that were ever on this earth, are we not disposed to believe? Is this the problem? Wanting to believe that we are something special, chosen by the God of all Gods to be something special and rule throughout this whole universe? Is this not some sort of sick ego-mania?
People who think themselves to be Napoleon or Julius Caesar we strap up and lock in a padded cell, but as a human race we find no trouble in believing that we are the reason for the Universe. WE are the reason for all things. It is us and us alone who are the sole concern and purpose for all of the creations of this Universe. Is this not some sort of elitist egomaniacal insanity?
Yet we accept all of this as the Roman accepted Zeus and the Greeks accepted Athena. Is man not predisposed to some sort of egomania, along with his disposition towards hate and violence? We wonder why we have not been contacted by other creatures from out of Space. Could it not be that we are the insane asylum for the diseased and sick of the Universe - a dumping ground for the terminally insane?
I prefer to believe that we are some sort of evolving social beast struggling to overcome his personal selfishness and self-centered tendencies on a road to becoming domesticated or civilized. Our tendencies toward dominance, competitiveness, and self gratification are what must be dealt with.
“...a symptom of serious economic decay was the slow extinction of the personal right of possession and the gradual handing over of the entire economy into the possession of stockholders’ companies ... Only with this had labor truly sunk to the level of an object of speculation of unscrupulous hagglers; but the alienation of property from the employee, however, was now increased ad infinitum. The stock exchange began to triumph and proceed to take slowly but gradually the life of the nation in its charge and control.
“The internationalization of German economic life had been introduced even before the war by the roundabout way of the stock issues. Indeed, one part of German industry still tried to guard itself with determination against this fate; but then, in turn, it fell victim to the combined attack of greedy capital which fought this battle especially with the aid of its faithful comrade, the Marxist movement.”
Well, I must admit, I am at a loss when it comes to the stock market, and what in effect it really is. In our own day and age it looks to me to be some sort of Dog Track, or gambling casino for the better-off. Our gold and silver standards have fallen throughout the world. I have just heard on the news that many countries are right now in the process of selling their gold reserves (I have also never understood the human fascination with gold.)
Gold has traditionally been the ‘reason’ for paper money. Now without gold to back it up, paper money’s reason becomes, as far as I can see, the stability of the country from which it is issued, and more specifically the world’s view of that countries stability. So it seems now that we have money whose only backing is public and world public opinion. This looks like an area for great deception and future manipulation. An open invitation to the scheming, and unscrupulous among the world’s richest and most powerful.
The stock market is a place where promises are bought and sold. You can buy promises at the stock market with money, pieces of paper, whose backing is speculative, superficial, and determined by opinion and faith. So in effect you buy promises at the stock market with pieces of faith-paper in the hopes of getting more of the same. This all sounds somewhat reminiscent of the American Indian selling the Island of Manhattan for a bag of beads. The Indians sold an island which they didn’t own to another group of people who gave them a payment of counterfeit value. A sort of double swindle, if you will.
I am sure that my evaluation of the stock market (valueless pieces of paper, chasing notes of hopeful promises) stems from my basic lack of understanding of economics in general.
I also understand somewhat the value of paper money. Paper money adds to a country an ability to control and stabilize the economy. More paper can be added to meet the demands of a growing population and increases in goods to purchase; no gold discoveries or conquests are necessary, just faith and the rule of law.
Adolf mentions one German industry that was trying to fight the international, stock market take over trend. I would guess that he is talking about one of his eventual backers, Krupp Industries. According to William Manchester Krupp at one point in his armament business was forced to go to the Rothchilds for a loan. Krupp supposedly posted signs in his factory telling his workers that they would get no raises until “the Jew” had extracted his pound of flesh.
Little Alfreid Krupp was not a very grateful borrower, was he? Maybe he should have just done the decent thing and went out of business.
The Rothchild banking empire is a point that must be investigated. Certainly their hold on banking and the international implications of banking investment had to play some part in these updated versions of anti-Semitism. An investigation into the fundamentals, ethics and historical evolution of money lending would be interesting. And if the Jews were smart enough to control the whole world, so what? Isn’t what matters whether the Jews are moral decent human beings who have a respectful concern for their fellow man? Far better that a moral, respectful, kind hearted Jew, would rule the world than Adolf’s plan, don’t you think? Comparatively, we would all be taking music lessons and each of us would have his own violin, as opposed to being Einsatzgruppen and each family having its own Krupp cannon.
The extinction of the personal right of possession? What are we talking about here? The rise of the corporation? The idea that a business can be owned by many, and not just one? If the ‘stock holders’ of the German companies were all native born Germans, would this be good or bad? Could we not look at the stock market and the corporation, as democratic inventions for sharing the wealth and profits and expanding the businesses themselves? Again, is it that the stock market is evil and ff so, why? Is the corporation an evil idea? Why … because they are without loyalty to the nation and its people? Is this the fault of the corporation or the individuals who comprise it? Is making money an evil thing? Is making a lot of money an evil thing? If you yourself are able to compile all of the money profits in the entire world, is this an evil thing? What is evil? If a corporation were to control all of the business actions of the nation, but yet paid all of its employees decent wages which enabled them to care for all of the needs of themselves and their families, would this be an evil corporation? What if the stock holders of this corporation were the employees themselves? So what are we talking about?
If the whole world were eventually to become international corporations whose stock holders were all of the citizens of the world, whose employees were all of the citizens of the world, would this be an evil thing? Is Adolf an advocate of the small business man?
Autonomy? Does Adolf believe that all companies should be kept small and run by one individual? Is Adolf a ‘trust buster’? How does this conform to his idea of Socialism? In a Socialist state does not the state itself become a corporation? And in a Socialist state does not the state incorporate the powers of the individuals? Or is Adolf simply arguing about who should be in charge of the re-delegation?
‘Greedy Capitol’? Greedy capitol with its stock market and international attitude is destroying individual nationhood. And the greedy capitalist is doing this with the grassroots help of the anti-capitalistic Marxist labor movement. In other words, the anti-capitalistic Marxist and the laborers within that movement are being secretly manipulated by the rich internationalist capitalist whom the Marxist are at present trying to kill, to undermine the sovereignty of the nations of the world. And, of course, I needn’t forget to add that the rich internationalist capitalists who are behind all of this are all Jewish. And I wonder if they are not also in cahoots with the international pacifists who are also trying to convince the German people that war is not a good thing to do, thus trying to turn, not only Germany, but all of the nations of the world into cowards who will refuse to participate in their individual nation’s glorious Wars. And who, I wonder is the top internationalist, capitalist, pacifist Jew that is behind this conspiracy? This man or group is a very clever person or people.
Albert Einstein? I’ll bet it was he! There he was walking around telling everybody not to fight when all the time he had an atomic bomb right in his pocket. Ahh Haahh!
Adolf obviously is objecting to non German influences in his country’s affairs. So now it is incumbent upon him to define a ‘German’. He must do this so that we will know when a business is in the hands of a German or a Foreigner whose concerns are not truly on behalf of the host nation. And Adolf is obviously not willing to look upon himself or his nation as the ‘losers’ in an international conflict.
If Germany were truly occupied by foreign powers, they would have carted his ass off to jail at the first excuse and left him there permanently. And why didn’t they? Is it that his anti-Bolshevik stance, his praise of individualism, and his support of a ruling elite, had the western Aristocracy convinced that at heart he was truly one of them?
Was his attitude towards the Jews simply looked at as a ‘German’ thing, or was it also an accepted belief throughout the Western world? A belief held, possibly, without so much vindictive, but nevertheless accepted as basically true?
A footnote on page 320 notes the Nurnberg Laws which were passed in the year 1935. These laws established that no German could marry a Jew, and that extra marital relations between Jews and Germans were forbidden. What is interesting to me about this is that these laws and others like them were passed in 1935. But yet the claim is that ‘nobody knew’. The German people after the war kept claiming that they had no idea what little Adolf was up to. And the so called ‘free’ and as we assume today ‘informed’ world had no idea what Adolf and his playmates were up to when it came to their treatment of the Jews. Is the truth that the world didn’t know, or that they didn’t really care, or possibly that deep down in their heart of hearts, they silently agreed?
In the next few pages Adolf gives his analysis of the German Monarchy. All of which seems to boil down to the notion that true leaders are born but not breed. A true leader is a man of ‘will’, a man of determination, a man with no fear of death, whether it is his own or that of those that he must slay. He goes on to state that a nation or a state owes its existence not to business but to ‘eternally ideal values’. And we should all have some idea of what Adolf’s idea of ‘eternally ideal values’ are. I find myself here thinking once again of Bertrand Russell’s comments that Nazism is and was a leftist movement, or of leftist origin and inclination. Adolf to me seems to be about as far right as anyone can get. He is not against Monarchy because he believes in Democracy, far from it. He is against Monarchy because it doles out leadership and demands loyalty on the basis of heredity, rather than on the ‘eternally idealist values’ of natural leadership proven on the battlefield and in the streets. In this respect Adolf is truly a man of the ‘people’; a man of modest or poor rank and status. But though of poor rank and low social status not lacking in the least for ego, and individual pride for his own personal achievements. There is absolutely no question in anyone’s mind or shouldn’t be at this point that Adolf considers himself to be a born, natural, leader - Adolf, the Sergeant General, or more accurately, the Corporal General.
I understand perfectly where Adolf is coming from. I too consider myself a General. I am the leader of my personal army of one, and in order to keep my army in tact, I must be constantly cautious, and always willing to defend myself against attack from all of you other Generals serving in your own army of one, and also all of those Generals serving in the army of the many. And the same ‘natural’ principles apply ... courage, determination, belief, confidence, no fear of death and dying. But I would also add intelligence, understanding, a thirst for acquired knowledge, and recognition of the natural right of all other Generals to defend their territory in a like manner.
Adolf next gives his views of ‘Readers’.
“...Thereby one can divide the readers as a whole into three groups. First, those who believe everything that they read; Secondly, those who no longer believe anything. Thirdly, those who critically examine what they have read and judge accordingly...”
Dahh! And what category do you place yourself in?
Adolf is obviously a Platonist. He likes to divide everything up into categories, and then come to some simplistic conclusion based on his oversimplification of the situation. But this is the way that the human mind works. This is the way of human logic. This is the way of the cave man and the modern man. This is the way of the child and the adult, the male and the female.
Everyone who reads thinks of themselves as a critical reader. And I would venture to guess that even those who don’t read at all would submit themselves to be critical if they chose ever to take up reading. It is good to be critical, even better to be correct. It is easy to be the former but very difficult to even determine the latter.
Naturally, all of us in Adolf’s third category will next be told or led to believe how intelligent and critical we are to believe what he has to say. Heil Hitler!
“...But what food was it that the German press of the pre-war time put before these people? Was it not the worst conceivable poison? Was not the worst kind of Pacifism inoculated into the heart of our people, at a time when the rest of the world was about to throttle Germany slowly but surely? Did not this press, even in times of peace, instill into the brains of the people doubts about the rights of their own state, in order to restrict it from the beginning in the choice of the means for its defense? Was it not the German press which knew how to make palpable to our people the nonsense of ‘Western Democracy’, till finally, captured by all of these enthusiastic tirades, it thought that it could entrust its future to a league of Nations?...”
Adolf, obviously still does not realize or accept that Germany has actually lost the war. He talks like an innocent man behind bars. He complains of the food, his living space, and his overall mistreatment. He wrote this book in prison and it is too bad for the world that he wasn’t kept there. But it is clear from his point of view that Germany did not start the war and his country’s only shame comes from not bringing it to a positive German conclusion. He hates the league of nations, his Weimar government, his country’s traditional leadership, the democratic socialists, the Marxist communist, the stock market, capitalists, the foolish Kaiser of the past government, the cowardly pacifist or peace mongers, the appeasers. He is against anybody and everybody who is not willing to take up arms and renew the fight. He is a man with a direction and a purpose and fully committed to his goal. And let us not forget his hatred of the press and their vicious inability to tell the German people the truth. And, of course, the truth was whatever Adolf said it was. Adolf would rather have had his countrymen fight to the last man than to quit the struggle. And that too may have been the best course for the victors to have taken.
Most historians and war generals on both sides agree that Germany was at a point of inevitable defeat, but instead of closing in for the kill, they accepted a surrender proposal. They learned their lesson, and at the culmination of World War II no compromise was accepted, other than total surrender and occupation.
“...the activity of the so called liberal press was the work of grave diggers for the German people and the German Reich. One can pass by in silence the Marxist papers of lies; to them lying is as necessary to their life as catching mice is to the cat; but its task is only to break the people’s folkish and national spine in order to make it ripe for the yoke of slavery of international capital and its masters, the Jews...”
This argument of ‘internationalism verses nationalism’ is alive and vibrant today. The gradual and continuous trend is towards internationalism. Today we have the United Nations. We have what are called multinational companies. We are having buyouts on a grand scale. The big money and trade throughout the world is turning to monopolistic control. Historically, and traditionally, nations have been trying to fight the growth and power of monopolistic growth to stimulate competition. But the monopolistic trend has superceded the boundaries of nation states and now operates above and beyond the laws of nations. In response, the nations of the world are leaning towards a new world government, and a system of international law. This idea is nothing new. The abuses of international monopolies are readily apparent.
The human race knows from the past the power of monopolies. What we don’t know is the individual nations’ reactions and adaptations to such an undermining influence to their power and nationhood. Nor do we know the grassroots individual reaction to international monopolistic influences of their everyday competitive lives.
Will international monopolies not only be able to rule over the marketplace but eventually take over the political structures of independent nations to the point of controlling not only their economies but also their armies? Will the wars of the future be caused by competing monopolies and loyalties be drawn according to one’s economic position and dependence on a particular monopoly? Or will monopolies eventually become so big that they are unmanageable on a huge monopolistic scale and will stumble back into fragmentary segments and smaller competitive units. Will loyalty to one’s job supersede national loyalty? Will Monopolies form their own independent armies, as did the British East India Company? Or will individual nations appalled by the power and growth, revive nationalistic appeals to the peoples of their countries and institute practices curtailing the trading power of Monopolies?
We are once again in a ‘free’ International market place. Will the monopolies of the future act more civilly in a more civilized world? Or will uncontrolled competition lead to more brutality and slaughter for the human race?
Adolf saw this trend towards internationalism as destructive, but yet he was unable to control or curtail its inevitableness even during his own reign. When Adolf tried at one point to limit the sales of Krupp Industries, Alfried told Adolf to back off or he would take his factory to Moscow. The best commitment that Adolf could get from Alfried was that Alfried agreed to sell the latest innovations in military weaponry to Germany, his homeland, and only sell last years gun, bomb, plane, or tank to the enemy, or potential enemies. And when we look at the arms industry today are we not in the very same position? Are we not, and will we not continue to be in an inevitable arms race due to traditional economic factors regardless of nationhood?

Thursday, June 07, 2007

Archimedes (287B.C.-212B.C.)

By Richard E. Noble

Eureka! Eureka! (I have found it! I have found it!). According to history and legend, this is what Archimedes went running around the town of Syracuse screaming, one day. On top of that he was supposedly naked as a jay bird. He had been sitting in a public bath when he suddenly realized the phenomena that we call today “specific gravity”.
It seems that his buddy, actually a relative of some sort, king Hiero was having a problem with his jewelers. Hiero had the suspicion that his gold crowns and other golden paraphernalia were being “cut”. They were spiking his golden crowns and jewelry with silver or, even worse, lead instead of 100% genuine gold. The problem was how could he prove his suspicions. Archimedes noticed that when he flopped into the tub at the public bath, water came spilling over the sides. This led him to experiment and, sure enough, he found that different metals displaced different amounts of water. His dunking experiments, comparing gold, silver and the king’s crowns, confirmed the king’s suspicions. You can bet that there were a number of Syracusean jewelers who suddenly found their own bodies displacing less water than they had a week ago after that knowledge became available.
Other tales about Archimedes are even more spectacular. He supposedly defended the town of Syracuse for three years against an armada of Roman ships and soldiers led by a Roman general named Marcellus. He did it all with his scientific genius. He invented new and unimaginable weapons of war. He supposedly invented catapults that could throw a stone weighing a quarter of a ton. He developed “burning mirrors”, huge, shinny, reflective, metal shields, which he used to re-direct the sun’s rays to set the Roman ships in the harbor ablaze. He then mined the harbor via a system of pulleys he had somehow connected to a series of nets and grappling hooks. These contraptions actually lifted the enemy’s ships from the bay and tipped them upside down or smashed them against the rocks lining the shore. In the end, the Romans finally sneaked into the city by land while the whole town was involved in a drunken celebration. The seventy-four year old Archimedes was supposedly involved in scratching out a geometric problem in the dirt when a Roman soldier ran him through. According to legend Archimedes asked the soldier to please delay his sword until he had finished his problem. The soldier obviously did not share Archimedes interests in geometry.
Archimedes was a student of a guy named Canon who was in turn a student of the great Euclid. Euclidean Geometry is what saved Bertrand Russell from suicide. I had a similar experience, though it wasn’t actually Euclidean Geometry that saved me from committing suicide. It was discovering sex that had that same rejuvenating effect upon me. But I consider the learning experience much the same for both me and Bertrand.
Archimedes gave us that famous mathematical symbol known as “pi” You remember? The area of a circle equals the radius squared times pi. That’s the famous number 3.14, that when you asked your high school, math teacher where the hell such a number ever came from, he said; “Just follow the formula and don’t be wasting your peanut brain on such foolish questions. What the heck do you care where it came from as long as it works? Who do you think you are anyway, Albert Einstein for God’s sake?”

Sunday, June 03, 2007

Mr. Noble Goes to Washington

Mr. Noble Goes to Washington

Commentary

By Richard E. Noble

I was in Washington D.C. once in my life. I was a teenager, so I am rather amazed that I can remember anything at all about the whole experience. But strangely enough, I have vivid memories that have lodged in my mind and for some reason they have never gone away.
It is my opinion as a wannabe writer for most of my adult life that when and if memories won’t disappear that is because somebody “up there” wants me to write about them. [I think sometimes I have been watching too much Oprah.]
My older sister was a rather daring young woman. She ran off, in her early twenties, with her coat and hat, a couple of five dollar suitcases, a 55 Mercury with a smashed in driver’s side door - compliments of her little brother - and got herself a job in Washington D.C.
She had been there for a few years and the only way we knew that she was alive was via her weekly letters home and the small regular check she sent to help out at home. She had been doing well; in fact, she was now an executive secretary for some big-shot at the Washington Post Newspaper. She had moved out of the YWCA and into some fancy apartment up on the tenth floor of this big apartment complex in one of the better parts of town. She was very proud of herself and she begged me and my older brother to come for a visit.
Neither my brother nor I had a pot to pee in and he had this old clunker of a car - but we decided to go anyway. It might be the only chance that either of us would ever get to go to the nation’s capital.
It was a beautiful apartment building with elevators, carpeting in the halls - the whole works. Everything on the inside of the apartment was the latest stuff - new refrigerator and stove, fancy sink, spiffy bathroom, a dinning room table; my sister had bought all the furniture and the whole place looked like something out of a slick decorator magazine. It was a far cry from what we had back home or anything that we had grown up with.
But my first big memory came that evening at bedtime. My sister rolled this fold-up bed out of one of the closets and proceeded to set up this make-shift contraption in the efficiency kitchen. My brother and I both looked at one another. My sister had spent her whole life on a hide-a-bed in our tiny parlor back home. My brother and I had a room with one big bed off the kitchen but my sister never had her own room. Now here we were visiting her in her fancy upscale apartment in Washington D.C. and she was going to sleep on a pull-out bed in the efficiency kitchen. Immediately my brother stepped forward.
“This will be perfect,” he said. “But where is Richard going to sleep?”
“No, no, no!” my sister said laughing. “You guys are the guests - you get the bedroom.”
We went round and round but my sister would have none of it. We would sleep in her new deluxe king-sized bed with the designer bedspread and all the big city fancy things.
So that is the first memory that I can’t get out of my mind - my sister in her million dollar apartment sleeping in the “pantry” or whatever.
My next memory has several facets.
We went to see Charlie Byrd, the famous jazz guitarist and June Christy, a great ex-vocalist for the Stan Kenton orchestra. The show was taking place at some famous jazz club in the D.C. area - naturally the jazz club was smack-dab in the middle of a section of town that looked like downtown Baghdad circa 2007. We had met one of my big brother’s college buddies and he drove. He had rented a new model car for the weekend.
The show was unbelievable. To this day I can still picture both Charlie Byrd and June Christy up on that tiny stage in this rather cozy, low rent nightclub. When I looked up at June Christy standing there, so beautiful and so talented, on that inadequate stage in this back-street dive - I thought of my sister sleeping in the pantry.
Why was this phenomenal talent, here, in the country that gave birth to this super-creative music, standing up there in the latter years of her career, in a beautiful presidential gown singing her heart out in a back room speakeasy down in the combat zone of Washington D.C.?
When we left the show and returned to our rented car, the side window had been shattered and the glove compartment ransacked.
So that’s memory number two.
Memory number three was a curious happenstance. We were downtown seeing the sites. Being about eighteen, I was in love at every street corner. I never saw so many beautiful young women in all my life. There was a crowd of what appeared to me to be movie starlets waiting at every crosswalk. And they were speaking and talking to me as if I was actually alive and on their level of existence. I felt like The Great Impostor - a book I had just finished that was written by this guy from my hometown.
One of these beautiful starlets dressed in a women’s business suit looked me right in the eye and asked me how to get someplace.
All that I could see was this lovely, smooth complicated face draped in auburn curls and these two, big, brown eyes fluttering at me. My brother saw my dilemma and began speaking on my behalf. I wanted to start signing something at her with my hands so that she wouldn’t think that I was some kind of idiot.
But that is not the third memory.
We were standing in front the White House or the Capital Building or whatever and I wanted to take a picture of one or the other of those buildings. I had a little Kodak view finder type camera and I couldn’t get the entire building in my site thing-a-ma-gig. So I began hiking up Pennsylvania Ave. - every now and then stopping to take a peek into my view finder.
Finally I had the whole building in my sights. Just as I was about to snap my picture I heard a clatter off to the right of me. I turned with a start and there in an alley besides an abandoned boarded-up building was a small colony of tramps. One guy, in his Salvation Army, give-away overcoat was holding up the lid to a garbage can and foraging. Another guy was sitting on the ground with his back up against the building finishing off the last swallow of a bottle of whiskey, or wine or rubbing alcohol or something. There were several others guys just laying around on the ground sleeping it off. There were two other equally destitute guys sitting on the cement steps in front of the boarded up building.
I had been to Skid Row once in New York City. This scene was reminiscent of any number of the visions I had been privileged to on that occasion. But what I could never forget was this skid-row vision on Pennsylvania Ave. which was a modest number of paces from the center of the “Greatest Nation in the Modern World”.
That picture of the Capital of the United States of America has never left my mind.
In later readings I stumbled onto the historical fact that the first wife of President Woodrow Wilson, Ellen Louise Axson, had taken it upon herself - as the “project” for the first lady - to clean up the embarrassing streets and neighborhood surrounding the White House. That was in 1914. Then I think Eleanor Roosevelt started a similar project in the 1940’s. And then in the late sixties or early seventies there was a story on the nightly news about a group of Vietnam Veterans who had set up a homeless shelter in an abandoned building right around the corner on down the road from the White House. It seems that the government was trying to have them evicted but they refused to leave without the government promising them a space to set up their operations elsewhere.
I haven’t been back to Washington D.C. but I have always wondered if they ever got that disgraceful business cleaned up ... I mean that one that was down the street from the White House - not in the White House.